It should end with a protracted mano a mano knife fight on the bridge where you don't know which way it's going to go, until suddenly the chief protagonist is impaled at an unexpected moment.
It should end with a protracted mano a mano knife fight on the bridge where you don't know which way it's going to go, until suddenly the chief protagonist is impaled at an unexpected moment.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
This is us in two weeks then.
I really can’t see how schools will be able to stay open under such circumstances. It’s already running rampant through them and if vulnerable teachers have to shield then the whole system will implode again.
Plus we’re already all completely worn out and the children are exploding under the restrictions even though so far we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather.
My son’s primary is fine, and all the children and teachers seem delighted to be back.
You seem desperate for the schools to close.
Listen to me, Mr Pompous Stuck Up Last Boy Scout or whatever you’re calling yourself today, because I won’t repeat this. If you were literate and had read my earlier comments, you would know I opposed both the shutting of schools and the cancelling of exams. I felt both calls were made too soon, and were both damaging and unnecessary.
But that was then, and this is now.
Since I went back in September I have been walking far more than normal carrying heavy loads and I am having severe problems with my legs and back as a result. I am trying to teach children forced to sit in one seat all day because if they move from it at all it buggers up the Covid strategy. I am ordered to stand in a box that somehow magically insulates me from this virus even though when in it I am less than 75 cm from children who then test positive for Covid. I am teaching in unheated classrooms and forced to keep windows open because some drug addled moron in the civil service thinks that will magically stop the virus being transmitted among children who are packed like sardines.
I have taken three days off sick in my life. All have been since the start of Covid.
The sick list last week was skyrocketing. Staff and children. Everyone is strained, and everyone is exhausted. I am in addition to dealing with my own physical problems having to provide extensive cover for colleagues. One more going off and we would have been in big trouble. In fact, we were already at panic stations on Thursday in case we couldn’t open Friday. And it’s not just Covid. Exhaustion and muscular problems account for around half.
And my reward, when I say this isn’t sustainable for the the not wholly ridiculous reason that it isn’t, is to be sneered at by somebody who would clearly make Dominic Cummings look intelligent, sophisticated and knowledgeable, on the basis of anecdotal evidence derived from limited experience. Do you really think they’re going to say how much they hate the restrictions and they wish you and your child would get stuffed?
I don’t want schools to shut. I teach. I enjoy teaching and I am good at it. But equally this cannot go on and if we have skyrocketing infection rates whatever those drug addled fellow low lifes of yours in the Department for Education thinks, we will have to shut schools down.
So my answer to your dishonest personal attack is - fuck off. Take your nastiness and condescension home and I hope it chokes you.
I just wanted to say thanks for the job you and your colleagues are doing in educating the children during this time. As I said before, the only logic I can see for a circuit breaker would be to give the schools system a break and teachers a rest. It must be absolutely awful right now with all of these measures. I think two weeks off for half term and then three weeks off for Xmas would have worked well to halt the infection rate as we know from SAGE that schools and universities are a huge source (main?) of transmission. Closing them for two and then three weeks may actually have helped but we'll never know now.
Leaving aside @ydoethur's shortcomings as a punsmith when judged against the very best, I would have said that the job he continues to do when many of us would have called in sick deserves every bit as much admiration and gratitude as that done by anyone in the NHS. Especially from the parents of school age children. I would be more comfortable if attempts to white-feather him were to cease.
Hear, hear - he and other teachers are doing a very good job in difficult conditions.
Just stowaways, it sounds like. Economic migrants for those who like to think in those terms.
My guess is that things got difficult when the stowaways realised the crew weren’t simply going to let them off or turn them in when they reached Southampton.
There are new helicopters heading out to the ship now, not sure why.
It should end with a protracted mano a mano knife fight on the bridge where you don't know which way it's going to go, until suddenly the chief protagonist is impaled at an unexpected moment.
And Steven Seagal emerges from the cake.
I'm disappointed no-one got my North Sea Hijack reference earlier.
Well, that is some good news. So there wasn’t a major disaster on the cards.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
For all the mistakes I do not think HMG have performed much worse than other governments to be fair
You need to get your eyes tested. On second thoughts don’t.
I have my eyes tested every year as at my age I need to be sure I can drive safely
However I do not expect you to be independent in your assessment as you have your own political views
That old chestnut. Whilst we can’t meet you exquisite impartiality standards BigG 😂, even the government says it hasn’t kept its promises.
Glad you get your eyes tested, the Barnard Castle branch of Specsavers no doubt..
No - Llandudno Boots
Unlike the Barnard Castle story, they’re not cobblers.
Surely a shoe in? Indeed Cummings seems to have put a sock in it recently.
Well, that is some good news. So there wasn’t a major disaster on the cards.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
Indeed but it looks like they stowed away in Nigeria
Well, that is some good news. So there wasn’t a major disaster on the cards.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
Insofar as we have a story so far, it seems the crew retreated to and secured the secure area on the ship, rather than that the stowaways attempted to take over. Who had control of the ship thereafter isn’t clear.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
This is us in two weeks then.
I really can’t see how schools will be able to stay open under such circumstances. It’s already running rampant through them and if vulnerable teachers have to shield then the whole system will implode again.
Plus we’re already all completely worn out and the children are exploding under the restrictions even though so far we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather.
My son’s primary is fine, and all the children and teachers seem delighted to be back.
You seem desperate for the schools to close.
Listen to me, Mr Pompous Stuck Up Last Boy Scout or whatever you’re calling yourself today, because I won’t repeat this. If you were literate and had read my earlier comments, you would know I opposed both the shutting of schools and the cancelling of exams. I felt both calls were made too soon, and were both damaging and unnecessary.
But that was then, and this is now.
Since I went back in September I have been walking far more than normal carrying heavy loads and I am having severe problems with my legs and back as a result. I am trying to teach children forced to sit in one seat all day because if they move from it at all it buggers up the Covid strategy. I am ordered to stand in a box that somehow magically insulates me from this virus even though when in it I am less than 75 cm from children who then test positive for Covid. I am teaching in unheated classrooms and forced to keep windows open because some drug addled moron in the civil service thinks that will magically stop the virus being transmitted among children who are packed like sardines.
I have taken three days off sick in my life. All have been since the start of Covid.
The sick list last week was skyrocketing. Staff and children. Everyone is strained, and everyone is exhausted. I am in addition to dealing with my own physical problems having to provide extensive cover for colleagues. One more going off and we would have been in big trouble. In fact, we were already at panic stations on Thursday in case we couldn’t open Friday. And it’s not just Covid. Exhaustion and muscular problems account for around half.
And my reward, when I say this isn’t sustainable for the the not wholly ridiculous reason that it isn’t, is to be sneered at by somebody who would clearly make Dominic Cummings look intelligent, sophisticated and knowledgeable, on the basis of anecdotal evidence derived from limited experience. Do you really think they’re going to say how much they hate the restrictions and they wish you and your child would get stuffed?
I don’t want schools to shut. I teach. I enjoy teaching and I am good at it. But equally this cannot go on and if we have skyrocketing infection rates whatever those drug addled fellow low lifes of yours in the Department for Education thinks, we will have to shut schools down.
So my answer to your dishonest personal attack is - fuck off. Take your nastiness and condescension home and I hope it chokes you.
I just wanted to say thanks for the job you and your colleagues are doing in educating the children during this time. As I said before, the only logic I can see for a circuit breaker would be to give the schools system a break and teachers a rest. It must be absolutely awful right now with all of these measures. I think two weeks off for half term and then three weeks off for Xmas would have worked well to halt the infection rate as we know from SAGE that schools and universities are a huge source (main?) of transmission. Closing them for two and then three weeks may actually have helped but we'll never know now.
Seconded. Had lunch with a teacher mate this weekend. Private school so two week half term. He is half way through and feeling fortified for next half.
Frankly, I think we might need to throw all the R budget at keeping the primary kids at school throughout, and if this means some online learning for secondaries, so be it.
Well, that is some good news. So there wasn’t a major disaster on the cards.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
Indeed but it looks like they stowed away in Nigeria
Reports say the crew knew they were there. My guess is that the crew pre-planned to do nothing until they approached port, then put their plan into action, making themselves safe and radioing for help. Apparently the incident has been ongoing since this morning, although the drama has unfolded only this evening.
It should end with a protracted mano a mano knife fight on the bridge where you don't know which way it's going to go, until suddenly the chief protagonist is impaled at an unexpected moment.
And Steven Seagal emerges from the cake.
I'm disappointed no-one got my North Sea Hijack reference earlier.
I had never heard of it. Looks nice and short but sadly not on nf or prime.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
This is us in two weeks then.
I really can’t see how schools will be able to stay open under such circumstances. It’s already running rampant through them and if vulnerable teachers have to shield then the whole system will implode again.
Plus we’re already all completely worn out and the children are exploding under the restrictions even though so far we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather.
My son’s primary is fine, and all the children and teachers seem delighted to be back.
You seem desperate for the schools to close.
Listen to me, Mr Pompous Stuck Up Last Boy Scout or whatever you’re calling yourself today, because I won’t repeat this. If you were literate and had read my earlier comments, you would know I opposed both the shutting of schools and the cancelling of exams. I felt both calls were made too soon, and were both damaging and unnecessary.
But that was then, and this is now.
Since I went back in September I have been walking far more than normal carrying heavy loads and I am having severe problems with my legs and back as a result. I am trying to teach children forced to sit in one seat all day because if they move from it at all it buggers up the Covid strategy. I am ordered to stand in a box that somehow magically insulates me from this virus even though when in it I am less than 75 cm from children who then test positive for Covid. I am teaching in unheated classrooms and forced to keep windows open because some drug addled moron in the civil service thinks that will magically stop the virus being transmitted among children who are packed like sardines.
I have taken three days off sick in my life. All have been since the start of Covid.
The sick list last week was skyrocketing. Staff and children. Everyone is strained, and everyone is exhausted. I am in addition to dealing with my own physical problems having to provide extensive cover for colleagues. One more going off and we would have been in big trouble. In fact, we were already at panic stations on Thursday in case we couldn’t open Friday. And it’s not just Covid. Exhaustion and muscular problems account for around half.
And my reward, when I say this isn’t sustainable for the the not wholly ridiculous reason that it isn’t, is to be sneered at by somebody who would clearly make Dominic Cummings look intelligent, sophisticated and knowledgeable, on the basis of anecdotal evidence derived from limited experience. Do you really think they’re going to say how much they hate the restrictions and they wish you and your child would get stuffed?
I don’t want schools to shut. I teach. I enjoy teaching and I am good at it. But equally this cannot go on and if we have skyrocketing infection rates whatever those drug addled fellow low lifes of yours in the Department for Education thinks, we will have to shut schools down.
So my answer to your dishonest personal attack is - fuck off. Take your nastiness and condescension home and I hope it chokes you.
I just wanted to say thanks for the job you and your colleagues are doing in educating the children during this time. As I said before, the only logic I can see for a circuit breaker would be to give the schools system a break and teachers a rest. It must be absolutely awful right now with all of these measures. I think two weeks off for half term and then three weeks off for Xmas would have worked well to halt the infection rate as we know from SAGE that schools and universities are a huge source (main?) of transmission. Closing them for two and then three weeks may actually have helped but we'll never know now.
Thanks.
I am hoping it won’t come to that.
I’m just baffled as to how we can keep going if the sick list rises further. Bearing in mind we have very little protection of any sort when we’re teaching. We can’t wear masks, or visors, or even stay at distance in many cases. If the infection rate rises it will go scything through the profession.
There’s logic in two week half terms in October anyway, and some state schools are already moving to it. But this year it would have made the most sense of all. Leaving aside Covid, two weeks off and I could have dealt with six more weeks...on one, I don’t know if I can manage seven.
Well, that is some good news. So there wasn’t a major disaster on the cards.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
Indeed but it looks like they stowed away in Nigeria
Reports say the crew knew they were there. My guess is that the crew pre-planned to do nothing until they approached port, then put their plan into action, making themselves safe and radioing for help. Apparently the incident has been ongoing since this morning, although the drama has unfolded only this evening.
This site seems replete with amateur epidemiologists and experts on a wide range of matters animal, vegetable and doubtless mineral.
I'm reading that the arrival of Covid-19 has led to a sharp fall off in instances of other flu viruses. This was first observed in the Southern Hemisphere winter and is now occurring elsewhere.
Now, why is this ? I'm left with two hypotheses which may or may not be conflicting but I'd welcome any thoughts:
1) Public health and personal hygiene has been transformed by the Covid experience. Whether through the wearing of masks, widespread of sanitiser or whatever, there is such greater awareness of the possibility of infection than was the case just 12 months ago. Could this be inhibiting the spread of other "bugs" so not just flu viruses but even norovirus or other easily-transmitted viruses?
2) Is it possible viruses are in conflict with each other and Covid has simply supplanted other viruses and will now become the dominant "flu" virus (in various forms) for the next few decades? I believe this happened with Spanish Flu and later Asian Flu in that it became the dominant type of virus replacing the previous viruses? If so, immunity to Covid will presumably reduce its impact over time until a new mutation or a new virus appears to which no one will have any immunity?
Leaving aside @ydoethur's shortcomings as a punsmith when judged against the very best, I would have said that the job he continues to do when many of us would have called in sick deserves every bit as much admiration and gratitude as that done by anyone in the NHS. Especially from the parents of school age children. I would be more comfortable if attempts to white-feather him were to cease.
Hear, hear - he and other teachers are doing a very good job in difficult conditions.
He deserves our thanks.
Thanks Cyclefree.
One of my dearest friends teaches outside the uk, in a COVID hotspot. Trouble for him his son has cystic fibrosis. These are tough times for him. We have to remember that teachers are people, with lives outside the classroom. Education is tough at the best of times.
Well, that is some good news. So there wasn’t a major disaster on the cards.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
Indeed but it looks like they stowed away in Nigeria
Where Boko Haram are.
There was, forty years ago, a novel called The Black Tide, where terrorists hijacked two oil tankers and caused a major spill off the coast of Kent.
It’s slightly unnerving to see how easy it could have been to do that today if those stowaways had been terrorists on a full tanker instead of presumably economic migrants on a ship in ballast.
This site seems replete with amateur epidemiologists and experts on a wide range of matters animal, vegetable and doubtless mineral.
I'm reading that the arrival of Covid-19 has led to a sharp fall off in instances of other flu viruses. This was first observed in the Southern Hemisphere winter and is now occurring elsewhere.
Now, why is this ? I'm left with two hypotheses which may or may not be conflicting but I'd welcome any thoughts:
1) Public health and personal hygiene has been transformed by the Covid experience. Whether through the wearing of masks, widespread of sanitiser or whatever, there is such greater awareness of the possibility of infection than was the case just 12 months ago. Could this be inhibiting the spread of other "bugs" so not just flu viruses but even norovirus or other easily-transmitted viruses?
2) Is it possible viruses are in conflict with each other and Covid has simply supplanted other viruses and will now become the dominant "flu" virus (in various forms) for the next few decades? I believe this happened with Spanish Flu and later Asian Flu in that it became the dominant type of virus replacing the previous viruses? If so, immunity to Covid will presumably reduce its impact over time until a new mutation or a new virus appears to which no one will have any immunity?
Given all the precautions people are taking, surely it isn’t any surprise that ‘normal’ flu is going to have a difficult year?
Leaving aside @ydoethur's shortcomings as a punsmith when judged against the very best, I would have said that the job he continues to do when many of us would have called in sick deserves every bit as much admiration and gratitude as that done by anyone in the NHS. Especially from the parents of school age children. I would be more comfortable if attempts to white-feather him were to cease.
Hear, hear - he and other teachers are doing a very good job in difficult conditions.
He deserves our thanks.
Thanks Cyclefree.
One of my dearest friends teaches outside the uk, in a COVID hotspot. Trouble for him his son has cystic fibrosis. These are tough times for him. We have to remember that teachers are people, with lives outside the classroom. Education is tough at the best of times.
Ouch. That’s a tough one, puts my situation in some perspective.
Its half term and I'm very glad about it. Teesside schools are awash with the pox, Mrs RP's primary school has had a couple of close shaves, my daughter's primary school lost 3 classes to the pox which almost closed the whole school, my son's high school seems to be one of the very few in the area that hasn't had an outbreak and classes sent home.
The schools all know its coming. And can do sod all about it.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
This is us in two weeks then.
I really can’t see how schools will be able to stay open under such circumstances. It’s already running rampant through them and if vulnerable teachers have to shield then the whole system will implode again.
Plus we’re already all completely worn out and the children are exploding under the restrictions even though so far we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather.
My son’s primary is fine, and all the children and teachers seem delighted to be back.
You seem desperate for the schools to close.
Listen to me, Mr Pompous Stuck Up Last Boy Scout or whatever you’re calling yourself today, because I won’t repeat this. If you were literate and had read my earlier comments, you would know I opposed both the shutting of schools and the cancelling of exams. I felt both calls were made too soon, and were both damaging and unnecessary.
But that was then, and this is now.
Since I went back in September I have been walking far more than normal carrying heavy loads and I am having severe problems with my legs and back as a result. I am trying to teach children forced to sit in one seat all day because if they move from it at all it buggers up the Covid strategy. I am ordered to stand in a box that somehow magically insulates me from this virus even though when in it I am less than 75 cm from children who then test positive for Covid. I am teaching in unheated classrooms and forced to keep windows open because some drug addled moron in the civil service thinks that will magically stop the virus being transmitted among children who are packed like sardines.
I have taken three days off sick in my life. All have been since the start of Covid.
The sick list last week was skyrocketing. Staff and children. Everyone is strained, and everyone is exhausted. I am in addition to dealing with my own physical problems having to provide extensive cover for colleagues. One more going off and we would have been in big trouble. In fact, we were already at panic stations on Thursday in case we couldn’t open Friday. And it’s not just Covid. Exhaustion and muscular problems account for around half.
And my reward, when I say this isn’t sustainable for the the not wholly ridiculous reason that it isn’t, is to be sneered at by somebody who would clearly make Dominic Cummings look intelligent, sophisticated and knowledgeable, on the basis of anecdotal evidence derived from limited experience. Do you really think they’re going to say how much they hate the restrictions and they wish you and your child would get stuffed?
I don’t want schools to shut. I teach. I enjoy teaching and I am good at it. But equally this cannot go on and if we have skyrocketing infection rates whatever those drug addled fellow low lifes of yours in the Department for Education thinks, we will have to shut schools down.
So my answer to your dishonest personal attack is - fuck off. Take your nastiness and condescension home and I hope it chokes you.
I just wanted to say thanks for the job you and your colleagues are doing in educating the children during this time. As I said before, the only logic I can see for a circuit breaker would be to give the schools system a break and teachers a rest. It must be absolutely awful right now with all of these measures. I think two weeks off for half term and then three weeks off for Xmas would have worked well to halt the infection rate as we know from SAGE that schools and universities are a huge source (main?) of transmission. Closing them for two and then three weeks may actually have helped but we'll never know now.
Thanks.
I am hoping it won’t come to that.
I’m just baffled as to how we can keep going if the sick list rises further. Bearing in mind we have very little protection of any sort when we’re teaching. We can’t wear masks, or visors, or even stay at distance in many cases. If the infection rate rises it will go scything through the profession.
There’s logic in two week half terms in October anyway, and some state schools are already moving to it. But this year it would have made the most sense of all. Leaving aside Covid, two weeks off and I could have dealt with six more weeks...on one, I don’t know if I can manage seven.
My older daughter’s school is doing its very best to stay open. But I fear the worst. Just look at Belgium, their second wave is so bad they are running out of police to put on the streets to enforce the severe curfews.
We’re fucked. Some schools will close again, maybe most or all of them: the chaos of covid ensures it. My respect for your attempts to Keep Calm and Carry On Teaching.
Well, that is some good news. So there wasn’t a major disaster on the cards.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
Indeed but it looks like they stowed away in Nigeria
Where Boko Haram are.
There was, forty years ago, a novel called The Black Tide, where terrorists hijacked two oil tankers and caused a major spill off the coast of Kent.
It’s slightly unnerving to see how easy it could have been to do that today if those stowaways had been terrorists on a full tanker instead of presumably economic migrants on a ship in ballast.
People have been thinking about this for at least 40 years, in the context of Somali piracy, and concluded that short of having a regiment of marines on board at all times, there is nothing you can do about it. Issuing weapons to civilian crew members is worse than useless against fully armed attackers in fast RIBs.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
This is us in two weeks then.
I really can’t see how schools will be able to stay open under such circumstances. It’s already running rampant through them and if vulnerable teachers have to shield then the whole system will implode again.
Plus we’re already all completely worn out and the children are exploding under the restrictions even though so far we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather.
My son’s primary is fine, and all the children and teachers seem delighted to be back.
You seem desperate for the schools to close.
Listen to me, Mr Pompous Stuck Up Last Boy Scout or whatever you’re calling yourself today, because I won’t repeat this. If you were literate and had read my earlier comments, you would know I opposed both the shutting of schools and the cancelling of exams. I felt both calls were made too soon, and were both damaging and unnecessary.
But that was then, and this is now.
Since I went back in September I have been walking far more than normal carrying heavy loads and I am having severe problems with my legs and back as a result. I am trying to teach children forced to sit in one seat all day because if they move from it at all it buggers up the Covid strategy. I am ordered to stand in a box that somehow magically insulates me from this virus even though when in it I am less than 75 cm from children who then test positive for Covid. I am teaching in unheated classrooms and forced to keep windows open because some drug addled moron in the civil service thinks that will magically stop the virus being transmitted among children who are packed like sardines.
I have taken three days off sick in my life. All have been since the start of Covid.
The sick list last week was skyrocketing. Staff and children. Everyone is strained, and everyone is exhausted. I am in addition to dealing with my own physical problems having to provide extensive cover for colleagues. One more going off and we would have been in big trouble. In fact, we were already at panic stations on Thursday in case we couldn’t open Friday. And it’s not just Covid. Exhaustion and muscular problems account for around half.
And my reward, when I say this isn’t sustainable for the the not wholly ridiculous reason that it isn’t, is to be sneered at by somebody who would clearly make Dominic Cummings look intelligent, sophisticated and knowledgeable, on the basis of anecdotal evidence derived from limited experience. Do you really think they’re going to say how much they hate the restrictions and they wish you and your child would get stuffed?
I don’t want schools to shut. I teach. I enjoy teaching and I am good at it. But equally this cannot go on and if we have skyrocketing infection rates whatever those drug addled fellow low lifes of yours in the Department for Education thinks, we will have to shut schools down.
So my answer to your dishonest personal attack is - fuck off. Take your nastiness and condescension home and I hope it chokes you.
I just wanted to say thanks for the job you and your colleagues are doing in educating the children during this time. As I said before, the only logic I can see for a circuit breaker would be to give the schools system a break and teachers a rest. It must be absolutely awful right now with all of these measures. I think two weeks off for half term and then three weeks off for Xmas would have worked well to halt the infection rate as we know from SAGE that schools and universities are a huge source (main?) of transmission. Closing them for two and then three weeks may actually have helped but we'll never know now.
Thanks.
I am hoping it won’t come to that.
I’m just baffled as to how we can keep going if the sick list rises further. Bearing in mind we have very little protection of any sort when we’re teaching. We can’t wear masks, or visors, or even stay at distance in many cases. If the infection rate rises it will go scything through the profession.
There’s logic in two week half terms in October anyway, and some state schools are already moving to it. But this year it would have made the most sense of all. Leaving aside Covid, two weeks off and I could have dealt with six more weeks...on one, I don’t know if I can manage seven.
I really feel for you and having my son involved near 24/7 keeping the schools IT going, including sending out 375 new i pads all security controlled to all the students last Friday it is remarkable how much innovation is taking place
However the stress you describe is understandable and you and all your colleagues have the thanks of whole nation as the nations children's education is so essential for the future
Its half term and I'm very glad about it. Teesside schools are awash with the pox, Mrs RP's primary school has had a couple of close shaves, my daughter's primary school lost 3 classes to the pox which almost closed the whole school, my son's high school seems to be one of the very few in the area that hasn't had an outbreak and classes sent home.
The schools all know its coming. And can do sod all about it.
At the moment, what my school is doing is putting on extra classes after school and at weekends to try and catch up those pupils who fell behind in the first lockdown so they don’t fall even more hopelessly behind in a second one.
One reason I am grumpy at the moment is because, as a single man living alone and therefore not vulnerable, I offered to teach them. Which is yet another reason I am under pressure.
And although I am being paid, I didn’t offer for the money. After all, I have a very large salary and the rental income from the house.
Closing schools is insanity. They have already been shut for six months and we cannot continue to ruin the lives and life chances of the young (and poor) to protect the old (and wealthy).
If the regulations in @ydoethur ’s school are as bad as he describes, change the effing regulations.
Anyway, even though it is half term, I am falling asleep so I’m going to head off to bed. Thank you to everyone for your kind words and messages of support. They do help.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Closing schools is insanity. They have already been shut for six months and we cannot continue to ruin the lives and life chances of the young (and poor) to protect the old (and wealthy).
If the regulations in @ydoethur ’s school are as bad as he describes, change the effing regulations.
It’s not about whether we WANT to shut them. Nobody wants that, despite your insinuations to the contrary. It’s about whether we can keep them functioning. That’s what I cannot see being possible if things get significantly worse. At the moment, they are barely manageable and worse weather alone is going to have a negative effect.
Anyway, even though it is half term, I am falling asleep so I’m going to head off to bed. Thank you to everyone for your kind words and messages of support. They do help.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids...and don't get sick over the next 10 years, as they will still be clearing the backlog.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
For all the mistakes I do not think HMG have performed much worse than other governments to be fair
What we're seeing now is the difference between a Prime Minister who's on top of his brief (Cameron) and an extremely lazy and slapdash one (Johnson).
Cameron would have closed this down by Friday last week, and amended the narrative by pushing the issue onto his turf. He got criticised for being an "essay crisis" PM for that but at least he recognised a crisis when he saw one, and actually wrote the essay and got it in on time. He'd have learnt lessons from it on how to avoid it again.
Boris simply can't be arsed. He doesn't do his red boxes. He doesn't think even one step ahead and just lets events happen. Meanwhile various backbenches and civil servants either stick to the Government's original message or try and triangulate with the developing political arguments, risking them looking stupid and foolish as things develop (and ultimately) change.
Eventually when things spiral out of control Boris realises he has no choice but to backpedal. By that stage he's surrendered all initiative and looks like he's reacting to events rather than shaping them, because he is.
There's a reason Max Hastings, Michael Howard, David Cameron and all the mayoral deputies who used to work for him thought he was useless - because he is.
Asleep at the wheel - with a suspended drivers license AND an open bottle of gin in the glove box.
Isn't that a US crime, the open bottle, rather than an English one?
Last time I rented a car in UK, was told cup-holders were illegal. BUT cruising about with an open container of alcohol is AOK?
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Its half term and I'm very glad about it. Teesside schools are awash with the pox, Mrs RP's primary school has had a couple of close shaves, my daughter's primary school lost 3 classes to the pox which almost closed the whole school, my son's high school seems to be one of the very few in the area that hasn't had an outbreak and classes sent home.
The schools all know its coming. And can do sod all about it.
At the moment, what my school is doing is putting on extra classes after school and at weekends to try and catch up those pupils who fell behind in the first lockdown so they don’t fall even more hopelessly behind in a second one.
One reason I am grumpy at the moment is because, as a single man living alone and therefore not vulnerable, I offered to teach them. Which is yet another reason I am under pressure.
And although I am being paid, I didn’t offer for the money. After all, I have a very large salary and the rental income from the house.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
For all the mistakes I do not think HMG have performed much worse than other governments to be fair
What we're seeing now is the difference between a Prime Minister who's on top of his brief (Cameron) and an extremely lazy and slapdash one (Johnson).
Cameron would have closed this down by Friday last week, and amended the narrative by pushing the issue onto his turf. He got criticised for being an "essay crisis" PM for that but at least he recognised a crisis when he saw one, and actually wrote the essay and got it in on time. He'd have learnt lessons from it on how to avoid it again.
Boris simply can't be arsed. He doesn't do his red boxes. He doesn't think even one step ahead and just lets events happen. Meanwhile various backbenches and civil servants either stick to the Government's original message or try and triangulate with the developing political arguments, risking them looking stupid and foolish as things develop (and ultimately) change.
Eventually when things spiral out of control Boris realises he has no choice but to backpedal. By that stage he's surrendered all initiative and looks like he's reacting to events rather than shaping them, because he is.
There's a reason Max Hastings, Michael Howard, David Cameron and all the mayoral deputies who used to work for him thought he was useless - because he is.
Asleep at the wheel - with a suspended drivers license AND an open bottle of gin in the glove box.
Isn't that a US crime, the open bottle, rather than an English one?
Last time I rented a car in UK, was told cup-holders were illegal. BUT cruising about with an open container of alcohol is AOK?
Why shouldn't it be? You are allowed to drink and drive, and in any case your passengers might like a drink. I've never heard that one about cup holders.
Closing schools is insanity. They have already been shut for six months and we cannot continue to ruin the lives and life chances of the young (and poor) to protect the old (and wealthy).
If the regulations in @ydoethur ’s school are as bad as he describes, change the effing regulations.
I want my kids to go to school. But it was entirely predictable that sending everyone back full time would create a massive problem and it has. You can't pack kids into classrooms and expect the virus NOT to be transmitted. You may not be worried about the health of my kids or my wife. But I am. And its fucking Russian roulette here in pox land.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
I see the government failure on Covid-19 is being defended again on the basis of testing numbers. This is to miss the point.
Testing is good in that it gives you information, and without information you can do very little. But what really matters is what you do with that information, and in the UK that is basically bugger all.
Also, it's not good enough to be merely as bad as many other countries, and not the worst. We have had more than half a year to learn from the best countries. If other countries are also failing to learn lessons and improve then that is a matter of concern for their citizens. My voting rights are in the UK, and so that's where I will concentrate my criticism.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
Firstly, a portion of the model was auto-generated code from Fortran. Fortran...what did he code it on, a 486?
Secondly, nobody who knows what they are doing does statistical modelling in C these days...
Furthermore, it was single threaded, made no use of the likes of Intel MKL, Cuda or basically any modern programming suite of tools / libraries that people use for modelling complex problems.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
The early signs - on critical cases and deaths - are actually pretty good, proportionately compared to the first wave. Aside from the North West, hospital ICUs are still pretty empty.
I always wonder if the members of the SBS ever get a tad pissed at the amount of hype over the brilliance and bravery of the SAS....
25 years back, the SBS used to get free advertising from being mentioned in every single newspaper article about LibDem boss Paddy Ashdown. The SAS, on the other hand, ended Michael Portillo's career when one ill-judged speech meant he was never again taken seriously.
Closing schools is insanity. They have already been shut for six months and we cannot continue to ruin the lives and life chances of the young (and poor) to protect the old (and wealthy).
If the regulations in @ydoethur ’s school are as bad as he describes, change the effing regulations.
I want my kids to go to school. But it was entirely predictable that sending everyone back full time would create a massive problem and it has. You can't pack kids into classrooms and expect the virus NOT to be transmitted. You may not be worried about the health of my kids or my wife. But I am. And its fucking Russian roulette here in pox land.
So you advocate closing the schools?
I have a son at school, and he is loving being back, as are my niece and nephew.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
You just have to look at Spanish flu - the second wave was the worst.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
For all the mistakes I do not think HMG have performed much worse than other governments to be fair
What we're seeing now is the difference between a Prime Minister who's on top of his brief (Cameron) and an extremely lazy and slapdash one (Johnson).
Cameron would have closed this down by Friday last week, and amended the narrative by pushing the issue onto his turf. He got criticised for being an "essay crisis" PM for that but at least he recognised a crisis when he saw one, and actually wrote the essay and got it in on time. He'd have learnt lessons from it on how to avoid it again.
Boris simply can't be arsed. He doesn't do his red boxes. He doesn't think even one step ahead and just lets events happen. Meanwhile various backbenches and civil servants either stick to the Government's original message or try and triangulate with the developing political arguments, risking them looking stupid and foolish as things develop (and ultimately) change.
Eventually when things spiral out of control Boris realises he has no choice but to backpedal. By that stage he's surrendered all initiative and looks like he's reacting to events rather than shaping them, because he is.
There's a reason Max Hastings, Michael Howard, David Cameron and all the mayoral deputies who used to work for him thought he was useless - because he is.
Asleep at the wheel - with a suspended drivers license AND an open bottle of gin in the glove box.
Isn't that a US crime, the open bottle, rather than an English one?
Last time I rented a car in UK, was told cup-holders were illegal. BUT cruising about with an open container of alcohol is AOK?
Why shouldn't it be? You are allowed to drink and drive, and in any case your passengers might like a drink. I've never heard that one about cup holders.
You are allowed to drink HOW MUCH and drive? As for cupholders, that's what I was told at time, can't remember by whom.
In US laws vary state to state, but open container inside vehicle is no-no everywhere; if you've got one with you, supposed to put it in truck (boot to you) or lock it in glove box (whatever you call it).
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
The early signs - on critical cases and deaths - are actually pretty good, proportionately compared to the first wave. Aside from the North West, hospital ICUs are still pretty empty.
Clearly, I hope you are right.
However it all depends where we are on the curve. Which is not obvious, as we are testing so much more than in the first wave, and therefore finding many more cases early on. Plus these new cases are in much younger people. So far.
If we are in the equivalent of March, then it’s hopeful. But if we are in the equivalent of Jan or early Feb, we’re in deep trouble. Health systems WILL be overwhelmed if this spreads to the more vulnerable.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
Single threaded C / Fortran code for mathematical modelling is the equivalent of trying to race in F1 today in the car from the Nigel Mansell era.
Everybody now have easy access to a range of libraries for using multi-threading on the CPU and distributed GPU computations for modelling complex problems.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
Firstly, a portion of the model was auto-generated code from Fortran. Fortran...what did he code it on, a 486?
Secondly, nobody who knows what they are doing does statistical modelling in C these days...
Furthermore, it was single threaded, made no use of the likes of Intel MKL, Cuda or basically any modern programming suite of tools / libraries that people use for modelling complex problems.
Given how simple the model is fundamentally, going parallel would have been pointless.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
You just have to look at Spanish flu - the second wave was the worst.
The 1918/9 flu was unusual in being more dangerous for younger people, particularly when it returned in mutated form for the second wave. So far, our Coronavirus has had the opposite, more common, age-risk profile.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
Single threaded C / Fortran code for mathematical modelling is the equivalent of trying to race in F1 today in the car from the Nigel Mansell era.
Everybody now have easy access to a range of libraries for using multi-threading on the CPU and distributed GPU computations for modelling complex problems.
You can certainly do multithreaded c there are libraries for it
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
Belgium. Switzerland. France. Spain. It’s starting to look like it’s not all false positives, with the entire populations already all-but-immune, despite what Toby Young, Alistair Haimes, Allison Pearson, Julia Hartley-Brewer and co keep telling us.
I’m starting to wonder if they might not be the sage and insightful experts they assure us they are.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
It does appear to be heading that way. Hopefully not. It could be brutal.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
Firstly, a portion of the model was auto-generated code from Fortran. Fortran...what did he code it on, a 486?
Secondly, nobody who knows what they are doing does statistical modelling in C these days...
Furthermore, it was single threaded, made no use of the likes of Intel MKL, Cuda or basically any modern programming suite of tools / libraries that people use for modelling complex problems.
Given how simple the model is fundamentally, going parallel would have been pointless.
My point is today anybody who knows what they are doing doesn't have to make that as a big design decision. Even if you aren't a coding whizz, it is trivial to make multi-threaded, use GPU, etc from the get go and the use of something like MKL (or a library built on it) is standard if you are considering doing mathematical modelling.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
The early signs - on critical cases and deaths - are actually pretty good, proportionately compared to the first wave. Aside from the North West, hospital ICUs are still pretty empty.
The bosses are looking a bit nervous now though. Mrs Foxy was emailed on Friday looking for theatre staff to work ICU.
Trafalgar have just slapped a NC poll up on their site.
And you are never going to believe it, it has exactly the same demographics as the one from September.
Outstanding consistency
Likely they've got some techie who takes txt & robo push-button responses to push-polling questions (where the REAL point is message NOT the response) then re-configures results based on demographics obtained from source OTHER than the actual texts & calls.
Then Cahaly pumps it out as another Trafalgar Group "poll".
This is all supposition - but it DOES fit the known facts (including TG's own vague "explanation" re: methodology) AND is certainly right in the Lee Atwater - Karl Rove (remember him?) wheelhouse.
Nah, the polls appear g on their website are just made up. The 3 that appeared today and caused a stir are genuine-but-crap. Notice
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
John Carmack looked at the code and said it looked fine.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
Belgium. Switzerland. France. Spain. It’s starting to look like it’s not all false positives, with the entire populations already all-but-immune, despite what Toby Young, Alistair Haimes, Allison Pearson, Julia Hartley-Brewer and co keep telling us.
I’m starting to wonder if they might not be the sage and insightful experts they assure us they are.
We’re testing the limitations of government by telegraph columnists and late night bbc2 review programmes.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
You just have to look at Spanish flu - the second wave was the worst.
It's possible the second wave will vindicate Sweden's approach while simultaneously making the arguments used by the lockdown sceptics look extremely foolish.
It should end with a protracted mano a mano knife fight on the bridge where you don't know which way it's going to go, until suddenly the chief protagonist is impaled at an unexpected moment.
Since it involved The Other Lot, surely the expected result would have been a series of smash cuts from the bad guys looking all confident, to them being hogtied. With no actual evidence of what happened.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
Single threaded C / Fortran code for mathematical modelling is the equivalent of trying to race in F1 today in the car from the Nigel Mansell era.
Everybody now have easy access to a range of libraries for using multi-threading on the CPU and distributed GPU computations for modelling complex problems.
You can certainly do multithreaded c there are libraries for it
I never said you couldn't....same as Nigel Mansell F1 car could go fast. My point was it is now built into modern libraries as standard, as is distributed GPU computations. Those looking to do mathematical modelling would not start with C, there are far better langauges and supprting tools.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
The early signs - on critical cases and deaths - are actually pretty good, proportionately compared to the first wave. Aside from the North West, hospital ICUs are still pretty empty.
Clearly, I hope you are right.
However it all depends where we are on the curve. Which is not obvious, as we are testing so much more than in the first wave, and therefore finding many more cases early on. Plus these new cases are in much younger people. So far.
If we are in the equivalent of March, then it’s hopeful. But if we are in the equivalent of Jan or early Feb, we’re in deep trouble. Health systems WILL be overwhelmed if this spreads to the more vulnerable.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
It does appear to be heading that way. Hopefully not. It could be brutal.
Does it? We’ve been entering this second wave for a month, now. Total UK critical cases, according to Worldometer data, is currently 743. Belgium - awash with new positive cases - about the same. Italy and Germany, interestingly behind us on new case numbers, have more in ICU, but not much above 1,000 each nationwide. So far, the second wave appears contagious but a lot less dangerous.
Yet we are damaging the economy with our policy response, as if it was the same.
Trafalgar have just slapped a NC poll up on their site.
And you are never going to believe it, it has exactly the same demographics as the one from September.
Outstanding consistency
Likely they've got some techie who takes txt & robo push-button responses to push-polling questions (where the REAL point is message NOT the response) then re-configures results based on demographics obtained from source OTHER than the actual texts & calls.
Then Cahaly pumps it out as another Trafalgar Group "poll".
This is all supposition - but it DOES fit the known facts (including TG's own vague "explanation" re: methodology) AND is certainly right in the Lee Atwater - Karl Rove (remember him?) wheelhouse.
Nah, the polls appear g on their website are just made up. The 3 that appeared today and caused a stir are genuine-but-crap. Notice
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
John Carmack looked at the code and said it looked fine.
That is more than good enough for me.
Me too. The point I was making was merely that C is an old language but that doesn't make it obsolete. I wasn't arguing it was the right choice for this however I said I didn't know as hadn't seen the model.
Half the computer world still runs on C, apache web servers, linux, most embedded stuff etc.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
For all the mistakes I do not think HMG have performed much worse than other governments to be fair
What we're seeing now is the difference between a Prime Minister who's on top of his brief (Cameron) and an extremely lazy and slapdash one (Johnson).
Cameron would have closed this down by Friday last week, and amended the narrative by pushing the issue onto his turf. He got criticised for being an "essay crisis" PM for that but at least he recognised a crisis when he saw one, and actually wrote the essay and got it in on time. He'd have learnt lessons from it on how to avoid it again.
Boris simply can't be arsed. He doesn't do his red boxes. He doesn't think even one step ahead and just lets events happen. Meanwhile various backbenches and civil servants either stick to the Government's original message or try and triangulate with the developing political arguments, risking them looking stupid and foolish as things develop (and ultimately) change.
Eventually when things spiral out of control Boris realises he has no choice but to backpedal. By that stage he's surrendered all initiative and looks like he's reacting to events rather than shaping them, because he is.
There's a reason Max Hastings, Michael Howard, David Cameron and all the mayoral deputies who used to work for him thought he was useless - because he is.
Asleep at the wheel - with a suspended drivers license AND an open bottle of gin in the glove box.
Isn't that a US crime, the open bottle, rather than an English one?
Last time I rented a car in UK, was told cup-holders were illegal. BUT cruising about with an open container of alcohol is AOK?
Why shouldn't it be? You are allowed to drink and drive, and in any case your passengers might like a drink. I've never heard that one about cup holders.
You are allowed to drink HOW MUCH and drive? As for cupholders, that's what I was told at time, can't remember by whom.
In US laws vary state to state, but open container inside vehicle is no-no everywhere; if you've got one with you, supposed to put it in truck (boot to you) or lock it in glove box (whatever you call it).
The limit is normally reckoned to be about a pint and a half of beer.
Leaving aside @ydoethur's shortcomings as a punsmith when judged against the very best, I would have said that the job he continues to do when many of us would have called in sick deserves every bit as much admiration and gratitude as that done by anyone in the NHS. Especially from the parents of school age children. I would be more comfortable if attempts to white-feather him were to cease.
Hear, hear - he and other teachers are doing a very good job in difficult conditions.
He deserves our thanks.
Thanks Cyclefree.
Agreed. Teachers get either taken for granted or regularly criticised. And by some, both at the same time.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
Firstly, a portion of the model was auto-generated code from Fortran. Fortran...what did he code it on, a 486?
Secondly, nobody who knows what they are doing does statistical modelling in C these days...
Furthermore, it was single threaded, made no use of the likes of Intel MKL, Cuda or basically any modern programming suite of tools / libraries that people use for modelling complex problems.
You might want to check those python stats libraries. I'm told they are often just syntactic sugar over C and more often Fortran routines.
But you are right. No-one codes these models in C any more but Ferguson's model was a research tool written more than a decade ago, pressed back into service for want of anything better.
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
It does appear to be heading that way. Hopefully not. It could be brutal.
Does it? We’ve been entering this second wave for a month, now. Total UK critical cases, according to Worldometer data, is currently 743. Belgium - awash with new positive cases - about the same. Italy and Germany, interestingly behind us on new case numbers, have more in ICU, but not much above 1,000 each nationwide. So far, the second wave appears contagious but a lot less dangerous.
Yet we are damaging the economy with our policy response, as if it was the same.
Trouble is you could take action, limit the impact of a second wave and then get blamed for over reacting.
Why do some people want to see problems occur before taking action? It’s like giving up fags on the way home from the Marsden.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
For all the mistakes I do not think HMG have performed much worse than other governments to be fair
What we're seeing now is the difference between a Prime Minister who's on top of his brief (Cameron) and an extremely lazy and slapdash one (Johnson).
Cameron would have closed this down by Friday last week, and amended the narrative by pushing the issue onto his turf. He got criticised for being an "essay crisis" PM for that but at least he recognised a crisis when he saw one, and actually wrote the essay and got it in on time. He'd have learnt lessons from it on how to avoid it again.
Boris simply can't be arsed. He doesn't do his red boxes. He doesn't think even one step ahead and just lets events happen. Meanwhile various backbenches and civil servants either stick to the Government's original message or try and triangulate with the developing political arguments, risking them looking stupid and foolish as things develop (and ultimately) change.
Eventually when things spiral out of control Boris realises he has no choice but to backpedal. By that stage he's surrendered all initiative and looks like he's reacting to events rather than shaping them, because he is.
There's a reason Max Hastings, Michael Howard, David Cameron and all the mayoral deputies who used to work for him thought he was useless - because he is.
Asleep at the wheel - with a suspended drivers license AND an open bottle of gin in the glove box.
Isn't that a US crime, the open bottle, rather than an English one?
Last time I rented a car in UK, was told cup-holders were illegal. BUT cruising about with an open container of alcohol is AOK?
I'm not familiar with English as opposed to Scots law. But as far as I know it is fine. It is the blood content of alcohol that counts - though an open container would probably get you breathalysed if Mr Police observed it.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
Single threaded C / Fortran code for mathematical modelling is the equivalent of trying to race in F1 today in the car from the Nigel Mansell era.
Everybody now have easy access to a range of libraries for using multi-threading on the CPU and distributed GPU computations for modelling complex problems.
You can certainly do multithreaded c there are libraries for it
I never said you couldn't....same as Nigel Mansell F1 car could go fast. My point was it is now built into modern libraries as standard, as is distributed GPU computations. Those looking to do mathematical modelling would not start with C, there are far better langauges and supprting tools.
The man writing it probably wasnt a programmer however he was an epidemiologist and used the tools he knew. Multi threading a parallelism is over rated. Its important when you want the results fast. When you are happy to let the program take longer and it doesnt need to run as fast as possible then its largely irrelevant
Welcome back @LadyG - hope you managed your road trip safely.
Ta. I’m still on it. So far it’s been a mixture of highly enjoyable and very sobering. Saw lots of family, had quite jolly times, made the most of Cornish sun and good seafood. But today I met a friend in Devon who I haven’t seen for a year (partly because Covid). He gave me the full roster of troubles in one group of acquaintances: debt, despair, bankruptcy, divorce, death, the works.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
Wait until the bills for this start to come in....everybody is going to be paying for this for the rest of their lives, and so are their kids.
What freaked me out today was a quote from a senior Swiss official (I forget where I read it, apologies) who warned his nation to expect a second wave “much much worse” than the first, including deaths.
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
It does appear to be heading that way. Hopefully not. It could be brutal.
Does it? We’ve been entering this second wave for a month, now. Total UK critical cases, according to Worldometer data, is currently 743. Belgium - awash with new positive cases - about the same. Italy and Germany, interestingly behind us on new case numbers, have more in ICU, but not much above 1,000 each nationwide. So far, the second wave appears contagious but a lot less dangerous.
Yet we are damaging the economy with our policy response, as if it was the same.
ONS weekly deaths is doubling every 2 weeks.
Exponential is a killer. Nothing happens then everything happens at once.
Trafalgar have just slapped a NC poll up on their site.
And you are never going to believe it, it has exactly the same demographics as the one from September.
Outstanding consistency
Likely they've got some techie who takes txt & robo push-button responses to push-polling questions (where the REAL point is message NOT the response) then re-configures results based on demographics obtained from source OTHER than the actual texts & calls.
Then Cahaly pumps it out as another Trafalgar Group "poll".
This is all supposition - but it DOES fit the known facts (including TG's own vague "explanation" re: methodology) AND is certainly right in the Lee Atwater - Karl Rove (remember him?) wheelhouse.
Nah, the polls appear g on their website are just made up. The 3 that appeared today and caused a stir are genuine-but-crap. Notice
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
John Carmack looked at the code and said it looked fine.
That is more than good enough for me.
Me too. The point I was making was merely that C is an old language but that doesn't make it obsolete. I wasn't arguing it was the right choice for this however I said I didn't know as hadn't seen the model.
Half the computer world still runs on C, apache web servers, linux, most embedded stuff etc.
It is effectively obselete for those supposed doing state of the art mathematical modelling, which was what i was talking about (not that servers run on loads of c code). That is what we were arguing, that they world leading experts are using totally out of date approaches.
It is like the using of excel to collate the testing data. It works, but nobody who knows what they are doing would use that.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
For all the mistakes I do not think HMG have performed much worse than other governments to be fair
What we're seeing now is the difference between a Prime Minister who's on top of his brief (Cameron) and an extremely lazy and slapdash one (Johnson).
Cameron would have closed this down by Friday last week, and amended the narrative by pushing the issue onto his turf. He got criticised for being an "essay crisis" PM for that but at least he recognised a crisis when he saw one, and actually wrote the essay and got it in on time. He'd have learnt lessons from it on how to avoid it again.
Boris simply can't be arsed. He doesn't do his red boxes. He doesn't think even one step ahead and just lets events happen. Meanwhile various backbenches and civil servants either stick to the Government's original message or try and triangulate with the developing political arguments, risking them looking stupid and foolish as things develop (and ultimately) change.
Eventually when things spiral out of control Boris realises he has no choice but to backpedal. By that stage he's surrendered all initiative and looks like he's reacting to events rather than shaping them, because he is.
There's a reason Max Hastings, Michael Howard, David Cameron and all the mayoral deputies who used to work for him thought he was useless - because he is.
Asleep at the wheel - with a suspended drivers license AND an open bottle of gin in the glove box.
Isn't that a US crime, the open bottle, rather than an English one?
Last time I rented a car in UK, was told cup-holders were illegal. BUT cruising about with an open container of alcohol is AOK?
Why shouldn't it be? You are allowed to drink and drive, and in any case your passengers might like a drink. I've never heard that one about cup holders.
You are allowed to drink HOW MUCH and drive? As for cupholders, that's what I was told at time, can't remember by whom.
In US laws vary state to state, but open container inside vehicle is no-no everywhere; if you've got one with you, supposed to put it in truck (boot to you) or lock it in glove box (whatever you call it).
The limit is normally reckoned to be about a pint and a half of beer.
Not in Scotland where it is lower than in England. De facto nil alcohol for a safety margin.
It is seriously worrying right across Europe just now
Tbf, this is us in two weeks unless the government gets a grip on self isolation and testing failures.
An honest question
Is anyone testing in Europe any better than the UK or Germany
Not particularly, I'd say that France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium testing is worse than our system, Germany and Italy probably marginally better.
Ultimately every country suffers from the same issue of people not isolating after testing positive. Nations who have effectively defeated the virus have very good isolation measures (Australia, NZ) or people who are responsible and isolate properly without needing special measures (SK, Japan).
We seem to delight in attacking our own system which I understand is near a 400,000 a day capacity and is not far off Germany.
And of course the countries who have best dealt with this are all in the Southern Hemisphere and in New Zealand case 1500 miles from nearest land in Australia and comprises two islands with wide open spaces
The British response to Corona has much to be proud of, with only the government letting the side down.
Not really, it's been very disorganised and people have been proved to be irresponsible and not isolating after testing positive and the state has been left wanting in many areas. Any thoughts of exceptionalism should have been washed away by the virus response both from the state and the people.
The NHS, academic and pharmaceutical contribution is world class.
Lots of questions over the academic response over this, especially early on. Many so called experts not leveraging standard modern tools. Much that everybody laughed at the use of Excel for of the testing data, we saw with the likes of Ferguson model is was a similar shit show of coding / obselete programming language and paradigms.
We are still seeing it now with the model for how effective a circuit breaker might be providing nonsensical results.
The obsolete programming language was C, used for linux and android and therefore probably the most important and most commonly deployed language. (Obscure namedrop: I was once stuck in a lift with that there Dennis Ritchie.) I've not been following modelgate but gather some Microsofties had a go at porting Ferguson's code to C++ for no readily apparent reason except that is what programmers like to do: reimplement the wheel in a new language.
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
C is most definitely not an obsolete language it is still widely used for good reasons. That is however not to say its necessarily the best to use for those models. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen the models but C is I believe still one of the top ten languages and is still the best to choose often for embedded purposes. Like everything it is the right tool for the right purpose.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
Single threaded C / Fortran code for mathematical modelling is the equivalent of trying to race in F1 today in the car from the Nigel Mansell era.
Everybody now have easy access to a range of libraries for using multi-threading on the CPU and distributed GPU computations for modelling complex problems.
You can certainly do multithreaded c there are libraries for it
I never said you couldn't....same as Nigel Mansell F1 car could go fast. My point was it is now built into modern libraries as standard, as is distributed GPU computations. Those looking to do mathematical modelling would not start with C, there are far better langauges and supprting tools.
The man writing it probably wasnt a programmer however he was an epidemiologist and used the tools he knew. Multi threading a parallelism is over rated. Its important when you want the results fast. When you are happy to let the program take longer and it doesnt need to run as fast as possible then its largely irrelevant
He probably ran the code whist sitting in an old office chair, whilst wearing old fashioned trainers. What a complete disgrace.
Comments
It should end with a protracted mano a mano knife fight on the bridge where you don't know which way it's going to go, until suddenly the chief protagonist is impaled at an unexpected moment.
https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-teacher-schools-i-love-my-job-i-cant-keep-going
Things are tough, and if infection rates keep going up, they will become impossibly tough. Thanks Cyclefree.
There are new helicopters heading out to the ship now, not sure why.
However, it is slightly disturbing that a modern vessel owned by a reputable company can apparently be hijacked by a few stowaways off the coast of one of the world’s leading military powers. That will be giving the likes of Boko Haram and maybe even Extinction Rebellion far too many ideas.
Frankly, I think we might need to throw all the R budget at keeping the primary kids at school throughout, and if this means some online learning for secondaries, so be it.
I am hoping it won’t come to that.
I’m just baffled as to how we can keep going if the sick list rises further. Bearing in mind we have very little protection of any sort when we’re teaching. We can’t wear masks, or visors, or even stay at distance in many cases. If the infection rate rises it will go scything through the profession.
There’s logic in two week half terms in October anyway, and some state schools are already moving to it. But this year it would have made the most sense of all. Leaving aside Covid, two weeks off and I could have dealt with six more weeks...on one, I don’t know if I can manage seven.
This site seems replete with amateur epidemiologists and experts on a wide range of matters animal, vegetable and doubtless mineral.
I'm reading that the arrival of Covid-19 has led to a sharp fall off in instances of other flu viruses. This was first observed in the Southern Hemisphere winter and is now occurring elsewhere.
Now, why is this ? I'm left with two hypotheses which may or may not be conflicting but I'd welcome any thoughts:
1) Public health and personal hygiene has been transformed by the Covid experience. Whether through the wearing of masks, widespread of sanitiser or whatever, there is such greater awareness of the possibility of infection than was the case just 12 months ago. Could this be inhibiting the spread of other "bugs" so not just flu viruses but even norovirus or other easily-transmitted viruses?
2) Is it possible viruses are in conflict with each other and Covid has simply supplanted other viruses and will now become the dominant "flu" virus (in various forms) for the next few decades? I believe this happened with Spanish Flu and later Asian Flu in that it became the dominant type of virus replacing the previous viruses? If so, immunity to Covid will presumably reduce its impact over time until a new mutation or a new virus appears to which no one will have any immunity?
There was, forty years ago, a novel called The Black Tide, where terrorists hijacked two oil tankers and caused a major spill off the coast of Kent.
It’s slightly unnerving to see how easy it could have been to do that today if those stowaways had been terrorists on a full tanker instead of presumably economic migrants on a ship in ballast.
The schools all know its coming. And can do sod all about it.
We’re fucked. Some schools will close again, maybe most or all of them: the chaos of covid ensures it. My respect for your attempts to Keep Calm and Carry On Teaching.
However the stress you describe is understandable and you and all your colleagues have the thanks of whole nation as the nations children's education is so essential for the future
One reason I am grumpy at the moment is because, as a single man living alone and therefore not vulnerable, I offered to teach them. Which is yet another reason I am under pressure.
And although I am being paid, I didn’t offer for the money. After all, I have a very large salary and the rental income from the house.
If the regulations in @ydoethur ’s school are as bad as he describes, change the effing regulations.
And people are now obviously cracking up under the strain. God speed an effective vaccine.
BBC News - Wales national lockdown in new year 'likely', says minister
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54681885
Good night.
Have a good night's rest
When all this is over, we might reflect that Dominic Cummings and pb's own @SeanT were right about one thing. Britain does need to invest more in research.
Over 3.5 million registered Dems who didn’t vote in 2016 have already voted in the battleground states .
Turnout in the black community in terms of over 65s in Georgia , that’s already surpassed the total turnout in 2016 .
https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1320457693526720512
https://twitter.com/AngelGotti5/status/1320462151065227264
BBC News - Coronavirus: Germany improves ventilation to chase away Covid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54599593
Dunno why, but I always view the Swiss with a certain wary respect. Perhaps the most boringly sensible - or logically selfish - nation in the world.
If they really think the 2nd wave is going to be that bad - and early signs are grim - then EEEEESH
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54676457
I suspect both these standoffs will end the same way.
I would have more concern if the models were done in something live javascript than c.
Testing is good in that it gives you information, and without information you can do very little. But what really matters is what you do with that information, and in the UK that is basically bugger all.
Also, it's not good enough to be merely as bad as many other countries, and not the worst. We have had more than half a year to learn from the best countries. If other countries are also failing to learn lessons and improve then that is a matter of concern for their citizens. My voting rights are in the UK, and so that's where I will concentrate my criticism.
Secondly, nobody who knows what they are doing does statistical modelling in C these days...
Furthermore, it was single threaded, made no use of the likes of Intel MKL, Cuda or basically any modern programming suite of tools / libraries that people use for modelling complex problems.
I have a son at school, and he is loving being back, as are my niece and nephew.
In US laws vary state to state, but open container inside vehicle is no-no everywhere; if you've got one with you, supposed to put it in truck (boot to you) or lock it in glove box (whatever you call it).
However it all depends where we are on the curve. Which is not obvious, as we are testing so much more than in the first wave, and therefore finding many more cases early on. Plus these new cases are in much younger people. So far.
If we are in the equivalent of March, then it’s hopeful. But if we are in the equivalent of Jan or early Feb, we’re in deep trouble. Health systems WILL be overwhelmed if this spreads to the more vulnerable.
Belgium:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/belgium-covid-hospitals-schools/2020/10/23/85358010-14a9-11eb-a258-614acf2b906d_story.html
Everybody now have easy access to a range of libraries for using multi-threading on the CPU and distributed GPU computations for modelling complex problems.
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/multithreading-in-c
It’s starting to look like it’s not all false positives, with the entire populations already all-but-immune, despite what Toby Young, Alistair Haimes, Allison Pearson, Julia Hartley-Brewer and co keep telling us.
I’m starting to wonder if they might not be the sage and insightful experts they assure us they are.
First Minister Mark Drakeford @fmwales says supermarkets can use 'discretion' on selling non-essential items during the fire-break lockdown
https://bit.ly/2IY95cM
That is more than good enough for me.
Yet we are damaging the economy with our policy response, as if it was the same.
The point I was making was merely that C is an old language but that doesn't make it obsolete. I wasn't arguing it was the right choice for this however I said I didn't know as hadn't seen the model.
Half the computer world still runs on C, apache web servers, linux, most embedded stuff etc.
Teachers get either taken for granted or regularly criticised. And by some, both at the same time.
But you are right. No-one codes these models in C any more but Ferguson's model was a research tool written more than a decade ago, pressed back into service for want of anything better.
Why do some people want to see problems occur before taking action? It’s like giving up fags on the way home from the Marsden.
Exponential is a killer. Nothing happens then everything happens at once.
It is like the using of excel to collate the testing data. It works, but nobody who knows what they are doing would use that.