If you go for a circuit breaker you've got to get the psychology right. From locking down in March, it took until mid June before case numbers returned to pre-lockdown levels (albeit with expanded testing).
We are at a lower R rate and testing won't be expanding the detections at the same rate now, but it would still be 4-6 weeks before cases came back down to even their current levels., so a 2 week circuit breaker that is lifted before you even see the results is a leap of faith that even a popular government would have to be on its mettle to carry the public with them.
However we are at a point where we could do a 4-6 week lockdown with a goal and incentive front and centre. Operation Xmas or some such. Not recommending it necessarily, but you could see the psychology of it.
The problem is we would just lose any gains. We lock down until mid December, then people demand they have Christmas and New Year, they visit all their friends and relatives, have night in the boozer, parties, etc, and it spreads like crazy again.
Yes but I fear that will happen anyways. There is a window here to do it at least starting from a low base. Not saying I approve. But it is an option. Otherwise Christmas could be carnage. Literally.
Most people are going to complain if they can't visit family for Christmas, but I guess that if things don't improve then healthcare workers will be run ragged by Christmas. They won't even have the time for a quiet Christmas at home.
Well if SKS does call for a lockdown then Bozza better hope his measures work. Otherwise he'll be looking at either implementing Labour policy against many of his back benchers.
Epidemics operate on the Micawber Principle: R=0.8. Result epidemic happiness. R=1.2. Result misery.
Point is, the sum of interventions proposed right don't get R down to 1. Sooner or later governments will have to lock down. They don't have the authority to lock down sooner to prevent more misery later. Johnson certainly doesn't. So they take half hearted measures instead. They missed the opportunity to take rigorous steps earlier that would have prevented lockdown at any time as well, as as saving many lives and some adverse economic effects.
Worse than that.
We had infections low and stable. At great cost in cash and happiness.
And for whatever reason, Dom's adventures in Durham, Boris's goodtime Charlie nature, Rishi's stinginess, I'm sure there were others, the UK got rid of the restrictions too fast and too far.
We weren't the only ones, sure. But every day we indulge ourselves with "maybe these changes will be enough" is burning through some of the painfully-won gains of the spring and early summer.
But still none showing Trump ahead. A quick check of Wiki says only one poll since the start of September has Trump ahead (47-46), in 2016 he had quite a few polls for him in that period I think. Surely the biggest polling disaster in history if Trump wins from here?
It would pretty much kill the sector, I'd have thought.
It won't only be a polling disaster!
No. In such an event the demise of the polling industry would not, I confess, be my main concern.
Yes, we are indeed screwed. The scientifically and economically obvious solution - swift, hard, temporary lockdown followed by efficient testing, tracing and isolation - appears to be politically and technically beyond us.
If it is politically beyond us then presumably you mean that the majority of people don't want it?
No, I mean that the majority of people no longer have enough trust in the government to allow it to implement the policy, so they won't accept the short-term pain for long-term gain.
So Sir Keir Starmer is for the restrictions but also not for the restrictions, he welcomes the economic package but doesn't welcome the economic package, and he's in favour of the plan but also not in favour of the plan. I mean, honestly is there any wonder the Tories are back ahead in VI despite being fookin useless
CNN: There was a time when Boris Johnson claimed his government was following the science at every step of its plan for dealing with the coronavirus.
But as the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK soars once more, and the country braces for a long, miserable winter, the British Prime Minister appears to be at odds with those same advisers he once placed front and center of the pandemic response.
His Chief Medical Officer on Monday night poured a bucket of very cold water over his latest plans to tackle a worrying upturn in the spread of the coronavirus in the UK. And On Tuesday he was facing further criticism after it emerged that his group of top scientific advisers recommended three weeks ago a significantly tougher package of measures than even he now plans.
Johnson, it seems, is trapped by his bitterly divided Conservative Party -- faced down by the hawks, such as his finance minister Rishi Sunak, who want to keep the economy as open as possible and doves, who think tough measures now would be better in the longer run.
All of these arguments between politics and science will -- eventually -- become known to the public when the UK's coronavirus response is scrutinized at the inevitable public inquiry, at some point in the future.
And however much merit protecting the economy might have in the long run, creating a perception that you are ignoring scientific advice could be dangerous, should the virus run riot and the UK's already massive death toll rise still further.
I am not at all sure that there will be a public inquiry. I suspect that this will treated very much like a war, and I do not recall a public inquiry into any such. There were Inquiries into aspects of the Iraq War, admittedly, and a partially at least privater Privy Council one into the events leading up to the Falklands, There certainly wasn't an Inquiry after the Suez Affair.
There is absolutely no god given reason why scientific advise about public health issues arising specifically from one virus should automatically outweigh all other medical, economic, social and value considerations. And it is not the job of the scientists but of the government and parliament to find what balance is most appropriate for our society at this time between all those - and other legitimate - considerations.
Given that there is massive disagreement within society generally - with or without a pandemic - on all those other considerations, it would be gobsmacking if there were not major disagreements with the government's decisions (whoever that government might be, not just Johnson's government) on what that balance should be. And given that there is no one right answer to what that balance should be, most members of society will have a different balance that, based on their individual values for each of those considerations, would be better than the one chosen by the government.
Could the government be doing better? Nearly every voter, including Tories, will find a way to say yes to that question. Does that warrant an Inquiry? Not unless there is suspicion of anything criminal going on - particularly as decision-making seems to be happening in a pretty public (and messy) way. So what would a public inquiry achieve? Nothing more than is in current newspaper headlines - there are a lot of pissed off people.
The longer this pandemic goes on, the more and more convinced I am that "successful" management of the outbreak is correlated mostly to national culture, and almost nothing to do with the actual interventions of the respective governments. Those cultures with a combination of strong social commitment and individual discipline, such as the Far East and Nordic Countries, are faring relatively well, those with strong individualism and scepticism of authority (such as the US and UK) are faring relatively less well. The rest, once we get past the incredibly simple oral and hand hygiene and social distancing, is for the birds.
Very interesting. It's only one country, so I know it's an outlier, but I'm curious about Greece, which is rarely mentioned. I would have thought scepticism of authority would be fairly strong there, although it may have a fairly strong sense of communitarianism. But not as much money as most western European countries.
Anyway, Greece's performance is exceptional: only 456 deaths out of a population of 10-11 million. The equivalent in the UK would be about 3,000 deaths rather than 43,000, We'd be pretty relaxed here if we had data like Greece's. What's their secret?
I would argue that its repeated embrace of authoritarianism shows that Greece, regardless of the talk, has a low level of skepticism of authority, or inversely, a high acceptance of authority.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
Yes, we are indeed screwed. The scientifically and economically obvious solution - swift, hard, temporary lockdown followed by efficient testing, tracing and isolation - appears to be politically and technically beyond us.
If it is politically beyond us then presumably you mean that the majority of people don't want it?
To answer this a bit seriously, I suggest people are frustrated. They recognise failure when they see it. They did all this stuff that seemed to be beating the virus and now it's coming back with a vengeance. What happened? It doesn't mean they actually want the virus to let rip. The very opposite.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
To be fair. Not backing the government on Covid policy IS truly radical.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, personally I am of the opinion that it is pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit. It might sound good, hey guys just just do another 2 weeks lockdown and everything will be better, but it won't be, in reality we would need to go again until after Christmas.
Special Agent Richard Trask was part of the investigation that led to six men being arrested and charged last week with plotting to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Seven other men face state terrorism charges....
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, its pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit.
Two weeks is better than nothing - I would support longer personally.
And Malmesbury's red and green seems to be getting redder and greener by the day.
No need to get worked up. Almost all of the many, many other graphs he is posting every single day are invariably trending strongly, or even completely, towards the baseline, indicating that there's nothing to worry about.
Yes, we are indeed screwed. The scientifically and economically obvious solution - swift, hard, temporary lockdown followed by efficient testing, tracing and isolation - appears to be politically and technically beyond us.
If it is politically beyond us then presumably you mean that the majority of people don't want it?
To answer this a bit seriously, I suggest people are frustrated. They recognise failure when they see it. They did all this stuff that seemed to be beating the virus and now it's coming back with a vengeance. What happened? It doesn't mean they actually want the virus to let rip. The very opposite.
I'm not sure anyone wants it to "let rip".
The government is of course facing an almost impossible dilemma but they need to make a choice.
Politically, if SKS is calling for L2.0 then surely he would be aware that that would rule it out for the government so what is his game?
The longer this pandemic goes on, the more and more convinced I am that "successful" management of the outbreak is correlated mostly to national culture, and almost nothing to do with the actual interventions of the respective governments. Those cultures with a combination of strong social commitment and individual discipline, such as the Far East and Nordic Countries, are faring relatively well, those with strong individualism and scepticism of authority (such as the US and UK) are faring relatively less well. The rest, once we get past the incredibly simple oral and hand hygiene and social distancing, is for the birds.
governments represent national cultures and these tend to follow those national cultures in their approach to Covid. .
Overall, I'd argue that our culture shapes the way we organize, including the form of government we evolve. So it is the culture that comes first, not the form of government.
In the US, if you look at death rates per 100,000 population, 7 of the top 10, including all top 4, are Democratic states. I am not sure your critique holds up to the data.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, its pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit.
Two weeks is better than nothing - I would support longer personally.
I actually don't think it is. It kills business, and it gives the public false hope. The reality is if we go down the circuit breaker route, we will more than likely end up doing 2 weeks on, 2 week off for months.
It's also I suspect (may be wrong - normally am when guessing how things will play politically) smart politics.
Crucially Keir needs to make it clear this short lockdown is to prevent a longer lockdown.
Boris is going to have to go to lockdown at some point, and now he is following Keir. And when Boris' lockdown is longer, Labour can say 'we could have prevented this and we said so at the time'.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
So what? Labour did not need a position other than that the government is making a right mess of things. Lockdowns, masks, testing -- Boris is playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order. It is not as if Labour has a truly radical alternative, like Trump's bleach and lightbulbs.
I'm not normally a fan of managerialist nit-picking but in this case, Labour should be criticising the small print, not the headlines. Details matter, and it's the details the government repeatedly screws up.
Yes, we are indeed screwed. The scientifically and economically obvious solution - swift, hard, temporary lockdown followed by efficient testing, tracing and isolation - appears to be politically and technically beyond us.
If it is politically beyond us then presumably you mean that the majority of people don't want it?
To answer this a bit seriously, I suggest people are frustrated. They recognise failure when they see it. They did all this stuff that seemed to be beating the virus and now it's coming back with a vengeance. What happened? It doesn't mean they actually want the virus to let rip. The very opposite.
I'm not sure anyone wants it to "let rip".
The government is of course facing an almost impossible dilemma but they need to make a choice.
Politically, if SKS is calling for L2.0 then surely he would be aware that that would rule it out for the government so what is his game?
His aim is to divide the tories. Plenty don;t even want these restrictions. Some are with Starmer.
Its a cynical move, but that's politics.
Problem for me is its cosy-ing up to the hated Whitty and Vallance.
Is this the best they can do? Resurrrect a controversy from the summer that did not reverberate with the public and saw a grand total of (checks notes) two statutes being removed, one by a council.
Besides, is it really wise for central government to get involved in this?
At the moment, they can pontificate to their heart's content. But if they have power, they will end up annoying someone, and it's likely that some of those someones will be part of the current Conservative coalition.
Culture wars are much better shouted about than actually fought.
And just from the efficiency point of view it stinks. If the Secretary of State for Housing has to review and ok every bit of statue tinkering throughout England he'll soon be snowed under and there will be a bottleneck.
"We heard from Jenrick yet?" "Nope." "FFS, it's been months."
Absurd situation. They are killing satire, these guys, they really are.
The arguing over closing for 2 weeks, while we continue to import COVID is like trying to stick a finger in one hole of bucket of a holey bucket, while the hosepipe continue to fill it.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, its pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit.
Two weeks is better than nothing - I would support longer personally.
I actually don't think it is. It kills business, and it gives the public false hope. The reality is if we go down the circuit breaker route, we will more than likely end up doing 2 weeks on, 2 week off for months.
I also wonder what the reaction would be at the end of two weeks where cases are still high. These measures take time to have an effect, which we saw back earlier in the year.
It's also I suspect (may be wrong - normally am when guessing how things will play politically) smart politics.
Crucially Keir needs to make it clear this short lockdown is to prevent a longer lockdown.
Boris is going to have to go to lockdown at some point, and now he is following Keir. And when Boris' lockdown is longer, Labour can say 'we could have prevented this and we said so at the time'.
Nobody would believe that 'its only two weeks' line
The original lockdown was meant to be a few weeks to 'protect the NHS...'
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, its pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit.
Two weeks is better than nothing - I would support longer personally.
I actually don't think it is. It kills business, and it gives the public false hope. The reality is if we go down the circuit breaker route, we will more than likely end up doing 2 weeks on, 2 week off for months.
I also wonder what the reaction would be at the end of two weeks where cases are still high. These measures take time to have an effect, which we saw back earlier in the year.
This is the other point, it is scientifically flawed experiment. In 2 weeks you will have no idea if it is worked or not, so then what do you do? Its like doing the vaccine trials and ending them after a couple of months because nobody has caught COVID in that timeframe.
It's also I suspect (may be wrong - normally am when guessing how things will play politically) smart politics.
Crucially Keir needs to make it clear this short lockdown is to prevent a longer lockdown.
Boris is going to have to go to lockdown at some point, and now he is following Keir. And when Boris' lockdown is longer, Labour can say 'we could have prevented this and we said so at the time'.
Unfortunately, two weeks is probably not long enough now. It would likely have been sufficient if implemented promptly when SAGE said so, but the virus has spread since then. Every day of delay in starting a lockdown adds multiple days to the length of lockdown needed as well as multiple deaths. We should have learned that from March/April.
Yes, we are indeed screwed. The scientifically and economically obvious solution - swift, hard, temporary lockdown followed by efficient testing, tracing and isolation - appears to be politically and technically beyond us.
If it is politically beyond us then presumably you mean that the majority of people don't want it?
To answer this a bit seriously, I suggest people are frustrated. They recognise failure when they see it. They did all this stuff that seemed to be beating the virus and now it's coming back with a vengeance. What happened? It doesn't mean they actually want the virus to let rip. The very opposite.
I'm not sure anyone wants it to "let rip".
The government is of course facing an almost impossible dilemma but they need to make a choice.
Politically, if SKS is calling for L2.0 then surely he would be aware that that would rule it out for the government so what is his game?
His aim is to divide the tories. Plenty don;t even want these restrictions. Some are with Starmer.
Its a cynical move, but that's politics.
Problem for me is its cosy-ing up to the hated Whitty and Vallance.
Yes and he is going to be successful. Depends I suppose on whether Dom refuses to be pushed around by the scientists.
If we go into short circuit breaker it will last until next spring.
This is the real argument. You either lockdown / or pseudo lockdown with Tier 3 across the country for the next 3+ months or you don't. Arguing over 2 weeks of Liverpool style restrictions only to lift them is for the birds.
The lockdown should be as long as necessary to get the cases down.
Yes, though probably politically impossible now. Our government has failed, and many more people will die as a consequence (or be driven crazy by the endless half-hearted and ever-changing restrictions).
The longer this pandemic goes on, the more and more convinced I am that "successful" management of the outbreak is correlated mostly to national culture, and almost nothing to do with the actual interventions of the respective governments. Those cultures with a combination of strong social commitment and individual discipline, such as the Far East and Nordic Countries, are faring relatively well, those with strong individualism and scepticism of authority (such as the US and UK) are faring relatively less well. The rest, once we get past the incredibly simple oral and hand hygiene and social distancing, is for the birds.
governments represent national cultures and these tend to follow those national cultures in their approach to Covid. .
Overall, I'd argue that our culture shapes the way we organize, including the form of government we evolve. So it is the culture that comes first, not the form of government.
In the US, if you look at death rates per 100,000 population, 7 of the top 10, including all top 4, are Democratic states. I am not sure your critique holds up to the data.
Fair to call me out on this. I was really thinking about how states are handling the epidemic now, when there is a clear partisan divide in Covid policy and where one of the policies appears to be delivering less bad outcomes. But I stated it in historical terms where that hypothesis isn't really supported.
The lockdown should be as long as necessary to get the cases down.
Yes, though probably politically impossible now. Our government has failed.
You mean until a vaccine. What's the point of getting the cases down when that has been done and now they are rising again.
You are arguing for a lockdown until a vaccine. Which is a reasonable position to take although I fear it will come at some awesome economic, social, political and psychological cost.
But still none showing Trump ahead. A quick check of Wiki says only one poll since the start of September has Trump ahead (47-46), in 2016 he had quite a few polls for him in that period I think. Surely the biggest polling disaster in history if Trump wins from here?
2016 Michigan primary was the biggest miss I've seen in my lifetime I think. Must have been a whole bunch of "yeah yeah I'm voting for Clinton" then not actually doing so...
Five months of a London winter. With no pubs, restaurants, or gatherings indoors. Just tiny huddles of freezing people standing in the frigid rain in the park.
As the economy collapses.
I don't think the lockdown maniacs have quite worked out what that will do to mental health.
Who do you mean by lockdown maniacs? Those of us advocating a swift, hard, temporary lockdown (in order to bring cases down to a level manageable by test and trace) are doing so precisely because we don't want an endless state of semi-lockdown. We could even be out in time for Christmas!
I'm willing to give you odds it will not be a single, swift, temporary lockdown - as in two weeks. It won't be enough. It will either be extended or there will be a series of them, which is virtually the same thing
I don't know what the answer is, but lockdowns are going to be brutally hard on a lot of people, probably worse than the disease long term
The lockdown should be as long as necessary to get the cases down.
Yes, though probably politically impossible now. Our government has failed.
You mean until a vaccine. What's the point of getting the cases down when that has been done and now they are rising again.
You are arguing for a lockdown until a vaccine. Which is a reasonable position to take although I fear it will come at some awesome economic, social, political and psychological cost.
Yes, but not a total lockdown.
It is plainly evident that we released restrictions too early and too much.
One thing I'll give Boris credit for, shambolic as the implementation appears to be I do actually think he's no laughing at the back got the nation's economic and health interests front and centre. Captain hindsight also does I think ! Boris' biggest problem (Aside from the horrendous Cummings error) is he looks to be constantly buffeted between the covid hawks and does amongst his team - which gives the impression of absolubtely no leadership whatsoever. But he does appear at least to be trying, unlike Trump.
Mask/face covering compliance has been top notch from what I've seen in my local area. OK It's not everyone, but it's enough. ~ 90% in shops or so maybe.
What a waste of plastic ... or cotton. No good evidence exists that they're of benefit outside a clinical setting. Source Oxford Univ Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine.
The popularity of 'bad science' even among 'scientists' since March may explain why Peter Hitchens is angry about masks but hasn't got worked up about distancing or hygiene, both of which do work.
And why is your single study from back in bloody March, by the end of which 750,000 worldwide cases had been recorded vs 40,000,000 now? If you like evidence surely ignoring approximately 90% of what's available is a curious approach?
The CEBM is self-constrained by a principle popular with the scientifically semi-literate that anything not derived from a RCT can be dismissed with screams of YEBBUT ANICKDOTE, which is actually not quite right. Unless you think that when Christiaan Barnard pointed out that he'd done a heart transplant the reaction was, yebbut did you put placebo hearts into a hundred patients and real ones in another hundred and (this is the clever bit) not tell the surgeons which was which? Or is this just an anecdote?
The arguing over closing for 2 weeks, while we continue to import COVID is like trying to stick a finger in one hole of bucket of a holey bucket, while the hosepipe continue to fill it.
In brute political terms Starmer can't really lose with this call. If lots of deaths materialise, he'll be able to say that he warned the government and they did nothing, with appalling consequences. If we muddle through OK without the 'circuit breaker', no-one will remember that he called for it.
The arguing over closing for 2 weeks, while we continue to import COVID is like trying to stick a finger in one hole of bucket of a holey bucket, while the hosepipe continue to fill it.
Just wait until the ski slopes are open...
Its madness....Boris should have said weeks ago, there will be no foreign holidays for the 6 months. Don't even think about booking Dubai for Christmas or Morzine in February.
And still not airport testing or proper quarantine. These are real actionable policies that would effect the new cases being imported.
In brute political terms Starmer can't really lose with this call. If lots of deaths materialise, he'll be able to say that he warned the government and they did nothing, with appalling consequences. If we muddle through OK without the 'circuit breaker', no-one will remember that he called for it.
It's also I suspect (may be wrong - normally am when guessing how things will play politically) smart politics.
Crucially Keir needs to make it clear this short lockdown is to prevent a longer lockdown.
Boris is going to have to go to lockdown at some point, and now he is following Keir. And when Boris' lockdown is longer, Labour can say 'we could have prevented this and we said so at the time'.
Nobody would believe that 'its only two weeks' line
The original lockdown was meant to be a few weeks to 'protect the NHS...'
Yes and then we worked out we had entered lockdown far too late despite the blazingly clear evidence of Italy. So we couldn't exit swiftly.
The longer you let the virus build in the population the longer you have to lockdown, unless you go for a total welded into buildings lockdown i which case you can make it shorter.
The arguing over closing for 2 weeks, while we continue to import COVID is like trying to stick a finger in one hole of bucket of a holey bucket, while the hosepipe continue to fill it.
Just wait until the ski slopes are open...
Sure I read somewhere that skiers are the absolute worst for covid unsafe practices.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, personally I am of the opinion that it is pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit. It might sound good, hey guys just just do another 2 weeks lockdown and everything will be better, but it won't be, in reality we would need to go again until after Christmas.
Every bump down the road ends up with us understanding the virus better (we now know about outdoor transmission being harder (albeit not impossible) and mask helping (and even possibly reducing viral loads for those who do get sick)), getting better treatments (survival rates are far higher), buying time to actually focus on fast ubiquitous tests to focus on high-dispersal events, and getting closer to a vaccine.
And, yes, there will be a vaccine. Ten in Phase 3; usually an 85% chance if your vaccine gets that far.
In brute political terms Starmer can't really lose with this call. If lots of deaths materialise, he'll be able to say that he warned the government and they did nothing, with appalling consequences. If we muddle through OK without the 'circuit breaker', no-one will remember that he called for it.
Absolutely. Its is a no lose situation politically.
The lockdown should be as long as necessary to get the cases down.
Yes, though probably politically impossible now. Our government has failed.
You mean until a vaccine. What's the point of getting the cases down when that has been done and now they are rising again.
You are arguing for a lockdown until a vaccine. Which is a reasonable position to take although I fear it will come at some awesome economic, social, political and psychological cost.
Indeed if we had a full lockdown until a vaccine (which could take years) we could be heading for 50%+ unemployment and major social unrest and more mental illness
The arguing over closing for 2 weeks, while we continue to import COVID is like trying to stick a finger in one hole of bucket of a holey bucket, while the hosepipe continue to fill it.
Just wait until the ski slopes are open...
Sure I read somewhere that skiers are the absolute worst for covid unsafe practices.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, personally I am of the opinion that it is pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit. It might sound good, hey guys just just do another 2 weeks lockdown and everything will be better, but it won't be, in reality we would need to go again until after Christmas.
Every bump down the road ends up with us understanding the virus better (we now know about outdoor transmission being harder (albeit not impossible) and mask helping (and even possibly reducing viral loads for those who do get sick)), getting better treatments (survival rates are far higher), buying time to actually focus on fast ubiquitous tests to focus on high-dispersal events, and getting closer to a vaccine.
And, yes, there will be a vaccine. Ten in Phase 3; usually an 85% chance if your vaccine gets that far.
2 weeks alone won't bump it very far at all. We won't even know at the time if it has done anything, other than kills more businesses through more uncertainty.
I am very much more of the opinion we need a stronger national set of guidelines for the long term, and we have live with them.
In brute political terms Starmer can't really lose with this call. If lots of deaths materialise, he'll be able to say that he warned the government and they did nothing, with appalling consequences. If we muddle through OK without the 'circuit breaker', no-one will remember that he called for it.
Absolutely. Its is a no lose situation politically.
But Northern Labour Politicians are moaning like hell about the lesser restrictions imposed yesterday.
The arguing over closing for 2 weeks, while we continue to import COVID is like trying to stick a finger in one hole of bucket of a holey bucket, while the hosepipe continue to fill it.
Just wait until the ski slopes are open...
Sure I read somewhere that skiers are the absolute worst for covid unsafe practices.
It's hard to social distance from them in the street. They keep zig-zagging wildly.
The lockdown should be as long as necessary to get the cases down.
Yes, though probably politically impossible now. Our government has failed.
You mean until a vaccine. What's the point of getting the cases down when that has been done and now they are rising again.
You are arguing for a lockdown until a vaccine. Which is a reasonable position to take although I fear it will come at some awesome economic, social, political and psychological cost.
No, I am not arguing for a lockdown until a vaccine! That's the whole bloody point. I am arguing for a lockdown that is hard enough to reduce cases to a level at which they can be managed by an efficient testing, tracing and isolating system. Then the lockdown can be lifted, and we can live as freely as they do in countries like Taiwan and South Korea.
The arguing over closing for 2 weeks, while we continue to import COVID is like trying to stick a finger in one hole of bucket of a holey bucket, while the hosepipe continue to fill it.
Just wait until the ski slopes are open...
Its madness....Boris should have said weeks ago, there will be no foreign holidays for the 6 months. Don't even think about booking Dubai for Christmas or Morzine in February.
And still not airport testing or proper quarantine. These are real actionable policies that would effect the new cases being imported.
I've always been angry about the open unmonitored airports situation during Covid but I am now beginning to become furious about it. Nothing about the British attitude to airports makes any sense whatsoever.
The way the media were hyping this Starmer announcement up, it was like he was going to call for something truly radical. Instead he is clearly just going to attack the government and say we should follow SAGE.
No he's calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown.
That's what I mean. SAGE proposed a 2 week circuit breaker, he is going to say we should do that. I presume he will also attack the government for sending kids back to uni, etc.
However, personally I am of the opinion that it is pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit. It might sound good, hey guys just just do another 2 weeks lockdown and everything will be better, but it won't be, in reality we would need to go again until after Christmas.
Every bump down the road ends up with us understanding the virus better (we now know about outdoor transmission being harder (albeit not impossible) and mask helping (and even possibly reducing viral loads for those who do get sick)), getting better treatments (survival rates are far higher), buying time to actually focus on fast ubiquitous tests to focus on high-dispersal events, and getting closer to a vaccine.
And, yes, there will be a vaccine. Ten in Phase 3; usually an 85% chance if your vaccine gets that far.
Andy, I think we have enough understanding now in how to break the transmission chain. I don't see what about 2-6 week lockdown will help us learn that we don't already know. The key is to get people who test positive to isolate properly, find everyone they've spent time with and get them to take a test and isolate them properly if they test positive as well. We already know these things and we can start doing this tomorrow, more time in lockdown, another million lost jobs and £100bn in borrowing won't teach us anything more that we don't know.
Comments
Otherwise he'll be looking at either implementing Labour policy against many of his back benchers.
Sounds to me like Labour will be supporting Lockdown 2.0.
Labour backs lockdown 2.0!
We had infections low and stable. At great cost in cash and happiness.
And for whatever reason, Dom's adventures in Durham, Boris's goodtime Charlie nature, Rishi's stinginess, I'm sure there were others, the UK got rid of the restrictions too fast and too far.
We weren't the only ones, sure. But every day we indulge ourselves with "maybe these changes will be enough" is burning through some of the painfully-won gains of the spring and early summer.
Keir absolutely in check with public view, he has regained my support and admiration with this move.
Labour backs Lockdown 2.0
In that order
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8834021/BAME-people-represented-TV-new-research-suggests.html
However, personally I am of the opinion that it is pie in the sky if you think 2 week lockdown will solve the problem, it just bumps it down the road a little bit. It might sound good, hey guys just just do another 2 weeks lockdown and everything will be better, but it won't be, in reality we would need to go again until after Christmas.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/10/13/eb138/1
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/13/fbi-agent-groups-discussed-kidnapping-virginia-governor-429190
Members of anti-government paramilitary groups discussed kidnapping Virginia’s governor during a June meeting in Ohio, an FBI agent testified Tuesday during a court hearing in Michigan.
Special Agent Richard Trask was part of the investigation that led to six men being arrested and charged last week with plotting to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Seven other men face state terrorism charges....
The government is of course facing an almost impossible dilemma but they need to make a choice.
Politically, if SKS is calling for L2.0 then surely he would be aware that that would rule it out for the government so what is his game?
In the US, if you look at death rates per 100,000 population, 7 of the top 10, including all top 4, are Democratic states. I am not sure your critique holds up to the data.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/
Isn't there a defined hunting season?
The irony being that he’ll be climbing down toward the position he first favoured but proved too weak to deliver.
It's also I suspect (may be wrong - normally am when guessing how things will play politically) smart politics.
Crucially Keir needs to make it clear this short lockdown is to prevent a longer lockdown.
Boris is going to have to go to lockdown at some point, and now he is following Keir. And when Boris' lockdown is longer, Labour can say 'we could have prevented this and we said so at the time'.
I'm not normally a fan of managerialist nit-picking but in this case, Labour should be criticising the small print, not the headlines. Details matter, and it's the details the government repeatedly screws up.
Its a cynical move, but that's politics.
Problem for me is its cosy-ing up to the hated Whitty and Vallance.
"We heard from Jenrick yet?"
"Nope."
"FFS, it's been months."
Absurd situation. They are killing satire, these guys, they really are.
The original lockdown was meant to be a few weeks to 'protect the NHS...'
THIS. 100x THIS.
If we go into short circuit breaker it will last until next spring.
http://aboutasfarasdelgados.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-eastenders-more-racist-than.html
You are arguing for a lockdown until a vaccine. Which is a reasonable position to take although I fear it will come at some awesome economic, social, political and psychological cost.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
Oh.
Superb.
I don't know what the answer is, but lockdowns are going to be brutally hard on a lot of people, probably worse than the disease long term
Thing is we never ' locked down' for them....We carried on.
It is plainly evident that we released restrictions too early and too much.
Boris' biggest problem (Aside from the horrendous Cummings error) is he looks to be constantly buffeted between the covid hawks and does amongst his team - which gives the impression of absolubtely no leadership whatsoever. But he does appear at least to be trying, unlike Trump.
Low bars and all that.
Evidence-based medicine is a bit of a tricky one, don't you think, if evidence means RCTs and nothing else, which it does in this context, because how easy is it to run up a placebo mask? And even the CEBM doesn't speak with a single voice: see https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/face-coverings-for-the-lay-public-an-alternative-view/
And why is your single study from back in bloody March, by the end of which 750,000 worldwide cases had been recorded vs 40,000,000 now? If you like evidence surely ignoring approximately 90% of what's available is a curious approach?
The CEBM is self-constrained by a principle popular with the scientifically semi-literate that anything not derived from a RCT can be dismissed with screams of YEBBUT ANICKDOTE, which is actually not quite right. Unless you think that when Christiaan Barnard pointed out that he'd done a heart transplant the reaction was, yebbut did you put placebo hearts into a hundred patients and real ones in another hundred and (this is the clever bit) not tell the surgeons which was which? Or is this just an anecdote?
Now laying out his plan. This is what we need.
And still not airport testing or proper quarantine. These are real actionable policies that would effect the new cases being imported.
The longer you let the virus build in the population the longer you have to lockdown, unless you go for a total welded into buildings lockdown i which case you can make it shorter.
And, yes, there will be a vaccine. Ten in Phase 3; usually an 85% chance if your vaccine gets that far.
Over to BoJo
I am very much more of the opinion we need a stronger national set of guidelines for the long term, and we have live with them.
Celebrating New Year outside in a vest and shorts hard.
And what happens after three weeks