Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
Thousands = 10^3
The vaccine will be administered to millions 10^6, maybe billions 10^9.
Suppose the risk is 10^(-4). Now do the maths. You would need a sample of millions before the risk becomes evident. Also, the risk is almost certainly correlated with properties that correlate with a bad outcome from COVID.
I am (to state the obvious) not an anti-vaxxer (although one of my favourite scientists was).
But, there are going to be difficulties persuading people to take the vaccine. Especially if the persuasion is left up to Mr Boris Johnson.
A blonde mop appears on the TV screen.
A harrumph, "Good, you've got the jolly old vaccine". He grimaces a little as he is injected. "Just like a good glass of Bolly", he boostered.
"World beating, Olympics, Winston Churchill", he spluttered.
Firstly - it will have been administered to 10s of 1,000s. I absolutely accept the chance of 1 in 100,000 problems, but that is the same for all medical advances. Unfortunately many will only be picked up after market. But as Nigel has said - it looks like 2% of infected people may suffer fairly serious effects of Covid (as well as those who die). I'd take the vaccine thanks. Yes we need to wait for the studies to finish - but by now, the data we need is does it work, and how well, not is it safe.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
More to the point, most kids do not receive free school meals. Those that do, need them. And if they need them during school time, they need them at other times, too.
I'm not going to bore everyone with a restatement of my Covid plan, so what I'll bore you with instead is this: the government also needs a backup plan.
The strategy of HMG at the moment is to suppress the virus until a vaccine cures all ills. Although the vaccine development is promising, the most successful medical development to date is in treatment - with dexamethasone reducing fatality by one-third.
A backup plan would be that, at some point, the treatment improvements reduce the fatality rate sufficiently that letting everyone catch it is not a ridiculous option. But the difficulty will be ensuring that everyone who needs treatment can receive it without the hospital system being overwhelmed.
So you'd need to work out what the minimal level of training would be to administer treatments, monitor patients, and escalate those needing more qualified medical care. You'd need to train people to that level to staff facilities to administer Covid treatments to large numbers of people.
If you can reduce the fatality rate to 0.1% that's probably low enough that it makes it acceptable for everyone to catch it. We might be there if the antibody treatments work as well as hoped. Will the government be prepared enough to treat everyone?
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
If you look at China I think it is pretty certain they have vaccinated a lot of their population already
If that were the case, why do they reimpose strict lockdowns whenever there is any sign of an outbreak?
I just looked at the pictures from their Golden Week recently. Absolutely no social distancing at all, thousands of people in small areas.
Wily PRC propaganda to encourage the West into yet more mask wearing and be further crippled by the mask-induced spread of the China virus.
The "Living in China" YouTube channel is very interesting. A bloke with a GoPro wondering around Chinese cities. Recent videos - shot within the last couple of weeks - guess what, no masks to be seen.
I personally doubt they've vaccinated yet. They've eliminated it through ruthlessly tracing and isolating, and getting incoming travellers to quarantine in hotels for 2 weeks. No conspiracy theory required.
Trump does seem to be making a late surge. Biden can't afford any gaffes in the debate tomorrow.
I don`t see the late surge. But, putting that aside, I don`t think much can change in the last couple of weeks (assuming they both stay healthy). Voters aren`t going to change their minds. It`s all about turnout differential now. And I don`t think the debate tomorrow will affect that no matter what happens.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
Thousands = 10^3
The vaccine will be administered to millions 10^6, maybe billions 10^9.
Suppose the risk is 10^(-4). Now do the maths. You would need a sample of millions before the risk becomes evident. Also, the risk is almost certainly correlated with properties that correlate with a bad outcome from COVID.
I am (to state the obvious) not an anti-vaxxer (although one of my favourite scientists was).
But, there are going to be difficulties persuading people to take the vaccine. Especially if the persuasion is left up to Mr Boris Johnson.
A blonde mop appears on the TV screen.
A harrumph, "Good, you've got the jolly old vaccine". He grimaces a little as he is injected. "Just like a good glass of Bolly", he boostered.
"World beating, Olympics, Winston Churchill", he spluttered.
Firstly - it will have been administered to 10s of 1,000s. I absolutely accept the chance of 1 in 100,000 problems, but that is the same for all medical advances. Unfortunately many will only be picked up after market. But as Nigel has said - it looks like 2% of infected people may suffer fairly serious effects of Covid (as well as those who die). I'd take the vaccine thanks. Yes we need to wait for the studies to finish - but by now, the data we need is does it work, and how well, not is it safe.
No one really knows what the really long term effects of Covid might be - but it's not as though you sent see that form other viral infection.
One of the few good things to come of all of this might be some serious research into post viral syndromes. There will certainly be a large number of cases to study.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
I'm sorry but you're just wrong. Completely and utterly and objectively wrong. There is plenty of evidence in favour of masks, you just choose to ignore it.
Great article, Alastair. Really crisp and logical outline of the big picture.
There's so much to debate about this and it's important imo to have at least some common truths to base it on. To my mind these are (i) This is a destructive disease bearing no resemblance to flu in its virulence and velocity. (ii) Relatively few here have had it therefore we have little immunity. (iii) Herd immunity by infection is an unthinkable Plan Z given it overruns the NHS and costs 200k lives. (iv) The choice is not between restrictions or no restrictions it's about the balance of legal vs guidelines. (v) A chaotic people-led lockdown would likely do more social and economic damage than a government imposed one.
For me, any suggested course of action that explicitly or implicitly rejects any of the above 5 assertions is a no no.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
Yeh, that's right. You MPs enjoy chatting over a cup of tea in your lovely little tearoom, whilst vast swathes of the North can't even have one friend around to sit in the garden.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
Thousands = 10^3
The vaccine will be administered to millions 10^6, maybe billions 10^9.
Suppose the risk is 10^(-4). Now do the maths. You would need a sample of millions before the risk becomes evident. Also, the risk is almost certainly correlated with properties that correlate with a bad outcome from COVID.
I am (to state the obvious) not an anti-vaxxer (although one of my favourite scientists was).
But, there are going to be difficulties persuading people to take the vaccine. Especially if the persuasion is left up to Mr Boris Johnson.
A blonde mop appears on the TV screen.
A harrumph, "Good, you've got the jolly old vaccine". He grimaces a little as he is injected. "Just like a good glass of Bolly", he boostered.
"World beating, Olympics, Winston Churchill", he spluttered.
Firstly - it will have been administered to 10s of 1,000s. I absolutely accept the chance of 1 in 100,000 problems, but that is the same for all medical advances. Unfortunately many will only be picked up after market. But as Nigel has said - it looks like 2% of infected people may suffer fairly serious effects of Covid (as well as those who die). I'd take the vaccine thanks. Yes we need to wait for the studies to finish - but by now, the data we need is does it work, and how well, not is it safe.
No one really knows what the really long term effects of Covid might be - but it's not as though you sent see that form other viral infection.
One of the few good things to come of all of this might be some serious research into post viral syndromes. There will certainly be a large number of cases to study.
Probably a fruitful forward arena for research.
The theory that MS is a post viral syndrome has been roundly condemned, despite little serious research, and despite important fragments of evidence such as the dramatic upsurge in Iceland cases in the decades after US troops were stationed there during the war.
I'm not going to bore everyone with a restatement of my Covid plan, so what I'll bore you with instead is this: the government also needs a backup plan.
The strategy of HMG at the moment is to suppress the virus until a vaccine cures all ills. Although the vaccine development is promising, the most successful medical development to date is in treatment - with dexamethasone reducing fatality by one-third.
A backup plan would be that, at some point, the treatment improvements reduce the fatality rate sufficiently that letting everyone catch it is not a ridiculous option. But the difficulty will be ensuring that everyone who needs treatment can receive it without the hospital system being overwhelmed.
So you'd need to work out what the minimal level of training would be to administer treatments, monitor patients, and escalate those needing more qualified medical care. You'd need to train people to that level to staff facilities to administer Covid treatments to large numbers of people.
If you can reduce the fatality rate to 0.1% that's probably low enough that it makes it acceptable for everyone to catch it. We might be there if the antibody treatments work as well as hoped. Will the government be prepared enough to treat everyone?
I'd take issue with the first point. While dexamethasone is a step forward, actually other factors have made a difference too, such as not automatically putting patients on ventilators, as this can lead to worse outcomes than using CPAP. Clinicians are in general better at treating covid now.
The other point is this - for all the bluster, the NHS is not being overwhelmed at current infection rates, and with every passing day, more people contract, survive and become (at least temporarily) immune to this disease. I am confident of at least partially effective vaccines, and soon (I believe we will start vaccinating some people pre-christmas, and definitely in the Jan-mar 2021), but if we keep ticking at 31000 new infections a day (or whatever the ONS mid-point is) for a while, we will move closer to some degree of herd protection, and the case load will fall.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
I'm sorry but you're just wrong. Completely and utterly and objectively wrong. There is plenty of evidence in favour of masks, you just choose to ignore it.
He’s. A twat not worth arguing with, must have an agenda or is a funeral director.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
Absolutely, compare kids from the 1970s to now. As i said earlier food now is cheaper than ever.
Empty calories are cheaper but healthy nutritious food is beyond the reach of many. Put that together with parents working long hours and a lack of knowledge about cooking (which is endemic right across British society) and you have fat but undernourished kids. It's tragic.
Healthy cheap nutritious food is not beyond the financial reach of many - and most can be prepared in minutes. You are correct about the knowledge thing - although I was never taught any cookery skills at all, anywhere. It really isn't hard.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere....
We've had the following state polls today so far, that are all very good for Biden.
Civiqs Florida Biden 51% Trump 47%
Civiqs Nevada Biden 52% Trump 43%
Suffolk University Pennsylvania Biden 49% Trump 42%
Civiqs have been good for Biden for a while, Suffolk more variable. Tbh if I were Biden I'd be even more pleased with the 3% lead in Pennslyvania which Rasmussen gave him yesterday. Like a 8% lead from most pollsters.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
More to the point, most kids do not receive free school meals. Those that do, need them. And if they need them during school time, they need them at other times, too.
So why didn't Labour introduce them all year round?
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
You should have your username forcibly changed to Correlation does not imply causation.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
It ends: We need to communicate the clear message that although targeted vaccination may offer some protection, it will not simply deliver “life as we used to know it”
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
More to the point, most kids do not receive free school meals. Those that do, need them. And if they need them during school time, they need them at other times, too.
So why didn't Labour introduce them all year round?
There wasn't a multi-million dollar woke agency from the US promoting it then.
Outrage is proportional to how much the media tells you to be these days.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
More to the point, most kids do not receive free school meals. Those that do, need them. And if they need them during school time, they need them at other times, too.
So why didn't Labour introduce them all year round?
Direct your question to Gordon Brown or Tony Blair.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
You should have your username forcibly changed to Correlation does not imply causation.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
More to the point, most kids do not receive free school meals. Those that do, need them. And if they need them during school time, they need them at other times, too.
So why didn't Labour introduce them all year round?
There wasn't a multi-million dollar woke agency from the US promoting it then.
Outrage is proportional to how much the media tells you to be these days.
Lol. “Multi-million dollar woke agency”. You’re a parody.
There is an even simpler home truth. If you have a way of bringing the infections down you should apply it.
Yes, you can discuss whether A or B is more effective or has a greater economic or other cost. But don't be held back from interventions by worries about the economy. Countries with a rampant epidemic don't do better economically than those that suppress their epidemic. And if you largely suppress it you are likely to do much better. With the massive upside that you are much less likely to be dead.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
More to the point, most kids do not receive free school meals. Those that do, need them. And if they need them during school time, they need them at other times, too.
So why didn't Labour introduce them all year round?
God knows. It was a long time ago. I guess the effort went into reducing levels of child poverty overall. They were pretty successful.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
More to the point, most kids do not receive free school meals. Those that do, need them. And if they need them during school time, they need them at other times, too.
So why didn't Labour introduce them all year round?
God knows. It was a long time ago. I guess the effort went into reducing levels of child poverty overall. They were pretty successful.
As @MaxPB pointed out last time, this is taking us down the voucher benefit road. I'm not sure that's really what the Left want.
On the other hand you have: Survey USA (Rated A) Biden 53% Trump 43% YouGov (Rated Biden 52% Trump 43% Research Co (RatedB) Biden 50% Trump 42%
Clearly it seems to be tightening a bit towards Trump as was expected as we enter the last 2 weeks but Biden has been so consitantly around 50% or just over with most pollsters for so long is it enough for Trump? With the state polls still looking good for Biden , time is running out for the Don.
Of course in two weeks we could all be saying 'we should have listened to Trafalgar and IBD (to a lesser degree) all along
There is an interesting opportunity opening up for those favouring a more paternalistic approach to alleviating poverty and managing the welfare state. For decades the idea of government issued vouchers for necessities has been attacked by the majority on the "left" and indeed under both Tories and New Labour there was a switch towards letting welfare recipients manage their benefits (rents not paid direct to landlords). Now there is a clamour for lunch vouchers during school holidays which I would support. The taboo has been weakened.
On the other hand you have: Survey USA (Rated A) Biden 53% Trump 43% YouGov (Rated Biden 52% Trump 43% Research Co (RatedB) Biden 50% Trump 42%
Clearly it seems to be tightening a bit towards Trump as was expected as we enter the last 2 weeks but Biden has been so consitantly around 50% or just over with most pollsters for so long is it enough for Trump? With the state polls still looking good for Biden , time is running out for the Don.
Of course in two weeks we could all be saying 'we should have listened to Trafalgar and IBD (to a lesser degree) all along
Could get to around a 3% Biden lead with Trump winning enough seats on the day, but Biden winning through postal ballots.
I do think we have things to learn from Sweden. Mostly on how NOT to do it given it has one of the very worst death tolls in the World (worse than Scotland in fact). But a couple of positive examples as well.
I'm not going to bore everyone with a restatement of my Covid plan, so what I'll bore you with instead is this: the government also needs a backup plan.
The strategy of HMG at the moment is to suppress the virus until a vaccine cures all ills. Although the vaccine development is promising, the most successful medical development to date is in treatment - with dexamethasone reducing fatality by one-third.
A backup plan would be that, at some point, the treatment improvements reduce the fatality rate sufficiently that letting everyone catch it is not a ridiculous option. But the difficulty will be ensuring that everyone who needs treatment can receive it without the hospital system being overwhelmed.
So you'd need to work out what the minimal level of training would be to administer treatments, monitor patients, and escalate those needing more qualified medical care. You'd need to train people to that level to staff facilities to administer Covid treatments to large numbers of people.
If you can reduce the fatality rate to 0.1% that's probably low enough that it makes it acceptable for everyone to catch it. We might be there if the antibody treatments work as well as hoped. Will the government be prepared enough to treat everyone?
I'd take issue with the first point. While dexamethasone is a step forward, actually other factors have made a difference too, such as not automatically putting patients on ventilators, as this can lead to worse outcomes than using CPAP. Clinicians are in general better at treating covid now.
The other point is this - for all the bluster, the NHS is not being overwhelmed at current infection rates, and with every passing day, more people contract, survive and become (at least temporarily) immune to this disease. I am confident of at least partially effective vaccines, and soon (I believe we will start vaccinating some people pre-christmas, and definitely in the Jan-mar 2021), but if we keep ticking at 31000 new infections a day (or whatever the ONS mid-point is) for a while, we will move closer to some degree of herd protection, and the case load will fall.
Agree about clinicians getting better at treatment, and, so far at any rate, deaths are not as high a percentage of cases as they were earlier this year. It's probably getting slightly more difficult to directly attribute deaths to the virus, too.
Just spent the morning trawling the internet for info on testing methods, and it looks very much as though there will very very soon be reliable, readily available and quick tests. At the moment one is often waiting several days for a result (I've just waited since Sunday..... told today I was negative Yippee). However there are two or three tests coming to the market which will give a result within minutes and are practical to use.They'd certainly be practical for airline travel...... Heathrow and San Francisco are already doing trials and are app-related and give a dated result which can be shown to anyone who needs to see.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere....
Evidence is only evidence when it agrees with him. And if you only look at anything that agrees and ignore everything that contradicts, well, the "evidence" is overwhelming.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
Gosh you are midnnumbingly stupid on this issue!
Maybe I am, but please provide evidence of one European Country which has enforced mask wearing which has shown a reduction in cases. And I would remind you that if you read my posts from early July I predicted the rise in cases when mandatory mask wearing came in. So although my prediction was completely right I am mindnumbingly stupid. Its like picking a 50/1 winner of a horse race and then being told that i was stupid for backing it.
In early July cases were well below 1000 a day, they are now over 15000 each day.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on how masks have helped?
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
Gosh you are midnnumbingly stupid on this issue!
Maybe I am, but please provide evidence of one European Country which has enforced mask wearing which has shown a reduction in cases. And I would remind you that if you read my posts from early July I predicted the rise in cases when mandatory mask wearing came in. So although my prediction was completely right I am mindnumbingly stupid. Its like picking a 50/1 winner of a horse race and then being told that i was stupid for backing it.
In early July cases were well below 1000 a day, they are now over 15000 each day.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on how masks have helped?
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
Gosh you are midnnumbingly stupid on this issue!
Maybe I am, but please provide evidence of one European Country which has enforced mask wearing which has shown a reduction in cases. And I would remind you that if you read my posts from early July I predicted the rise in cases when mandatory mask wearing came in. So although my prediction was completely right I am mindnumbingly stupid. Its like picking a 50/1 winner of a horse race and then being told that i was stupid for backing it.
In early July cases were well below 1000 a day, they are now over 15000 each day.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on how masks have helped?
Trump does seem to be making a late surge. Biden can't afford any gaffes in the debate tomorrow.
Definate movement for trump, but so far it's looking small and recovering lost ground after he got covid. Before trump getting covid yougov was showing leads of 6-8 with Biden on 50ish. IBD was showing leads of 2-3 with Biden on 49. Question is are all pollsters seeing movement, looks like so far it's a bit mixed but there has been a small narrowing 1-2 points. Trump needs to hope it's not going to level out at 8-9 again, and if it's not will it fall fast enough and can he start pulling Biden voters away.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
Gosh you are midnnumbingly stupid on this issue!
Maybe I am, but please provide evidence of one European Country which has enforced mask wearing which has shown a reduction in cases. And I would remind you that if you read my posts from early July I predicted the rise in cases when mandatory mask wearing came in. So although my prediction was completely right I am mindnumbingly stupid. Its like picking a 50/1 winner of a horse race and then being told that i was stupid for backing it.
In early July cases were well below 1000 a day, they are now over 15000 each day.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on how masks have helped?
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
Gosh you are midnnumbingly stupid on this issue!
Maybe I am, but please provide evidence of one European Country which has enforced mask wearing which has shown a reduction in cases. And I would remind you that if you read my posts from early July I predicted the rise in cases when mandatory mask wearing came in. So although my prediction was completely right I am mindnumbingly stupid. Its like picking a 50/1 winner of a horse race and then being told that i was stupid for backing it.
In early July cases were well below 1000 a day, they are now over 15000 each day.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on how masks have helped?
Anyone know how Trump only had Corvid for seemly 3 days?Or why China has now almost ended its lockdown? Or why Japan appears to have hardly any corvid cases from the start?
I'm not going to bore everyone with a restatement of my Covid plan, so what I'll bore you with instead is this: the government also needs a backup plan.
The strategy of HMG at the moment is to suppress the virus until a vaccine cures all ills. Although the vaccine development is promising, the most successful medical development to date is in treatment - with dexamethasone reducing fatality by one-third.
A backup plan would be that, at some point, the treatment improvements reduce the fatality rate sufficiently that letting everyone catch it is not a ridiculous option. But the difficulty will be ensuring that everyone who needs treatment can receive it without the hospital system being overwhelmed.
So you'd need to work out what the minimal level of training would be to administer treatments, monitor patients, and escalate those needing more qualified medical care. You'd need to train people to that level to staff facilities to administer Covid treatments to large numbers of people.
If you can reduce the fatality rate to 0.1% that's probably low enough that it makes it acceptable for everyone to catch it. We might be there if the antibody treatments work as well as hoped. Will the government be prepared enough to treat everyone?
I'd take issue with the first point. While dexamethasone is a step forward, actually other factors have made a difference too, such as not automatically putting patients on ventilators, as this can lead to worse outcomes than using CPAP. Clinicians are in general better at treating covid now.
The other point is this - for all the bluster, the NHS is not being overwhelmed at current infection rates, and with every passing day, more people contract, survive and become (at least temporarily) immune to this disease. I am confident of at least partially effective vaccines, and soon (I believe we will start vaccinating some people pre-christmas, and definitely in the Jan-mar 2021), but if we keep ticking at 31000 new infections a day (or whatever the ONS mid-point is) for a while, we will move closer to some degree of herd protection, and the case load will fall.
Agree about clinicians getting better at treatment, and, so far at any rate, deaths are not as high a percentage of cases as they were earlier this year. It's probably getting slightly more difficult to directly attribute deaths to the virus, too.
Just spent the morning trawling the internet for info on testing methods, and it looks very much as though there will very very soon be reliable, readily available and quick tests. At the moment one is often waiting several days for a result (I've just waited since Sunday..... told today I was negative Yippee). However there are two or three tests coming to the market which will give a result within minutes and are practical to use.They'd certainly be practical for airline travel...... Heathrow and San Francisco are already doing trials and are app-related and give a dated result which can be shown to anyone who needs to see.
Yep - rapid tests, spit tests etc are coming. My wife, who works at PHE (Porton), has been tested several times with the spit tests against PCR. Before too long all NHS staff (certainly Hospital based) will be tested weekly. We will find more and more ways to bear down on the beastly virus, and certainly better ways than the crude 'lockdown' or lockdown lite approaches we need at the moment.
There is an interesting opportunity opening up for those favouring a more paternalistic approach to alleviating poverty and managing the welfare state. For decades the idea of government issued vouchers for necessities has been attacked by the majority on the "left" and indeed under both Tories and New Labour there was a switch towards letting welfare recipients manage their benefits (rents not paid direct to landlords). Now there is a clamour for lunch vouchers during school holidays which I would support. The taboo has been weakened.
There is an interesting opportunity opening up for those favouring a more paternalistic approach to alleviating poverty and managing the welfare state. For decades the idea of government issued vouchers for necessities has been attacked by the majority on the "left" and indeed under both Tories and New Labour there was a switch towards letting welfare recipients manage their benefits (rents not paid direct to landlords). Now there is a clamour for lunch vouchers during school holidays which I would support. The taboo has been weakened.
The only thing that matters is results. The "feed hungry kids in the holidays" proposal is an emergency measure, its not a solution for the long term.
Income disparity damages the opportunities for everyone. So we have to evolve away from the fuck you me me me culture that has sadly become embedded in recent decades. The only way we are going to do that is via the promotion of society and the good of all. We actually made a significant move in that direction earlier this year, now utterly squandered with the return of divide the plebs.
There is an interesting opportunity opening up for those favouring a more paternalistic approach to alleviating poverty and managing the welfare state. For decades the idea of government issued vouchers for necessities has been attacked by the majority on the "left" and indeed under both Tories and New Labour there was a switch towards letting welfare recipients manage their benefits (rents not paid direct to landlords). Now there is a clamour for lunch vouchers during school holidays which I would support. The taboo has been weakened.
The only thing that matters is results. The "feed hungry kids in the holidays" proposal is an emergency measure, its not a solution for the long term.
Sure in the same way income tax was an emergency measure.
Do any of these freebies ever get taken away once they are issued? Very few and the people calling them temporary now would be the first to complain when they are removed later.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
In July when mask wearing was made mandatory in the UK I predicted cases would sky rocket. That is exactly what happened. The same is true everywhere. There is so much evidence that mask wearing is not helping at all and could well be making things worse but everyone ignores it. If a politician had come up with any other policy that has failed so badly as masks they would be ruined. For some reason people can't get their heads round the idea that masks don't work, despite all the real world evidence that they don't. They just come up with different excuses eg nightclubs, poeple not wearing masks, families mixing etc etc.
Gosh you are midnnumbingly stupid on this issue!
Maybe I am, but please provide evidence of one European Country which has enforced mask wearing which has shown a reduction in cases. And I would remind you that if you read my posts from early July I predicted the rise in cases when mandatory mask wearing came in. So although my prediction was completely right I am mindnumbingly stupid. Its like picking a 50/1 winner of a horse race and then being told that i was stupid for backing it.
In early July cases were well below 1000 a day, they are now over 15000 each day.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on how masks have helped?
There are examples on this very thread. I think you are beyond enlightenment sadly.
Interesting header but why the picture of Cummings?
My choice, I can't explain it, but this picture feels like a seminal moment, especially with Chris Whitty's gesture.
It feels like Dom is looking dismissive/contemptuous, Whitty is disagreeing/slapping Dom down on something, Hancock is looking nervous at whatever evidence/science battle is ongoing, Boris isn't listening and is preparing to leave for another meeting.
On the other hand you have: Survey USA (Rated A) Biden 53% Trump 43% YouGov (Rated Biden 52% Trump 43% Research Co (RatedB) Biden 50% Trump 42%
Clearly it seems to be tightening a bit towards Trump as was expected as we enter the last 2 weeks but Biden has been so consitantly around 50% or just over with most pollsters for so long is it enough for Trump? With the state polls still looking good for Biden , time is running out for the Don.
Of course in two weeks we could all be saying 'we should have listened to Trafalgar and IBD (to a lesser degree) all along
Could get to around a 3% Biden lead with Trump winning enough seats on the day, but Biden winning through postal ballots.
Is there a market on the election going to court?
That's not implausible, especially as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are unlikely to report fully on the day, and 3% is the point at which Biden becomes the clear favorite.
That being said... Florida, Texas and a few others will report fully on the night (assuming it's not *really* close), so it's possible that we can determine the winner as early as midnight UK time, if biden has won Florida for example.
On the other hand you have: Survey USA (Rated A) Biden 53% Trump 43% YouGov (Rated Biden 52% Trump 43% Research Co (RatedB) Biden 50% Trump 42%
Clearly it seems to be tightening a bit towards Trump as was expected as we enter the last 2 weeks but Biden has been so consitantly around 50% or just over with most pollsters for so long is it enough for Trump? With the state polls still looking good for Biden , time is running out for the Don.
Of course in two weeks we could all be saying 'we should have listened to Trafalgar and IBD (to a lesser degree) all along
Could get to around a 3% Biden lead with Trump winning enough seats on the day, but Biden winning through postal ballots.
Great article, Alastair. Really crisp and logical outline of the big picture.
There's so much to debate about this and it's important imo to have at least some common truths to base it on. To my mind these are (i) This is a destructive disease bearing no resemblance to flu in its virulence and velocity. (ii) Relatively few here have had it therefore we have little immunity. (iii) Herd immunity by infection is an unthinkable Plan Z given it overruns the NHS and costs 200k lives. (iv) The choice is not between restrictions or no restrictions it's about the balance of legal vs guidelines. (v) A chaotic people-led lockdown would likely do more social and economic damage than a government imposed one.
For me, any suggested course of action that explicitly or implicitly rejects any of the above 5 assertions is a no no.
This, like so many approaches leaves a very narrow landing strip (if any) for long term policy. Maybe the answer to Mr Meeks's point that 'they need to agree on a long term strategy' is that at this moment any long term strategy is unlikely to survive till the end of the week.
Perhaps this is a great time to be SKS and a less great time to be PM. I wonder what SKS's long term strategy would be, about Covid, Brexit or anything else. I think he is very grateful he doesn't need to say.
On the other hand you have: Survey USA (Rated A) Biden 53% Trump 43% YouGov (Rated Biden 52% Trump 43% Research Co (RatedB) Biden 50% Trump 42%
Clearly it seems to be tightening a bit towards Trump as was expected as we enter the last 2 weeks but Biden has been so consitantly around 50% or just over with most pollsters for so long is it enough for Trump? With the state polls still looking good for Biden , time is running out for the Don.
Of course in two weeks we could all be saying 'we should have listened to Trafalgar and IBD (to a lesser degree) all along
Could get to around a 3% Biden lead with Trump winning enough seats on the day, but Biden winning through postal ballots.
Is there a market on the election going to court?
That's not implausible, especially as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are unlikely to report fully on the day, and 3% is the point at which Biden becomes the clear favorite.
That being said... Florida, Texas and a few others will report fully on the night (assuming it's not *really* close), so it's possible that we can determine the winner as early as midnight UK time, if biden has won Florida for example.
If Florida is very close and ends up deciding state as 2000 shows we may not have a winner until just before Christmas
"All current approaches seem reactive and focused only on the next few weeks."
Fair enough, but there is a huge class of problems to which reactive, short term approaches are all that's available: shaving one's face, mowing one's lawn, cleaning one's house, painting the Forth Bridge. A long-term framework within which to take repeated temporary remedial action may be all that's available. Certainly there has been concerted action in the last month to introduce us to the idea that taking a vaccine may be just an enhancement of the current strategy rather than a replacement of it.
I know I'm from Lancashire (or "Greater Manchester" as chunks of it have now been renamed). But even I find it a little off-putting to hear Rayner mutter "scum" in that accent.
For reference 100% turnout in Texas 2020 would be 189% of the 2016 turnout. This provides some context for the current figure of 59.2%
Er no. That ElectProjects 59.2% turnout in Texas is as a percentage of the 2016 turnout... so "100% turnout" on that chart would be, er... 100% of the 2016 turnout.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
Sad to see. He did some good work. That percussive explosion in the middle of "I Can Feel It (coming in the air tonight)" can even now get me sitting up and smashing a set of imaginary drums if I've had a few.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
"All current approaches seem reactive and focused only on the next few weeks."
Fair enough, but there is a huge class of problems to which reactive, short term approaches are all that's available: shaving one's face, mowing one's lawn, cleaning one's house, painting the Forth Bridge. A long-term framework within which to take repeated temporary remedial action may be all that's available. Certainly there has been concerted action in the last month to introduce us to the idea that taking a vaccine may be just an enhancement of the current strategy rather than a replacement of it.
To modify your metaphor - new technology has enabled the painters to take quite long breaks off painting the Forth Bridge. Which extends it nicely, of course, to the vaccine being an enhancement and partial replacement ...
Careful exegesis of these words will show them to be entirely consistent with the essentials of the traditional Roman Catholic position. It neither endorses or permits homosexual sexual activity or marriage.
"All current approaches seem reactive and focused only on the next few weeks."
Fair enough, but there is a huge class of problems to which reactive, short term approaches are all that's available: shaving one's face, mowing one's lawn, cleaning one's house, painting the Forth Bridge. A long-term framework within which to take repeated temporary remedial action may be all that's available. Certainly there has been concerted action in the last month to introduce us to the idea that taking a vaccine may be just an enhancement of the current strategy rather than a replacement of it.
To modify your metaphor - new technology has enabled the painters to take quite long breaks off painting the Forth Bridge. Which extends it nicely, of course, to the vaccine being an enhancement and partial replacement ...
But the house-cleaning thing is intractable. No matter how scrupulously you do it, in six months' time you have to do it all over again.
Comments
Yes we need to wait for the studies to finish - but by now, the data we need is does it work, and how well, not is it safe.
The strategy of HMG at the moment is to suppress the virus until a vaccine cures all ills. Although the vaccine development is promising, the most successful medical development to date is in treatment - with dexamethasone reducing fatality by one-third.
A backup plan would be that, at some point, the treatment improvements reduce the fatality rate sufficiently that letting everyone catch it is not a ridiculous option. But the difficulty will be ensuring that everyone who needs treatment can receive it without the hospital system being overwhelmed.
So you'd need to work out what the minimal level of training would be to administer treatments, monitor patients, and escalate those needing more qualified medical care. You'd need to train people to that level to staff facilities to administer Covid treatments to large numbers of people.
If you can reduce the fatality rate to 0.1% that's probably low enough that it makes it acceptable for everyone to catch it. We might be there if the antibody treatments work as well as hoped. Will the government be prepared enough to treat everyone?
I personally doubt they've vaccinated yet. They've eliminated it through ruthlessly tracing and isolating, and getting incoming travellers to quarantine in hotels for 2 weeks. No conspiracy theory required.
Hopefully a sign that he will soon need to sell a compromise with the EU to the nutters on his backbenches.
£ up over 1.5 cents today already
Civiqs Florida
Biden 51%
Trump 47%
Civiqs Nevada
Biden 52%
Trump 43%
Suffolk University Pennsylvania
Biden 49%
Trump 42%
https://twitter.com/DrCJ_Houldcroft/status/1318498568571965440
One of the few good things to come of all of this might be some serious research into post viral syndromes. There will certainly be a large number of cases to study.
There's so much to debate about this and it's important imo to have at least some common truths to base it on. To my mind these are (i) This is a destructive disease bearing no resemblance to flu in its virulence and velocity. (ii) Relatively few here have had it therefore we have little immunity. (iii) Herd immunity by infection is an unthinkable Plan Z given it overruns the NHS and costs 200k lives. (iv) The choice is not between restrictions or no restrictions it's about the balance of legal vs guidelines. (v) A chaotic people-led lockdown would likely do more social and economic damage than a government imposed one.
For me, any suggested course of action that explicitly or implicitly rejects any of the above 5 assertions is a no no.
Biden 50% (+1)
Trump 42% (+1)
Changes with 8th September.
The theory that MS is a post viral syndrome has been roundly condemned, despite little serious research, and despite important fragments of evidence such as the dramatic upsurge in Iceland cases in the decades after US troops were stationed there during the war.
The other point is this - for all the bluster, the NHS is not being overwhelmed at current infection rates, and with every passing day, more people contract, survive and become (at least temporarily) immune to this disease.
I am confident of at least partially effective vaccines, and soon (I believe we will start vaccinating some people pre-christmas, and definitely in the Jan-mar 2021), but if we keep ticking at 31000 new infections a day (or whatever the ONS mid-point is) for a while, we will move closer to some degree of herd protection, and the case load will fall.
Rather a good article in 'The Guardian'
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/21/covid-vaccine-immunisation-protection
It ends: We need to communicate the clear message that although targeted vaccination may offer some protection, it will not simply deliver “life as we used to know it”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/21/obama-for-biden-campaign-430636
Outrage is proportional to how much the media tells you to be these days.
Yes, you can discuss whether A or B is more effective or has a greater economic or other cost. But don't be held back from interventions by worries about the economy. Countries with a rampant epidemic don't do better economically than those that suppress their epidemic. And if you largely suppress it you are likely to do much better. With the massive upside that you are much less likely to be dead.
Survey USA (Rated A) Biden 53% Trump 43%
YouGov (Rated
Research Co (RatedB) Biden 50% Trump 42%
Clearly it seems to be tightening a bit towards Trump as was expected as we enter the last 2 weeks but Biden has been so consitantly around 50% or just over with most pollsters for so long is it enough for Trump? With the state polls still looking good for Biden , time is running out for the Don.
Of course in two weeks we could all be saying 'we should have listened to Trafalgar and IBD (to a lesser degree) all along
Co/efficient Kansas
Biden 39% (-2)
Trump 56% (+3)
Changes from 29th September.
Could Trump’s alleged “swing back” be incredibly inefficient?
Is there a market on the election going to court?
I do think we have things to learn from Sweden. Mostly on how NOT to do it given it has one of the very worst death tolls in the World (worse than Scotland in fact). But a couple of positive examples as well.
Just spent the morning trawling the internet for info on testing methods, and it looks very much as though there will very very soon be reliable, readily available and quick tests. At the moment one is often waiting several days for a result (I've just waited since Sunday..... told today I was negative Yippee). However there are two or three tests coming to the market which will give a result within minutes and are practical to use.They'd certainly be practical for airline travel...... Heathrow and San Francisco are already doing trials and are app-related and give a dated result which can be shown to anyone who needs to see.
And if you only look at anything that agrees and ignore everything that contradicts, well, the "evidence" is overwhelming.
In early July cases were well below 1000 a day, they are now over 15000 each day.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on how masks have helped?
Question is are all pollsters seeing movement, looks like so far it's a bit mixed but there has been a small narrowing 1-2 points.
Trump needs to hope it's not going to level out at 8-9 again, and if it's not will it fall fast enough and can he start pulling Biden voters away.
Or why Japan appears to have hardly any corvid cases from the start?
They are trying to lose.
Income disparity damages the opportunities for everyone. So we have to evolve away from the fuck you me me me culture that has sadly become embedded in recent decades. The only way we are going to do that is via the promotion of society and the good of all. We actually made a significant move in that direction earlier this year, now utterly squandered with the return of divide the plebs.
Shy Trump voters not responding to polls makes up another 20 million?
And I'm not saying that as a piss take.
Do any of these freebies ever get taken away once they are issued? Very few and the people calling them temporary now would be the first to complain when they are removed later.
That being said... Florida, Texas and a few others will report fully on the night (assuming it's not *really* close), so it's possible that we can determine the winner as early as midnight UK time, if biden has won Florida for example.
https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1318917611636150272
Biden 48%
Trump 46%
Perhaps this is a great time to be SKS and a less great time to be PM. I wonder what SKS's long term strategy would be, about Covid, Brexit or anything else. I think he is very grateful he doesn't need to say.
"Don't ask him your honour....they're both in it together!"
"Who's asking you Hancock?"
Fair enough, but there is a huge class of problems to which reactive, short term approaches are all that's available: shaving one's face, mowing one's lawn, cleaning one's house, painting the Forth Bridge. A long-term framework within which to take repeated temporary remedial action may be all that's available. Certainly there has been concerted action in the last month to introduce us to the idea that taking a vaccine may be just an enhancement of the current strategy rather than a replacement of it.
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1318924531092828162?s=21
PB Tories simply cannot oppose Khan on economic grounds when Johnson did such a piss poor job
Did we ever get to the bottom of the IBD Tipp methodology? It's the same as yesterday I think?
Compassion. What an odd hill to die on, again!
"Voters have cast a total of 39,951,097 ballots in the reporting states."
IIRC: New York, Arkansas, Missouri and Delaware are not yet reporting.