If you are convinced that the virus remains a great enough threat to public health that drastic action is needed the only policy that makes sense to me is to make University teaching online and virtual and ask students to stay home rather than going to their new accommodation over the next couple of weeks. If they go we will not see an R rate below 1 this side of Christmas, no matter what else we do.
The consequence of this is that the largest part of the price will be paid by those least at risk. This strikes me as unfair and unreasonable but, let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time. I can see our scientists making this case, possibly even today.
The young getting infected builds herd immunity and so fewer infections later on among vulnerable groups.
But that is not the government's policy. It was abandoned almost immediately in the face of hysteria and our bizarre obsession with the NHS. We went from "flatten the curve" to elimination of the virus by incremental steps led by the apparent success of other countries in doing so. Many, but not all, of those countries have more infections now.
So it may be that the boffins were right in the first place and it is those who have been criticising the government for not doing enough to stop the spread of this virus who were wrong. But I cannot see such a reverse course given the experience last time out.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
It seems likely to me that as the pressure to get tests through the system mounts to incredible levels then more of the things that SAGE say buggers up a test will happen.
I predict there will be a whistleblower along shortly to describe "the chaos" in one of our testing labs.
SAGE: "The UK operational false positive rate is unknown. There are no published studies on the operational false positive rate of any national COVID-19 testing programme."
the median false testing rate of the same type of test on other RNA viruses is 2.4
take that last figure in before you switch on Whitty to listen to the cry of doom at 11am.
I didn't know Lebedev had a dog named after our prime minister, although when you consider how the Tory party is awash with Roubles it's not surprising.
Imagine if Corbyn was PM, meeting ex KGB agents and accepting multi million pound donations from those in turn receiving SAR flagged $8m from sanctioned oligarch friends of Putin.
I doubt the Tory loyalists would be quite so forgiving and silent.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
It is also very hard and much slower to try and contact trace those infections caught on foreign holidays.
So, if 0.8% at least of tests are false positives, that implies we had a sustained period of -0.2% as the real figure.
I'm really not sure how that could even work.
IIUC when the infection rate is low the false positive rate is also low, because false positives tend to come from somebody contaminating a negative sample with somebody else's positive sample, and you can't do that unless you have positive samples.
* Unless you count people as false positive if they correctly detected positive with the virus but the detected virus was mostly dead, ie they're infected but potentially cured
From the SAGE report on PCR testing and false results:
"What causes false positives? • Cross reactions with other genetic material. Other sources of DNA or RNA may have cross reactive genetic material that can be amplified by the RT-PCR test. False positives were observed unexpectedly in norovirus assays in patients with enterocolitis, due to unusually high levels of human DNA in samples [1] • Contamination during sampling. This may happen if the swab head accidently contacts, or is placed on a contaminated surface (e.g. latex gloves, hospital surface). • Contamination during swab extraction. Viral RNA is extracted from swabs in solution; accidental aerosolization of liquid can cause cross contamination between samples. • Contamination with PCR amplicon. The PCR amplification process generates millions of copies of the DNA target (amplicon) that can cause false positives in subsequent PCR reactions. If a testing lab is accidently contaminated with amplicon it can lead to sporadic false positives. • Contamination of PCR laboratory consumables. Contamination can spread from a post-PCR lab into a pre-PCR lab by transfer of equipment, chemicals, people or aerosol. Even experienced national labs can be affected. In early-March 2020, COVID-19 RT-PCR assays produced by the CDC were withdrawn after many showed false positives due to contaminated reagents. "
The majority of those cases will be almost immediately apparent, and would not appear in the reported totals. And labs have now had many weeks of practice to refine handling techniques.
No of positive tests in London has fallen by 27% in the last week...
That's interesting.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
I suspect it’s just that a huge amount of test capacity has been switched away from London in the last week. But it’s not exactly going to be helpful to all the “lockdown London NOW” briefing that’s been going on for the last few days on the back of “surges” in reported figures...
It seems likely to me that as the pressure to get tests through the system mounts to incredible levels then more of the things that SAGE say buggers up a test will happen.
I predict there will be a whistleblower along shortly to describe "the chaos" in one of our testing labs.
Hope I'm wrong.
Over the weekend we needed a Covid test for my daughter (up North) and my nephew down south. In both cases once we battled the system to book a test (it took hours) we both got the results back in less than 24 hours. Both results were negative, just ordinary colds caught at school.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Guido has a long-running thread on guests introduced by very misleading titles of omission. The TV media are getting slowly better at it, but still a long way to go.
It’s quite amazing how many people now working as ‘head of a think tank’ stood for Parliament at the last election.
Since when has Guido been the go-to for non-partisanship?
He has his biases, of course he does. All the written press do.
Unlike the BBC, C4 and Sky News, all of whom have a statutory duty to uphold political impartiality.
The ‘head of a think tank’, is actually a minor issue compared to ‘a doctor at hospital X’ given five minutes to uncritically bash the government, without reference to the fact they are a local councillor who stood for Parliament at the last election.
I wonder if the people saying that have any idea what that means other than something-something-less-restrictions, right? After all, they never specify what restrictions they think we should or should not have.
Watching that Tegnell interview with Andrew Neil was illuminating. Key points to takeaway:
- Would you say Sweden has done well? (Neil lists the death rates). Answer: No-one has done well. Each country has had different challenges and different responses.
- Why didn't the UK follow the Swedish route? They were doing it originally Answer: In the UK, the infections, hospitalisations, and deaths were going up sharply. In Sweden, they weren't, allowing them to follow a route of gentler restrictions.
(Side bar on care homes, where both we and Sweden messed up hugely, discussion on data)
- What does it mean to follow the Swedish model? Answer: Get a level of restrictions that works and sustain it in the long term. No chopping and changing.
Well, that provides an answer. If we follow the Swedish model, we need tougher restrictions than we had in August and early September (as that wasn't a level that works). When we reach a level of restrictions that works to bring it down, we keep them going for the foreseeable future.
Following the Swedish model means that the Rule of Six, at the very least, is here to stay.
I wonder if that's what those advocating "following the Swedish model" think they're saying? Increase restrictions a bit and hold them there for a prolonged period.
Yes, I think that's right. The much-vaunted Swedish model seems to have three features that we currently lack:
1. A competent administration with a clear strategy. 2. A clear and consistent set of rules, well communicated, held in place for a significant period - no chopping and changing. 3. A general public that very largely follows the rules, along with showing good old Swedish common sense.
All three features were potentially available to us (though British rather than Swedish common sense). But...
If you are convinced that the virus remains a great enough threat to public health that drastic action is needed the only policy that makes sense to me is to make University teaching online and virtual and ask students to stay home rather than going to their new accommodation over the next couple of weeks. If they go we will not see an R rate below 1 this side of Christmas, no matter what else we do.
The consequence of this is that the largest part of the price will be paid by those least at risk. This strikes me as unfair and unreasonable but, let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time. I can see our scientists making this case, possibly even today.
The young getting infected builds herd immunity and so fewer infections later on among vulnerable groups.
But that is not the government's policy. It was abandoned almost immediately in the face of hysteria and our bizarre obsession with the NHS. We went from "flatten the curve" to elimination of the virus by incremental steps led by the apparent success of other countries in doing so. Many, but not all, of those countries have more infections now.
So it may be that the boffins were right in the first place and it is those who have been criticising the government for not doing enough to stop the spread of this virus who were wrong. But I cannot see such a reverse course given the experience last time out.
I don't think there is an overall strategy but rather different policies to achieve various tactical objectives.
That's probably inevitable because of the limited knowledge of the virus and the uncertainty of how people will respond.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
1. Things just went too well. It felt as if the middle aged were dying like flies in Italy, that we were three weeks behind that, and that in those circumstances the elderly would just be a footnote, collateral damage, an afterthought, whatever, so get them out of the hospitals at any cost to free up space for the young. In fact we ended up with acres of unoccupied Nightingale space and more time to spare for thinking about the elderly than anyone expected.
I wonder if the people saying that have any idea what that means other than something-something-less-restrictions, right? After all, they never specify what restrictions they think we should or should not have.
Watching that Tegnell interview with Andrew Neil was illuminating. Key points to takeaway:
- Would you say Sweden has done well? (Neil lists the death rates). Answer: No-one has done well. Each country has had different challenges and different responses.
- Why didn't the UK follow the Swedish route? They were doing it originally Answer: In the UK, the infections, hospitalisations, and deaths were going up sharply. In Sweden, they weren't, allowing them to follow a route of gentler restrictions.
(Side bar on care homes, where both we and Sweden messed up hugely, discussion on data)
- What does it mean to follow the Swedish model? Answer: Get a level of restrictions that works and sustain it in the long term. No chopping and changing.
Well, that provides an answer. If we follow the Swedish model, we need tougher restrictions than we had in August and early September (as that wasn't a level that works). When we reach a level of restrictions that works to bring it down, we keep them going for the foreseeable future.
Following the Swedish model means that the Rule of Six, at the very least, is here to stay.
I wonder if that's what those advocating "following the Swedish model" think they're saying? Increase restrictions a bit and hold them there for a prolonged period.
Yes, I think that's right. The much-vaunted Swedish model seems to have three features that we currently lack:
1. A competent administration with a clear strategy. 2. A clear and consistent set of rules, well communicated, held in place for a significant period - no chopping and changing. 3. A general public that very largely follows the rules, along with showing good old Swedish common sense.
All three features were potentially available to us (though British rather than Swedish common sense). But...
It was destroyed as soon as Cummings didn't resign which would have allowed Boris to keep him because of circumstances (that actually shows that Cummings is that bright).
Outside of the cities the population density of Sweden makes the highlands look like a metropolis.
Lockdown again is a waste of time. Compliance will be nowhere near what it was in the last one. That much is obvious from one weekend of the North East “lockdown”. Everyone is just getting on with it, ignoring the rules but being careful.
On a similar theme we came back from Europe via the tunnel yesterday. 48 hours before arriving we were required to each complete a Passenger Locator form on line, receive an email confirmation and code and and this had to be printed out or available on the phone and be produced before arriving in the UK. The Government website said that anyone who had failed to do this could expect a lengthy delay.
To cut a long story short we sailed through and nobody even mentioned it let alone asked to see it. I also know that we are required to quarantine for 14 days but again nobody mentioned this or provided any information telling us what that actually meant. In short we could have waltzed back into the UK without even being aware there was a pandemic in progress.
Seems typical of the government's handling of the virus from start to finish. Lots of fine words and sod all delivery.
I've been saying this for a while. Checking is minimal with a lot of people able to just walk through. The absolute minimal thing we could do is a check at the border. Every person entering the UK (except via ROI) has to show their passport. "Can I see your Passenger Locator form" has to be the question asked every single time. Its so simple. Yet Shitty Patel can't even manage that.
Electronic gates can’t ask you for PLF
So make everyone go through a staffed barrier. Passenger numbers well down so not that big a deal.
Just had a newsflash on my phone to the effect that 'No 10 denies reports that Boris Johnson went on a secret Italy trip.'
So it wasn't secret then; other people knew about it!
Sounds like another one of these eye tests sagas to me.
Or a specific and limited breach of the law. Funny how these incidents which had no cut through whatever, do you hear me, have entered the language. And will still be in it in 2024.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
I didn't know Lebedev had a dog named after our prime minister, although when you consider how the Tory party is awash with Roubles it's not surprising.
Imagine if Corbyn was PM, meeting ex KGB agents and accepting multi million pound donations from those in turn receiving SAR flagged $8m from sanctioned oligarch friends of Putin.
I doubt the Tory loyalists would be quite so forgiving and silent.
It really is quite incredible isn't it. Tory patriotism is just a load of blether.
So, if 0.8% at least of tests are false positives, that implies we had a sustained period of -0.2% as the real figure.
I'm really not sure how that could even work.
So your fp rate must be 0.6% or lower. It can never be higher than your total positive.
We were assured that the problem with the stats we were presented with was that the false positive rate had to be at least 0.8%. Assured repeatedly. And that, no, lower prevalence did not result in lower false positive rates.
I was demonstrating that this cannot be true. It has been falsified.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Guido has a long-running thread on guests introduced by very misleading titles of omission. The TV media are getting slowly better at it, but still a long way to go.
It’s quite amazing how many people now working as ‘head of a think tank’ stood for Parliament at the last election.
Since when has Guido been the go-to for non-partisanship?
He has his biases, of course he does. All the written press do.
Unlike the BBC, C4 and Sky News, all of whom have a statutory duty to uphold political impartiality.
The ‘head of a think tank’, is actually a minor issue compared to ‘a doctor at hospital X’ given five minutes to uncritically bash the government, without reference to the fact they are a local councillor who stood for Parliament at the last election.
Or "doctor" who has for decades been a Union shop steward, campaigner and candidate and not someone who spends their time with patients.
No of positive tests in London has fallen by 27% in the last week...
That's interesting.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
There was a lot of speculation like that from people who wanted to believe the disease wasn't very dangerous, but I don't think the serology tests found anything remotely like it?
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
They were threatening a court case too . . . they should have gone to court rather than fold. It was a bad mistake, if you're going to have restrictions then better to have them overseas than at home.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Maybe the DG of the BBC should start with himself? Given that he was a Conservative Party official.
If you are convinced that the virus remains a great enough threat to public health that drastic action is needed the only policy that makes sense to me is to make University teaching online and virtual and ask students to stay home rather than going to their new accommodation over the next couple of weeks. If they go we will not see an R rate below 1 this side of Christmas, no matter what else we do.
The consequence of this is that the largest part of the price will be paid by those least at risk. This strikes me as unfair and unreasonable but, let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time. I can see our scientists making this case, possibly even today.
The young getting infected builds herd immunity and so fewer infections later on among vulnerable groups.
But that is not the government's policy. It was abandoned almost immediately in the face of hysteria and our bizarre obsession with the NHS. We went from "flatten the curve" to elimination of the virus by incremental steps led by the apparent success of other countries in doing so. Many, but not all, of those countries have more infections now.
So it may be that the boffins were right in the first place and it is those who have been criticising the government for not doing enough to stop the spread of this virus who were wrong. But I cannot see such a reverse course given the experience last time out.
I don't think there is an overall strategy but rather different policies to achieve various tactical objectives.
That's probably inevitable because of the limited knowledge of the virus and the uncertainty of how people will respond.
It is certainly the case that policy and strategy has evolved over the months and I make no particular criticism of the government for that. It is right that they respond to new facts and developments not just here but around the world.
Would Jeremy Hunt have done better? Maybe, but its not a given.
I didn't know Lebedev had a dog named after our prime minister, although when you consider how the Tory party is awash with Roubles it's not surprising.
Imagine if Corbyn was PM, meeting ex KGB agents and accepting multi million pound donations from those in turn receiving SAR flagged $8m from sanctioned oligarch friends of Putin.
I doubt the Tory loyalists would be quite so forgiving and silent.
It really is quite incredible isn't it. Tory patriotism is just a load of blether.
Yes it is now clear national security is well behind party politics in the eyes of those Tories who are aware of this but do not find it completely unacceptable and a risk to the security of the nation.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
Lockdown again is a waste of time. Compliance will be nowhere near what it was in the last one. That much is obvious from one weekend of the North East “lockdown”. Everyone is just getting on with it, ignoring the rules but being careful.
On a similar theme we came back from Europe via the tunnel yesterday. 48 hours before arriving we were required to each complete a Passenger Locator form on line, receive an email confirmation and code and and this had to be printed out or available on the phone and be produced before arriving in the UK. The Government website said that anyone who had failed to do this could expect a lengthy delay.
To cut a long story short we sailed through and nobody even mentioned it let alone asked to see it. I also know that we are required to quarantine for 14 days but again nobody mentioned this or provided any information telling us what that actually meant. In short we could have waltzed back into the UK without even being aware there was a pandemic in progress.
Seems typical of the government's handling of the virus from start to finish. Lots of fine words and sod all delivery.
I've been saying this for a while. Checking is minimal with a lot of people able to just walk through. The absolute minimal thing we could do is a check at the border. Every person entering the UK (except via ROI) has to show their passport. "Can I see your Passenger Locator form" has to be the question asked every single time. Its so simple. Yet Shitty Patel can't even manage that.
Electronic gates can’t ask you for PLF
So make everyone go through a staffed barrier. Passenger numbers well down so not that big a deal.
It seems likely to me that as the pressure to get tests through the system mounts to incredible levels then more of the things that SAGE say buggers up a test will happen.
I predict there will be a whistleblower along shortly to describe "the chaos" in one of our testing labs.
Hope I'm wrong.
Over the weekend we needed a Covid test for my daughter (up North) and my nephew down south. In both cases once we battled the system to book a test (it took hours) we both got the results back in less than 24 hours. Both results were negative, just ordinary colds caught at school.
Same with two of my grandchildren and the common cold should not be a reason for a test, but it does account for the explosioni in the demand for one million tests a day, that no government is anywhere near matching
The rules and priorities for testing need to be refined and to be fair to HMG 235,000 tests a day are way more than in Europe and even Kay Burley of all people affirmed that we are testing well ahead of anyone in Eurooe
No of positive tests in London has fallen by 27% in the last week...
That's interesting.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
There was a lot of speculation like that from people who wanted to believe the disease wasn't very dangerous, but I don't think the serology tests found anything remotely like it?
For most people the disease isn't very dangerous.
It would be scientifically interesting if infection was widespread among a campus university and some information gained as to when infections peaked and then burnt out.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Interesting tweet at many levels. It's unusual to want your own children to be infected by the deadliest virus for 100 years. I would think the virus is deciding our fates, not men as a class. Professor Gupta is epidemiologist at Oxford University and maybe can claim fame as a world leading one. Her original claim that the UK was substantially immunised by an asymptomatic herd immunity by April is contradicted by all the evidence. Most serious epidemiologists reject this claim, including her own colleagues at Oxford University
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Nonsense. Golf was released first because it is very easy to socially distance and as a rule you never go round in greater number in your than 4. You never need to be near anybody else nor touch anything anybody else has touched (they made a rule about not touching the flag). I can't think of many other sports where this is remotely possible to do this.
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
If you want an alternative, say so. Go through it. Tell us what it involves.
I have no idea the best route out of it; I'm just tired of people handwaving with "if we abandon restrictions it'll all be fine."
Run the numbers. Tell us your preferred route. But don't pretend we can get there with a single bound and then we're free. Getting that many people infected will take time. Especially as a whole bunch of them will be going, "Tell you what, I'll stay in the 30% uninfected." Because people don't like getting nasty diseases.
Personally, I'd prefer that after having had the lockdown back in March-May to deal with that rampant acceleration in infections and bring the spread rapidly down, we segued across to the "minimum level of restrictions that works and hold it there until vaccine" model.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
In the context of a political discussion absolutely but not entertainment programmes like strictly
No of positive tests in London has fallen by 27% in the last week...
That's interesting.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
There was a lot of speculation like that from people who wanted to believe the disease wasn't very dangerous, but I don't think the serology tests found anything remotely like it?
For most people the disease isn't very dangerous.
It would be scientifically interesting if infection was widespread among a campus university and some information gained as to when infections peaked and then burnt out.
That would be interesting but in practice you can't really seal off a campus from the rest of society, so once you get serious numbers in a campus you end up with an area-wide response to stop it growing any further before it hits too many people in vulnerable groups.
There *are* a bunch of closed environments you can look at, including ones with mainly young people like navy ships.
It seems likely to me that as the pressure to get tests through the system mounts to incredible levels then more of the things that SAGE say buggers up a test will happen.
I predict there will be a whistleblower along shortly to describe "the chaos" in one of our testing labs.
Hope I'm wrong.
Over the weekend we needed a Covid test for my daughter (up North) and my nephew down south. In both cases once we battled the system to book a test (it took hours) we both got the results back in less than 24 hours. Both results were negative, just ordinary colds caught at school.
Same with two of my grandchildren and the common cold should not be a reason for a test, but it does account for the explosioni in the demand for one million tests a day, that no government is anywhere near matching
The rules and priorities for testing need to be refined and to be fair to HMG 235,000 tests a day are way more than in Europe and even Kay Burley of all people affirmed that we are testing well ahead of anyone in Eurooe
Quite simple
- The government encouraged an expansion of testing. Both in terms of capacity and encouraging people to get tests. - Now people assume that they should get a test if they have cold symptoms. - Hence demand is at the level of everyone with cold symptoms.
It seems likely to me that as the pressure to get tests through the system mounts to incredible levels then more of the things that SAGE say buggers up a test will happen.
I predict there will be a whistleblower along shortly to describe "the chaos" in one of our testing labs.
Hope I'm wrong.
Over the weekend we needed a Covid test for my daughter (up North) and my nephew down south. In both cases once we battled the system to book a test (it took hours) we both got the results back in less than 24 hours. Both results were negative, just ordinary colds caught at school.
Same with two of my grandchildren and the common cold should not be a reason for a test, but it does account for the explosioni in the demand for one million tests a day, that no government is anywhere near matching
The rules and priorities for testing need to be refined and to be fair to HMG 235,000 tests a day are way more than in Europe and even Kay Burley of all people affirmed that we are testing well ahead of anyone in Eurooe
The criteria are:-
Temperature to touch on tummy or back A persistent cough Lost of taste and smell
With a cold it's very easy for the first 2 criteria to be met. Now I knew on Friday that my daughter had a cold but come Saturday as the runny nose disappeared and the sneezing moved into a cough that continued it moved from nothing to worry about to best have a test.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
There's probably always an aspect of personal preference, either intentionally or subconsciously, involved in decision making.
Plus popularity and money can come into it.
And I agree about the care homes, to make the same mistake again would be astonishing.
It seems likely to me that as the pressure to get tests through the system mounts to incredible levels then more of the things that SAGE say buggers up a test will happen.
I predict there will be a whistleblower along shortly to describe "the chaos" in one of our testing labs.
Hope I'm wrong.
Over the weekend we needed a Covid test for my daughter (up North) and my nephew down south. In both cases once we battled the system to book a test (it took hours) we both got the results back in less than 24 hours. Both results were negative, just ordinary colds caught at school.
Same with two of my grandchildren and the common cold should not be a reason for a test, but it does account for the explosioni in the demand for one million tests a day, that no government is anywhere near matching
The rules and priorities for testing need to be refined and to be fair to HMG 235,000 tests a day are way more than in Europe and even Kay Burley of all people affirmed that we are testing well ahead of anyone in Eurooe
But are the right people being tested? The UK do more tests than Spain but I’m unaware of any criticism out here by people of not being able to get a test if judged it’s required. I’ve not seen any queues for tests but then the infection level in Valencia is 44/100,000, quite different to Madrid where there will be much greater Pressure on testing.
So from the date that masks were introuduced in shops the percentage of positive cases started increasing
You would but then you’re an idiot.
An idiot eh, everything I said that would happen has happened.
That's not true. And there's mounting evidence that due to masks people are getting weak infections due to lower viral load so are recovering and not dying from the illness.
In July I said that infections would rise because people would feel they were invincible and would stop socially distancing. Thats exactly what has happened. Compare a supermarket now to May/June.
Is it better to high a slightly higher infection rate but low death rate (due to reduced viral load) or a lower infection rate but higher death rate.
@NerysHughes you seem to prefer less infections but more deaths.
FFS you think I want more people to die! My whole point about masks was that we had got into an excellent position with Covid, deaths were minimal as were infections, then we made the big change to mask wearing and since then infections have started increasing.
Johnson encouraged us to go to the pub and the office and we went on foreign holidays, which we were not doing in May and June.
Not sure how much influence foreign holidays have on it. Do the people of Bolton or Bradford really go on many more trips than those of Cambridge or West Oxfordshire or wherever have very low infection rates?
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
If you want an alternative, say so. Go through it. Tell us what it involves.
I have no idea the best route out of it; I'm just tired of people handwaving with "if we abandon restrictions it'll all be fine."
Run the numbers. Tell us your preferred route. But don't pretend we can get there with a single bound and then we're free. Getting that many people infected will take time. Especially as a whole bunch of them will be going, "Tell you what, I'll stay in the 30% uninfected." Because people don't like getting nasty diseases.
Personally, I'd prefer that after having had the lockdown back in March-May to deal with that rampant acceleration in infections and bring the spread rapidly down, we segued across to the "minimum level of restrictions that works and hold it there until vaccine" model.
I think that's what the Government has tried to do. Remember its just a couple of weeks since they said that they were "at the limit of what could be unlocked" and nothing new has been unlocked since.
It appears we've actually gone past that limit.
Personally I'd rather lockdown foreign travel than domestic travel during a pandemic and this is one thing I've disagreed with the Government on since travel corridors were introduced.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Nonsense. Golf was released first because it is very easy to socially distance and as a rule you never go round in greater number in your than 4. You never need to be near anybody else nor touch anything anybody else has touched (they made a rule about not touching the flag). I can't think of many other sports where this is remotely possible to do this.
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Re grouse shooting do you attack Sturgeon and Drakeford who implemented the same policy
By the way on the wider topic I do not support grouse shooting by anyone
No of positive tests in London has fallen by 27% in the last week...
That's interesting.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
There was a lot of speculation like that from people who wanted to believe the disease wasn't very dangerous, but I don't think the serology tests found anything remotely like it?
For most people the disease isn't very dangerous.
It would be scientifically interesting if infection was widespread among a campus university and some information gained as to when infections peaked and then burnt out.
That would be interesting but in practice you can't really seal off a campus from the rest of society, so once you get serious numbers in a campus you end up with an area-wide response to stop it growing any further before it hits too many people in vulnerable groups.
There *are* a bunch of closed environments you can look at, including ones with mainly young people like navy ships.
And in the only example of Covid on a navy ship, sailors died.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
You forgot to add up-until-very-recently lifelong conservative campaigner and party member who is the new DG.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Nonsense. Golf was released first because it is very easy to socially distance and as a rule you never go round in greater number in your than 4. You never need to be near anybody else nor touch anything anybody else has touched (they made a rule about not touching the flag). I can't think of many other sports where this is remotely possible to do this.
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
I didn't know Lebedev had a dog named after our prime minister, although when you consider how the Tory party is awash with Roubles it's not surprising.
At least the dog only gargles its own balls. Probably.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Nonsense. Golf was released first because it is very easy to socially distance and as a rule you never go round in greater number in your than 4. You never need to be near anybody else nor touch anything anybody else has touched (they made a rule about not touching the flag). I can't think of many other sports where this is remotely possible to do this.
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
So from the date that masks were introuduced in shops the percentage of positive cases started increasing
You would but then you’re an idiot.
An idiot eh, everything I said that would happen has happened.
That's not true. And there's mounting evidence that due to masks people are getting weak infections due to lower viral load so are recovering and not dying from the illness.
In July I said that infections would rise because people would feel they were invincible and would stop socially distancing. Thats exactly what has happened. Compare a supermarket now to May/June.
Is it better to high a slightly higher infection rate but low death rate (due to reduced viral load) or a lower infection rate but higher death rate.
@NerysHughes you seem to prefer less infections but more deaths.
FFS you think I want more people to die! My whole point about masks was that we had got into an excellent position with Covid, deaths were minimal as were infections, then we made the big change to mask wearing and since then infections have started increasing.
Johnson encouraged us to go to the pub and the office and we went on foreign holidays, which we were not doing in May and June.
Not sure how much influence foreign holidays have on it. Do the people of Bolton or Bradford really go on many more trips than those of Cambridge or West Oxfordshire or wherever have very low infection rates?
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Nonsense. Golf was released first because it is very easy to socially distance and as a rule you never go round in greater number in your than 4. You never need to be near anybody else nor touch anything anybody else has touched (they made a rule about not touching the flag). I can't think of many other sports where this is remotely possible to do this.
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
Is your last sentence an example of inaccurate auto-correction, or should it be the other way round ..... Nicola paint-balling.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Very important point. My brother-in-law arrived from India a few weeks back. After his two weeks quarantine, he moved in with us. He finds our definition of "lockdown" laughable. He was confined to his apartment for months. Couldn't even leave for exercise.
Here, in places with "local lockdowns"
- You do not have to stay in your house; you can leave it whenever you like - You can travel wherever you like, although you should avoid public transport and work from home if possible. - You can go to the shops. - You can get takeaways. - You can visit outside attractions - You can go to a restaurant, or a pub (but must book first and sit only with your own household/support bubble).
And so on. "Local lockdown" seems to mean"no walk-ins in pubs and restaurants, no having friends and family around to socialise." Yet many seem to talk as though our lockdowns mean we are confined to our houses and may not leave, or do anything.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
In the context of a political discussion absolutely but not entertainment programmes like strictly
I think it is too cumbersome. We must just assume that Pym and Neil are professional enough to demonstrate balance.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
To be fair to the grouse shooters, that was cherry-picked from a list of around 30 outdoor activities, that all take place with people distant from each other in open spaces. I suspect that there was possibly also a Scotland angle to it as well.
Surely the care home managers are not going to make that mistake twice? They’d likely be held culpable, given everything we know now that we didn’t in March?
Lockdown again is a waste of time. Compliance will be nowhere near what it was in the last one. That much is obvious from one weekend of the North East “lockdown”. Everyone is just getting on with it, ignoring the rules but being careful.
On a similar theme we came back from Europe via the tunnel yesterday. 48 hours before arriving we were required to each complete a Passenger Locator form on line, receive an email confirmation and code and and this had to be printed out or available on the phone and be produced before arriving in the UK. The Government website said that anyone who had failed to do this could expect a lengthy delay.
To cut a long story short we sailed through and nobody even mentioned it let alone asked to see it. I also know that we are required to quarantine for 14 days but again nobody mentioned this or provided any information telling us what that actually meant. In short we could have waltzed back into the UK without even being aware there was a pandemic in progress.
Seems typical of the government's handling of the virus from start to finish. Lots of fine words and sod all delivery.
I've been saying this for a while. Checking is minimal with a lot of people able to just walk through. The absolute minimal thing we could do is a check at the border. Every person entering the UK (except via ROI) has to show their passport. "Can I see your Passenger Locator form" has to be the question asked every single time. Its so simple. Yet Shitty Patel can't even manage that.
Electronic gates can’t ask you for PLF
So make everyone go through a staffed barrier. Passenger numbers well down so not that big a deal.
True
Its so simple, it could have made a big impact and it can't have been a high cost / high difficulty move. HM Border Agency staff - you must require all passengers to show a valid Passenger Locator form as part of your normal passport check. Thats it.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
You forgot to add up-until-very-recently lifelong conservative campaigner and party member who is the new DG.
As a matter of interest why are you opposed to transparency of participants in political discussions
So, if 0.8% at least of tests are false positives, that implies we had a sustained period of -0.2% as the real figure.
I'm really not sure how that could even work.
So your fp rate must be 0.6% or lower. It can never be higher than your total positive.
the fp isn't a stable figure i would say looking at the causes of an fp on rna test
If the false positive rate can be whatever you need it to be to make all positive results false then it's impossible for any evidence to convince you that there's a problem with covid-19.
It's bizarre that this argument continues even as the number of hospitalizations increases.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
In the context of a political discussion absolutely but not entertainment programmes like strictly
I think it is too cumbersome. We must just assume that Pym and Neil are professional enough to demonstrate balance.
In both those cases I agree but cannot say the same for many others
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
You forgot to add up-until-very-recently lifelong conservative campaigner and party member who is the new DG.
As a matter of interest why are you opposed to transparency of participants in political discussions
I'm not opposed to it, I'm opposed to partial, one-sided, hypocritcal shit.
So from the date that masks were introuduced in shops the percentage of positive cases started increasing
You would but then you’re an idiot.
An idiot eh, everything I said that would happen has happened.
That's not true. And there's mounting evidence that due to masks people are getting weak infections due to lower viral load so are recovering and not dying from the illness.
In July I said that infections would rise because people would feel they were invincible and would stop socially distancing. Thats exactly what has happened. Compare a supermarket now to May/June.
Is it better to high a slightly higher infection rate but low death rate (due to reduced viral load) or a lower infection rate but higher death rate.
@NerysHughes you seem to prefer less infections but more deaths.
FFS you think I want more people to die! My whole point about masks was that we had got into an excellent position with Covid, deaths were minimal as were infections, then we made the big change to mask wearing and since then infections have started increasing.
Johnson encouraged us to go to the pub and the office and we went on foreign holidays, which we were not doing in May and June.
Not sure how much influence foreign holidays have on it. Do the people of Bolton or Bradford really go on many more trips than those of Cambridge or West Oxfordshire or wherever have very low infection rates?
The types of holidays might be quite different though!
Remember that it was the half-term winter skiing holidays that led to the first UK boom.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
If we have restrictions, it will inevitably slow down the economy in certain sectors (primarily the hospitality sector). In that case, we can get targeted support to them.
If we ignore it, then we see what @rcs1000 described in Arizona, and the hospitality industry gets a shellacking but without support.
Controlled versus uncontrolled.
I think the level we had in July, if enforced, plus schools open (with controls) may well be sustainable. However, restaurants and bars will need a degree of Government support (amongst other areas of the hospitality industry) until we're through.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
You forgot to add up-until-very-recently lifelong conservative campaigner and party member who is the new DG.
I remember the explosion of anger on one show when they introduced Paul Staines as the "Right Wing Blogger.."
He then replied "I'm very happy to be here, thank you, with the Left Wing Journalist x".
The host did an awesome impression of the Lt from Down Periscope "You can't say that.... " etc etc
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
In the context of a political discussion absolutely but not entertainment programmes like strictly
I think it is too cumbersome. We must just assume that Pym and Neil are professional enough to demonstrate balance.
In both those cases I agree but cannot say the same for many others
Lewis Goodall bits might as well come with "this is a party political broadcast by the Labour Party"
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
If you want an alternative, say so. Go through it. Tell us what it involves.
I have no idea the best route out of it; I'm just tired of people handwaving with "if we abandon restrictions it'll all be fine."
Run the numbers. Tell us your preferred route. But don't pretend we can get there with a single bound and then we're free. Getting that many people infected will take time. Especially as a whole bunch of them will be going, "Tell you what, I'll stay in the 30% uninfected." Because people don't like getting nasty diseases.
Personally, I'd prefer that after having had the lockdown back in March-May to deal with that rampant acceleration in infections and bring the spread rapidly down, we segued across to the "minimum level of restrictions that works and hold it there until vaccine" model.
I think there should be government advice and guidelines but also think we should have segmentation of risk.
And that people should be allowed to make their own decisions as much as possible but to deal with the consequences those decisions have.
I don't think increased infection among the young is only negative as it also adds to herd immunity - and herd immunity isn't something you either have or not but something which builds.
No of positive tests in London has fallen by 27% in the last week...
That's interesting.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
There was a lot of speculation like that from people who wanted to believe the disease wasn't very dangerous, but I don't think the serology tests found anything remotely like it?
Current Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) calculated at < 0.5%, down from about 1% earlier in the epidemic. This is largely due to better treatments and a younger healthier profile of people being infected, on my understanding. The younger profile may not continue to hold in the "second wave", which may result in the IFR going back up again a bit - evidence in France and Spain of secondary infections spreading to older more vulnerable people. Speculation, as far as I am aware with limited evidence, that the virus may have mutated into something less deadly.
Worth pointing out that an IFR of 0.3% results in about 200 000 deaths in the UK if there are no interventions. It's still a deadly disease and we do have collective and individual choices that can reduce the death toll a lot.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Nonsense. Golf was released first because it is very easy to socially distance and as a rule you never go round in greater number in your than 4. You never need to be near anybody else nor touch anything anybody else has touched (they made a rule about not touching the flag). I can't think of many other sports where this is remotely possible to do this.
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
Interesting tweet at many levels. It's unusual to want your own children to be infected by the deadliest virus for 100 years. I would think the virus is deciding our fates, not men as a class. Professor Gupta is epidemiologist at Oxford University and maybe can claim fame as a world leading one. Her original claim that the UK was substantially immunised by an asymptomatic herd immunity by April is contradicted by all the evidence. Most serious epidemiologists reject this claim, including her own colleagues at Oxford University
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
Its not what we had in April.
Back then you couldn't leave your own home and most employers weren't operating.
Allowing people to go on foreign holidays over the summer is now looking like an enormous mistake. It may have been crowd-pleasing but it will end up costing the government far more than it would have to simply prop up the travel industry for a few months.
There’s two clear mistakes made in the U.K. during the pandemic, that need to be top line in the public enquiry:
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
The answer to the second is that there is a significant number of people obsessed about their foreign holidays (including the idiot Grant Shapps) plus the airlines/airports seem to have plenty of influence in government.
I don't do culture wars as a rule, but the policies do seem to be influenced by the personal preferences of Ministers and their friends. The exemption from the Rule of 6 for grouse-shooting was an egregious example, but more innocent ones include the first things to be released from the national lockdown inthe summer - garden centres and golf.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
Nonsense. Golf was released first because it is very easy to socially distance and as a rule you never go round in greater number in your than 4. You never need to be near anybody else nor touch anything anybody else has touched (they made a rule about not touching the flag). I can't think of many other sports where this is remotely possible to do this.
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
In the context of a political discussion absolutely but not entertainment programmes like strictly
I think it is too cumbersome. We must just assume that Pym and Neil are professional enough to demonstrate balance.
In both those cases I agree but cannot say the same for many others
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
They can mix down the pub. That's not a lockdown. Yes yes, I know the rules states that we don't mix with people in the pub. But thats what a pub is - scores of people in a room getting hammered.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
The background isn't evidence. And if it was the Cathedral I'm just a little surprised. Is Carrie an RC?
Come on...are you really suggesting that is a virtual background? Unless somebody produces similar video evidence of Boris in Italy at the same time, the weight of evidence is at the time he was supposedly in Italy, he was in fact he was sitting in cabinet office doing live zoom conference.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
No, lockdown is "only leave the house once to go shopping or exercise". If the pubs are still open then it's not lockdown.
Interesting tweet at many levels. It's unusual to want your own children to be infected by the deadliest virus for 100 years. I would think the virus is deciding our fates, not men as a class. Professor Gupta is epidemiologist at Oxford University and maybe can claim fame as a world leading one. Her original claim that the UK was substantially immunised by an asymptomatic herd immunity by April is contradicted by all the evidence. Most serious epidemiologists reject this claim, including her own colleagues at Oxford University
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Interesting tweet at many levels. It's unusual to want your own children to be infected by the deadliest virus for 100 years. I would think the virus is deciding our fates, not men as a class. Professor Gupta is epidemiologist at Oxford University and maybe can claim fame as a world leading one. Her original claim that the UK was substantially immunised by an asymptomatic herd immunity by April is contradicted by all the evidence. Most serious epidemiologists reject this claim, including her own colleagues at Oxford University
And in the only example of Covid on a navy ship, sailors died.
It wasn't the only example. HMS QE has had it as well.
She sailed for GROUPEX this week with a complement of 1,700. When the RN were trying to stop the carriers from getting cancelled they swore blind the carrier + air wing would take to sea with less than 700 crew.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
The background isn't evidence. And if it was the Cathedral I'm just a little surprised. Is Carrie an RC?
Come on...are you really suggesting that is a virtual background? Unless somebody produces similar video evidence of Boris in Italy at the same time, the weight of evidence is at the time he was supposedly in Italy, he was in fact he was sitting in cabinet office doing live zoom conference.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
If Boris was on Zoom, the Chinese Government will be able to confirm his wheareabouts. Has anyone contacted the embassy?
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Very important point. My brother-in-law arrived from India a few weeks back. After his two weeks quarantine, he moved in with us. He finds our definition of "lockdown" laughable. He was confined to his apartment for months. Couldn't even leave for exercise.
Here, in places with "local lockdowns"
- You do not have to stay in your house; you can leave it whenever you like - You can travel wherever you like, although you should avoid public transport and work from home if possible. - You can go to the shops. - You can get takeaways. - You can visit outside attractions - You can go to a restaurant, or a pub (but must book first and sit only with your own household/support bubble).
And so on. "Local lockdown" seems to mean"no walk-ins in pubs and restaurants, no having friends and family around to socialise." Yet many seem to talk as though our lockdowns mean we are confined to our houses and may not leave, or do anything.
Yes, the L word is losing utility through promiscuity. It happens.
I suggest our definition of Lockdown should come from the one we had. Where "Boris" told us -
"You MUST stay at home. This is an instruction not a request. Stay home apart from essential trips for food and medicine and once per day exercise. Take that exercise near home. Work from home unless you cannot AND you are a key worker. If you have any virus symptoms, or you know you have it, you must self isolate for 14 days."
Anything like that would merit the label "Second National Lockdown".
Not sure how much influence foreign holidays have on it. Do the people of Bolton or Bradford really go on many more trips than those of Cambridge or West Oxfordshire or wherever have very low infection rates?
Mancs are famous for their holidays!
Can we kill this West Oxfordshire canard? Our infection rate is only a wee bit below average (we're about the 400th least infected constituency out of 650), and I'd say that's because: - we've got a very high rate of biggish back gardens - we're blessed with hugely easy access to open, footpath-saturated, countryside owned by other people. Most household-to-household conversations happen in the middle of a field, surrounded by dogs, at 6 ft distances - a very large proportion of pubs and restaurants have good outdoor capacity: if we eat or drink out it's mostly in beer-gardens and on terraces - we're a tad oldish, and don't holiday in Ibiza. If we go away, our evenings aren't spent at raves but outside a Tuscan caff or a Greek zacharoplastion. - Bluntly: we're anti-social.
Comments
So only an 8 times increase in tests for no increase in the positive cases rather than a 30 times increase for no increase in positives.
So it may be that the boffins were right in the first place and it is those who have been criticising the government for not doing enough to stop the spread of this virus who were wrong. But I cannot see such a reverse course given the experience last time out.
1. What led to people being discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, at the start of the pandemic?
2. Why were foreign holidays encouraged over the summer?
It was predicted by many exactly what would happen with holidays, that people would act recklessly abroad, travel specifically for activities prohibited in the U.K. (such as nightclubs), make quarantining arrivals all but impossible due to large numbers of them etc.
I predict there will be a whistleblower along shortly to describe "the chaos" in one of our testing labs.
Hope I'm wrong.
https://twitter.com/BareReality/status/1306897564885831680
operational false positive rate of any national COVID-19 testing programme."
the median false testing rate of the same type of test on other RNA viruses is 2.4
take that last figure in before you switch on Whitty to listen to the cry of doom at 11am.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
I doubt the Tory loyalists would be quite so forgiving and silent.
And labs have now had many weeks of practice to refine handling techniques.
Unlike the BBC, C4 and Sky News, all of whom have a statutory duty to uphold political impartiality.
The ‘head of a think tank’, is actually a minor issue compared to ‘a doctor at hospital X’ given five minutes to uncritically bash the government, without reference to the fact they are a local councillor who stood for Parliament at the last election.
1. A competent administration with a clear strategy.
2. A clear and consistent set of rules, well communicated, held in place for a significant period - no chopping and changing.
3. A general public that very largely follows the rules, along with showing good old Swedish common sense.
All three features were potentially available to us (though British rather than Swedish common sense). But...
That's probably inevitable because of the limited knowledge of the virus and the uncertainty of how people will respond.
2. Dunno.
Outside of the cities the population density of Sweden makes the highlands look like a metropolis.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take).
Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If FPR is driving case numbers it would absolutely have to be visible in those figures.
It isn't.
In fact, in the Weekending 6th September the number of tests went down yet positive cases went up.
For the whole two-seventeen age groups tests halved from 34 thousand to 16 thousand yet cases increased by 50% from 51 to 75
I was demonstrating that this cannot be true. It has been falsified.
BBC News - Succession: What's the big deal about the Emmy-winning drama?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54031647
Would Jeremy Hunt have done better? Maybe, but its not a given.
The care home mistake, unbelievably, appears to be about to be repeated. I hope that they do have second thoughts.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
Is the closest thing we will get to truth on this.
The rules and priorities for testing need to be refined and to be fair to HMG 235,000 tests a day are way more than in Europe and even Kay Burley of all people affirmed that we are testing well ahead of anyone in Eurooe
It would be scientifically interesting if infection was widespread among a campus university and some information gained as to when infections peaked and then burnt out.
https://twitter.com/allisonpearson/status/1306942833232875522
As for grouse shooting. Firstly, of course Scotland and Wales came up with the same rules and despite the media focus on this, the actual rule changes included a large range of non-posho activities / sports e.g paint balling. I can't see Nicola Sturgeon going peasant shooting nor Boris paint balling.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/05/bbc-appoints-insider-tim-davie-as-director-general
Go through it. Tell us what it involves.
I have no idea the best route out of it; I'm just tired of people handwaving with "if we abandon restrictions it'll all be fine."
Run the numbers. Tell us your preferred route. But don't pretend we can get there with a single bound and then we're free. Getting that many people infected will take time. Especially as a whole bunch of them will be going, "Tell you what, I'll stay in the 30% uninfected." Because people don't like getting nasty diseases.
Personally, I'd prefer that after having had the lockdown back in March-May to deal with that rampant acceleration in infections and bring the spread rapidly down, we segued across to the "minimum level of restrictions that works and hold it there until vaccine" model.
There *are* a bunch of closed environments you can look at, including ones with mainly young people like navy ships.
- The government encouraged an expansion of testing. Both in terms of capacity and encouraging people to get tests.
- Now people assume that they should get a test if they have cold symptoms.
- Hence demand is at the level of everyone with cold symptoms.
Temperature to touch on tummy or back
A persistent cough
Lost of taste and smell
With a cold it's very easy for the first 2 criteria to be met. Now I knew on Friday that my daughter had a cold but come Saturday as the runny nose disappeared and the sneezing moved into a cough that continued it moved from nothing to worry about to best have a test.
Plus popularity and money can come into it.
And I agree about the care homes, to make the same mistake again would be astonishing.
It appears we've actually gone past that limit.
Personally I'd rather lockdown foreign travel than domestic travel during a pandemic and this is one thing I've disagreed with the Government on since travel corridors were introduced.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/blappp-hurts-say-owe-great-debt-paintballing/
By the way on the wider topic I do not support grouse shooting by anyone
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
My brother-in-law arrived from India a few weeks back. After his two weeks quarantine, he moved in with us. He finds our definition of "lockdown" laughable.
He was confined to his apartment for months. Couldn't even leave for exercise.
Here, in places with "local lockdowns"
- You do not have to stay in your house; you can leave it whenever you like
- You can travel wherever you like, although you should avoid public transport and work from home if possible. - You can go to the shops.
- You can get takeaways.
- You can visit outside attractions
- You can go to a restaurant, or a pub (but must book first and sit only with your own household/support bubble).
And so on. "Local lockdown" seems to mean"no walk-ins in pubs and restaurants, no having friends and family around to socialise." Yet many seem to talk as though our lockdowns mean we are confined to our houses and may not leave, or do anything.
Surely the care home managers are not going to make that mistake twice? They’d likely be held culpable, given everything we know now that we didn’t in March?
Guido also points readers to this Tweet from MP Andrea Jenkyns on the Friday where it was known Boris was hosting a Zoom call for Tory MPs.
https://order-order.com/2020/09/21/no-boris-didnt-holiday-in-perugia/
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
It's bizarre that this argument continues even as the number of hospitalizations increases.
Remember that it was the half-term winter skiing holidays that led to the first UK boom.
If we ignore it, then we see what @rcs1000 described in Arizona, and the hospitality industry gets a shellacking but without support.
Controlled versus uncontrolled.
I think the level we had in July, if enforced, plus schools open (with controls) may well be sustainable. However, restaurants and bars will need a degree of Government support (amongst other areas of the hospitality industry) until we're through.
He then replied "I'm very happy to be here, thank you, with the Left Wing Journalist x".
The host did an awesome impression of the Lt from Down Periscope "You can't say that.... " etc etc
That's a "lockdown".
And that people should be allowed to make their own decisions as much as possible but to deal with the consequences those decisions have.
I don't think increased infection among the young is only negative as it also adds to herd immunity - and herd immunity isn't something you either have or not but something which builds.
Worth pointing out that an IFR of 0.3% results in about 200 000 deaths in the UK if there are no interventions. It's still a deadly disease and we do have collective and individual choices that can reduce the death toll a lot.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/estimating-the-infection-fatality-ratio-in-england/
Back then you couldn't leave your own home and most employers weren't operating.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-makes-it-very-hard-for-democrats-to-win-the-supreme-court/
is well-worth reading.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
She sailed for GROUPEX this week with a complement of 1,700. When the RN were trying to stop the carriers from getting cancelled they swore blind the carrier + air wing would take to sea with less than 700 crew.
I suggest our definition of Lockdown should come from the one we had. Where "Boris" told us -
"You MUST stay at home. This is an instruction not a request. Stay home apart from essential trips for food and medicine and once per day exercise. Take that exercise near home. Work from home unless you cannot AND you are a key worker. If you have any virus symptoms, or you know you have it, you must self isolate for 14 days."
Anything like that would merit the label "Second National Lockdown".
Can we kill this West Oxfordshire canard? Our infection rate is only a wee bit below average (we're about the 400th least infected constituency out of 650), and I'd say that's because:
- we've got a very high rate of biggish back gardens
- we're blessed with hugely easy access to open, footpath-saturated, countryside owned by other people. Most household-to-household conversations happen in the middle of a field, surrounded by dogs, at 6 ft distances
- a very large proportion of pubs and restaurants have good outdoor capacity: if we eat or drink out it's mostly in beer-gardens and on terraces
- we're a tad oldish, and don't holiday in Ibiza. If we go away, our evenings aren't spent at raves but outside a Tuscan caff or a Greek zacharoplastion.
- Bluntly: we're anti-social.