I am puzzled that the betting markets have Biden increasing his lead.
Both the 538 and RCP polling averages have shown a slow but steady closing of the gap over the past month. Biden's lead has reduced by 1.6% (538) and 1.4% (RCP) since 18 August.
Carry on at that rate for the next 6 weeks and it will be around 4%... too close to call given Trump's EC advantage.
According to Nate Silver, a 4-5% lead is a close to 90% chance for Biden.
So, the betting marketing tightening makes perfect sense. Trump needs to be gaining faster on Biden. Or he needs the national polls to be more wrong in 2020 than in 2016, and for them to be wrong in his direction.
I see, so the improving betting margin for Biden is a factor of time running out faster than the polling gap is closing.
Yeah. That is what seems to be happening. Trump needs a game changer, but that window is closing.
Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
In over 80% of cases in both the UK and the US, the polling error is reversed between elections.
Remember 2019 - Tories understate. 2017 overstated. 2015 understated. 2010 overstated. There's a similar patter in the US as pollsters seek to correct their errors and over compensate.
That's why I think blindly assuming that the polls are as wrong as 2016 (and in the same direction) is a very good way of losing lots of money.
Or alternatively the best pollster for the previous election may be right again eg in 2008 PPP were most accurate and in 2012 they also were closest to Obama's winning score, in 2016 Rasmussen was closest nationally and Trafalgar in the rustbelt swing states.
Here in 2015 Survation's final unpublished poll was closest, in 2017 Survation's final published poll was closest and in 2019 Survation's final poll had an almost spot on 11% Tory lead
Hang on.
Rasmussen was not the ONLY pollster to call 2016 about right. Indeed, given the polling average was only 1% off at the national level, it would be staggering if only one pollster had called it right. So lets look at all the pollsters who got 2016 right (which I'll describe as 2% +/- 1%):
Google +2% Selzer +3% Marist +1% USC +2% Morning Consult +3% Rasmussen +2% Fox +2% CBS +3%
Of those pollsters who were pretty much on the nose, how many (this year) show a Trump lead?
I've tried this with @HYUFD a couple of times but to no avail. Rasmussen were perfect; every one else was nowhere. Apparently.
We will see who is right on election night, you may be right, I may be right, until then it is all speculation
Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
In over 80% of cases in both the UK and the US, the polling error is reversed between elections.
Remember 2019 - Tories understate. 2017 overstated. 2015 understated. 2010 overstated. There's a similar patter in the US as pollsters seek to correct their errors and over compensate.
That's why I think blindly assuming that the polls are as wrong as 2016 (and in the same direction) is a very good way of losing lots of money.
Or alternatively the best pollster for the previous election may be right again eg in 2008 PPP were most accurate and in 2012 they also were closest to Obama's winning score, in 2016 Rasmussen was closest nationally and Trafalgar in the rustbelt swing states.
Here in 2015 Survation's final unpublished poll was closest, in 2017 Survation's final published poll was closest and in 2019 Survation's final poll had an almost spot on 11% Tory lead
Hang on.
Rasmussen was not the ONLY pollster to call 2016 about right. Indeed, given the polling average was only 1% off at the national level, it would be staggering if only one pollster had called it right. So lets look at all the pollsters who got 2016 right (which I'll describe as 2% +/- 1%):
Google +2% Selzer +3% Marist +1% USC +2% Morning Consult +3% Rasmussen +2% Fox +2% CBS +3%
Of those pollsters who were pretty much on the nose, how many (this year) show a Trump lead?
So your argument is that because (for example) Marist was 1% out (and could of course have been less), then we should ignore them this time around.
Look, it's a view. But it relies on the entire polling industry except Rasmussen being wrong at the national level to an unprecedented degree. And I mean genuinely unprecedented. I've searched Wikipedia going all the way back to 1970, and the worst miss at the aggregate level was 3% in 2012. There were a couple of c. 2% misses, and the vast bulk were in the 0.5-1.5% range.
Now it's possible that the aggregate is out by more than twice its worst ever performance. But it's not actually very likely.
I am puzzled that the betting markets have Biden increasing his lead.
Both the 538 and RCP polling averages have shown a slow but steady closing of the gap over the past month. Biden's lead has reduced by 1.6% (538) and 1.4% (RCP) since 18 August.
Carry on at that rate for the next 6 weeks and it will be around 4%... too close to call given Trump's EC advantage.
According to Nate Silver, a 4-5% lead is a close to 90% chance for Biden.
So, the betting marketing tightening makes perfect sense. Trump needs to be gaining faster on Biden. Or he needs the national polls to be more wrong in 2020 than in 2016, and for them to be wrong in his direction.
I see, so the improving betting margin for Biden is a factor of time running out faster than the polling gap is closing.
That would be the case if the markets are rational. But we saw the markets go from Dems 1.52 up to over 2 in a period where Biden's polling improved.
Whilst polls are certainly part of the function of the price there is a huge amoint of market psychology going on as well, which is why I have been in a nd out of this makret more times than I can count now as I get scared.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
A known non Boris fan to say the least. Of course he's right.
More worrying to Downing Street will be the Judith Wood piece in the Boris Bible, the Telegraph. Johnson was absolutely blasted.
Anyone who paid attention, even just a little, to Johnson's time as Mayor of London would know what a lazy useless beggar the man is. Brexit alone would have been beyond his abilities, add on the pandemic and Johnson is so far out of his depth that only a few blonde tufts of his hair can be seen above the waves. I really don't know what the Tories are waiting for, as delaying his removal will only make things worse.
@Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.
Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.
I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?
Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.
I don't disagree with you, but I feel I should point out that the NEJM article isn't research. It's a "perspective" piece (more like an opinion piece) and it is quite careful to say "if" a lot: "if the viral inoculum matters...", "if this theory bears out...", and so on. They aren't in a position to make claims about what is actually true. It does contain some basic statistics about asymptomatic rates in some outbreaks, but it's only a surface look (e.g. those comparisons aren't age-controlled).
To be honest, I think it's too soon to tell whether hospitalisations are going to be low for this second wave. Remember Germany's experience in the first wave, where by chance the first cohorts of infected people were disproportionately young, and it seemed that the country was suffering almost no deaths. I remember people asking what they were doing so spectacularly well. The situation later deteriorated (though they still only had about 10k deaths total; I don't know their antibody prevalence).
I'm hopeful that masks are helping, but it's just so hard to tell for certain.
--AS
I think that there's a supposition that non-surgical masks are helping to control the spread and severity of the disease, and this may well turn out to be true, but there's little actual evidence (I seem to recall reading somewhere that most of the literature on mask efficacy consists of piles and piles of statistical analysis of, and commentary about, the same limited collection of small-scale trials, although I dare say someone will be along in a moment to correct me.)
FWIW, my original gripe about masks related not so much to their efficacy or otherwise but to the tendency of people who aren't burdened with the (deeply uncomfortable) things all day long to delight in proclaiming the virtues of other people being forced to put up with them for eight hours at a time. That's all.
2020 Election Live Updates: Early Voting Has Begun in Four States Voters have started casting ballots in Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota, where both Joe Biden and President Trump will campaign today.
@Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.
Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.
I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?
Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.
I don't disagree with you, but I feel I should point out that the NEJM article isn't research. It's a "perspective" piece (more like an opinion piece) and it is quite careful to say "if" a lot: "if the viral inoculum matters...", "if this theory bears out...", and so on. They aren't in a position to make claims about what is actually true. It does contain some basic statistics about asymptomatic rates in some outbreaks, but it's only a surface look (e.g. those comparisons aren't age-controlled).
To be honest, I think it's too soon to tell whether hospitalisations are going to be low for this second wave. Remember Germany's experience in the first wave, where by chance the first cohorts of infected people were disproportionately young, and it seemed that the country was suffering almost no deaths. I remember people asking what they were doing so spectacularly well. The situation later deteriorated (though they still only had about 10k deaths total; I don't know their antibody prevalence).
I'm hopeful that masks are helping, but it's just so hard to tell for certain.
--AS
Fair point. (Although the case of cruise ship - for example - is quite persuasive. And one should be able to do some fairly good large scale correlation models without *too* much difficulty.)
@Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.
Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.
I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?
Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.
I don't disagree with you, but I feel I should point out that the NEJM article isn't research. It's a "perspective" piece (more like an opinion piece) and it is quite careful to say "if" a lot: "if the viral inoculum matters...", "if this theory bears out...", and so on. They aren't in a position to make claims about what is actually true. It does contain some basic statistics about asymptomatic rates in some outbreaks, but it's only a surface look (e.g. those comparisons aren't age-controlled).
To be honest, I think it's too soon to tell whether hospitalisations are going to be low for this second wave. Remember Germany's experience in the first wave, where by chance the first cohorts of infected people were disproportionately young, and it seemed that the country was suffering almost no deaths. I remember people asking what they were doing so spectacularly well. The situation later deteriorated (though they still only had about 10k deaths total; I don't know their antibody prevalence).
I'm hopeful that masks are helping, but it's just so hard to tell for certain.
--AS
I think that there's a supposition that non-surgical masks are helping to control the spread and severity of the disease, and this may well turn out to be true, but there's little actual evidence (I seem to recall reading somewhere that most of the literature on mask efficacy consists of piles and piles of statistical analysis of, and commentary about, the same limited collection of small-scale trials, although I dare say someone will be along in a moment to correct me.)
FWIW, my original gripe about masks related not so much to their efficacy or otherwise but to the tendency of people who aren't burdened with the (deeply uncomfortable) things all day long to delight in proclaiming the virtues of other people being forced to put up with them for eight hours at a time. That's all.
I'd be interested to know if anyone here supports the 'where one whenever you're out' idea, whether taking the dog for a walk, walking to the shops, or just strolling to the seaside and back. Frankly, if that law comes in, I can't see many (myself included) abiding by it.
In the US, voting hours are short. In some states, the polls close as early as 6pm, and nowhere are they open later than about 8pm.
This makes it difficult for people working low end jobs to vote.
With unemployment so high, could we expect a lot of the newly (temporarily or not) unemployed to vote this time around? And will this benefit Trump (lots of non-College educated folk in there) or Biden (people who are unemployed don't vote for the status quo).
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
@Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.
Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.
I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?
Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.
I don't disagree with you, but I feel I should point out that the NEJM article isn't research. It's a "perspective" piece (more like an opinion piece) and it is quite careful to say "if" a lot: "if the viral inoculum matters...", "if this theory bears out...", and so on. They aren't in a position to make claims about what is actually true. It does contain some basic statistics about asymptomatic rates in some outbreaks, but it's only a surface look (e.g. those comparisons aren't age-controlled).
To be honest, I think it's too soon to tell whether hospitalisations are going to be low for this second wave. Remember Germany's experience in the first wave, where by chance the first cohorts of infected people were disproportionately young, and it seemed that the country was suffering almost no deaths. I remember people asking what they were doing so spectacularly well. The situation later deteriorated (though they still only had about 10k deaths total; I don't know their antibody prevalence).
I'm hopeful that masks are helping, but it's just so hard to tell for certain.
--AS
I think that there's a supposition that non-surgical masks are helping to control the spread and severity of the disease, and this may well turn out to be true, but there's little actual evidence (I seem to recall reading somewhere that most of the literature on mask efficacy consists of piles and piles of statistical analysis of, and commentary about, the same limited collection of small-scale trials, although I dare say someone will be along in a moment to correct me.)
FWIW, my original gripe about masks related not so much to their efficacy or otherwise but to the tendency of people who aren't burdened with the (deeply uncomfortable) things all day long to delight in proclaiming the virtues of other people being forced to put up with them for eight hours at a time. That's all.
I'd be interested to know if anyone here supports the 'where one whenever you're out' idea, whether taking the dog for a walk, walking to the shops, or just strolling to the seaside and back. Frankly, if that law comes in, I can't see many (myself included) abiding by it.
I wouldn't. But would probably have one round my neck to raise into position in close quarters situations.
In the US, voting hours are short. In some states, the polls close as early as 6pm, and nowhere are they open later than about 8pm.
This makes it difficult for people working low end jobs to vote.
With unemployment so high, could we expect a lot of the newly (temporarily or not) unemployed to vote this time around? And will this benefit Trump (lots of non-College educated folk in there) or Biden (people who are unemployed don't vote for the status quo).
A very good question.
At the last election I heard many suggesting voting should be on a Sunday here, like in much of Europe. My gut reaction is this would lead to lower turnout. From (shudder) decades of telling, I'd say a decent number of people vote on the way too or from work.
When do we think we will know the outcome of the US Presidential election for certain?
November 4th seems unlikely.
I'm going for about 6:30pm Pacific Time on the 3rd.
That will be the point at which we'll be 95%+ for one candidate or t'other on Betfair.
Are you expecting a clear Biden win then?
Irrespective, we'll probably know Florida by then. Which should give us a pretty good pointer to which way the whole election is going.
It did last time, I remember piling on on Trump when the rural votes started coming in thanks to your analysis on it. Still my second most profitable betting event after the 2019 election.
In the US, voting hours are short. In some states, the polls close as early as 6pm, and nowhere are they open later than about 8pm.
This makes it difficult for people working low end jobs to vote.
With unemployment so high, could we expect a lot of the newly (temporarily or not) unemployed to vote this time around? And will this benefit Trump (lots of non-College educated folk in there) or Biden (people who are unemployed don't vote for the status quo).
Secondary thought:
CV19 unemployment is predominantly an urban phenomenon. Go to small towns in rural Arizona (as I did on Tuesday) and you wouldn't know there was a pandemic.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
Bloomberg is pumping all that money into Florida , one of the main reasons is it’s likely to have a result on the night and it’s about not just electoral votes but stopping Trump from trying to hijack the election . If Biden wins Florida then Trumps narrative of the election has been stolen implodes . Most Americans know that Trump can’t win without Florida.
@Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.
Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.
I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?
Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.
I don't disagree with you, but I feel I should point out that the NEJM article isn't research. It's a "perspective" piece (more like an opinion piece) and it is quite careful to say "if" a lot: "if the viral inoculum matters...", "if this theory bears out...", and so on. They aren't in a position to make claims about what is actually true. It does contain some basic statistics about asymptomatic rates in some outbreaks, but it's only a surface look (e.g. those comparisons aren't age-controlled).
To be honest, I think it's too soon to tell whether hospitalisations are going to be low for this second wave. Remember Germany's experience in the first wave, where by chance the first cohorts of infected people were disproportionately young, and it seemed that the country was suffering almost no deaths. I remember people asking what they were doing so spectacularly well. The situation later deteriorated (though they still only had about 10k deaths total; I don't know their antibody prevalence).
I'm hopeful that masks are helping, but it's just so hard to tell for certain.
--AS
I think that there's a supposition that non-surgical masks are helping to control the spread and severity of the disease, and this may well turn out to be true, but there's little actual evidence (I seem to recall reading somewhere that most of the literature on mask efficacy consists of piles and piles of statistical analysis of, and commentary about, the same limited collection of small-scale trials, although I dare say someone will be along in a moment to correct me.)
FWIW, my original gripe about masks related not so much to their efficacy or otherwise but to the tendency of people who aren't burdened with the (deeply uncomfortable) things all day long to delight in proclaiming the virtues of other people being forced to put up with them for eight hours at a time. That's all.
It's worth reading the actual article piece.
The proposition is: - levels of viral load often correlate with severity of infection - places where mask wearing is common in public have had much lower hospitalisation rates and CFR from CV19, even when the level of infections have been similar - on a cruise ship with an outbreak where mask wearing was required (when they realised they had a problem), then 80% of cases were entirely asymptomatic and there were no serious issues for the remaining 20%
It's - as @AlwaysSinging points out - suggestive rather than conclusive
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
This isn't complex, guys. The self certification quarantine system - particularly for those arriving from high risk areas - is a joke.
Everybody should be tested at the airport. And those from higher risk destinations need to spend some time in an airport hotel.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission will really need to dig in on this one.
Even countries with no lockdown at all of any form whatsoever, like Sweden, banned flights. Yet at the height of the New York outbreak you could theoretically step on a plane from JFK to London and then walk off into the city.
Absolute psychotic, self destructive, desire to keep our borders open. A group of people must have fought tooth and nail for this. Why? What was the payoff (figuratively or literally). Were people so wedded to the Flu Pandemic plan that literally no one could see the benefit of stopping importing cases? Inconceivable.
The travel debacle unfolded in three phases, IIRC: first of all there were no barriers of any kind, which I think was given some kind of justification by the Government's scientific advisers (to the effect that the disease was all over the country and most international travel had already stopped - that, plus the large numbers of Britons who were still stranded abroad for some time after this all kicked off, led to the suggestion that sealing the borders would have limited effect and might do more harm than good.)
Now, I can just about see how the phase 1 position might have some rationale to it, although I also remember reading at the time that a large proportion of the remaining air passengers coming into the country over lockdown were the product of families travelling back and forth between the UK and South Asia, which was in turn posited as one possible explanation for the coincidence between remaining viral hotspots and large British Asian communities later on into the Summer.
Phase 2 was when it was decided that all travel abroad would be advised against by the Foreign Office, which of course prompted much incredulity at the time given the lack of control implemented during phase 1. Again, this could be understood in the context of cases having come right down and therefore those caused by foreign travel becoming a significant part of the problem - but for the fact that (a) this seemed to last for all of about five minutes before the Government changed its mind again, and (b) the controls did not, of course, extend to any meaningful regulation of incoming arrivals. Phase 2 effectively marks the transition from no policy at all to an illogical and stupid policy.
Phase 2, of course, quickly gave way to phase 3, in which it was decided that the presentation of a veneer of normality necessitated a return to totally unnecessary sunshine holidays, and the reimportation of the disease as happened in February and March.
My suspicion is that there isn't some deep conspiracy to make money for person or persons unknown behind this dim-witted behaviour. The most obvious explanation is that Johnson wanted to make himself popular by letting people take themselves and their kids off to Marbella, at the same time as being under pressure from a totally desperate travel industry to do something for them. The ridiculous hokey-cokey performance of constantly taking countries on and off the green list was then invented as a thin justification for why foreign travel was somehow as safe and sensible as simply telling everybody to stay put and spend their money here instead.
In short, ministers weren't being actively malicious. They were just being negligent and thick, that's all.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
In what way did they consent??
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” I am sure I read that somewhere.
Your claim fails anyway, because it wasn't GB as a political entity (controlled or not by toffs) which ran the slave trade, it was GB as a community of its citizens. The toffs may have financed it, but the middle classes managed it and provided the ships officers and chaplains (yes, really) and doctors, and the working classes built and crewed the ships and forged the manacles. We were all in this together.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
But Johnson had a great day campaigning. In a lab in Oxford and on a construction site, just grafting away in a white coat, and in a hard hat. I just saw it on the news.
He can't do everything! Campaigning, managing a trade arrangement with the EU and dealing with a pandemic. Something has got to give, so why not focus on the subject at which he is best suited, campaigning?
The internal data / modelling the government is seeing must be looking f##king shit show. Clearly lockdown rehashed incoming, firing up the Nightingales, ....
My suspicion is that there isn't some deep conspiracy to make money for person or persons unknown behind this dim-witted behaviour. The most obvious explanation is that Johnson wanted to make himself popular by letting people take themselves and their kids off to Marbella, at the same time as being under pressure from a totally desperate travel industry to do something for them. The ridiculous hokey-cokey performance of constantly taking countries on and off the green list was then invented as a thin justification for why foreign travel was somehow as safe and sensible as simply telling everybody to stay put and spend their money here instead.
In short, ministers weren't being actively malicious. They were just being negligent and thick, that's all.
I agree. Boris Johnson is simply unsuitable for delivering bad news no matter how unavoidable it may be, it goes against his instincts to do something unpopular. Given we are well up the proverbial creek there is no good news, just a range of bad news from awful to catastrophic. We need someone almost the polar opposite of Johnson, who will relish the fight and be prompt and decisive, with little care about how it will reflect upon them.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
The theory is (and I'm not a great fan of it, but John Locke was, so who knows?) that even in the case of a monarchy you can deduce consent from the fact that the people haven't risen up and overthrown it.
Bloomberg is pumping all that money into Florida , one of the main reasons is it’s likely to have a result on the night and it’s about not just electoral votes but stopping Trump from trying to hijack the election . If Biden wins Florida then Trumps narrative of the election has been stolen implodes . Most Americans know that Trump can’t win without Florida.
The internal data / modelling the government is seeing must be looking f##king shit show. Clearly lockdown rehashed incoming, firing up the Nightingales, ....
Honestly I'm not sure if the government has any kind of proper data modelling. If they had then we'd have had a bunch of pop up testing centres and processing labs in the North and Midlands to cater to extra local demand.
The internal data / modelling the government is seeing must be looking f##king shit show. Clearly lockdown rehashed incoming, firing up the Nightingales, ....
Honestly I'm not sure if the government has any kind of proper data modelling. If they had then we'd have had a bunch of pop up testing centres and processing labs in the North and Midlands to cater to extra local demand.
They are still doing 150-200k tests a day, all the NHS triage, admissions, ICU data...they surely must have a few number crunches using this info, surely....
But Johnson had a great day campaigning. In a lab in Oxford and on a construction site, just grafting away in a white coat, and in a hard hat. I just saw it on the news.
He can't do everything! Campaigning, managing a trade arrangement with the EU and dealing with a pandemic. Something has got to give, so why not focus on the subject at which he is best suited, campaigning?
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
In what way did they consent??
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” I am sure I read that somewhere.
Your claim fails anyway, because it wasn't GB as a political entity (controlled or not by toffs) which ran the slave trade, it was GB as a community of its citizens. The toffs may have financed it, but the middle classes managed it and provided the ships officers and chaplains (yes, really) and doctors, and the working classes built and crewed the ships and forged the manacles. We were all in this together.
Lol! Top marks for trying. You know it's bullshit though.
Btw your other example was spot on imo ("...blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race")
The internal data / modelling the government is seeing must be looking f##king shit show. Clearly lockdown rehashed incoming, firing up the Nightingales, ....
Honestly I'm not sure if the government has any kind of proper data modelling. If they had then we'd have had a bunch of pop up testing centres and processing labs in the North and Midlands to cater to extra local demand.
They are still doing 150-200k tests a day, all the NHS triage, admissions, ICU data...they surely must have a few number crunches using this info, surely....
I'm sure they do, but I also don't think they are doing a very good job of it. That they are still basing everything on a decade old discredited influenza model is an indictment of the government's data skills.
The internal data / modelling the government is seeing must be looking f##king shit show. Clearly lockdown rehashed incoming, firing up the Nightingales, ....
Well that could be because they still totally reliant on the Ferguson model.
But Johnson had a great day campaigning. In a lab in Oxford and on a construction site, just grafting away in a white coat, and in a hard hat. I just saw it on the news.
He can't do everything! Campaigning, managing a trade arrangement with the EU and dealing with a pandemic. Something has got to give, so why not focus on the subject at which he is best suited, campaigning?
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
The theory is (and I'm not a great fan of it, but John Locke was, so who knows?) that even in the case of a monarchy you can deduce consent from the fact that the people haven't risen up and overthrown it.
So the people of North Korea and PR China consent to their governments? Its a view I suppose...
But Johnson had a great day campaigning. In a lab in Oxford and on a construction site, just grafting away in a white coat, and in a hard hat. I just saw it on the news.
He can't do everything! Campaigning, managing a trade arrangement with the EU and dealing with a pandemic. Something has got to give, so why not focus on the subject at which he is best suited, campaigning?
Campaigning for what?
Doesn't matter. Pressing the flesh and doing photo ops is his happy place.
But Johnson had a great day campaigning. In a lab in Oxford and on a construction site, just grafting away in a white coat, and in a hard hat. I just saw it on the news.
He can't do everything! Campaigning, managing a trade arrangement with the EU and dealing with a pandemic. Something has got to give, so why not focus on the subject at which he is best suited, campaigning?
Campaigning for what?
I am not sure. The last election? The next election? But you can't deny it is something he excels at.
FFS. I have lost track but I reckon it is less than a week old.
It's a total non-surprise. Like I said earlier this evening, the Government is in a complete state of panic. This ridiculous "two week circuit breaker" rubbish that's being prattled on about for October half-term could very easily turn into a full-scale, April-style lockdown that drags on for six months.
Johnson, and by extension his administration, is knackered, irrationally terrified, hopelessly incompetent and totally capricious. You don't know what they're going to come out with from one week, day or hour to the next.
I'm mostly relieved that we pre-arranged to cross the country for parental visits in September, the original rationale for which was getting both trips done before snotty, coughing kids initiated a panic and a collapse just like that we are witnessing - but the speed and scale of the total implosion we're witnessing has still taken me aback a little, although I'm trying to learn no longer to be surprised by anything that our pathetic excuse for a Government says or does. I'm travelling by train to Norfolk tomorrow, and am more than a little concerned that the public transportation network may have been shut down and police and army roadblocks mounted to stop people moving out of area before I can get back again on Tuesday.
The Government is stark staring bonkers. It's completely impossible to trust anything that they say, and you quite simply can't guess what stunt they're going to pull next.
The internal data / modelling the government is seeing must be looking f##king shit show. Clearly lockdown rehashed incoming, firing up the Nightingales, ....
Yes it doesn't sound like they think that current measures are going to buy much time.
But Johnson had a great day campaigning. In a lab in Oxford and on a construction site, just grafting away in a white coat, and in a hard hat. I just saw it on the news.
He can't do everything! Campaigning, managing a trade arrangement with the EU and dealing with a pandemic. Something has got to give, so why not focus on the subject at which he is best suited, campaigning?
Campaigning for what?
Doesn't matter. Pressing the flesh and doing photo ops is his happy place.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
The theory is (and I'm not a great fan of it, but John Locke was, so who knows?) that even in the case of a monarchy you can deduce consent from the fact that the people haven't risen up and overthrown it.
On that basis the slaves in America were consenting. I think not.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
The theory is (and I'm not a great fan of it, but John Locke was, so who knows?) that even in the case of a monarchy you can deduce consent from the fact that the people haven't risen up and overthrown it.
So the people of North Korea and PR China consent to their governments? Its a view I suppose...
On this occasion, unusually, @IshmaelZ has rather painted himself into a corner.
I think we should gracefully look aside as he tiptoes out.
FFS. I have lost track but I reckon it is less than a week old.
It's a total non-surprise. Like I said earlier this evening, the Government is in a complete state of panic. This ridiculous "two week circuit breaker" rubbish that's being prattled on about for October half-term could very easily turn into a full-scale, April-style lockdown that drags on for six months.
Johnson, and by extension his administration, is knackered, irrationally terrified, hopelessly incompetent and totally capricious. You don't know what they're going to come out with from one week, day or hour to the next.
I'm mostly relieved that we pre-arranged to cross the country for parental visits in September, the original rationale for which was getting both trips done before snotty, coughing kids initiated a panic and a collapse just like that we are witnessing - but the speed and scale of the total implosion we're witnessing has still taken me aback a little, although I'm trying to learn no longer to be surprised by anything that our pathetic excuse for a Government says or does. I'm travelling by train to Norfolk tomorrow, and am more than a little concerned that the public transportation network may have been shut down and police and army roadblocks mounted to stop people moving out of area before I can get back again on Tuesday.
The Government is stark staring bonkers. It's completely impossible to trust anything that they say, and you quite simply can't guess what stunt they're going to pull next.
Certainly smells like blind panic.
The Cabinet need an urgent conference call with Sweden's Tegnell.
The internal data / modelling the government is seeing must be looking f##king shit show. Clearly lockdown rehashed incoming, firing up the Nightingales, ....
Honestly I'm not sure if the government has any kind of proper data modelling. If they had then we'd have had a bunch of pop up testing centres and processing labs in the North and Midlands to cater to extra local demand.
Well, yes.
The most disappointing thing about Cummings is that he was supposed to be some kind of data Svengali. Yet where has the decent modelling been: ultimately he's been either absent, ignorant or incompetent.
Right of centre press noticeably backing away from Johnson in last day or two. 1922 will be dusting down their procedures shortly at this rate.
When (I don't think there's any "if" about it) this ends in another lockdown then the Tories will want Johnson to carry the can for it. Ditto for the cancellation of Christmas, the six or seven million unemployed, and any and every thing that goes wrong with Brexit.
In the meantime, they'll be keeping their fingers crossed for the advent of a vaccine, or the strong likelihood of one becoming available for mass rollout before Autumn 2021. The optimal moment to hand Johnson the bottle of whisky and the pearl-handled revolver would then be around about Easter, to enable a new broom to start sweeping up the shattered pieces. Although, frankly, the state of what's left of the country by that stage is liable to be so dire that I'm not sure that any new leader can prevent a 1997-level trouncing (or worse) when they're finally forced to go to the country again.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
The theory is (and I'm not a great fan of it, but John Locke was, so who knows?) that even in the case of a monarchy you can deduce consent from the fact that the people haven't risen up and overthrown it.
So the people of North Korea and PR China consent to their governments? Its a view I suppose...
On this occasion, unusually, @IshmaelZ has rather painted himself into a corner.
I think we should gracefully look aside as he tiptoes out.
Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.
Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.
Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.
The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.
As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.
Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.
That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.
Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.
OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.
On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.
The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.
Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.
I live in a leasehold flat but mainly as an investment which my partner and I can then combine with the house she owns to buy a freehold house together (presently completing the complex lease extension process), though I agree commonhold or US style condo or Spanish style community owned flats are the way forward and used in most western nations now.
That way unlike leasehold the flat owners collectively own the property rather than a third party management company and they do not have ground rent, though they each have to contribute to a collective fund for service charges and maintenance still
I live in a mansion flat, one of 50. We are all leaseholders (999 year leases) but we each own 2% of the freehold by being shareholders in a company that owns the freehold. I am a director of that company, and together with four other directors/leaseholders determine the maintenance and service charges. It works very well.
FFS. I have lost track but I reckon it is less than a week old.
It's a total non-surprise. Like I said earlier this evening, the Government is in a complete state of panic. This ridiculous "two week circuit breaker" rubbish that's being prattled on about for October half-term could very easily turn into a full-scale, April-style lockdown that drags on for six months.
Johnson, and by extension his administration, is knackered, irrationally terrified, hopelessly incompetent and totally capricious. You don't know what they're going to come out with from one week, day or hour to the next.
I'm mostly relieved that we pre-arranged to cross the country for parental visits in September, the original rationale for which was getting both trips done before snotty, coughing kids initiated a panic and a collapse just like that we are witnessing - but the speed and scale of the total implosion we're witnessing has still taken me aback a little, although I'm trying to learn no longer to be surprised by anything that our pathetic excuse for a Government says or does. I'm travelling by train to Norfolk tomorrow, and am more than a little concerned that the public transportation network may have been shut down and police and army roadblocks mounted to stop people moving out of area before I can get back again on Tuesday.
The Government is stark staring bonkers. It's completely impossible to trust anything that they say, and you quite simply can't guess what stunt they're going to pull next.
Certainly smells like blind panic.
The Cabinet need an urgent conference call with Sweden's Tegnell.
They need an urgent conference call that's for sure. They need it to agree that Cummings goes or they go. Because the situation is unravelling quickly.
Right of centre press noticeably backing away from Johnson in last day or two. 1922 will be dusting down their procedures shortly at this rate.
Something surely has to give.
Not until January. Boris is safe because the party doesn't trust anyone else.
If he ***** over the EU, the party will support him for years, even if the pandemic claims tens of thousands more lives. One can see by the chicanery over the WA, Brexit was and is the priority for the party inside and outside Westminster. JRM confirmed this by telling us all to butt out and stop carping about Johnson's Covid performance.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
The theory is (and I'm not a great fan of it, but John Locke was, so who knows?) that even in the case of a monarchy you can deduce consent from the fact that the people haven't risen up and overthrown it.
So the people of North Korea and PR China consent to their governments? Its a view I suppose...
On this occasion, unusually, @IshmaelZ has rather painted himself into a corner.
I think we should gracefully look aside as he tiptoes out.
TBF, he said he wasn't a fan of the theory, and that it was Locke's.
Right of centre press noticeably backing away from Johnson in last day or two. 1922 will be dusting down their procedures shortly at this rate.
Something surely has to give.
Not until January. Boris is safe because the party doesn't trust anyone else.
If he ***** over the EU, the party will support him for years, even if the pandemic claims tens of thousands more lives. One can see by the chicanery over the WA, Brexit was and is the priority for the party inside and outside Westminster. JRM confirmed this by telling us all to butt out and stop carping about Johnson's Covid performance.
What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?
They are just selfish
No charles the people who are selfish are as follows - central city cafe and restaurant owners who want us back into the office to support them - commercial landlords who want us back in the office so we can support them - airlines who want us going on foreign holidays so we can support them - Train companies and bus companies that want us back in the office so we can support them - Politicians all of who the above who have been in their pockets and fear their bungs will stop
All of the above the government claims is safe and necessary, its less safe than walking blindfold over a tightrope
And all of those bar the politicians have tens of thousands of low income employees and tens of thousands of low income investors via pension schemes depending on them for a living. It's like blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race. Or like thinking it was Great Britain's toffs that ran the slave trade, when it was Great Britain. Student politics at its worst.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
Yebbut when Great Britain was running the slave trade the toffs were undeniably running Great Britain.
With the consent of the governed.
Really? What percentage of the population had the vote in the era before the Great Reform Act?
The theory is (and I'm not a great fan of it, but John Locke was, so who knows?) that even in the case of a monarchy you can deduce consent from the fact that the people haven't risen up and overthrown it.
So the people of North Korea and PR China consent to their governments? Its a view I suppose...
On this occasion, unusually, @IshmaelZ has rather painted himself into a corner.
I think we should gracefully look aside as he tiptoes out.
I'm still in awe of the ridiculous level of detail you can get on North Carolina Voting.
I'm just cross checking one person from the 2016 file and the 2020 file.
And yes, this unaffiliated female voter in her 70s voted early in person in 2016. But this time out they requested a mail ballot at the start of the month and returned it 3 days ago.
Comments
Get back into Downing Street and get on with the f*cking job in hand.
So your argument is that because (for example) Marist was 1% out (and could of course have been less), then we should ignore them this time around.
Look, it's a view. But it relies on the entire polling industry except Rasmussen being wrong at the national level to an unprecedented degree. And I mean genuinely unprecedented. I've searched Wikipedia going all the way back to 1970, and the worst miss at the aggregate level was 3% in 2012. There were a couple of c. 2% misses, and the vast bulk were in the 0.5-1.5% range.
Now it's possible that the aggregate is out by more than twice its worst ever performance. But it's not actually very likely.
Whilst polls are certainly part of the function of the price there is a huge amoint of market psychology going on as well, which is why I have been in a nd out of this makret more times than I can count now as I get scared.
PS There seems to be no recorded instance of the death of a blindfold tightrope walker, which makes it literally the safest mode of travel in the world. Lovely little simile, mind.
https://xkcd.com/2357/
FWIW, my original gripe about masks related not so much to their efficacy or otherwise but to the tendency of people who aren't burdened with the (deeply uncomfortable) things all day long to delight in proclaiming the virtues of other people being forced to put up with them for eight hours at a time. That's all.
That will be the point at which we'll be 95%+ for one candidate or t'other on Betfair.
Voters have started casting ballots in Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota, where both Joe Biden and President Trump will campaign today.
NYTimes
BBC News - Covid-19: Parts of Madrid to lockdown amid virus spike
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54211361
There are - however - still 46 days to go. And there have been many examples of polls moving a long way in short periods of time.
If the polls remain as they are today, I would expect Biden to win comfortably.
In the US, voting hours are short. In some states, the polls close as early as 6pm, and nowhere are they open later than about 8pm.
This makes it difficult for people working low end jobs to vote.
With unemployment so high, could we expect a lot of the newly (temporarily or not) unemployed to vote this time around? And will this benefit Trump (lots of non-College educated folk in there) or Biden (people who are unemployed don't vote for the status quo).
At the last election I heard many suggesting voting should be on a Sunday here, like in much of Europe. My gut reaction is this would lead to lower turnout. From (shudder) decades of telling, I'd say a decent number of people vote on the way too or from work.
FFS. I have lost track but I reckon it is less than a week old.
CV19 unemployment is predominantly an urban phenomenon. Go to small towns in rural Arizona (as I did on Tuesday) and you wouldn't know there was a pandemic.
Could this mean higher than normal urban turnout?
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2026913
The proposition is:
- levels of viral load often correlate with severity of infection
- places where mask wearing is common in public have had much lower hospitalisation rates and CFR from CV19, even when the level of infections have been similar
- on a cruise ship with an outbreak where mask wearing was required (when they realised they had a problem), then 80% of cases were entirely asymptomatic and there were no serious issues for the remaining 20%
It's - as @AlwaysSinging points out - suggestive rather than conclusive
https://ballotpedia.org/State_Poll_Opening_and_Closing_Times_(2020)
Now, I can just about see how the phase 1 position might have some rationale to it, although I also remember reading at the time that a large proportion of the remaining air passengers coming into the country over lockdown were the product of families travelling back and forth between the UK and South Asia, which was in turn posited as one possible explanation for the coincidence between remaining viral hotspots and large British Asian communities later on into the Summer.
Phase 2 was when it was decided that all travel abroad would be advised against by the Foreign Office, which of course prompted much incredulity at the time given the lack of control implemented during phase 1. Again, this could be understood in the context of cases having come right down and therefore those caused by foreign travel becoming a significant part of the problem - but for the fact that (a) this seemed to last for all of about five minutes before the Government changed its mind again, and (b) the controls did not, of course, extend to any meaningful regulation of incoming arrivals. Phase 2 effectively marks the transition from no policy at all to an illogical and stupid policy.
Phase 2, of course, quickly gave way to phase 3, in which it was decided that the presentation of a veneer of normality necessitated a return to totally unnecessary sunshine holidays, and the reimportation of the disease as happened in February and March.
My suspicion is that there isn't some deep conspiracy to make money for person or persons unknown behind this dim-witted behaviour. The most obvious explanation is that Johnson wanted to make himself popular by letting people take themselves and their kids off to Marbella, at the same time as being under pressure from a totally desperate travel industry to do something for them. The ridiculous hokey-cokey performance of constantly taking countries on and off the green list was then invented as a thin justification for why foreign travel was somehow as safe and sensible as simply telling everybody to stay put and spend their money here instead.
In short, ministers weren't being actively malicious. They were just being negligent and thick, that's all.
Your claim fails anyway, because it wasn't GB as a political entity (controlled or not by toffs) which ran the slave trade, it was GB as a community of its citizens. The toffs may have financed it, but the middle classes managed it and provided the ships officers and chaplains (yes, really) and doctors, and the working classes built and crewed the ships and forged the manacles. We were all in this together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832#The_franchise
He can't do everything! Campaigning, managing a trade arrangement with the EU and dealing with a pandemic. Something has got to give, so why not focus on the subject at which he is best suited, campaigning?
They literally backed him for leader
not because he would throw it in the bin after a week and go for lockdown again.
Btw your other example was spot on imo ("...blaming global warming on Big Oil when actually it isn't Big Oil that fuels its cars and heats its homes with oil, it's the human race")
Johnson, and by extension his administration, is knackered, irrationally terrified, hopelessly incompetent and totally capricious. You don't know what they're going to come out with from one week, day or hour to the next.
I'm mostly relieved that we pre-arranged to cross the country for parental visits in September, the original rationale for which was getting both trips done before snotty, coughing kids initiated a panic and a collapse just like that we are witnessing - but the speed and scale of the total implosion we're witnessing has still taken me aback a little, although I'm trying to learn no longer to be surprised by anything that our pathetic excuse for a Government says or does. I'm travelling by train to Norfolk tomorrow, and am more than a little concerned that the public transportation network may have been shut down and police and army roadblocks mounted to stop people moving out of area before I can get back again on Tuesday.
The Government is stark staring bonkers. It's completely impossible to trust anything that they say, and you quite simply can't guess what stunt they're going to pull next.
I think we should gracefully look aside as he tiptoes out.
The Cabinet need an urgent conference call with Sweden's Tegnell.
The most disappointing thing about Cummings is that he was supposed to be some kind of data Svengali. Yet where has the decent modelling been: ultimately he's been either absent, ignorant or incompetent.
In the meantime, they'll be keeping their fingers crossed for the advent of a vaccine, or the strong likelihood of one becoming available for mass rollout before Autumn 2021. The optimal moment to hand Johnson the bottle of whisky and the pearl-handled revolver would then be around about Easter, to enable a new broom to start sweeping up the shattered pieces. Although, frankly, the state of what's left of the country by that stage is liable to be so dire that I'm not sure that any new leader can prevent a 1997-level trouncing (or worse) when they're finally forced to go to the country again.
They need it to agree that Cummings goes or they go.
Because the situation is unravelling quickly.
I'm just cross checking one person from the 2016 file and the 2020 file.
And yes, this unaffiliated female voter in her 70s voted early in person in 2016. But this time out they requested a mail ballot at the start of the month and returned it 3 days ago.