Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
And the fact that infections had peaked before the lockdown
What evidence do you have for that ridiculous assertion?
Trump’s term ends at noon on 20th January. That is flat, that is final.
However, there is a loophole that if nobody has been elected president by then, Congress (in practice, the House) can nominate an acting president until such time as an election is held. While this was to deal with deadlocks in the electoral college, it seems valid for the current case as well.
So, in theory, the election could be postponed and an acting president appointed.
HOWEVER, as the House is controlled by the Dems, that would not of course be Trump. You would have thought they would nominate Pelosi, or possibly Warren.
Which means, of course, that Trump will not want to delay the election as it is the only way he can stay in power.
Edit - all this presupposes the thread header is moot and he is the nominee. I’d love for him not to be, and for Haley or Rice or Rubio, somebody sane, to appear. But I do not see it.
You say “in practice the House”
Is that clear? I could see the Senate rejecting Pelosi and Trump arguing that there is deadlock so the incumbent remains in place
It is established that if there is no victor in the Electoral College the Presidency is decided by the House, the Vice Presidency by the Senate.
Now, this is where it gets murky. In theory, if there is no winner from the Presidential election, it then goes to the nominated Vice President. That could be done by the Senate. However, you could argue that if there is no election, there is no Vice President either. Therefore, the House could claim the right to nominate an acting President, and there would be a logic to putting forward the Speaker as third in line.
Of course, there might be other problems and other solutions. The senate could nominate a rival claimant. In which case, it would end in the Supreme Court. Or Congress could meet in joint session, in which case the Dems would still have a majority. Or Congress itself might be declared not to be valid, as there had been no elections. In which case the only real solution would be for the non-disqualified members of the Senate to vote on matters.
But my instinct is it would go to the House. That’s the simplest, quickest and most logical route to follow.
In a sense though this is moot. Because what matters is what Trump understands. The moment he appreciates that if there are no elections he’s more buggered than a reluctant Turkish conscript, it doesn’t matter what subsequent process will be followed - he’ll make damn good and sure there are elections, and as noted upthread, the pandemic actually offers him massive advantages in terms of winning again despite being more out his depth than a midge swimming in the Mindanao Deep.
I reckon they’d go for separate votes and deadlock (“standing up for the small states as the constitution intended”). Since the House is determined on population and the founders deliberately chose not to use a popular vote system... besides why would the Senate republicans throw away a majority on THE issue of the day.
But it’s entirely moot and theoretical. What PB does best 😄
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
Certainly but it would require a competent system of decision making and implementation.
Cummings doesn’t rate anybody. He genuinely thinks he is one of the greatest intellects of our times, the last true polymath.
The problem, and it is a very big problem, is that he is totally wrong. He is fizzing with imagination and mostly rather bizarre ideas, but is lazy and arrogant and as a result has no idea how to implement them, and as his understanding of the world around him is very limited he genuinely doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions so most of his attempts to implement his policies have been disastrous.
That’s why he is both a magnificent campaigner, and a rotten administrator whose business ventures all failed, and who kept losing his battles at the DfE, even as he thought he was winning most of them.
It’s also why he made such a shambles of his personal quarantine.
I get the impression he thinks hes an amazing innovator when hes more just in favour of disrupting the system, no matter the system. Which can be very necessary but is not inherently a good thing with everything.
So I put him in the bracket of those who suggest ideas because it upsets the 'right people' as if that automatically means it must be good. He'll be right sometimes, but not as much as he thinks.
Trump must go, but what next? Could be brutal For Biden. Four years of clearing up Trumps mess will make re-election hard to achieve. What will Trump do if he loses? Will he retire or carry on in some form, plotting a comeback. Can his gang hold the GOP and win Congress.
In short winning the White House this November, might not be enough to rid the world of Trump. Perhaps a Pyrrhic victory.
Agreed - getting the Presidency this time around will be receiving a brutal hospital pass.
Biden, though, is unlikely to stand for a second term. And the likelihood is that a Trump loss will lead to some epic infighting amongst theRepublicans.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
That will come. But it will cause serious arguments when people can't travel freely to countries such as India:
Trump looked a very unhappy and defeated soul when coming off his helicopter from Tulsa. It is the first time I honestly wondered if he might decide the game was up. But he is resilient and had set backs when seeking the nomination the last time that would have ended the campaigns of other candidates. A man who can survive the video about pussy grabbing does not embarrass easily.
I think he will be the candidate. I think that we will see even more of the distortions, dirty tricks and outright lies that we saw with "crooked Hillary". I fear we will see repeats of the nonsense of 600k+ people and one polling station. I remain fearful that this vile man will find a way to win. But, thankfully, it looks increasingly unlikely.
I concur. A "normal" politician of his age would bow out rather than risk losing but that isnt him. And if he is not president again he knows he is facing countless state investigations and likely charges for the rest of his life regardless of giving himself a federal pardon. He has nothing to lose.
And don't forget the opportunity for him and his family to skim off a few million from the campaign. People underestimate just how lucrative it campaigns can be in the US (Parscale, who is probably about to be fired, will already be several million to the good.)
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
That will come. But it will cause serious arguments when people can't travel freely to countries such as India:
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
Would you agree the US should be high risk (no flights)?
Cummings doesn’t rate anybody. He genuinely thinks he is one of the greatest intellects of our times, the last true polymath.
The problem, and it is a very big problem, is that he is totally wrong. He is fizzing with imagination and mostly rather bizarre ideas, but is lazy and arrogant and as a result has no idea how to implement them, and as his understanding of the world around him is very limited he genuinely doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions so most of his attempts to implement his policies have been disastrous.
That’s why he is both a magnificent campaigner, and a rotten administrator whose business ventures all failed, and who kept losing his battles at the DfE, even as he thought he was winning most of them.
It’s also why he made such a shambles of his personal quarantine.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
That will come. But it will cause serious arguments when people can't travel freely to countries such as India:
You can't travel from the UK to the US. The world hasn't ended.
You're preaching to the converted!
What I'm getting at is that UK has a large Asian population that travels between here and there and I can see complaints if that's not allowed to happen when the total quarantine policy is relaxed for certain parts of the world.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
And the fact that infections had peaked before the lockdown
What evidence do you have for that ridiculous assertion?
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
That will come. But it will cause serious arguments when people can't travel freely to countries such as India:
Trump must go, but what next? Could be brutal For Biden. Four years of clearing up Trumps mess will make re-election hard to achieve. What will Trump do if he loses? Will he retire or carry on in some form, plotting a comeback. Can his gang hold the GOP and win Congress.
In short winning the White House this November, might not be enough to rid the world of Trump. Perhaps a Pyrrhic victory.
Biden will make exactly the same mistake as Obama did and will not persue criminal charges against the corrupt fucks of the previous administration.
The Trump admin is making people forget how corrupt the GWB admin was and the failure to punish them for their corruption emboldened the GOP.
And Biden has signalled he will be jusy as soft, if not more so.
I think in this case he's quite right. Leave it to the SDNY... perhaps after he's appointed a new AG.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
And the fact that infections had peaked before the lockdown
What evidence do you have for that ridiculous assertion?
It's relying on the work of such luminaries as Alistair "Won't be as many deaths as an average flu season" Haimes and his ever changing method of calculating R.
The problem is that the bad gets conflated with the meh
- Desmond: bad (probably) - Sandown: link to supposed corruption is related to various board members of The Jockey Club being Tory donors. Setting aside the fact that horse owners tend to be better off the average and the fact that Sandown is arguably more of a national question than a local one, they’ve proved coincidence not causation - Local council disagrees with planning inspector. No evidence of foul play. Well that happens all the time. You are implying here than Jenrick leant, somehow, on the local councillors as a green young MP. I doubt it
The problem is that the bad gets conflated with the meh
- Desmond: bad (probably) - Sandown: link to supposed corruption is related to various board members of The Jockey Club being Tory donors. Setting aside the fact that horse owners tend to be better off the average and the fact that Sandown is arguably more of a national question than a local one, they’ve proved coincidence not causation - Local council disagrees with planning inspector. No evidence of foul play. Well that happens all the time. You are implying here than Jenrick leant, somehow, on the local councillors as a green young MP. I doubt it
On the latter point I agree. Local councillors particularly those involved in planning I dont think would be leaned on like that to easily, the way they generally act is remarkably consistent and resistant to change.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Indeed. And they are still fighting quarantine for visitors yet. I have just never understood the reluctance to acknowledge the clear risk of those coming from virus hotspots to partake of our hospitality.
Id certainly support a quarantine for places with hotter spots than us. The reality many wont admit is that the UK was the regional hotspot. Flights swapping our infected people for less infected people from Germany wouldnt have caused an increase here. Id imagine the reason we have gone for a blanket approach is that the US is clearly one of the few countries we would need to block and that will upset Mr Trump. Given his erratic behaviour it is easy to imagine him becoming aware of a UK singling out the US at a press conference and retaliating with "they wont get a trade deal then".
That's not necessarily the case, re people travelling (the mixing fluids of two different temperatures idea is a bit simplistic).
Infected Brit likely got infected in community - i.e. is in a place where people nearby are infected. Unless whizzing round the country, the people they infect are likely to be in that same locality (and already potentially exposed to nearby infected people anyway).
Infected German may visit a largely uninfected area (or several largely uninfected areas) and seed a new local outbreak(s).
(reverse is true from German point of view - infected Brit going over there starts a new outbreak)
I'm not saying that it necessarily has a negative effect, depends on the relative rates of infection among Brits and Germans, but it's conceivable that travel/interaction patterns might mean that allowing flights would increase numbers infected, even if the flights were from a relatively less infected country.
When it comes to making one's own decision about venturing to the street, shops etc, the criterion will not just be in terms of the number of cases reported locally. If there are, say, only a couple of daily cases in a population of ~ 1 million then the risk would appear very low indeed - similar to being run over crossing the road for example. But it's not solely numerical risk that decides the matter. There is also the heightened anxiety about other people brought on by pervasive distancing measures and mask wearing. This is a wholly new factor. The new mores could mean that not wearing a mask in public will be disapproved. It is difficult to predict how people will behave in this new environment. But it is not going to be the status quo ante. Established businesses will be in turmoil and many will have high costs of adjustment while others will have great opportunities. The spaghetti has been thrown at the wall, how much sticks remains to be seen.
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Indeed. And they are still fighting quarantine for visitors yet. I have just never understood the reluctance to acknowledge the clear risk of those coming from virus hotspots to partake of our hospitality.
Id certainly support a quarantine for places with hotter spots than us. The reality many wont admit is that the UK was the regional hotspot. Flights swapping our infected people for less infected people from Germany wouldnt have caused an increase here. Id imagine the reason we have gone for a blanket approach is that the US is clearly one of the few countries we would need to block and that will upset Mr Trump. Given his erratic behaviour it is easy to imagine him becoming aware of a UK singling out the US at a press conference and retaliating with "they wont get a trade deal then".
That's not necessarily the case, re people travelling (the mixing fluids of two different temperatures idea is a bit simplistic).
Infected Brit likely got infected in community - i.e. is in a place where people nearby are infected. Unless whizzing round the country, the people they infect are likely to be in that same locality (and already potentially exposed to nearby infected people anyway).
Infected German may visit a largely uninfected area (or several largely uninfected areas) and seed a new local outbreak(s).
(reverse is true from German point of view - infected Brit going over there starts a new outbreak)
I'm not saying that it necessarily has a negative effect, depends on the relative rates of infection among Brits and Germans, but it's conceivable that travel/interaction patterns might mean that allowing flights would increase numbers infected, even if the flights were from a relatively less infected country.
Agree its conceivable and there will be some instances where what you say actually happens. However it would be very marginal and not in the top 50 things to worry about in a country with the highest regional infection rates during a pandemic. Once we get to a low infection rate, that is the time to focus on blocking entry and quarantine, which is broadly what the government have done.
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
And the fact that infections had peaked before the lockdown
What evidence do you have for that ridiculous assertion?
The peak day of hospital admissions was the 1st April The peak day of hospital deaths was the 8th April
Work back from that and you get the peak day of infections around the 18th -20th March.
Except that if you look at the Worldometer data set linked, the highest single day is April 10 (different backfilling perhaps?), and the hospital admissions data might be as much about admissions policy as anything.
That pushes peak infection time to around 20th - 22nd March. Schools went to emergency opening with effect from 23rd March. Boris's big speech was that evening.
Nobody is questioning that the pre-lockdown took the edge off the exponential growth. But the correlation between lockdown date and peak deaths works.
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
Players sweat getting on the ball etc.
According the ICC's advice, sweat poses a minimal risk.
Good morning folks! On topic, I'm waiting to see what 'funnies' Trump comes out with in Arizona, a State where the virus is definitely spreading.
And we plan to go and see family on Saturday; first time we'll have seen that group of grandchildren in the flesh for ages. Does anyone else find that pre-and early teens are not coping well with isolation from their friends? Becoming withdrawn?
Happily not been that much of an issue. My 9 year old has done remarkably well. She's a summer baby so has had to fight to catch and then pass her older classmates. She's loving the online Seesaw platform and does work on it with very little prompting. She's a fiercely driven little girl so the need to learn is strong. Had her best mate here last weekend for her birthday party and they played all day like no time had gone past.
My 12 year old has friends from primary school now spread across three high schools, so they interacted via Xbox mainly anyway. Little difference with him happily! Ironically my kids have done far better than Mrs RP and I have done...
When it comes to making one's own decision about venturing to the street, shops etc, the criterion will not just be in terms of the number of cases reported locally. If there are, say, only a couple of daily cases in a population of ~ 1 million then the risk would appear very low indeed - similar to being run over crossing the road for example. But it's not solely numerical risk that decides the matter. There is also the heightened anxiety about other people brought on by pervasive distancing measures and mask wearing. This is a wholly new factor. The new mores could mean that not wearing a mask in public will be disapproved. It is difficult to predict how people will behave in this new environment. But it is not going to be the status quo ante. Established businesses will be in turmoil and many will have high costs of adjustment while others will have great opportunities. The spaghetti has been thrown at the wall, how much sticks remains to be seen.
One should also bear in mind that local cases aren't always reported promptly or accurately. The recent food processing plant outbreaks in Wales and Kirklees weren't really publicised until after they'd actually happened.
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
The ICC has banned the use of saliva to shine the ball, but not the use of sweat. Unfortunately, 10 Pakistani players have just tested positive for Covid while preparing to tour here; not sure if the ball was involved!
I would have thought that some ingenuity could be used to find a way of playing cricket - e.g. umpire to swiftly disinfect the ball after every delivery? It seems a great shame that club/village cricket is banned. My son plays tennis and volleyball every day now - aren't these balls also vectors for transmission?
Luckily for Jenrick this government has so many comorbid scandals and fiascos it's difficult to focus on any one of them so he is probably safe. He's certainly missed his ideal resignation window.
The Republicans will undoubtedly suffer one of their worst ever defeats if they persist with Trump, a man already rightly deemed as one of the three worst presidents in U.S history. A halfway decent candidate would stand a real chance against the ageing Biden. They should do the necessary now.
Tories need a Lincoln Project in the UK to fight back against Boris/Cummings divisiveness. The Churchill project perhaps.
The party will not take action against Boris before next spring and well post brexit transition
Indeed he may last longer, but that depends on covid and how Boris and Rishi deal with the economy
The Tories raison d'être is to keep them and their friends in power.
They won't move against Boris unless and until he looks like losing.
There are a great many never-Boris Conservatives, many of whom have recently left the party, including some distinguished ex-ministers purged by Boris.
There might also be some Conservatives who care about Brexit. Unlikely, I know. What Boris and Cummings realise is that, especially since David Cameron did not force Eurosceptics to define Brexit before the referendum, is that most Brexiteers care only for the fact of Brexit, not the nature of it. This includes the Prime Minister himself.
But it is possible that for one or two Brexiteers, the ones not appointed to the Cabinet to act as human shields, Boris's BINO, aggravated by his tactic of capitulating to the EU while declaring victory (shades of Trump!) might prove a step not far enough.
What if Osborne, Gauke and Rudd joined the Lib Dems and the yellow peril Got off the fence took the Orange book path. Would be a curious development in British politics.
I hope that they do. The party seems to be a crossroads where the options are outmanuever Labour to the left and to make an unashamed pitch for the radical centre. Looking at where the LDs are established and competitive the turn left pitch of Moran makes no sense (but tugs the social democrat heart strings). A continuation of "Orange Book 2020" with the best ideas from across the spectrum seems to fit. I believe most voters are non-ideological anyway, and many on the "left" lean hard "right" on law and order and vice versa. So why not try and merge them all together.
Regarding the Lincoln Project, what should we make of the leading role played by George Conway, husband of Trump's counsellor Kellyanne Conway?
Trump is spiralling to the exit hatch and he's not finding a handhold as he falls. How will he insert some oomph into his campaign? Does anybody know? He won't win with his "core" alone and to judge by how many of them were willing to travel to Tulsa after signing the virus disclaimer (presumably imposed by his insurer) he's not as favoured even by them as he used to be. Don't blame KPop and TikTok.
He hasn't got a CLUE about the pandemic, as was illustrated by the recent piss-taking round of "He was kidding!" "No I wasn't!", and by his repulsive conjuring up of the image of a 10-year-old boy with "the sniffles" who, ridiculously to Trump's "mind", would count as a Covid "case" until testing was (so he says) slowed.
He has no idea why the schools were closed.
How would such a candidate fare in TV debates? In the words of Stuart Stevens, the GOP strategist who advised Mitt Romney in 2012, Trump's campaign is reminiscent of somebody who "has some drinks, drives home safely, and decides that alcohol helps you drive."
He could not even control the troops he wanted to bring in to protect himself in his palace, nor sack the defence minister who defied him in public. Such weakness spells curtains for the kind of leader he is, in any country.
Will he even last until Mary Trump's book is released on 28 July? Some of what it says about his relationship with his father, brother and nephew has been trailed, but watch out for material about his relationship with his mother. She was a most interesting figure. We will be able to read about her "illnesses".
Trump is trying to prevent publication, relying on an NDA his niece has supposedly breached. Like there's no first amendment. Like Simon and Schuster don't have lawyers. They've increased the print run.
I know people who have researched aspects of Trump's background some of which would (and, if he doesn't resign before it comes out, will) shock some observers' socks off.
Last matched prices for the Rep nominee as a result of the convention:
Can we have a header please on possible replacement Republican candidates and on the complex business of when and how a replacement might be chosen. It could be before or after the convention. Trump might walk or he might announce that he won't seek a second term. He may or may not big up a running-mate first. A third-party candidate may possibly appear who hoovers up in excess of 10% of the vote as happened on the last two occasions the US was hit by riots, in 1968 and 1992. It is not at all a foregone conclusion that Mike Pence would be the candidate even if by the time the ballots are printed he is already president. The web of possibilities is very complicated. The fundamentals aren't.
The Republicans will undoubtedly suffer one of their worst ever defeats if they persist with Trump, a man already rightly deemed as one of the three worst presidents in U.S history. A halfway decent candidate would stand a real chance against the ageing Biden. They should do the necessary now.
Wrong.
First at least one poll this month has Trump ahead of Biden
The Republicans will undoubtedly suffer one of their worst ever defeats if they persist with Trump, a man already rightly deemed as one of the three worst presidents in U.S history. A halfway decent candidate would stand a real chance against the ageing Biden. They should do the necessary now.
You should be right. But I think we will have to wait for November to find out. His approval rating has been remarkably consistent at 42% +/-1% almost continuously since the start of 2018.
When it comes to making one's own decision about venturing to the street, shops etc, the criterion will not just be in terms of the number of cases reported locally. If there are, say, only a couple of daily cases in a population of ~ 1 million then the risk would appear very low indeed - similar to being run over crossing the road for example. But it's not solely numerical risk that decides the matter. There is also the heightened anxiety about other people brought on by pervasive distancing measures and mask wearing. This is a wholly new factor. The new mores could mean that not wearing a mask in public will be disapproved. It is difficult to predict how people will behave in this new environment. But it is not going to be the status quo ante. Established businesses will be in turmoil and many will have high costs of adjustment while others will have great opportunities. The spaghetti has been thrown at the wall, how much sticks remains to be seen.
One should also bear in mind that local cases aren't always reported promptly or accurately. The recent food processing plant outbreaks in Wales and Kirklees weren't really publicised until after they'd actually happened.
Good morning folks! On topic, I'm waiting to see what 'funnies' Trump comes out with in Arizona, a State where the virus is definitely spreading.
And we plan to go and see family on Saturday; first time we'll have seen that group of grandchildren in the flesh for ages. Does anyone else find that pre-and early teens are not coping well with isolation from their friends? Becoming withdrawn?
Happily not been that much of an issue. My 9 year old has done remarkably well. She's a summer baby so has had to fight to catch and then pass her older classmates. She's loving the online Seesaw platform and does work on it with very little prompting. She's a fiercely driven little girl so the need to learn is strong. Had her best mate here last weekend for her birthday party and they played all day like no time had gone past.
My 12 year old has friends from primary school now spread across three high schools, so they interacted via Xbox mainly anyway. Little difference with him happily! Ironically my kids have done far better than Mrs RP and I have done...
Glad to learn that Mr P. Among my grandchildren are three granddaughters who are 12, 14 and almost 14. The 12 year old seems fine; however the older two seem to be having difficulties. The 'almost 14' will be at the weekend so we shall see her then...... first time 'for real' since Christmas, hurrah...... and I hope we'll be able to hear her side of the story, not just her father's opinion! Who incidentally takes after his grandfather, my father, who was notorious for misunderstanding his children. At least that is the settled view of my sister and myself, settled since we were about 11.
Regarding the Lincoln Project, what should we make of the leading role played by George Conway, husband of Trump's counsellor Kellyanne Conway?
Trump is spiralling to the exit hatch and he's not finding a handhold as he falls. How will he insert some oomph into his campaign? Does anybody know? He won't win with his "core" alone and to judge by how many of them were willing to travel to Tulsa after signing the virus disclaimer (presumably imposed by his insurer) he's not as favoured even by them as he used to be. Don't blame KPop and TikTok.
He hasn't got a CLUE about the pandemic, as was illustrated by the recent piss-taking round of "He was kidding!" "No I wasn't!", and by his repulsive conjuring up of the image of a 10-year-old boy with "the sniffles" who, ridiculously to Trump's "mind", would count as a Covid "case" until testing was (so he says) slowed.
He has no idea why the schools were closed.
How would such a candidate fare in TV debates? In the words of Stuart Stevens, the GOP strategist who advised Mitt Romney in 2012, Trump's campaign is reminiscent of somebody who "has some drinks, drives home safely, and decides that alcohol helps you drive."
He could not even control the troops he wanted to bring in to protect himself in his palace, nor sack the defence minister who defied him in public. Such weakness spells curtains for the kind of leader he is, in any country.
Will he even last until Mary Trump's book is released on 28 July? Some of what it says about his relationship with his father, brother and nephew has been trailed, but watch out for material about his relationship with his mother. She was a most interesting figure. We will be able to read about her "illnesses".
Trump is trying to prevent publication, relying on an NDA his niece has supposedly breached. Like there's no first amendment. Like Simon and Schuster don't have lawyers. They've increased the print run.
I know people who have researched aspects of Trump's background some of which would (and, if he doesn't resign before it comes out, will) shock some observers' socks off.
Last matched prices for the Rep nominee as a result of the convention:
Can we have a header please on possible replacement Republican candidates and on the complex business of when and how a replacement might be chosen. It could be before or after the convention. Trump might walk or he might announce that he won't seek a second term. He may or may not big up a running-mate first. A third-party candidate may possibly appear who hoovers up in excess of 10% of the vote as happened on the last two occasions the US was hit by riots, in 1968 and 1992. It is not at all a foregone conclusion that Mike Pence would be the candidate even if by the time the ballots are printed he is already president. The web of possibilities is very complicated. The fundamentals aren't.
A good post. Perhaps you should write that header?
The Republicans will undoubtedly suffer one of their worst ever defeats if they persist with Trump, a man already rightly deemed as one of the three worst presidents in U.S history. A halfway decent candidate would stand a real chance against the ageing Biden. They should do the necessary now.
Wrong.
First at least one poll this month has Trump ahead of Biden
When it comes to making one's own decision about venturing to the street, shops etc, the criterion will not just be in terms of the number of cases reported locally. If there are, say, only a couple of daily cases in a population of ~ 1 million then the risk would appear very low indeed - similar to being run over crossing the road for example. But it's not solely numerical risk that decides the matter. There is also the heightened anxiety about other people brought on by pervasive distancing measures and mask wearing. This is a wholly new factor. The new mores could mean that not wearing a mask in public will be disapproved. It is difficult to predict how people will behave in this new environment. But it is not going to be the status quo ante. Established businesses will be in turmoil and many will have high costs of adjustment while others will have great opportunities. The spaghetti has been thrown at the wall, how much sticks remains to be seen.
One should also bear in mind that local cases aren't always reported promptly or accurately. The recent food processing plant outbreaks in Wales and Kirklees weren't really publicised until after they'd actually happened.
The Republicans will undoubtedly suffer one of their worst ever defeats if they persist with Trump, a man already rightly deemed as one of the three worst presidents in U.S history. A halfway decent candidate would stand a real chance against the ageing Biden. They should do the necessary now.
Wrong.
First at least one poll this month has Trump ahead of Biden
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
The ICC has banned the use of saliva to shine the ball, but not the use of sweat. Unfortunately, 10 Pakistani players have just tested positive for Covid while preparing to tour here; not sure if the ball was involved!
I would have thought that some ingenuity could be used to find a way of playing cricket - e.g. umpire to swiftly disinfect the ball after every delivery? It seems a great shame that club/village cricket is banned. My son plays tennis and volleyball every day now - aren't these balls also vectors for transmission?
The ball is leather, whereas tennis- and volleyballs are some sort of man-made material. Is that the problems, I wonder. Our local cricket club has started training sessions again.
Cummings doesn’t rate anybody. He genuinely thinks he is one of the greatest intellects of our times, the last true polymath.
The problem, and it is a very big problem, is that he is totally wrong. He is fizzing with imagination and mostly rather bizarre ideas, but is lazy and arrogant and as a result has no idea how to implement them, and as his understanding of the world around him is very limited he genuinely doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions so most of his attempts to implement his policies have been disastrous.
That’s why he is both a magnificent campaigner, and a rotten administrator whose business ventures all failed, and who kept losing his battles at the DfE, even as he thought he was winning most of them.
It’s also why he made such a shambles of his personal quarantine.
I get the impression he thinks hes an amazing innovator when hes more just in favour of disrupting the system, no matter the system. Which can be very necessary but is not inherently a good thing with everything.
So I put him in the bracket of those who suggest ideas because it upsets the 'right people' as if that automatically means it must be good. He'll be right sometimes, but not as much as he thinks.
Any fool can destroy. Creating something worthwhile which lasts is much much harder.
Haley and Pence being the same price for the nomination is just crazy. If a stray bullet or virus particle hits Trump it's going to be Pence. Haley is in the field with the other rags after both Trump and Pence.
Why would adding more to the alphabet soup improve things ?
Didn't he cut funding for public health and so on?
The problem is few people give a toss about public health while millions worship the NHS so the first gets cut so that more money can be shovelled at the latter.
The best health action this country has taken this year has been the hand washing advice.
They are having to make very difficult trade offs.
To me the interviewees in that piece come across as complaining just a touch too much. I don't think that furlough falling from 80% to 60% is quite the existential threat claimed for a premises that is reopening - a variable halfway house of giving part-work/art-furlough for different staff is one option.
Quite surprised that cinemas are reopening, though. Long communal exposure of a big group indoors seems quite risky to me.
If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it.
Or would you prefer that we all cower in our homes for the next year ?
Back in March when the government was holding off lockdown I thought that was the calculation they were making. Certainly NZ and other countries that have eradicated the virus have a difficult decision to make if there is no vaccine.
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
The ICC has banned the use of saliva to shine the ball, but not the use of sweat. Unfortunately, 10 Pakistani players have just tested positive for Covid while preparing to tour here; not sure if the ball was involved!
I would have thought that some ingenuity could be used to find a way of playing cricket - e.g. umpire to swiftly disinfect the ball after every delivery? It seems a great shame that club/village cricket is banned. My son plays tennis and volleyball every day now - aren't these balls also vectors for transmission?
The ball is leather, whereas tennis- and volleyballs are some sort of man-made material. Is that the problems, I wonder. Our local cricket club has started training sessions again.
Doing the ball with surgical spirit between every over could be quite beneficial for the batsmen - the ball would turn into an over-ripe pomegranate.
The problem is that the bad gets conflated with the meh
- Desmond: bad (probably) - Sandown: link to supposed corruption is related to various board members of The Jockey Club being Tory donors. Setting aside the fact that horse owners tend to be better off the average and the fact that Sandown is arguably more of a national question than a local one, they’ve proved coincidence not causation - Local council disagrees with planning inspector. No evidence of foul play. Well that happens all the time. You are implying here than Jenrick leant, somehow, on the local councillors as a green young MP. I doubt it
The reason for pointing out the story is that today is the day when Labour are holding a debate on Jenrick and the Westferry decision. The drip drip of stories about him is interesting set against that context, just as the full story so far about Westferry has dripped out.
There may well be no foul play but you are assuming that a Tory MP does not know his local Tory councillors, including one who lived in the same square. And that there was no possibility at all of the difficulties he was having with his planning application being known to them. And you are ignoring the fact that, generally, when there are no objections, planning decisions do not go to Committee. Now you may be right that all was above board and that there were good reasons for the decision here. But appearances matter in planning decisions.
We have a Minister and lawyer who seems to have been slow in being transparent and who has accepted that his initial Westferry decision was unlawful. He should set out fully and in detail all the relevant facts relating to the matters raised, not least in his own interests - let alone anyone else’s - on order to avoid the constant drip dripping of “nudge nudge” stories like this. Hiding behind his junior Minister and allowing the facts to come out from others is bad politics, apart from anything else.
I certainly accept that if Labour start ranting about corruption they will miss the mark. But I have already set out the questions which do need raising.
If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it.
Or would you prefer that we all cower in our homes for the next year ?
There's a long way to go to get 60% having had Covid-19 which should give some herd immunity. Also with a two week incubation period and exponential growth of infection it's not easy to control the rate. The NHS could still be overwhelmed if we get this wrong.
Are we looking at Tory sleaze here? It certainly has that whiff about it.
I don't know, but there are plenty of regulators (Council, Parliamentary) to report it to should you wish to do so and in a PP like that all the docs are public. Internal conversations should be FOI-able.
The key would be whether any improper representations had been made to members of the Planning Committee. In law they have the right to make the decision, so it would be processes around that.
The Jockey Club one looks interesting, but a project like that will have hundreds and hundreds of docs associated with it so journalism is likely to be limited to "Ooeeer Missus", a rise of the eyebrows, and some jumping up and down rather than actual thorough investigations (though I hope my scepticism is wrong there).
Trump is spiralling to the exit hatch and he's not finding a handhold as he falls. How will he insert some oomph into his campaign? Does anybody know? He won't win with his "core" alone and to judge by how many of them were willing to travel to Tulsa after signing the virus disclaimer (presumably imposed by his insurer) he's not as favoured even by them as he used to be. Don't blame KPop and TikTok.
He hasn't got a CLUE about the pandemic, as was illustrated by the recent piss-taking round of "He was kidding!" "No I wasn't!", and by his repulsive conjuring up of the image of a 10-year-old boy with "the sniffles" who, ridiculously to Trump's "mind", would count as a Covid "case" until testing was (so he says) slowed.
He has no idea why the schools were closed.
How would such a candidate fare in TV debates? In the words of Stuart Stevens, the GOP strategist who advised Mitt Romney in 2012, Trump's campaign is reminiscent of somebody who "has some drinks, drives home safely, and decides that alcohol helps you drive."
He could not even control the troops he wanted to bring in to protect himself in his palace, nor sack the defence minister who defied him in public. Such weakness spells curtains for the kind of leader he is, in any country.
Will he even last until Mary Trump's book is released on 28 July? Some of what it says about his relationship with his father, brother and nephew has been trailed, but watch out for material about his relationship with his mother. She was a most interesting figure. We will be able to read about her "illnesses".
Trump is trying to prevent publication, relying on an NDA his niece has supposedly breached. Like there's no first amendment. Like Simon and Schuster don't have lawyers. They've increased the print run.
I know people who have researched aspects of Trump's background some of which would (and, if he doesn't resign before it comes out, will) shock some observers' socks off.
I'm not saying it's likely but I think you can see a Trump win largely on the same basis as last time's, with some up-to-date tweaks, so:
* Voters still (at least barely) think he's good on the economy. The virus is giving it a knock but print money and throw it at them, and hope it bounces back at the right time.
* Do well in the rust belt, so you can lose the popular vote by a few points and still win the electoral college. The state polling, such that it is, seems to be showing an even greater electoral college skew than Hillary had.
* Distract from any damaging scandal with a less-damaging one, and rely on the media's willingness to do a "both sides" story to hammer away at a few vague scandals about your opponent, probably Ukraine and Biden's son. The media still follows wherever Trump points his laser pointer, he's a master of distraction.
* Let the left over-reach on the culture war stuff, which they certainly will even if Biden tries to stay out of it, and hope Trump-skeptical conservatives resent that enough to overlook everything else.
The three states in America where the virus infection rate is growing the most are Texas, Arizona and Florida. The average daily maximum temprature in these states currently is between 33-43 degrees, so I not sure that this virus is affected by seasonality.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
That will come. But it will cause serious arguments when people can't travel freely to countries such as India:
You can't travel from the UK to the US. The world hasn't ended.
But you can travel from the US to the U.K. (and American citizens can travel in both directions).
It’s not just a question of measured levels of infection - as Trump observed, if you do lots of tests, you get more positive cases - so there have to be at least two criteria - how robust the testing system is and how many positive tests they get. The Guernsey CMO yesterday observed that COVID is not in control in the U.K. - the first possible “travel bubble” may be with the Isle of Man - robust testing and no new cases in weeks, combined with closed borders.
Reading the Guardian (I know, I know) I found this, in the cricket section 'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
The ICC has banned the use of saliva to shine the ball, but not the use of sweat. Unfortunately, 10 Pakistani players have just tested positive for Covid while preparing to tour here; not sure if the ball was involved!
I would have thought that some ingenuity could be used to find a way of playing cricket - e.g. umpire to swiftly disinfect the ball after every delivery? It seems a great shame that club/village cricket is banned. My son plays tennis and volleyball every day now - aren't these balls also vectors for transmission?
The ball is leather, whereas tennis- and volleyballs are some sort of man-made material. Is that the problems, I wonder. Our local cricket club has started training sessions again.
Doing the ball with surgical spirit between every over could be quite beneficial for the batsmen - the ball would turn into an over-ripe pomegranate.
In baseball they seem to use a new ball for every pitch. I’m not sure if that would be affordable in cricket though.
If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it.
Or would you prefer that we all cower in our homes for the next year ?
There's a long way to go to get 60% having had Covid-19 which should give some herd immunity. Also with a two week incubation period and exponential growth of infection it's not easy to control the rate. The NHS could still be overwhelmed if we get this wrong.
R of 1.01 and R of 3 are both exponential but the time scale is very different.
And we don't need to get anywhere near 60% to get some herd immunity.
Now we can either open up society a bit more over the summer and build some more herd immunity or we can cower in our homes for the next year.
They are having to make very difficult trade offs.
To me the interviewees in that piece come across as complaining just a touch too much. I don't think that furlough falling from 80% to 60% is quite the existential threat claimed for a premises that is reopening - a variable halfway house of giving part-work/art-furlough for different staff is one option.
Quite surprised that cinemas are reopening, though. Long communal exposure of a big group indoors seems quite risky to me.
Box office figures should be interesting to watch.
The three states in America where the virus infection rate is growing the most are Texas, Arizona and Florida. The average daily maximum temprature in these states currently is between 33-43 degrees, so I not sure that this virus is affected by seasonality.
The complication with seasonality is that it aside from how well the virus spreads at a given temperature/humidity, it affects whether you go indoors and whether you open the windows, so plausibly hot places were better in the spring but are worse in the summer, because people hide inside with the air conditioning on and the windows closed.
The three states in America where the virus infection rate is growing the most are Texas, Arizona and Florida. The average daily maximum temprature in these states currently is between 33-43 degrees, so I not sure that this virus is affected by seasonality.
I wonder if air conditioning is a factor here? If it is very hot you get fewer people outside, not more.
Trump is running. Trump believes in Trump. Trump KNOWS that all the things done against Trump are a fake news liberal conspiracy. And if all that fails to attract support, simply call up his core vote. Who are all armed to the teeth and have already shown that they will physically intervene to protect white supremacy.
They'll need UN election monitors to scrutinise this election.
The three states in America where the virus infection rate is growing the most are Texas, Arizona and Florida. The average daily maximum temprature in these states currently is between 33-43 degrees, so I not sure that this virus is affected by seasonality.
I wonder if air conditioning is a factor here? If it is very hot you get fewer people outside, not more.
Possibly, although the pig-headed attitudes of the State politicians is a more obvious cause.
Coronavirus in the US....look at the chart of increase by state...the only question is are the governor's to blame for their opening up policies, not stopping protests or both.
Comments
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
But it’s entirely moot and theoretical. What PB does best 😄
So I put him in the bracket of those who suggest ideas because it upsets the 'right people' as if that automatically means it must be good. He'll be right sometimes, but not as much as he thinks.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/
People underestimate just how lucrative it campaigns can be in the US (Parscale, who is probably about to be fired, will already be several million to the good.)
Teaching calls. Have a good morning.
What I'm getting at is that UK has a large Asian population that travels between here and there and I can see complaints if that's not allowed to happen when the total quarantine policy is relaxed for certain parts of the world.
The peak day of hospital deaths was the 8th April
Work back from that and you get the peak day of infections around the 18th -20th March.
Pretty blistering stuff from Lincoln Project.
Leave it to the SDNY... perhaps after he's appointed a new AG.
He's either incompetent or a liar.
- Desmond: bad (probably)
- Sandown: link to supposed corruption is related to various board members of The Jockey Club being Tory donors. Setting aside the fact that horse owners tend to be better off the average and the fact that Sandown is arguably more of a national question than a local one, they’ve proved coincidence not causation
- Local council disagrees with planning inspector. No evidence of foul play. Well that happens all the time. You are implying here than Jenrick leant, somehow, on the local councillors as a green young MP. I doubt it
"If nominated, I shall run to Mexico. If elected, I shall fight extradition."
Infected Brit likely got infected in community - i.e. is in a place where people nearby are infected. Unless whizzing round the country, the people they infect are likely to be in that same locality (and already potentially exposed to nearby infected people anyway).
Infected German may visit a largely uninfected area (or several largely uninfected areas) and seed a new local outbreak(s).
(reverse is true from German point of view - infected Brit going over there starts a new outbreak)
I'm not saying that it necessarily has a negative effect, depends on the relative rates of infection among Brits and Germans, but it's conceivable that travel/interaction patterns might mean that allowing flights would increase numbers infected, even if the flights were from a relatively less infected country.
Second, Trump might still win, indeed 1 poll earlier this month had Trump ahead on 48% to 47% for Biden
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1292288/US-election-2020-donald-trump-poll-results-democracy-institute-of-america
'Johnson said: “The problem with cricket as everybody understands, that the ball is a natural vector of disease, potentially, at any rate and we’ve been round it many times with our scientific friends.'
Well, I didn't understand it, especially as the use of saliva to make the thing swing is banned. Can anyone enlighten me, please.
This was the PM's chance to declare that lockdown was a mistake. He failed to take it
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/23/governments-coronavirus-response-remains-trapped-ludicrous-second/
That pushes peak infection time to around 20th - 22nd March. Schools went to emergency opening with effect from 23rd March. Boris's big speech was that evening.
Nobody is questioning that the pre-lockdown took the edge off the exponential growth. But the correlation between lockdown date and peak deaths works.
"if nominated I'll decline. If drafted I'll defer. And if elected I'll resign"
and what happened next?
My 12 year old has friends from primary school now spread across three high schools, so they interacted via Xbox mainly anyway. Little difference with him happily! Ironically my kids have done far better than Mrs RP and I have done...
In Anglesey a worker "displayed symptoms" back in May, and it was over a week into June before the news hit the local press:
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/anglesey-abattoir-hit-covid-19-18403055
In Kirklees the local MP complained that the council had initially kept the outbreak secret.
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/kirklees-council-leader-denies-keeping-18453733
...Coun Pandor retorted: "We have provided all elected members, including our MPs with the same information on the outbreak.
"However, disclosing the location of the outbreak could have been a negative in our fight against the virus."
I would have thought that some ingenuity could be used to find a way of playing cricket - e.g. umpire to swiftly disinfect the ball after every delivery? It seems a great shame that club/village cricket is banned. My son plays tennis and volleyball every day now - aren't these balls also vectors for transmission?
https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/1275597052244824064?s=20
Regarding the Lincoln Project, what should we make of the leading role played by George Conway, husband of Trump's counsellor Kellyanne Conway?
Trump is spiralling to the exit hatch and he's not finding a handhold as he falls. How will he insert some oomph into his campaign? Does anybody know? He won't win with his "core" alone and to judge by how many of them were willing to travel to Tulsa after signing the virus disclaimer (presumably imposed by his insurer) he's not as favoured even by them as he used to be. Don't blame KPop and TikTok.
He hasn't got a CLUE about the pandemic, as was illustrated by the recent piss-taking round of "He was kidding!" "No I wasn't!", and by his repulsive conjuring up of the image of a 10-year-old boy with "the sniffles" who, ridiculously to Trump's "mind", would count as a Covid "case" until testing was (so he says) slowed.
He has no idea why the schools were closed.
How would such a candidate fare in TV debates? In the words of Stuart Stevens, the GOP strategist who advised Mitt Romney in 2012, Trump's campaign is reminiscent of somebody who "has some drinks, drives home safely, and decides that alcohol helps you drive."
He could not even control the troops he wanted to bring in to protect himself in his palace, nor sack the defence minister who defied him in public. Such weakness spells curtains for the kind of leader he is, in any country.
Will he even last until Mary Trump's book is released on 28 July? Some of what it says about his relationship with his father, brother and nephew has been trailed, but watch out for material about his relationship with his mother. She was a most interesting figure. We will be able to read about her "illnesses".
Trump is trying to prevent publication, relying on an NDA his niece has supposedly breached. Like there's no first amendment. Like Simon and Schuster don't have lawyers. They've increased the print run.
I know people who have researched aspects of Trump's background some of which would (and, if he doesn't resign before it comes out, will) shock some observers' socks off.
Last matched prices for the Rep nominee as a result of the convention:
Trump 1.07
Pence 28
Haley 28 (she's coming in!)
Romney 200
Ryan 480
Kasich 550
Can we have a header please on possible replacement Republican candidates and on the complex business of when and how a replacement might be chosen. It could be before or after the convention. Trump might walk or he might announce that he won't seek a second term. He may or may not big up a running-mate first. A third-party candidate may possibly appear who hoovers up in excess of 10% of the vote as happened on the last two occasions the US was hit by riots, in 1968 and 1992. It is not at all a foregone conclusion that Mike Pence would be the candidate even if by the time the ballots are printed he is already president. The web of possibilities is very complicated. The fundamentals aren't.
First at least one poll this month has Trump ahead of Biden
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1292288/US-election-2020-donald-trump-poll-results-democracy-institute-of-america
Second, Trump is also generally polling slightly higher than the Republican party as a whole is
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1275654090673000449?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1275468831880773632?s=20
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
'I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault'
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/mar/07/i-like-the-numbers-being-where-they-are-trump-video
Who incidentally takes after his grandfather, my father, who was notorious for misunderstanding his children. At least that is the settled view of my sister and myself, settled since we were about 11.
That is, errr, a bold choice.
When the body bags start filling up again in two or three months don't say you weren't warned by a few of us lone voices.
https://news.sky.com/story/urgent-action-needed-to-prepare-for-real-risk-of-second-coronavirus-wave-say-health-leaders-12013657
Rasmussen Reports 6/18 - 6/22 1500 LV 45 53 -8
-8 with RASMUSSEN.
Why would adding more to the alphabet soup improve things ?
Our local cricket club has started training sessions again.
The best health action this country has taken this year has been the hand washing advice.
Or would you prefer that we all cower in our homes for the next year ?
Quite surprised that cinemas are reopening, though. Long communal exposure of a big group indoors seems quite risky to me.
There may well be no foul play but you are assuming that a Tory MP does not know his local Tory councillors, including one who lived in the same square. And that there was no possibility at all of the difficulties he was having with his planning application being known to them. And you are ignoring the fact that, generally, when there are no objections, planning decisions do not go to Committee. Now you may be right that all was above board and that there were good reasons for the decision here. But appearances matter in planning decisions.
We have a Minister and lawyer who seems to have been slow in being transparent and who has accepted that his initial Westferry decision was unlawful. He should set out fully and in detail all the relevant facts relating to the matters raised, not least in his own interests - let alone anyone else’s - on order to avoid the constant drip dripping of “nudge nudge” stories like this. Hiding behind his junior Minister and allowing the facts to come out from others is bad politics, apart from anything else.
I certainly accept that if Labour start ranting about corruption they will miss the mark. But I have already set out the questions which do need raising.
Also with a two week incubation period and exponential growth of infection it's not easy to control the rate.
The NHS could still be overwhelmed if we get this wrong.
The key would be whether any improper representations had been made to members of the Planning Committee. In law they have the right to make the decision, so it would be processes around that.
The Jockey Club one looks interesting, but a project like that will have hundreds and hundreds of docs associated with it so journalism is likely to be limited to "Ooeeer Missus", a rise of the eyebrows, and some jumping up and down rather than actual thorough investigations (though I hope my scepticism is wrong there).
* Voters still (at least barely) think he's good on the economy. The virus is giving it a knock but print money and throw it at them, and hope it bounces back at the right time.
* Do well in the rust belt, so you can lose the popular vote by a few points and still win the electoral college. The state polling, such that it is, seems to be showing an even greater electoral college skew than Hillary had.
* Distract from any damaging scandal with a less-damaging one, and rely on the media's willingness to do a "both sides" story to hammer away at a few vague scandals about your opponent, probably Ukraine and Biden's son. The media still follows wherever Trump points his laser pointer, he's a master of distraction.
* Let the left over-reach on the culture war stuff, which they certainly will even if Biden tries to stay out of it, and hope Trump-skeptical conservatives resent that enough to overlook everything else.
It’s not just a question of measured levels of infection - as Trump observed, if you do lots of tests, you get more positive cases - so there have to be at least two criteria - how robust the testing system is and how many positive tests they get. The Guernsey CMO yesterday observed that COVID is not in control in the U.K. - the first possible “travel bubble” may be with the Isle of Man - robust testing and no new cases in weeks, combined with closed borders.
And we don't need to get anywhere near 60% to get some herd immunity.
Now we can either open up society a bit more over the summer and build some more herd immunity or we can cower in our homes for the next year.
Make your own choice.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/by-year/2020/?area=GB
Not sure there'll be a big rush to the flicks.
Edit: Box office takings in the USA are seriously down still. Not sure how many states have allowed cinemas to open.
We do quite a lot of charity-funded research, but - other than that - have no official link with the charities.
Edited extra bit: just been out to post a parcel. Already bloody hot.
They'll need UN election monitors to scrutinise this election.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8452933/California-reaches-record-high-5-000-positive-coronavirus-tests-single-day.html