A Wealth Tax is an exciting prospect. But will a Conservative government really do that? One for the 'believe it when I see it' basket.
Just like my argument on CGT on residential properties it does seem to be a very anti Conservative thing to do, so would be a bold move.
I also think a wealth tax would be difficult to implement.
Well unless they mandated it from tomorrow morning then I can see some behavioural implications. And they can't even get people to wear a mask in a shop without giving 10 days notice.
"To give shops time to put the system in place" according to M Hancock.
Once again the government proving it is completely useless when it comes to basic data analysis. It shouldn't need a team of scientists from one of the world's top universities to figure this stuff out. A half decent team of data analysts would be able to automate this in no time and get accurate daily readings.
I do sometimes wonder how data literate the top scientific advisors actually are. I would never have gotten on that stage and presented those graphs, I'd have been too embarrassed.
No, this sort of data can only be discovered in hindsight not real time. Its impossible to know in real time how many people have been infected since you don't know in real time how many people are infected - it takes time before people can be tested and be found to be positive.
It absolutely can be done in real time, I had a pretty lengthy meeting yesterday on the subject among other areas for improvement with the reporting.
In fact it's the kind of thing that can't be done on hindsight as it depends on antigen data, which is fleeting.
You only develop antigens in hindsight. You don't develop detectable antigens on the very day you are infected.
EDIT: Plus you have detectable antigens for more than one day, this is why the surveys have estimated R over periods of time and not in real time unique to days.
No antigens are viral proteins (antigen means able to generate antibodies) it is antibodies that take a little while to develop. IgM first, then the longer lasting IgG, and the relative amounts of these can give some clue to exposure.
I understand that but can you detect antigens on the day you are infected?
I thought it took 2-3 days for the antigens to be detectable in a swab test.
Yes, there is a latency between viral infection and then shedding, hence the need to self isolate before testing, optimally day 5-7. Quite a few false negative swabs too so often needs repeating.
A Wealth Tax is an exciting prospect. But will a Conservative government really do that? One for the 'believe it when I see it' basket.
Just like my argument on CGT on residential properties it does seem to be a very anti Conservative thing to do, so would be a bold move.
I also think a wealth tax would be difficult to implement.
Well unless they mandated it from tomorrow morning then I can see some behavioural implications. And they can't even get people to wear a mask in a shop without giving 10 days notice.
"To give shops time to put the system in place" according to M Hancock.
The fundamental problem is that we don't track wealth.
Long term I would like to see Council tax reformed so that it better targets the person with the wealth.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
Why? The logic as to why masks for offices have been rejected (that you're sat down and regularly working with the same people) is completely different to shops.
You're thinking of boarding schools. Office workers go home each day where they can pick up new germs to bring to work tomorrow.
And as research has moved to airborne rather than surface infection, shops are probably relatively safe places.
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
while I agree about the napkin and wouldn't use one myself I am sure many will. I took the honest route and merely said his choice my custom or tell me to wear a mask
Once again the government proving it is completely useless when it comes to basic data analysis. It shouldn't need a team of scientists from one of the world's top universities to figure this stuff out. A half decent team of data analysts would be able to automate this in no time and get accurate daily readings.
I do sometimes wonder how data literate the top scientific advisors actually are. I would never have gotten on that stage and presented those graphs, I'd have been too embarrassed.
No, this sort of data can only be discovered in hindsight not real time. Its impossible to know in real time how many people have been infected since you don't know in real time how many people are infected - it takes time before people can be tested and be found to be positive.
It absolutely can be done in real time, I had a pretty lengthy meeting yesterday on the subject among other areas for improvement with the reporting.
In fact it's the kind of thing that can't be done on hindsight as it depends on antigen data, which is fleeting.
You only develop antigens in hindsight. You don't develop detectable antigens on the very day you are infected.
EDIT: Plus you have detectable antigens for more than one day, this is why the surveys have estimated R over periods of time and not in real time unique to days.
No antigens are viral proteins (antigen means able to generate antibodies) it is antibodies that take a little while to develop. IgM first, then the longer lasting IgG, and the relative amounts of these can give some clue to exposure.
I understand that but can you detect antigens on the day you are infected?
I thought it took 2-3 days for the antigens to be detectable in a swab test.
Yes, there is a latency between viral infection and then shedding, hence the need to self isolate before testing, optimally day 5-7. Quite a few false negative swabs too so often needs repeating.
Thank you, that was the point I meant about "detectable antigens on the very day you are infected." Thanks for clearing that up.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
Why? The logic as to why masks for offices have been rejected (that you're sat down and regularly working with the same people) is completely different to shops.
You're thinking of boarding schools. Office workers go home each day where they can pick up new germs to bring to work tomorrow.
And as research has moved to airborne rather than surface infection, shops are probably relatively safe places.
I don't understand your logic.
Office workers go to the same home each day too, so an office worker knows who they live with and knows who they work with.
What you don't know is who else has been in the shop with you. You don't know who was walking down the aisle just before you. You don't know whose exhale you are now breathing in, in the shops.
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
while I agree about the napkin and wouldn't use one myself I am sure many will. I took the honest route and merely said his choice my custom or tell me to wear a mask
How many one here would use someone else's napkin? I suspect zero, the same number of people who would willingly re-use someone else's face mask.
Looks to me like our decline in new cases has essentially stopped. Hopefully that's just the fact that contact tracing is finding people earlier.
One metric I haven't seen talked about is when/how people are discovered as positive. Option 1 is when they present with symptoms, when it is perhaps/probably too late as they've already infected others. Option 2 is before they've got symptoms.
It seems like to keep numbers down while lockdown eases, we need to shift from 1 to 2, to stop the onward spread.
taxing capital gains more effectively on schemes like share options and on housing speculation seems a good option to me, provided there is some taper relief to cover long term ownership. Perhaps only tax capital gains if realised in less than a decade.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
while I agree about the napkin and wouldn't use one myself I am sure many will. I took the honest route and merely said his choice my custom or tell me to wear a mask
How many one here would use someone else's napkin? I suspect zero, the same number of people who would willingly re-use someone else's face mask.
How are they to know the shopkeeper hasn't moved the masks from Box 2 (bin) to Box 1 (for new customers)?
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
while I agree about the napkin and wouldn't use one myself I am sure many will. I took the honest route and merely said his choice my custom or tell me to wear a mask
How many one here would use someone else's napkin? I suspect zero, the same number of people who would willingly re-use someone else's face mask.
I suspect anyone who gets to the shop and realises they forgot their own mask will because its more convenient than going back home
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
Jeez remind me never to go sightseeing with you.
What did John Julius Norwich say his father told him about Venice? Only go inside two buildings - St. Marks and Harry's Bar.
Do you really think that the Tower of London would provide the appeal if people couldn't before during or after go and eat, drink or be merry?
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
while I agree about the napkin and wouldn't use one myself I am sure many will. I took the honest route and merely said his choice my custom or tell me to wear a mask
How many one here would use someone else's napkin? I suspect zero, the same number of people who would willingly re-use someone else's face mask.
How are they to know the shopkeeper hasn't moved the masks from Box 2 (bin) to Box 1 (for new customers)?
Well if they are disposable surgical kind it'll be really obvious if it's used.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
Jeez remind me never to go sightseeing with you.
What did John Julius Norwich say his father told him about Venice? Only go inside two buildings - St. Marks and Harry's Bar.
Do you really think that the Tower of London would provide the appeal if people couldn't before during or after go and eat, drink or be merry?
No, I specifically said there would always be places for tourists to go and eat, drink or be merry - even if there's slightly fewer of them for the commuters.
Now I suppose it's technically possible that none of these incidents involve Garrels, or they're all untrue, and they're just targeting him for no reason. But given the extreme step they've taken I don't see any reason to jump to that rather strange assumption.
A Wealth Tax is an exciting prospect. But will a Conservative government really do that? One for the 'believe it when I see it' basket.
Just like my argument on CGT on residential properties it does seem to be a very anti Conservative thing to do, so would be a bold move.
I also think a wealth tax would be difficult to implement.
There is a need to tap into wealth - of which there is oodles - if we are to maintain the sort of public realm we have become used to.
Your CGT on homes makes sense imo but it has next to no chance of happening because of the way we view home ownership here. There's a strong intellectual and moral case for it though.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
Jeez remind me never to go sightseeing with you.
What did John Julius Norwich say his father told him about Venice? Only go inside two buildings - St. Marks and Harry's Bar.
Do you really think that the Tower of London would provide the appeal if people couldn't before during or after go and eat, drink or be merry?
Yes. Millions of people go to visit London and stay away from all the fancy eateries you haunt. Not because you are there of course... although that might be part of the reason. People - tourists at least - visit London for the sights and the galleries and the shows. Eating out in London for most tourists comes a long way down the list of priorities.
I heard a guy from Slanj who make the face coverings on the radio saying that the turnover from sales of the mask had replaced what they'd lost due to the lockdown, plus a handy chunk of money for the homeless. Pathetic and adolescent indeed.
Not heard of that before. That's a cracking idea. Really glad it is so successful
Once again the government proving it is completely useless when it comes to basic data analysis. It shouldn't need a team of scientists from one of the world's top universities to figure this stuff out. A half decent team of data analysts would be able to automate this in no time and get accurate daily readings.
I do sometimes wonder how data literate the top scientific advisors actually are. I would never have gotten on that stage and presented those graphs, I'd have been too embarrassed.
I am not a mathematician but it just seemed obvious that the rate at which infections were falling indicated a lower R rate than they were announcing. Of course if you strip out the distorting effects of a few super spreaders and slave factories along with care homes the infectivity rate in the community overall was clearly very, very low.
I think they were (perhaps deliberately) erring on the side of giving a higher R so that people behaved better thus controlling the virus more.
Better to say R is 0.7-0.9 and its really 0.5 than to say it is 0.7-0.9 and its really 1.1
Not really, because if it gets out that they have been misleading people, we have another Cummings-like loss of trust in the government's handling of the Pandemic response.
Using your example it would vaguely be OK if they are estimating a confidence intervall of 0.7 to 0.9, to then report as a headline figure R=0.9. I suspect the proper CIs are much wider than that though, with a width of 0.5 or so. My "professional gut feeling" is that someone has developed a statistical method of estimating R with confidence limits without factoring in the sensitivity of the model to the variability of the input data.
Once again the government proving it is completely useless when it comes to basic data analysis. It shouldn't need a team of scientists from one of the world's top universities to figure this stuff out. A half decent team of data analysts would be able to automate this in no time and get accurate daily readings.
I do sometimes wonder how data literate the top scientific advisors actually are. I would never have gotten on that stage and presented those graphs, I'd have been too embarrassed.
No, this sort of data can only be discovered in hindsight not real time. Its impossible to know in real time how many people have been infected since you don't know in real time how many people are infected - it takes time before people can be tested and be found to be positive.
And even then there are large uncertainties, as only a proportion of those infected are found and tested. Add to the the constantly changing nature of social mixing, as government policies cycle in and out, and people modify their behaviour in reponse to reported infection rates, and it's very difficult to make consistent estimates of those numbers.
I think @MaxPB is making the mistake of concentrating on the data analysis, which is the simple bit - I'm an epidemiologist and the vast majority of my time is spent collating, managing, quality controlling and stress testing the data, particularly working out what is missing, what is likely wrong and what the impacts of that are (and what other sources can be used to validate any of that) and defining, questioning and testing the assumptions underlying the process. The actual analysis, whether modelling or summarising, is a pretty trivial part of the overall process.
It's the old fallacy of thinking that if you know a little bit about something then you know a lot, while in fact as you learn more about something, you realise the extent of what you don't know. I'm probably closer in profession to the infectious disease epidemiologists than @MaxPB is and I'm more aware of the vast array of things I don't know about infectious disease modelling. I could throw together a SIR model of coronavirus in the UK in a couple of days given the data, but I know enough of my limitations of knowledge in that field to know that my assumptions would likely be pretty poor and the resulting predictions poor also.
He/she is however right to question how "data literate the top scientific advisors actually are" - probably not very, in many cases. That doesn't matter that much if they have good data crunchers working for them and good two-way communication with them.
That's not what I'm talking about though, I'm specifically talking about how they're wrongly calculating the R from the data thy do have. You can't historically calculate an R value with new data, those people who had the infection in May don't have it any more so the only way to do it is using the same data as you had at the time just better. What I'm saying is that it shouldn't need a team from Imperial to do that better calculation. It is absolutely possible to calculate national and local R using the available data for England and after speaking to them the level of detail they have is well beyond what they release publicly.
It's my experience of speaking to the people who put the data together that has made me realise just how far behind government data literacy is compared to banking and tech.
I'd like more on 'wrongly calculating R' and also on the Imperial report to better judge whether this is something the government could/should have done in house (BBC don't link to the Imperial report and I haven't found it to take a look). Calculating R from the data is obviously trivial. Calculating R accurately and with reasonable precision with the incomplete data (and very likely not missing at random, so not e.g. easy multiple imputation) strikes me as a fairly specialist thing as there are an awful lot of assumptions, some testable to some extent, some less so, to be made about who is missing and how that changes over time.
As for in house versus university - I'm sure ONS is quite capable of doing R calculations with any halfway decent data. If what Imperial has done is a lot more complicated and involves specialist knowledge then I'm not sure that it makes sense for the government to employ those specialists instead full time - what do they do when there's no pandemic?
A Wealth Tax is an exciting prospect. But will a Conservative government really do that? One for the 'believe it when I see it' basket.
Set it high enough and it becomes a vote winner. Something like £50m+ assets or £10m+ annual income. Of course stopping QE would have a bigger impact on the ultra rich than any wealth tax, so its that which wont happen.
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
while I agree about the napkin and wouldn't use one myself I am sure many will. I took the honest route and merely said his choice my custom or tell me to wear a mask
How many one here would use someone else's napkin? I suspect zero, the same number of people who would willingly re-use someone else's face mask.
How are they to know the shopkeeper hasn't moved the masks from Box 2 (bin) to Box 1 (for new customers)?
Well if they are disposable surgical kind it'll be really obvious if it's used.
Regardless of the anecdote it is obvious that the supposed purpose of the legislation....getting people out spending is going to be a fail when it comes to many people.
In the unlikely event of them not doing a uturn on it just from me they will have cut out my daily trip to a cafe because you need to wear a mask at the counter. The money I spend at the local shop. The money I spend at the local supermarket and transferred the money to amazon. While I am one person that is a net local economy loss of maybe 100£ a week. If even only 10% of people do the same(and I suspect refuseniks will be more like 25%) then thats a large hit to local economies
Once again the government proving it is completely useless when it comes to basic data analysis. It shouldn't need a team of scientists from one of the world's top universities to figure this stuff out. A half decent team of data analysts would be able to automate this in no time and get accurate daily readings.
I do sometimes wonder how data literate the top scientific advisors actually are. I would never have gotten on that stage and presented those graphs, I'd have been too embarrassed.
I am not a mathematician but it just seemed obvious that the rate at which infections were falling indicated a lower R rate than they were announcing. Of course if you strip out the distorting effects of a few super spreaders and slave factories along with care homes the infectivity rate in the community overall was clearly very, very low.
I think they were (perhaps deliberately) erring on the side of giving a higher R so that people behaved better thus controlling the virus more.
Better to say R is 0.7-0.9 and its really 0.5 than to say it is 0.7-0.9 and its really 1.1
Not really, because if it gets out that they have been misleading people, we have another Cummings-like loss of trust in the government's handling of the Pandemic response.
Using your example it would vaguely be OK if they are estimating a confidence intervall of 0.7 to 0.9, to then report as a headline figure R=0.9. I suspect the proper CIs are much wider than that though, with a width of 0.5 or so. My "professional gut feeling" is that someone has developed a statistical method of estimating R with confidence limits without factoring in the sensitivity of the model to the variability of the input data.
Is that a slightly more sophisticated way of saying rubbish in, rubbish out?
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
Jeez remind me never to go sightseeing with you.
What did John Julius Norwich say his father told him about Venice? Only go inside two buildings - St. Marks and Harry's Bar.
Do you really think that the Tower of London would provide the appeal if people couldn't before during or after go and eat, drink or be merry?
Yes. Millions of people go to visit London and stay away from all the fancy eateries you haunt. Not because you are there of course... although that might be part of the reason. People - tourists at least - visit London for the sights and the galleries and the shows. Eating out in London for most tourists comes a long way down the list of priorities.
Another joyless PB-er not quite getting how humans work.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
It should not be necessary to keep making this point but since DavidL is questioning the utility of face coverings I will make it. The covering is not there to prevent the wearer from catching Covid, it does not fit closely enough to do that completely. The covering is there to greatly reduce the plume of droplets the wearer emits and thus protect others. It is therefore a show of solidarity, not fear or selfishness. Most people have grasped this.
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Now I suppose it's technically possible that none of these incidents involve Garrels, or they're all untrue, and they're just targeting him for no reason. But given the extreme step they've taken I don't see any reason to jump to that rather strange assumption.
Garrels has the look of a slightly weightier Jeremy Corbyn. Are they by chance one and the same? The racially questionable language dovetails too!
It should not be necessary to keep making this point but since DavidL is questioning the utility of face coverings I will make it. The covering is not there to prevent the wearer from catching Covid, it does not fit closely enough to do that completely. The covering is there to greatly reduce the plume of droplets the wearer emits and thus protect others. It is therefore a show of solidarity, not fear or selfishness. Most people have grasped this.
Well thank you for that blinding insight. What I was questioning is their success in protecting others from infection if not properly used. Any uplift in solidarity will of course have to be weighed against the fear affect they generate.
How is an office space a "public place"? An office space is a private place - I don't access confidential data in public where any Joe Bloggs can walk past.
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Indeed. But it should have SOME redundant capacity spending its time planning for handling for example a pandemic. That would seem a sensible half-way house...
That Government were asking for such plans - but they weren't forthcoming - was (ostensibly) the reason for Sedwill being moved out.
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Best not too, unless you really do feel a need to explain away incompetence.
It should not be necessary to keep making this point but since DavidL is questioning the utility of face coverings I will make it. The covering is not there to prevent the wearer from catching Covid, it does not fit closely enough to do that completely. The covering is there to greatly reduce the plume of droplets the wearer emits and thus protect others. It is therefore a show of solidarity, not fear or selfishness. Most people have grasped this.
Well thank you for that blinding insight. What I was questioning is their success in protecting others from infection if not properly used. Any uplift in solidarity will of course have to be weighed against the fear affect they generate.
If the fear effect comes from seeing other people wearing masks then whether they are compulsory or not makes no difference.
President Trump has attempted to claim credit for Boris Johnson’s decision to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G network, saying he convinced the UK that the Chinese company was “unsafe”.
In a press conference at the White House Mr Trump said that “I did this myself, for the most part” as he spoke of having worked to pressure nations to not use Huawei. He added: “If they want to do business with us, they can’t use it.”
A Wealth Tax is an exciting prospect. But will a Conservative government really do that? One for the 'believe it when I see it' basket.
Just like my argument on CGT on residential properties it does seem to be a very anti Conservative thing to do, so would be a bold move.
I also think a wealth tax would be difficult to implement.
There is a need to tap into wealth - of which there is oodles - if we are to maintain the sort of public realm we have become used to.
Your CGT on homes makes sense imo but it has next to no chance of happening because of the way we view home ownership here. There's a strong intellectual and moral case for it though.
Even Corbyn wasn't stupid enough to propose CGT on primary residences in his manifesto. If he had, Labour might have struggled to hold on to more than 150 seats...
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
I don't thing mildly disparaging nicknames like Frog, Kraut or indeed Rosbif, Limey and Pom matter too much. We are fairly equal status rival nations. Nicknames based on more unequal historical status, of which there are plenty are not so acceptable, particularly when racially tinged.
It should not be necessary to keep making this point but since DavidL is questioning the utility of face coverings I will make it. The covering is not there to prevent the wearer from catching Covid, it does not fit closely enough to do that completely. The covering is there to greatly reduce the plume of droplets the wearer emits and thus protect others. It is therefore a show of solidarity, not fear or selfishness. Most people have grasped this.
Well thank you for that blinding insight. What I was questioning is their success in protecting others from infection if not properly used. Any uplift in solidarity will of course have to be weighed against the fear affect they generate.
If the fear effect comes from seeing other people wearing masks then whether they are compulsory or not makes no difference.
I didn't say it did. But compulsion itself does have a psychological element.
President Trump has attempted to claim credit for Boris Johnson’s decision to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G network, saying he convinced the UK that the Chinese company was “unsafe”.
In a press conference at the White House Mr Trump said that “I did this myself, for the most part” as he spoke of having worked to pressure nations to not use Huawei. He added: “If they want to do business with us, they can’t use it.”
In other news Trump claimed credit for sunny days, mostly that was down to his negotiations with god, whilst blaming the fake media and Obama for rainy days, part of a liberal plot against American values.
Why is this man suddenly a credible witness worth listening to just because you want his nonsense to be true?
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Best not too, unless you really do feel a need to explain away incompetence.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
I'm happy with Frogs, I'm happy with Kiwis, I'm happy with calling Americans Yankees (and happy to wind up Southern Redneck Americans by calling them that).
It cuts the other way too. I'm happy to be called a Sassenach, a Limey, a Pommie Bastard, or Les Rosbif. My father-in-law refers to me sometimes when he speaks to my wife as "the Sassenach" and I'm OK with that.
If its past the lagershed I'm happy to refer to the Welsh and Kiwis by their other nickname, but since its not past the lagershed and I don't want to offend Mr G I'm not going to do more than hint at that.
I'm not happy with anything (besides tongue-in-cheek things) that are intended to cause genuine offence. Which are mainly those aimed at non-whites. I would never say the P-word or N-word or W-word or similar.
Why? The logic as to why masks for offices have been rejected (that you're sat down and regularly working with the same people) is completely different to shops.
You're thinking of boarding schools. Office workers go home each day where they can pick up new germs to bring to work tomorrow.
And as research has moved to airborne rather than surface infection, shops are probably relatively safe places.
I don't understand your logic.
Office workers go to the same home each day too, so an office worker knows who they live with and knows who they work with.
What you don't know is who else has been in the shop with you. You don't know who was walking down the aisle just before you. You don't know whose exhale you are now breathing in, in the shops.
Depends on the activities, doesn't it. An estate agents 'office' is more akin to a shop than, say, the finance department of a large company. And solicitors are different again.
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Yes, and Covid-19 was very much a novel disease in many ways, so I think a fair amount of chaos in the early response was inevitable. What is certainly true is that the commonly-expressed view that the early UK response was awful compared with other European countries doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.
Plenty to criticise the PM for. Choosing a democracy over a Communist dictatorship is not one of them.
Though does rather beg the question as to why the Communist dictatorship was such a good choice just 6 months ago by the same PM. Lack of judgement is the issue.
Delaying 5G for several years has quite an impact too, particularly in areas where fast wired broadband is also going to be a long time coming. Britain in the slow lane yet again.
Just been to the local corner shop as I do most days and come to the conclusion that mandatory mask wearing is going to spread the disease as their plan is as they know most customers won't bother else is to have a box of masks at the door....take one as you go in then dump it back in as you go out.
Seems to comply totally with the law while being totally useless. Told him still won't go in though if they insist and will instead order my stuff from amazon
I can imagine having a box at the door with a bin to disposal, but not for reuse. What kind of person would reuse a mask? It's like using someone else's napkin, disgusting.
while I agree about the napkin and wouldn't use one myself I am sure many will. I took the honest route and merely said his choice my custom or tell me to wear a mask
How many one here would use someone else's napkin? I suspect zero, the same number of people who would willingly re-use someone else's face mask.
How are they to know the shopkeeper hasn't moved the masks from Box 2 (bin) to Box 1 (for new customers)?
Well if they are disposable surgical kind it'll be really obvious if it's used.
Regardless of the anecdote it is obvious that the supposed purpose of the legislation....getting people out spending is going to be a fail when it comes to many people.
In the unlikely event of them not doing a uturn on it just from me they will have cut out my daily trip to a cafe because you need to wear a mask at the counter. The money I spend at the local shop. The money I spend at the local supermarket and transferred the money to amazon. While I am one person that is a net local economy loss of maybe 100£ a week. If even only 10% of people do the same(and I suspect refuseniks will be more like 25%) then thats a large hit to local economies
You are exactly right, this will be the end of the high street.
Does anyone know if mask wearing applies to Betting Shops?
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Yes, and Covid-19 was very much a novel disease in many ways, so I think a fair amount of chaos in the early response was inevitable. What is certainly true is the commonly-expressed view that the early UK response was awful compared with other European countries doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.
Relative mortality figures may say otherwise. Obviously some countries, particularly USA, Brazil etc seem to have done even worse.
Plenty to criticise the PM for. Choosing a democracy over a Communist dictatorship is not one of them.
Though does rather beg the question as to why the Communist dictatorship was such a good choice just 6 months ago by the same PM. Lack of judgement is the issue.
Delaying 5G for several years has quite an impact too, particularly in areas where fast wired broadband is also going to be a long time coming. Britain in the slow lane yet again.
Wait until the Tory MPs force the government to mandate removal of Huawei from the FTTC and FTTP network as well as 2G/3G/4G and force a 2025 deadline and for this to be replicated across all of Europe. I wouldn't want to be a BT, Vodafone or Deutsch Telekom shareholder.
Plenty to criticise the PM for. Choosing a democracy over a Communist dictatorship is not one of them.
Though does rather beg the question as to why the Communist dictatorship was such a good choice just 6 months ago by the same PM. Lack of judgement is the issue.
Delaying 5G for several years has quite an impact too, particularly in areas where fast wired broadband is also going to be a long time coming. Britain in the slow lane yet again.
Currently its a problem without any good solution, hence the indecision, cabinet splits and u-turn, we might even re u-turn at some point between now and 2027.
Longer term its the sort of problem that could be mitigated by closer co-operation with our neighbours and similar governments and really investing in education and tech. None of those things are happening effectively.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
I'm happy with Frogs, I'm happy with Kiwis, I'm happy with calling Americans Yankees (and happy to wind up Southern Redneck Americans by calling them that).
It cuts the other way too. I'm happy to be called a Sassenach, a Limey, a Pommie Bastard, or Les Rosbif. My father-in-law refers to me sometimes when he speaks to my wife as "the Sassenach" and I'm OK with that.
If its past the lagershed I'm happy to refer to the Welsh and Kiwis by their other nickname, but since its not past the lagershed and I don't want to offend Mr G I'm not going to do more than hint at that.
I'm not happy with anything (besides tongue-in-cheek things) that are intended to cause genuine offence. Which are mainly those aimed at non-whites. I would never say the P-word or N-word or W-word or similar.
I seem to recall a football match in Istanbul where the (I think, may be maligning) Liverpool supporters, much provoked (IIRC) by the locals, sang that 'They'd rather be a P.... than a Turk'.
Once again the government proving it is completely useless when it comes to basic data analysis. It shouldn't need a team of scientists from one of the world's top universities to figure this stuff out. A half decent team of data analysts would be able to automate this in no time and get accurate daily readings.
I do sometimes wonder how data literate the top scientific advisors actually are. I would never have gotten on that stage and presented those graphs, I'd have been too embarrassed.
What is this article actually saying?
Imperial College research showed there were, on average, 13 positive cases for every 10,000 people.
This means the R number was lower than thought at 0.57, the study suggests.
But this does not take into account infections in care homes and hospitals at the time.
Calculated using this information, the national overall reproduction number - or R - was estimated to be between 0.7 and 1 during May.
So, is it saying that the number actually was higher than 0.57 because the study doesn't take into account infections in care homes and hospitals? That's not what the rest of the article- or other reporting on this- seems to imply.
But I'm not clear on exactly how they got these numbers. It looks like they tried to get a representative population and then just used the overall numbers for the population over time to calculate R. But what I'm not sure of:
a) Did the "representative population" take account of key worker status? That's mentioned as a covariate, but isn't shown in Table 2. b) They only contacted a representative population- once they got responses, they didn't try to adjust those to remain representative. So if the contacted population was representative by key worker status, was the population that responded representative too? Were there any other demographic characteristics that ended up being unrepresentative? c) Once you break down population by day of test, were they still representative? If not, was this somehow included in their error range on R?
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
I'm happy with Frogs, I'm happy with Kiwis, I'm happy with calling Americans Yankees (and happy to wind up Southern Redneck Americans by calling them that).
It cuts the other way too. I'm happy to be called a Sassenach, a Limey, a Pommie Bastard, or Les Rosbif. My father-in-law refers to me sometimes when he speaks to my wife as "the Sassenach" and I'm OK with that.
If its past the lagershed I'm happy to refer to the Welsh and Kiwis by their other nickname, but since its not past the lagershed and I don't want to offend Mr G I'm not going to do more than hint at that.
I'm not happy with anything (besides tongue-in-cheek things) that are intended to cause genuine offence. Which are mainly those aimed at non-whites. I would never say the P-word or N-word or W-word or similar.
Just a thought - as "redskin" has been retired as an acceptable term, shouldn't there be a reciprocal gesture to also retire "redneck"?
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Yes, and Covid-19 was very much a novel disease in many ways, so I think a fair amount of chaos in the early response was inevitable. What is certainly true is that the commonly-expressed view that the early UK response was awful compared with other European countries doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.
Of course it doesn't. This is a brand new diesease, a once in a 100 year pandemic. The biggest critique of our Government's approach in March was that they should have learned lessons from Italy. They did, they cleared out the hospitals, which turned out not to be necessary. But nobody know that would be the case. Even now Governements are struggling massively to deal with Covid despite their being 6 months worth of experience in the world.
Anyone who thinks the future enquiry will find massive faults in our response is dreaming.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
I'm happy with Frogs, I'm happy with Kiwis, I'm happy with calling Americans Yankees (and happy to wind up Southern Redneck Americans by calling them that).
It cuts the other way too. I'm happy to be called a Sassenach, a Limey, a Pommie Bastard, or Les Rosbif. My father-in-law refers to me sometimes when he speaks to my wife as "the Sassenach" and I'm OK with that.
If its past the lagershed I'm happy to refer to the Welsh and Kiwis by their other nickname, but since its not past the lagershed and I don't want to offend Mr G I'm not going to do more than hint at that.
I'm not happy with anything (besides tongue-in-cheek things) that are intended to cause genuine offence. Which are mainly those aimed at non-whites. I would never say the P-word or N-word or W-word or similar.
I seem to recall a football match in Istanbul where the (I think, may be maligning) Liverpool supporters, much provoked (IIRC) by the locals, sang that 'They'd rather be a P.... than a Turk'.
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
Yes, and Covid-19 was very much a novel disease in many ways, so I think a fair amount of chaos in the early response was inevitable. What is certainly true is the commonly-expressed view that the early UK response was awful compared with other European countries doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.
Relative mortality figures may say otherwise. Obviously some countries, particularly USA, Brazil etc seem to have done even worse.
Tut tut - you should know better than assert that differences in the relative mortality figures (which in any case are not accurately known yet) were all due to differences in government response rather than other factors. I trust your logic is more sound than that in your professional work!
A Wealth Tax is an exciting prospect. But will a Conservative government really do that? One for the 'believe it when I see it' basket.
Just like my argument on CGT on residential properties it does seem to be a very anti Conservative thing to do, so would be a bold move.
I also think a wealth tax would be difficult to implement.
There is a need to tap into wealth - of which there is oodles - if we are to maintain the sort of public realm we have become used to.
Your CGT on homes makes sense imo but it has next to no chance of happening because of the way we view home ownership here. There's a strong intellectual and moral case for it though.
Even Corbyn wasn't stupid enough to propose CGT on primary residences in his manifesto. If he had, Labour might have struggled to hold on to more than 150 seats...
I think we're all agreed it resides on the (quite long) list of things that arguably make sense but cannot be even floated because of public perceptions and sensitivities.
A Wealth Tax, OTOH, is perhaps yet another bit of "Corbyn lunacy" that the Tories will end up doing. Maybe UBI as well. And income tax rises on high earners? Oh and possibly even something around national broadband. We will see.
Perhaps it's better that they do it rather than Labour. Perhaps there will be less outrage. Less fear of what it signifies. Touch of the Nixons goes to Chinas.
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Dare I suggest that a government that can handle something as major as a pandemic well has far too much redundancy in its capacity and is unacceptably expensive every other year?
I think that is incorrect. Being able to respond to serious unforseen events in order to protect the public is a core function of government. Of course there is a cost just as there is a cost associated with having insurance, but it needn't be prohibitively high. Our public sector was in a threadbare state going into this crisis, especially at the local level, and it has shown. Plus of course a pandemic is probably no less unlikely than a nuclear war and that doesn't stop us spending billions on Trident.
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
I'm happy with Frogs, I'm happy with Kiwis, I'm happy with calling Americans Yankees (and happy to wind up Southern Redneck Americans by calling them that).
It cuts the other way too. I'm happy to be called a Sassenach, a Limey, a Pommie Bastard, or Les Rosbif. My father-in-law refers to me sometimes when he speaks to my wife as "the Sassenach" and I'm OK with that.
If its past the lagershed I'm happy to refer to the Welsh and Kiwis by their other nickname, but since its not past the lagershed and I don't want to offend Mr G I'm not going to do more than hint at that.
I'm not happy with anything (besides tongue-in-cheek things) that are intended to cause genuine offence. Which are mainly those aimed at non-whites. I would never say the P-word or N-word or W-word or similar.
I seem to recall a football match in Istanbul where the (I think, may be maligning) Liverpool supporters, much provoked (IIRC) by the locals, sang that 'They'd rather be a P.... than a Turk'.
But intertestingly, they'd rather not a be Cockney (which also scans).
The Central London economy (Zone 1) is entirely reliant on office workers and tourists.
Tourism is unlikely to recover in full for some years. Office working will recover, but to a new “norm” - 2 days in / 3 days out seems likely.
We can fully expect and are already witnessing the collapse of the central London service economy - restaurants, cafes, theatres, galleries and indeed retail - and a savage scale back in public transport services, necessitated by inevitable budget crises.
*Some* economic activity will be displaced back to St Albans, Guildford etc, but most of it will migrate online in the form of Amazon and Ocado delivery. Theatres will not start putting productions on in Luton...the “creative pound” will move to Netflix.
The lamps are going out along Oxford Street, we shall not see them lit....for a long time.
The fear is not that economic activity will be displaced to St Albans or to (lightly taxed, mainly American companies) online but that it will disappear completely if no-one will visit London's theatres, galleries or Michelin-starred restaurants.
If people don't visit London's restaurants or other entertainment they'll still want to eat or have other entertainment so they'll visit restaurants or other entertainment closer to home.
The idea restaurants only exist within London is . . . odd.
Or London may decline in importance as a tourist/cultural capital. And if you take out London you may reduce the desire of tourists to come to the UK to see Stonehenge or the Angel of the North or Stratford upon Avon.
If you are saying that the UK can do without tourists I would call that "brave".
Tourists don't come to London because of the restaurants. If you ask an American, or a Frog or an Italian who want to come to London why they want to travel the answer is not going to be "for the food".
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
A Frog?
Unlike you.
Why?
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
Frog does not come across like Kiwi. It's more akin to Kraut for German.
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
I'm happy with Frogs, I'm happy with Kiwis, I'm happy with calling Americans Yankees (and happy to wind up Southern Redneck Americans by calling them that).
It cuts the other way too. I'm happy to be called a Sassenach, a Limey, a Pommie Bastard, or Les Rosbif. My father-in-law refers to me sometimes when he speaks to my wife as "the Sassenach" and I'm OK with that.
If its past the lagershed I'm happy to refer to the Welsh and Kiwis by their other nickname, but since its not past the lagershed and I don't want to offend Mr G I'm not going to do more than hint at that.
I'm not happy with anything (besides tongue-in-cheek things) that are intended to cause genuine offence. Which are mainly those aimed at non-whites. I would never say the P-word or N-word or W-word or similar.
I seem to recall a football match in Istanbul where the (I think, may be maligning) Liverpool supporters, much provoked (IIRC) by the locals, sang that 'They'd rather be a P.... than a Turk'.
I think that was Chelsea fans.
Ah, thanks.Must ask the Chelsea fans in my family.
The latest Let’s Get Going government campaign for the end of the transition period is utter delusional claptrap .
Saddling business with 7 billion annual costs and restricting the freedoms of its citizens is being sold as some wonderful opportunity !
I guess the ads are targeted at those bought into the platitudes about sovereignty and economic independence and the government want to distract them from actually finding out what Brexit actually involves and what they need to do to cope with it, which is the ostensible purpose of the campaign. Can't see it impressing anyone not bought into the ideology.
A personal irritation is their humbug about Brexit opportunities. The Brexit effect is entirely to take away opportunities that people previously enjoyed. Stick to the platitudes on sovereignty and independence.
The latest Let’s Get Going government campaign for the end of the transition period is utter delusional claptrap .
Saddling business with 7 billion annual costs and restricting the freedoms of its citizens is being sold as some wonderful opportunity !
I guess the ads are targeted at those bought into the platitudes about sovereignty and economic independence and the government want to distract them from actually finding out what Brexit actually involves and what they need to do to cope with it, which is the ostensible purpose of the campaign. Can't see it impressing anyone not bought into the ideology.
A personal irritation is their humbug about Brexit opportunities. The Brexit effect is entirely to take away opportunities that people previously enjoyed. Stick to the platitudes on sovereignty and independence.
It just serves to annoy former Remainers. Absolute and total propaganda, at the taxpayer (my) expense.
Comments
"To give shops time to put the system in place" according to M Hancock.
Long term I would like to see Council tax reformed so that it better targets the person with the wealth.
Tourists come to London for our history. To see the Palaces etc - and there will always be some restaurants in tourist-popular areas even if they're less frequented by commuters.
And as research has moved to airborne rather than surface infection, shops are probably relatively safe places.
Unlike you.
Office workers go to the same home each day too, so an office worker knows who they live with and knows who they work with.
What you don't know is who else has been in the shop with you. You don't know who was walking down the aisle just before you. You don't know whose exhale you are now breathing in, in the shops.
Hopefully that's just the fact that contact tracing is finding people earlier.
One metric I haven't seen talked about is when/how people are discovered as positive. Option 1 is when they present with symptoms, when it is perhaps/probably too late as they've already infected others. Option 2 is before they've got symptoms.
It seems like to keep numbers down while lockdown eases, we need to shift from 1 to 2, to stop the onward spread.
I refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis too. Its more polite than calling them and the Welsh by their other nickname.
What did John Julius Norwich say his father told him about Venice? Only go inside two buildings - St. Marks and Harry's Bar.
Do you really think that the Tower of London would provide the appeal if people couldn't before during or after go and eat, drink or be merry?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/15/revealed-the-inside-story-of-europes-divided-coronavirus-response
Executive summary: It was pretty chaotic everywhere.
Texas Dem candidate for senate. Looks a good choice from the picture.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCEYUSjlWCL/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCFRh2CFhVD/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCHUroslnBW/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCHrsG7FvrA/
Now I suppose it's technically possible that none of these incidents involve Garrels, or they're all untrue, and they're just targeting him for no reason. But given the extreme step they've taken I don't see any reason to jump to that rather strange assumption.
Your CGT on homes makes sense imo but it has next to no chance of happening because of the way we view home ownership here. There's a strong intellectual and moral case for it though.
Using your example it would vaguely be OK if they are estimating a confidence intervall of 0.7 to 0.9, to then report as a headline figure R=0.9.
I suspect the proper CIs are much wider than that though, with a width of 0.5 or so. My "professional gut feeling" is that someone has developed a statistical method of estimating R with confidence limits without factoring in the sensitivity of the model to the variability of the input data.
As for in house versus university - I'm sure ONS is quite capable of doing R calculations with any halfway decent data. If what Imperial has done is a lot more complicated and involves specialist knowledge then I'm not sure that it makes sense for the government to employ those specialists instead full time - what do they do when there's no pandemic?
In the unlikely event of them not doing a uturn on it just from me they will have cut out my daily trip to a cafe because you need to wear a mask at the counter. The money I spend at the local shop. The money I spend at the local supermarket and transferred the money to amazon. While I am one person that is a net local economy loss of maybe 100£ a week. If even only 10% of people do the same(and I suspect refuseniks will be more like 25%) then thats a large hit to local economies
Just surprised to hear it from you. It sounded "off". To me it did anyway.
No biggie - but I'd have a think and then check back with yourself that you're happy with it.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/florida-labs-covid-19-positivity-rates-listed-by-state-are-wrong_3424223.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-07-15
That Government were asking for such plans - but they weren't forthcoming - was (ostensibly) the reason for Sedwill being moved out.
For those who claim this cartoon is inaccurate...
President Trump has attempted to claim credit for Boris Johnson’s decision to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G network, saying he convinced the UK that the Chinese company was “unsafe”.
In a press conference at the White House Mr Trump said that “I did this myself, for the most part” as he spoke of having worked to pressure nations to not use Huawei. He added: “If they want to do business with us, they can’t use it.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/president-trump-claims-credit-for-britains-huawei-ban-nklxl6dsh
https://twitter.com/Smyth_Chris/status/1283355526248779778
https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1283325435238064128
Why is this man suddenly a credible witness worth listening to just because you want his nonsense to be true?
The US are our true masters. They say 'jump', we say 'how high'.
Now with Brexit, this fact is just going to be reinforced a hundred times over!
When will the pea-brained Brexiteers understand this simple fact.
It cuts the other way too. I'm happy to be called a Sassenach, a Limey, a Pommie Bastard, or Les Rosbif. My father-in-law refers to me sometimes when he speaks to my wife as "the Sassenach" and I'm OK with that.
If its past the lagershed I'm happy to refer to the Welsh and Kiwis by their other nickname, but since its not past the lagershed and I don't want to offend Mr G I'm not going to do more than hint at that.
I'm not happy with anything (besides tongue-in-cheek things) that are intended to cause genuine offence. Which are mainly those aimed at non-whites. I would never say the P-word or N-word or W-word or similar.
And solicitors are different again.
Delaying 5G for several years has quite an impact too, particularly in areas where fast wired broadband is also going to be a long time coming. Britain in the slow lane yet again.
Does anyone know if mask wearing applies to Betting Shops?
Shame
https://twitter.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1283296820395991040
https://twitter.com/charlotteahenry/status/1283357732632956928
We better now just hope Nokia and/or Ericsson pull their fingers out!
Longer term its the sort of problem that could be mitigated by closer co-operation with our neighbours and similar governments and really investing in education and tech. None of those things are happening effectively.
Imperial College research showed there were, on average, 13 positive cases for every 10,000 people.
This means the R number was lower than thought at 0.57, the study suggests.
But this does not take into account infections in care homes and hospitals at the time.
Calculated using this information, the national overall reproduction number - or R - was estimated to be between 0.7 and 1 during May.
So, is it saying that the number actually was higher than 0.57 because the study doesn't take into account infections in care homes and hospitals? That's not what the rest of the article- or other reporting on this- seems to imply.
The study itself (it's a preprint) is available at
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.10.20150524v1.full.pdf
But I'm not clear on exactly how they got these numbers. It looks like they tried to get a representative population and then just used the overall numbers for the population over time to calculate R. But what I'm not sure of:
a) Did the "representative population" take account of key worker status? That's mentioned as a covariate, but isn't shown in Table 2.
b) They only contacted a representative population- once they got responses, they didn't try to adjust those to remain representative. So if the contacted population was representative by key worker status, was the population that responded representative too? Were there any other demographic characteristics that ended up being unrepresentative?
c) Once you break down population by day of test, were they still representative? If not, was this somehow included in their error range on R?
The biggest critique of our Government's approach in March was that they should have learned lessons from Italy. They did, they cleared out the hospitals, which turned out not to be necessary. But nobody know that would be the case. Even now Governements are struggling massively to deal with Covid despite their being 6 months worth of experience in the world.
Anyone who thinks the future enquiry will find massive faults in our response is dreaming.
A Wealth Tax, OTOH, is perhaps yet another bit of "Corbyn lunacy" that the Tories will end up doing. Maybe UBI as well. And income tax rises on high earners? Oh and possibly even something around national broadband. We will see.
Perhaps it's better that they do it rather than Labour. Perhaps there will be less outrage. Less fear of what it signifies. Touch of the Nixons goes to Chinas.
Boris Johnson.
They have some limits after all.
A personal irritation is their humbug about Brexit opportunities. The Brexit effect is entirely to take away opportunities that people previously enjoyed. Stick to the platitudes on sovereignty and independence.
LA, Paris, Tokyo, Rio, London, Beijing, Athens, Sydney, Barcelona, Seoul, Moscow, Birmingham.