Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
I notice nobody is talking about false positives these days.
Indeed, although they may be circling back to "most would have died anyway". And I noticed the old classic "Ferguson was wrong about mad cow disease and therefore wrong about everything, even those things where events have proved him roughly correct".
--AS
That always was a daft argument. Everyone’s going to die anyway.
Vf has now finally stopped loading comments (period) on my phone on chrome.
Does anyone else have this problem?
Ditto, if I switch my phone to desktop view then the vf.politicalbetting.com domain will load.
I can only use it if sitting at my desktop now, and nowhere else.
My wife is remarkably pleased about this.
Same here - not the wife bit, she doesn't give a shit, but the PB site. It's gone laptop only for me. Impact is that when I'm at a loose end I now reach not for my phone but for "THIS LAND: The Story of a Movement" by Owen Jones. I've reached the bit where Jeremy is attacked by the media for not singing the National Anthem.
Ads at this stage with less than a week to go will not make much difference, virtually everyone has made up their mind, what is more important now is rallies to fire up your base and get them out to vote and the Trump campaign has again been ensuring everyone who attends a Trump rally is registered to go out and vote next Tuesday.
Harris and Trump will be in Arizona later today
Of course leaving your supporters abandoned at the venue is not the best way to end it of course. Someone had a massive brain fart when arranging the transport
I doubt a few bus problems in Omaha will make much difference, even if Biden wins NE02 it is only 1 EC vote
I have always found political campaigns (no matter what party) to be very impressive considering what is required, I guess because people are very motivated. There can be no excuse about a 1 day delay; your target date is set in stone.
Every campaign has cockups but generally they do much better than can reasonably be expected.
As usual my post was badly written. It sounded like I was disagreeing with HYUFD when actually I was agreeing with him.
I dislike Trump and how he campaigns and some of his stuff my well be counter effective, but you can not deny his campaign is generally very well organised and they are working very hard.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Off topic but very funny. Last night's Department for International Trade twitter lunacy about how Brexit would reduce the price of Soy Sauce. "Our trade deal with Japan will make it cheaper" "But its 0% tariff now and will be 0% tariff then, how is that cheaper?" "Because the WTO tariff is 6% so our new trade deal makes it cheaper" "But we aren't on WTO terms we're on EU terms which is 0%" "BLUE PASSPORTS"
Don’t miss the added snippet that much (most?) of our imported Soy sauce apparently doesn’t come from Japan. It comes from Holland. But that’s ok because we will be trading with them on “Australia deal” terms...
Yes, the route that so much global produce takes to reach the UK is something that so many people simply don't comprehend. If someone in Japan wants to export Soy Sauce to the UK, are they going to ship to us and only us? Or ship to everyone in Europe and split the orders at the destination?
Regardless of whatever deals we sign with Kazakhstan, we are likely to still pay tariffs on it as it will be imported from the EU and not from Kazakhstan direct.
I don't think that is correct. Import tariffs are based on country of origin. If Kazakhstan ships goods to the EU and they are then shipped on to us unaltered, my understanding is that Kazakhstan is still the country of origin so, if we have a deal with them, no tariffs would be payable. The fact the goods came via the EU is irrelevant.
Two black men were stopped and searched on suspicion of exchanging drugs simply because they had bumped fists, according to a highly critical review of the Metropolitan Police’s use of the power.
Officers have also stopped black men when the only basis was the smell of cannabis, contrary to policing practice, and handcuffs are routinely used when other tactics would calm situations. Other examples included a case in which a black man with someone else’s credit card was suspected of theft even after providing a credible explanation.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
I notice nobody is talking about false positives these days.
Indeed, although they may be circling back to "most would have died anyway". And I noticed the old classic "Ferguson was wrong about mad cow disease and therefore wrong about everything, even those things where events have proved him roughly correct".
--AS
That always was a daft argument. Everyone’s going to die anyway.
Quite right. They death rate remains at 1 per person, and is forecast to continue to do so.
I often wonder what statistic a charity supporting, say, cancer research would consider to mark ultimate success in their campaign: presumably an increase in deaths due to heart disease and dementia!
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
There will be years of material for psychology papers just from the lockdownsceptics.org website. How easily and persistently otherwise intelligent people abandoned critical thinking to be totally gullible towards a right-wing polemicist who was almost totally scientifically illiterate, statistically illiterate, and economically illiterate... just because he was saying something they dearly wanted to believe was true.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
I'm glad you put your final sentence in as the proposed left/right split I was going to very much object to until you did, but yes you're right overseas that very much is far too real an issue. Which is remarkable as conserving the environment is a traditional right-wing issue not just a left-wing one though I think that is more traditional in this country which is perhaps why it is so easy for the Tories to reject the siren calls of bad science that attracts too many rightwingers overseas.
Though the left/right split doesn't always travel well overseas. I am a Tory here and I supported John Howard's Liberals (right) in Australia but I'd wholeheartedly support the Democrats in the USA. The Democrats are closer to liberal/Cameroon Toryism than Trump's Republicans are.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
I notice nobody is talking about false positives these days.
Indeed, although they may be circling back to "most would have died anyway". And I noticed the old classic "Ferguson was wrong about mad cow disease and therefore wrong about everything, even those things where events have proved him roughly correct".
--AS
That always was a daft argument. Everyone’s going to die anyway.
Quite right. They death rate remains at 1 per person, and is forecast to continue to do so.
I often wonder what statistic a charity supporting, say, cancer research would consider to mark ultimate success in their campaign: presumably an increase in deaths due to heart disease and dementia!
--AS
Isn't it asymptoting towards one, but not exactly at one, due to that one incident a couple thousand years ago?
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
I notice nobody is talking about false positives these days.
Looks bad in Leeds:
"The trust, which later confirmed the news, said it now has more covid-19 patients in its hospitals than at the peak of the pandemic in mid-April and it expects the number of people in critical care to increase over the next 48 hours.
Only essential operations will be going ahead in most cases, with elective inpatient orthopaedics stopped completely at the trust’s Chapel Allerton Hospital. The trust has also begun closing theatres to boost critical care capacity. The trust said it expects this to continue “throughout the week”.
On Tuesday 27 October, Leeds Teaching Hospitals had 263 covid patients, which was up from 148 on the same day last week. The trust currently has 22 covid patients in intensive care."
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
You mean people like Michael Levitt?
Other notable statements made by Levitt during the COVID-19 pandemic include his belief that Israel would suffer no more than 10 COVID-19 deaths and his belief on July 25, 2020 that COVID-19 in the United States would be over "in 4 weeks with total reported deaths below 170,000".
As of September 2020, there were more than 200,000 reported deaths in the United States and more than 1,500 reported fatalities in Israel.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
This is indeed my opinion about Dr Person Fakename, Prof Johnny Bananas, and Prof Sunetra Gupta.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
I have found some of progressive views who actually become upset to the point of *anger*, when you point out Thatcher's role in environmental matters.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Depends which ones you refer too.
Heneghan I respect, Gupta I do not on this issue.
LOL. I'm sure they are traumatised.
The point is, we cannot destroy our economy and our society when the science is so manifestly in the balance, surely. One of the SAGE team simply had no answer to media questions about the efficacy of their strategy today.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
I'm glad you put your final sentence in as the proposed left/right split I was going to very much object to until you did, but yes you're right overseas that very much is far too real an issue. Which is remarkable as conserving the environment is a traditional right-wing issue not just a left-wing one though I think that is more traditional in this country which is perhaps why it is so easy for the Tories to reject the siren calls of bad science that attracts too many rightwingers overseas.
Though the left/right split doesn't always travel well overseas. I am a Tory here and I supported John Howard's Liberals (right) in Australia but I'd wholeheartedly support the Democrats in the USA. The Democrats are closer to liberal/Cameroon Toryism than Trump's Republicans are.
Depends which Democrats, AOC and Bernie Sanders are certainly closer to Labour than the Tories, John McCain or Mitt Romney or John Kasich or Nikki Haley were or are closer to the Tories and of course the Rees Mogg, IDS and Bridgen and Rosindell branch of the Tory Party are even pro Trump
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
You mean people like Michael Levitt?
Other notable statements made by Levitt during the COVID-19 pandemic include his belief that Israel would suffer no more than 10 COVID-19 deaths and his belief on July 25, 2020 that COVID-19 in the United States would be over "in 4 weeks with total reported deaths below 170,000".
As of September 2020, there were more than 200,000 reported deaths in the United States and more than 1,500 reported fatalities in Israel.
Covid denialism is no different to the Climate Change variety.
If you accept the truth it means solutions you don't like - so refuse to accept it.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
I notice nobody is talking about false positives these days.
Indeed, although they may be circling back to "most would have died anyway". And I noticed the old classic "Ferguson was wrong about mad cow disease and therefore wrong about everything, even those things where events have proved him roughly correct".
--AS
That always was a daft argument. Everyone’s going to die anyway.
Quite right. They death rate remains at 1 per person, and is forecast to continue to do so.
I often wonder what statistic a charity supporting, say, cancer research would consider to mark ultimate success in their campaign: presumably an increase in deaths due to heart disease and dementia!
--AS
On the whole, immortality is not what people seek so much as independent, disability free years.
I've not read down thread, so I don't know if v the "stretch targets, repeating Hilary's mistakes" argument had been made, but surely team Biden will have half an eye on getting States not just in the bag, but uncontestably in the bag, to quash any post-election narrative as much as possible. To that end, even a narrow win in Texas, with little in mail voting, might be more useful than a 3-4 point PA lead that develops over days - even if the latter sits at tipping point votes wise, psychological tipping points may count for more.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
You mean people like Michael Levitt?
Other notable statements made by Levitt during the COVID-19 pandemic include his belief that Israel would suffer no more than 10 COVID-19 deaths and his belief on July 25, 2020 that COVID-19 in the United States would be over "in 4 weeks with total reported deaths below 170,000".
As of September 2020, there were more than 200,000 reported deaths in the United States and more than 1,500 reported fatalities in Israel.
Covid denialism is no different to the Climate Change variety.
If you accept the truth it means solutions you don't like - so refuse to accept it.
The deniers are the lockdowners. They deny lockdown's utterly destructive economic, social and indeed health effects.
Look at the economic numbers. Under your strategy, meltdown is coming. What lockdowners like Burnham are trying to organize now is a convoy system. If everybody goes down, then nobody can claim the strategy was wrong.
But Donald Trump ain't no convoy kinda guy. And I reckon America ain;t no convoy kinda country,.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
I'm glad you put your final sentence in as the proposed left/right split I was going to very much object to until you did, but yes you're right overseas that very much is far too real an issue. Which is remarkable as conserving the environment is a traditional right-wing issue not just a left-wing one though I think that is more traditional in this country which is perhaps why it is so easy for the Tories to reject the siren calls of bad science that attracts too many rightwingers overseas.
Though the left/right split doesn't always travel well overseas. I am a Tory here and I supported John Howard's Liberals (right) in Australia but I'd wholeheartedly support the Democrats in the USA. The Democrats are closer to liberal/Cameroon Toryism than Trump's Republicans are.
You are quite correct, the left/right split in the US is just quite amazing to me. Biden could easily be running as a centrist Tory over here, but there he gets attacked as a communist.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
I really really really hate restrictions but I also respect the science and the medical advice.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
You mean people like Michael Levitt?
Other notable statements made by Levitt during the COVID-19 pandemic include his belief that Israel would suffer no more than 10 COVID-19 deaths and his belief on July 25, 2020 that COVID-19 in the United States would be over "in 4 weeks with total reported deaths below 170,000".
As of September 2020, there were more than 200,000 reported deaths in the United States and more than 1,500 reported fatalities in Israel.
Covid denialism is no different to the Climate Change variety.
If you accept the truth it means solutions you don't like - so refuse to accept it.
The deniers are the lockdowners. They deny lockdown's utterly destructive economic, social and indeed health effects.
Look at the economic numbers. Under your strategy, meltdown is coming. What lockdowners like Burnham are trying to organize now is a convoy system. If everybody goes down, then nobody can claim the strategy was wrong.
But Donald Trump ain't no convoy kinda guy. And I reckon America ain;t no convoy kinda country,.
Nobody is denying that lockdown is utterly destructive. Why do you keep saying that? What people are arguing is that it's less destructive than an out of control pandemic FFS.
I'm not even in favour of a lockdown but you come across like a crazy person.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
You mean people like Michael Levitt?
Other notable statements made by Levitt during the COVID-19 pandemic include his belief that Israel would suffer no more than 10 COVID-19 deaths and his belief on July 25, 2020 that COVID-19 in the United States would be over "in 4 weeks with total reported deaths below 170,000".
As of September 2020, there were more than 200,000 reported deaths in the United States and more than 1,500 reported fatalities in Israel.
I think this critique of the 'declaration', from a libertarian, is a good one.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
There is also lived personal experience. The vast majority will know people who had Corona and survived. Still more will know people who died but were very ill anyway. The number who know people who were healthy and had corona and died?
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
There is also lived personal experience. The vast majority will know people who had Corona and survived. Still more will know people who died but were very ill anyway. The number who know people who were healthy and had corona and died?
Very small.
And how big of a number does it have to be before your level of tolerance for deaths is overcome?
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
I'm glad you put your final sentence in as the proposed left/right split I was going to very much object to until you did, but yes you're right overseas that very much is far too real an issue. Which is remarkable as conserving the environment is a traditional right-wing issue not just a left-wing one though I think that is more traditional in this country which is perhaps why it is so easy for the Tories to reject the siren calls of bad science that attracts too many rightwingers overseas.
Though the left/right split doesn't always travel well overseas. I am a Tory here and I supported John Howard's Liberals (right) in Australia but I'd wholeheartedly support the Democrats in the USA. The Democrats are closer to liberal/Cameroon Toryism than Trump's Republicans are.
You are quite correct, the left/right split in the US is just quite amazing to me. Biden could easily be running as a centrist Tory over here, but there he gets attacked as a communist.
Biden would be Starmer, Brownite Labour, he is also a friend of Kinnock's, he is no Corbynite and no Bernie Sanders but he is no Tory either, certainly not a Boris Tory
Texas turnout as a whole is ALREADY at 88% of 2016 so it's almost certainly going to be a high turnout election in Texas.
Correction. It's 84%.
Pennsylvania is the odd one there. With such a closely contested state that many identified early on as the tipping point you would have expected a much higher figure for EV. I wonder if they are just behind in counting them.
I think Pennsylvania has mail-in only and no "drop off".
I'm wrong - it does. You're right it is a weird one.
So the vote is in the post (and may not be counted courtesy of the SC)?
Looking at it closer, I think that Pennsylvania only has absentee mail-in, or absentee mail-in drop off. It doesn't have "early voting" in the sense that Texas, Georgia, etc have.
That voting so far in Texas is at 84% of 2016 levels is remarkable because it has been generally a low turnout state, without universal mail ballots (in contrast to Nevada for example) and with voter suppression efforts going on in the background.
West Midlands police on high alert for civil unrest this winter.
"Mr Jamieson [PCC] predicted that it was "very likely" there could be civil unrest in the West Midlands in the near future, adding that the "turning point for a lot of people" could be if they are made unemployed when the furlough scheme ends later this month. He said his force was on "heavy alert for the unexpected".
"We're sitting on a time bomb here,"
(Telegraph)
If you watch the Monbiot piece you'd be excused for wondering why it's taking so long.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
I've not read down thread, so I don't know if v the "stretch targets, repeating Hilary's mistakes" argument had been made, but surely team Biden will have half an eye on getting States not just in the bag, but uncontestably in the bag, to quash any post-election narrative as much as possible. To that end, even a narrow win in Texas, with little in mail voting, might be more useful than a 3-4 point PA lead that develops over days - even if the latter sits at tipping point votes wise, psychological tipping points may count for more.
I think they have an eye also on Senate, House and state legislature contests. So even a narrow loss in Texas, for example, does not represent wasted effort.
The one big lacuna in the campaign is a serious effort in rural communities, though that is perhaps understandable form a cost/benefit point of view; you simply can't do everything.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
There is also lived personal experience. The vast majority will know people who had Corona and survived. Still more will know people who died but were very ill anyway. The number who know people who were healthy and had corona and died?
Very small.
And how big of a number does it have to be before your level of tolerance for deaths is overcome?
How many unnecessary cancer and heart disease deaths are you prepared to countenance before you admit lockdown does not work?
With Corona and other viruses we sacrifice people who are over 80 with two co-morbidities. Lockdown kills completely arbitrarily, regardless of age, and blights the lives of millions more.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
There are a couple of things going on here. The key one is that scientists are human.
Science is really a set of principles to try to stop you fooling yourself and accept when your idea has turned out to be wrong. Ideas that survive that process end up as part of "what science knows". But because scientists are human, bad ideas often only really die off when their proponents do so. It takes a lot of evidence (and personal integrity) for a scientist to hold their hands up and say "you know what, I was wrong about that." It happens better in science than in other fields, but still imperfectly.
Second, being an Oxford Professor and/or Nobel prize winner shouldn't make a difference to whether an idea is right or not. If science is working well, the person putting forward the idea doesn't matter- all that matters is whether the idea fits the observations. (There's an infamous example of a Cambridge professor with a Nobel prize about whose subsequent ideas the less said the better.)
Even good scientists produce bad science from time to time; often quite a lot of the time. One of the indicators of a good scientist is to correct themselves when they get things wrong. On that basis, quite a lot of the scientists linked to Great Barrington aren't good scientists.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
The problem with lockdown lovers and bad news porn addicts is that there is a flip side to lockdowns - after a while people can’t cope with them anymore plus they cause extra deaths themselves. To act like this isn’t a factor is as crazy as saying we should go about things as usual with no Covid consideration.
If life expectancy went up and, the passing of contagious diseases down, if we all lived our lives indoors with food deliveries, free tv and a running machine, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to force people to do that? Why do we treat people who smoke? Why is that legal?
It’s all very well for people who enjoy sitting in all day arguing pedantically on a computer to cheer on home confinement, most people live for going out
West Midlands police on high alert for civil unrest this winter.
"Mr Jamieson [PCC] predicted that it was "very likely" there could be civil unrest in the West Midlands in the near future, adding that the "turning point for a lot of people" could be if they are made unemployed when the furlough scheme ends later this month. He said his force was on "heavy alert for the unexpected".
"We're sitting on a time bomb here,"
(Telegraph)
If you watch the Monbiot piece you'd be excused for wondering why it's taking so long.
Just take a look at that Jamieson statement for a second. Just think about it. And then tell me our present course isn't economic and social meltdown. It clearly is.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
Coupled with total credulity about anyone saying or modelling something they want to hear (Heneghan is totally forgiven for his "there will be no second wave" prediction, for example, and must be listened to in preference). One of the funniest things I saw was Toby Young complaining a couple of weeks back that Professor Gupta can't get her "we all had herd immunity by March" theory published these days, and claiming it was evidence of a dark conspiracy. It was less funny when I realised that most of his readers believed him.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
There is also lived personal experience. The vast majority will know people who had Corona and survived. Still more will know people who died but were very ill anyway. The number who know people who were healthy and had corona and died?
Very small.
And how big of a number does it have to be before your level of tolerance for deaths is overcome?
How many unnecessary cancer and heart disease deaths are you prepared to countenance before you admit lockdown does not work?
With Corona and other viruses we sacrifice people who are over 80 with two co-morbidities. Lockdown kills completely arbitrarily, regardless of age, and blights the lives of millions more.
I'm not in favour of a lockdown so stop throwing it back at me. There is a middle ground between "lockdown" and "do nothing".
Two black men were stopped and searched on suspicion of exchanging drugs simply because they had bumped fists, according to a highly critical review of the Metropolitan Police’s use of the power.
Officers have also stopped black men when the only basis was the smell of cannabis, contrary to policing practice, and handcuffs are routinely used when other tactics would calm situations. Other examples included a case in which a black man with someone else’s credit card was suspected of theft even after providing a credible explanation.
The problem with lockdown lovers and bad news porn addicts is that there is a flip side to lockdowns - after a while people can’t cope with them anymore plus they cause extra deaths themselves. To act like this isn’t a factor is as crazy as saying we should go about things as usual with no Covid consideration.
If life expectancy went up and, the passing of contagious diseases down, if we all lived our lives indoors with food deliveries, free tv and a running machine, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to force people to do that? Why do we treat people who smoke? Why is that legal?
It’s all very well for people who enjoy sitting in all day arguing pedantically on a computer to cheer on home confinement, most people live for going out
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Depends which ones you refer too.
Heneghan I respect, Gupta I do not on this issue.
Heneghan has done some good stuff, but he's not really an expert in this area. His area of research is broadly not that dissimilar to mine (applied health research/epidemiology) and I'm absolutely no expert in this area (I'll criticise people on here posting obviously flawed analyses, but I've not been predicting what will happen or saying what should be done).
The public, media and - often - the scientists themselves make the mistake that because they are highly accomplished in one area their pronouncements on other areas are correct/relevant/worth the bytes their broadcast with. I posted back in the spring that I had no idea how this was all going to pan out - I may be an epidemiologist but that doesn't make me an expert on infectious disease. I'm in a well respected health sciences department, but I can count on one hand the number of our people involved in COVID response, the others don't have expertise in the area (there are plenty doing tangentially related stuff such as impact of the pandemic on other conditions/treatments etc, but the few people directly involved are those who previously worked on Ebola and other similar outbreaks and have actual expertise in infection control and non-pharmaceutical interventions).
The people who have the expertise in this are mostly in SAGE, they've been selected for a reason. Don't listen to a vaccine expert pontificating on the best lockdown options and don't listen to an infectious disease epidemiologist pontificating on how to develop a vaccine, it's just mostly, ill informed speculation. I'm not saying that people should not be free to say what they like, just don't assume because someone's a prof at Oxford they're not talking about something about which they have quite limited knowledge.
Ah, I see others have posted similar while I was typing, e.g. @Stuartinromford has basically said it all already
I've not read down thread, so I don't know if v the "stretch targets, repeating Hilary's mistakes" argument had been made, but surely team Biden will have half an eye on getting States not just in the bag, but uncontestably in the bag, to quash any post-election narrative as much as possible. To that end, even a narrow win in Texas, with little in mail voting, might be more useful than a 3-4 point PA lead that develops over days - even if the latter sits at tipping point votes wise, psychological tipping points may count for more.
I think they have an eye also on Senate, House and state legislature contests. So even a narrow loss in Texas, for example, does not represent wasted effort.
The one big lacuna in the campaign is a serious effort in rural communities, though that is perhaps understandable form a cost/benefit point of view; you simply can't do everything.
They have many eyes on the senate, Biden's trip to Georgia was mainly for the senate races which are very winnable for the democrats, if it helps him carry their EV then that's a bonus. They saw what happens with the current very tribal senate with Obama that stopped him carrying out a lot of what he wished to do.
The early turnout figures posted downthread look pretty tough for the dems for me.
I read a tweet that Biden's lead forecast by registered voters will be under 200,000 in Florida by election day. Now of course there is cross party voting. But.....oof....
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
There is also lived personal experience. The vast majority will know people who had Corona and survived. Still more will know people who died but were very ill anyway. The number who know people who were healthy and had corona and died?
Very small.
And how big of a number does it have to be before your level of tolerance for deaths is overcome?
How many unnecessary cancer and heart disease deaths are you prepared to countenance before you admit lockdown does not work?
With Corona and other viruses we sacrifice people who are over 80 with two co-morbidities. Lockdown kills completely arbitrarily, regardless of age, and blights the lives of millions more.
Well, as we see in Nottingham and Leeds, an uncontrolled pandemic rather disrupts medical care of other conditions too.
Covid is rather inconvenient, but ignoring it is not an effective strategy, either medically or economically.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
I notice nobody is talking about false positives these days.
Indeed, although they may be circling back to "most would have died anyway". And I noticed the old classic "Ferguson was wrong about mad cow disease and therefore wrong about everything, even those things where events have proved him roughly correct".
--AS
That always was a daft argument. Everyone’s going to die anyway.
Quite right. They death rate remains at 1 per person, and is forecast to continue to do so.
I often wonder what statistic a charity supporting, say, cancer research would consider to mark ultimate success in their campaign: presumably an increase in deaths due to heart disease and dementia!
--AS
According to their logic, we should pull all those resources going into cancer research and treatment. After all, the median age of a death from cancer is 77 years old.
Two black men were stopped and searched on suspicion of exchanging drugs simply because they had bumped fists, according to a highly critical review of the Metropolitan Police’s use of the power.
Officers have also stopped black men when the only basis was the smell of cannabis, contrary to policing practice, and handcuffs are routinely used when other tactics would calm situations. Other examples included a case in which a black man with someone else’s credit card was suspected of theft even after providing a credible explanation.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
Coupled with total credulity about anyone saying or modelling something they want to hear (Heneghan is totally forgiven for his "there will be no second wave" prediction, for example, and must be listened to in preference). One of the funniest things I saw was Toby Young complaining a couple of weeks back that Professor Gupta can't get her "we all had herd immunity by March" theory published these days, and claiming it was evidence of a dark conspiracy. It was less funny when I realised that most of his readers believed him.
My approach is that I change my view when the facts change*. For example, I was very sceptical of masks back in May/June, and thought the big issue was fomites. When the science changed I changed my view. Same with herd immunity - I thought there might be something in that and now I can see issues with long Covid, reinfections and dwindling antibodies with very high death rates if left unchecked, I'm not.
Of course, if you do that, for an issue that's highly politicised, you can easily lose the respect of both sides: the sceptics will think you're a wet flip-flopper, and the lockdown hawks will gloat with "told you so".
(*I still challenge and test the policy responses regardless - accepting those facts - because I think it's good practice to have the trade-offs, assumptions and compromises challenged on something as awful as this.)
The early turnout figures posted downthread look pretty tough for the dems for me.
I read a tweet that Biden's lead forecast by registered voters will be under 200,000 in Florida by election day. Now of course there is cross party voting. But.....oof....
Personally I think people are extrapolating too much from the early voting, in reality all it is showing us how much is going on but does not indicate what will happen on in the day voting.
I understand why people are trying to read the tea leaves however, but just think a massive pinch of salt is needed
F1: backed Perez on Ladbrokes' title winner without Hamilton, Bottas, or Verstappen market.
He's 3.5 (3.6 with boost) versus 2.87 for Ricciardo and 3.25 for Leclerc.
But Perez missed two races due to COVID. His points per race tally is higher. If the average is maintained then it should be close to a dead heat between him and Ricciardo. I think Perez should be marginal favourite rather than third.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
You mean people like Michael Levitt?
Other notable statements made by Levitt during the COVID-19 pandemic include his belief that Israel would suffer no more than 10 COVID-19 deaths and his belief on July 25, 2020 that COVID-19 in the United States would be over "in 4 weeks with total reported deaths below 170,000".
As of September 2020, there were more than 200,000 reported deaths in the United States and more than 1,500 reported fatalities in Israel.
Or Professor Gupta, with her claim that between 50% and 68% of Brits had had covid and were now immune prior to lockdown? Or that the IFR was lower than the death rate already seen in some cities and countries. Or that if we abandoned all restrictions from June, there would be no resurgence and it was all over already?
It's amazing how picky people are about specifics of a model that they don't like but utterly accepting of people saying things that proved to be totally in variance with reality.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
There are a couple of things going on here. The key one is that scientists are human.
Science is really a set of principles to try to stop you fooling yourself and accept when your idea has turned out to be wrong. Ideas that survive that process end up as part of "what science knows". But because scientists are human, bad ideas often only really die off when their proponents do so. It takes a lot of evidence (and personal integrity) for a scientist to hold their hands up and say "you know what, I was wrong about that." It happens better in science than in other fields, but still imperfectly.
Second, being an Oxford Professor and/or Nobel prize winner shouldn't make a difference to whether an idea is right or not. If science is working well, the person putting forward the idea doesn't matter- all that matters is whether the idea fits the observations. (There's an infamous example of a Cambridge professor with a Nobel prize about whose subsequent ideas the less said the better.)
Even good scientists produce bad science from time to time; often quite a lot of the time. One of the indicators of a good scientist is to correct themselves when they get things wrong. On that basis, quite a lot of the scientists linked to Great Barrington aren't good scientists.
A good scientist should be excited when his/her idea is proved wrong as that in itself has progressed the field (of course, easier to do that if well established and you weren't wrong due to doing something stupid). See e.g. Hawking (nothing escapes a black hole) and Einstein (universe not expanding). Finding out that the world is not as it was understood to be is exciting.
Texas turnout as a whole is ALREADY at 88% of 2016 so it's almost certainly going to be a high turnout election in Texas.
Correction. It's 84%.
Pennsylvania is the odd one there. With such a closely contested state that many identified early on as the tipping point you would have expected a much higher figure for EV. I wonder if they are just behind in counting them.
I think Pennsylvania has mail-in only and no "drop off".
I'm wrong - it does. You're right it is a weird one.
So the vote is in the post (and may not be counted courtesy of the SC)?
Looking at it closer, I think that Pennsylvania only has absentee mail-in, or absentee mail-in drop off. It doesn't have "early voting" in the sense that Texas, Georgia, etc have.
That voting so far in Texas is at 84% of 2016 levels is remarkable because it has been generally a low turnout state, without universal mail ballots (in contrast to Nevada for example) and with voter suppression efforts going on in the background.
Ironically I think this is the year in which all the suppression efforts of the past backfire with a vengeance.
The thing is if you keep something suppressed but not eliminated it can eventually find a way to come out and the early voting this year is that method. The images of people queueing to vote, rather than discouraging others from doing so seem to be encouraging people to ensure this time that they too are counted.
If you're not overly political it can be wary to not bother on one election day but this has transformed this year from an election day to an election season.
Turnout is going to be massively, massovely up and a blue wave will burst the dam of the suppression efforts of the past.
Which should be welcomed by anyone who wants the USA to be a functioning democracy.
The early turnout figures posted downthread look pretty tough for the dems for me.
I read a tweet that Biden's lead forecast by registered voters will be under 200,000 in Florida by election day. Now of course there is cross party voting. But.....oof....
There is the big caveat that we don't know how much is pull forward in terms of the votes and what represents new votes plus how independents split. But Nevada is one of those states where you usually have a very good feel as to the outcome from the early votes.
There is also the question of rejected mail-in ballots. Mrs Ed did her mail-in ballot for California and, on three separate occasions, she could have easily invalidated her vote because the instructions were unclear. One of the responses to the Ralston's tweet mentioned a lot of mail-in ballots in Clark were being cured because they didn't meet the signature requirements (which is why I think the Trump campaign has been focusing so much on court cases over Clark County mail-in ballots, namely to make sure they are not accepted).
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
It "has been peer-reviewed and published." I am sure you know that means virtually nothing
-------
Although some of the criticism of Ferguson is misplaced, there is no doubt that his first model was poorly calibrated and even predicted the wrong doubling rate for the UK. Even a cursory examination of the data would have revealed this to him. SAGE on 18th March though the doubling time was 5-7 days, informed by Ferguson's then model. In fact it was already 2-3 days inferred directly from the data
In general, the UK response has relied way too much on theoretical epidemiology -- the UK would have done rather better to rely on a more practical/empirical approach.
SAGE has *not* in general performed well as a model for competent scientists to inform Government policy.
The scientists on SAGE have *not* in general done their job well -- Ferguson's early models should have been subjected to much more critical analysis by the scientists on SAGE. Even in trying to communicate the function of the models, or the meaning of an upper bound, SAGE have largely failed.
The UK journalists and media have *not* performed a responsible job. The well-known disdain of the arts & humanities graduates that dominate the UK media for science has meant that understanding of very basic things is lacking, even on sites like the BBC. And as for people like Piers Moron ....
There is a lot for the UK to learn, including the scientists & the media -- not just the politicians
It is hardly surprising that the most common response by members of UK general public to COVID is "COVID has just confirmed that everything I already believed about the world is true"
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Depends which ones you refer too.
Heneghan I respect, Gupta I do not on this issue.
Heneghan has done some good stuff, but he's not really an expert in this area. His area of research is broadly not that dissimilar to mine (applied health research/epidemiology) and I'm absolutely no expert in this area (I'll criticise people on here posting obviously flawed analyses, but I've not been predicting what will happen or saying what should be done).
The public, media and - often - the scientists themselves make the mistake that because they are highly accomplished in one area their pronouncements on other areas are correct/relevant/worth the bytes their broadcast with. I posted back in the spring that I had no idea how this was all going to pan out - I may be an epidemiologist but that doesn't make me an expert on infectious disease. I'm in a well respected health sciences department, but I can count on one hand the number of our people involved in COVID response, the others don't have expertise in the area (there are plenty doing tangentially related stuff such as impact of the pandemic on other conditions/treatments etc, but the few people directly involved are those who previously worked on Ebola and other similar outbreaks and have actual expertise in infection control and non-pharmaceutical interventions).
The people who have the expertise in this are mostly in SAGE, they've been selected for a reason. Don't listen to a vaccine expert pontificating on the best lockdown options and don't listen to an infectious disease epidemiologist pontificating on how to develop a vaccine, it's just mostly, ill informed speculation. I'm not saying that people should not be free to say what they like, just don't assume because someone's a prof at Oxford they're not talking about something about which they have quite limited knowledge.
Ah, I see others have posted similar while I was typing, e.g. @Stuartinromford has basically said it all already
This - many years ago, after the cross channel ferry disaster, I listened on the radio to a Maths professor of some eminence trying to claim that D.K. Brown* was wrong on ship stability. He'd read a book on naval architecture and mis-applied a formula on the effects of flooding....
*Brilliant warship designer, wrote some of text books on ship design. Published an accessible, but technical, series of books on ship design in the Royal Navy.
Two black men were stopped and searched on suspicion of exchanging drugs simply because they had bumped fists, according to a highly critical review of the Metropolitan Police’s use of the power.
Officers have also stopped black men when the only basis was the smell of cannabis, contrary to policing practice, and handcuffs are routinely used when other tactics would calm situations. Other examples included a case in which a black man with someone else’s credit card was suspected of theft even after providing a credible explanation.
Isn't stopping them for the smell of cannabis legitimate given it's still an illegal drug?
I'm not sure the Met can win. They're not my favourite force but I see them attacked for extreme Wokeness/PC'ness as much as I do stop & search.
Another reason to get rid of the war on drugs nonsense.
Structured, legalisation of the whole drug supply chain. With taxes calculated to keep the prices less than the illegal stuff.
It works for alcohol.
Yeah, I used to be in favour of this but I really don't like the sickly-sweet decadent fug of cannabis wafting over private fences and gardens unchecked. It really stinks, and travels a long way.
If a house 4-5 doors away has a joint I can smell it. We successfully eliminated cigarette smoke from public spaces (another antisocial habit) so I'm quite cautious about how/where cannabis should be legalised.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
Coupled with total credulity about anyone saying or modelling something they want to hear (Heneghan is totally forgiven for his "there will be no second wave" prediction, for example, and must be listened to in preference). One of the funniest things I saw was Toby Young complaining a couple of weeks back that Professor Gupta can't get her "we all had herd immunity by March" theory published these days, and claiming it was evidence of a dark conspiracy. It was less funny when I realised that most of his readers believed him.
My approach is that I change my view when the facts change*. For example, I was very sceptical of masks back in May/June, and thought the big issue was fomites. When the science changed I changed my view. Same with herd immunity - I thought there might be something in that and now I can see issues with long Covid, reinfections and dwindling antibodies with very high death rates if left unchecked, I'm not.
Of course, if you do that, for an issue that's highly politicised, you can easily lose the respect of both sides: the sceptics will think you're a wet flip-flopper, and the lockdown hawks will gloat with "told you so".
(*I still challenge and test the policy responses regardless - accepting those facts - because I think it's good practice to have the trade-offs, assumptions and compromises challenged on something as awful as this.)
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Depends which ones you refer too.
Heneghan I respect, Gupta I do not on this issue.
Heneghan has done some good stuff, but he's not really an expert in this area. His area of research is broadly not that dissimilar to mine (applied health research/epidemiology) and I'm absolutely no expert in this area (I'll criticise people on here posting obviously flawed analyses, but I've not been predicting what will happen or saying what should be done).
The public, media and - often - the scientists themselves make the mistake that because they are highly accomplished in one area their pronouncements on other areas are correct/relevant/worth the bytes their broadcast with. I posted back in the spring that I had no idea how this was all going to pan out - I may be an epidemiologist but that doesn't make me an expert on infectious disease. I'm in a well respected health sciences department, but I can count on one hand the number of our people involved in COVID response, the others don't have expertise in the area (there are plenty doing tangentially related stuff such as impact of the pandemic on other conditions/treatments etc, but the few people directly involved are those who previously worked on Ebola and other similar outbreaks and have actual expertise in infection control and non-pharmaceutical interventions).
The people who have the expertise in this are mostly in SAGE, they've been selected for a reason. Don't listen to a vaccine expert pontificating on the best lockdown options and don't listen to an infectious disease epidemiologist pontificating on how to develop a vaccine, it's just mostly, ill informed speculation. I'm not saying that people should not be free to say what they like, just don't assume because someone's a prof at Oxford they're not talking about something about which they have quite limited knowledge.
Ah, I see others have posted similar while I was typing, e.g. @Stuartinromford has basically said it all already
I would go a little further and argue that scientists being interviewed on the record *shouldn't* express expert opinions outside of their expertise, precisely because neither the media nor the public are able to distinguish exactly what each scientist's expertise is. (Such distinctions sometimes themselves require expertise to appreciate.) I think this is one of the duties of a scientist: to know when not to express a strong view.
This aspect of the scientific response to COVID I have been very disappointed in. I wonder if the scientific establishment will reflect on it afterwards -- the Royal Society, say, would be well-placed to review after the dust settles -- but I fear that we will not. In fact my experience of the Royal Society is that they would probably conclude the opposite: that it was good to see so many scientists in the media...
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
Mr. Pulpstar, I believe there was an earlier vote in Wisconsin this year where ease of access to voting was restricted (long lines, limited or no postal voting etc) which saw, if memory serves, a big swing to the blues.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
Depends which ones you refer too.
Heneghan I respect, Gupta I do not on this issue.
Heneghan has done some good stuff, but he's not really an expert in this area. His area of research is broadly not that dissimilar to mine (applied health research/epidemiology) and I'm absolutely no expert in this area (I'll criticise people on here posting obviously flawed analyses, but I've not been predicting what will happen or saying what should be done).
The public, media and - often - the scientists themselves make the mistake that because they are highly accomplished in one area their pronouncements on other areas are correct/relevant/worth the bytes their broadcast with. I posted back in the spring that I had no idea how this was all going to pan out - I may be an epidemiologist but that doesn't make me an expert on infectious disease. I'm in a well respected health sciences department, but I can count on one hand the number of our people involved in COVID response, the others don't have expertise in the area (there are plenty doing tangentially related stuff such as impact of the pandemic on other conditions/treatments etc, but the few people directly involved are those who previously worked on Ebola and other similar outbreaks and have actual expertise in infection control and non-pharmaceutical interventions).
The people who have the expertise in this are mostly in SAGE, they've been selected for a reason. Don't listen to a vaccine expert pontificating on the best lockdown options and don't listen to an infectious disease epidemiologist pontificating on how to develop a vaccine, it's just mostly, ill informed speculation. I'm not saying that people should not be free to say what they like, just don't assume because someone's a prof at Oxford they're not talking about something about which they have quite limited knowledge.
Ah, I see others have posted similar while I was typing, e.g. @Stuartinromford has basically said it all already
Heneghan brought to light the run over by a bus Covid deaths. Admittedly less important now, but over the summer this was driving a narrative that somehow Scotland (and to a lesser extent NI and Wales) were somehow doing better than England. This was a useful intervention. I also think he is right on the use of PCR for population testing being a bad thing, especially with no agreed definition of a 'case'. PCR can find extremely low levels of virus, that may well be just remnants, and in no way active, but a case would still be called positive. he is not going to right about everything, but he is right to call for evidence to be used.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Presumably the Oxford professors and Nobel Prize winners who signed the Great Barrington are 'bad' scientists in your humble opinion.
On that basis, quite a lot of the scientists linked to Great Barrington aren't good scientists.
Agree - in the AIDS crisis we benefited from having a PM trained in the scientific method and willing to listen. Now we have a classicist/journalist who can't see beyond tomorrows' headlines and the opportunity for a classical bon mot.
My two favourite quotes when I studied chemistry:
"At first I though Chemistry was a mass of unrelated facts. Later I came to realise it is a mass of unrelated theories"
"Many a beautiful theory has been destroyed by a single ugly fact"
Scientists - even great ones - who are heavily invested in a particular theory struggle to abandon it, hoping "something will turn up".
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
It "has been peer-reviewed and published." I am sure you know that means virtually nothing
-------
Although some of the criticism of Ferguson is misplaced, there is no doubt that his first model was poorly calibrated and even predicted the wrong doubling rate for the UK. Even a cursory examination of the data would have revealed this to him. SAGE on 18th March though the doubling time was 5-7 days, informed by Ferguson's then model. In fact it was already 2-3 days inferred directly from the data
In general, the UK response has relied way too much on theoretical epidemiology -- the UK would have done rather better to rely on a more practical/empirical approach.
SAGE has *not* in general performed well as a model for competent scientists to inform Government policy.
The scientists on SAGE have *not* in general done their job well -- Ferguson's early models should have been subjected to much more critical analysis by the scientists on SAGE. Even in trying to communicate the function of the models, or the meaning of an upper bound, SAGE have largely failed.
The UK journalists and media have *not* performed a responsible job. The well-known disdain of the arts & humanities graduates that dominate the UK media for science has meant that understanding of very basic things is lacking, even on sites like the BBC. And as for people like Piers Moron ....
There is a lot for the UK to learn, including the scientists & the media -- not just the politicians
It is hardly surprising that the most common response by members of UK general public to COVID is "COVID has just confirmed that everything I already believed about the world is true"
Actually I somewhat disagree with you about the early models, but I have to record a lecture so there isn't time to discuss it now. Maybe we can talk about it another time. (The nub of my contention is that the doubling time was not an output of Ferguson's model, it was an input.) I think SAGE did okay -- not spectacularly but not badly -- though I agree with you about the rest.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
I really really really hate restrictions but I also respect the science and the medical advice.
Bingo.
That's one reason I'm glad we have the government we do. Putting aside Brexit etc Boris clearly hates the restrictions too and some say that makes him the wrong person for the role as we need someone who is happy to have restrictions (like May perhaps).
I hate restrictions and they should be the minimum necessary - if there are to be some I'd rather it be imposed because a PM who also hates them really believes in TINA as Thatcher put it than because they're trigger happy on restricting us.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
But 367 deaths yesterday is not a forecast, it is a recorded fact.
It's dreadful, of course, and at the same time we need to wait another 2 weeks to see the effects of the Tier 3 lockdowns last week.
There's a 2-3 week lag for hospitalisations/deaths. So 10-11th November is crunch time, I think.
The actual trend of what is happening with deaths is quite clear
(yes, last 3-5 days is incomplete).
Also, this excellent diagram from a BMJ publication is very useful
Thanks, so you're saying it's already peaked/peaking - for now?
Er no - he isn't saying that! Deaths are slowly increasing (ignore the last week or so)
Ok, is there a reason we should ignore the last week or so? The figures are provisional/unreliable?
Sigh.
Reporting delay. The is because case, deaths etc are not reported instantly. This is true everywhere in the world - each country has a different reporting delay in terms of cases, deaths etc.
In the UK, reporting delay means that 3-5 days are required to get the full set* of data for a day.
At this point, some people say that reporting day data is better. Because it does't get revised. Well, the problem is that the reporting delays vary, and you have a weekend effect. Which means that while it *looks* complete, it is as much of a guess as filling in the "gap" in "day of" data by hand.
I thought that after 6 months of this, people would know.....
*There are further revisions, but minor, after this time. This again matches what you see everywhere in the world.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
Oh, give it a rest. You're just so desperate to smear the forecasts because you don't like the outcomes that they predict.
Ferguson's UK model a) is not the only model used by SAGE, b) turned out pretty accurate in the spring, and c) has been peer-reviewed and published.
--AS
It "has been peer-reviewed and published." I am sure you know that means virtually nothing
-------
Although some of the criticism of Ferguson is misplaced, there is no doubt that his first model was poorly calibrated and even predicted the wrong doubling rate for the UK. Even a cursory examination of the data would have revealed this to him. SAGE on 18th March though the doubling time was 5-7 days, informed by Ferguson's then model. In fact it was already 2-3 days inferred directly from the data
In general, the UK response has relied way too much on theoretical epidemiology -- the UK would have done rather better to rely on a more practical/empirical approach.
SAGE has *not* in general performed well as a model for competent scientists to inform Government policy.
The scientists on SAGE have *not* in general done their job well -- Ferguson's early models should have been subjected to much more critical analysis by the scientists on SAGE. Even in trying to communicate the function of the models, or the meaning of an upper bound, SAGE have largely failed.
The UK journalists and media have *not* performed a responsible job. The well-known disdain of the arts & humanities graduates that dominate the UK media for science has meant that understanding of very basic things is lacking, even on sites like the BBC. And as for people like Piers Moron ....
There is a lot for the UK to learn, including the scientists & the media -- not just the politicians
It is hardly surprising that the most common response by members of UK general public to COVID is "COVID has just confirmed that everything I already believed about the world is true"
Actually I somewhat disagree with you about the early models, but I have to record a lecture so there isn't time to discuss it now. Maybe we can talk about it another time. (The nub of my contention is that the doubling time was not an output of Ferguson's model, it was an input.) I think SAGE did okay -- not spectacularly but not badly -- though I agree with you about the rest.
--AS
I always do my lecture recording very late at night
Two black men were stopped and searched on suspicion of exchanging drugs simply because they had bumped fists, according to a highly critical review of the Metropolitan Police’s use of the power.
Officers have also stopped black men when the only basis was the smell of cannabis, contrary to policing practice, and handcuffs are routinely used when other tactics would calm situations. Other examples included a case in which a black man with someone else’s credit card was suspected of theft even after providing a credible explanation.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Vf has now finally stopped loading comments (period) on my phone on chrome.
Does anyone else have this problem?
Getting more difficult daily on iPad loading comments, normally completely stops early evening disconnects from server especially when large amounts of data dropped all at once.
I can announce that the new IPad Air 2020 fixes this at a stroke... pages load in a split second just like they used to do... may be down to more RAM, faster processor or IOS 14.. or a bit of both... not a cheap solution, mind, at £579
Two black men were stopped and searched on suspicion of exchanging drugs simply because they had bumped fists, according to a highly critical review of the Metropolitan Police’s use of the power.
Officers have also stopped black men when the only basis was the smell of cannabis, contrary to policing practice, and handcuffs are routinely used when other tactics would calm situations. Other examples included a case in which a black man with someone else’s credit card was suspected of theft even after providing a credible explanation.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
What you're saying has happened in this country though. Sane climate change mitigation has been depoliticised, which is part of what drives the far left so crazy is because this country actually has a fantastic record on climate change - but they can't admit that or give us credit.
The transformation in our power generation over the past decade from 2010 to 2020 is nothing short of remarkable, even the most optimistic of climate change activists wouldn't have realistically thought we'd have essentially eliminated coal and be routinely getting a majority of power from renewables in only one decade then.
From cars to electricity to heating and everything that matters people are acting in environmentally sound ways and the transformation is simply happening - while keeping capitalism not dumping it. Hence the ever louder screechings by loonies like XR attacking clean electric public transport because climate change means clean electric public transport should be attacked apparently. 🙄
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
I'm glad you put your final sentence in as the proposed left/right split I was going to very much object to until you did, but yes you're right overseas that very much is far too real an issue. Which is remarkable as conserving the environment is a traditional right-wing issue not just a left-wing one though I think that is more traditional in this country which is perhaps why it is so easy for the Tories to reject the siren calls of bad science that attracts too many rightwingers overseas.
Though the left/right split doesn't always travel well overseas. I am a Tory here and I supported John Howard's Liberals (right) in Australia but I'd wholeheartedly support the Democrats in the USA. The Democrats are closer to liberal/Cameroon Toryism than Trump's Republicans are.
You are quite correct, the left/right split in the US is just quite amazing to me. Biden could easily be running as a centrist Tory over here, but there he gets attacked as a communist.
Biden would be Starmer, Brownite Labour, he is also a friend of Kinnock's, he is no Corbynite and no Bernie Sanders but he is no Tory either, certainly not a Boris Tory
You make that last statement as though it is a bad thing.
Meanwhile, access to PB directly or via Vanilla on the mobile is virtually impossible.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
As one of the first politicians to recognise the danger of climate change was Margaret Thatcher it’s perhaps not surprising that the Tories have never really had a big problem with recognising the issue. There are a lot of more right wing types that are less convinced though.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
The right have put forward solutions to climate change, solutions that work. The right is getting on with the job.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
Diverting away from the US election and Soy Sauce for a moment, the latest leaked SAGE forecasts are sobering*. Pox hospitalisation forecasted to peak above the spring high and then stay that high for a prolonged period. Happily we have got a highly responsive and competent government in charge so we don't need to worry about them doing anything heartless or stupid.
*I for one intend to be a good friend to Scotch Whisky and interesting ale producers this winter
The gaps between populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap and it being confirmed (once again) that they're populist fuckwits spouting dangerous crap just get shorter and shorter.
The SAGE release is another forecast. Presumably from the same Ferguson/UCL font of wisdom that was relied on in the spring.
But 367 deaths yesterday is not a forecast, it is a recorded fact.
It's dreadful, of course, and at the same time we need to wait another 2 weeks to see the effects of the Tier 3 lockdowns last week.
There's a 2-3 week lag for hospitalisations/deaths. So 10-11th November is crunch time, I think.
The actual trend of what is happening with deaths is quite clear
(yes, last 3-5 days is incomplete).
Also, this excellent diagram from a BMJ publication is very useful
Thanks, so you're saying it's already peaked/peaking - for now?
Er no - he isn't saying that! Deaths are slowly increasing (ignore the last week or so)
Ok, is there a reason we should ignore the last week or so? The figures are provisional/unreliable?
Sigh.
Reporting delay. The is because case, deaths etc are not reported instantly. This is true everywhere in the world - each country has a different reporting delay in terms of cases, deaths etc.
In the UK, reporting delay means that 3-5 days are required to get the full set* of data for a day.
At this point, some people say that reporting day data is better. Because it does't get revised. Well, the problem is that the reporting delays vary, and you have a weekend effect. Which means that while it *looks* complete, it is as much of a guess as filling in the "gap" in "day of" data by hand.
I thought that after 6 months of this, people would know.....
*There are further revisions, but minor, after this time. This again matches what you see everywhere in the world.
Comments
I dislike Trump and how he campaigns and some of his stuff my well be counter effective, but you can not deny his campaign is generally very well organised and they are working very hard.
Two black men were stopped and searched on suspicion of exchanging drugs simply because they had bumped fists, according to a highly critical review of the Metropolitan Police’s use of the power.
Officers have also stopped black men when the only basis was the smell of cannabis, contrary to policing practice, and handcuffs are routinely used when other tactics would calm situations. Other examples included a case in which a black man with someone else’s credit card was suspected of theft even after providing a credible explanation.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/fist-bump-prompted-metropolitan-police-to-use-stop-and-search-zk2d5gmln
I often wonder what statistic a charity supporting, say, cancer research would consider to mark ultimate success in their campaign: presumably an increase in deaths due to heart disease and dementia!
--AS
Making the case clearly isn't impossible, though.
https://twitter.com/bec_colvin/status/1321311546807443457
Though the left/right split doesn't always travel well overseas. I am a Tory here and I supported John Howard's Liberals (right) in Australia but I'd wholeheartedly support the Democrats in the USA. The Democrats are closer to liberal/Cameroon Toryism than Trump's Republicans are.
"The trust, which later confirmed the news, said it now has more covid-19 patients in its hospitals than at the peak of the pandemic in mid-April and it expects the number of people in critical care to increase over the next 48 hours.
Only essential operations will be going ahead in most cases, with elective inpatient orthopaedics stopped completely at the trust’s Chapel Allerton Hospital. The trust has also begun closing theatres to boost critical care capacity. The trust said it expects this to continue “throughout the week”.
On Tuesday 27 October, Leeds Teaching Hospitals had 263 covid patients, which was up from 148 on the same day last week. The trust currently has 22 covid patients in intensive care."
https://www.hsj.co.uk/leeds-teaching-hospitals-nhs-trust/exclusive-major-hospital-trust-cancels-electives-as-covid-soars/7028711.article
Other notable statements made by Levitt during the COVID-19 pandemic include his belief that Israel would suffer no more than 10 COVID-19 deaths and his belief on July 25, 2020 that COVID-19 in the United States would be over "in 4 weeks with total reported deaths below 170,000".
As of September 2020, there were more than 200,000 reported deaths in the United States and more than 1,500 reported fatalities in Israel.
The West is desperate, that America does not present an alternative to their strategy of lockdown and economic and social disintegration.
A giant booming, free, full fat, gas guzzling country across the water really is the last thing they want.
Heneghan I respect, Gupta I do not on this issue.
--AS
https://twitter.com/arthistorynews/status/1320303370545102849
The point is, we cannot destroy our economy and our society when the science is so manifestly in the balance, surely. One of the SAGE team simply had no answer to media questions about the efficacy of their strategy today.
THis is simply not good enough.
If you accept the truth it means solutions you don't like - so refuse to accept it.
Look at the economic numbers. Under your strategy, meltdown is coming. What lockdowners like Burnham are trying to organize now is a convoy system. If everybody goes down, then nobody can claim the strategy was wrong.
But Donald Trump ain't no convoy kinda guy. And I reckon America ain;t no convoy kinda country,.
- Really, really hate restrictions.
- Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information*
- So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
I'm not even in favour of a lockdown but you come across like a crazy person.
A Dangerous Libertarian Strategy for Herd Immunity
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-15/great-barrington-declaration-is-wrong-about-herd-immunity
Very small.
The one big lacuna in the campaign is a serious effort in rural communities, though that is perhaps understandable form a cost/benefit point of view; you simply can't do everything.
With Corona and other viruses we sacrifice people who are over 80 with two co-morbidities. Lockdown kills completely arbitrarily, regardless of age, and blights the lives of millions more.
Science is really a set of principles to try to stop you fooling yourself and accept when your idea has turned out to be wrong. Ideas that survive that process end up as part of "what science knows". But because scientists are human, bad ideas often only really die off when their proponents do so. It takes a lot of evidence (and personal integrity) for a scientist to hold their hands up and say "you know what, I was wrong about that." It happens better in science than in other fields, but still imperfectly.
Second, being an Oxford Professor and/or Nobel prize winner shouldn't make a difference to whether an idea is right or not. If science is working well, the person putting forward the idea doesn't matter- all that matters is whether the idea fits the observations. (There's an infamous example of a Cambridge professor with a Nobel prize about whose subsequent ideas the less said the better.)
Even good scientists produce bad science from time to time; often quite a lot of the time. One of the indicators of a good scientist is to correct themselves when they get things wrong. On that basis, quite a lot of the scientists linked to Great Barrington aren't good scientists.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-3
If life expectancy went up and, the passing of contagious diseases down, if we all lived our lives indoors with food deliveries, free tv and a running machine, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to force people to do that? Why do we treat people who smoke? Why is that legal?
It’s all very well for people who enjoy sitting in all day arguing pedantically on a computer to cheer on home confinement, most people live for going out
It was less funny when I realised that most of his readers believed him.
I'm not sure the Met can win. They're not my favourite force but I see them attacked for extreme Wokeness/PC'ness as much as I do stop & search.
The public, media and - often - the scientists themselves make the mistake that because they are highly accomplished in one area their pronouncements on other areas are correct/relevant/worth the bytes their broadcast with. I posted back in the spring that I had no idea how this was all going to pan out - I may be an epidemiologist but that doesn't make me an expert on infectious disease. I'm in a well respected health sciences department, but I can count on one hand the number of our people involved in COVID response, the others don't have expertise in the area (there are plenty doing tangentially related stuff such as impact of the pandemic on other conditions/treatments etc, but the few people directly involved are those who previously worked on Ebola and other similar outbreaks and have actual expertise in infection control and non-pharmaceutical interventions).
The people who have the expertise in this are mostly in SAGE, they've been selected for a reason. Don't listen to a vaccine expert pontificating on the best lockdown options and don't listen to an infectious disease epidemiologist pontificating on how to develop a vaccine, it's just mostly, ill informed speculation. I'm not saying that people should not be free to say what they like, just don't assume because someone's a prof at Oxford they're not talking about something about which they have quite limited knowledge.
Ah, I see others have posted similar while I was typing, e.g. @Stuartinromford has basically said it all already
I read a tweet that Biden's lead forecast by registered voters will be under 200,000 in Florida by election day. Now of course there is cross party voting. But.....oof....
Covid is rather inconvenient, but ignoring it is not an effective strategy, either medically or economically.
After all, the median age of a death from cancer is 77 years old.
Structured, legalisation of the whole drug supply chain. With taxes calculated to keep the prices less than the illegal stuff.
It works for alcohol.
Of course, if you do that, for an issue that's highly politicised, you can easily lose the respect of both sides: the sceptics will think you're a wet flip-flopper, and the lockdown hawks will gloat with "told you so".
(*I still challenge and test the policy responses regardless - accepting those facts - because I think it's good practice to have the trade-offs, assumptions and compromises challenged on something as awful as this.)
I understand why people are trying to read the tea leaves however, but just think a massive pinch of salt is needed
F1: backed Perez on Ladbrokes' title winner without Hamilton, Bottas, or Verstappen market.
He's 3.5 (3.6 with boost) versus 2.87 for Ricciardo and 3.25 for Leclerc.
But Perez missed two races due to COVID. His points per race tally is higher. If the average is maintained then it should be close to a dead heat between him and Ricciardo. I think Perez should be marginal favourite rather than third.
Or that the IFR was lower than the death rate already seen in some cities and countries.
Or that if we abandoned all restrictions from June, there would be no resurgence and it was all over already?
It's amazing how picky people are about specifics of a model that they don't like but utterly accepting of people saying things that proved to be totally in variance with reality.
The thing is if you keep something suppressed but not eliminated it can eventually find a way to come out and the early voting this year is that method. The images of people queueing to vote, rather than discouraging others from doing so seem to be encouraging people to ensure this time that they too are counted.
If you're not overly political it can be wary to not bother on one election day but this has transformed this year from an election day to an election season.
Turnout is going to be massively, massovely up and a blue wave will burst the dam of the suppression efforts of the past.
Which should be welcomed by anyone who wants the USA to be a functioning democracy.
There is also the question of rejected mail-in ballots. Mrs Ed did her mail-in ballot for California and, on three separate occasions, she could have easily invalidated her vote because the instructions were unclear. One of the responses to the Ralston's tweet mentioned a lot of mail-in ballots in Clark were being cured because they didn't meet the signature requirements (which is why I think the Trump campaign has been focusing so much on court cases over Clark County mail-in ballots, namely to make sure they are not accepted).
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Although some of the criticism of Ferguson is misplaced, there is no doubt that his first model was poorly calibrated and even predicted the wrong doubling rate for the UK. Even a cursory examination of the data would have revealed this to him. SAGE on 18th March though the doubling time was 5-7 days, informed by Ferguson's then model. In fact it was already 2-3 days inferred directly from the data
In general, the UK response has relied way too much on theoretical epidemiology -- the UK would have done rather better to rely on a more practical/empirical approach.
SAGE has *not* in general performed well as a model for competent scientists to inform Government policy.
The scientists on SAGE have *not* in general done their job well -- Ferguson's early models should have been subjected to much more critical analysis by the scientists on SAGE. Even in trying to communicate the function of the models, or the meaning of an upper bound, SAGE have largely failed.
The UK journalists and media have *not* performed a responsible job. The well-known disdain of the arts & humanities graduates that dominate the UK media for science has meant that understanding of very basic things is lacking, even on sites like the BBC. And as for people like Piers Moron ....
There is a lot for the UK to learn, including the scientists & the media -- not just the politicians
It is hardly surprising that the most common response by members of UK general public to COVID is "COVID has just confirmed that everything I already believed about the world is true"
*Brilliant warship designer, wrote some of text books on ship design. Published an accessible, but technical, series of books on ship design in the Royal Navy.
If a house 4-5 doors away has a joint I can smell it. We successfully eliminated cigarette smoke from public spaces (another antisocial habit) so I'm quite cautious about how/where cannabis should be legalised.
I wouldn't care a jot for cakes, biscuits etc.
I would go a little further and argue that scientists being interviewed on the record *shouldn't* express expert opinions outside of their expertise, precisely because neither the media nor the public are able to distinguish exactly what each scientist's expertise is. (Such distinctions sometimes themselves require expertise to appreciate.) I think this is one of the duties of a scientist: to know when not to express a strong view.
This aspect of the scientific response to COVID I have been very disappointed in. I wonder if the scientific establishment will reflect on it afterwards -- the Royal Society, say, would be well-placed to review after the dust settles -- but I fear that we will not. In fact my experience of the Royal Society is that they would probably conclude the opposite: that it was good to see so many scientists in the media...
--AS
https://twitter.com/JTHVerhovek/status/1321392639737057280
Pwned.
BoZo probably
My two favourite quotes when I studied chemistry:
"At first I though Chemistry was a mass of unrelated facts. Later I came to realise it is a mass of unrelated theories"
"Many a beautiful theory has been destroyed by a single ugly fact"
Scientists - even great ones - who are heavily invested in a particular theory struggle to abandon it, hoping "something will turn up".
--AS
That's one reason I'm glad we have the government we do. Putting aside Brexit etc Boris clearly hates the restrictions too and some say that makes him the wrong person for the role as we need someone who is happy to have restrictions (like May perhaps).
I hate restrictions and they should be the minimum necessary - if there are to be some I'd rather it be imposed because a PM who also hates them really believes in TINA as Thatcher put it than because they're trigger happy on restricting us.
Reporting delay. The is because case, deaths etc are not reported instantly. This is true everywhere in the world - each country has a different reporting delay in terms of cases, deaths etc.
In the UK, reporting delay means that 3-5 days are required to get the full set* of data for a day.
At this point, some people say that reporting day data is better. Because it does't get revised. Well, the problem is that the reporting delays vary, and you have a weekend effect. Which means that while it *looks* complete, it is as much of a guess as filling in the "gap" in "day of" data by hand.
I thought that after 6 months of this, people would know.....
*There are further revisions, but minor, after this time. This again matches what you see everywhere in the world.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
I am quite sure that *this* time prohibition will be a great success.
The transformation in our power generation over the past decade from 2010 to 2020 is nothing short of remarkable, even the most optimistic of climate change activists wouldn't have realistically thought we'd have essentially eliminated coal and be routinely getting a majority of power from renewables in only one decade then.
From cars to electricity to heating and everything that matters people are acting in environmentally sound ways and the transformation is simply happening - while keeping capitalism not dumping it. Hence the ever louder screechings by loonies like XR attacking clean electric public transport because climate change means clean electric public transport should be attacked apparently. 🙄
Meanwhile, access to PB directly or via Vanilla on the mobile is virtually impossible.
Clean technology, clean power, clean innovation and the market taking us forwards works better than taxes, clampdowns, hairshairts and stopping people from getting to work on a clean electric train.
Thank you.