Celtic's Boli Bolingoli apologises over quarantine breach....
...In a statement, the Scottish government said it was aware of reports of the player having broken quarantine rules last week.
It added: "We are currently in discussion with the club and football governing bodies to establish the facts.
"If confirmed as another serious incident within Scottish football, where protocols have been breached at the risk of wider public health, then the Scottish government will have little choice but to consider whether a pause is now needed in the resumption of the game in Scotland."
Why is President Trump trying to ban TikTok? I get the national security issues around Huawei. But TikTok is a silly video sharing site, right?
Its a trade war. Being anti TikTok is very popular amongst the Brexiteer right, who have forgotten what a free market looks like. If Chinese companies cant collect data like a customers name, age, phone number and email without being a security risk it is essentially a ban on Chinese companies being successful in the US.
Which is no great loss to the world. Until the Chinese play by the same rules as everyone else then we should be limiting the amount of business we do with them to the absolute minimum.
Same rules as everyone else? Good idea, if only there was a term for such a basis for trade. Level playing field perhaps? Even better we could all sign up to the rules more formally as part of a trading bloc.
🙄
Well same rules as everyone else is a meaningless phrase. More people play by China's rules than anyone else. The US have a very different set of rules to the EU. India have their own set of rules, as do Russia. Which of these rules are China supposed to adopt? Oh, its the UKs rules, I see.
If we believe in same rules as everyone else we should work towards common global standards which involves sacrificing some sovereignty for a better trade outcome.
Workplace test and trace systems might be a way forward, as used by the boffins at the Crick Institute. The Telegraph seems to have buried this piece overnight, perhaps because it is not deferential enough to HMG.
How Sir Paul Nurse got 1,200 scientists safely back to work with the 'easy' test and trace method Around 1,200 scientists are back at work, due to the success of the Institute's test and trace system
...
“We allow very few visitors,” Nurse’s PA tells me as she guides me to his office. “We test everybody every week,” he adds once I get there. “And in the three months we’ve been doing it, we’ve had just three infected people.” They got sent home, along with those at the Crick they came into contact with.
“Testing and tracing in a building is easy, just easy,” he insists. It is, he says with both satisfaction and impatience, a model of what could be done.
“There hasn’t been enough attention on how you defend the workplace,” he says. We have retreated too easily, he thinks, from the institutions of everyday life. “Now, I wouldn’t say that testing is cheap – but, then, it’s not been cheap sending everybody home.” ... “They could have had a 100,000 [daily] testing capacity [much sooner], which would have helped with the last peak,” he insists. “But they had got completely committed to the big laboratories, which could never have been put in place in time.” ...
The result he fears, looking back, is that – faced with shortages of everything from tests to humble face masks – policy was bent to fit capacity. ... As the Government “devised rules that allowed them to operate but didn’t contain the pandemic”, he notes, one of the first casualties was trust: trust not just between electors and elected, and between politicians and scientists. “It has all unravelled.” ... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sir-paul-nurse-got-1200-scientists-safely-back-work-easy-test/
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Good post. I can`t help recalling a post of mine from way back at the start of all this when I said that at the daily covid presentations the government minister should be flanked by an economist and a philosopher along with a heath/scientific adviser. There has always been three factors in play: health, the economy and our freedoms.
Why is President Trump trying to ban TikTok? I get the national security issues around Huawei. But TikTok is a silly video sharing site, right?
Its a trade war. Being anti TikTok is very popular amongst the Brexiteer right, who have forgotten what a free market looks like. If Chinese companies cant collect data like a customers name, age, phone number and email without being a security risk it is essentially a ban on Chinese companies being successful in the US.
Which is no great loss to the world. Until the Chinese play by the same rules as everyone else then we should be limiting the amount of business we do with them to the absolute minimum.
Same rules as everyone else? Good idea, if only there was a term for such a basis for trade. Level playing field perhaps? Even better we could all sign up to the rules more formally as part of a trading bloc.
🙄
Well same rules as everyone else is a meaningless phrase. More people play by China's rules than anyone else. The US have a very different set of rules to the EU. India have their own set of rules, as do Russia. Which of these rules are China supposed to adopt? Oh, its the UKs rules, I see.
If we believe in same rules as everyone else we should work towards common global standards which involves sacrificing some sovereignty for a better trade outcome.
We have something approaching that with say CE but the UK has decided to copy CE and make its own British version because the UK is amazing
Since HMG has spaffed £100 million on the wrong type of mask for the NHS, it can probably turn a profit by selling them to the public.
Or it could distribute them for free. Was it that they were surgical type masks with ear loops rather than ties ? In which case they are more than adequate for use outside of hospitals.
The almost useless face coverings are simple bandanas.
Imagine the headlines though. Their answer will be to leave them rotting in a warehouse until the vaccine is out, then bury them underground and hope everyone has forgotten.
Why ? If they are more than adequate for public use, they should be used.
Of course they "should" be, and yours is a very good suggestion. But I am pretty confident this govt wont let "should" override avoiding a week of bad media headlines as the press take the mickey for buying dud masks from one of their cronies who had no experience in PPE. (Or perhaps he is a fellow Oxford PPE grad and the govt buyer thought that sufficient relevant experience).
I do have a slight theory that some free trade nutters think wealth creation is being a more respectable Arthur Daley middleman rather than creating anything useful at either end of the exchange.
That said there are now new PPE factories coming on line with government support:
Factories in South Wales and Lancashire have started making "high quality" face coverings as part of a push to produce a million a week.
Some £14m is being invested by the UK government, with productions underway in Port Talbot and Blackburn.
The Cabinet Office said 10 production lines had been bought, including 34 tons of equipment and machinery, while a further 10 had been commissioned from Coventry-based automotive company Expert Tooling and Automation Ltd.
Notice how little was needed to create our own PPE production compared to what has been spent on PPE which has turned out to be substandard.
When the government said we were on a war footing back in March Id assumed factories being requisitioned for production of masks etc was going to happen immediately. Good to see things like this are starting to happen, but its several months too late.
This is people who have lost their jobs. Furloughed are still employed - for now...
From those I know - they are loosing their jobs. They are heading home, because it is cheaper/better to be unemployed in your "home" country.
Especially when you consider renting in London/UK vs returning to the family home/home you own outright in your home town/village.
A number, who still have their jobs, are WF(Country) - why be in London, when you can spend a month on the Black Sea coast in summer?
Movement of this scale could have a significant impact on our peak unemployment post Covid. A lot, although by no means all, EU workers were in hospitality, retail and the service sectors all of which are particularly badly hit. The more skilled ones are more likely to have secure employment.
My first thought, on seeing the Daily Mail story below about the empty office effect on bars, restaurants etc was that a lot of those places employed European immigrants.
Not many UK permanent residents/citizens seem to work those jobs.
Since HMG has spaffed £100 million on the wrong type of mask for the NHS, it can probably turn a profit by selling them to the public.
Or it could distribute them for free. Was it that they were surgical type masks with ear loops rather than ties ? In which case they are more than adequate for use outside of hospitals.
The almost useless face coverings are simple bandanas.
Imagine the headlines though. Their answer will be to leave them rotting in a warehouse until the vaccine is out, then bury them underground and hope everyone has forgotten.
Why ? If they are more than adequate for public use, they should be used.
Of course they "should" be, and yours is a very good suggestion. But I am pretty confident this govt wont let "should" override avoiding a week of bad media headlines as the press take the mickey for buying dud masks from one of their cronies who had no experience in PPE. (Or perhaps he is a fellow Oxford PPE grad and the govt buyer thought that sufficient relevant experience).
I do have a slight theory that some free trade nutters think wealth creation is being a more respectable Arthur Daley middleman rather than creating anything useful at either end of the exchange.
That said there are now new PPE factories coming on line with government support:
Factories in South Wales and Lancashire have started making "high quality" face coverings as part of a push to produce a million a week.
Some £14m is being invested by the UK government, with productions underway in Port Talbot and Blackburn.
The Cabinet Office said 10 production lines had been bought, including 34 tons of equipment and machinery, while a further 10 had been commissioned from Coventry-based automotive company Expert Tooling and Automation Ltd.
Celtic's Boli Bolingoli apologises over quarantine breach....
...In a statement, the Scottish government said it was aware of reports of the player having broken quarantine rules last week.
It added: "We are currently in discussion with the club and football governing bodies to establish the facts.
"If confirmed as another serious incident within Scottish football, where protocols have been breached at the risk of wider public health, then the Scottish government will have little choice but to consider whether a pause is now needed in the resumption of the game in Scotland."
This could put pretty much virtually all Scottish league clubs out of business.
It's difficult to come to a conclusion other than that the Scottish government is focused on putting as many businesses out of business as possible with their current policies. Whilst the rest of the country is struggling to get back to work it is still illegal in Scotland to have offices open if you can work from home. Illegal.
As I mentioned yesterday hotels still can't use their pools or spas. Scottish football is barely a business at the best of times but without gate money I don't see how any club outside the SPL operates at all. The latest task force set up by the Scottish government focused on the essential matter of improving wellbeing. Wellbeing. You simply cannot buy this level of incompetence.
Workplace test and trace systems might be a way forward, as used by the boffins at the Crick Institute. The Telegraph seems to have buried this piece overnight, perhaps because it is not deferential enough to HMG.
How Sir Paul Nurse got 1,200 scientists safely back to work with the 'easy' test and trace method Around 1,200 scientists are back at work, due to the success of the Institute's test and trace system
...
“We allow very few visitors,” Nurse’s PA tells me as she guides me to his office. “We test everybody every week,” he adds once I get there. “And in the three months we’ve been doing it, we’ve had just three infected people.” They got sent home, along with those at the Crick they came into contact with.
“Testing and tracing in a building is easy, just easy,” he insists. It is, he says with both satisfaction and impatience, a model of what could be done.
“There hasn’t been enough attention on how you defend the workplace,” he says. We have retreated too easily, he thinks, from the institutions of everyday life. “Now, I wouldn’t say that testing is cheap – but, then, it’s not been cheap sending everybody home.” ... “They could have had a 100,000 [daily] testing capacity [much sooner], which would have helped with the last peak,” he insists. “But they had got completely committed to the big laboratories, which could never have been put in place in time.” ...
The result he fears, looking back, is that – faced with shortages of everything from tests to humble face masks – policy was bent to fit capacity. ... As the Government “devised rules that allowed them to operate but didn’t contain the pandemic”, he notes, one of the first casualties was trust: trust not just between electors and elected, and between politicians and scientists. “It has all unravelled.” ... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sir-paul-nurse-got-1200-scientists-safely-back-work-easy-test/
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Very good analysis. We should concede that it's difficult to do, but it doesn't appear that there is a systematic attempt across Government to do it.
The governments approach to schools has been very different to hospitals. There have been no initiatives, no Nightingale classrooms, no effort to draft retired teachers back to the classroom. Nothing, zip. A wasted opportunity. Just political posturing.
Since HMG has spaffed £100 million on the wrong type of mask for the NHS, it can probably turn a profit by selling them to the public.
Or it could distribute them for free. Was it that they were surgical type masks with ear loops rather than ties ? In which case they are more than adequate for use outside of hospitals.
The almost useless face coverings are simple bandanas.
Imagine the headlines though. Their answer will be to leave them rotting in a warehouse until the vaccine is out, then bury them underground and hope everyone has forgotten.
Why ? If they are more than adequate for public use, they should be used.
Of course they "should" be, and yours is a very good suggestion. But I am pretty confident this govt wont let "should" override avoiding a week of bad media headlines as the press take the mickey for buying dud masks from one of their cronies who had no experience in PPE. (Or perhaps he is a fellow Oxford PPE grad and the govt buyer thought that sufficient relevant experience).
I do have a slight theory that some free trade nutters think wealth creation is being a more respectable Arthur Daley middleman rather than creating anything useful at either end of the exchange.
That said there are now new PPE factories coming on line with government support:
Factories in South Wales and Lancashire have started making "high quality" face coverings as part of a push to produce a million a week.
Some £14m is being invested by the UK government, with productions underway in Port Talbot and Blackburn.
The Cabinet Office said 10 production lines had been bought, including 34 tons of equipment and machinery, while a further 10 had been commissioned from Coventry-based automotive company Expert Tooling and Automation Ltd.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
Great scientists, on the other hand, are very often arrogant. Even Newton’s famous line about standing on the shoulders of giants was aimed at his short rival, Hooke (who was not the most modest of people either).
Workplace test and trace systems might be a way forward, as used by the boffins at the Crick Institute. The Telegraph seems to have buried this piece overnight, perhaps because it is not deferential enough to HMG.
How Sir Paul Nurse got 1,200 scientists safely back to work with the 'easy' test and trace method Around 1,200 scientists are back at work, due to the success of the Institute's test and trace system
...
“We allow very few visitors,” Nurse’s PA tells me as she guides me to his office. “We test everybody every week,” he adds once I get there. “And in the three months we’ve been doing it, we’ve had just three infected people.” They got sent home, along with those at the Crick they came into contact with.
“Testing and tracing in a building is easy, just easy,” he insists. It is, he says with both satisfaction and impatience, a model of what could be done.
“There hasn’t been enough attention on how you defend the workplace,” he says. We have retreated too easily, he thinks, from the institutions of everyday life. “Now, I wouldn’t say that testing is cheap – but, then, it’s not been cheap sending everybody home.” ... “They could have had a 100,000 [daily] testing capacity [much sooner], which would have helped with the last peak,” he insists. “But they had got completely committed to the big laboratories, which could never have been put in place in time.” ...
The result he fears, looking back, is that – faced with shortages of everything from tests to humble face masks – policy was bent to fit capacity. ... As the Government “devised rules that allowed them to operate but didn’t contain the pandemic”, he notes, one of the first casualties was trust: trust not just between electors and elected, and between politicians and scientists. “It has all unravelled.” ... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sir-paul-nurse-got-1200-scientists-safely-back-work-easy-test/
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Good post. I can`t help recalling a post of mine from way back at the start of all this when I said that at the daily covid presentations the government minister should be flanked by an economist and a philosopher along with a heath/scientific adviser. There has always been three factors in play: health, the economy and our freedoms.
Schools will be the point where the government's waffle and inaction legs them up. We're about to have the great "middle class" calamity of wrecked A-Level results. Those of us with children awaiting their results know what they should be getting and if its marked down because of an algorithm based off other people there will be Hell To Pay. And as they reel from that they will be trying to send kids back to school.
Remember the plan was to have a fully effective test track and trace system in place to make it safe to fully reopen. We not only don't have an app but our world-beating system has seen thousands hired to not do any tracking or tracing and now they're all being sacked to be replaced by ministers complaining that cash-starved councils aren't doing what the government said it would be doing.
And testing? We know that a very simple check is temperature. Laser zap all students before you let them into school. Except that we can't do that as nobody in the government has bothered to get a pile of these thermometers made. "Scientists say its fine" says a man Sacked for Lying. "Thats incorrect" say the scientists almost immediately. People aren't stupid.
Workplace test and trace systems might be a way forward, as used by the boffins at the Crick Institute. The Telegraph seems to have buried this piece overnight, perhaps because it is not deferential enough to HMG.
How Sir Paul Nurse got 1,200 scientists safely back to work with the 'easy' test and trace method Around 1,200 scientists are back at work, due to the success of the Institute's test and trace system
...
“We allow very few visitors,” Nurse’s PA tells me as she guides me to his office. “We test everybody every week,” he adds once I get there. “And in the three months we’ve been doing it, we’ve had just three infected people.” They got sent home, along with those at the Crick they came into contact with.
“Testing and tracing in a building is easy, just easy,” he insists. It is, he says with both satisfaction and impatience, a model of what could be done.
“There hasn’t been enough attention on how you defend the workplace,” he says. We have retreated too easily, he thinks, from the institutions of everyday life. “Now, I wouldn’t say that testing is cheap – but, then, it’s not been cheap sending everybody home.” ... “They could have had a 100,000 [daily] testing capacity [much sooner], which would have helped with the last peak,” he insists. “But they had got completely committed to the big laboratories, which could never have been put in place in time.” ...
The result he fears, looking back, is that – faced with shortages of everything from tests to humble face masks – policy was bent to fit capacity. ... As the Government “devised rules that allowed them to operate but didn’t contain the pandemic”, he notes, one of the first casualties was trust: trust not just between electors and elected, and between politicians and scientists. “It has all unravelled.” ... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sir-paul-nurse-got-1200-scientists-safely-back-work-easy-test/
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Very good analysis. We should concede that it's difficult to do, but it doesn't appear that there is a systematic attempt across Government to do it.
The governments approach to schools has been very different to hospitals. There have been no initiatives, no Nightingale classrooms, no effort to draft retired teachers back to the classroom. Nothing, zip. A wasted opportunity. Just political posturing.
My son's school asked for volunteers to assist if classes had to be spread over 2 or more classrooms to provide social distancing. My wife volunteered but she has been stood down in light of this week's "guidance". The school have kept the list in case next week's guidance changes once again.
Workplace test and trace systems might be a way forward, as used by the boffins at the Crick Institute. The Telegraph seems to have buried this piece overnight, perhaps because it is not deferential enough to HMG.
How Sir Paul Nurse got 1,200 scientists safely back to work with the 'easy' test and trace method Around 1,200 scientists are back at work, due to the success of the Institute's test and trace system
...
“We allow very few visitors,” Nurse’s PA tells me as she guides me to his office. “We test everybody every week,” he adds once I get there. “And in the three months we’ve been doing it, we’ve had just three infected people.” They got sent home, along with those at the Crick they came into contact with.
“Testing and tracing in a building is easy, just easy,” he insists. It is, he says with both satisfaction and impatience, a model of what could be done.
“There hasn’t been enough attention on how you defend the workplace,” he says. We have retreated too easily, he thinks, from the institutions of everyday life. “Now, I wouldn’t say that testing is cheap – but, then, it’s not been cheap sending everybody home.” ... “They could have had a 100,000 [daily] testing capacity [much sooner], which would have helped with the last peak,” he insists. “But they had got completely committed to the big laboratories, which could never have been put in place in time.” ...
The result he fears, looking back, is that – faced with shortages of everything from tests to humble face masks – policy was bent to fit capacity. ... As the Government “devised rules that allowed them to operate but didn’t contain the pandemic”, he notes, one of the first casualties was trust: trust not just between electors and elected, and between politicians and scientists. “It has all unravelled.” ... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sir-paul-nurse-got-1200-scientists-safely-back-work-easy-test/
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Very good analysis. We should concede that it's difficult to do, but it doesn't appear that there is a systematic attempt across Government to do it.
The governments approach to schools has been very different to hospitals. There have been no initiatives, no Nightingale classrooms, no effort to draft retired teachers back to the classroom. Nothing, zip. A wasted opportunity. Just political posturing.
My son's school asked for volunteers to assist if classes had to be spread over 2 or more classrooms to provide social distancing. My wife volunteered but she has been stood down in light of this week's "guidance". The school have kept the list in case next week's guidance changes once again.
It’s a shambles. Note that this is done by volunteers. No actual money spent on recruiting people. The govt had 5 months to get things ready for September.
The ‘experts’ who claim that schools are not a risk for spreading the virus seem to be ignoring the evolution of the virus in Spain where 70% of new cases are under 30 and one of the main sources being nightlife frequented by teenagers. To let secondary schools back without masks as a minimum may prove to be a serious mistake.
Workplace test and trace systems might be a way forward, as used by the boffins at the Crick Institute. The Telegraph seems to have buried this piece overnight, perhaps because it is not deferential enough to HMG.
How Sir Paul Nurse got 1,200 scientists safely back to work with the 'easy' test and trace method Around 1,200 scientists are back at work, due to the success of the Institute's test and trace system
...
“We allow very few visitors,” Nurse’s PA tells me as she guides me to his office. “We test everybody every week,” he adds once I get there. “And in the three months we’ve been doing it, we’ve had just three infected people.” They got sent home, along with those at the Crick they came into contact with.
“Testing and tracing in a building is easy, just easy,” he insists. It is, he says with both satisfaction and impatience, a model of what could be done.
“There hasn’t been enough attention on how you defend the workplace,” he says. We have retreated too easily, he thinks, from the institutions of everyday life. “Now, I wouldn’t say that testing is cheap – but, then, it’s not been cheap sending everybody home.” ... “They could have had a 100,000 [daily] testing capacity [much sooner], which would have helped with the last peak,” he insists. “But they had got completely committed to the big laboratories, which could never have been put in place in time.” ...
The result he fears, looking back, is that – faced with shortages of everything from tests to humble face masks – policy was bent to fit capacity. ... As the Government “devised rules that allowed them to operate but didn’t contain the pandemic”, he notes, one of the first casualties was trust: trust not just between electors and elected, and between politicians and scientists. “It has all unravelled.” ... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sir-paul-nurse-got-1200-scientists-safely-back-work-easy-test/
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Good post. I can`t help recalling a post of mine from way back at the start of all this when I said that at the daily covid presentations the government minister should be flanked by an economist and a philosopher along with a heath/scientific adviser. There has always been three factors in play: health, the economy and our freedoms.
Schools will be the point where the government's waffle and inaction legs them up. We're about to have the great "middle class" calamity of wrecked A-Level results. Those of us with children awaiting their results know what they should be getting and if its marked down because of an algorithm based off other people there will be Hell To Pay. And as they reel from that they will be trying to send kids back to school.
Remember the plan was to have a fully effective test track and trace system in place to make it safe to fully reopen. We not only don't have an app but our world-beating system has seen thousands hired to not do any tracking or tracing and now they're all being sacked to be replaced by ministers complaining that cash-starved councils aren't doing what the government said it would be doing.
And testing? We know that a very simple check is temperature. Laser zap all students before you let them into school. Except that we can't do that as nobody in the government has bothered to get a pile of these thermometers made. "Scientists say its fine" says a man Sacked for Lying. "Thats incorrect" say the scientists almost immediately. People aren't stupid.
Two thoughts on the thermometers and temperature checks. AIUI the govt view is that they are not reliable enough an indicator to be a good use of resources.
However, on schools, if the public are re-assured by them, which they are, that is a good enough reason to have them, even if its like airport security, mostly for show.
Secondly, even if the error rate is high for individuals, surely across the population of a school if the percentage of pupils and staff with abnormal temperatures is particularly high that should be a strong indicator of a local outbreak which is very useful information to have.
This is people who have lost their jobs. Furloughed are still employed - for now...
From those I know - they are loosing their jobs. They are heading home, because it is cheaper/better to be unemployed in your "home" country.
Especially when you consider renting in London/UK vs returning to the family home/home you own outright in your home town/village.
A number, who still have their jobs, are WF(Country) - why be in London, when you can spend a month on the Black Sea coast in summer?
Movement of this scale could have a significant impact on our peak unemployment post Covid. A lot, although by no means all, EU workers were in hospitality, retail and the service sectors all of which are particularly badly hit. The more skilled ones are more likely to have secure employment.
My first thought, on seeing the Daily Mail story below about the empty office effect on bars, restaurants etc was that a lot of those places employed European immigrants.
Not many UK permanent residents/citizens seem to work those jobs.
Yes, so it may be that the large loss in employment will be mitigated to some degree in the indigenous population. Of course those that worked there spent their money in other shops, on transport and rent, just like the rest of us so there will be wider effects too.
The ‘experts’ who claim that schools are not a risk for spreading the virus seem to be ignoring the evolution of the virus in Spain where 70% of new cases are under 30 and one of the main sources being nightlife frequented by teenagers. To let secondary schools back without masks as a minimum may prove to be a serious mistake.
The expert being a man sacked for lying. The actual scientists say he's talking shit, but as he happens to be in charge of schools we're stuck with him.
My 19 year old is doing a work experience year instead of starting university (whatever A-Level results the algorithm awards him...) mainly because of the lack of ability to do the usual sex drugs and rock n' roll university experience. His friends have managed to go out and have some kind of social life this summer but its been pretty restricted and my son is concerned enough about the rona not to do anything too stupid. I do take the point you make though - the idea that only the old and frail get this just isn't true any more and has lulled too many into an invulnerability streak they're already prone to.
Workplace test and trace systems might be a way forward, as used by the boffins at the Crick Institute. The Telegraph seems to have buried this piece overnight, perhaps because it is not deferential enough to HMG.
How Sir Paul Nurse got 1,200 scientists safely back to work with the 'easy' test and trace method Around 1,200 scientists are back at work, due to the success of the Institute's test and trace system
...
“We allow very few visitors,” Nurse’s PA tells me as she guides me to his office. “We test everybody every week,” he adds once I get there. “And in the three months we’ve been doing it, we’ve had just three infected people.” They got sent home, along with those at the Crick they came into contact with.
“Testing and tracing in a building is easy, just easy,” he insists. It is, he says with both satisfaction and impatience, a model of what could be done.
“There hasn’t been enough attention on how you defend the workplace,” he says. We have retreated too easily, he thinks, from the institutions of everyday life. “Now, I wouldn’t say that testing is cheap – but, then, it’s not been cheap sending everybody home.” ... “They could have had a 100,000 [daily] testing capacity [much sooner], which would have helped with the last peak,” he insists. “But they had got completely committed to the big laboratories, which could never have been put in place in time.” ...
The result he fears, looking back, is that – faced with shortages of everything from tests to humble face masks – policy was bent to fit capacity. ... As the Government “devised rules that allowed them to operate but didn’t contain the pandemic”, he notes, one of the first casualties was trust: trust not just between electors and elected, and between politicians and scientists. “It has all unravelled.” ... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sir-paul-nurse-got-1200-scientists-safely-back-work-easy-test/
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Very good analysis. We should concede that it's difficult to do, but it doesn't appear that there is a systematic attempt across Government to do it.
The governments approach to schools has been very different to hospitals. There have been no initiatives, no Nightingale classrooms, no effort to draft retired teachers back to the classroom. Nothing, zip. A wasted opportunity. Just political posturing.
My son's school asked for volunteers to assist if classes had to be spread over 2 or more classrooms to provide social distancing. My wife volunteered but she has been stood down in light of this week's "guidance". The school have kept the list in case next week's guidance changes once again.
It’s a shambles. Note that this is done by volunteers. No actual money spent on recruiting people. The govt had 5 months to get things ready for September.
The problem is that the guidance has been...evolving. My son's school worked out plans for 2m, 1m and no social separation at all. It was a massive effort and I am not sure if it has been replicated elsewhere. Their playground areas look like some complicated maze, they utilised all of their estate converting libraries, common rooms, larger public areas etc into additional class rooms. I have been both impressed by their diligence and more than a little dismayed at so much activity that will ultimately not be used.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
My thought is that one of the reasons that everything's such a mess is that very few in Government are really focussing on what is needed to get everyday life returning to something akin to normal and focussing hard on what is needed to do that in every environment at an acceptable level of risk.
Fundamentally there is no point in having "COVID safe" workplaces, schools, shops or social venues, if the measures put in place cannot make those places viable to deliver what they exist for. A "COVID" safe workplace that reduces capacity by 90% is not viable. A school that can only operate at 50% capacity is not viable etc etc.
So either measures have to be devised (whether that's due to rapid testing on entry or whatever) that allow places to operate at viable capacity, or more focus needs to be put on outcomes. What level of COVID infection is acceptable, what are the dangers, can measures be taken to encourage high levels of infection but good/acceptable clinical outcomes (the viral load stuff which we've been talking about since the beginning but still seems to be largely ignored in Government guidance).
It seems to me that one of the problems we have (due in part to the poor quality of our political leaders) is that on the one hand we have scientists advising them who are focussed almost entirely on advising how to combat COVID-19. But whereas a competent government would be capable of combining that advice with putting together an overall framework for the country to move forward, but accepting the limitations of the advice, they instead flip flop between claiming science is determing their every move, whilst simply dismissing anything that is uncomfortable.
Leading to farcical situations like yesterday where the Education secretary is massively overplaying scientific "evidence" to justify opening schools, only for the scientists the next day to completely rubbish the way he is using such evidence. Whereas a competent approach might have been to take the good bits (evidence re: primary schools) but look for other solutions (rapid testing on entry etc) for secondary schools. And by drawing distinctions in this way it would be much easier to retain the confidence of scientists for not misusing data, and parents and the public.
Very true and astute.
For some time we had Government by Chief Medical Officer. If the CMO were to pop up on a podium at 5pm every day talking about smoking, or mountaineering, or F1 racing, or...or...each of those activities would have been banned after the first session.
It is the government's job to balance those risks with other factors and arrive at a coherent policy which it is then able to communicate clearly.
It has done none of those things, preferring as you say to see-saw from "we're following the science" to "we are listening to the science".
All of course a transparent attempt to set up excuses and a scapegoat for any particular bad outcome.
F1: with boost, Verstappen at 16 for the title is somewhat tempting. If the heat does play havoc with Mercedes the revised calendar may not necessarily be to their advantage.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
That really shouldnt be a problem - if they are available on Amazon at £35 a pop, its going to cost less than £1 per pupil if buying in bulk.
My sister was back at school yesterday. Her pupils (she teaches primary) are going to be sat in a horseshoe shape so they don't breath on her. I pointed out this meant they were all breathing towards her. She says her desk is 2m away but there is a problem because the little ones have missed her and want to come up to her. I suggested a cattle prod.
She tells me that they are not being supplied with masks or other PPE but can wear their own (seriously) if they wish. It is not mandatory. I can only hope that the evidence on small kids being poor transmitters is correct.
My sister was back at school yesterday. Her pupils (she teaches primary) are going to be sat in a horseshoe shape so they don't breath on each other. I pointed out this meant they were all breathing towards her. She says her desk is 2m away but there is a problem because the little ones have missed her and want to come up to her. I suggested a cattle prod.
She tells me that they are not being supplied with masks or other PPE but can wear their own (seriously) if they wish. It is not mandatory. I can only hope that the evidence on small kids being poor transmitters is correct.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
Fair point. But arrogance is antithetical to good science, and Cummings lacks the scientific training to mitigate his.
Yes. Scientists can be many things: nasty or nice, humble or bitter or stuck up or to some extent driven by ego. But the scientific method rules them all, and they know it. Wakefield was found out by science, but, sad to say, part of our culture doesn't understand that.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
Just look at the story about the discovery of how many stomach ulcers are caused by infections..... All the arrogance and blind belief that "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." that you could ever need.
A chap I knew did 3 years of a PhD. At the very end, he disproved his idea. He could have hidden that, probably got his PhD. He was honest. So he got nothing.
Me personally, I would have given him a PhD on the spot. He did science. A carefully crafted, elegant proof, complete with a ton of evidence, of the negative is a valuable thing.
When the history of the COVID epidemic is written up, I am quite certain that there will a large amount of "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." in the story.
Re the ulcers history, there are plenty of bad scientists and scientists too attached to prevailing wisdom in the face of new evidence. There are also, in that kind of field (I don't know the history of that in great detail) a lot of clinicians, some in academic roles, who don't necessarily have a great deal of research experience - I would not class them as scientists. In many (not all) of those kinds of cases, the medical establishment has decided what underlies a condition and getting a hearing for new science can be difficult.
Regarding the PhD - he should still have been able to get his PhD. I supervise PhDs and have had cases where the underlying premise is found false. As you say, that's science, it's a contribution to the field. It does require a bit more work to pull the thesis together. I had one student who almost stopped at that point, as it can be dispiriting, particularly if there is an attachment to the hypothesis. It sounds as if he may have been badly advised or decided to leave for his own reasons (which may have been entirely valid and a good choice). A good friend of mine had a paper underlying his PhD (not his paper, but the underlying theory) taken apart by an examiner in his viva. The examiner had spotted and error in that paper and made my friend work through it until he saw it too. Meant a chunk of re-writing and a joint paper with the examiner exposing the flaw in the theory, but he got his PhD, partly for helping prove that the theory it was l based on was flawed.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
Just look at the story about the discovery of how many stomach ulcers are caused by infections..... All the arrogance and blind belief that "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." that you could ever need.
A chap I knew did 3 years of a PhD. At the very end, he disproved his idea. He could have hidden that, probably got his PhD. He was honest. So he got nothing.
Me personally, I would have given him a PhD on the spot. He did science. A carefully crafted, elegant proof, complete with a ton of evidence, of the negative is a valuable thing.
When the history of the COVID epidemic is written up, I am quite certain that there will a large amount of "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." in the story.
I used to go to a..... nay the.....major British pharmaceutical conference every year, roughly 1968-80. For about five years there was a series of papers emanating from one of the major research institutes about the uses of a particular set of plant alkaloids. Clearly someone was following a particular interest, especially as the supervisor was a very eminent man in his field. Then they stopped, and a year or so later I bumped into the researcher, and asked him what had happened. Nothing was the reply. In the final analysis, turned out that the alkaloids were al either ineffective or toxic.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
Fair point. But arrogance is antithetical to good science, and Cummings lacks the scientific training to mitigate his.
Yes. Scientists can be many things: nasty or nice, humble or bitter or stuck up or to some extent driven by ego. But the scientific method rules them all, and they know it. Wakefield was found out by science, but, sad to say, part of our culture doesn't understand that.
It's a bit like democracy. Science is the worst way at getting to the truth - except for all the other approaches
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
If it increases the number of kids back at school by a few % then it is working and cost effective. Even if it just generated a random number (they obviously do better than that).
And whilst I can see that they are not effective on an individual level, they should be on a cumulative basis to see if there is a high level of fever in a school/local area.
My sister was back at school yesterday. Her pupils (she teaches primary) are going to be sat in a horseshoe shape so they don't breath on her. I pointed out this meant they were all breathing towards her. She says her desk is 2m away but there is a problem because the little ones have missed her and want to come up to her. I suggested a cattle prod.
She tells me that they are not being supplied with masks or other PPE but can wear their own (seriously) if they wish. It is not mandatory. I can only hope that the evidence on small kids being poor transmitters is correct.
Eldest Grandson teaches primary in England. I'll suggest he buys a prod. More seriously I don't think the children will be wearing masks.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
I take the point - but milling around outdoors is what kids do anyway and if there are going to be staggered start / finish times then milling around is absolutely going to happen. All the evidence is that transmission outdoors is hard, so if it takes a period to check everyone coming in and that means everyone is safe then its worth it. I truly fear the alternative for everyone working in schools or with school age children.
Our kids need school. But that seems to be the government's excuse to just hope this thing goes away and everyone gets back to normal and starts spending money again and starts hating foreigners again so that they'll all vote Tory again. Bugger party politics at the moment, just do whats needed. Governments get rewarded for doing whats needed even if its tough to go through - look at John Major.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
Just look at the story about the discovery of how many stomach ulcers are caused by infections..... All the arrogance and blind belief that "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." that you could ever need.
A chap I knew did 3 years of a PhD. At the very end, he disproved his idea. He could have hidden that, probably got his PhD. He was honest. So he got nothing.
Me personally, I would have given him a PhD on the spot. He did science. A carefully crafted, elegant proof, complete with a ton of evidence, of the negative is a valuable thing.
When the history of the COVID epidemic is written up, I am quite certain that there will a large amount of "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." in the story.
Seems odd - he should surely have been able to write up his thesis, and submit for viva? Its hard to publish things that don't work (one of science's biggest problems IMO) but PhD is about the process, and showing what work you have done.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
So we also need to include enough time to train each teacher in how to use the thermometers and interpret the results, though that would not be too big a problem.
As was pointed out above thermometers like this are not hugely expensive, but if all school suddenly decided they needed a few dozen we might run out.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
If it increases the number of kids back at school by a few % then it is working and cost effective. Even if it just generated a random number (they obviously do better than that).
And whilst I can see that they are not effective on an individual level, they should be on a cumulative basis to see if there is a high level of fever in a school/local area.
There may be other and better evidence for general spread such as a cough, or people finding school meals palatable. Temperature just seems too generic and unpredictable to me.
I know that social media is anecdotage. But I have a feeling that Layla Moran has the momentum in the LibDem leadership race. I expect that much of the older membership will vote for Ed Davey - will have to see how that balances off against younger tweetier members who really do seem to be breaking towards Layla.
My sister was back at school yesterday. Her pupils (she teaches primary) are going to be sat in a horseshoe shape so they don't breath on her. I pointed out this meant they were all breathing towards her. She says her desk is 2m away but there is a problem because the little ones have missed her and want to come up to her. I suggested a cattle prod.
She tells me that they are not being supplied with masks or other PPE but can wear their own (seriously) if they wish. It is not mandatory. I can only hope that the evidence on small kids being poor transmitters is correct.
Eldest Grandson teaches primary in England. I'll suggest he buys a prod. More seriously I don't think the children will be wearing masks.
No they won't. The masks are potentially for the teachers but they are not exactly being encouraged.
I know that social media is anecdotage. But I have a feeling that Layla Moran has the momentum in the LibDem leadership race. I expect that much of the older membership will vote for Ed Davey - will have to see how that balances off against younger tweetier members who really do seem to be breaking towards Layla.
@Foxy voted for Davey so wor Layla is going to win.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
The problem of kids running is easily solved: "you're hot; sit over there for 10 minutes and we'll check again".
And IR cameras could more quickly perform the initial scan, and even in cold weather could identify who was hotter than their peers.
No, schools will hit the PPE problem -- if every school tries to buy hundreds of IR thermometers at once, they will soon clear the shelves and the warehouses and the supply chains.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
If it increases the number of kids back at school by a few % then it is working and cost effective. Even if it just generated a random number (they obviously do better than that).
And whilst I can see that they are not effective on an individual level, they should be on a cumulative basis to see if there is a high level of fever in a school/local area.
There may be other and better evidence for general spread such as a cough, or people finding school meals palatable. Temperature just seems too generic and unpredictable to me.
School meals are a lot better than they were. Most of our students bring in packed lunches, so the canteen has to work hard to generate custom.
The food in my school is actually pretty tasty and if the menu says chilli or curry they mean it: properly hot.
Confirmation that I will continue to be on part time furlough through September. And I expect October. At which point I rather suspect my role and my entire department will be dispensed with...
Confirmation that I will continue to be on part time furlough through September. And I expect October. At which point I rather suspect my role and my entire department will be dispensed with...
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Confirmation that I will continue to be on part time furlough through September. And I expect October. At which point I rather suspect my role and my entire department will be dispensed with...
Good luck. I've got six weeks of job left. I wonder if Dominic Cummings is still looking for weirdos.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult to assess the timing.
But I went for dinner last week in London and at the entrance they had a wall-mounted, press your forehead up against it thermometer. Took precisely 4 seconds. So that's already eaten into your 10,000 seconds. And that was the first time. People will get used to sticking their head against it as they pass through the gates and you are down to barely breaking stride.
- I might be wrong but, if Warren is the VP pick, doesn't the current MA Governor who is a Republican get to pick her replacement (although there are questions about whether he will stay in the party)?
- The ally who advised Kamala Harris to not take the VP slot was Willie Brown, her old "mentor". That might carry a lot of weight with Harris. He suggested Harris could do far more as AG;
- the two frontrunners (Rice and Harris) each bring with them risks for Biden namely (1) controversies of their own (2) they risk accentuating controversies around Biden himself (Harris because of her record on crime which risks focusing attention on Biden's role in crime bills which may alienate black voters; Rice because it will look like an Obama 2.0 admin).
Perhaps most importantly, both are also natural picks for high profile posts that can be offered as compensation (Harris AG / Rice SoS). That also goes for Warren (Treasury Sec) and, arguably, Duckworth (Defence);
- looking at the NY Times article, which looks well informed, 8 candidates get mentioned as in contention - Harris, Rice, Warren, Whitmer, Duckworth, Demings, Bass and Lujan Grisham. If you want a value bet, you can get Lujan Grisham at 130 on Betfair now. That is not bad odds for what looks like a 1 in 8 chance *
* for disclosure, I recommended Lujan Grisham on here under MrEd. My bloody log in is not working so I have had to go back to my old nom de plume...
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult indeed! And the pastoral care is vital, but could the day be re-arranged?
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
The truly great scientists aren't arrogant in my experience. When I was studying for my doctorate I met quite a few of the big names of theoretical particles physics of the time, including spending a couple of weeks working with one of the very greatest of all, Sheldon Glashow. It was really striking how open and approachable the top scientists were - self-confident, yes, and enthusiastic, but remarkably generous with their time and patience for a lowly post-grad. It tended to be the ones who were never going to be great achievers who were unhelpful and arrogant.
I think something similar may apply to most walks of life - including politicians. Probably that's because the top ones don't have anything to prove, and also they know how much luck there is in everything.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult to assess the timing.
But I went for dinner last week in London and at the entrance they had a wall-mounted, press your forehead up against it thermometer. Took precisely 4 seconds. So that's already eaten into your 10,000 seconds. And that was the first time. People will get used to sticking their head against it as they pass through the gates and you are down to barely breaking stride.
PS. I expect there’s a distinction between primary and secondary schools too in terms of risk.
Kids under 10 seem to be extremely low risk but once they are teenagers and going through puberty the immune system and body is more developed to potentially carry and vector.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult indeed! And the pastoral care is vital, but could the day be re-arranged?
Speaking as the one who wrote the timetable, only by either making it longer (so you now have to hire more teachers) or by cutting something else out of the curriculum (and giving me four weeks to write a new timetable).
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult to assess the timing.
But I went for dinner last week in London and at the entrance they had a wall-mounted, press your forehead up against it thermometer. Took precisely 4 seconds. So that's already eaten into your 10,000 seconds. And that was the first time. People will get used to sticking their head against it as they pass through the gates and you are down to barely breaking stride.
Interesting. Do they wipe it down between uses?
Hmm I didn't notice. I was with one other person and I think he had done it a short while previously so not sure.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
Just look at the story about the discovery of how many stomach ulcers are caused by infections..... All the arrogance and blind belief that "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." that you could ever need.
A chap I knew did 3 years of a PhD. At the very end, he disproved his idea. He could have hidden that, probably got his PhD. He was honest. So he got nothing.
Me personally, I would have given him a PhD on the spot. He did science. A carefully crafted, elegant proof, complete with a ton of evidence, of the negative is a valuable thing.
When the history of the COVID epidemic is written up, I am quite certain that there will a large amount of "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." in the story.
Seems odd - he should surely have been able to write up his thesis, and submit for viva? Its hard to publish things that don't work (one of science's biggest problems IMO) but PhD is about the process, and showing what work you have done.
Apparently not. I would have given him one - and recommended him for some kind of distinction/prize....
Apparently the various worthies found that it wasn't in the rules - the days when a PhD was a bunch of chaps deciding if another chap was a good chap or not are gone.
Wonder what they would have made of Ted Taylor's thesis now*
*The genius nuke designer. He'd crashed out of academia, due to being too bright to be functional. Ended up a Los Alamos... After a while they decided it was embarrassing that one of their leading lights didn't have a PhD.
Apparently his thesis was a page with "We can't tell you anything he has done. Give him a PhD already. Signed by { x famous Nobel prize for physics winners}"
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
If it increases the number of kids back at school by a few % then it is working and cost effective. Even if it just generated a random number (they obviously do better than that).
And whilst I can see that they are not effective on an individual level, they should be on a cumulative basis to see if there is a high level of fever in a school/local area.
There may be other and better evidence for general spread such as a cough, or people finding school meals palatable. Temperature just seems too generic and unpredictable to me.
School meals are a lot better than they were. Most of our students bring in packed lunches, so the canteen has to work hard to generate custom.
The food in my school is actually pretty tasty and if the menu says chilli or curry they mean it: properly hot.
It was a poor attempt at a joke. My middle daughter loved school meals but my son is fussier. I am not sure whether the school feels able to open the canteen up. I suspect it will be bring your own for everyone.
- I might be wrong but, if Warren is the VP pick, doesn't the current MA Governor who is a Republican get to pick her replacement (although there are questions about whether he will stay in the party)?
- The ally who advised Kamala Harris to not take the VP slot was Willie Brown, her old "mentor". That might carry a lot of weight with Harris. He suggested Harris could do far more as AG;
- the two frontrunners (Rice and Harris) each bring with them risks for Biden namely (1) controversies of their own (2) they risk accentuating controversies around Biden himself (Harris because of her record on crime which risks focusing attention on Biden's role in crime bills which may alienate black voters; Rice because it will look like an Obama 2.0 admin).
Perhaps most importantly, both are also natural picks for high profile posts that can be offered as compensation (Harris AG / Rice SoS). That also goes for Warren (Treasury Sec) and, arguably, Duckworth (Defence);
- looking at the NY Times article, which looks well informed, 8 candidates get mentioned as in contention - Harris, Rice, Warren, Whitmer, Duckworth, Demings, Bass and Lujan Grisham. If you want a value bet, you can get Lujan Grisham at 130 on Betfair now. That is not bad odds for what looks like a 1 in 8 chance *
* for disclosure, I recommended Lujan Grisham on here under MrEd. My bloody log in is not working so I have had to go back to my old nom de plume...
You may be right that the value lies away from the front of the market (especially since there is no reason to suppose British punters have any special insight into the mind of Joe Biden) but the NYT list of contenders is the same list everyone has been using for weeks. There is not much new news (aside from the Whitmer meeting the other day) and the rest is American media and pundits recycling the same received wisdom.
Fwiw I am green on all major contenders to different amounts, with Tammy Duckworth being my best result.
You are probably also right about other jobs and it would not surprise me if Biden promotes all the contenders to Cabinet or similar positions, even the Supreme Court bench given there are at least three lawyers among them.
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
We know it isn’t great: throws up lots of false positives and false negatives as there are lot of things that can give you a temperature and not all C19 patients have a temperature (indeed there seems to be a suggestion that they are most infectious before any symptoms show).
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
If it increases the number of kids back at school by a few % then it is working and cost effective. Even if it just generated a random number (they obviously do better than that).
And whilst I can see that they are not effective on an individual level, they should be on a cumulative basis to see if there is a high level of fever in a school/local area.
There may be other and better evidence for general spread such as a cough, or people finding school meals palatable. Temperature just seems too generic and unpredictable to me.
The scientific advise to the govt agrees with you, so there is a strong chance you are right. My point is that doesnt matter, if there are enough people who believe it is effective, and therefore send their kids back to school because of it. That is a sufficient and good enough reason to do it, whether or not it works to stop the spread of the disease.
I would guess it will also have some weak positive impact on stopping the spread of the disease, but its most important use is probably giving reassurance and confidence to parents.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
Does it work? If a kid has been running around chasing a ball or another kid in the playground and is sweaty do they fail? If its cold outside (as it soon will be) does the ambient temperature affect the results? If so how long would they need to mill about before you can even take the test and is there any point by then? It really doesn't seem a solution to me.
If it increases the number of kids back at school by a few % then it is working and cost effective. Even if it just generated a random number (they obviously do better than that).
And whilst I can see that they are not effective on an individual level, they should be on a cumulative basis to see if there is a high level of fever in a school/local area.
There may be other and better evidence for general spread such as a cough, or people finding school meals palatable. Temperature just seems too generic and unpredictable to me.
The scientific advise to the govt agrees with you, so there is a strong chance you are right. My point is that doesnt matter, if there are enough people who believe it is effective, and therefore send their kids back to school because of it. That is a sufficient and good enough reason to do it, whether or not it works to stop the spread of the disease.
I would guess it will also have some weak positive impact on stopping the spread of the disease, but its most important use is probably giving reassurance and confidence to parents.
Ah...... "medical theatre" - a relative of "security theatre"
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
We know it isn’t great: throws up lots of false positives and false negatives as there are lot of things that can give you a temperature and not all C19 patients have a temperature (indeed there seems to be a suggestion that they are most infectious before any symptoms show).
That's what I thought. It would be one of these pointless things we did to "reassure" people. Personally I take very little assurance from the fact that those requiring something clearly don't know what they are doing or why they are doing it.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult indeed! And the pastoral care is vital, but could the day be re-arranged?
Speaking as the one who wrote the timetable, only by either making it longer (so you now have to hire more teachers) or by cutting something else out of the curriculum (and giving me four weeks to write a new timetable).
The govt also has a list of 750,000 people who volunteered to help. Id imagine emailing them and asking them to help with temperature checks for an hour each morning would be sufficient and the teachers wouldnt have to be involved at all.
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
We know it isn’t great: throws up lots of false positives and false negatives as there are lot of things that can give you a temperature and not all C19 patients have a temperature (indeed there seems to be a suggestion that they are most infectious before any symptoms show).
Apparently the temperature check at airports thing hasn't caught cases - on a world wide basis.
Because if people feel sick, they don't travel. The movie thing of the guy dying of Ebola, who *has* to go out and infect everyone is just that.
The problem with COVID19 is the lengthy period of no symptoms *and* being infectious.
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult to assess the timing.
But I went for dinner last week in London and at the entrance they had a wall-mounted, press your forehead up against it thermometer. Took precisely 4 seconds. So that's already eaten into your 10,000 seconds. And that was the first time. People will get used to sticking their head against it as they pass through the gates and you are down to barely breaking stride.
Interesting. Do they wipe it down between uses?
The one in the gym simply needs being close to. Don't have to touch it.
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
Just look at the story about the discovery of how many stomach ulcers are caused by infections..... All the arrogance and blind belief that "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." that you could ever need.
A chap I knew did 3 years of a PhD. At the very end, he disproved his idea. He could have hidden that, probably got his PhD. He was honest. So he got nothing.
Me personally, I would have given him a PhD on the spot. He did science. A carefully crafted, elegant proof, complete with a ton of evidence, of the negative is a valuable thing.
When the history of the COVID epidemic is written up, I am quite certain that there will a large amount of "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." in the story.
Seems odd - he should surely have been able to write up his thesis, and submit for viva? Its hard to publish things that don't work (one of science's biggest problems IMO) but PhD is about the process, and showing what work you have done.
Apparently not. I would have given him one - and recommended him for some kind of distinction/prize....
Apparently the various worthies found that it wasn't in the rules - the days when a PhD was a bunch of chaps deciding if another chap was a good chap or not are gone.
Wonder what they would have made of Ted Taylor's thesis now*
*The genius nuke designer. He'd crashed out of academia, due to being too bright to be functional. Ended up a Los Alamos... After a while they decided it was embarrassing that one of their leading lights didn't have a PhD.
Apparently his thesis was a page with "We can't tell you anything he has done. Give him a PhD already. Signed by { x famous Nobel prize for physics winners}"
How long does a temperature check take? 10 seconds? If so a school with 1000 pupils would need 10,000 seconds (or about three hours) to check everyone. Obviously you would have multiple thermometers, but if you are checking them as they come in there is a limit to how many you can check at once as most schools have a limited number of entrances for security (we have three). Meanwhile you have several hundred pupils milling around waiting to be checked, mixing nicely.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
When I go to the gym I have to go through a 'gate' controlled by a password. A thermometer with a screen has now been installed there and as I go to the gate it flashes up my temperature. Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
How long does it take you to get through? Multiply that by 1000 for a typical secondary school (and divide it by the number of gates you think each school could afford).
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
Difficult to assess the timing.
But I went for dinner last week in London and at the entrance they had a wall-mounted, press your forehead up against it thermometer. Took precisely 4 seconds. So that's already eaten into your 10,000 seconds. And that was the first time. People will get used to sticking their head against it as they pass through the gates and you are down to barely breaking stride.
Interesting. Do they wipe it down between uses?
The one in the gym simply needs being close to. Don't have to touch it.
Yes interesting - the one where I was I wasn't sure whether to jam my forehead up against it (I did) or whether, with a bit of instruction, I could have hovered off it!
- I might be wrong but, if Warren is the VP pick, doesn't the current MA Governor who is a Republican get to pick her replacement (although there are questions about whether he will stay in the party)?
- The ally who advised Kamala Harris to not take the VP slot was Willie Brown, her old "mentor". That might carry a lot of weight with Harris. He suggested Harris could do far more as AG;
- the two frontrunners (Rice and Harris) each bring with them risks for Biden namely (1) controversies of their own (2) they risk accentuating controversies around Biden himself (Harris because of her record on crime which risks focusing attention on Biden's role in crime bills which may alienate black voters; Rice because it will look like an Obama 2.0 admin).
Perhaps most importantly, both are also natural picks for high profile posts that can be offered as compensation (Harris AG / Rice SoS). That also goes for Warren (Treasury Sec) and, arguably, Duckworth (Defence);
- looking at the NY Times article, which looks well informed, 8 candidates get mentioned as in contention - Harris, Rice, Warren, Whitmer, Duckworth, Demings, Bass and Lujan Grisham. If you want a value bet, you can get Lujan Grisham at 130 on Betfair now. That is not bad odds for what looks like a 1 in 8 chance *
* for disclosure, I recommended Lujan Grisham on here under MrEd. My bloody log in is not working so I have had to go back to my old nom de plume...
You may be right that the value lies away from the front of the market (especially since there is no reason to suppose British punters have any special insight into the mind of Joe Biden) but the NYT list of contenders is the same list everyone has been using for weeks. There is not much new news (aside from the Whitmer meeting the other day) and the rest is American media and pundits recycling the same received wisdom.
Fwiw I am green on all major contenders to different amounts, with Tammy Duckworth being my best result.
You are probably also right about other jobs and it would not surprise me if Biden promotes all the contenders to Cabinet or similar positions, even the Supreme Court bench given there are at least three lawyers among them.
I think Rice for National Security Advisor is highly probable....
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
We know it isn’t great: throws up lots of false positives and false negatives as there are lot of things that can give you a temperature and not all C19 patients have a temperature (indeed there seems to be a suggestion that they are most infectious before any symptoms show).
Even if there are a lot of errors on an individual level, surely the aggregate data is going to be useful?
If you typically get 5/1000 cases but one week its 25/1000 that is unlikely to be random error. At that point wider more sophisticated testing could be done, if needed the school temporarily closed and the virus could be controlled that way.
Celtic's Boli Bolingoli apologises over quarantine breach....
...In a statement, the Scottish government said it was aware of reports of the player having broken quarantine rules last week.
It added: "We are currently in discussion with the club and football governing bodies to establish the facts.
"If confirmed as another serious incident within Scottish football, where protocols have been breached at the risk of wider public health, then the Scottish government will have little choice but to consider whether a pause is now needed in the resumption of the game in Scotland."
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
We know it isn’t great: throws up lots of false positives and false negatives as there are lot of things that can give you a temperature and not all C19 patients have a temperature (indeed there seems to be a suggestion that they are most infectious before any symptoms show).
Apparently the temperature check at airports thing hasn't caught cases - on a world wide basis.
Because if people feel sick, they don't travel. The movie thing of the guy dying of Ebola, who *has* to go out and infect everyone is just that.
The problem with COVID19 is the lengthy period of no symptoms *and* being infectious.
Not sure that shows that the temperature checks are ineffective. If people know they'll be turned away if they have a temperature, they will surely check their own temperature before setting out, and not bother to turn up at all. That seems a good result.
One of the government scientists was asked about the effectiveness of temperature checks in a briefing a few weeks ago, and said that they weren't very much use because they failed to detect about one-third of cases. I thought that was a very odd thing to say, because a test which is very cheap and non-intrusive to perform, and which does detect two-thirds of cases, strikes me a jolly good idea - you've immediately reduced your incoming cases by a factor of three.
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
We know it isn’t great: throws up lots of false positives and false negatives as there are lot of things that can give you a temperature and not all C19 patients have a temperature (indeed there seems to be a suggestion that they are most infectious before any symptoms show).
Apparently the temperature check at airports thing hasn't caught cases - on a world wide basis.
Because if people feel sick, they don't travel. The movie thing of the guy dying of Ebola, who *has* to go out and infect everyone is just that.
The problem with COVID19 is the lengthy period of no symptoms *and* being infectious.
Not sure that shows that the temperature checks are ineffective. If people know they'll be turned away if they have a temperature, they will surely check their own temperature before setting out, and not bother to turn up at all. That seems a good result.
One of the government scientists was asked about the effectiveness of temperature checks in a briefing a few weeks ago, and said that they weren't very much use because they failed to detect about one-third of cases. I thought that was a very odd thing to say, because a test which is very cheap and non-intrusive to perform, and which does detect two-thirds of cases, strikes me a jolly good idea - you've immediately reduced your incoming cases by a factor of three.
My understanding - from South Korea etc - was that people who think they have a temperature during the COVID crisis are more focused on the "I've got the plague - must find a doctor before I die" thing, rather than travel.
Essentially, pretty much all of the people with temperatures cancelled their flights anyway. The problem was the ones who felt perfectly well...
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
Just look at the story about the discovery of how many stomach ulcers are caused by infections..... All the arrogance and blind belief that "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." that you could ever need.
A chap I knew did 3 years of a PhD. At the very end, he disproved his idea. He could have hidden that, probably got his PhD. He was honest. So he got nothing.
Me personally, I would have given him a PhD on the spot. He did science. A carefully crafted, elegant proof, complete with a ton of evidence, of the negative is a valuable thing.
When the history of the COVID epidemic is written up, I am quite certain that there will a large amount of "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." in the story.
Seems odd - he should surely have been able to write up his thesis, and submit for viva? Its hard to publish things that don't work (one of science's biggest problems IMO) but PhD is about the process, and showing what work you have done.
Apparently not. I would have given him one - and recommended him for some kind of distinction/prize....
Apparently the various worthies found that it wasn't in the rules - the days when a PhD was a bunch of chaps deciding if another chap was a good chap or not are gone.
Wonder what they would have made of Ted Taylor's thesis now*
*The genius nuke designer. He'd crashed out of academia, due to being too bright to be functional. Ended up a Los Alamos... After a while they decided it was embarrassing that one of their leading lights didn't have a PhD.
Apparently his thesis was a page with "We can't tell you anything he has done. Give him a PhD already. Signed by { x famous Nobel prize for physics winners}"
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
We know it isn’t great: throws up lots of false positives and false negatives as there are lot of things that can give you a temperature and not all C19 patients have a temperature (indeed there seems to be a suggestion that they are most infectious before any symptoms show).
Apparently the temperature check at airports thing hasn't caught cases - on a world wide basis.
Because if people feel sick, they don't travel. The movie thing of the guy dying of Ebola, who *has* to go out and infect everyone is just that.
The problem with COVID19 is the lengthy period of no symptoms *and* being infectious.
Not sure that shows that the temperature checks are ineffective. If people know they'll be turned away if they have a temperature, they will surely check their own temperature before setting out, and not bother to turn up at all. That seems a good result.
One of the government scientists was asked about the effectiveness of temperature checks in a briefing a few weeks ago, and said that they weren't very much use because they failed to detect about one-third of cases. I thought that was a very odd thing to say, because a test which is very cheap and non-intrusive to perform, and which does detect two-thirds of cases, strikes me a jolly good idea - you've immediately reduced your incoming cases by a factor of three.
My understanding - from South Korea etc - was that people who think they have a temperature during the COVID crisis are more focused on the "I've got the plague - must find a doctor before I die" thing, rather than travel.
Essentially, pretty much all of the people with temperatures cancelled their flights anyway. The problem was the ones who felt perfectly well...
But do they know they've got a temperature if they don't check as a precaution?
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
No, it isn't. Asymptomatic Covid infected can be significant spreaders. That's the one bit of border control the UK got right - not bothering with temperature testing. More or less everything else they got wrong (testing on arrival doesn't work either - you miss 100% of those infected in transit).
As observed above, to add to "Security Theatre" we now have "Pandemic Theatre".
... Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief advisor famous for his championing of data-driven insights, is “obviously very interested in science - but I don’t think he knows much about how it actually works. It would be better for him and for us if he did.”
Good scientists aren’t arrogant, so that’s a wish unlikely to be granted.
How many scientists have you met? If the arrogant ones aren't good, there goes half the people with an FRS....
The behaviour of people after they get the title professor reminds me of Keegan's comment about generals. Some Pentagon desk jockey get one star - immediately he thinks "I am a general - an equal to Alexander the Great and Napoleon"....
I was going to comment that I've met plenty of arrogant good scientists, but then reflected that - if truly good - they're not actually arrogant, just correct about their abilities
So I think @Nigelb is probably right, but because when scientists become arrogant they cease to be good scientists - good scientists should question everything, including (and perhaps particularly), their own knowledge and abilities.
Just look at the story about the discovery of how many stomach ulcers are caused by infections..... All the arrogance and blind belief that "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." that you could ever need.
A chap I knew did 3 years of a PhD. At the very end, he disproved his idea. He could have hidden that, probably got his PhD. He was honest. So he got nothing.
Me personally, I would have given him a PhD on the spot. He did science. A carefully crafted, elegant proof, complete with a ton of evidence, of the negative is a valuable thing.
When the history of the COVID epidemic is written up, I am quite certain that there will a large amount of "Me Big Scientist. Me Right." in the story.
Seems odd - he should surely have been able to write up his thesis, and submit for viva? Its hard to publish things that don't work (one of science's biggest problems IMO) but PhD is about the process, and showing what work you have done.
Apparently not. I would have given him one - and recommended him for some kind of distinction/prize....
Apparently the various worthies found that it wasn't in the rules - the days when a PhD was a bunch of chaps deciding if another chap was a good chap or not are gone.
Wonder what they would have made of Ted Taylor's thesis now*
*The genius nuke designer. He'd crashed out of academia, due to being too bright to be functional. Ended up a Los Alamos... After a while they decided it was embarrassing that one of their leading lights didn't have a PhD.
Apparently his thesis was a page with "We can't tell you anything he has done. Give him a PhD already. Signed by { x famous Nobel prize for physics winners}"
@Fysics_Teacher that was so interesting, thank you. The first one is the most elegant in my opinion!
I’m fairly sure that finding a counter example to Fermat’s last theorem (which we now know is true, so it won’t happen) would have been enough for a PhD.
One of the government scientists was asked about the effectiveness of temperature checks in a briefing a few weeks ago, and said that they weren't very much use because they failed to detect about one-third of cases. I thought that was a very odd thing to say, because a test which is very cheap and non-intrusive to perform, and which does detect two-thirds of cases, strikes me a jolly good idea - you've immediately reduced your incoming cases by a factor of three.
I don't have the expertise to say if this is right but the guy on this interview pushing for very cheap, shitty tests was saying that there tends to be a lot of pushback from people looking it at from a clinical point of view (how to diagnose and treat an individual) when you should be looking at it from the point of view of how to beat the virus down in the whole population:
I don't have the expertise to say if this is right but the guy on this interview pushing for very cheap, shitty tests was saying that there tends to be a lot of pushback from people looking it at from a clinical point of view (how to diagnose and treat an individual) when you should be looking at it from the point of view of how to beat the virus down in the whole population:
- I might be wrong but, if Warren is the VP pick, doesn't the current MA Governor who is a Republican get to pick her replacement (although there are questions about whether he will stay in the party)?
- The ally who advised Kamala Harris to not take the VP slot was Willie Brown, her old "mentor". That might carry a lot of weight with Harris. He suggested Harris could do far more as AG;
- the two frontrunners (Rice and Harris) each bring with them risks for Biden namely (1) controversies of their own (2) they risk accentuating controversies around Biden himself (Harris because of her record on crime which risks focusing attention on Biden's role in crime bills which may alienate black voters; Rice because it will look like an Obama 2.0 admin).
Perhaps most importantly, both are also natural picks for high profile posts that can be offered as compensation (Harris AG / Rice SoS). That also goes for Warren (Treasury Sec) and, arguably, Duckworth (Defence);
- looking at the NY Times article, which looks well informed, 8 candidates get mentioned as in contention - Harris, Rice, Warren, Whitmer, Duckworth, Demings, Bass and Lujan Grisham. If you want a value bet, you can get Lujan Grisham at 130 on Betfair now. That is not bad odds for what looks like a 1 in 8 chance *
* for disclosure, I recommended Lujan Grisham on here under MrEd. My bloody log in is not working so I have had to go back to my old nom de plume...
You may be right that the value lies away from the front of the market (especially since there is no reason to suppose British punters have any special insight into the mind of Joe Biden) but the NYT list of contenders is the same list everyone has been using for weeks. There is not much new news (aside from the Whitmer meeting the other day) and the rest is American media and pundits recycling the same received wisdom.
Fwiw I am green on all major contenders to different amounts, with Tammy Duckworth being my best result.
You are probably also right about other jobs and it would not surprise me if Biden promotes all the contenders to Cabinet or similar positions, even the Supreme Court bench given there are at least three lawyers among them.
Unsurprisingly, Lujan Grisham would be the best one by a significant amount. I'd lose on Harris, Rice and Warren, the rest I would be green.
Do we know if temperature is even an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious?
No, it isn't. Asymptomatic Covid infected can be significant spreaders. That's the one bit of border control the UK got right - not bothering with temperature testing. More or less everything else they got wrong (testing on arrival doesn't work either - you miss 100% of those infected in transit).
As observed above, to add to "Security Theatre" we now have "Pandemic Theatre".
"Is this an accurate test to determine if somebody is infectious" isn't the right way to evaluate this though, the right question is, "is this a cost-effective way to screen out *some* of the people who are infectious". I don't know whether it is or not, but it's definitely cheap, so it doesn't have to be *very* effective to be worth doing.
It's kind-of the opposite problem to airport security, because you get a lot of good results if you can reduce the *average* number of times the adversary gets through. In airport security a method with a high-ish false-negative rate doesn't do as much, because even if you confiscate the adversary's shampoo bomb today, they can just try again next week.
PS A lot of the false positives with a temperature reading will be people who are infectious with something else, so it's not a bad thing to send them home (or deter them from showing up in the first place).
Guernsey - also 102 days no COVID - expects there to be other cases in Guernsey too. It's not "if" but "when". The medical director yesterday said we could be living with COVID "for decades".
Comments
Celtic's Boli Bolingoli apologises over quarantine breach....
...In a statement, the Scottish government said it was aware of reports of the player having broken quarantine rules last week.
It added: "We are currently in discussion with the club and football governing bodies to establish the facts.
"If confirmed as another serious incident within Scottish football, where protocols have been breached at the risk of wider public health, then the Scottish government will have little choice but to consider whether a pause is now needed in the resumption of the game in Scotland."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53733180
This could put pretty much virtually all Scottish league clubs out of business.
If we believe in same rules as everyone else we should work towards common global standards which involves sacrificing some sovereignty for a better trade outcome.
Not many UK permanent residents/citizens seem to work those jobs.
Setting up a high quality production line takes months.
As I mentioned yesterday hotels still can't use their pools or spas. Scottish football is barely a business at the best of times but without gate money I don't see how any club outside the SPL operates at all. The latest task force set up by the Scottish government focused on the essential matter of improving wellbeing. Wellbeing. You simply cannot buy this level of incompetence.
1998 993 Carrera 2S in polarsilber with a black interior. One of the last air cooled Porsches ever made. VarioRam appears to be fucked on it. 🤔
Remember the plan was to have a fully effective test track and trace system in place to make it safe to fully reopen. We not only don't have an app but our world-beating system has seen thousands hired to not do any tracking or tracing and now they're all being sacked to be replaced by ministers complaining that cash-starved councils aren't doing what the government said it would be doing.
And testing? We know that a very simple check is temperature. Laser zap all students before you let them into school. Except that we can't do that as nobody in the government has bothered to get a pile of these thermometers made. "Scientists say its fine" says a man Sacked for Lying. "Thats incorrect" say the scientists almost immediately. People aren't stupid.
However, on schools, if the public are re-assured by them, which they are, that is a good enough reason to have them, even if its like airport security, mostly for show.
Secondly, even if the error rate is high for individuals, surely across the population of a school if the percentage of pupils and staff with abnormal temperatures is particularly high that should be a strong indicator of a local outbreak which is very useful information to have.
My 19 year old is doing a work experience year instead of starting university (whatever A-Level results the algorithm awards him...) mainly because of the lack of ability to do the usual sex drugs and rock n' roll university experience. His friends have managed to go out and have some kind of social life this summer but its been pretty restricted and my son is concerned enough about the rona not to do anything too stupid. I do take the point you make though - the idea that only the old and frail get this just isn't true any more and has lulled too many into an invulnerability streak they're already prone to.
If you were going to do it in school I would suggest form tutors or equivalent doing it at registration, which would require dozens of thermometers per school.
For some time we had Government by Chief Medical Officer. If the CMO were to pop up on a podium at 5pm every day talking about smoking, or mountaineering, or F1 racing, or...or...each of those activities would have been banned after the first session.
It is the government's job to balance those risks with other factors and arrive at a coherent policy which it is then able to communicate clearly.
It has done none of those things, preferring as you say to see-saw from "we're following the science" to "we are listening to the science".
All of course a transparent attempt to set up excuses and a scapegoat for any particular bad outcome.
Hmm.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/infrared-thermometer-children-temperature-forehead/dp/B088RLCC6Q/ref=pd_day0_c_201_1/259-1823073-8066326?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B088RLCC6Q&pd_rd_r=112d4041-c52d-4c41-9295-01b900b25c13&pd_rd_w=JgaPW&pd_rd_wg=e4Iu7&pf_rd_p=cb7ac7c9-1220-4f8e-9626-3d6840134f7f&pf_rd_r=6EDGWE63GC9WF23B8F4V&psc=1&refRID=6EDGWE63GC9WF23B8F4V
She tells me that they are not being supplied with masks or other PPE but can wear their own (seriously) if they wish. It is not mandatory. I can only hope that the evidence on small kids being poor transmitters is correct.
She tells me that they are not being supplied with masks or other PPE but can wear their own (seriously) if they wish. It is not mandatory. I can only hope that the evidence on small kids being poor transmitters is correct.
Regarding the PhD - he should still have been able to get his PhD. I supervise PhDs and have had cases where the underlying premise is found false. As you say, that's science, it's a contribution to the field. It does require a bit more work to pull the thesis together. I had one student who almost stopped at that point, as it can be dispiriting, particularly if there is an attachment to the hypothesis. It sounds as if he may have been badly advised or decided to leave for his own reasons (which may have been entirely valid and a good choice). A good friend of mine had a paper underlying his PhD (not his paper, but the underlying theory) taken apart by an examiner in his viva. The examiner had spotted and error in that paper and made my friend work through it until he saw it too. Meant a chunk of re-writing and a joint paper with the examiner exposing the flaw in the theory, but he got his PhD, partly for helping prove that the theory it was l based on was flawed.
Nothing was the reply. In the final analysis, turned out that the alkaloids were al either ineffective or toxic.
And whilst I can see that they are not effective on an individual level, they should be on a cumulative basis to see if there is a high level of fever in a school/local area.
More seriously I don't think the children will be wearing masks.
Our kids need school. But that seems to be the government's excuse to just hope this thing goes away and everyone gets back to normal and starts spending money again and starts hating foreigners again so that they'll all vote Tory again. Bugger party politics at the moment, just do whats needed. Governments get rewarded for doing whats needed even if its tough to go through - look at John Major.
As was pointed out above thermometers like this are not hugely expensive, but if all school suddenly decided they needed a few dozen we might run out.
Would be difficult in a school, but not, I think impossible.
And IR cameras could more quickly perform the initial scan, and even in cold weather could identify who was hotter than their peers.
No, schools will hit the PPE problem -- if every school tries to buy hundreds of IR thermometers at once, they will soon clear the shelves and the warehouses and the supply chains.
The food in my school is actually pretty tasty and if the menu says chilli or curry they mean it: properly hot.
Mr. Pioneers (2), I'm sorry to hear that. Hope you land on your feet.
It might work if that was done instead of registration I suppose, but that would wreck the pastoral provision of most schools.
But I went for dinner last week in London and at the entrance they had a wall-mounted, press your forehead up against it thermometer. Took precisely 4 seconds. So that's already eaten into your 10,000 seconds. And that was the first time. People will get used to sticking their head against it as they pass through the gates and you are down to barely breaking stride.
- I might be wrong but, if Warren is the VP pick, doesn't the current MA Governor who is a Republican get to pick her replacement (although there are questions about whether he will stay in the party)?
- The ally who advised Kamala Harris to not take the VP slot was Willie Brown, her old "mentor". That might carry a lot of weight with Harris. He suggested Harris could do far more as AG;
- the two frontrunners (Rice and Harris) each bring with them risks for Biden namely (1) controversies of their own (2) they risk accentuating controversies around Biden himself (Harris because of her record on crime which risks focusing attention on Biden's role in crime bills which may alienate black voters; Rice because it will look like an Obama 2.0 admin).
Perhaps most importantly, both are also natural picks for high profile posts that can be offered as compensation (Harris AG / Rice SoS). That also goes for Warren (Treasury Sec) and, arguably, Duckworth (Defence);
- looking at the NY Times article, which looks well informed, 8 candidates get mentioned as in contention - Harris, Rice, Warren, Whitmer, Duckworth, Demings, Bass and Lujan Grisham. If you want a value bet, you can get Lujan Grisham at 130 on Betfair now. That is not bad odds for what looks like a 1 in 8 chance *
* for disclosure, I recommended Lujan Grisham on here under MrEd. My bloody log in is not working so I have had to go back to my old nom de plume...
Paddy Power now has Susan Rice favourite; Ladbrokes sticks by Kamala Harris.
PP: 11/8 Rice; 6/4 Harris; 4/1 Whitmer; 14/1 bar
Lads: Evs Harris; 15/8 Rice; 13/2 Whitmer; 16/1 bar
I think something similar may apply to most walks of life - including politicians. Probably that's because the top ones don't have anything to prove, and also they know how much luck there is in everything.
Yes, some kids will take the piss. But they’re the ones who always would anyway.
Kids under 10 seem to be extremely low risk but once they are teenagers and going through puberty the immune system and body is more developed to potentially carry and vector.
There may be evidence that small children (under 10) may not spread the disease as much. Teenagers, however, seem just as able to spread it as others.
So children may not spread the disease as much, but children certainly do.
(using "children" to mean "under-10" the first time and to mean "school children up to 18" the second time).
Apparently the various worthies found that it wasn't in the rules - the days when a PhD was a bunch of chaps deciding if another chap was a good chap or not are gone.
Wonder what they would have made of Ted Taylor's thesis now*
*The genius nuke designer. He'd crashed out of academia, due to being too bright to be functional. Ended up a Los Alamos... After a while they decided it was embarrassing that one of their leading lights didn't have a PhD.
Apparently his thesis was a page with "We can't tell you anything he has done. Give him a PhD already. Signed by { x famous Nobel prize for physics winners}"
Fwiw I am green on all major contenders to different amounts, with Tammy Duckworth being my best result.
You are probably also right about other jobs and it would not surprise me if Biden promotes all the contenders to Cabinet or similar positions, even the Supreme Court bench given there are at least three lawyers among them.
I would guess it will also have some weak positive impact on stopping the spread of the disease, but its most important use is probably giving reassurance and confidence to parents.
Because if people feel sick, they don't travel. The movie thing of the guy dying of Ebola, who *has* to go out and infect everyone is just that.
The problem with COVID19 is the lengthy period of no symptoms *and* being infectious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvvkJT8myeI&list=PLeywza_lw0DqMEkAFZjNNrBp9YnugYMzv&index=9&t=0s
If you typically get 5/1000 cases but one week its 25/1000 that is unlikely to be random error. At that point wider more sophisticated testing could be done, if needed the school temporarily closed and the virus could be controlled that way.
Or do people want to wait until the by-day-of numbers are available and panic about the reporting-day-numbers in parallel?
One of the government scientists was asked about the effectiveness of temperature checks in a briefing a few weeks ago, and said that they weren't very much use because they failed to detect about one-third of cases. I thought that was a very odd thing to say, because a test which is very cheap and non-intrusive to perform, and which does detect two-thirds of cases, strikes me a jolly good idea - you've immediately reduced your incoming cases by a factor of three.
Essentially, pretty much all of the people with temperatures cancelled their flights anyway. The problem was the ones who felt perfectly well...
As observed above, to add to "Security Theatre" we now have "Pandemic Theatre".
- for at least another 18 months.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-53732350
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDj4Zyq3yOA&feature=youtu.be
It's kind-of the opposite problem to airport security, because you get a lot of good results if you can reduce the *average* number of times the adversary gets through. In airport security a method with a high-ish false-negative rate doesn't do as much, because even if you confiscate the adversary's shampoo bomb today, they can just try again next week.
PS A lot of the false positives with a temperature reading will be people who are infectious with something else, so it's not a bad thing to send them home (or deter them from showing up in the first place).
It's also why "Zero COVID" is a fool's errand.