Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
What people should also be thinking about is how this bodes ill for the largest act of social gathering since February - the return of schools, in Scotland a fortnight or so from today, and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from September.
If we can’t meet in a couple of small pubs without causing alarming surges, how do we manage many hundreds of people all in one building?
I'll be amazed if schools in England go back in September.
The first test will be Scotland with all school attendance on tne 18th August
I really fear it will prove very problematic and that both England and Wales will struggle in early September to fully return
That’s worrying me as well. @Fysics_Teacher and I went through some of the problems schools face last night, but it’s not easy to see solutions.
Has there been any contingency planning if kids dont come back in big enough numbers or will we start to worry about that when it happens like most of our policies?
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
Please explain this interview last night from Andy Burnham.He clearly knew what the measures were before he pretended that he didn't in his tweet last night.
I don’t know, or care. What Burnham knew, or didn’t know, is irrelevant.
Like I said, what the Government is doing is the right thing, and they are learning, but it certainly is not what good looks like.
How is it irrelevant? He is the Mayor of Manchester, he clearly knew about all the measures as the Government had told him.Then he pretended that he didn't.
And right on cue, the SLab grassroots finally start to grow a backbone.
- “Keir Starmer will get nowhere in his ambitious plans until he wades into this issue, whatever the almost inevitable criticism of interfering in domestic matters, and awaken Scottish Labour from their apparent slumbers and their notion that they will get somewhere in political life grimly holding on to their present status as a nostalgic cult.”
Ian Murray is by far their best option, but he also has the handicap of being in the wrong parliament.
All the SLab MSPs are utterly useless, with the key leadership candidates Jackie Baillie and Anas Sarwar being some of the biggest dumplings.
You have just cited a website whose own lawyer said nobody believes a word it writes, run by a man who deliberately and knowingly publishes fake news to support a far-left agenda, and who sees nothing wrong with taking money from ordinary working people to pay his legal bills, and whose own views are repellent to all sane Labour members, as evidence of something?
Doesn’t really do your credibility on this point any favours.
He may of course be right in this case - I know very little about Douglas Ross and the boy who cried wolf is apposite - but if you want anyone to believe you, try citing an actual publication not run by a deranged extremist, forger and liar.
The same video and story are available on a wide range of media, including the state broadcaster. Don’t shoot the messenger. The message is clear: Ross is an unpleasant, small-minded hater. Which will let him blend in with the rest of the New UKIP Party.
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives an education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives and education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
What people should also be thinking about is how this bodes ill for the largest act of social gathering since February - the return of schools, in Scotland a fortnight or so from today, and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from September.
If we can’t meet in a couple of small pubs without causing alarming surges, how do we manage many hundreds of people all in one building?
I'll be amazed if schools in England go back in September.
The first test will be Scotland with all school attendance on tne 18th August
I really fear it will prove very problematic and that both England and Wales will struggle in early September to fully return
That’s worrying me as well. @Fysics_Teacher and I went through some of the problems schools face last night, but it’s not easy to see solutions.
Has there been any contingency planning if kids dont come back in big enough numbers or will we start to worry about that when it happens like most of our policies?
Yes, but AIUI it’s on a school by school basis not nationally.
On one level of course, that makes sense. What will be needed for an inner city school in Stoke in one, modern, badly ventilated building would be different from Denstone with its vast campus.
On another, it does mean that the government has set aside no money to pay for any strategy. This at a time when all the new funding they have announced has been swallowed up by giving teachers an unfunded pay rise.
Edit - on rereading your comment, you seem to be asking, ‘what happens if they refuse to come back?’ I should point out that from September if they are entered on a school’s roll they will by law be required to attend unless the government changes its advice.
The alternative for parents will be to officially home school them.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives an education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
Catalonia says not, Madrid will probably say the same
And right on cue, the SLab grassroots finally start to grow a backbone.
- “Keir Starmer will get nowhere in his ambitious plans until he wades into this issue, whatever the almost inevitable criticism of interfering in domestic matters, and awaken Scottish Labour from their apparent slumbers and their notion that they will get somewhere in political life grimly holding on to their present status as a nostalgic cult.”
Ian Murray is by far their best option, but he also has the handicap of being in the wrong parliament.
All the SLab MSPs are utterly useless, with the key leadership candidates Jackie Baillie and Anas Sarwar being some of the biggest dumplings.
You have just cited a website whose own lawyer said nobody believes a word it writes, run by a man who deliberately and knowingly publishes fake news to support a far-left agenda, and who sees nothing wrong with taking money from ordinary working people to pay his legal bills, and whose own views are repellent to all sane Labour members, as evidence of something?
Doesn’t really do your credibility on this point any favours.
He may of course be right in this case - I know very little about Douglas Ross and the boy who cried wolf is apposite - but if you want anyone to believe you, try citing an actual publication not run by a deranged extremist, forger and liar.
The same video and story are available on a wide range of media, including the state broadcaster. Don’t shoot the messenger. The message is clear: Ross is an unpleasant, small-minded hater. Which will let him blend in with the rest of the New UKIP Party.
If it’s available on a range of media, cite one of them. Don’t cite a website that admits it is built entirely on fabrications.
Or to put it another way, if you want to say something about the Holocaust, don’t cite David Irving, because even if what he says is correct people will assume that it isn’t.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
Why hadn’t someone in the civil service drafted guidance for local lockdowns in advance? Therefore you can just copy and paste the names of the local authorities and/or post codes and issue a full set of guidance along with the original announcement?
It’s not hard to see how this could have been better. I’m not blaming the government per se, but its not perfect by any means.
What people should also be thinking about is how this bodes ill for the largest act of social gathering since February - the return of schools, in Scotland a fortnight or so from today, and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from September.
If we can’t meet in a couple of small pubs without causing alarming surges, how do we manage many hundreds of people all in one building?
I'll be amazed if schools in England go back in September.
The first test will be Scotland with all school attendance on tne 18th August
I really fear it will prove very problematic and that both England and Wales will struggle in early September to fully return
That’s worrying me as well. @Fysics_Teacher and I went through some of the problems schools face last night, but it’s not easy to see solutions.
Has there been any contingency planning if kids dont come back in big enough numbers or will we start to worry about that when it happens like most of our policies?
Yes, but AIUI it’s on a school by school basis not nationally.
On one level of course, that makes sense. What will be needed for an inner city school in Stoke in one, modern, badly ventilated building would be different from Denstone with its vast campus.
On another, it does mean that the government has set aside no money to pay for any strategy. This at a time when all the new funding they have announced has been swallowed up by giving teachers an unfunded pay rise.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Agreed. It could also have been criticized and subsequently improved and iterated in that time.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Not really. They are all different permutations of “don't meet anyone outside your social bubble”.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
Why hadn’t someone in the civil service drafted guidance for local lockdowns in advance? Therefore you can just copy and paste the names of the local authorities and/or post codes and issue a full set of guidance along with the original announcement?
It’s not hard to see how this could have been better. I’m not blaming the government per se, but its not perfect by any means.
To be honest nothing can be perfect in what is a chaotic event causing strains across governments worldwide
Reports from Europe are very worrying as we sadly see a resurgence of covid
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Not really. They are all different permutations of “don't meet anyone outside your social bubble”.
Unless you are spending money on a bus, in the pub, a restaurant etc. Then its fine
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Most people in Scotland live densely in cities, or in the suburban central belt. Looking at the size of the country on the map doesnt really work.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Do you really think this has been carefully and thoughtfully targeted?
People can still holiday there? Why? You can meet in a pub garden but not your own garden. Why?
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives and education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
That is fine and dandy, so long as you and yours don't succumb to the virus.
When we have seen figures in the UK of somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 people dying of this virus, and without lockdown that number would have been multiplied several times over, your attitude beggars belief.
Yes, the collateral damage is immense, but saving mums, dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters must be the primary aim.
And right on cue, the SLab grassroots finally start to grow a backbone.
- “Keir Starmer will get nowhere in his ambitious plans until he wades into this issue, whatever the almost inevitable criticism of interfering in domestic matters, and awaken Scottish Labour from their apparent slumbers and their notion that they will get somewhere in political life grimly holding on to their present status as a nostalgic cult.”
Ian Murray is by far their best option, but he also has the handicap of being in the wrong parliament.
All the SLab MSPs are utterly useless, with the key leadership candidates Jackie Baillie and Anas Sarwar being some of the biggest dumplings.
You have just cited a website whose own lawyer said nobody believes a word it writes, run by a man who deliberately and knowingly publishes fake news to support a far-left agenda, and who sees nothing wrong with taking money from ordinary working people to pay his legal bills, and whose own views are repellent to all sane Labour members, as evidence of something?
Doesn’t really do your credibility on this point any favours.
He may of course be right in this case - I know very little about Douglas Ross and the boy who cried wolf is apposite - but if you want anyone to believe you, try citing an actual publication not run by a deranged extremist, forger and liar.
The same video and story are available on a wide range of media, including the state broadcaster. Don’t shoot the messenger. The message is clear: Ross is an unpleasant, small-minded hater. Which will let him blend in with the rest of the New UKIP Party.
If he is that unpleasant, small minded and hate-filled, I'm surprised you don't have more sympathy with him. Wrong brand of small minded hate I suppose.
I have seen the video a few times now, and whilst it's clearly a 'quickfire' style interview, not a chance to offer a balanced essay, Ross isn't asked to restrict his thoughts to a sentence, and the promptness of the cut after he says 'Gypsy travellers' indicates there is more that follows to substantiate his thoughts that the editor of the film decided to leave out.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
If the Government were clever they would have collaborated on the “local lockdown” rules with the opposition and the media.
A tall order, when Ministers often contradict each other on the same day.
And others add countries to the banned list because they hate the minister who created the whole "air corridor" plan just as that minister is off there on his hols.
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Most people in Scotland live densely in cities, or in the suburban central belt. Looking at the size of the country on the map doesnt really work.
This was discussed here at length, and it was established that even in the 'central belt' (which apparently includes conurbations as far flung as Perth!), population density is a lot, lot lower than in England.
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives and education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
That is fine and dandy, so long as you and yours don't succumb to the virus.
When we have seen figures in the UK of somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 people dying of this virus, and without lockdown that number would have been multiplied several times over, your attitude beggars belief.
Yes, the collateral damage is immense, but saving mums, dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters must be the primary aim.
I agree but we are now approaching a point where those we are wanting to save will be outnumbered by those who this crisis has denied medical intervention and may well pass away in greater numbers
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
Yep - it's very hard to say exactly what is going on without looking scarily racist (and that's just me looking at my own posts below).
The sad thing is that it's obvious if it was possible to bet on lock down areas Birmingham and Southall would be my next bets.
Although even the current areas say it's an bigger issue in Pakistani rather than Indian areas (Pakistanis are usually poorer as well for reasons that are too complex for this post)
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives and education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
That is fine and dandy, so long as you and yours don't succumb to the virus.
When we have seen figures in the UK of somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 people dying of this virus, and without lockdown that number would have been multiplied several times over, your attitude beggars belief.
Yes, the collateral damage is immense, but saving mums, dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters must be the primary aim.
I agree but we are now approaching a point where those we are wanting to save will be outnumbered by those who this crisis has denied medical intervention and may well pass away in greater numbers
It is a horrible conundrum for all lawmakers
Without lockdown, we would be in the hundreds of thousands dead by now. I appreciate your point, but the numbers denied medical attention to the point of it being life-shortening, although high, certainly won't have reached six figures, I wouldn't have thought.
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives and education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
That is fine and dandy, so long as you and yours don't succumb to the virus.
When we have seen figures in the UK of somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 people dying of this virus, and without lockdown that number would have been multiplied several times over, your attitude beggars belief.
Yes, the collateral damage is immense, but saving mums, dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters must be the primary aim.
I agree but we are now approaching a point where those we are wanting to save will be outnumbered by those who this crisis has denied medical intervention and may well pass away in greater numbers
It is a horrible conundrum for all lawmakers
Without lockdown, we would be in the hundreds of thousands dead by now. I appreciate your point, but the numbers denied medical attention to the point of it being life-shortening, although high, certainly won't have reached six figures, I wouldn't have thought.
I agree and I fully support lockdown and todays measures
However, it is a real concern especially if we have a second wave
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
The Texas approach?
Looks neither economically or medically wise to me.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
What people should also be thinking about is how this bodes ill for the largest act of social gathering since February - the return of schools, in Scotland a fortnight or so from today, and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from September.
If we can’t meet in a couple of small pubs without causing alarming surges, how do we manage many hundreds of people all in one building?
I'll be amazed if schools in England go back in September.
The first test will be Scotland with all school attendance on tne 18th August
I really fear it will prove very problematic and that both England and Wales will struggle in early September to fully return
That’s worrying me as well. @Fysics_Teacher and I went through some of the problems schools face last night, but it’s not easy to see solutions.
Has there been any contingency planning if kids dont come back in big enough numbers or will we start to worry about that when it happens like most of our policies?
Yes, but AIUI it’s on a school by school basis not nationally.
On one level of course, that makes sense. What will be needed for an inner city school in Stoke in one, modern, badly ventilated building would be different from Denstone with its vast campus.
On another, it does mean that the government has set aside no money to pay for any strategy. This at a time when all the new funding they have announced has been swallowed up by giving teachers an unfunded pay rise.
Edit - on rereading your comment, you seem to be asking, ‘what happens if they refuse to come back?’ I should point out that from September if they are entered on a school’s roll they will by law be required to attend unless the government changes its advice.
The alternative for parents will be to officially home school them.
I’m expecting lots of pupils to develop “new persistent coughs” (or have family members that do) meaning they can’t come in for a couple of weeks. No school is going to argue with that at the beginning of term.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
How on earth is stating facts racist?
Because there are additional undelying issues such as poverty, multiple occupancy housing and so on.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
Is Eid not celebrated by Londons million strong Muslim community?
Which has the big Orthodox Jewish population with its high population density, multi-generation living, excess religious zeal which so often feature in covid outbreaks.
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
With this virus, that would be a Terry Nation strategy.
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I think herd immunity is showing to be the right strategy when viruses are recurring now in areas of extreme lockdown before . We cannot control this by bossy measures that ruin peoples lives and education. Has everyone forgotten the story of King Canute?
That is fine and dandy, so long as you and yours don't succumb to the virus.
When we have seen figures in the UK of somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 people dying of this virus, and without lockdown that number would have been multiplied several times over, your attitude beggars belief.
Yes, the collateral damage is immense, but saving mums, dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters must be the primary aim.
I agree but we are now approaching a point where those we are wanting to save will be outnumbered by those who this crisis has denied medical intervention and may well pass away in greater numbers
It is a horrible conundrum for all lawmakers
Without lockdown, we would be in the hundreds of thousands dead by now. I appreciate your point, but the numbers denied medical attention to the point of it being life-shortening, although high, certainly won't have reached six figures, I wouldn't have thought.
I agree and I fully support lockdown and todays measures
However, it is a real concern especially if we have a second wave
What should happen is we create a structure where patients have confidence that some medical hospitals and facilities will be kept covid free in the event of a second outbreak. The planning for that should have started in April.
What will happen if we get a second outbreak is we will react to it then and try and work out whats best at the time. Government cheerleaders will say its unfair to criticise as it was a fast moving situation.
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Most people in Scotland live densely in cities, or in the suburban central belt. Looking at the size of the country on the map doesnt really work.
This was discussed here at length, and it was established that even in the 'central belt' (which apparently includes conurbations as far flung as Perth!), population density is a lot, lot lower than in England.
Makes sense - even in England I didn’t realise that Leicester had a population density of pretty much double that of Newcastle/Tyneside.
It's a good thing Greater Manchester has a mayor. The need for differential policy implementation as whack-a-mole hotspots arise has become quite evident. We are going to have to get used to sub-national imposition and lifting of lockdowns as the epidemic evolves.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
How on earth is stating facts racist?
Stating racist facts is racist. Big groups of whitey in the pub? No problem. Muslims doing their Christmas? Nope.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
How on earth is stating facts racist?
Because there are additional undelying issues such as poverty, multiple occupancy housing and so on.
I don't think its multiple occupancy issues, its more high density (3 generations say in say a 3/4 bedroom house).
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
How on earth is stating facts racist?
Because there are additional undelying issues such as poverty, multiple occupancy housing and so on.
I don't think its multiple occupancy issues, its more high density (3 generations say in say a 3/4 bedroom house).
And right on cue, the SLab grassroots finally start to grow a backbone.
- “Keir Starmer will get nowhere in his ambitious plans until he wades into this issue, whatever the almost inevitable criticism of interfering in domestic matters, and awaken Scottish Labour from their apparent slumbers and their notion that they will get somewhere in political life grimly holding on to their present status as a nostalgic cult.”
Ian Murray is by far their best option, but he also has the handicap of being in the wrong parliament.
All the SLab MSPs are utterly useless, with the key leadership candidates Jackie Baillie and Anas Sarwar being some of the biggest dumplings.
Fact that Murray is more Tory than the Tories is also a bit of a handicap. He would be better going for Jackson's job.
Ian Murray has similar problems to those faced by Jo Swinson last year: he has spent so long building a local coalition with the naturally Tory and Lib Dem voters in his (rather atypical) constituency that he has lost touch with Middle Scotland. His instincts are to appeal to Brit Nats, to the Unionist core vote. He is not a “persuader” able to talk round weak 2014 No voters to stay aboard nor to convert DKs to No. He undoubtedly has talent (so did Swinson), but the best he can do is slow down the rot, he cannot save the Union.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
How on earth is stating facts racist?
Because there are additional undelying issues such as poverty, multiple occupancy housing and so on.
I don't think its multiple occupancy issues, its more high density (3 generations say in say a 3/4 bedroom house).
Yes, multigenerational households with a single bathroom would perhaps be a better marker than ethnicity. Good from the family solidarity, social care and child supervision in normal times, but a liability in Covid-19. Even more so with the kids off school.
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Most people in Scotland live densely in cities, or in the suburban central belt. Looking at the size of the country on the map doesnt really work.
This was discussed here at length, and it was established that even in the 'central belt' (which apparently includes conurbations as far flung as Perth!), population density is a lot, lot lower than in England.
Makes sense - even in England I didn’t realise that Leicester had a population density of pretty much double that of Newcastle/Tyneside.
Overreaction from the government . Society needs to get back to normal and being fun not have inconsistent and bossy restrictions for an illness that isn't very dangerous and not very widespread.
We have the most stringent public health restrictions since the Great Plague of 1664. We have all our medical industry turned to fighting this disease, with mixed success. We have some of the most advanced chemical industries in the world pumping out cleaning materials for all they’re worth.
And we still have at this moment north of sixty thousand dead, making this even at a fairly early stage the most lethal epidemic to hit this country since 1919.
If this illness ‘isn‘t very dangerous’ I’d hate to see one that you think IS very dangerous.
We just need to get to herd immunity (its the only way to get over this). The quicker we get there the better for long term society in many ways. Cut pretending this is something we can control - We need King Canute back to show people we cannot control nature
The Texas approach?
Looks neither economically or medically wise to me.
Thatcher’s laissez faire has come full circle: now they want “the market” to just kill off the weak.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
You only have to look at the areas that now have the highest coronavirus rates to know they are areas with high Asian populations.
You could have started your statement with "I'm not racist, but..."
How on earth is stating facts racist?
Because there are additional undelying issues such as poverty, multiple occupancy housing and so on.
I don't think its multiple occupancy issues, its more high density (3 generations say in say a 3/4 bedroom house).
If its just high density London should have far more problems than it does. Education could be a factor, poorer areas in London tend to have better schools than in many other poor areas.
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
I think they panicked when cases started rising again a few weeks ago.
IMO while cases are still in the hundreds that's no problem and helps boost herd immunity a little.
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Most people in Scotland live densely in cities, or in the suburban central belt. Looking at the size of the country on the map doesnt really work.
This was discussed here at length, and it was established that even in the 'central belt' (which apparently includes conurbations as far flung as Perth!), population density is a lot, lot lower than in England.
Makes sense - even in England I didn’t realise that Leicester had a population density of pretty much double that of Newcastle/Tyneside.
It usually depends on how the district boundaries are drawn, in particular how tightly to the urban core.
Newcastle has a lot of parkland and rural areas to the north and west included within the borough.
I’ll calculate it later based on the purely urban wards of Newcastle. Will be interesting if it’s comparable, considering there’s a very, very low rate of covid round here at the moment.
The parkland and rural areas to the north and west are getting less and less though - I should know, my house is built on green belt land in the North West of the city!
What people should also be thinking about is how this bodes ill for the largest act of social gathering since February - the return of schools, in Scotland a fortnight or so from today, and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from September.
If we can’t meet in a couple of small pubs without causing alarming surges, how do we manage many hundreds of people all in one building?
I'll be amazed if schools in England go back in September.
The first test will be Scotland with all school attendance on tne 18th August
I really fear it will prove very problematic and that both England and Wales will struggle in early September to fully return
That’s worrying me as well. @Fysics_Teacher and I went through some of the problems schools face last night, but it’s not easy to see solutions.
And the latest science doesn’t look ideal for the safety of primaries, either.
(Posted at end of previous thread) It’s possible that young children are more infectious than previously thought - though this study is purely about viral loads, not infectiousness.
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Most people in Scotland live densely in cities, or in the suburban central belt. Looking at the size of the country on the map doesnt really work.
This was discussed here at length, and it was established that even in the 'central belt' (which apparently includes conurbations as far flung as Perth!), population density is a lot, lot lower than in England.
Makes sense - even in England I didn’t realise that Leicester had a population density of pretty much double that of Newcastle/Tyneside.
It usually depends on how the district boundaries are drawn, in particular how tightly to the urban core.
Newcastle has a lot of parkland and rural areas to the north and west included within the borough.
Leith Walk Council ward in Edinburgh, which hardly looks to be over flowing with high rise buildings, has a population density of 12,772 people per square kilometre making it one of the densest places in the UK.
Judging pop density is really hard and as you say is easy to be skewed by the inclusion of parkland, fields and lakes in boundaries.
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
I think they panicked when cases started rising again a few weeks ago.
IMO while cases are still in the hundreds that's no problem and helps boost herd immunity a little.
Carl Henegehan is saying that if this was flu outbreak we would be saying it is over now based on these low figures.
We are going to utterly destroy our economy and causes 10Ks of unnecessary deaths if we are not careful by allowing our government to panic.
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
Stable rather than decreasing worries me.
I’m starting to think those who said “Eid!” may have had a point. I think sharing a meal is an important part of the celebrations (though I could be completely wrong on this, so please tell me if I am) and social distancing becomes pretty hard to do.
The powers that be may have been hoping that the number of cases would drop to the point where the extra risk was not enough to have to upset people by doing this (as it seems to be in most parts of the country) but then realised at the last minute that there were areas where it had not.
If so, not looking good for the Wedding industry any time soon.
Which has the big Orthodox Jewish population with its high population density, multi-generation living, excess religious zeal which so often feature in covid outbreaks.
Its been suggested that covid outbreaks among Asians are being caused by family visits to the Indian subcontinent.
I wonder if a similar thing might be happening in Hackney with visits to Israel ?
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
Stable rather than decreasing worries me.
I’m starting to think those who said “Eid!” may have had a point. I think sharing a meal is an important part of the celebrations (though I could be completely wrong on this, so please tell me if I am) and social distancing becomes pretty hard to do.
The powers that be may have been hoping that the number of cases would drop to the point where the extra risk was not enough to have to upset people by doing this (as it seems to be in most parts of the country) but then realised at the last minute that there were areas where it had not.
If so, not looking good for the Wedding industry any time soon.
You can still have 30 people at a north west wedding. You can even have guests from outside the area come and head back. Not really sure how this is consistent with quarantine needed from the Balearics where there is less covid and stricter measures in public generally.
It's a good thing Greater Manchester has a mayor. The need for differential policy implementation as whack-a-mole hotspots arise has become quite evident. We are going to have to get used to sub-national imposition and lifting of lockdowns as the epidemic evolves.
Or, we follow Sweden, and learn to live with the virus with 'soft' lockdown that does not destroy our economy and way of life.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
Nothing is changing by the minute the virus is the same as it was 6 months ago, the Tories are bungling it and chopping and changing all the time. They are useless , They have had 6 months to come up with plans and stick to them, they are incompetent and useless.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
Indeed, no one knew what would happen as restrictions were removed. Andy Burnham on BBC is very clear that this is about household gatherings.
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
Yep - it's very hard to say exactly what is going on without looking scarily racist (and that's just me looking at my own posts below).
The sad thing is that it's obvious if it was possible to bet on lock down areas Birmingham and Southall would be my next bets.
Although even the current areas say it's an bigger issue in Pakistani rather than Indian areas (Pakistanis are usually poorer as well for reasons that are too complex for this post)
It is to be hoped that an actual desire to save the lives of Muslims prevails, and political correctness and 'social cohesion' will move down the priority list...
Which has the big Orthodox Jewish population with its high population density, multi-generation living, excess religious zeal which so often feature in covid outbreaks.
Its been suggested that covid outbreaks among Asians are being caused by family visits to the Indian subcontinent.
I wonder if a similar thing might be happening in Hackney with visits to Israel ?
I don't think there have been many family visits yet to the Subcontinent. Partly due to the paucity of flights, but also few go there until the monsoon breaks. A fair number of retired Leicester folk have a couple of months in Gujerat in midwinter, much like the white folk on the Costa del Sol, at least before Brexit.
I do think it is something to anticipate for autumn though.
Perhaps if politicians are so concerned about the Government announcing new measures at very short notice and by the fastest route to get the message out, then they shouldn’t have spent so much time criticising the Government for being slow to react at the start of the pandemic (“every hour/day cost x lives...”), or even more recently when mocking things like new mask rules giving advance notice for people to adapt?
Is Starmer saying there should have been a press conference at 10pm?
With the worst death statistics in Europe, the English government has failed her people. It is simply a fact that HMG were far too slow to act in the early stages of the pandemic, when Italians, Spaniards, French and Germans were warning you of the obvious error. England is still too slow in doing the right things. What we are witnessing now is Westminster in full panic mode.
England worst. Scotland not far behind in third. Tone down the moral outrage, you risk sounding smug - with so little cause.
That the best you can do , all well as Scotland is half as bad as England and the Spanish are not great either. Not care to comment on your heroes great performance rather than pointing at squirrels.
I think it's quite clear that British overall mortality since coronavirus started leaves significant room for improvement. But I think when you divide England, Scotland, Wales and NI up, there are not really differences that indicate (to me) that Scotland, Wales or NI had better policies, or followed them with far greater rigour, or had significantly better health services leading to significantly better coronavirus survival rates.
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
Most people in Scotland live densely in cities, or in the suburban central belt. Looking at the size of the country on the map doesnt really work.
This was discussed here at length, and it was established that even in the 'central belt' (which apparently includes conurbations as far flung as Perth!), population density is a lot, lot lower than in England.
Makes sense - even in England I didn’t realise that Leicester had a population density of pretty much double that of Newcastle/Tyneside.
Few medals for any of them , the results are shocking and all of UK should be hanging their heads in shame, however it is all run by Bozo the clown from London , the regions have little autonomy or option to do anything much different given almost all the levers of power are in London. No matter how you try to dress it up , this shambles lies at the feet of London government, rotten to the core. The thick public that vote for these odious creeps are getting exactly what they deserve.
That tweet was last night and a far cry from his Sky interview this am
Well the details have been announced now!
What is with you guys being unable to accept any tiny amount of criticism of the government?
I can accept criticism and there is plenty to have a go at but ultimately this pandemic is changing by the minute and decisions are having to be made instantly.
The rules for a local pandemic could have been published a month ago, so any town that it applied to would know exactly what it meant?
Not really as the rules have to be specific and targetted.
What we need is stability and clarity - as, for example, Italy seems to be delivering.
One set of national rules that apply to everyone and that are announced to remain for several months at least.
Another set of rules for local lockdown areas, that apply to everyone in those areas and that are announced to remain (the rules, not the areas) for several months at least.
As clear and logical as possible, widely communicated.
Then all you need is to decide whether to move individual towns or regions from one to the other.
The national rules only need to change slowly and deliberately, depending on our alert stage.
Surely this is what was intended when Bozo first announced the national five stage alert system (seconds before he buggered it up by starting us off at three-and-a-half)?
It's a good thing Greater Manchester has a mayor. The need for differential policy implementation as whack-a-mole hotspots arise has become quite evident. We are going to have to get used to sub-national imposition and lifting of lockdowns as the epidemic evolves.
And his line seems somewhat different from SKS's From the BBC: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester - an area with a population of about 2.8 million - said he agreed with the decision as there had been a "marked change in the picture" with regard to the spread of Covid-19 in the area.
"We have gone from a falling rate of cases in nearly all of our boroughs last week to a rising rate in nine out of 10 affecting communities across a much wider geography," he said. "In Rochdale, the one borough where cases have fallen, they are still too high."
He said all residents "young and old alike" should "protect each other" by observing the requirements, which will be reviewed weekly.
This means "the more we stick to them, the quicker they will be removed", he said.
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
I think they panicked when cases started rising again a few weeks ago.
IMO while cases are still in the hundreds that's no problem and helps boost herd immunity a little.
Carl Henegehan is saying that if this was flu outbreak we would be saying it is over now based on these low figures.
We are going to utterly destroy our economy and causes 10Ks of unnecessary deaths if we are not careful by allowing our government to panic.
Current infection rates are under 1% of what they were at the peak in March.
But they're at a much higher proportion of what was being reported back then because of the lack of testing we had then.
I wonder if that is confusing the government.
It would seem ridiculous but given the innumeracy of politicians its a possibility.
King Felipe VI, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the President of the Senate, Pilar Llop, the President of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, host of the conference and the autonomous presidents pose for the family photo upon arrival at the San Millán monastery from Yuso. Image: EFE / Chema Moya
Good to see a rule putting himself about and leading the people by example!
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
I think they panicked when cases started rising again a few weeks ago.
IMO while cases are still in the hundreds that's no problem and helps boost herd immunity a little.
Carl Henegehan is saying that if this was flu outbreak we would be saying it is over now based on these low figures.
We are going to utterly destroy our economy and causes 10Ks of unnecessary deaths if we are not careful by allowing our government to panic.
If you vote for odious self seeking creeps you only have yourself to blame. These clowns needed your vote to et to the position where they could wreck the country. They will come out of it fine and dandy though.
I'm glad the Government are taking the virus much more seriously and acting more proactively.
Whether a tweet is the best way of announcing something, I'm not sure but I can't see why we have to stick to antiquated methods.
A tweet is fine, but more detailed guidance seems to be lacking or ambiguous. Very poor for the government not to put someone up on 5 live this morning
China and Taiwan split in 1949 after nationalist forces lost a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists, fleeing to the island which Beijing has since vowed to seize one day, by force if necessary.
“The law makes me dislike China even more,” said 18-year-old student Sylvia Chang, walking through National Taiwan University in Taipei.
“They had promised 50 years unchanged for Hong Kong but they are getting all the more heavy-handed. … I am worried Hong Kong today could be Taiwan tomorrow.”
Over the years China has used a mixture of threats and inducements, including a promise Taiwan could have the “one country, two systems” model that governs Hong Kong, supposedly guaranteeing key civil liberties and a degree of autonomy for 50 years after the city’s 1997 handover....
It’s become very clear that there is now now chance of Taiwan consenting to reunification with the mainland. What really isn’t clear at all is how serious is now the threat of it happening by force. Which is no longer an obscure issue for the West, given our dependence on Taiwanese advanced chip manufacturing.
I'm glad the Government are taking the virus much more seriously and acting more proactively.
Whether a tweet is the best way of announcing something, I'm not sure but I can't see why we have to stick to antiquated methods.
A tweet is fine, but more detailed guidance seems to be lacking or ambiguous. Very poor for the government not to put someone up on 5 live this morning
Yes the great unwashed would have been lapping it up as they listened to 5Live over brekkie.
Population density seems to me to be a very poor metric that is dependent on where you draw boundaries.
It also doesn't measure what we really want to know which is how the urban/rural environment influences how frequently people come into interaction with other people for long enough/close enough to spread the virus.
Anyone know where we are now on Boris's "simple five point scale"? Or has that whole approach now been junked.
See my 850 post! 3 was the last update, not sure if it has increased since then as it doesnt seem to be published anywhere.
I am doing my best to stay alert but the govt not helping!
My guess is, that whole approach has been quietly shelved, now that we have so many different sets of fast moving rules.
Even the declared intention to have local lockdowns has been muddied now that Manchester has one set of rules and Leicester a different set entirely.
Think when you say "sets of fast moving rules" you really mean "panic measures by the barrow load" plucked out of either Bozo's, Hancock's, Gove's or Cumming's rear end
It's a good thing Greater Manchester has a mayor. The need for differential policy implementation as whack-a-mole hotspots arise has become quite evident. We are going to have to get used to sub-national imposition and lifting of lockdowns as the epidemic evolves.
Or, we follow Sweden, and learn to live with the virus with 'soft' lockdown that does not destroy our economy and way of life.
Not sure we can do that. Swedes are different from us in their social and inter-personal behaviour which is what determines the evolution of the epidemic. They also tend to have a uniform view of the problem and policies, at least compared to us. It seems they may get to 'herd immunity' fairly soon without a vaccine. Meanwhile we'll have to wait for a vaccine and manage the spread by local lock-downs. The more sharply focussed they are the better, ideally down to neighbourhood watch levels.
King Felipe VI, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the President of the Senate, Pilar Llop, the President of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, host of the conference and the autonomous presidents pose for the family photo upon arrival at the San Millán monastery from Yuso. Image: EFE / Chema Moya
Good to see a rule putting himself about and leading the people by example!
I think a 52 year old is probably able to take a few more risks than a 94 year old should...
"Data from a symptom tracker app run by King's College London and healthcare company ZOE also shows that levels have plateaued, with no sign of a second wave. Their figures – based on more than 13,000 swab tests – show symptomatic Covid-19 has been stable at around 2,000 cases a day for the past month."
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
I think they panicked when cases started rising again a few weeks ago.
IMO while cases are still in the hundreds that's no problem and helps boost herd immunity a little.
Carl Henegehan is saying that if this was flu outbreak we would be saying it is over now based on these low figures.
We are going to utterly destroy our economy and causes 10Ks of unnecessary deaths if we are not careful by allowing our government to panic.
Current infection rates are under 1% of what they were at the peak in March.
But they're at a much higher proportion of what was being reported back then because of the lack of testing we had then.
I wonder if that is confusing the government.
It would seem ridiculous but given the innumeracy of politicians its a possibility.
Yes, that is part of the problem in Leicester. We have saturation door to door testing of the assymptomatic, so a high pick up rate, but falling numbers in hospital. We now have only 21 inpatients with it, and LRI is now Covid-19 free, with all the cases at Glenfield hospital. This is about 10% of what we had in May. There has been no spike in admissions, or deaths, just diagnoses.
Population density seems to me to be a very poor metric that is dependent on where you draw boundaries.
It also doesn't measure what we really want to know which is how the urban/rural environment influences how frequently people come into interaction with other people for long enough/close enough to spread the virus.
If you look at the Leicester map, the hotspots are the areas with family occupied terraced housing. The areas with semi detached or detached houses are largely unaffected.
King Felipe VI, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the President of the Senate, Pilar Llop, the President of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, host of the conference and the autonomous presidents pose for the family photo upon arrival at the San Millán monastery from Yuso. Image: EFE / Chema Moya
Good to see a rule putting himself about and leading the people by example!
I think a 52 year old is probably able to take a few more risks than a 94 year old should...
That’s why I said a Royal we have enough to risk a few
Comments
Even Dominic Cummings, who had never in his life owned up to any of his many errors, quickly admitted he was wrong on herd immunity.
I can get in on my laptop, but can't get in on my phone using Chrome (yesterday and today).
I can get in via Firefox, but unfortunately that has the long standing issue of truncating comments (again works fine on laptop)
I think the difference is largely due to the fact that Scotland, NI, and Wales are less population dense, and the virus spread there some time after England. This is backed up by the fact that rural England has behaved similar to Wales, NI and Scotland. I am not delighted about this - if Scotland had performed amazingly compared to England, that would be great, as it would have highlighted which model to follow for success with a very similar population, climate, level of services, economic success etc. All the home nations could have adopted it.
I think the success/failure by all of us should now lead to questions and improvements applied across the UK.
On one level of course, that makes sense. What will be needed for an inner city school in Stoke in one, modern, badly ventilated building would be different from Denstone with its vast campus.
On another, it does mean that the government has set aside no money to pay for any strategy. This at a time when all the new funding they have announced has been swallowed up by giving teachers an unfunded pay rise.
Edit - on rereading your comment, you seem to be asking, ‘what happens if they refuse to come back?’ I should point out that from September if they are entered on a school’s roll they will by law be required to attend unless the government changes its advice.
The alternative for parents will be to officially home school them.
Or to put it another way, if you want to say something about the Holocaust, don’t cite David Irving, because even if what he says is correct people will assume that it isn’t.
It’s not hard to see how this could have been better. I’m not blaming the government per se, but its not perfect by any means.
Clearly this is my engineering brain talking.
Reports from Europe are very worrying as we sadly see a resurgence of covid
The BBC presenter is incredulous at this, but unfortunately we’re to polite in this country to be clear about what the problem is.
1) Did the government only just realise that covid is now concentrated in Muslim areas ?
2) Did the government only just realise that second Eid is tomorrow ?
3) Do the government think that using such a broad brush approach is going to be better for 'community relations' than being more targeted ?
4) Are the government admitting that masks in shops is having little effect ?
5) Are the government going to do something about restricting flights from the Indian subcontinent ?
By 'government' I don't only refer to Boris and his gang but the whole political, bureaucratic and scientific establishment.
People can still holiday there? Why?
You can meet in a pub garden but not your own garden. Why?
When we have seen figures in the UK of somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 people dying of this virus, and without lockdown that number would have been multiplied several times over, your attitude beggars belief.
Yes, the collateral damage is immense, but saving mums, dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters must be the primary aim.
I have seen the video a few times now, and whilst it's clearly a 'quickfire' style interview, not a chance to offer a balanced essay, Ross isn't asked to restrict his thoughts to a sentence, and the promptness of the cut after he says 'Gypsy travellers' indicates there is more that follows to substantiate his thoughts that the editor of the film decided to leave out.
It is a horrible conundrum for all lawmakers
The sad thing is that it's obvious if it was possible to bet on lock down areas Birmingham and Southall would be my next bets.
Although even the current areas say it's an bigger issue in Pakistani rather than Indian areas (Pakistanis are usually poorer as well for reasons that are too complex for this post)
This seems to be the case in Leicester:
It will be more worrying if areas which were hard hit previously - Lombardy, London, Paris, NYC for example - are again hard hit.
However, it is a real concern especially if we have a second wave
Looks neither economically or medically wise to me.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=47574f7a6e454dc6a42c5f6912ed7076
Which has the big Orthodox Jewish population with its high population density, multi-generation living, excess religious zeal which so often feature in covid outbreaks.
What will happen if we get a second outbreak is we will react to it then and try and work out whats best at the time. Government cheerleaders will say its unfair to criticise as it was a fast moving situation.
FFS
Newcastle isn’t exactly a quaint market town.
Thanks @Philip_Thompson for that one.
Telegraph.
The Hancock and Johnson have panicked themselves into a situation where they need to have almost no cases of the virus to feel that things are ok imho.
Newcastle has a lot of parkland and rural areas to the north and west included within the borough.
IMO while cases are still in the hundreds that's no problem and helps boost herd immunity a little.
The parkland and rural areas to the north and west are getting less and less though - I should know, my house is built on green belt land in the North West of the city!
(Posted at end of previous thread) It’s possible that young children are more infectious than previously thought - though this study is purely about viral loads, not infectiousness.
https://twitter.com/KrutikaKuppalli/status/1289021886500757504
Judging pop density is really hard and as you say is easy to be skewed by the inclusion of parkland, fields and lakes in boundaries.
We are going to utterly destroy our economy and causes 10Ks of unnecessary deaths if we are not careful by allowing our government to panic.
I’m starting to think those who said “Eid!” may have had a point. I think sharing a meal is an important part of the celebrations (though I could be completely wrong on this, so please tell me if I am) and social distancing becomes pretty hard to do.
The powers that be may have been hoping that the number of cases would drop to the point where the extra risk was not enough to have to upset people by doing this (as it seems to be in most parts of the country) but then realised at the last minute that there were areas where it had not.
If so, not looking good for the Wedding industry any time soon.
I wonder if a similar thing might be happening in Hackney with visits to Israel ?
I am doing my best to stay alert but the govt not helping!
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-vietnam/vietnam-reports-first-virus-death-after-months-of-successful-countermeasures-idUKKCN24W02F
I do think it is something to anticipate for autumn though.
The thick public that vote for these odious creeps are getting exactly what they deserve.
One set of national rules that apply to everyone and that are announced to remain for several months at least.
Another set of rules for local lockdown areas, that apply to everyone in those areas and that are announced to remain (the rules, not the areas) for several months at least.
As clear and logical as possible, widely communicated.
Then all you need is to decide whether to move individual towns or regions from one to the other.
The national rules only need to change slowly and deliberately, depending on our alert stage.
Surely this is what was intended when Bozo first announced the national five stage alert system (seconds before he buggered it up by starting us off at three-and-a-half)?
From the BBC:
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester - an area with a population of about 2.8 million - said he agreed with the decision as there had been a "marked change in the picture" with regard to the spread of Covid-19 in the area.
"We have gone from a falling rate of cases in nearly all of our boroughs last week to a rising rate in nine out of 10 affecting communities across a much wider geography," he said. "In Rochdale, the one borough where cases have fallen, they are still too high."
He said all residents "young and old alike" should "protect each other" by observing the requirements, which will be reviewed weekly.
This means "the more we stick to them, the quicker they will be removed", he said.
But they're at a much higher proportion of what was being reported back then because of the lack of testing we had then.
I wonder if that is confusing the government.
It would seem ridiculous but given the innumeracy of politicians its a possibility.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-from-the-uk-chief-medical-officers-on-the-uk-alert-level
Good to see a rule putting himself about and leading the people by example!
They will come out of it fine and dandy though.
Even the declared intention to have local lockdowns has been muddied now that Manchester has one set of rules and Leicester a different set entirely.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/07/07/asia-pacific/hong-kong-security-law-taiwan/
The imposition of a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong has sent chills through Taiwan, deepening fears that Beijing will focus next on seizing the democratic self-ruled island.
China and Taiwan split in 1949 after nationalist forces lost a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists, fleeing to the island which Beijing has since vowed to seize one day, by force if necessary.
“The law makes me dislike China even more,” said 18-year-old student Sylvia Chang, walking through National Taiwan University in Taipei.
“They had promised 50 years unchanged for Hong Kong but they are getting all the more heavy-handed. … I am worried Hong Kong today could be Taiwan tomorrow.”
Over the years China has used a mixture of threats and inducements, including a promise Taiwan could have the “one country, two systems” model that governs Hong Kong, supposedly guaranteeing key civil liberties and a degree of autonomy for 50 years after the city’s 1997 handover....
It’s become very clear that there is now now chance of Taiwan consenting to reunification with the mainland.
What really isn’t clear at all is how serious is now the threat of it happening by force. Which is no longer an obscure issue for the West, given our dependence on Taiwanese advanced chip manufacturing.
https://www.gov.uk/terrorism-national-emergency
It doesnt seem to be for covid, you have to hope you have found the latest statement?
Edit: seems like an accurate description.
It also doesn't measure what we really want to know which is how the urban/rural environment influences how frequently people come into interaction with other people for long enough/close enough to spread the virus.