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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Opinium finds a net 13% drop in two weeks in government’s “Cor

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  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,720
    felix said:

    RobD said:

    felix said:

    RH1992 said:

    RobD said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Thanks Malmesbury

    If cases are rising, will Eat out to help out make matters significantly worse or have little impact in your opinion?
    Is transmission more likely in a place that enforces distancing compared to one that doesn't?
    A shared space with 50 people socially distanced compared to a family home with 4 people not socially distanced? I would have thought generally the latter is safer. What do you think?
    I disagree. Surfaces less likely to be sanitised as regularly in a home setting, less ventilation in small living rooms, no social distancing = more chance of particulates being spread close to others.
    Hmmm. Our latest outbreak casued by poorly paid waiters all living together in crowded accommodation. Our, local Mayor seems not to have realised any of these facts in advance. Mojacar has been a tourist town since the 1960s and she's lived here her entire life - indeed her family are major local employers....
    Doesn't that actually support the point that the household is riskier than the restaurant?
    Oh sorry, yes I was disagreeing with the first one. I think. It's so hot here I need to hydrate!
    Dehydration - I just received advice from our GP practice that dehydration being one of the effects of CV-19, patients taking SGLT2 inhibitors [e.g. for sugar control] or ACE inhibitors or ARBs or diuretics or metformin or NSAIDs should stop these if they develop CV-19 symptoms because they exacerbate the dehydration or its deleterious effects.

  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    kle4 said:

    I have been to Cineworld twice since they reopened.

    Friday afternoon. 4 members of staff visible, all concessions except pick and mix open. No bookings at all except me. I was only customer in foyer and only one in the screening. When i came out one of staff told me 5 films that afternoon 4 customers in total.

    This afternoon There were 3 advance bookings according to their booking screen. Nobody except me in the foyer which i sat in for 10 mins None of the other 2 who booked for unhinged turned up attended.

    Have now been twice, not seen another customer perhaps its me that is "unhinged"

    Oh and why on earth are Cineworld not participants in help out to eat out? Are they eligible?

    RIP Cineworld.

    Tomorrow our bubble has a table for 4 at our local HOTO Restaurant. We are 50/50 about cancelling tonight to give them chance to re sell the table. Or will it be empty like the Cinema?

    My local Odeon hasn't reopened yet, but I'd be worried - it was pretty empty a lot of the time anyway, despite the town being desperate for a cinema for 25 years.
    Our local Odeon was refurbished late last year and now has seats so wide that you actually are socially isolated when sat down.

    And it hasn't opened yet which is annoying as Odeon was showing amongst other films the Empire Strikes back which I rather enjoy.
  • Perhaps Prince Andrew sees a precedent.

    https://twitter.com/tackettdc/status/1290325853260349441
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868

    Perhaps Prince Andrew sees a precedent.

    https://twitter.com/tackettdc/status/1290325853260349441

    Maybe America will take him. 👀
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Correct - although ironically they got it right with Spain - the infection growth in many of the costas is quite rapid now. I am no longer convinced the authorities have got a handle on it.
    Spanish deaths per day are still under 10 though, right? and have been for some time
    The deaths are much better - improved treatments perhaps but mainly a much younger age profile for contagion so far. I worry that this could easily change as the numbers of cases grow. Also - the Spanish data is estimated to have undercounted deaths by around 20,000 overall so I would not be too trusting of the figures. I'm afraid the decision to go for a big tourist season at the last minute was, albeit understandable, a mistake. The Spanish nighlife is driving the figures on the costas now. My own tiny little tourist town has 25 new cases this w/e with more to follow. This was the first time the cumulative total had gone above 6 or 7!
    Surely if everyone then doesn't go and hug their grandparents the "much younger age profile" will mean that cases are simply not that much a problem?
    The problem is in those multi-generational households who don't hug - just share the same air.
    I think if people are aware of the risks then can we not leave it up to them? Do we know the number of such households in general?
    Again, the issue is when they go an do their shift in Tesco and end up infecting half of their colleagues. People can get it if they choose to, but they will end up infecting a lot of people who haven't made that choice and the result will be a second 3-5 week national lockdown.

    I'm not a big nanny state type of person, however, in this instance the individual doesn't know best and the state does, even this one.
    That I suppose, as we all said right from the start, from before the start, that testing holds the key to the maintenance and survival of our economic health.
    Yes, I'm very interested to see what this new 90 minute test is all about. It could end be the difference with returning to mostly normal life for a vast majority of people and this half life until the vaccine comes. Even then, I think track and trace is a hugely important part of this and our track and trace system is rubbish, incedental meetings between strangers aren't tracked and people who break the rules are unwilling to share who else broke the rules with them to tracers so there is a gap in the testing regime.
    Remember that with prevalence still below 20%, a test will have to be both very sensitive and very specific to have a high predictive value for individual results.

    I have not seen the data on sensitivity and specificity for this 90 minute test. Has anyone got a link to that data?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,357

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    I think none of them really have a clue what is happening
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    TimT said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Correct - although ironically they got it right with Spain - the infection growth in many of the costas is quite rapid now. I am no longer convinced the authorities have got a handle on it.
    Spanish deaths per day are still under 10 though, right? and have been for some time
    The deaths are much better - improved treatments perhaps but mainly a much younger age profile for contagion so far. I worry that this could easily change as the numbers of cases grow. Also - the Spanish data is estimated to have undercounted deaths by around 20,000 overall so I would not be too trusting of the figures. I'm afraid the decision to go for a big tourist season at the last minute was, albeit understandable, a mistake. The Spanish nighlife is driving the figures on the costas now. My own tiny little tourist town has 25 new cases this w/e with more to follow. This was the first time the cumulative total had gone above 6 or 7!
    Surely if everyone then doesn't go and hug their grandparents the "much younger age profile" will mean that cases are simply not that much a problem?
    The problem is in those multi-generational households who don't hug - just share the same air.
    I think if people are aware of the risks then can we not leave it up to them? Do we know the number of such households in general?
    Again, the issue is when they go an do their shift in Tesco and end up infecting half of their colleagues. People can get it if they choose to, but they will end up infecting a lot of people who haven't made that choice and the result will be a second 3-5 week national lockdown.

    I'm not a big nanny state type of person, however, in this instance the individual doesn't know best and the state does, even this one.
    That I suppose, as we all said right from the start, from before the start, that testing holds the key to the maintenance and survival of our economic health.
    Yes, I'm very interested to see what this new 90 minute test is all about. It could end be the difference with returning to mostly normal life for a vast majority of people and this half life until the vaccine comes. Even then, I think track and trace is a hugely important part of this and our track and trace system is rubbish, incedental meetings between strangers aren't tracked and people who break the rules are unwilling to share who else broke the rules with them to tracers so there is a gap in the testing regime.
    Remember that with prevalence still below 20%, a test will have to be both very sensitive and very specific to have a high predictive value for individual results.

    I have not seen the data on sensitivity and specificity for this 90 minute test. Has anyone got a link to that data?
    No, I haven't been able to find any details on it yet, the government has just said it exists and will be rolled out.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821
    edited August 2020
    Meanwhile, utter lunacy part 92: I think we should cut the government some slack for the difficulty of dealing with Covid-19, but there is absolutely no reason to cut them any slack for deliberate economic vandalism:

    https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1290319702095519745
  • Meanwhile, utter lunacy part 92: I think we should cut the government some slack for the difficulty of dealing with Covid-19, but there is absolutely no reason to cut them any slack for deliberate economic vandalism:

    https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1290319702095519745

    Especially as we hold all the cards in these negotiations.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999

    I have been to Cineworld twice since they reopened.

    Friday afternoon. 4 members of staff visible, all concessions except pick and mix open. No bookings at all except me. I was only customer in foyer and only one in the screening. When i came out one of staff told me 5 films that afternoon 4 customers in total.

    This afternoon There were 3 advance bookings according to their booking screen. Nobody except me in the foyer which i sat in for 10 mins None of the other 2 who booked for unhinged turned up attended.

    Have now been twice, not seen another customer perhaps its me that is "unhinged"

    Oh and why on earth are Cineworld not participants in help out to eat out? Are they eligible?

    RIP Cineworld.

    Tomorrow our bubble has a table for 4 at our local HOTO Restaurant. We are 50/50 about cancelling tonight to give them chance to re sell the table. Or will it be empty like the Cinema?

    This seems to me to be the fly in the ointment of the 'face nappies & lockdown Nazis are destroying our economy' argument. Where's the evidence that huge numbers of folk (aside from the hormonal yoot) are desperate to be out there consuming and spending?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,217

    I don't see how we square RCS's circle.

    Even vaccines don;t prevent all deaths, old and vulnerable people still pass away in winter from flu and will from COVID.

    We;re doomed to repeat this cycle until the economy collapses to such an extent that granny never gets to die of COVID, because she dies of undiagnosed cancer ten years earlier, or some other disease the health service of that country can no longer afford to treat because private sector revenues have evaporated.

    A vaccine cuts R dramatically, because people are much less infectious.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,217
    MaxPB said:

    On how to distribute a vaccine it should be given to economically productive middle aged people first and then the economically productive young with the second batch. Ensuring those who are most likely to get and therefore spread it will minimise the chances of another mass outbreak. I'd suggest that older people should be close to last in line as they will benefit from herd immunity and there will be less chance of side effects becoming severe.

    I'm sure if the government pursue this strategy reams of paper and petabytes of internet traffic will be dedicated to how callous the approach is and how the government are abandoning vulnerable people but with a limited supply the economy takes priority.

    It should go to people in roles where the come into contact with lots of other people first.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370
    malcolmg said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    I think none of them really have a clue what is happening
    What the linked report is doing, is trying to arrive at -

    image

    via other data.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164
    geoffw said:

    felix said:

    RobD said:

    felix said:

    RH1992 said:

    RobD said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Thanks Malmesbury

    If cases are rising, will Eat out to help out make matters significantly worse or have little impact in your opinion?
    Is transmission more likely in a place that enforces distancing compared to one that doesn't?
    A shared space with 50 people socially distanced compared to a family home with 4 people not socially distanced? I would have thought generally the latter is safer. What do you think?
    I disagree. Surfaces less likely to be sanitised as regularly in a home setting, less ventilation in small living rooms, no social distancing = more chance of particulates being spread close to others.
    Hmmm. Our latest outbreak casued by poorly paid waiters all living together in crowded accommodation. Our, local Mayor seems not to have realised any of these facts in advance. Mojacar has been a tourist town since the 1960s and she's lived here her entire life - indeed her family are major local employers....
    Doesn't that actually support the point that the household is riskier than the restaurant?
    Oh sorry, yes I was disagreeing with the first one. I think. It's so hot here I need to hydrate!
    Dehydration - I just received advice from our GP practice that dehydration being one of the effects of CV-19, patients taking SGLT2 inhibitors [e.g. for sugar control] or ACE inhibitors or ARBs or diuretics or metformin or NSAIDs should stop these if they develop CV-19 symptoms because they exacerbate the dehydration or its deleterious effects.

    My local Spanish doctor says yopu can catch it by making bitchy comments on the internet!
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,720
    MaxPB said:

    TimT said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Correct - although ironically they got it right with Spain - the infection growth in many of the costas is quite rapid now. I am no longer convinced the authorities have got a handle on it.
    Spanish deaths per day are still under 10 though, right? and have been for some time
    The deaths are much better - improved treatments perhaps but mainly a much younger age profile for contagion so far. I worry that this could easily change as the numbers of cases grow. Also - the Spanish data is estimated to have undercounted deaths by around 20,000 overall so I would not be too trusting of the figures. I'm afraid the decision to go for a big tourist season at the last minute was, albeit understandable, a mistake. The Spanish nighlife is driving the figures on the costas now. My own tiny little tourist town has 25 new cases this w/e with more to follow. This was the first time the cumulative total had gone above 6 or 7!
    Surely if everyone then doesn't go and hug their grandparents the "much younger age profile" will mean that cases are simply not that much a problem?
    The problem is in those multi-generational households who don't hug - just share the same air.
    I think if people are aware of the risks then can we not leave it up to them? Do we know the number of such households in general?
    Again, the issue is when they go an do their shift in Tesco and end up infecting half of their colleagues. People can get it if they choose to, but they will end up infecting a lot of people who haven't made that choice and the result will be a second 3-5 week national lockdown.

    I'm not a big nanny state type of person, however, in this instance the individual doesn't know best and the state does, even this one.
    That I suppose, as we all said right from the start, from before the start, that testing holds the key to the maintenance and survival of our economic health.
    Yes, I'm very interested to see what this new 90 minute test is all about. It could end be the difference with returning to mostly normal life for a vast majority of people and this half life until the vaccine comes. Even then, I think track and trace is a hugely important part of this and our track and trace system is rubbish, incedental meetings between strangers aren't tracked and people who break the rules are unwilling to share who else broke the rules with them to tracers so there is a gap in the testing regime.
    Remember that with prevalence still below 20%, a test will have to be both very sensitive and very specific to have a high predictive value for individual results.

    I have not seen the data on sensitivity and specificity for this 90 minute test. Has anyone got a link to that data?
    No, I haven't been able to find any details on it yet, the government has just said it exists and will be rolled out.
    This was discussed on the Today programme (R4) this morning by Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. You can find it here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000ldd2 from 1h13m45s (lasts ~ 7 mins).


  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766

    Meanwhile, utter lunacy part 92: I think we should cut the government some slack for the difficulty of dealing with Covid-19, but there is absolutely no reason to cut them any slack for deliberate economic vandalism:

    https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1290319702095519745

    I'd love to see one of those recall polls where we can compare how many people now say they voted Brexit with the actual numbers who did.

    Maybe there has been one?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    On how to distribute a vaccine it should be given to economically productive middle aged people first and then the economically productive young with the second batch. Ensuring those who are most likely to get and therefore spread it will minimise the chances of another mass outbreak. I'd suggest that older people should be close to last in line as they will benefit from herd immunity and there will be less chance of side effects becoming severe.

    I'm sure if the government pursue this strategy reams of paper and petabytes of internet traffic will be dedicated to how callous the approach is and how the government are abandoning vulnerable people but with a limited supply the economy takes priority.

    It should go to people in roles where the come into contact with lots of other people first.
    Which I think will end up being a similar timeline to what I have outlined. I fear the government will be browbeaten into a "compassionate" method of distribution which favours unproductive older people meaning the productive young are still stuck with social distancing until next year.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370
    geoffw said:

    MaxPB said:

    TimT said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Correct - although ironically they got it right with Spain - the infection growth in many of the costas is quite rapid now. I am no longer convinced the authorities have got a handle on it.
    Spanish deaths per day are still under 10 though, right? and have been for some time
    The deaths are much better - improved treatments perhaps but mainly a much younger age profile for contagion so far. I worry that this could easily change as the numbers of cases grow. Also - the Spanish data is estimated to have undercounted deaths by around 20,000 overall so I would not be too trusting of the figures. I'm afraid the decision to go for a big tourist season at the last minute was, albeit understandable, a mistake. The Spanish nighlife is driving the figures on the costas now. My own tiny little tourist town has 25 new cases this w/e with more to follow. This was the first time the cumulative total had gone above 6 or 7!
    Surely if everyone then doesn't go and hug their grandparents the "much younger age profile" will mean that cases are simply not that much a problem?
    The problem is in those multi-generational households who don't hug - just share the same air.
    I think if people are aware of the risks then can we not leave it up to them? Do we know the number of such households in general?
    Again, the issue is when they go an do their shift in Tesco and end up infecting half of their colleagues. People can get it if they choose to, but they will end up infecting a lot of people who haven't made that choice and the result will be a second 3-5 week national lockdown.

    I'm not a big nanny state type of person, however, in this instance the individual doesn't know best and the state does, even this one.
    That I suppose, as we all said right from the start, from before the start, that testing holds the key to the maintenance and survival of our economic health.
    Yes, I'm very interested to see what this new 90 minute test is all about. It could end be the difference with returning to mostly normal life for a vast majority of people and this half life until the vaccine comes. Even then, I think track and trace is a hugely important part of this and our track and trace system is rubbish, incedental meetings between strangers aren't tracked and people who break the rules are unwilling to share who else broke the rules with them to tracers so there is a gap in the testing regime.
    Remember that with prevalence still below 20%, a test will have to be both very sensitive and very specific to have a high predictive value for individual results.

    I have not seen the data on sensitivity and specificity for this 90 minute test. Has anyone got a link to that data?
    No, I haven't been able to find any details on it yet, the government has just said it exists and will be rolled out.
    This was discussed on the Today programme (R4) this morning by Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. You can find it here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000ldd2 from 1h13m45s (lasts ~ 7 mins).


    Among other things - it has to pass the Porton Down reference test to be allowed to be used.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    malcolmg said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    I think none of them really have a clue what is happening
    To a large extent it's all educated guesses, but I do find the notion that cases aren't rising to be plausible, despite the panic flapping about the hotspots. The Plague stubbornly refuses to go away, to be sure, but in the large majority of England and Wales and almost everywhere in Scotland and Northern Ireland it's down to background levels. The blanket testing in the panic zones probably is just picking up asymptomatic cases that are going undetected elsewhere.

    Of course, as has already been discussed at considerable length, nobody can say with any great certainty whether or not either Winter conditions or opening the schools will screw everything up...
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226

    kinabalu said:

    if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years.

    This has to rank as the biggest volte face on a political opponent since the American left canonised George W. Bush. Does anybody remember Hunt being described as "unflappable and diligent" during the doctor's strike?
    Compared to Johnson he is. All is relative. This is a tenet of the left and one I particularly agree with. And he WAS the alternative.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,720
    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    On how to distribute a vaccine it should be given to economically productive middle aged people first and then the economically productive young with the second batch. Ensuring those who are most likely to get and therefore spread it will minimise the chances of another mass outbreak. I'd suggest that older people should be close to last in line as they will benefit from herd immunity and there will be less chance of side effects becoming severe.

    I'm sure if the government pursue this strategy reams of paper and petabytes of internet traffic will be dedicated to how callous the approach is and how the government are abandoning vulnerable people but with a limited supply the economy takes priority.

    It should go to people in roles where the come into contact with lots of other people first.
    Which I think will end up being a similar timeline to what I have outlined. I fear the government will be browbeaten into a "compassionate" method of distribution which favours unproductive older people meaning the productive young are still stuck with social distancing until next year.
    As an unproductive older person I agree broadly with RCS, but as I said earlier, the focus should be on bringing the global epidemic under control, which also means that countries with inadequate health systems should be supported with vaccine availability because otherwise they remain a threat to the whole world.

  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    I have been to Cineworld twice since they reopened.

    Friday afternoon. 4 members of staff visible, all concessions except pick and mix open. No bookings at all except me. I was only customer in foyer and only one in the screening. When i came out one of staff told me 5 films that afternoon 4 customers in total.

    This afternoon There were 3 advance bookings according to their booking screen. Nobody except me in the foyer which i sat in for 10 mins None of the other 2 who booked for unhinged turned up attended.

    Have now been twice, not seen another customer perhaps its me that is "unhinged"

    Oh and why on earth are Cineworld not participants in help out to eat out? Are they eligible?

    RIP Cineworld.

    Tomorrow our bubble has a table for 4 at our local HOTO Restaurant. We are 50/50 about cancelling tonight to give them chance to re sell the table. Or will it be empty like the Cinema?

    This seems to me to be the fly in the ointment of the 'face nappies & lockdown Nazis are destroying our economy' argument. Where's the evidence that huge numbers of folk (aside from the hormonal yoot) are desperate to be out there consuming and spending?
    Based on admittedly limited experience (three visits so far, spread across two venues, plus anecdata from work colleagues) the eateries around here seem to be doing reasonably well. But then again this is a low Plague area and has been from day one.
  • rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    On how to distribute a vaccine it should be given to economically productive middle aged people first and then the economically productive young with the second batch. Ensuring those who are most likely to get and therefore spread it will minimise the chances of another mass outbreak. I'd suggest that older people should be close to last in line as they will benefit from herd immunity and there will be less chance of side effects becoming severe.

    I'm sure if the government pursue this strategy reams of paper and petabytes of internet traffic will be dedicated to how callous the approach is and how the government are abandoning vulnerable people but with a limited supply the economy takes priority.

    It should go to people in roles where the come into contact with lots of other people first.
    Carers, teachers, health professionals and other key workers.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139
    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    geoffw said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    On how to distribute a vaccine it should be given to economically productive middle aged people first and then the economically productive young with the second batch. Ensuring those who are most likely to get and therefore spread it will minimise the chances of another mass outbreak. I'd suggest that older people should be close to last in line as they will benefit from herd immunity and there will be less chance of side effects becoming severe.

    I'm sure if the government pursue this strategy reams of paper and petabytes of internet traffic will be dedicated to how callous the approach is and how the government are abandoning vulnerable people but with a limited supply the economy takes priority.

    It should go to people in roles where the come into contact with lots of other people first.
    Which I think will end up being a similar timeline to what I have outlined. I fear the government will be browbeaten into a "compassionate" method of distribution which favours unproductive older people meaning the productive young are still stuck with social distancing until next year.
    As an unproductive older person I agree broadly with RCS, but as I said earlier, the focus should be on bringing the global epidemic under control, which also means that countries with inadequate health systems should be supported with vaccine availability because otherwise they remain a threat to the whole world.

    No, we need to jumpstart the global economy which means a developed nation first approach.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,707
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    You still haven’t got Brexit done.
  • MaxPB said:

    geoffw said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    On how to distribute a vaccine it should be given to economically productive middle aged people first and then the economically productive young with the second batch. Ensuring those who are most likely to get and therefore spread it will minimise the chances of another mass outbreak. I'd suggest that older people should be close to last in line as they will benefit from herd immunity and there will be less chance of side effects becoming severe.

    I'm sure if the government pursue this strategy reams of paper and petabytes of internet traffic will be dedicated to how callous the approach is and how the government are abandoning vulnerable people but with a limited supply the economy takes priority.

    It should go to people in roles where the come into contact with lots of other people first.
    Which I think will end up being a similar timeline to what I have outlined. I fear the government will be browbeaten into a "compassionate" method of distribution which favours unproductive older people meaning the productive young are still stuck with social distancing until next year.
    As an unproductive older person I agree broadly with RCS, but as I said earlier, the focus should be on bringing the global epidemic under control, which also means that countries with inadequate health systems should be supported with vaccine availability because otherwise they remain a threat to the whole world.

    No, we need to jumpstart the global economy which means a developed nation first approach.
    When you're on an airplane and the oxygen drops you fit your own oxygen before helping others.

    Bringing the pandemic to an end globally is a nobel aim and appropriate use of our aid budget. But we need to sort ourselves out as a first priority.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    You still haven’t got Brexit done.
    Brexit was done in January when we left the EU, what Brexit ultimately looks like is not the same thing as getting it done in the first place
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    Yes. So would there have been any downsides at all from the national interest viewpoint?

    Hard to think of any.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,680

    Meanwhile, utter lunacy part 92: I think we should cut the government some slack for the difficulty of dealing with Covid-19, but there is absolutely no reason to cut them any slack for deliberate economic vandalism:

    https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1290319702095519745

    Of course, in the mad mad mad mad mad world of Brexit this sort of thing will be portrayed as the desired outcome all along - only by suffering will we be assured that we're truly free.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885

    geoffw said:

    MaxPB said:

    TimT said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Correct - although ironically they got it right with Spain - the infection growth in many of the costas is quite rapid now. I am no longer convinced the authorities have got a handle on it.
    Spanish deaths per day are still under 10 though, right? and have been for some time
    The deaths are much better - improved treatments perhaps but mainly a much younger age profile for contagion so far. I worry that this could easily change as the numbers of cases grow. Also - the Spanish data is estimated to have undercounted deaths by around 20,000 overall so I would not be too trusting of the figures. I'm afraid the decision to go for a big tourist season at the last minute was, albeit understandable, a mistake. The Spanish nighlife is driving the figures on the costas now. My own tiny little tourist town has 25 new cases this w/e with more to follow. This was the first time the cumulative total had gone above 6 or 7!
    Surely if everyone then doesn't go and hug their grandparents the "much younger age profile" will mean that cases are simply not that much a problem?
    The problem is in those multi-generational households who don't hug - just share the same air.
    I think if people are aware of the risks then can we not leave it up to them? Do we know the number of such households in general?
    Again, the issue is when they go an do their shift in Tesco and end up infecting half of their colleagues. People can get it if they choose to, but they will end up infecting a lot of people who haven't made that choice and the result will be a second 3-5 week national lockdown.

    I'm not a big nanny state type of person, however, in this instance the individual doesn't know best and the state does, even this one.
    That I suppose, as we all said right from the start, from before the start, that testing holds the key to the maintenance and survival of our economic health.
    Yes, I'm very interested to see what this new 90 minute test is all about. It could end be the difference with returning to mostly normal life for a vast majority of people and this half life until the vaccine comes. Even then, I think track and trace is a hugely important part of this and our track and trace system is rubbish, incedental meetings between strangers aren't tracked and people who break the rules are unwilling to share who else broke the rules with them to tracers so there is a gap in the testing regime.
    Remember that with prevalence still below 20%, a test will have to be both very sensitive and very specific to have a high predictive value for individual results.

    I have not seen the data on sensitivity and specificity for this 90 minute test. Has anyone got a link to that data?
    No, I haven't been able to find any details on it yet, the government has just said it exists and will be rolled out.
    This was discussed on the Today programme (R4) this morning by Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. You can find it here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000ldd2 from 1h13m45s (lasts ~ 7 mins).


    Among other things - it has to pass the Porton Down reference test to be allowed to be used.
    More than that, it seems. Prof. Deeks is highly rated by a friend who works in the general field of medical research.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/03/coronavirus-90-minute-tests-to-be-provided-in-care-homes-and-hospitals

    I also see that

    "One of the new tests is made by DnaNudge, a company that analyses people’s DNA from saliva in order to sell them a wristband and smartphone app that will “nudge” them towards healthy food choices."

    More than a bit woo-woo to my ears, that DNA wristband business does not offer much confidence a priori, unless I am very behind with the current understanding of the hominine genome and its phenotypic expression.

    So I do hope PD get it right - one way or another.

  • kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    Yes. So would there have been any downsides at all from the national interest viewpoint?

    Hard to think of any.
    Yes. No Tory majority would be against the national interest. Which is why by millions the public voted to have one.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    We all saw the moment it fell apart for Boris, on television.

    Sent on air to explain the government’s new five stage virus alert warning system - its creation itself a recognition of the need to inject some clarity and strategy into the government’s policy responses - he waffled about (famously lampooned on Twitter by Matt Lucas) and then vaguely said we were starting off somewhere around three and a half. Instantly destroying the value there might have been in codifying the policy responses into five discrete levels.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999

    I have been to Cineworld twice since they reopened.

    Friday afternoon. 4 members of staff visible, all concessions except pick and mix open. No bookings at all except me. I was only customer in foyer and only one in the screening. When i came out one of staff told me 5 films that afternoon 4 customers in total.

    This afternoon There were 3 advance bookings according to their booking screen. Nobody except me in the foyer which i sat in for 10 mins None of the other 2 who booked for unhinged turned up attended.

    Have now been twice, not seen another customer perhaps its me that is "unhinged"

    Oh and why on earth are Cineworld not participants in help out to eat out? Are they eligible?

    RIP Cineworld.

    Tomorrow our bubble has a table for 4 at our local HOTO Restaurant. We are 50/50 about cancelling tonight to give them chance to re sell the table. Or will it be empty like the Cinema?

    This seems to me to be the fly in the ointment of the 'face nappies & lockdown Nazis are destroying our economy' argument. Where's the evidence that huge numbers of folk (aside from the hormonal yoot) are desperate to be out there consuming and spending?
    Based on admittedly limited experience (three visits so far, spread across two venues, plus anecdata from work colleagues) the eateries around here seem to be doing reasonably well. But then again this is a low Plague area and has been from day one.
    I daresay there's a fair bit of variation from area to area.

    I went for my first pint in the wild (Glasgow) for 4 months on Friday (leave details, book table in advance for beer garden). It was busy-ish but not like a normal Friday. Haven't had to queue for a supermarket for a few weeks though they seem more relaxed about numbers of customers at one time since the advent of mask wearing.

    Otoh Aberdeen seems to have lurched into social overdrive with unfortunate results.

    https://twitter.com/StephenFlynnSNP/status/1290219575456325633?s=20
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    You still haven’t got Brexit done.
    Brexit was done in January when we left the EU, what Brexit ultimately looks like is not the same thing as getting it done in the first place
    The body politic was injected with venomous toxins through the incompetence and malice of you and your party.

    The body is not dead yet. We have to see what it really means for the unemployed oif Hartlepool, the inshore fishermen of Scotland, and the bankers of the City of London.

    Do you know?

    No, you don't, and nobody des. So please don't give us such platitudes.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    Yes. So would there have been any downsides at all from the national interest viewpoint?

    Hard to think of any.
    Yes. No Tory majority would be against the national interest. Which is why by millions the public voted to have one.
    In FPTP?

    Pull the other plonker.
  • Scott_xP said:
    So the victim is (a) gullible, (b) not using a secured server, and (c) does not have multi-factor authentication (MFA) set up. Glad to see our National Cybersecurity Centre is earning its keep. I wonder how many Cabinet Ministers would hand over their passwords to anyone who phoned up claiming to be Dominic Cummings' new IT weirdo.
    A new Tom Scott video about MFA should be compulsory viewing for disgraced national security risks in the Cabinet. It starts with a heart-warming anecdote about the USA's nuclear launch codes going missing after Ronald Reagan was shot, and has some old PCs for nostalgia buffs.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGRii5f_uSc
  • IanB2 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    We all saw the moment it fell apart for Boris, on television.

    Sent on air to explain the government’s new five stage virus alert warning system - its creation itself a recognition of the need to inject some clarity and strategy into the government’s policy responses - he waffled about (famously lampooned on Twitter by Matt Lucas) and then vaguely said we were starting off somewhere around three and a half. Instantly destroying the value there might have been in codifying the policy responses into five discrete levels.
    It was never meant to be five discrete levels. The idea we would need to do 20% of unwind at once is ludicrous.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885

    IanB2 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    We all saw the moment it fell apart for Boris, on television.

    Sent on air to explain the government’s new five stage virus alert warning system - its creation itself a recognition of the need to inject some clarity and strategy into the government’s policy responses - he waffled about (famously lampooned on Twitter by Matt Lucas) and then vaguely said we were starting off somewhere around three and a half. Instantly destroying the value there might have been in codifying the policy responses into five discrete levels.
    It was never meant to be five discrete levels. The idea we would need to do 20% of unwind at once is ludicrous.
    So is 25% better?

  • 'Which, if any, of the following people do you think would be the best prime minister?'

    Boris Johnson: 35%
    Keir Starmer: 34%
    None of these: 17%
    Don't know: 14%

    There's your swing
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    edited August 2020
    kinabalu said:

    if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years.

    During which time as Health Secretary his personal attempt to curtail the NHS segment of the Olympics Opening Ceremony was only seen off when Danny Boyle threatened to resign as director and take all the volunteers with him.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885
    edited August 2020
    Is that map right? The one I get when clicking through to the Flavible website is different - all of Scotland is SNP except for Red Morningside (prop: Murray, I.) THis is consistent with the figures (not map) in the tweet.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,357
    Looking bad for SNP again , only 58 out of 59 , failure.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    IanB2 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    We all saw the moment it fell apart for Boris, on television.

    Sent on air to explain the government’s new five stage virus alert warning system - its creation itself a recognition of the need to inject some clarity and strategy into the government’s policy responses - he waffled about (famously lampooned on Twitter by Matt Lucas) and then vaguely said we were starting off somewhere around three and a half. Instantly destroying the value there might have been in codifying the policy responses into five discrete levels.
    It was never meant to be five discrete levels. The idea we would need to do 20% of unwind at once is ludicrous.
    Clearly it is far better to choose randomly from +10%, +5%, -5% and -10% and announce the changes late at night on Twitter.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885
    edited August 2020
    malcolmg said:

    Looking bad for SNP again , only 58 out of 59 , failure.
    Especially if you are being given the wrong map!

  • eekeek Posts: 28,405

    IanB2 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    We all saw the moment it fell apart for Boris, on television.

    Sent on air to explain the government’s new five stage virus alert warning system - its creation itself a recognition of the need to inject some clarity and strategy into the government’s policy responses - he waffled about (famously lampooned on Twitter by Matt Lucas) and then vaguely said we were starting off somewhere around three and a half. Instantly destroying the value there might have been in codifying the policy responses into five discrete levels.
    It was never meant to be five discrete levels. The idea we would need to do 20% of unwind at once is ludicrous.
    In which case it should have been on a scale of 1 to 10 with details on the even values and us placed at 7. It was beyond idiotic to introduce a 5 number scale and instantly break it....
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,357
    Carnyx said:

    Is that map right? The one I get when clicking through to the Flavible website is different - all of Scotland is SNP except for Red Morningside (prop: Murray, I.) THis is consistent with the figures (not map) in the tweet.
    Looks like the existing map to me
  • So if the Lib Dems continue to collapse, what does that look like?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    You still haven’t got Brexit done.
    Brexit was done in January when we left the EU, what Brexit ultimately looks like is not the same thing as getting it done in the first place
    The body politic was injected with venomous toxins through the incompetence and malice of you and your party.

    The body is not dead yet. We have to see what it really means for the unemployed oif Hartlepool, the inshore fishermen of Scotland, and the bankers of the City of London.

    Do you know?

    No, you don't, and nobody des. So please don't give us such platitudes.
    HY without his platitudes and fake polls would be like SeanT without his drink.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885

    So if the Lib Dems continue to collapse, what does that look like?

    And if the SNP do that well, then Labour even more than the Tories should become a purely English national party?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139
    So Tories largest party and almost certainly with a majority of English seats but Starmer becomes PM with SNP and Plaid and Green support or SNP and LDs support
  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    HYUFD said:

    So Tories largest party and almost certainly with a majority of English seats but Starmer becomes PM with SNP and Plaid and Green support or SNP and LDs support
    Nope, it would be a mess as the SNP would insist on a referendum which would screw Labour up for ever...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,608
    HYUFD said:

    So Tories largest party and almost certainly with a majority of English seats but Starmer becomes PM with SNP and Plaid and Green support or SNP and LDs support
    But there won't be an election on old boundaries.....
  • 928 new positive tests in last 24hrs compared to 685 last week at the same time.

    Seems like a marvelous opportunity to launch a scheme to get everyone to go to restaurants and eat for half price

    TORY FIASCO

    There were also 163,786 tests processed today compared with 113,424 a week ago.

    Do you think the two things might be connected ?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,036
    edited August 2020
    13 cases linked to a pub in Aberdeen.

    19 cases linked to a pub in Stone.

    And yet I can do a pub crawl round town but am banned from sitting in a relative's garden.

    Perhaps if I buy a sandwich from Pret on the way then it will be OK?
  • I wonder how many of the people that say lockdown is ending too fast have tried to go on foreign holidays since then.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    HYUFD said:

    So Tories largest party and almost certainly with a majority of English seats but Starmer becomes PM with SNP and Plaid and Green support or SNP and LDs support
    UNS would imply 46 Labour gains taking them to circa 250 with the Tories at circa 315.Unlikely the SNP would win 58 - Orkney & Shetland would surely remain LibDem.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,052

    928 new positive tests in last 24hrs compared to 685 last week at the same time.

    Seems like a marvelous opportunity to launch a scheme to get everyone to go to restaurants and eat for half price

    TORY FIASCO

    There were also 163,786 tests processed today compared with 113,424 a week ago.

    Do you think the two things might be connected ?
    Why let facts get in the way of hysteria?
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    HYUFD said:
    Hmmn

    Was the Democracy Institute's poll mentioned on here? the Speccie is going big on it.

    Doesn;t fit the narrative I guess!
  • rcs1000 said:

    kle4 said:

    I was going to say the LDs seem to fading to nothing outside England, given it is bad in Wales too I believe, but it is not exactly a rosy picture there either. Not sure how the new leader could reverse that.

    The LibDems need some sort of policy that is enthusiastically supported by about 15% of the population, but which is ignored by the other 85%. Opposition to the Iraq war in the mid-2000s was one example of this.

    In all likelihood something will come along - perhaps they end up being the lockdown-sceptics.
    15% of the population which is also concentrated in a limited number of areas.

    Which is why they did well among students before the great betrayal.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,217

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    HYUFD said:

    So Tories largest party and almost certainly with a majority of English seats but Starmer becomes PM with SNP and Plaid and Green support or SNP and LDs support
    But there won't be an election on old boundaries.....
    And so there shouldn't be. The current boundaries were agreed in 2008
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,036
    Who would have thought that Coleslaw's departure would have been so detrimental to the Tories' support?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,149



    What a swing

    Eh. Sure, it's big, but it would still be a tricky job to stop the Tories from a having a minority government despite 14 years, austerity, Brexit and a pandemic.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,149

    Perhaps Prince Andrew sees a precedent.

    https://twitter.com/tackettdc/status/1290325853260349441

    My word, now there's a man whose reputation has declined swiftly.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,052

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    You still haven’t got Brexit done.
    The EU's website seems to disagree with you:

    https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countries_en#the-27-member-countries-of-the-eu
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,036
    So will Leeds be getting added to the Trans-Pennine lockdown zone?

    It's only fair.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,217

    HYUFD said:
    Hmmn

    Was the Democracy Institute's poll mentioned on here? the Speccie is going big on it.

    Doesn;t fit the narrative I guess!
    It doesn't.

    It might be correct, of course, and it might not.

    The problem is that there are literally no details - other than a link to a Sunday Express story - about the DI poll. (See https://democracyinstitute.org/)

    And it's very hard for poll watchers to take a poll about which we know nothing (no crosstabs, no detail on who was surveyed or from where), from a firm with no polling history (that I know of) and which doesn't even show up in 538's pollster rankings.

    So, we could all go with "lots of pollsters which give us lots of detail and have history are wrong, and this firm we've never heard of, with no crosstabs, is correct." But I suspect that is not a strategy that leads to positive returns.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited August 2020
    Compare & contrast who the UK would be willing to help with who would be willing to help the UK...

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1290328646545215490?s=20
  • rcs1000 said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
    But that's always been the case.

    The question is whether the ratio of actual number infected to known about number infected increasing or decreasing.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    kle4 said:



    What a swing

    Eh. Sure, it's big, but it would still be a tricky job to stop the Tories from a having a minority government despite 14 years, austerity, Brexit and a pandemic.
    Well - it is little more than a reversal of the 2019 pro-Tory swing. The table is a bit inaccurate in that on a GB basis Labour is up 5% - ie from 33% to 38%.. The Tories have dropped almost 4% to produce a pro-Labour swing of 4.4% - not 5% as implied by the table.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Carnyx said:

    So if the Lib Dems continue to collapse, what does that look like?

    And if the SNP do that well, then Labour even more than the Tories should become a purely English national party?
    The people of Wales say hello
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    geoffw said:

    felix said:

    RobD said:

    felix said:

    RH1992 said:

    RobD said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Thanks Malmesbury

    If cases are rising, will Eat out to help out make matters significantly worse or have little impact in your opinion?
    Is transmission more likely in a place that enforces distancing compared to one that doesn't?
    A shared space with 50 people socially distanced compared to a family home with 4 people not socially distanced? I would have thought generally the latter is safer. What do you think?
    I disagree. Surfaces less likely to be sanitised as regularly in a home setting, less ventilation in small living rooms, no social distancing = more chance of particulates being spread close to others.
    Hmmm. Our latest outbreak casued by poorly paid waiters all living together in crowded accommodation. Our, local Mayor seems not to have realised any of these facts in advance. Mojacar has been a tourist town since the 1960s and she's lived here her entire life - indeed her family are major local employers....
    Doesn't that actually support the point that the household is riskier than the restaurant?
    Oh sorry, yes I was disagreeing with the first one. I think. It's so hot here I need to hydrate!
    Dehydration - I just received advice from our GP practice that dehydration being one of the effects of CV-19, patients taking SGLT2 inhibitors [e.g. for sugar control] or ACE inhibitors or ARBs or diuretics or metformin or NSAIDs should stop these if they develop CV-19 symptoms because they exacerbate the dehydration or its deleterious effects.

    I don't think that there is any evidence for worse outcomes in patients taking ACE inhibitors or ARB blockers.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,775
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:
    Hmmn

    Was the Democracy Institute's poll mentioned on here? the Speccie is going big on it.

    Doesn;t fit the narrative I guess!
    It doesn't.

    It might be correct, of course, and it might not.

    The problem is that there are literally no details - other than a link to a Sunday Express story - about the DI poll. (See https://democracyinstitute.org/)

    And it's very hard for poll watchers to take a poll about which we know nothing (no crosstabs, no detail on who was surveyed or from where), from a firm with no polling history (that I know of) and which doesn't even show up in 538's pollster rankings.

    So, we could all go with "lots of pollsters which give us lots of detail and have history are wrong, and this firm we've never heard of, with no crosstabs, is correct." But I suspect that is not a strategy that leads to positive returns.
    My word! It's come to some pass when you're questioning the Sunday Express!

    What next? Suspicions about the the Harrow News, or the Dorking Times?
  • Compare & contrast who the UK would be willing to help with who would be willing to help the UK...

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1290328646545215490?s=20

    Decades of paying out money thinking it was buying influence and goodwill.

    Still it made various Sir Humphreys feel important.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,413
    Went to get my haircut today. There are 3 barbers in my town. The one I usually use was closed (it always is on Mondays). The "yoof" barber had one customer, so took a chance on the third.
    Totally empty. Had cut. Not a single other customer while I was there. A total of 2 people having haircuts at 2 pm in the afternoon in a town of 10000. Probably double that with surrounding villages.
    Said they had been very busy first couple of weeks (pent up demand), but dead since.
    No one is going to weddings, parties, dating, out on the pull, school etc., so no pressing need to have it cut.
    Not sure how long they can justify the total of 6 full time barbers across the 3 sites.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720

    Compare & contrast who the UK would be willing to help with who would be willing to help the UK...

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1290328646545215490?s=20

    Well, Brexit does mean Brexit! The countries that the EU members are willing to help remain in the Union. Isn't that what Unions are for, mutual support?
  • Its less than what EdM had at the equivalent time.

    Remember EdM ?

    PB had an acronym about him.
  • dixiedean said:

    Went to get my haircut today. There are 3 barbers in my town. The one I usually use was closed (it always is on Mondays). The "yoof" barber had one customer, so took a chance on the third.
    Totally empty. Had cut. Not a single other customer while I was there. A total of 2 people having haircuts at 2 pm in the afternoon in a town of 10000. Probably double that with surrounding villages.
    Said they had been very busy first couple of weeks (pent up demand), but dead since.
    No one is going to weddings, parties, dating, out on the pull, school etc., so no pressing need to have it cut.
    Not sure how long they can justify the total of 6 full time barbers across the 3 sites.

    You should copy PM's example, and employ 1) a bowl; and 2) a weed-wacker.

    Helpful tip - shake out the weed-wacker BEFORE giving yerself a quick trim.
  • dixiedean said:

    Went to get my haircut today. There are 3 barbers in my town. The one I usually use was closed (it always is on Mondays). The "yoof" barber had one customer, so took a chance on the third.
    Totally empty. Had cut. Not a single other customer while I was there. A total of 2 people having haircuts at 2 pm in the afternoon in a town of 10000. Probably double that with surrounding villages.
    Said they had been very busy first couple of weeks (pent up demand), but dead since.
    No one is going to weddings, parties, dating, out on the pull, school etc., so no pressing need to have it cut.
    Not sure how long they can justify the total of 6 full time barbers across the 3 sites.

    I'm not sure how many barbers survive in any case given the way their numbers seem to have increased in the last decade.

    Maybe its a young person's thing.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,217
    edited August 2020

    rcs1000 said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
    But that's always been the case.

    The question is whether the ratio of actual number infected to known about number infected increasing or decreasing.
    I would be staggered if we don't see a four-fold increase in reported cases over the next two weeks in the UK.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    Its less than what EdM had at the equivalent time.

    Remember EdM ?

    PB had an acronym about him.
    Not really a fair comparison. Ed Milliband took over after Labour had lost an election by less than 7% in terms of vote share. He was also effectively gifted a big chunk of the 2010 LibDem vote as a consequence of their decision to enter a Tory led Coalition. Starmer became leader in the wake of a Tory vote share lead of almost 12% in 2019 - and at a time when the Tories were enjoying stratospheric leads as high as 26%. The 2015 electoral earthquake in Scotland has also knocked 2% off Labour's GB vote share - ie had that not happened the two main parties would be level pegging in this poll.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
    But that's always been the case.

    The question is whether the ratio of actual number infected to known about number infected increasing or decreasing.
    I would be staggered if we don't see a four-fold increase in reported cases over the next two weeks in the UK.
    A prediction to remember.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720

    So will Leeds be getting added to the Trans-Pennine lockdown zone?

    It's only fair.

    And Swindon.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,217

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
    But that's always been the case.

    The question is whether the ratio of actual number infected to known about number infected increasing or decreasing.
    I would be staggered if we don't see a four-fold increase in reported cases over the next two weeks in the UK.
    A prediction to remember.
    Don't forget we've had lots of people coming back from Spain, and very few of them will have socially distanced there.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,620
    edited August 2020
    justin124 said:

    Its less than what EdM had at the equivalent time.

    Remember EdM ?

    PB had an acronym about him.
    Not really a fair comparison. Ed Milliband took over after Labour had lost an election by less than 7% in terms of vote share. He was also effectively gifted a big chunk of the 2010 LibDem vote as a consequence of their decision to enter a Tory led Coalition. Starmer became leader in the wake of a Tory vote share lead of almost 12% in 2019 - and at a time when the Tories were enjoying stratospheric leads as high as 26%. The 2015 electoral earthquake in Scotland has also knocked 2% off Labour's GB vote share - ie had that not happened the two main parties would be level pegging in this poll.
    Does anyone really think the Conservatives were actually 26% ahead ?

    Such leads, for any party, are always ephemeral.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
    But that's always been the case.

    The question is whether the ratio of actual number infected to known about number infected increasing or decreasing.
    I would be staggered if we don't see a four-fold increase in reported cases over the next two weeks in the UK.
    The pubs have been open for a month, so if people getting pissed and breathing over each other were going to cause a tsunami wave of cases (as opposed to isolated instances where groups have behaved like knobs or got very unlucky) then one has to assume that this would've started by now.

    That leaves, as the source for this fresh explosion, the holidaymakers. Were there enough of them out in Spain, were there enough cases abroad in the places where most of them were visiting for a sufficiently large number to become infected, and have they then been insufficiently compliant with the demand to quarantine on top of that, for this to trigger off a major new burst of community transmission? You may be right, but colour me sceptical.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,720
    Foxy said:



    I don't think that there is any evidence for worse outcomes in patients taking ACE inhibitors or ARB blockers.

    'If you are dehydrated, these medecines can stop your kidneys working properly'
    So I suppose you seek advice on whether to continue with them if you are struck down by CV-19.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    Foxy said:

    Compare & contrast who the UK would be willing to help with who would be willing to help the UK...

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1290328646545215490?s=20

    Well, Brexit does mean Brexit! The countries that the EU members are willing to help remain in the Union. Isn't that what Unions are for, mutual support?
    Your fellow Brits don't agree with you.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,036
    Too right Dan. We should do nothing until we reach 100,000 infections per day, like last time.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
    But that's always been the case.

    The question is whether the ratio of actual number infected to known about number infected increasing or decreasing.
    I would be staggered if we don't see a four-fold increase in reported cases over the next two weeks in the UK.
    A prediction to remember.
    Don't forget we've had lots of people coming back from Spain, and very few of them will have socially distanced there.
    Well, if you are ultimately proven correct then I think the British population can wave bye-bye to overseas holidays for the rest of the year at least. Quite how the Government survives the pressure to shut the international travel industry back down again under such dire circumstances, I don't know.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,413
    edited August 2020
    Which is a fair point. However, do nowt and it doubles again in August, then again in September. Becoming progressively harder to stamp out.

    1 in 1000 by end of Sep.
    1 in 500 by end of Oct.
    1 in 125 by New Year.
    If not now, then when do we act?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,036
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    England case numbers -

    image

    Are todays number of new cases the highest since June?
    Well, the number for the 29th by specimen date - 925 is similar to mid June.

    The headline number is reporting date and is generally not worth bothering with.
    Do you think there is a trend?

    If so is it down, flat or rising?
    Cases are rising.

    Using the headline number is for Piers Morgan.
    Cases in England are not rising, at least not if this explanation from a reputable source is to be believed (extract edited slightly for sense without the accompanying graphs):

    On first glance it looks like the number of cases in Pillar 2 is trending up and Pillar 1 is trending down... However, what happens if you adjust for any change in testing over time? On the 1st of July – the seven day moving average of testing was 41,109 for Pillar 1 and 43,161 in Pillar 2. By the 31st July, the Pillar 1 seven day average for testing had increased to 49,543 (a 20% increase,) while the Pillar 2 had risen by much more – by 82% to 78,522 tests... When you adjust for the number of tests done and then standardise to per 100,000 tests, Pillar 1 is seen to be still trending down, but Pillar 2 is now flatlining. The increase in the number of cases detected, therefore, could be due to the increase in testing in Pillar 2.

    https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/
    The numbers we see today are - of course - from people who got infected two weeks ago. Given (a) people coming back from holiday in Spain, and (b) less social distancing, it would be very surprising if the actual number of people with CV19 was significantly higher than current positive tests suggest.
    But that's always been the case.

    The question is whether the ratio of actual number infected to known about number infected increasing or decreasing.
    I would be staggered if we don't see a four-fold increase in reported cases over the next two weeks in the UK.
    A prediction to remember.
    Don't forget we've had lots of people coming back from Spain, and very few of them will have socially distanced there.
    They'll certainly come back with a dose of something.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm losing confidence in them, I must admit. Clearly not alone in this.

    I never had confidence in them, however I equally don't think anyone else would have done much better.
    Hunt?
    RCS1000 outlines the problem better than I would.
    rcs1000 said:

    It's not so much that the easing is too fast or too slow, but that it is too jerky and badly explained.

    The other problem is one that is all too often missed, both on here and in the wider world:

    There's usually a ten to fourteen day gap between infection and diagnosis.

    Add to this the fact that people are most infectious before they show symptoms, and you have a recipe for decision making (and judging) that happens with eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirror.
    Basically by the time you know you need to do something it's too late which means you need to hit things early which means you will need to hit them often which will eventually cause resentment.
    It's a difficult thing to manage no question about that. But if the Tory leadership run off had gone differently we could have had a PM with the perfect profile for this. An unflappable and diligent guy who was Health Secretary for 7 years. Instead we have Boris Johnson.

    So it's a case of what might have been and when contemplating this disastrous combination of Covid pandemic and PM "Boris" that's the word that tends to spring to my mind - Hunt.
    We might also still not have got Brexit done and still not have a Tory majority
    Yes. So would there have been any downsides at all from the national interest viewpoint?

    Hard to think of any.
    Yes. No Tory majority would be against the national interest. Which is why by millions the public voted to have one.
    They couldn't possibly have voted for a tory majority.
This discussion has been closed.