By the looks of the by Specimen date chart on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases it looks like we started levelling off on the 7th for the number of new cases per day.
Near perfect Exponential curve from September 15th till then though.
Well spotted, it does indeed. Very good news. And looking at the Testing data too it looks like there is a good amount of slack now in the testing system.
Clutching at straws I feel.
You seem worried that cases will start to drop, why?
Not the first time PB Tories have insisted cases will drop, let's see.
Yes, Alistair, that most famous of, err, Tory voters. The numbers currently look consistent with an 11 day doubling time, two weeks ago it was 7 days (hence the graph of doom). Some parts of the country are now reaching the equilibrium point where cases are no longer accelerating.
I think there are *some* indications in the data that there *may* be some levelling off.
We obviously need more data.
Yes, there is still a growth in cases but it looks like it's slowing down. A worry of mine is that there's been a build up of lag in the testing system, the average number of days to reach 50% of test processed is still not going down.
It's always lag in the testing system. The numbers "by date of specimen" always look like they are levelling off and indeed in the most recent days dropping. They're also vulnerable to day of the week effects.
That's why the headline number is the number of cases newly announced that day not the number of positive specimens for any given day.
Impossible to conclude anything definitive - certainly in a downward direction - from the cases by specimen date within a week of the date being touted as an inflection point.
I've been modelling the incomplete data, obviously I know day 1-5 data is incomplete.
I am not normally in favour of bossy government, but before we go to full lockdown a simple method that is unlikely to cause huge hardship is a travel ban on all but essential or justifiable travel for two weeks, or extended if necessary with heavy fines for anyone that "does a Cummings". Why are we letting people who are in highly infected areas travel? It is reminiscent of the governments failure to stop incoming flights in the early days. I have sympathy with the Welsh First Minister on this
Not sure how it would be enforced, however - police roadblocks?
The reality is that if people are following the guidelines, there shouldn't be a need for a travel ban.
It is clear to me that people must be breaking them - whether out of necessity or wantonness...
A good question. I guess if the fines are heavy enough people will worry about being snitched on and it would self police for the vast majority.
As I suggested earlier. What about substantially opening the economy and making the fines for non compliance of track and trace/self isolation penal.
Go and party but if you catch or are near someone with the pox then you had better follow the rules.
By the looks of the by Specimen date chart on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases it looks like we started levelling off on the 7th for the number of new cases per day.
Near perfect Exponential curve from September 15th till then though.
Well spotted, it does indeed. Very good news. And looking at the Testing data too it looks like there is a good amount of slack now in the testing system.
Clutching at straws I feel.
You seem worried that cases will start to drop, why?
Not the first time PB Tories have insisted cases will drop, let's see.
Yes, Alistair, that most famous of, err, Tory voters. The numbers currently look consistent with an 11 day doubling time, two weeks ago it was 7 days (hence the graph of doom). Some parts of the country are now reaching the equilibrium point where cases are no longer accelerating.
I think there are *some* indications in the data that there *may* be some levelling off.
We obviously need more data.
Hmmm
So I took the regional daily numbers. I removed the last five days as incomplete (that's probably overdoing it)
Ministers want to place universities in England into lockdown for two weeks before Christmas, with students told to remain on campus and all teaching carried out online, the Guardian has learned.
Under the government’s plan, which is in its early stages, universities would go into lockdown from 8 December until 22 December, when all students would be allowed to return to their home towns.
The move is designed to deliver on Boris Johnson’s pledge “to get students home safely for Christmas” but prevent the spread of the virus by limiting mixing between the student body and wider community in the weeks before more than a million students travel home.
I am not normally in favour of bossy government, but before we go to full lockdown a simple method that is unlikely to cause huge hardship is a travel ban on all but essential or justifiable travel for two weeks, or extended if necessary with heavy fines for anyone that "does a Cummings". Why are we letting people who are in highly infected areas travel? It is reminiscent of the governments failure to stop incoming flights in the early days. I have sympathy with the Welsh First Minister on this
Not sure how it would be enforced, however - police roadblocks?
The reality is that if people are following the guidelines, there shouldn't be a need for a travel ban.
It is clear to me that people must be breaking them - whether out of necessity or wantonness...
A good question. I guess if the fines are heavy enough people will worry about being snitched on and it would self police for the vast majority.
As I suggested earlier. What about substantially opening the economy and making the fines for non compliance of track and trace/self isolation penal.
Go and party but if you catch or are near someone with the pox then you had better follow the rules.
Interesting idea. I haven't downloaded the tracing app because I don't trust it, but I guess if I were told I could not go to the pub for the next 6 months unless I complied I would reluctantly agree.
Ministers want to place universities in England into lockdown for two weeks before Christmas, with students told to remain on campus and all teaching carried out online, the Guardian has learned.
Under the government’s plan, which is in its early stages, universities would go into lockdown from 8 December until 22 December, when all students would be allowed to return to their home towns.
The move is designed to deliver on Boris Johnson’s pledge “to get students home safely for Christmas” but prevent the spread of the virus by limiting mixing between the student body and wider community in the weeks before more than a million students travel home.
Surely, the best way to do this is mass test the lepers, they have get a test, isolate for a day or two while they wait for the result, and they can have a special badge if they are free of the disease? And punishment for not isolating, off the course.
Well, I'm not a national politician but let me have a go at answering Cyclefree's questions. A general point: I am not suggesting there is a good solution - we are looking at the best way forward from where we are now.
1. Duration: stealing someone else's suggestion: the first two weeks in November, January, and March, then review the position. 2. Purpose: primarily to pass through the winter without the virus exploding. But specifically to give breathing space to hospitals with fewer new admissions in the second half of the respective months (Covid generally takes a couple of weeks from requiring hospital admission). Obviously work on track&trace as hard asd possible. 3. Yes, reduce the R, temporarily, and reduce the pressure on care services. 4. I expect the virus to resurge in between the lockdowns, but less exponentially because of the intermissions - and because, as we've seen, people get used to being locked down and it affects behaviour in the spaces in between.The rule of 6 etc. should continue. 5. Lots of difficult questions, which to be fair Sunak has had a fair shot at addressing, but with major gaps. I think the strategic view should be that we will seek to maintain the current structure of socierty up to next summer, by which I mean a combination of subsidies, income support, protection against eviction, and more, but also tryinhg to keep the institutions largely in place for a hoped-for recovery - everyone from pub staff/owners to ballet-dancers/companies shouldf be helped to survive, on the understanding that if no vaccine appears and the virus rages unchecked, then the subsidies won't last forever. Those who can retrain/go online/find other alternatives should be helped as much as possible.
What does this do? It get society through the winter more or less intact. It enables individuals to pace their lives with periods of near-isolation alternating with somewhat more relaxed periods. It enables businesses to plan for periods of shutdown and organise other periods to partially compensate. It runs up substantial additional debt, which will need to be recovered in due course.
That's my plan. Other plans are no doubt available. Perhaps other posters will take up the challenge?
Nick, with all due respect 'It runs up substantial additional debt, which will need to be recovered in due course.' is something of an understatement....
Nick is simply retrospectively trying to turn Starmer’s purely political gambit into some kind of apparently coherent strategy for tackling the virus.
Problem is, the man who is actually in charge cannot fit the word coherent or strategy onto the back of his fag packet.
Just to be clear on that, by "the man in charge" I meant Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, which is, of course, completely ridiculous, because he is not in charge of anything, even (or particularly so) his own manhood/member.
As I said, if you polled people on whether people who test positive should isolate the result would be close to 100% in favour, the reality is that only 20% of people actually do it.
Polling on this subject is completely useless.
If you work in the public sector, or are on a pension, the COVID impact is either zero or maybe positive because you are working from home.
That's a massive chunk of the population.
The impact of COVID is being felt extremely unevenly. One thing the government must do is spread the load. I wonder what that poll would look like if Sunak announced a 5% across the board cut in pension payments.
I reckon you could turn that poll on its head, effectively.
I work in the private sector, financially it's been huge positive working from home, I'm saving £650 a month on train tickets, maybe £200 a month on eating out for lunch, and I've not bought any work related clothes since March.
That 5% cut will have no impact on me, my colleagues have similar positives.
I don't understand this idea of a short 'circuit breaker' unless it is a total lockdown with nobody leaving the house except in full hazmat gear.
During the previous lockdown period R was never really that low due to in-household transmission and essential workers.
Two weeks might, if you are lucky, halve the infection rate. That's gained you what? Another 11 days of Tier 2 before you are back to where you were. Yippee.
The government seems to be trying to find the minimum measures in each region that don't lead to unmanageable escalation. That's about all they can do, short of repeating the 3 month lockdown of the past. A side benefit of having multiple Tiers is that they can compare the results in different areas to see what difference each measure makes.
If we knew exactly when the vaccine was coming then it would be a lot easier to make firm decisions. If the answer is never, then permanent Tier 3 is what we end up with, because a lockdown achieves nothing.
Guardian reporting government want pre-Christmas lockdown at unis. 2 weeks they have to remain on campus with no in person teaching.
I think that makes sense, it should allow the majority of students to return home safely.
Seems insane to me. They are just going to party. Better would be to get them home and recommend they take very careful distancing measures from family and do not go out for 10 days.
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
As I said, if you polled people on whether people who test positive should isolate the result would be close to 100% in favour, the reality is that only 20% of people actually do it.
Polling on this subject is completely useless.
If you work in the public sector, or are on a pension, the COVID impact is either zero or maybe positive because you are working from home.
That's a massive chunk of the population.
The impact of COVID is being felt extremely unevenly. One thing the government must do is spread the load. I wonder what that poll would look like if Sunak announced a 5% across the board cut in pension payments.
I reckon you could turn that poll on its head, effectively.
I work in the private sector, financially it's been huge positive working from home, I'm saving £650 a month on train tickets, maybe £200 a month on eating out for lunch, and I've not bought any work related clothes since March.
That 5% cut will have no impact on me, my colleagues have similar positives.
Me too.
Meanwhile MPs are voting themselves a pay increase grrr!
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
There’s an underfunding issue too - the site is clearly on its arse financially. It’s not had a design refresh for years (if ever), they miss polls, and post polls late. I have given up on it and use 538 these days.
As I said, if you polled people on whether people who test positive should isolate the result would be close to 100% in favour, the reality is that only 20% of people actually do it.
Polling on this subject is completely useless.
It's a when did you stop beating your wife type question.
People want other people to lockdown so they can continue their own personal lives unabated.
As I said, if you polled people on whether people who test positive should isolate the result would be close to 100% in favour, the reality is that only 20% of people actually do it.
Polling on this subject is completely useless.
If you work in the public sector, or are on a pension, the COVID impact is either zero or maybe positive because you are working from home.
That's a massive chunk of the population.
The impact of COVID is being felt extremely unevenly. One thing the government must do is spread the load. I wonder what that poll would look like if Sunak announced a 5% across the board cut in pension payments.
I reckon you could turn that poll on its head, effectively.
I work in the private sector, financially it's been huge positive working from home, I'm saving £650 a month on train tickets, maybe £200 a month on eating out for lunch, and I've not bought any work related clothes since March.
That 5% cut will have no impact on me, my colleagues have similar positives.
Me too.
Meanwhile MPs are voting themselves a pay increase grrr!
Not true. MPs haven't voted themselves anything (yet). The QUANGO that sets the pay is recommending that, the MPs haven't voted.
Another example of why MPs delegating everything to QUANGOs doesn't do anything other than let them claim their hands are clean.
Guardian reporting government want pre-Christmas lockdown at unis. 2 weeks they have to remain on campus with no in person teaching.
I think that makes sense, it should allow the majority of students to return home safely.
Seems insane to me. They are just going to party. Better would be to get them home and recommend they take very careful distancing measures from family and do not go out for 10 days.
How large do you think the average family home is?
Pb Tories always resort to abusing me personally when they’ve lost.
I hope the cases are levelling off and we can avoid another lockdown but I am not at all hopeful. I find it bizarre people would suggest I want a lockdown, it would be misery for me
Guardian reporting government want pre-Christmas lockdown at unis. 2 weeks they have to remain on campus with no in person teaching.
What do they mean by “on campus”?
You expect them to have considered this? It doesnt really matter anyway, there will be close to zero enforcement, maybe a dozen students picked out so they can get it in the media but like the rest of our bundles of new laws, if people want to ignore it they can.
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
Well, I'm not a national politician but let me have a go at answering Cyclefree's questions. A general point: I am not suggesting there is a good solution - we are looking at the best way forward from where we are now.
1. Duration: stealing someone else's suggestion: the first two weeks in November, January, and March, then review the position. 2. Purpose: primarily to pass through the winter without the virus exploding. But specifically to give breathing space to hospitals with fewer new admissions in the second half of the respective months (Covid generally takes a couple of weeks from requiring hospital admission). Obviously work on track&trace as hard asd possible. 3. Yes, reduce the R, temporarily, and reduce the pressure on care services. 4. I expect the virus to resurge in between the lockdowns, but less exponentially because of the intermissions - and because, as we've seen, people get used to being locked down and it affects behaviour in the spaces in between.The rule of 6 etc. should continue. 5. Lots of difficult questions, which to be fair Sunak has had a fair shot at addressing, but with major gaps. I think the strategic view should be that we will seek to maintain the current structure of socierty up to next summer, by which I mean a combination of subsidies, income support, protection against eviction, and more, but also tryinhg to keep the institutions largely in place for a hoped-for recovery - everyone from pub staff/owners to ballet-dancers/companies shouldf be helped to survive, on the understanding that if no vaccine appears and the virus rages unchecked, then the subsidies won't last forever. Those who can retrain/go online/find other alternatives should be helped as much as possible.
What does this do? It get society through the winter more or less intact. It enables individuals to pace their lives with periods of near-isolation alternating with somewhat more relaxed periods. It enables businesses to plan for periods of shutdown and organise other periods to partially compensate. It runs up substantial additional debt, which will need to be recovered in due course.
That's my plan. Other plans are no doubt available. Perhaps other posters will take up the challenge?
Nick, with all due respect 'It runs up substantial additional debt, which will need to be recovered in due course.' is something of an understatement....
Nick is simply retrospectively trying to turn Starmer’s purely political gambit into some kind of apparently coherent strategy for tackling the virus.
No, I'm attempting to tackle Cyclefree's perfectly reasonable challenge (and to be fair I was advocating it before Starmer did). Your alternative responses are...?
Mortimer: too right. But I think we need to do something like the above to get through in one piece, and if it takes 20 years to repay it, so be it. Again...what is your alternative?
I don't understand this idea of a short 'circuit breaker' unless it is a total lockdown with nobody leaving the house except in full hazmat gear.
During the previous lockdown period R was never really that low due to in-household transmission and essential workers.
Two weeks might, if you are lucky, halve the infection rate. That's gained you what? Another 11 days of Tier 2 before you are back to where you were. Yippee.
SAGE recommended a circuit breaker weeks ago, presumably with some sort of case or ICU admission rate target in mind. I don't see how a two week lockdown now, even if announced tonight, could get us back to the target SAGE was originally aiming for. Unless I've completely misunderstood what they were proposing we either need a longer cicuit breaker, or we will come out of one and immediately hit the trigger levels for a second.
Nor for that matter do I understand how a circuit breaker for a few weeks enables us to magically fix track and trace (and all the other things Labour are suggesting) so that we don't immediately need a circuit breaker again. There doesn't seem any realistic prospect of fixing all the problems we are having with test latency, isolation compliance, quarantining, and basic hygiene in a couple of weeks. I'd be amazed if we could fix all of those in a couple of months.
Frankly our best bet right now is probably a 6-8 week lockdown again.
Anyone who endorses a "2 week circuit breaker" is lying to themselves or lying to us. 2 weeks will do nothing but inflict catastrophic economic damage on every business hit by it.
A 2 month circuit break might give health benefits. A 2 week circuit break is a farce. All pain no gain.
A soft easy option to claim to support but not a proposal anyone credible or serious could endorse.
Looking at the last lockdown - hospitalizations peaked on April 1st, 9 days after lockdown.
On that day we had 3,099 new people hospitalized with COVID in England. Two weeks later, it was 1,608. Three weeks it was 1,310. So that's more than halving the number of new people going into hospital.
This circuit breaker might be less effective because schools will be partially open. But I would still expect a substantial health benefit.
But that matches what I said. It took a month to see a substantial reduction. And that's with a vastly more serious lockdown.
2 weeks just isn't long enough. It will do a lot of economic damage but not much epidemiological change.
No you're misunderstanding. If we lockdown for 2 weeks there will be a big drop in new cases later. But that drop will still happen even if lockdown stops after 2 weeks. It's a lagging indicator.
The lockdown on March 23 had no impact on new hospitalizations on March 23. Those infections had already happened.
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
There’s an underfunding issue too - the site is clearly on its arse financially. It’s not had a design refresh for years (if ever), they miss polls, and post polls late. I have given up on it and use 538 these days.
I too use 538 as much as possible but it's sometimes hard to navigate. Where for example to they post new polls in?
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
I don't carry any card for BCG - it's not a consultant I've worked for or with - but they will have highly capable and experienced people in data interrogation, analysis and complex project and portfolio management who've got a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
There may be differences within the Tory Party over the format of Brexit, over Cummings or the extent of Covid restrictions but one thing that unites all us Tories from Peterhead to Bournemouth is a loathing of the SNP and we will never give into them!!
So after independence, the policy of the Conservatives will be to reconstitute the union and they will put that in their manifestos on both sides of the border?
I can understand people disliking their opponents political philosophy, but 'loathing' seems a strong word. Why take that view; seems counter-productive to me.
The SNP loathe the Tories, just the feeling is mutual that is all
Speak for yourself
This conservative does not loath the SNP or the Scots
Most of my living family outside Wales are Scots
I do not agree with the SNP but keep your loathing to yourself and your tanks, you Sassenach
I spend a few days away on a research project and when I get tired and log on what do I find? Yet again, this year, it's even some of the southern Tories who are standing up for democracy in Scotland! The indy debate really has changed ...
BigG is neither southern, he lives in Wales, nor a staunch Tory, he voted for Blair twice
FPT and o/T - but I cannot let the slur on BigG stand. Her is almost due south of me - not even SSW.
I was born in Manchester with both English and Welsh parents as V bombs were raining over our house
My Father ancestry going back to the 1600 is from Bolton
My wife is a northern Scot from a fishing community
I am not a fanatic conservative and hope Boris is seeing out his last few months in Office
Indzeed, I was just reading about the V-1 attacks on the Mancs - fortunately not well aimed.
One landed a few doors away killing 6
You just waited and hoped you did not hear the engine cut out
Oh, that is really, really unlucky given the numbers (and the ones that landed in fields).
Anyone who endorses a "2 week circuit breaker" is lying to themselves or lying to us. 2 weeks will do nothing but inflict catastrophic economic damage on every business hit by it.
A 2 month circuit break might give health benefits. A 2 week circuit break is a farce. All pain no gain.
A soft easy option to claim to support but not a proposal anyone credible or serious could endorse.
Looking at the last lockdown - hospitalizations peaked on April 1st, 9 days after lockdown.
On that day we had 3,099 new people hospitalized with COVID in England. Two weeks later, it was 1,608. Three weeks it was 1,310. So that's more than halving the number of new people going into hospital.
This circuit breaker might be less effective because schools will be partially open. But I would still expect a substantial health benefit.
But that matches what I said. It took a month to see a substantial reduction. And that's with a vastly more serious lockdown.
2 weeks just isn't long enough. It will do a lot of economic damage but not much epidemiological change.
No you're misunderstanding. If we lockdown for 2 weeks there will be a big drop in new cases later. But that drop will still happen even if lockdown stops after 2 weeks. It's a lagging indicator.
The lockdown on March 23 had no impact on new hospitalizations on March 23. Those infections had already happened.
Sorry but I have zero confidence there'll be a "big drop" in hospitalisations later if we have a halfhearted lockdown for just a fortnight. In April and May while we were in a lockdown tighter than what is being proposed the decline in hospitalisations was very gradual besides the surge at the peak which is not comparable to now.
As I said, if you polled people on whether people who test positive should isolate the result would be close to 100% in favour, the reality is that only 20% of people actually do it.
Polling on this subject is completely useless.
If you work in the public sector, or are on a pension, the COVID impact is either zero or maybe positive because you are working from home.
That's a massive chunk of the population.
The impact of COVID is being felt extremely unevenly. One thing the government must do is spread the load. I wonder what that poll would look like if Sunak announced a 5% across the board cut in pension payments.
I reckon you could turn that poll on its head, effectively.
I work in the private sector, financially it's been huge positive working from home, I'm saving £650 a month on train tickets, maybe £200 a month on eating out for lunch, and I've not bought any work related clothes since March.
That 5% cut will have no impact on me, my colleagues have similar positives.
Me too.
Likewise.
In quite a number of companies, profits are up.
In quite a number of companies, they are preparing for the final bankruptcy.
I think this may be the most disparate economic downturn I have experienced.
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
Hardly, RCP's final 2012 forecast was Obama 303 Romney 235, pretty accurate and in 2016 it was Clinton 272 Trump 262 which was more accurate than 538's final forecast of Clinton 302 Trump 235
Rasmussen's latest national poll has it Biden 50% Trump 45% with 3% undecided and 2% going third party.
If all those undecideds go to Trump or are shy Trump voters it would be a 2% final Biden popular vote lead, the same as Hillary's final 2016 popular vote lead Rasmussen correctly forecast in 2016
I don't understand this idea of a short 'circuit breaker' unless it is a total lockdown with nobody leaving the house except in full hazmat gear.
During the previous lockdown period R was never really that low due to in-household transmission and essential workers.
Two weeks might, if you are lucky, halve the infection rate. That's gained you what? Another 11 days of Tier 2 before you are back to where you were. Yippee.
SAGE recommended a circuit breaker weeks ago, presumably with some sort of case or ICU admission rate target in mind. I don't see how a two week lockdown now, even if announced tonight, could get us back to the target SAGE was originally aiming for. Unless I've completely misunderstood what they were proposing we either need a longer cicuit breaker, or we will come out of one and immediately hit the trigger levels for a second.
Nor for that matter do I understand how a circuit breaker for a few weeks enables us to magically fix track and trace (and all the other things Labour are suggesting) so that we don't immediately need a circuit breaker again. There doesn't seem any realistic prospect of fixing all the problems we are having with test latency, isolation compliance, quarantining, and basic hygiene in a couple of weeks. I'd be amazed if we could fix all of those in a couple of months.
Frankly our best bet right now is probably a 6-8 week lockdown again.
Let's say that cost the economy and the Government £150million to save 15,000 lives at the cost of 10million each. Most would be over the age of 60 so you'd be saving at best 15 or so good quality lives years. In addition, tens of thousands of businesses would go to the wall and the employment prospects of hundreds of thousands of people would be ruined - we'd have all sorts of long-term mental and physical health problems.
I am really starting to wonder about some of this academic work. The circuit breaker model isnt range between 5k and 107k, no, apparently it is a range between 800 and 106k lives saved in the next 2.5 months....
I think they need to turn the computer off and on again and perhaps give it a kick inbetween.
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
Hardly, RCP's final 2012 forecast was Obama 303 Romney 235, pretty accurate and in 2016 it was Clinton 272 Trump 262 which was more accurate than 538's final forecast of Clinton 302 Trump 235
Nick is simply retrospectively trying to turn Starmer’s purely political gambit into some kind of apparently coherent strategy for tackling the virus.
No, I'm attempting to tackle Cyclefree's perfectly reasonable challenge (and to be fair I was advocating it before Starmer did). Your alternative responses are...?
Mortimer: too right. But I think we need to do something like the above to get through in one piece, and if it takes 20 years to repay it, so be it. Again...what is your alternative?
EDIT: apologies - mashed up the blockquote at first.
Yes, if alternatives are presented, it would help. So here are three:
(a) Accept R>1 indefinitely, leading to hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 deaths;
(b) Try to get R<1 by gradually increasing the tier in local areas until we have something approaching a national lockdown;
(c) A hybrid whereby the young and healthy are on (a) and the old and vulnerable are under total lockdown for a year or more, possibly much more.
(a) is at least intellectually coherent, and there are sane and moral people who sincerely believe that it is the lesser evil. However, it's an approach that the public, rightly, strongly reject. (b) is the path we're on, and it is not coherent. Per life saved, it will do more economic harm than a circuit-breaker because of the lack of clarity and certainty. (c) is built on the longshot that this will achieve herd-immunity, and is, in any case, inhumane in my view.
Compared with any of these, I'd say circuit-breaker(s) clearly win. Can anyone suggest a (d)?
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
I don't carry any card for BCG - it's not a consultant I've worked for or with - but they will have highly capable and experienced people in data interrogation, analysis and complex project and portfolio management who've got a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
So let me get this straight. The people charged with developing track and trace are highly capable and experienced, and they have a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
But apparently there's no point in having a lockdown to bring case numbers down to a level manageable by track and trace because track and trace will never work.
So why are we paying these people, capable and experienced as they are, large amounts of money to develop a system that can never work? Or might it actually work? In which case, why not give it a chance by locking down to reduce cases?
Guardian reporting government want pre-Christmas lockdown at unis. 2 weeks they have to remain on campus with no in person teaching.
What do they mean by “on campus”?
Interesting question. I suspect a huge amount of students do not live on, or anywhere near a campus
There is a significant difference between 1st Years (and possibly Final Years), who will be on campus (ie in University Halls of Residence) and other who will largely not be.
Local somewhat-better-than-anecdata.
Speaking to a letting agent in Nottingham who deals with housing for 500-1000 students, overwhelmingly not First Years, the COVID rates are significantly different by year.
Nottingham numbers are very significantly due to Freshers at the University of Nottingham going relatively beserk, and a lesser extent at the Nottingham Trent University.
One issue in Halls is that the groups living together are far larger. In student houses it is typically 4-6 per house. Halls are more like 10-30 per kitchen.
Newark and Sherwood is interesting. A majority of current cases are prison inmates.
Just how local should this be?
Should 50 million people be restricted because the Mayor of Manchester is jumping up and down?
I am really starting to wonder about a lot of this academic work. The circuit breaker model isnt range between 5k and 107k, no, apparently it is a range between 800 and 106k lives saved in the next 2.5 months....
I think they need to turn the computer off and on again and perhaps give it a kick inbetween.
Because "I have no idea" is not a scientific answer. Saying that the answer is between 1 and 1 trillion is the scientific way of saying "I have no idea. My model doesn't work."
The interesting thing is that on this site a very wide group of people from across the political spectrum can tell what is wrong with the idea of a 2 week circuit break.
The politicians and others advocating more restrictions do have answers to these questions, don’t they?
Asks Cyclefree, quite fairly. To which the answer is 'No', to the extent that being where we are the future is not as predictable as one would like.
Perhaps the issue of paying for all the losses is answerable by an unquantifiable amount of allowing our great grandchildren to acquire further liabilities on our behalf, but that is not a cost free exercise, nor is it self evident that it is our great grand children's liability in moral terms more than it is ours.
We need a better plan all right. It's just that I don't know anyone who has got one. Does Cyclefree?
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
I don't carry any card for BCG - it's not a consultant I've worked for or with - but they will have highly capable and experienced people in data interrogation, analysis and complex project and portfolio management who've got a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
What is interesting - from working with a range of large companies and some public sector - is the fear that increasing velocity engenders. Or doing things cheaper.
There is an interesting monograph to be written on such situations.
The recent one at SpaceX with Starlink was fascinating. Senior industry leaders were recruited to build satellites cheaper and faster. They insisted on dragging their feet. To the point that they were fired....
Yes, people who'd joined a company famous for cost cutting, fast work and innovation quite deliberately went the other way.
Will this be like the VIP paedo ring one, where one of the main characters of the story somehow only got 5s on screen, despite in reality being all over the media day in day out and using his parliamentary privileged position?
I am really starting to wonder about a lot of this academic work. The circuit breaker model isnt range between 5k and 107k, no, apparently it is a range between 800 and 106k lives saved in the next 2.5 months....
I think they need to turn the computer off and on again and perhaps give it a kick inbetween.
Because "I have no idea" is not a scientific answer. Saying that the answer is between 1 and 1 trillion is the scientific way of saying "I have no idea. My model doesn't work."
No it is a reflection of reality! What are the number of lives saved by the govt tier 1-3/3+ plan? No-one can answer that either.
The interesting thing is that on this site a very wide group of people from across the political spectrum can tell what is wrong with the idea of a 2 week circuit break.
Why can't the media ask any questions?
Because PB has a lot of people who understand numbers, because of the betting obvs, we can usually analyse numbers better.
Like our politicians, very few of the journos have a scientific or numbers based background.
Guardian reporting government want pre-Christmas lockdown at unis. 2 weeks they have to remain on campus with no in person teaching.
What do they mean by “on campus”?
Interesting question. I suspect a huge amount of students do not live on, or anywhere near a campus
There is a significant difference between 1st Years (and possibly Final Years), who will be on campus (ie in University Halls of Residence) and other who will largely not be.
Local somewhat-better-than-anecdata.
Speaking to a letting agent in Nottingham who deals with housing for 500-1000 students, overwhelmingly not First Years, the COVID rates are significantly different by year.
Nottingham numbers are very significantly due to Freshers at the University of Nottingham going relatively beserk, and a lesser extent at the Nottingham Trent University.
One issue in Halls is that the groups living together are far larger. In student houses it is typically 4-6 per house. Halls are more like 10-30 per kitchen.
Newark and Sherwood is interesting. A majority of current cases are prison inmates.
Just how local should this be?
Should 50 million people be restricted because the Mayor of Manchester is jumping up and down?
Absolutely.
I lived in one of the smallest Halls on campus and we had over 140 students in the Hall. There is simply no realistic way to avoid transmission within Halls, it is going to happen but that also means that is where the problem largely is.
I'm curious given that bars are open what's happening with campus bars. In particular in my day campus bar crawls were extremely popular, the done thing most people did very often. The Uni tried to stop it (because the challenge was to do 14 drinks in 13 bars) - if that's been happening this year it would definitely spread the virus wild. I'm curious if its been happening this year or not, hard to tell a student not to drink.
I am really starting to wonder about a lot of this academic work. The circuit breaker model isnt range between 5k and 107k, no, apparently it is a range between 800 and 106k lives saved in the next 2.5 months....
I think they need to turn the computer off and on again and perhaps give it a kick inbetween.
Because "I have no idea" is not a scientific answer. Saying that the answer is between 1 and 1 trillion is the scientific way of saying "I have no idea. My model doesn't work."
That the next Express headline sorted. "1 trillion dead by Christmas."
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
There’s an underfunding issue too - the site is clearly on its arse financially. It’s not had a design refresh for years (if ever), they miss polls, and post polls late. I have given up on it and use 538 these days.
I too use 538 as much as possible but it's sometimes hard to navigate. Where for example to they post new polls in?
set state to All and you get the national and all the state ones through the day and you dont have to get freaked by selective posting of random ones on here
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
Hardly, RCP's final 2012 forecast was Obama 303 Romney 235, pretty accurate and in 2016 it was Clinton 272 Trump 262 which was more accurate than 538's final forecast of Clinton 302 Trump 235
Guardian reporting government want pre-Christmas lockdown at unis. 2 weeks they have to remain on campus with no in person teaching.
What do they mean by “on campus”?
Interesting question. I suspect a huge amount of students do not live on, or anywhere near a campus
There is a significant difference between 1st Years (and possibly Final Years), who will be on campus (ie in University Halls of Residence) and other who will largely not be.
Local somewhat-better-than-anecdata.
Speaking to a letting agent in Nottingham who deals with housing for 500-1000 students, overwhelmingly not First Years, the COVID rates are significantly different by year.
Nottingham numbers are very significantly due to Freshers at the University of Nottingham going relatively beserk, and a lesser extent at the Nottingham Trent University.
One issue in Halls is that the groups living together are far larger. In student houses it is typically 4-6 per house. Halls are more like 10-30 per kitchen.
Newark and Sherwood is interesting. A majority of current cases are prison inmates.
Just how local should this be?
Should 50 million people be restricted because the Mayor of Manchester is jumping up and down?
The interesting thing is that on this site a very wide group of people from across the political spectrum can tell what is wrong with the idea of a 2 week circuit break.
Why can't the media ask any questions?
Because PBers have a lot of people who understand numbers, because of the betting obvs, we can usually analyse numbers better.
Like our politicians, very few of the journos have a scientific or numbers based background.
Normally true, but many here have lost the plot today, refusing to accept the uncertainty within the current situation.
Let's say that cost the economy and the Government £150million to save 15,000 lives at the cost of 10million each. Most would be over the age of 60 so you'd be saving at best 15 or so good quality lives years. In addition, tens of thousands of businesses would go to the wall and the employment prospects of hundreds of thousands of people would be ruined - we'd have all sorts of long-term mental and physical health problems.
Would it be worth it?
No idea. All I'm saying is that I don't see how a circuit breaker delayed by weeks achieves what SAGE were aiming for.
It's like if you've missed your turn just taking the next one will not be enough to get you where you wanted to go.
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
Hardly, RCP's final 2012 forecast was Obama 303 Romney 235, pretty accurate and in 2016 it was Clinton 272 Trump 262 which was more accurate than 538's final forecast of Clinton 302 Trump 235
I am really starting to wonder about a lot of this academic work. The circuit breaker model isnt range between 5k and 107k, no, apparently it is a range between 800 and 106k lives saved in the next 2.5 months....
I think they need to turn the computer off and on again and perhaps give it a kick inbetween.
Because "I have no idea" is not a scientific answer. Saying that the answer is between 1 and 1 trillion is the scientific way of saying "I have no idea. My model doesn't work."
No it is a reflection of reality! What are the number of lives saved by the govt tier 1-3/3+ plan? No-one can answer that either.
So how do you know that which plan is better? "It's obvious" is a warning sign, not an endorsement.
Let's say that cost the economy and the Government £150million to save 15,000 lives at the cost of 10million each. Most would be over the age of 60 so you'd be saving at best 15 or so good quality lives years. In addition, tens of thousands of businesses would go to the wall and the employment prospects of hundreds of thousands of people would be ruined - we'd have all sorts of long-term mental and physical health problems.
Would it be worth it?
No idea. All I'm saying is that I don't see how a circuit breaker delayed by weeks achieves what SAGE were aiming for.
It's like if you've missed your turn just taking the next one will not be enough to get you where you wanted to go.
That is generally a much better route to your destination than carrying straight ahead!
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
I don't carry any card for BCG - it's not a consultant I've worked for or with - but they will have highly capable and experienced people in data interrogation, analysis and complex project and portfolio management who've got a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
So let me get this straight. The people charged with developing track and trace are highly capable and experienced, and they have a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
But apparently there's no point in having a lockdown to bring case numbers down to a level manageable by track and trace because track and trace will never work.
So why are we paying these people, capable and experienced as they are, large amounts of money to develop a system that can never work? Or might it actually work? In which case, why not give it a chance by locking down to reduce cases?
It might never work, yes, but given how high the stakes are I can't blame the Government for wanting to give it it's best shot by throwing money at it. It's what you do in an extreme emergency.
Lockdown is a separate question I think as that's about risk tolerance.
The interesting thing is that on this site a very wide group of people from across the political spectrum can tell what is wrong with the idea of a 2 week circuit break.
Why can't the media ask any questions?
COVID has been an amazing high for mainstream media outlets. Consider the incredible roller coaster ride this pandemic has given them.
A circuit breaker is like another hit of the drug.
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
Hardly, RCP's final 2012 forecast was Obama 303 Romney 235, pretty accurate and in 2016 it was Clinton 272 Trump 262 which was more accurate than 538's final forecast of Clinton 302 Trump 235
Let's say that cost the economy and the Government £150million to save 15,000 lives at the cost of 10million each. Most would be over the age of 60 so you'd be saving at best 15 or so good quality lives years. In addition, tens of thousands of businesses would go to the wall and the employment prospects of hundreds of thousands of people would be ruined - we'd have all sorts of long-term mental and physical health problems.
Would it be worth it?
No idea. All I'm saying is that I don't see how a circuit breaker delayed by weeks achieves what SAGE were aiming for.
It's like if you've missed your turn just taking the next one will not be enough to get you where you wanted to go.
You'd be nearer than just blithely carrying straight on though. Edit. Oops snap with @noneoftheabove .
Let's say that cost the economy and the Government £150million to save 15,000 lives at the cost of 10million each. Most would be over the age of 60 so you'd be saving at best 15 or so good quality lives years. In addition, tens of thousands of businesses would go to the wall and the employment prospects of hundreds of thousands of people would be ruined - we'd have all sorts of long-term mental and physical health problems.
Would it be worth it?
No idea. All I'm saying is that I don't see how a circuit breaker delayed by weeks achieves what SAGE were aiming for.
It's like if you've missed your turn just taking the next one will not be enough to get you where you wanted to go.
That is generally a much better route to your destination than carrying straight ahead!
I agree, but my point is that it's not enough on its own. The longer we delay the more remedial action it will need.
Guardian reporting government want pre-Christmas lockdown at unis. 2 weeks they have to remain on campus with no in person teaching.
What do they mean by “on campus”?
Interesting question. I suspect a huge amount of students do not live on, or anywhere near a campus
There is a significant difference between 1st Years (and possibly Final Years), who will be on campus (ie in University Halls of Residence) and other who will largely not be.
Local somewhat-better-than-anecdata.
Speaking to a letting agent in Nottingham who deals with housing for 500-1000 students, overwhelmingly not First Years, the COVID rates are significantly different by year.
Nottingham numbers are very significantly due to Freshers at the University of Nottingham going relatively beserk, and a lesser extent at the Nottingham Trent University.
One issue in Halls is that the groups living together are far larger. In student houses it is typically 4-6 per house. Halls are more like 10-30 per kitchen.
Newark and Sherwood is interesting. A majority of current cases are prison inmates.
Just how local should this be?
Should 50 million people be restricted because the Mayor of Manchester is jumping up and down?
Absolutely.
I lived in one of the smallest Halls on campus and we had over 140 students in the Hall. There is simply no realistic way to avoid transmission within Halls, it is going to happen but that also means that is where the problem largely is.
I'm curious given that bars are open what's happening with campus bars. In particular in my day campus bar crawls were extremely popular, the done thing most people did very often. The Uni tried to stop it (because the challenge was to do 14 drinks in 13 bars) - if that's been happening this year it would definitely spread the virus wild. I'm curious if its been happening this year or not, hard to tell a student not to drink.
Do students go out on the lash anymore and get plastered and try (and usually fail) to shag, or do they just stay inside and play on their phones and talk about the environment whilst they eat quinoa and tofu?
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
I don't carry any card for BCG - it's not a consultant I've worked for or with - but they will have highly capable and experienced people in data interrogation, analysis and complex project and portfolio management who've got a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
I am sure they have capable people and certainly more capable than Harding. Over reliance on senior people without a long term stake in a project is a very bad plan though. The track record of govt IT and overpaid consultants makes it pretty clear it is an ineffective policy.
The interesting thing is that on this site a very wide group of people from across the political spectrum can tell what is wrong with the idea of a 2 week circuit break.
Why can't the media ask any questions?
And many of them have got it completely round their necks. "It's not long enough for it to work" and "It's not long enough to see if it's working" for instance, entirely miss the point.
One set of Sage documents reveals how much individual policies may cut the R number by:
Close all bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants could reduce R by 0.1-0.2 Close all indoor gyms and leisure centres could reduce R by up to 0.1 Closing non-essential retail would have "minimal impact" on transmission Stopping people mixing in homes could reduce R by 0.1-0.2 Working from home reduce R by 0.2-0.4 Closing all schools could reduce R by 0.2-0.5
This is useful information. A shame we only have it now, but still. One can reasonably assume then that the 10pm curfew does very little, and how many restrictions you need to put in place to keep schools open.
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
I don't carry any card for BCG - it's not a consultant I've worked for or with - but they will have highly capable and experienced people in data interrogation, analysis and complex project and portfolio management who've got a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
What is interesting - from working with a range of large companies and some public sector - is the fear that increasing velocity engenders. Or doing things cheaper.
There is an interesting monograph to be written on such situations.
The recent one at SpaceX with Starlink was fascinating. Senior industry leaders were recruited to build satellites cheaper and faster. They insisted on dragging their feet. To the point that they were fired....
Yes, people who'd joined a company famous for cost cutting, fast work and innovation quite deliberately went the other way.
This. Business and industry is full of people who try and police or frustrate what others are doing.
They're worried their initiatives are going to make them look unimportant or reflect back badly on them so it's a far safer bet for them to ask questions and say "no" than let it through - it gives an impression of decisiveness and control that they feel reinforces them in their existing positions. They view change as a threat.
Of course the very best realise that supporting and championing change is the way to excellence - and long-term survival - but they need to be relaxed and confident enough in themselves for others to get the glory.
I am really starting to wonder about a lot of this academic work. The circuit breaker model isnt range between 5k and 107k, no, apparently it is a range between 800 and 106k lives saved in the next 2.5 months....
I think they need to turn the computer off and on again and perhaps give it a kick inbetween.
Because "I have no idea" is not a scientific answer. Saying that the answer is between 1 and 1 trillion is the scientific way of saying "I have no idea. My model doesn't work."
No it is a reflection of reality! What are the number of lives saved by the govt tier 1-3/3+ plan? No-one can answer that either.
So how do you know that which plan is better? "It's obvious" is a warning sign, not an endorsement.
We don't know. I support a series of circuit breaks as its what I have thought might be a good idea for a few months and the SAGE minutes are now supporting it too.
I fully accept I could be wrong, and SAGE could be wrong. Would I back SAGE vs this govt? Yes, not with certainty but with confidence.
I've noticed that RCP tends to headline the state polls that are good for Trump like Florida Trump +2, even when there are more surprising ones like Georgia Biden +2.
Their 2012 poll average was skewed even more towards Romney due to the selective nature of the poll that went into their average.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
Hardly, RCP's final 2012 forecast was Obama 303 Romney 235, pretty accurate and in 2016 it was Clinton 272 Trump 262 which was more accurate than 538's final forecast of Clinton 302 Trump 235
Hardly. That's their no toss up scenario, you still don't understand this uncertainty thing do you?
Just pollsters covering their backs, only the final forecast matters for judging them
Bullshit.
That's you shoving your head in the sand because understanding the big picture is just too difficult for you.
No just you making excuses for pollsters who forecast the result wrong
They didn't forecast it wrong, they forecast it within their forecast margin.
If you don't understand that, that's on you not me or them. I have no reason to "make excuses" for pollsters - but I do have reason to try and understand the very basic and fundamental concept of uncertainty.
Take 538 for instance, you for some reason claim that they were "wrong" in 2016 because they'd given Trump a 28.6% chance and Hillary a 71.6% chance but that doesn't make them wrong. If you run a scenario often enough you should expect a 28% chance to come in a bit over a quarter of the time, that doesn't make you wrong - it makes you right.
In extremis if you had 100 scenarios you'd given a 71.6% chance to and all 100 came in then your prediction was fundamentally flawed.
538 have been around for four Presidential elections now. The 28% chance coming in on one of those 4 occasions is not "wrong". It is simply understanding how probability works.
One set of Sage documents reveals how much individual policies may cut the R number by:
Close all bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants could reduce R by 0.1-0.2 Close all indoor gyms and leisure centres could reduce R by up to 0.1 Closing non-essential retail would have "minimal impact" on transmission Stopping people mixing in homes could reduce R by 0.1-0.2 Working from home reduce R by 0.2-0.4 Closing all schools could reduce R by 0.2-0.5
This is useful information. A shame we only have it now, but still. One can reasonably assume then that the 10pm curfew does very little, and how many restrictions you need to put in place to keep schools open.
It also shows there seem to be areas that are now immune from lockdown whatever the prevalence of the disease - ie going to work and education.
The Government have to choose which bad headline they want.
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
What experience do BCG have of managing pandemics?
I don't carry any card for BCG - it's not a consultant I've worked for or with - but they will have highly capable and experienced people in data interrogation, analysis and complex project and portfolio management who've got a track record of quick delivery in very urgent environments.
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
I am sure they have capable people and certainly more capable than Harding. Over reliance on senior people without a long term stake in a project is a very bad plan though. The track record of govt IT and overpaid consultants makes it pretty clear it is an ineffective policy.
To be fair a lot of that is down to ever changing scope and very bad sponsorship (something only the Government can control) but it will always be the consultants that take the blame.
Don't get me wrong - I don't expect anyone to have much sympathy. No-one much likes consultants and they are very expensive. Far too many are overpaid and useless too. But there are also some exceptional people in there who are very very good.
Ultimately that's why they can command the high salaries and high rates.
Comments
Go and party but if you catch or are near someone with the pox then you had better follow the rules.
So I took the regional daily numbers. I removed the last five days as incomplete (that's probably overdoing it)
Under the government’s plan, which is in its early stages, universities would go into lockdown from 8 December until 22 December, when all students would be allowed to return to their home towns.
The move is designed to deliver on Boris Johnson’s pledge “to get students home safely for Christmas” but prevent the spread of the virus by limiting mixing between the student body and wider community in the weeks before more than a million students travel home.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/14/ministers-plan-pre-christmas-covid-lockdown-for-english-universities
https://twitter.com/gsoh31/status/1316427208056020993
Got to love Scouse humour.
Though no doubt the students would spend the fortnight partying like mad.
FiveThirtyEight A+ pollster - though note the high undecided / 3rd party share
During the previous lockdown period R was never really that low due to in-household transmission and essential workers.
Two weeks might, if you are lucky, halve the infection rate. That's gained you what? Another 11 days of Tier 2 before you are back to where you were. Yippee.
The government seems to be trying to find the minimum measures in each region that don't lead to unmanageable escalation. That's about all they can do, short of repeating the 3 month lockdown of the past. A side benefit of having multiple Tiers is that they can compare the results in different areas to see what difference each measure makes.
If we knew exactly when the vaccine was coming then it would be a lot easier to make firm decisions. If the answer is never, then permanent Tier 3 is what we end up with, because a lockdown achieves nothing.
I would describe them as "Leans GOP"
They are ace. Some people just like to moan.
People want other people to lockdown so they can continue their own personal lives unabated.
Another example of why MPs delegating everything to QUANGOs doesn't do anything other than let them claim their hands are clean.
I hope the cases are levelling off and we can avoid another lockdown but I am not at all hopeful. I find it bizarre people would suggest I want a lockdown, it would be misery for me
They can either have one about overpaid consultants or they can have one about track & trace being a complete and abject failure.
Admittedly they might conspire to get both if they don't resource /scope/sponsor it properly but capping the market when they need skilled and urgent resources in an emergency situation is a recipe for disaster.
Phew. Relief!
Mortimer: too right. But I think we need to do something like the above to get through in one piece, and if it takes 20 years to repay it, so be it. Again...what is your alternative?
Nor for that matter do I understand how a circuit breaker for a few weeks enables us to magically fix track and trace (and all the other things Labour are suggesting) so that we don't immediately need a circuit breaker again. There doesn't seem any realistic prospect of fixing all the problems we are having with test latency, isolation compliance, quarantining, and basic hygiene in a couple of weeks. I'd be amazed if we could fix all of those in a couple of months.
Frankly our best bet right now is probably a 6-8 week lockdown again.
If we lockdown for 2 weeks there will be a big drop in new cases later. But that drop will still happen even if lockdown stops after 2 weeks. It's a lagging indicator.
The lockdown on March 23 had no impact on new hospitalizations on March 23. Those infections had already happened.
Govt seems unaware not all universities end their terms at the same time.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/14/ministers-plan-pre-christmas-covid-lockdown-for-english-universities
The public sector simply won't have the number of required resources or skills to do it - and they pay poor salaries, typically 30-40% below what the best people can get in the private sector and don't operate at anything like the same velocity - so are left with little source but to temporarily bring consultants in if they want to get it done.
In quite a number of companies, profits are up.
In quite a number of companies, they are preparing for the final bankruptcy.
I think this may be the most disparate economic downturn I have experienced.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map_no_toss_ups.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map_no_toss_ups.html
Sensible.
If all those undecideds go to Trump or are shy Trump voters it would be a 2% final Biden popular vote lead, the same as Hillary's final 2016 popular vote lead Rasmussen correctly forecast in 2016
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2020/white_house_watch_oct14
Would it be worth it?
I think they need to turn the computer off and on again and perhaps give it a kick inbetween.
Yes, if alternatives are presented, it would help. So here are three:
(a) Accept R>1 indefinitely, leading to hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 deaths;
(b) Try to get R<1 by gradually increasing the tier in local areas until we have something approaching a national lockdown;
(c) A hybrid whereby the young and healthy are on (a) and the old and vulnerable are under total lockdown for a year or more, possibly much more.
(a) is at least intellectually coherent, and there are sane and moral people who sincerely believe that it is the lesser evil. However, it's an approach that the public, rightly, strongly reject. (b) is the path we're on, and it is not coherent. Per life saved, it will do more economic harm than a circuit-breaker because of the lack of clarity and certainty. (c) is built on the longshot that this will achieve herd-immunity, and is, in any case, inhumane in my view.
Compared with any of these, I'd say circuit-breaker(s) clearly win. Can anyone suggest a (d)?
But apparently there's no point in having a lockdown to bring case numbers down to a level manageable by track and trace because track and trace will never work.
So why are we paying these people, capable and experienced as they are, large amounts of money to develop a system that can never work? Or might it actually work? In which case, why not give it a chance by locking down to reduce cases?
Local somewhat-better-than-anecdata.
Speaking to a letting agent in Nottingham who deals with housing for 500-1000 students, overwhelmingly not First Years, the COVID rates are significantly different by year.
Nottingham numbers are very significantly due to Freshers at the University of Nottingham going relatively beserk, and a lesser extent at the Nottingham Trent University.
One issue in Halls is that the groups living together are far larger. In student houses it is typically 4-6 per house. Halls are more like 10-30 per kitchen.
Newark and Sherwood is interesting. A majority of current cases are prison inmates.
Just how local should this be?
Should 50 million people be restricted because the Mayor of Manchester is jumping up and down?
Why can't the media ask any questions?
Asks Cyclefree, quite fairly. To which the answer is 'No', to the extent that being where we are the future is not as predictable as one would like.
Perhaps the issue of paying for all the losses is answerable by an unquantifiable amount of allowing our great grandchildren to acquire further liabilities on our behalf, but that is not a cost free exercise, nor is it self evident that it is our great grand children's liability in moral terms more than it is ours.
We need a better plan all right. It's just that I don't know anyone who has got one. Does Cyclefree?
There is an interesting monograph to be written on such situations.
The recent one at SpaceX with Starlink was fascinating. Senior industry leaders were recruited to build satellites cheaper and faster. They insisted on dragging their feet. To the point that they were fired....
Yes, people who'd joined a company famous for cost cutting, fast work and innovation quite deliberately went the other way.
Like our politicians, very few of the journos have a scientific or numbers based background.
I lived in one of the smallest Halls on campus and we had over 140 students in the Hall. There is simply no realistic way to avoid transmission within Halls, it is going to happen but that also means that is where the problem largely is.
I'm curious given that bars are open what's happening with campus bars. In particular in my day campus bar crawls were extremely popular, the done thing most people did very often. The Uni tried to stop it (because the challenge was to do 14 drinks in 13 bars) - if that's been happening this year it would definitely spread the virus wild. I'm curious if its been happening this year or not, hard to tell a student not to drink.
set state to All and you get the national and all the state ones through the day and you dont have to get freaked by selective posting of random ones on here
It's like if you've missed your turn just taking the next one will not be enough to get you where you wanted to go.
That's you shoving your head in the sand because understanding the big picture is just too difficult for you.
Lockdown is a separate question I think as that's about risk tolerance.
A circuit breaker is like another hit of the drug.
Edit. Oops snap with @noneoftheabove .
Honestly don't know.
Close all bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants could reduce R by 0.1-0.2
Close all indoor gyms and leisure centres could reduce R by up to 0.1
Closing non-essential retail would have "minimal impact" on transmission
Stopping people mixing in homes could reduce R by 0.1-0.2
Working from home reduce R by 0.2-0.4
Closing all schools could reduce R by 0.2-0.5
This is useful information. A shame we only have it now, but still. One can reasonably assume then that the 10pm curfew does very little, and how many restrictions you need to put in place to keep schools open.
They're worried their initiatives are going to make them look unimportant or reflect back badly on them so it's a far safer bet for them to ask questions and say "no" than let it through - it gives an impression of decisiveness and control that they feel reinforces them in their existing positions. They view change as a threat.
Of course the very best realise that supporting and championing change is the way to excellence - and long-term survival - but they need to be relaxed and confident enough in themselves for others to get the glory.
I fully accept I could be wrong, and SAGE could be wrong. Would I back SAGE vs this govt? Yes, not with certainty but with confidence.
If you don't understand that, that's on you not me or them. I have no reason to "make excuses" for pollsters - but I do have reason to try and understand the very basic and fundamental concept of uncertainty.
Take 538 for instance, you for some reason claim that they were "wrong" in 2016 because they'd given Trump a 28.6% chance and Hillary a 71.6% chance but that doesn't make them wrong. If you run a scenario often enough you should expect a 28% chance to come in a bit over a quarter of the time, that doesn't make you wrong - it makes you right.
In extremis if you had 100 scenarios you'd given a 71.6% chance to and all 100 came in then your prediction was fundamentally flawed.
538 have been around for four Presidential elections now. The 28% chance coming in on one of those 4 occasions is not "wrong". It is simply understanding how probability works.
Don't get me wrong - I don't expect anyone to have much sympathy. No-one much likes consultants and they are very expensive. Far too many are overpaid and useless too. But there are also some exceptional people in there who are very very good.
Ultimately that's why they can command the high salaries and high rates.