- being too complacent about travel from Europe in January and February - moving OAPs into homes from hospitals without testing them - developing the NHS-X app rather than using Apple/Google technology - closing schools at all, or at least without a clear plan to reopen them.
The first let the virus in in the first place (at least with the numbers and speed it came), the second may have cost 10-20k lives, the third has meant we're unprepared for the second wave and the fourth has blighted a year's schooling for a generation.
However, no. 1 accorded with expert advice, so I think it's mainly the other three I'd hold them responsible for.
And afaik there's no evidence that Prime Minister Starmer would have done anything different on any of them.
Fair enough take. But politics does not work this way. When things go horribly run under a government the public do not conduct forensic counterfactuals asking themselves if the opposition would have been any better. For example, the financial crash and resulting economic downturn and crisis in the public finances which dominated the GE of 2010. There was no evidence that the situation would have been better or would have been better handled by a Cameron Conservative government rather than Brown's Labour one - the opposite if anything - but this did not prevent a narrative of "Labour's mess" taking root. Similarly here, regardless of how you think Starmer would have performed relative to Johnson, if this pans out as badly as it looks like doing, this government will own it.
The reason that Labour owned the Financial Crash in 2008 was because Cameron and Osborne were effective in pinning the blame to them. They had a simple story, "Labour didn't fix the roof when the sun was shining," which was true enough to pass muster, even if it had nothing to do with banking regulation. And they repeated it enough so that it became part of the common consciousness.
Starmer has not found the simple message to use to pin the blame for Covid onto the Conservatives in general and Johnson in particular. It's not inevitable that they will take the majority of the blame. Labour have to convince the public that they should.
One simple narrative might have been "reactive, not proactive". And they react bloody slowly, too.
But Starmer doesn't appear very proactive himself.
Starmer really is useless isn't he. The goal is completely open, the goalkeeper has been sent off as well as the whole blood defence and he's smashed it over the bar. The lack of talent in both political parties is absolutely shocking.
He needs to take a position now, he should be IMHO, backing a full lockdown.
And lose all remaining support?
It's the right position to take. What position would you like him to take?
Support people to isolate with cash payments and hotel rooms/food/entertainment.
Push for widespread roll out of rapid testing at indoor venues and transit hubs.
Tough restrictions on arriving travellers and forced hotel isolation for 5 days and a negative PCR test.
Allow pubs to reopen to full hours, institute table service and sitting only room with mask wearing while standing for anyone.
Mandatory mask wearing in all indoor places, no exceptions even for health reasons. People who are unable to work due to this are supported with 100% wage subsidies based on their average wage over the 12 months before the virus.
These are all practical policies that will support the economy and people without destroying the social fabric of the nation.
All good stuff and certainly better than what has been proposed so far. I still think it's too late but as an interim measure, better than nothing.
Except for pubs, I would close them entirely.
There's still no logical reasoning behind that, you just seem to have this weird obsession with closing down pubs despite little evidence it will make any difference. We know the major transmission vector is people's front rooms. Closing down pubs sends people into front rooms. So you also have to stop household mixing, but that is notoriously difficult to police and requires an army of citizen snitches which is no way to conduct a free society.
No, the answer is making the community safe by removing people with the virus from the community until they don't have it. Hotel based separation is the answer, it works in the short and medium term until there is a vaccine.
The policies to remove people from the population aren't currently working, or are non-existent.
I think you're right with what you say - I think it's too late to implement it though. This should have been in place from July.
It actually isn't too late, the government could push through the policy tomorrow and start doing it next week with all new positive cases (and families if necessary) in all of the empty hotels across the country and let the councils run the programmes, they'll know local catering companies and delivery mechanisms better than someone in Whitehall.
It's a policy which brings down transmission very fast and has proven to work.
I agree - this could be done quickly. Making it voluntary might be necessary, but there are many who would be happy to isolate in a hotel to protect vulnerable loved ones but cannot afford anywhere else to go.
Starmer really is useless isn't he. The goal is completely open, the goalkeeper has been sent off as well as the whole blood defence and he's smashed it over the bar. The lack of talent in both political parties is absolutely shocking.
He needs to take a position now, he should be IMHO, backing a full lockdown.
And lose all remaining support?
It's the right position to take. What position would you like him to take?
Support people to isolate with cash payments and hotel rooms/food/entertainment.
Push for widespread roll out of rapid testing at indoor venues and transit hubs.
Tough restrictions on arriving travellers and forced hotel isolation for 5 days and a negative PCR test.
Allow pubs to reopen to full hours, institute table service and sitting only room with mask wearing while standing for anyone.
Mandatory mask wearing in all indoor places, no exceptions even for health reasons. People who are unable to work due to this are supported with 100% wage subsidies based on their average wage over the 12 months before the virus.
These are all practical policies that will support the economy and people without destroying the social fabric of the nation.
All good stuff and certainly better than what has been proposed so far. I still think it's too late but as an interim measure, better than nothing.
Except for pubs, I would close them entirely.
There's still no logical reasoning behind that, you just seem to have this weird obsession with closing down pubs despite little evidence it will make any difference. We know the major transmission vector is people's front rooms. Closing down pubs sends people into front rooms. So you also have to stop household mixing, but that is notoriously difficult to police and requires an army of citizen snitches which is no way to conduct a free society.
No, the answer is making the community safe by removing people with the virus from the community until they don't have it. Hotel based separation is the answer, it works in the short and medium term until there is a vaccine.
The policies to remove people from the population aren't currently working, or are non-existent.
I think you're right with what you say - I think it's too late to implement it though. This should have been in place from July.
It actually isn't too late, the government could push through the policy tomorrow and start doing it next week with all new positive cases (and families if necessary) in all of the empty hotels across the country and let the councils run the programmes, they'll know local catering companies and delivery mechanisms better than someone in Whitehall.
It's a policy which brings down transmission very fast and has proven to work.
I think it is too late because realistically it isn't going to happen tomorrow. This Government will wait until the last minute and then introduce it.
Again, I agree with what you say and I think if we can avoid a lockdown we should but I am afraid I simply see no other option.
I don't want a lockdown, I live in London and it would be awful. I do however think it is necessary.
No they won't, but the discussion is what Starmer should be proposing instead of a second lockdown. There are so many Labour mayors and councils that would be up for such a policy that he could get a lot of buy in and then force the government into it. He's just not very good at politics it turns out. He can only do lawyerly carping as he did with brexit.
Absolutely, Starmer should be proposing this or a second lockdown. Better than the current position, which I think held until this last week but not now.
Starmer really is useless isn't he. The goal is completely open, the goalkeeper has been sent off as well as the whole blood defence and he's smashed it over the bar. The lack of talent in both political parties is absolutely shocking.
He needs to take a position now, he should be IMHO, backing a full lockdown.
There’s never been anything approaching a ‘full lockdown’ in the U.K. this year.
The truth is, we need to get people to get back into their homes, not out socialising and spreading the virus. If a second lockdown can be prevented without doing that then great but otherwise I see little other choice. Unfortunately for us all, we have BoJo the clown in charge.
The economy is already in the toilet and it's going to be worse in the long run if we don't get a handle on the virus now. If the Government needs to borrow to support pubs, etc. then it should jolly well do so.
People are simply now of the attitude "oh well, what's the worst that could happen". We're back to pre-lockdown attitude, that is the fundamental issue here.
People need to be scared of the virus again, that's the blunt truth.
Can anyone see these figures on the YouGov website? When I click on the link, or go direct to the website, I still get the model output as at 3rd October, with Biden on 343.
Starmer really is useless isn't he. The goal is completely open, the goalkeeper has been sent off as well as the whole blood defence and he's smashed it over the bar. The lack of talent in both political parties is absolutely shocking.
He needs to take a position now, he should be IMHO, backing a full lockdown.
And lose all remaining support?
It's the right position to take. What position would you like him to take?
Support people to isolate with cash payments and hotel rooms/food/entertainment.
Push for widespread roll out of rapid testing at indoor venues and transit hubs.
Tough restrictions on arriving travellers and forced hotel isolation for 5 days and a negative PCR test.
Allow pubs to reopen to full hours, institute table service and sitting only room with mask wearing while standing for anyone.
Mandatory mask wearing in all indoor places, no exceptions even for health reasons. People who are unable to work due to this are supported with 100% wage subsidies based on their average wage over the 12 months before the virus.
These are all practical policies that will support the economy and people without destroying the social fabric of the nation.
All good stuff and certainly better than what has been proposed so far. I still think it's too late but as an interim measure, better than nothing.
Except for pubs, I would close them entirely.
There's still no logical reasoning behind that, you just seem to have this weird obsession with closing down pubs despite little evidence it will make any difference. We know the major transmission vector is people's front rooms. Closing down pubs sends people into front rooms. So you also have to stop household mixing, but that is notoriously difficult to police and requires an army of citizen snitches which is no way to conduct a free society.
No, the answer is making the community safe by removing people with the virus from the community until they don't have it. Hotel based separation is the answer, it works in the short and medium term until there is a vaccine.
The policies to remove people from the population aren't currently working, or are non-existent.
I think you're right with what you say - I think it's too late to implement it though. This should have been in place from July.
It actually isn't too late, the government could push through the policy tomorrow and start doing it next week with all new positive cases (and families if necessary) in all of the empty hotels across the country and let the councils run the programmes, they'll know local catering companies and delivery mechanisms better than someone in Whitehall.
It's a policy which brings down transmission very fast and has proven to work.
Take a look at China. An outbreak in one area, and they propose to test all 9m people in a week. I acknowledge there's an element of state propaganda in everything that China puts out, but such numbers are not at all unrealistic. Do that in the NE, for example, isolate as you suggest, and R is about 0.1 by the end of the month.
It would not have been impossible to build that capacity over the summer (and still isn't).
Doing so would shortcircuit every inefficiency and problem with track & trace, too.
Has anyone got any ideas of ways 60-odd post-grad students could "socialise" online without it being lame as owt?
Webex and Zoom allow you to split a large group into smaller ‘teams’ who can chat with each other. Use that and have someone run a pub quiz or similar.
There's a feeling these days that a short hike from the US coast and you'll enter a vast hinterland of racist and religious bigots. This was what I thought 12 years ago when I dismissed Mike's famous 50/1 tip on OBAMA. These people do exist but so do those who got Obama over the line and fortunately there are sufficient numbers to see Trump loses whoever his opponent
Yeah, funny how it's the coastal US that is woke and the coastal UK that is unwoke.
Has anyone got any ideas of ways 60-odd post-grad students could "socialise" online without it being lame as owt?
Webex and Zoom allow you to split a large group into smaller ‘teams’ who can chat with each other. Use that and have someone run a pub quiz or similar.
That's the only real option, isn't it? God damnit.
TL:DR: You are tested on arrival then download an app and are fitted with a bracelet which tracks your location during your 14 day self quarantine. At the end of the 14 days you go to the MoH for it to be removed.
Here's an interesting question in my opinion: how many people blamed Harold Wilson or his government for the 80,000 to 100,000 people who died in 1968/69 in the UK in the swine flu epidemic? How many people even considered blaming him?
Has anyone got any ideas of ways 60-odd post-grad students could "socialise" online without it being lame as owt?
Webex and Zoom allow you to split a large group into smaller ‘teams’ who can chat with each other. Use that and have someone run a pub quiz or similar.
That's the only real option, isn't it? God damnit.
Starmer really is useless isn't he. The goal is completely open, the goalkeeper has been sent off as well as the whole blood defence and he's smashed it over the bar. The lack of talent in both political parties is absolutely shocking.
He needs to take a position now, he should be IMHO, backing a full lockdown.
And lose all remaining support?
It's the right position to take. What position would you like him to take?
Support people to isolate with cash payments and hotel rooms/food/entertainment.
Push for widespread roll out of rapid testing at indoor venues and transit hubs.
Tough restrictions on arriving travellers and forced hotel isolation for 5 days and a negative PCR test.
Allow pubs to reopen to full hours, institute table service and sitting only room with mask wearing while standing for anyone.
Mandatory mask wearing in all indoor places, no exceptions even for health reasons. People who are unable to work due to this are supported with 100% wage subsidies based on their average wage over the 12 months before the virus.
These are all practical policies that will support the economy and people without destroying the social fabric of the nation.
All good stuff and certainly better than what has been proposed so far. I still think it's too late but as an interim measure, better than nothing.
Except for pubs, I would close them entirely.
There's still no logical reasoning behind that, you just seem to have this weird obsession with closing down pubs despite little evidence it will make any difference. We know the major transmission vector is people's front rooms. Closing down pubs sends people into front rooms. So you also have to stop household mixing, but that is notoriously difficult to police and requires an army of citizen snitches which is no way to conduct a free society.
No, the answer is making the community safe by removing people with the virus from the community until they don't have it. Hotel based separation is the answer, it works in the short and medium term until there is a vaccine.
The policies to remove people from the population aren't currently working, or are non-existent.
I think you're right with what you say - I think it's too late to implement it though. This should have been in place from July.
It actually isn't too late, the government could push through the policy tomorrow and start doing it next week with all new positive cases (and families if necessary) in all of the empty hotels across the country and let the councils run the programmes, they'll know local catering companies and delivery mechanisms better than someone in Whitehall.
It's a policy which brings down transmission very fast and has proven to work.
Take a look at China. An outbreak in one area, and they propose to test all 9m people in a week. I acknowledge there's an element of state propaganda in everything that China puts out, but such numbers are not at all unrealistic. Do that in the NE, for example, isolate as you suggest, and R is about 0.1 by the end of the month.
It would not have been impossible to build that capacity over the summer (and still isn't).
Doing so would shortcircuit every inefficiency and problem with track & trace, too.
Leaving up to local councils also means not needing to build an unweildy national system which takes months to prepare and put in place. Local councils could probably get this up and running overnight and the £500 per week cash inducement would be a nothing thing to figure out for the treasury.
I don't understand why no one in the government has got the capability to push this option. Starmer is perfectly placed to push it because he doesn't have to implement it and if the government fuck it up he can just say they did it badly.
Has anyone got any ideas of ways 60-odd post-grad students could "socialise" online without it being lame as owt?
Webex and Zoom allow you to split a large group into smaller ‘teams’ who can chat with each other. Use that and have someone run a pub quiz or similar.
That's the only real option, isn't it? God damnit.
The paid versions of these apps have a lot more functionality than the free versions, so have the group leader get the proper one (£10, and needs a computer rather than a phone). If you can get a fiver off everyone, pay someone to run the quiz or buy an online pub quiz rather than make one up yourself, these can be quite visual and have music rounds etc. Also, have a chat rule that no-one mentions the elephantine reason why it’s all being done online in the first place.
I see the Labour attack crib sheet has been shared among all the local leaders screaming blue murder on Sky News this afternoon...every 2nd sentence is furlough scheme at 67% is putting people into poverty.
Not only was it just 0.38, but it's not like US States limit themselves to only changing one rule at a time. So, increases in restaurant spending almost certainly correlate with other loosening measures.
TL:DR: You are tested on arrival then download an app and are fitted with a bracelet which tracks your location during your 14 day self quarantine. At the end of the 14 days you go to the MoH for it to be removed.
Oman have just this week allowed flights in from outside the country. Their land border with the UAE is still closed except to critical freight vehicles.
I see the Labour attack crib sheet has been shared among all the local leaders screaming blue murder on Sky News this afternoon...every 2nd sentence is furlough scheme at 67% is putting people into poverty.
There's a feeling these days that a short hike from the US coast and you'll enter a vast hinterland of racist and religious bigots. This was what I thought 12 years ago when I dismissed Mike's famous 50/1 tip on OBAMA. These people do exist but so do those who got Obama over the line and fortunately there are sufficient numbers to see Trump loses whoever his opponent
Yeah, funny how it's the coastal US that is woke and the coastal UK that is unwoke.
By US standards the whole of the UK is coastal!
Indeed. In DC we have a tidal basin, but we are further from the Atlantic coast than Coton in the Elms.
Starmer really is useless isn't he. The goal is completely open, the goalkeeper has been sent off as well as the whole blood defence and he's smashed it over the bar. The lack of talent in both political parties is absolutely shocking.
He needs to take a position now, he should be IMHO, backing a full lockdown.
And lose all remaining support?
It's the right position to take. What position would you like him to take?
Support people to isolate with cash payments and hotel rooms/food/entertainment.
Push for widespread roll out of rapid testing at indoor venues and transit hubs.
Tough restrictions on arriving travellers and forced hotel isolation for 5 days and a negative PCR test.
Allow pubs to reopen to full hours, institute table service and sitting only room with mask wearing while standing for anyone.
Mandatory mask wearing in all indoor places, no exceptions even for health reasons. People who are unable to work due to this are supported with 100% wage subsidies based on their average wage over the 12 months before the virus.
These are all practical policies that will support the economy and people without destroying the social fabric of the nation.
All good stuff and certainly better than what has been proposed so far. I still think it's too late but as an interim measure, better than nothing.
Except for pubs, I would close them entirely.
How is a pub with seating service different from a restaurant?
Given everything appears to hace now leaked between government briefing and local leaders wanting to make their feeling known, is there any point in watching Boris announcement?
Do you genuinely believe the nonsense put on twitter?
Why would the ITV correspondent lie?
Its the lies that he has been told. If you follow twitter every tiny element of anything the Governmnet does is put on twitter as a foul up by their opponents.
Given everything appears to hace now leaked between government briefing and local leaders wanting to make their feeling known, is there any point in watching Boris announcement?
Only because he is likely to change it again, get the numbers wrong, announce a fifth tier, and generally piss off a bunch more people
Do you genuinely believe the nonsense put on twitter?
Why would the ITV correspondent lie?
Its the lies that he has been told. If you follow twitter every tiny element of anything the Governmnet does is put on twitter as a foul up by their opponents.
But that lie would be easily disproved, leaving the MP making it looking very foolish....
So "food based" pubs to stay open on Merseyside. Boozers to shut. Spoons stays. Makes zero sense and reveals a class bias imho.
Here in Berlin, for two or three weeks during "The Easing" in May, bars were allowed to open only if they were licensed as a Bar/Restaurant. I was surprised to see a local microbrewery was open on the first night, even though the only food available there is Bretzel (salty bread). That night I talked to the landlord of another nearby pub, which does genuinely serve meals. He said that in Berlin lots of bars apply for a licence with food when they change landlord, regardless of whether they serve food. The point is that it is the application for a licence that costs, but an alcohol/food costs only a little more than an alcohol only license. So bars many apply for alcohol/food anyway, regardless, so that if they build a kitchen and provide food in the future they do not need to reapply for a costly licence.
The main reason for writing this is anecdote, but it also shows that often business categories like "pubs that serve food" can in reality mean something dfferent to what normal folk like me think it means.
If you haven't seen it you must see the film 'Victoria'. One of my favourite films set in one of my favourite cities.
IIRC IBD/Tipp was one of the most Trumpy pollsters last time, it was also remarkably stable in 2016.
However I might not remember correctly.
It's pretty solid, a bit GoP leaning but lean doesn't matter as long as it's steady and consistent. (Rasmussen is very good in this respect. Although its lean is very consistent so you can just tweak it yourself.)
Has anyone got any ideas of ways 60-odd post-grad students could "socialise" online without it being lame as owt?
Webex and Zoom allow you to split a large group into smaller ‘teams’ who can chat with each other. Use that and have someone run a pub quiz or similar.
Just did my 35th INSEAD reunion online. 88 different zoom windows (many more people as some alumni met in person to come online). We split into groups of 5 and then different groups of five. Allowed for some real conversations, including talking over each other as happens in in-person conversations, without it becoming overwhelming.
Well the Excel balls up was PHE, so I think it more shines a light into how crap lota of quangos are....the same people who couldn't manage more than 20k tests a day.
Looks to me like they have baulked for political reasons at putting the whole of the North straight into Level 3 and are going to make an example of Liverpool alone?
0.38 isn't that bad for something like this, when there are clearly multiple factors at work and you are only looking at the bivariate relationship, ignoring everything else. Just eye-balling the chart will tell you there is some relationship between the two variables, although that doesn't imply causation of course.
Maybe restaurant spending and temperature are related: if it cools, people have fewer barbeques and eat at restaurants instead? Also, if it cools, people spend more time doing indoor activities.
1) Stay at home as much as possible until February
but because the messaging should be adapted for an economic POV.
2) Whilst you're at home, order lots of things online from stores via click and collect.
The first point leads to a huge economic depression which will result in misery for millions of people.
That's why I suggested doing option 2.
There's no easy route of this for the government.
I suspect if we don't do anything and leave the virus unconstrained then people will stay at home regardless as they don't want to catch it.
There is an easy route - hotel separation and cash payments to people who need to be separated. We're just not using it. Thousands of hotels and a million hotel rooms are sitting unoccupied at the moment. Let councils use this resource to isolate people who test positive and give the people £500 per week to do it.
Not only do we save the hotel and catering industry from certain doom, we also take the virus out of circulation. We go from R=1.6 in the north to R=0.1 within a couple of weeks.
Do you genuinely believe the nonsense put on twitter?
Why would the ITV correspondent lie?
Its the lies that he has been told. If you follow twitter every tiny element of anything the Governmnet does is put on twitter as a foul up by their opponents.
But that lie would be easily disproved, leaving the MP making it looking very foolish....
You expect the Government to respond to every bit of nonsense written on twitter about it? Just think of all the nonsense Scott posts on here. Should the government employ someone to respond to all that claptrap on a minute by minute basis?
538 have Trump's chances down at 13% yet their lead still says Biden is "favoured" to win the election.
Time for a "clearly" surely?
Looking at their Senate forecasts, I believe 538 use 10% as their cut-off.
So Cornyn is "favoured" (88%) to win Texas over Hegar (12%) whereas Hyde-Smith (91%) is "clearly favoured" to win Mississippi over Espy (9%).
There's no science in the terminology, but that's just their cut-off.
It's completely daft of them to use any of these terms. I appreciate that they are desperate to dumb down (hence the God-awful cartoons, acres of wasted screen space and completely brain-dead random simulations which tell you precisely nothing), but what on earth makes them think that, having come up with something precise like a '12% probability', it's helpful to call it 'likely' or 'very likely' or 'favoured' or 'strongly favoured', any of which is vague and tells you less than the actual figure tells you?
I agree FiveThirtyEight have taken a real step backwards with their interface this year, presumably burned by the 2016 experience. Though it's not their fault that people like @HYUFD are unable to understand the meaning of a 30% chance.
I really like the apporach taken by https://projects.jhkforecasts.com/presidential-forecast/ who provide all the detaield stats breakdown that 538 used to provide, but also give a summary of the probabilities that Joe Public can relate to, e.g. currently Trump's 13% chance is described as roughly as often as "PGA PLAYER MAKES A BOGEY".
I also like that you can run simulations of their model.
The idea that you can replace ordinary face-to-face life with online life is ridiculous. The idea that the government can keep paying out money to people for doing nothing is ridiculous.
I wonder what other ridiculous ideas this crisis will bring out into the open.
Well, he is not far wrong with California, at least LA. Downtown is apparently totally dystopian
LA Downtown, like most other downtowns in the US (or the UK for that matter) is a lot less dystopian than it used to be.
When I first visited LA in 1998 (for E3!), downtown was completely dead. There was nothing there other than aggressive panhandlers and a few rundown looking office buildings. Skid row had spilled out over several streets and it as pretty awful. The only hotels were cheap ones for the convention center. (And if you had half a brain you stayed somewhere nice like Santa Monica or Beverly Hills.)
In the last 22 years, nice hotels, restaurants, apartments, theatres and bars have moved in. Downtown is cool - you can be near the Staples Center (go Lakers!), close to the Coliseum and USC. There is much better public transport. And the police have done a much better job (massively better than in SF or NY) of dealing with aggressive pan handlers.
I would say that downtown LA is much better than SF these days.
The idea that you can replace ordinary life with online life is ridiculous. The idea that the government can keep paying out money to people for doing nothing is ridiculous.
I wonder what other ridiculous ideas this crisis will bring out into the open.
That it's not real? That if we did nothing things would get back to normal? That it only affects the old, or is no worse than flu? That bringing it under control proves we didn't need to bring it under control? That we could get to herd immunity quickly and with minimal damage?
Not only was it just 0.38, but it's not like US States limit themselves to only changing one rule at a time. So, increases in restaurant spending almost certainly correlate with other loosening measures.
Not seen the original report but the suggestion is that all categories of credit card spending were reviewed and restaurants were the best match of all. Though of course that limits it to things which cost money.
538 have Trump's chances down at 13% yet their lead still says Biden is "favoured" to win the election.
Time for a "clearly" surely?
Looking at their Senate forecasts, I believe 538 use 10% as their cut-off.
So Cornyn is "favoured" (88%) to win Texas over Hegar (12%) whereas Hyde-Smith (91%) is "clearly favoured" to win Mississippi over Espy (9%).
There's no science in the terminology, but that's just their cut-off.
It's completely daft of them to use any of these terms. I appreciate that they are desperate to dumb down (hence the God-awful cartoons, acres of wasted screen space and completely brain-dead random simulations which tell you precisely nothing), but what on earth makes them think that, having come up with something precise like a '12% probability', it's helpful to call it 'likely' or 'very likely' or 'favoured' or 'strongly favoured', any of which is vague and tells you less than the actual figure tells you?
I agree FiveThirtyEight have taken a real step backwards with their interface this year, presumably burned by the 2016 experience. Though it's not their fault that people like @HYUFD are unable to understand the meaning of a 30% chance.
I really like the apporach taken by https://projects.jhkforecasts.com/presidential-forecast/ who provide all the detaield stats breakdown that 538 used to provide, but also give a summary of the probabilities that Joe Public can relate to, e.g. currently Trump's 13% chance is described as roughly as often as "PGA PLAYER MAKES A BOGEY".
I also like that you can run simulations of their model.
The problem is that people like CERTAINTY.
They want forecasters to MAKE A CALL DAMN IT. And then those that called the last thing right are geniuses, and those that got it wrong are idiots.
But as anyone who's read Superforecasters knows, successful forecasting doesn't work this way.
0.38 isn't that bad for something like this, when there are clearly multiple factors at work and you are only looking at the bivariate relationship, ignoring everything else. Just eye-balling the chart will tell you there is some relationship between the two variables, although that doesn't imply causation of course.
Maybe restaurant spending and temperature are related: if it cools, people have fewer barbeques and eat at restaurants instead? Also, if it cools, people spend more time doing indoor activities.
Doing indoor activities, like eating at restaurants?
So this is how it's going to be for the next six months, is it? The lockdown sword of Damocles hanging over us, any certainty of human contact or usual recreational activities dashed. Until presumably a softening up in the spring? A vaccine? Do we know?
Like the vast majority, I was on board with the March lockdown. Protect the NHS, save lives, etc. This was a new and scary virus, and we didn't know quite how bad it could get.
Well, over six months later, medical staff seem to have a better idea of how to treat this. The NHS should have had time to prepare for the much hyped 2nd wave - PPE, nightingale hospitals, whatever. The frail and vulnerable (may their souls rest in peace) have already succumbed. Indications are that death rates seem to be lower, touch wood.
It might seem callous, but these sort of trade-offs are made every day by policy makers, either implicitly or explicitly. How many people are we prepared to take freedoms off, or make unemployed to save one Covid death. It's not a zero sum game of course, the effect of lockdowns on mental health, alcoholism, etc has been much discussed.
China, of course, pioneered the concept of lockdown when dealing with the Wuhan outbreak. This was what some may call a 'proper' lockdown. People allowed out their house once a week for groceries. The alleged 'welding' into flats. They have a different take on civil liberties and individual freedoms over there of course. This went beyond Wuhan - cities on the coast thousands of miles away were subject to similar restrictions. This has worked out well for China - they have pretty much eliminated Covid within their borders, and have adapted struck quarantine rules to make sure it doesn't get imported. Aus/NZ seem to be following a very similar playbook.
Well, following a summer of "Help out to Eat Out", holidays to the Costas, and "back to the office to save Pret" it's clear that the UK isn't following the 'Zero Covid' strategy.
Yes, this is a nasty virus, but we tolerate 50k excess winter deaths in a bad flu season without much agony. The deaths from a second wave would seem to be in the same order of magnitude. And of course, we tolerate similar death-tolls from lifestyle choices - smoking, obesity etc. The virus is out there, and for most people it doesn't result in death. Is there societal consent for continued restrictions into the winter months? Can it be justified on the 'Protect the NHS' mantra like last time?
As an aside, my sister was in Stockholm last week. Attended two parties, 20+ people. Apparently very little in the way of social distancing, mask wearing, in shops etc. Although people are still WFH. Yes, there are differences between the UK and Sweden, but at the end of the day we are both small N. European countries. Sure, maybe their economy has taken a hit, but not at the expense of their lived experience. Food for thought.
Comments
And they react bloody slowly, too.
But Starmer doesn't appear very proactive himself.
Making it voluntary might be necessary, but there are many who would be happy to isolate in a hotel to protect vulnerable loved ones but cannot afford anywhere else to go.
The economy is already in the toilet and it's going to be worse in the long run if we don't get a handle on the virus now. If the Government needs to borrow to support pubs, etc. then it should jolly well do so.
Another epic fuckup
Who could have predicted that?
Hey Dom, giz a job...
People need to be scared of the virus again, that's the blunt truth.
These people are dangerously incompetent.
Which may mean nothing... or something...
An outbreak in one area, and they propose to test all 9m people in a week. I acknowledge there's an element of state propaganda in everything that China puts out, but such numbers are not at all unrealistic.
Do that in the NE, for example, isolate as you suggest, and R is about 0.1 by the end of the month.
It would not have been impossible to build that capacity over the summer (and still isn't).
Doing so would shortcircuit every inefficiency and problem with track & trace, too.
1) Stay at home as much as possible until February
but because the messaging should be adapted for an economic POV.
2) Whilst you're at home, order lots of things online from stores via click and collect.
https://www.omanair.com/gbl/en/travel-checklist-and-guide
TL:DR: You are tested on arrival then download an app and are fitted with a bracelet which tracks your location during your 14 day self quarantine. At the end of the 14 days you go to the MoH for it to be removed.
Pick a film and watch it at the same time.
The film selection has been chosen for the rest of the year, and to troll me, the film before Christmas?
Die Hard.
https://twitter.com/moorcraftjohn/status/1315655317636739072
Keir going backwards
I don't understand why no one in the government has got the capability to push this option. Starmer is perfectly placed to push it because he doesn't have to implement it and if the government fuck it up he can just say they did it badly.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/12/biden-trump-2020-election-night-428856
If Biden takes FL, NC, and AZ, it's all over on election night, not five days later.
15:12 London in tier 1 but only just...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/oct/12/uk-coronavirus-news-boris-johnson-local-covid-restrictions-three-tier
There's no easy route of this for the government.
I suspect if we don't do anything and leave the virus unconstrained then people will stay at home regardless as they don't want to catch it.
David Cameron was right about Twitter.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1315294476781355011
Not only do we save the hotel and catering industry from certain doom, we also take the virus out of circulation. We go from R=1.6 in the north to R=0.1 within a couple of weeks.
https://twitter.com/Bill_Esterson/status/1314644083122503680?s=20
T
A
F
?
I really like the apporach taken by https://projects.jhkforecasts.com/presidential-forecast/ who provide all the detaield stats breakdown that 538 used to provide, but also give a summary of the probabilities that Joe Public can relate to, e.g. currently Trump's 13% chance is described as roughly as often as "PGA PLAYER MAKES A BOGEY".
I also like that you can run simulations of their model.
The idea that the government can keep paying out money to people for doing nothing is ridiculous.
I wonder what other ridiculous ideas this crisis will bring out into the open.
When I first visited LA in 1998 (for E3!), downtown was completely dead. There was nothing there other than aggressive panhandlers and a few rundown looking office buildings. Skid row had spilled out over several streets and it as pretty awful. The only hotels were cheap ones for the convention center. (And if you had half a brain you stayed somewhere nice like Santa Monica or Beverly Hills.)
In the last 22 years, nice hotels, restaurants, apartments, theatres and bars have moved in. Downtown is cool - you can be near the Staples Center (go Lakers!), close to the Coliseum and USC. There is much better public transport. And the police have done a much better job (massively better than in SF or NY) of dealing with aggressive pan handlers.
I would say that downtown LA is much better than SF these days.
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/1314514682909163520
That if we did nothing things would get back to normal?
That it only affects the old, or is no worse than flu?
That bringing it under control proves we didn't need to bring it under control?
That we could get to herd immunity quickly and with minimal damage?
I've seen all of those being spouted.
They want forecasters to MAKE A CALL DAMN IT. And then those that called the last thing right are geniuses, and those that got it wrong are idiots.
But as anyone who's read Superforecasters knows, successful forecasting doesn't work this way.
Like the vast majority, I was on board with the March lockdown. Protect the NHS, save lives, etc. This was a new and scary virus, and we didn't know quite how bad it could get.
Well, over six months later, medical staff seem to have a better idea of how to treat this. The NHS should have had time to prepare for the much hyped 2nd wave - PPE, nightingale hospitals, whatever. The frail and vulnerable (may their souls rest in peace) have already succumbed. Indications are that death rates seem to be lower, touch wood.
It might seem callous, but these sort of trade-offs are made every day by policy makers, either implicitly or explicitly. How many people are we prepared to take freedoms off, or make unemployed to save one Covid death. It's not a zero sum game of course, the effect of lockdowns on mental health, alcoholism, etc has been much discussed.
China, of course, pioneered the concept of lockdown when dealing with the Wuhan outbreak. This was what some may call a 'proper' lockdown. People allowed out their house once a week for groceries. The alleged 'welding' into flats. They have a different take on civil liberties and individual freedoms over there of course. This went beyond Wuhan - cities on the coast thousands of miles away were subject to similar restrictions. This has worked out well for China - they have pretty much eliminated Covid within their borders, and have adapted struck quarantine rules to make sure it doesn't get imported. Aus/NZ seem to be following a very similar playbook.
Well, following a summer of "Help out to Eat Out", holidays to the Costas, and "back to the office to save Pret" it's clear that the UK isn't following the 'Zero Covid' strategy.
Yes, this is a nasty virus, but we tolerate 50k excess winter deaths in a bad flu season without much agony. The deaths from a second wave would seem to be in the same order of magnitude. And of course, we tolerate similar death-tolls from lifestyle choices - smoking, obesity etc. The virus is out there, and for most people it doesn't result in death. Is there societal consent for continued restrictions into the winter months? Can it be justified on the 'Protect the NHS' mantra like last time?
As an aside, my sister was in Stockholm last week. Attended two parties, 20+ people. Apparently very little in the way of social distancing, mask wearing, in shops etc. Although people are still WFH. Yes, there are differences between the UK and Sweden, but at the end of the day we are both small N. European countries. Sure, maybe their economy has taken a hit, but not at the expense of their lived experience. Food for thought.