I reckon the whole country is now headed for the strictest lockdown. They will try and disguise it as a massive series of incremental local restrictions, but that will be bollocks.
Allegra Stratton new Downing Street Press Secretary
Ex Newsnight! Another example of the BBC being full of blinkin' lefties!
And was with the Guardian at one time
Sarah Sands, Robbie Gibb, Guto Hari, Allegra Stratton, Jeremy Paxman, John Humphreys, Nick Robinson ...
We have been fed this propaganda about left-wing bias in the broadcast media for years, but all the evidence strongly indicates that if any party has a grip on newsrooms it's the Tories.
I'll raise you Clarence Mitchell and BBC Radio Norfolk's Nick (keep your knickers on) Conrad.
And what about Andrew Neil and Laura K?
BBC DG Tim Davie is an exTory councillor too.
Tim Davie is a nob end.
He wants to persecute the grandchild of immigrants who did well academically (and in life generally.)
Just imagine if people did the same to the working class kids.
I am choking up just thinking about your predicament TSE.
Personally, I'd ban Oxbridge graduates from all top government jobs - maybe allowing a few exceptions after 25 years or so. Given the way the country is run now it couldn't do any harm.
Just ban Oxford graduates and employ Cambridge graduates, I mean just look at the number of Nobel laureates the University of Cambridge has compared to the dump.
Best PM we never had, Ken Clarke of Gonville and Caius.
You can also add Michael Portillo, Michael Howard and Rab Butler as Cambridge educated best PMs we never had, though on the other side we also had Cambridge educated Deputy PM Nick Clegg
How's about some more prime ministers that didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. Preferably one that's had a proper job that wasn't as a lawyer or in banking.
Last one was Gordon Brown who went to Edinburgh and was a lecturer and journalist, the one before that was Neville Chamberlain who was an accountant and industrialist and who went to Birmingham.
Though neither were exactly in the top tier of PMs
I'm still astonished that the Government and Baroness Harding weren't expecting an increase in cases with the return to school and universities.
Was that the case? I thought it was the scale which took them by surprise.
Their assumption was that children (!) and university students would engage in social distancing.
None of these people have ever attended a state school of course. Just sayin.
Talking to a friend who teaches at a local private school - they are running classes of just 9 pupils to ensure a degree of social distancing (and they're still getting issues).
Allegra Stratton new Downing Street Press Secretary
Ex Newsnight! Another example of the BBC being full of blinkin' lefties!
And was with the Guardian at one time
Sarah Sands, Robbie Gibb, Guto Hari, Allegra Stratton, Jeremy Paxman, John Humphreys, Nick Robinson ...
We have been fed this propaganda about left-wing bias in the broadcast media for years, but all the evidence strongly indicates that if any party has a grip on newsrooms it's the Tories.
I'll raise you Clarence Mitchell and BBC Radio Norfolk's Nick (keep your knickers on) Conrad.
And what about Andrew Neil and Laura K?
BBC DG Tim Davie is an exTory councillor too.
Tim Davie is a nob end.
He wants to persecute the grandchild of immigrants who did well academically (and in life generally.)
Just imagine if people did the same to the working class kids.
I am choking up just thinking about your predicament TSE.
Personally, I'd ban Oxbridge graduates from all top government jobs - maybe allowing a few exceptions after 25 years or so. Given the way the country is run now it couldn't do any harm.
Just ban Oxford graduates and employ Cambridge graduates, I mean just look at the number of Nobel laureates the University of Cambridge has compared to the dump.
Best PM we never had, Ken Clarke of Gonville and Caius.
You can also add Michael Portillo, Michael Howard and Rab Butler as Cambridge educated best PMs we never had, though on the other side we also had Cambridge educated Deputy PM Nick Clegg
Maybe the BBC isn't leftie biased at all and it's just a weird conspiracy theory.
I note this came up when the Tories took over, funny that
Not really, it's been an issue for ages. The old champagne corks popping in 1997 comes to mind.
Anyway, I don't think the BBC has a lefty bias, I think it has a liberal one. Might sound like splitting hairs but there is a difference. It's why the likes of Osborne were ok with it despite him being a pretty powerful Tory MP and why it gets a lot of criticism from the old left.
Marr sums up the issue,
As Andrew Marr observed some years ago: “The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.”
Its why any idea of Brexit being popular is totally misunderstood, why any suggestion of limits on immigration get shouted down as racist, why public sector solutions get more welcoming hearing and why there is an abundance of things like pro LGBT+ articles on the news pages.
Yep, I thought that was fair. It is also an explanation about why they were always a lot more obsessed about mortgage rates than savings rates, back in the day when interest was a thing.
What is this "interest" of which you speak?
Back in olden times if you let someone have control of your money they used to pay a form of rent called interest on it. It's been a while, in fairness.
I had a meeting with our pension fund managers this week who cheerfully pointed out that if gilt rates went negative our liabilities would be infinite and that they had some reservations as to whether they could meet that level of return.
Maybe the BBC isn't leftie biased at all and it's just a weird conspiracy theory.
I note this came up when the Tories took over, funny that
Not really, it's been an issue for ages. The old champagne corks popping in 1997 comes to mind.
Anyway, I don't think the BBC has a lefty bias, I think it has a liberal one. Might sound like splitting hairs but there is a difference. It's why the likes of Osborne were ok with it despite him being a pretty powerful Tory MP and why it gets a lot of criticism from the old left.
Marr sums up the issue,
As Andrew Marr observed some years ago: “The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.”
Its why any idea of Brexit being popular is totally misunderstood, why any suggestion of limits on immigration get shouted down as racist, why public sector solutions get more welcoming hearing and why there is an abundance of things like pro LGBT+ articles on the news pages.
It also has a very conservative bias. If you are against the momarchy for example, this is very obvious.
Also, while the journalists may be "liberal", listen to the economic news on the Today program. The guest "experts" are 90% fund managers people gambling on the stock exchange. It would be like the sports section only having people from Paddy Power on. They never have alternative economic points of view to the destructive free market fundamentalists.
But for sure, if you are in favour of capital punishment, for example, your views don't get much representation on the BBC.
I'm still astonished that the Government and Baroness Harding weren't expecting an increase in cases with the return to school and universities.
Was that the case? I thought it was the scale which took them by surprise.
Their assumption was that children (!) and university students would engage in social distancing.
How?
I know its obvious but children need to be crammed into classrooms and your typical student doesn't live in a massive house with plenty of spare space.
I think where they made some bad assumptions was with the academic and support staff, I think they were expecting to spending their lives outside of the classroom being hermetically sealed in bio secure bubble.
As for university students the assumption they'd to their lectures and go back to their digs.
Am told the model made no assumption for university students who commute from home to their university on a daily basis(!!!)
Allegra Stratton new Downing Street Press Secretary
Ex Newsnight! Another example of the BBC being full of blinkin' lefties!
And was with the Guardian at one time
Sarah Sands, Robbie Gibb, Guto Hari, Allegra Stratton, Jeremy Paxman, John Humphreys, Nick Robinson ...
We have been fed this propaganda about left-wing bias in the broadcast media for years, but all the evidence strongly indicates that if any party has a grip on newsrooms it's the Tories.
I'll raise you Clarence Mitchell and BBC Radio Norfolk's Nick (keep your knickers on) Conrad.
And what about Andrew Neil and Laura K?
BBC DG Tim Davie is an exTory councillor too.
Tim Davie is a nob end.
He wants to persecute the grandchild of immigrants who did well academically (and in life generally.)
Just imagine if people did the same to the working class kids.
I am choking up just thinking about your predicament TSE.
Personally, I'd ban Oxbridge graduates from all top government jobs - maybe allowing a few exceptions after 25 years or so. Given the way the country is run now it couldn't do any harm.
Just ban Oxford graduates and employ Cambridge graduates, I mean just look at the number of Nobel laureates the University of Cambridge has compared to the dump.
Best PM we never had, Ken Clarke of Gonville and Caius.
You can also add Michael Portillo, Michael Howard and Rab Butler as Cambridge educated best PMs we never had, though on the other side we also had Cambridge educated Deputy PM Nick Clegg
How's about some more prime ministers that didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. Preferably one that's had a proper job that wasn't as a lawyer or in banking.
Warwick University being the University of Coventry, right?
Two different Uni's. Coventry, as one might expect is a bit more techie than Warwick.
Oh I wasn’t talking about Coventry University. I was merely making a hilarious point about how Warwick University is in Coventry and not in Warwick.
Sorry; missed! However it's just outside actually, although the post code is Coventry. It's in WarwickSHIRE, of course.
Some of the campus is in Warwickshire, most of it is actually in Coventry.
I was one of the select few (among those living in uni halls) to be living in Warwickshire. Unfortunately, the Warwickshire halls were among the scraggiest on campus
On my open day visit, well before sat-navs, my father mistakenly turned off at the signs for Warwick, which, needless to say is quite some distance away.
Did you enjoy your time there? It is on my son's list. We intended to go this summer for the Open Day but that was all cancelled unfortunately. The virtual day didn't tell us much about what it was like to live there. He wants to do PPE with an emphasis on the E where Warwick is clearly very strong.
I did. I liked having a campus university and there was a nice mix of people. The 60s bits of campus are objectively ugly but have a lot of charm; the students union building was the best I've seen, though I think the campus has changed a lot since then. Campus accommodation nice and social - generally flats of 10-20 or so with shared facilities, so you get to meet a range of people, within larger buildings so you have more options if the people in your flat don't suit. Off campus after first year in either Coventry or Leamington Spa for most people. No idea about PPE, but I knew some people doing MORSE (same E, with maths, operational research and statistics) who were all very smart and went on to good jobs in consultancy or government. Might be out of date though as this is all a couple of decades ago...
Mine was Physics and I chose it over an offer at Oxford, for what that's worth - through the interview process and open day I was more impressed by Warwick (I realise now that having an Oxford degree might have opened some more doors, but no regrets). Oxford didn't really try and sell themselves to me, I guess in general they have no need to do so!
I reckon the whole country is now headed for the strictest lockdown. They will try and disguise it as a massive series of incremental local restrictions, but that will be bollocks.
They will probably keep Devon and Cornwall at a lower level of restrictions and thus be able to claim not a national lockdown, just these different levels. Same as Scottish announcement yesterday, where f##kers actually live, its very strict, where sheep out number people, its more relaxed.
Allegra Stratton new Downing Street Press Secretary
Ex Newsnight! Another example of the BBC being full of blinkin' lefties!
And was with the Guardian at one time
Sarah Sands, Robbie Gibb, Guto Hari, Allegra Stratton, Jeremy Paxman, John Humphreys, Nick Robinson ...
We have been fed this propaganda about left-wing bias in the broadcast media for years, but all the evidence strongly indicates that if any party has a grip on newsrooms it's the Tories.
I'll raise you Clarence Mitchell and BBC Radio Norfolk's Nick (keep your knickers on) Conrad.
And what about Andrew Neil and Laura K?
BBC DG Tim Davie is an exTory councillor too.
Tim Davie is a nob end.
He wants to persecute the grandchild of immigrants who did well academically (and in life generally.)
Just imagine if people did the same to the working class kids.
I am choking up just thinking about your predicament TSE.
Personally, I'd ban Oxbridge graduates from all top government jobs - maybe allowing a few exceptions after 25 years or so. Given the way the country is run now it couldn't do any harm.
Just ban Oxford graduates and employ Cambridge graduates, I mean just look at the number of Nobel laureates the University of Cambridge has compared to the dump.
Best PM we never had, Ken Clarke of Gonville and Caius.
You can also add Michael Portillo, Michael Howard and Rab Butler as Cambridge educated best PMs we never had, though on the other side we also had Cambridge educated Deputy PM Nick Clegg
How's about some more prime ministers that didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. Preferably one that's had a proper job that wasn't as a lawyer or in banking.
How about the "Postie"?
Callaghan, Churchill, Attlee, Lloyd-George. Although the latter two were solicitors. That's off the cuff.
I'm still astonished that the Government and Baroness Harding weren't expecting an increase in cases with the return to school and universities.
Was that the case? I thought it was the scale which took them by surprise.
Their assumption was that children (!) and university students would engage in social distancing.
How?
I know its obvious but children need to be crammed into classrooms and your typical student doesn't live in a massive house with plenty of spare space.
I think where they made some bad assumptions was with the academic and support staff, I think they were expecting to spending their lives outside of the classroom being hermetically sealed in bio secure bubble.
As for university students the assumption they'd to their lectures and go back to their digs.
Am told the model made no assumption for university students who commute from home to their university on a daily basis(!!!)
Boris was a party animal back in the day, and Dido looks like she could have been a bit of a goer. Did they not think that peasant students would do likewise?
Both Sky, BBC and The Piers Moron Show are guilty of this, increasingly they invite people on with very extreme views and then claim balance. So you get the Churchill was nothing but a racist vs Churchill never did a single thing wrong shout-athon.
We are seeing it now with COVID, we have the lockdown absolutists vs the likes of Gupta or Sikora getting an incredible amount of airtime.
Yes. It means the boring problems in the middle - of making sure that people isolate when asked to do so, even if they don't have symptoms - are not receiving the attention that they need.
It's incredibly frustrating that Gupta is still being treated as someone with any credibility when the predictions she made during the first wave have been so comprehensively contradicted by subsequent events.
But the need for a fake balance comes before everything.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner is set to be announced at 11am tomorrow. I would like to have a small bet, but not on Greta Thunberg or the WHO, the apparent favourites. Which sites have a market with a wider range of candidates? There are 200 candidates or more and no published shortlist, but I think the winner, as is usual, will be someone who is actively involved in fighting for peace, rather than the climate or to stop Covid. Alex Navalny, or Ilham Tohti, the jailed Uyghur economist and peace campaigner.
They will not be able to force anyone to do anything. "They won't have the power to take enforcement action. If there are particularly egregious examples, they would need to escalate that to the police."
They can inform the police on those not wearing facemasks, not social distancing etc so the police can then fine them.
The police cannot be everywhere at once
Here we go again.The police cannot enforce laws which don’t exist and there are no laws requiring you to be 2 metres away from anyone else. Guidelines are not laws and you cannot be fined for ignoring them. Nor do the police (let alone Covid Marshalls) have the right to go into your home to see how many people are there with you.
The Metropolitan Police are, once again, misleading Londoners about the law. I know we have a government which has a disregard for the law but we do not - yet - live in a lawless society where the police can just do what the hell they like.
Growing up, my parents had a Hot Chocolate LP in their record collection, with a malteser in a woman's mouth on the cover. I always assumed it was meant to represent Errol Brown's bald head
Can't be ruled out, that's for sure. The only band to have a top 20 UK single in every year of the 1970s. The very definition of consistency.
Is that so? Impressive
My other abiding memory of them is my mate casually singing "You were only sixteen and I had just turned forty-three..." when "It started with a Kiss" was playing on a ski trip about 25 years ago
"At one event, Trump claimed to have “went through, like 35 people” whose family members had died, “and everyone had a different story.”
“I can’t back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,” he said.
The Gold Star family members “come within an inch of my face, sometimes,” Trump said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it.”
"At one event, Trump claimed to have “went through, like 35 people” whose family members had died, “and everyone had a different story.”
“I can’t back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,” he said.
The Gold Star family members “come within an inch of my face, sometimes,” Trump said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it.”
Thanks.
What kind of loser hangs around suckers like Gold Star recipients?
Am in the Toon right now. An absence of the huge groups of students wandering around on pub crawls which I saw a couple of weeks ago. Mind you, it's too late now.
It's mildly depressing that politicians who state the blindingly obvious in a rather predictable way are perceived as competent rather than just dull. It frankly shows how standards have slipped.
Growing up, my parents had a Hot Chocolate LP in their record collection, with a malteser in a woman's mouth on the cover. I always assumed it was meant to represent Errol Brown's bald head
Can't be ruled out, that's for sure. The only band to have a top 20 UK single in every year of the 1970s. The very definition of consistency.
"At one event, Trump claimed to have “went through, like 35 people” whose family members had died, “and everyone had a different story.”
“I can’t back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,” he said.
The Gold Star family members “come within an inch of my face, sometimes,” Trump said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it.”
Both Sky, BBC and The Piers Moron Show are guilty of this, increasingly they invite people on with very extreme views and then claim balance. So you get the Churchill was nothing but a racist vs Churchill never did a single thing wrong shout-athon.
We are seeing it now with COVID, we have the lockdown absolutists vs the likes of Gupta or Sikora getting an incredible amount of airtime.
Yes. It means the boring problems in the middle - of making sure that people isolate when asked to do so, even if they don't have symptoms - are not receiving the attention that they need.
It's incredibly frustrating that Gupta is still being treated as someone with any credibility when the predictions she made during the first wave have been so comprehensively contradicted by subsequent events.
But the need for a fake balance comes before everything.
Yes, it's fake balance but also because the media always look for the splashier story. A moderate opinion is seen as intrinsically less interesting. A lot of media analysis becomes clearer if one thinks of the media as primarily a branch of the entertainment industry.
Both Sky, BBC and The Piers Moron Show are guilty of this, increasingly they invite people on with very extreme views and then claim balance. So you get the Churchill was nothing but a racist vs Churchill never did a single thing wrong shout-athon.
We are seeing it now with COVID, we have the lockdown absolutists vs the likes of Gupta or Sikora getting an incredible amount of airtime.
Yes. It means the boring problems in the middle - of making sure that people isolate when asked to do so, even if they don't have symptoms - are not receiving the attention that they need.
It's incredibly frustrating that Gupta is still being treated as someone with any credibility when the predictions she made during the first wave have been so comprehensively contradicted by subsequent events.
But the need for a fake balance comes before everything.
Yes, it's fake balance but also because the media always look for the splashier story. A moderate opinion is seen as intrinsically less interesting. A lot of media analysis becomes clearer if one thinks of the media as primarily a branch of the entertainment industry.
What is interesting is there are many YouTube channels that have popped up that do long form interviews exploring issues without resorting to this tactic and are proving to be very popular.
Grim numbers on the cases. If R is running at 1.6 or so, we need to cut our social interactions by a third. If schools, healthcare and essential workers are all protected that means hospitality and universities will need to shut down. It's so bad.
Trump now blaming Gold Star families for giving him the virus ! He’s losing it big time and needs to be sectioned !
"“I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen,” Trump told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo."
Next he'll be challenging Biden in a who's got the biggest cock competition
One of the tricky things about Trump is that a lot of what he says can be seen as partly tongue in cheek - hence his fallback of "I was just joking". But I think that even his fans are a bit tired of it.
So, today's figures represent 75% increase this week over last week, R=1.38. R increasingly driven by the rapid university spread as that proportion has got larger, I think.
I do think a lot of the restrictions need to be targeted at wider university staff, contractors and students of named universities, in the same way as they were for the sandwich factory employees and suppliers, but we are getting so close to peak, that we can't be off some wider restrictions.
Basically such students banned from on premise hospitality, mixing outwith their shared facilities, onsite education, public gyms and leisure, should observe quarantine even if not positive if return home etc.
Grim numbers on the cases. If R is running at 1.6 or so, we need to cut our social interactions by a third. If schools, healthcare and essential workers are all protected that means hospitality and universities will need to shut down. It's so bad.
Not feasible. The Great Barrington Declaration is the only way forward IMO.
Trump now blaming Gold Star families for giving him the virus ! He’s losing it big time and needs to be sectioned !
"“I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen,” Trump told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo."
Next he'll be challenging Biden in a who's got the biggest cock competition
One of the tricky things about Trump is that a lot of what he says can be seen as partly tongue in cheek - hence his fallback of "I was just joking". But I think that even his fans are a bit tired of it.
Ditto Johnson, although I am not one to over-compare them.
Both Sky, BBC and The Piers Moron Show are guilty of this, increasingly they invite people on with very extreme views and then claim balance. So you get the Churchill was nothing but a racist vs Churchill never did a single thing wrong shout-athon.
We are seeing it now with COVID, we have the lockdown absolutists vs the likes of Gupta or Sikora getting an incredible amount of airtime.
Yes. It means the boring problems in the middle - of making sure that people isolate when asked to do so, even if they don't have symptoms - are not receiving the attention that they need.
It's incredibly frustrating that Gupta is still being treated as someone with any credibility when the predictions she made during the first wave have been so comprehensively contradicted by subsequent events.
But the need for a fake balance comes before everything.
Yes, it's fake balance but also because the media always look for the splashier story. A moderate opinion is seen as intrinsically less interesting. A lot of media analysis becomes clearer if one thinks of the media as primarily a branch of the entertainment industry.
Well, maybe, but why is that so?
It seems to come back to Rory Stewart's observation of a lack of seriousness. All the quibbling over minutiae during the Covid crisis is another sign.
If we can't be a bit serious a bit of the time about politics and our governance, then that's it for democracy.
Did she look in the app? The notification may be gone but the warning should still be in the app itself.
No it's a glitch in the world beating app.
Some users of the new NHS contact-tracing app have received notifications saying they'd been near someone with coronavirus, only to discover the alerts were system checks sent by Google and Apple.
People who downloaded the COVID-19 app in England and Wales told Sky News they had received a notification which said: "Someone you were near reported having COVID-19."
Yet, when they clicked on the message, they found no information explaining whether they should self-isolate.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the notification was a "default message" sent by Google and Apple - the makers of the app's technology - and should be ignored.
But the false alarms - which appeared to be only in England and Wales, despite the widespread use of contact tracing technology in countries across the world - had already caused confusion, forcing at least one user into avoidable self-isolation.
See if we had abolished the former polys then we wouldn't see this volume of positive cases.
Abolish the polys = No second lockdown.
Polys and tech colleges had a good role in their prior status. For some students that undoubtedly worked best. Often though the upside of a full degree (and in the better places not just a paper thing) will be a gain, and a big one.
It's absurd at the moment that employers have to work out which 'Unis' are real ones and which are complete bunk. It gets even harder when you're dealing with international applicants.
Some sort of international standard whereby you roughly know the quality of the institution would help.
Both Sky, BBC and The Piers Moron Show are guilty of this, increasingly they invite people on with very extreme views and then claim balance. So you get the Churchill was nothing but a racist vs Churchill never did a single thing wrong shout-athon.
We are seeing it now with COVID, we have the lockdown absolutists vs the likes of Gupta or Sikora getting an incredible amount of airtime.
Yes. It means the boring problems in the middle - of making sure that people isolate when asked to do so, even if they don't have symptoms - are not receiving the attention that they need.
It's incredibly frustrating that Gupta is still being treated as someone with any credibility when the predictions she made during the first wave have been so comprehensively contradicted by subsequent events.
But the need for a fake balance comes before everything.
Yes, it's fake balance but also because the media always look for the splashier story. A moderate opinion is seen as intrinsically less interesting. A lot of media analysis becomes clearer if one thinks of the media as primarily a branch of the entertainment industry.
Well, maybe, but why is that so?
It seems to come back to Rory Stewart's observation of a lack of seriousness. All the quibbling over minutiae during the Covid crisis is another sign.
If we can't be a bit serious a bit of the time about politics and our governance, then that's it for democracy.
Yes, everything is about zany, off the wall-ness. I used to love This Week, but it went too far down that road by the end. It's why I think the "Personality" factor is a big factor nowadays - I don't really think it should be, I just happen to think it is, mores the pity
Here we see where the cases are coming from, two unis 1600 new cases, these are the two universities we know about and it's being replicated all over the country.
Locking down cities isn't the answer, let the virus burn itself out in university halls. I wish that we had a way for everyone under 40 to catch it safely as well and then able to isolate in provided accomodation away from those who would be of high risk of death.
Did she look in the app? The notification may be gone but the warning should still be in the app itself.
No it's a glitch in the world beating app.
Some users of the new NHS contact-tracing app have received notifications saying they'd been near someone with coronavirus, only to discover the alerts were system checks sent by Google and Apple.
People who downloaded the COVID-19 app in England and Wales told Sky News they had received a notification which said: "Someone you were near reported having COVID-19."
Yet, when they clicked on the message, they found no information explaining whether they should self-isolate.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the notification was a "default message" sent by Google and Apple - the makers of the app's technology - and should be ignored.
But the false alarms - which appeared to be only in England and Wales, despite the widespread use of contact tracing technology in countries across the world - had already caused confusion, forcing at least one user into avoidable self-isolation.
Only problem is I think the places that currently have the most strict local lockdowns are registering the most new cases, whereas those without continue to have low numbers, (like Hereford where I happen to be at the moment).
They will not be able to force anyone to do anything. "They won't have the power to take enforcement action. If there are particularly egregious examples, they would need to escalate that to the police."
They can inform the police on those not wearing facemasks, not social distancing etc so the police can then fine them.
The police cannot be everywhere at once
Here we go again.The police cannot enforce laws which don’t exist and there are no laws requiring you to be 2 metres away from anyone else. Guidelines are not laws and you cannot be fined for ignoring them. Nor do the police (let alone Covid Marshalls) have the right to go into your home to see how many people are there with you.
The Metropolitan Police are, once again, misleading Londoners about the law. I know we have a government which has a disregard for the law but we do not - yet - live in a lawless society where the police can just do what the hell they like.
Government Regulations came into force in late September actually giving the police the legal power to impose fines for failing to quarantine, wear facemasks where required to or breaching the rule of 6
Actually not far off Whitty. His example was doubling every 7 days - I make it every 9 days from your second chart. What the chart does show, which was the point Whitty was making, is that those relatively small differences in exponential growth can add up to a big difference in the number of cases by a particular date.
Grim numbers on the cases. If R is running at 1.6 or so, we need to cut our social interactions by a third. If schools, healthcare and essential workers are all protected that means hospitality and universities will need to shut down. It's so bad.
Not feasible. The Great Barrington Declaration is the only way forward IMO.
A while back you said Covid-19 would fizzle/burn out, how'd that turn out?
Here we see where the cases are coming from, two unis 1600 new cases, these are the two universities we know about and it's being replicated all over the country.
Locking down cities isn't the answer, let the virus burn itself out in university halls. I wish that we had a way for everyone under 40 to catch it safely as well and then able to isolate in provided accomodation away from those who would be of high risk of death.
Grim numbers on the cases. If R is running at 1.6 or so, we need to cut our social interactions by a third. If schools, healthcare and essential workers are all protected that means hospitality and universities will need to shut down. It's so bad.
Not feasible. The Great Barrington Declaration is the only way forward IMO.
A while back you said Covid-19 would fizzle/burn out, how'd that turn out?
Allegra Stratton new Downing Street Press Secretary
Ex Newsnight! Another example of the BBC being full of blinkin' lefties!
And was with the Guardian at one time
Sarah Sands, Robbie Gibb, Guto Hari, Allegra Stratton, Jeremy Paxman, John Humphreys, Nick Robinson ...
We have been fed this propaganda about left-wing bias in the broadcast media for years, but all the evidence strongly indicates that if any party has a grip on newsrooms it's the Tories.
I'll raise you Clarence Mitchell and BBC Radio Norfolk's Nick (keep your knickers on) Conrad.
And what about Andrew Neil and Laura K?
BBC DG Tim Davie is an exTory councillor too.
Tim Davie is a nob end.
He wants to persecute the grandchild of immigrants who did well academically (and in life generally.)
Just imagine if people did the same to the working class kids.
I am choking up just thinking about your predicament TSE.
Personally, I'd ban Oxbridge graduates from all top government jobs - maybe allowing a few exceptions after 25 years or so. Given the way the country is run now it couldn't do any harm.
Just ban Oxford graduates and employ Cambridge graduates, I mean just look at the number of Nobel laureates the University of Cambridge has compared to the dump.
Best PM we never had, Ken Clarke of Gonville and Caius.
You can also add Michael Portillo, Michael Howard and Rab Butler as Cambridge educated best PMs we never had, though on the other side we also had Cambridge educated Deputy PM Nick Clegg
How's about some more prime ministers that didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. Preferably one that's had a proper job that wasn't as a lawyer or in banking.
How about the "Postie"?
Callaghan, Churchill, Attlee, Lloyd-George. Although the latter two were solicitors. That's off the cuff.
Actually not far off Whitty. His example was doubling every 7 days - I make it every 9 days from your second chart. What the chart does show, which was the point Whitty was making, is that those relatively small differences in exponential growth can add up to a big difference in the number of cases by a particular date.
The acceleration in the number of cases has been sharper than I expected, even allowing for University students. I seriously doubt if we can keep Universities and schools operating any kind of normal and have an R rates of under 1, even if we shut every pub in the country.
Did she look in the app? The notification may be gone but the warning should still be in the app itself.
There is no warning in the app for these. You only get a warning in the app itself if it deems the contact to be sufficient to isolate.
Oh okay. Seems like this message should just be turned off then!
Definitely. Like I said, I get these messages multiple times per day!
Is its function just to let you know it is working, or are you actually getting close to another person who has been tested positive?
I believe it's Apple (or Google) telling you that you have been near someone who has tested positive, but not near enough, or for long enough, to need to isolate.
I wonder how much of that might be due to Mayor Pete and the way he raised the Democrat profile in the state? As did Beto in Texas, of course.
Oh, the other thing is that as disasterous as the Clinton campaign was the Dems haven't/didn't abandoned the 50 state strategy.
Short term it is hugely wasteful as money is continually thrown away on no hopers but it builds up candidate and volunteers who have experience in campaigning.
Actually not far off Whitty. His example was doubling every 7 days - I make it every 9 days from your second chart. What the chart does show, which was the point Whitty was making, is that those relatively small differences in exponential growth can add up to a big difference in the number of cases by a particular date.
The acceleration in the number of cases has been sharper than I expected, even allowing for University students. I seriously doubt if we can keep Universities and schools operating any kind of normal and have an R rates of under 1, even if we shut every pub in the country.
My girlfriend is due to resume her work in an East End 6th form in a few weeks, after maternity leave. Can't say I will be too displeased if that school gets locked down and I don't have to be a full time WFH Dad!
Both Sky, BBC and The Piers Moron Show are guilty of this, increasingly they invite people on with very extreme views and then claim balance. So you get the Churchill was nothing but a racist vs Churchill never did a single thing wrong shout-athon.
We are seeing it now with COVID, we have the lockdown absolutists vs the likes of Gupta or Sikora getting an incredible amount of airtime.
Yes. It means the boring problems in the middle - of making sure that people isolate when asked to do so, even if they don't have symptoms - are not receiving the attention that they need.
It's incredibly frustrating that Gupta is still being treated as someone with any credibility when the predictions she made during the first wave have been so comprehensively contradicted by subsequent events.
But the need for a fake balance comes before everything.
Yes, it's fake balance but also because the media always look for the splashier story. A moderate opinion is seen as intrinsically less interesting. A lot of media analysis becomes clearer if one thinks of the media as primarily a branch of the entertainment industry.
Well, maybe, but why is that so?
It seems to come back to Rory Stewart's observation of a lack of seriousness. All the quibbling over minutiae during the Covid crisis is another sign.
If we can't be a bit serious a bit of the time about politics and our governance, then that's it for democracy.
I miss Rory. We need people like him in Parliament.
Yes, two members of my family have been getting this repeatedly - it appears, then just disappears, with no mention on the actual app. It's causing some anxiety, and should be sorted out. I'm assuming it's a false alarm, but who can be sure?
Grim numbers on the cases. If R is running at 1.6 or so, we need to cut our social interactions by a third. If schools, healthcare and essential workers are all protected that means hospitality and universities will need to shut down. It's so bad.
Not feasible. The Great Barrington Declaration is the only way forward IMO.
It isn't a way forward any more than it was in March when Gupta put forward similar ideas based on wildly incorrect epidemiology. It's a choice between "mental health impacts" of semi-lockdown and mass death. At which point semi-lockdown becomes distinctly feasible.
And by the way, if we were a little bit more disciplined (like some other countries that are managing the epidemic pretty well), we wouldn't need to lockdown that much.
Grim numbers on the cases. If R is running at 1.6 or so, we need to cut our social interactions by a third. If schools, healthcare and essential workers are all protected that means hospitality and universities will need to shut down. It's so bad.
Not feasible. The Great Barrington Declaration is the only way forward IMO.
It isn't a way forward any more than it was in March when Gupta put forward similar ideas based on wildly incorrect epidemiology. It's a choice between "mental health impacts" of semi-lockdown and mass death. At which point semi-lockdown becomes distinctly feasible.
And by the way, if we were a little bit more disciplined (like some other countries that are managing the epidemic pretty well), we wouldn't need to lockdown that much.
Gupta was saying we had herd immunity in mid May and that we could release all restrictions.
How she is getting any air time these days is truly astonishing.
I wonder how much of that might be due to Mayor Pete and the way he raised the Democrat profile in the state? As did Beto in Texas, of course.
Well the Democrats' most significant political mistake over the last decade was not putting enough effort into state politics, and they have begun to correct that.
Comments
Though neither were exactly in the top tier of PMs
Talking to a friend who teaches at a local private school - they are running classes of just 9 pupils to ensure a degree of social distancing (and they're still getting issues).
I had a meeting with our pension fund managers this week who cheerfully pointed out that if gilt rates went negative our liabilities would be infinite and that they had some reservations as to whether they could meet that level of return.
Also, while the journalists may be "liberal", listen to the economic news on the Today program. The guest "experts" are 90% fund managers people gambling on the stock exchange. It would be like the sports section only having people from Paddy Power on. They never have alternative economic points of view to the destructive free market fundamentalists.
But for sure, if you are in favour of capital punishment, for example, your views don't get much representation on the BBC.
As for university students the assumption they'd to their lectures and go back to their digs.
Am told the model made no assumption for university students who commute from home to their university on a daily basis(!!!)
I did. I liked having a campus university and there was a nice mix of people. The 60s bits of campus are objectively ugly but have a lot of charm; the students union building was the best I've seen, though I think the campus has changed a lot since then. Campus accommodation nice and social - generally flats of 10-20 or so with shared facilities, so you get to meet a range of people, within larger buildings so you have more options if the people in your flat don't suit. Off campus after first year in either Coventry or Leamington Spa for most people. No idea about PPE, but I knew some people doing MORSE (same E, with maths, operational research and statistics) who were all very smart and went on to good jobs in consultancy or government. Might be out of date though as this is all a couple of decades ago...
Mine was Physics and I chose it over an offer at Oxford, for what that's worth - through the interview process and open day I was more impressed by Warwick (I realise now that having an Oxford degree might have opened some more doors, but no regrets). Oxford didn't really try and sell themselves to me, I guess in general they have no need to do so!
Next he'll be challenging Biden in a who's got the biggest cock competition
It's incredibly frustrating that Gupta is still being treated as someone with any credibility when the predictions she made during the first wave have been so comprehensively contradicted by subsequent events.
But the need for a fake balance comes before everything.
Abolish the polys = No second lockdown.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-54468127
The Metropolitan Police are, once again, misleading Londoners about the law. I know we have a government which has a disregard for the law but we do not - yet - live in a lawless society where the police can just do what the hell they like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sJcRkjOkTg
"At one event, Trump claimed to have “went through, like 35 people” whose family members had died, “and everyone had a different story.”
“I can’t back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,” he said.
The Gold Star family members “come within an inch of my face, sometimes,” Trump said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/520170-greenfield-raises-287-million-for-iowa-senate-bid
https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1314211041547436034?s=20
What kind of loser hangs around suckers like Gold Star recipients?
Mind you, it's too late now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTELjv4_7f0
Oh, who's got the biggest? I see, that's different.
Pack in the post.
Welcome, btw!
or
https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1314222917580980224?s=20
https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1314222922354044928?s=20
I do think a lot of the restrictions need to be targeted at wider university staff, contractors and students of named universities, in the same way as they were for the sandwich factory employees and suppliers, but we are getting so close to peak, that we can't be off some wider restrictions.
Basically such students banned from on premise hospitality, mixing outwith their shared facilities, onsite education, public gyms and leisure, should observe quarantine even if not positive if return home etc.
Freshers Flu will burn out but how high is it getting exc students?
It seems to come back to Rory Stewart's observation of a lack of seriousness. All the quibbling over minutiae during the Covid crisis is another sign.
If we can't be a bit serious a bit of the time about politics and our governance, then that's it for democracy.
Some users of the new NHS contact-tracing app have received notifications saying they'd been near someone with coronavirus, only to discover the alerts were system checks sent by Google and Apple.
People who downloaded the COVID-19 app in England and Wales told Sky News they had received a notification which said: "Someone you were near reported having COVID-19."
Yet, when they clicked on the message, they found no information explaining whether they should self-isolate.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the notification was a "default message" sent by Google and Apple - the makers of the app's technology - and should be ignored.
But the false alarms - which appeared to be only in England and Wales, despite the widespread use of contact tracing technology in countries across the world - had already caused confusion, forcing at least one user into avoidable self-isolation.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-some-users-of-nhs-tracing-app-incorrectly-given-covid-19-exposure-alerts-12086225
It's absurd at the moment that employers have to work out which 'Unis' are real ones and which are complete bunk. It gets even harder when you're dealing with international applicants.
Some sort of international standard whereby you roughly know the quality of the institution would help.
Locking down cities isn't the answer, let the virus burn itself out in university halls. I wish that we had a way for everyone under 40 to catch it safely as well and then able to isolate in provided accomodation away from those who would be of high risk of death.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-what-lockdown-breaches-can-you-be-fined-for-12077642
My one fear ab ut them is that the may be a little too focused on the rust belt / MidWest.
https://unicovid.uk/
Short term it is hugely wasteful as money is continually thrown away on no hopers but it builds up candidate and volunteers who have experience in campaigning.
Though it does suggest the GOP have a good chance of retaking the House in the 2022 midterms if Biden wins
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1314230748313006080?s=20
And by the way, if we were a little bit more disciplined (like some other countries that are managing the epidemic pretty well), we wouldn't need to lockdown that much.
What's their next bright idea to get the virus under control?
How she is getting any air time these days is truly astonishing.
Meanwhile, I see Trump is displaying roid rage again.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1314186938417655808