Here's a question Peston and co might like to ask today:
Can you tell me how many in the 0-19 age group have died in English hospitals during the last month ?
The answer is zero.
And a total of one during the last four months.
If they ask it, they'll deserve a contemptuous response. By now, any journalist should understand that you can be a vector of a deadly disease even if you don't die from it yourself.
So the young are to have their future destroyed to keep sick oldies alive a few more months and so that obese slobs can have their risks reduced slightly.
Lockdown the young now because we allowed holidays to Spain in July.
Presumably the young weren't among those taking advantage of being allowed to take holidays to Spain in July so are absolved of all responsibility.
I don't condemn people for holidaying in Spain, or Greece. Both countries have had a really torrid time in recent years. I was astonished to learn just how important British tourism is to each of their economies (the absence of foreign holidays has been a big factor in the UK trade surplus).
I dunno. To take a foreign holiday in the middle of a global pandemic is pretty dumb.
It did wonders for my mental health. And I had a great time, at negligible risk to my health.
What about the health of others?
All good.
The beauty of COVID is that you could have had it, completely asymptomatically, passed in on to tons of people. etc etc.
You have no way of knowing, short of an antibody test.
But why the theory that there is increased risk in going to the nasty dirty abroad? Except for countries with demonstrably higher rates of infection than here, who is to say that if I had stayed at home the virus might have mutated in my next door neighbour who would then have popped round and infected me, so I was actually dodging a bullet on my own behalf and those whom I might otherwise have infected by going off on holiday?
What risk in the airport. What risk in the place? etc etc
Staying at home, working from home, venturing out to shop with mask etc. would have been lower risk for everyone.
Also allowing people to travel widely, impossible to track and trace. Ask somebody who they encountered during 2 weeks on holidays, well 1000s at the airport, 100s at different bars, restaurants, the beach, etc. And who those people were, no idea.
Very different from I spent 2 weeks working from home, I went for one meal with these 2 friends, I did 2 gym classes (where everybody is signed in), and I had a pint with a mate.
Lol. Every German hotel and restaurant I visited made me fill out a form with all my contact details and the times I visited. At home, not so much...
If I was in the Cabinet, the price of my support would be Dido being sacked and Hancock being sacked. Both of them have proved to be completely inadequate for this challenge.
So the Govt were so "furious" that somebody leaked all this last night, that they brought forward the announcement and leaked more of it an hour in advance.
Or did they give it to journalists and put a 4pm embargo on it to coincide with the Press Conference. Forgetting to change the embargo time when they moved the press conference?
Here's a question Peston and co might like to ask today:
Can you tell me how many in the 0-19 age group have died in English hospitals during the last month ?
The answer is zero.
And a total of one during the last four months.
If they ask it, they'll deserve a contemptuous response. By now, any journalist should understand that you can be a vector of a deadly disease even if you don't die from it yourself.
So the young are to have their future destroyed to keep sick oldies alive a few more months and so that obese slobs can have their risks reduced slightly.
Lockdown the young now because we allowed holidays to Spain in July.
Presumably the young weren't among those taking advantage of being allowed to take holidays to Spain in July so are absolved of all responsibility.
I don't condemn people for holidaying in Spain, or Greece. Both countries have had a really torrid time in recent years. I was astonished to learn just how important British tourism is to each of their economies (the absence of foreign holidays has been a big factor in the UK trade surplus).
I dunno. To take a foreign holiday in the middle of a global pandemic is pretty dumb.
It did wonders for my mental health. And I had a great time, at negligible risk to my health.
What about the health of others?
All good.
The beauty of COVID is that you could have had it, completely asymptomatically, passed in on to tons of people. etc etc.
You have no way of knowing, short of an antibody test.
But why the theory that there is increased risk in going to the nasty dirty abroad? Except for countries with demonstrably higher rates of infection than here, who is to say that if I had stayed at home the virus might have mutated in my next door neighbour who would then have popped round and infected me, so I was actually dodging a bullet on my own behalf and those whom I might otherwise have infected by going off on holiday?
What risk in the airport. What risk in the place? etc etc
Staying at home, working from home, venturing out to shop with mask etc. would have been lower risk for everyone.
Also allowing people to travel widely, impossible to track and trace. Ask somebody who they encountered during 2 weeks on holidays, well 1000s at the airport, 100s at different bars, restaurants, the beach, etc. And who those people were, no idea.
Very different from I spent 2 weeks working from home, I went for one meal with these 2 friends, I did 2 gym classes (where everybody is signed in), and I had a pint with a mate.
Lol. Every German hotel and restaurant I visited made me fill out a form with all my contact details and the times I visited. At home, not so much...
Well we supposed you have to do now that with the QR code app. But that fine they did in while you travelled in Germany, does the contact tracer in the UK have access to that info and vice versa, does the German version know you got the plague when you test positive back in the UK?
Lets everybody from all over Europe head to Spanish beaches, bars and restaurants was insanity, and every country is now paying the price.
Utterly predictable we would end up in national lockdown. Boris has wasted weeks dithering and kidding himself all would be fine.
Not sure Drakeford is wise either to promise what will happen post- firebreak.
At some point politicians need to understand - the virus sets the timetable, not them.
Yep Drakeford is trying to get political "credit" for acting early. But come next week Wales is going to be on a par, at best, with middle of the road English regions. So quite why they will be in a position to say a decisive "no" to a longer lockdown, as England enters one, isn't clear.
Sturgeon also seems to be claiming that she might not need to follow England because "the signs are that transmission in Scotland is coming down". Well exactly the same is true in England on their published data. R number falling. Almost below 1 in the North West - the area with the harshest restrictions. Quite why we are publishing data in England when the scientists seems to dismiss everything it is saying in favour of their own models, who knows?
Drakeford deserves a bit of credit for recognising the obvious a few weeks earlier than Boris (or Sturgeon...)
I suspect the firebreak will have a big impact and will reduce infections substantially. Time will tell.
Unless Drakeford has data to back him up we haven't seen, it's foolish to promise what he will do after the firebreak.
And then what? We stay in those measures forever because as soon as they are relaxed we're back to where we are now in a few short weeks.
If we can get cases down to the point where track, trace, isolate can cope, then we can control the epidemic and we won't need more lockdowns.
In addition - more time gives us chance to improve TTI system, gets us closer to a vaccine and better treatments, AND prevents the inevitable Christmas increase in contacts from being quite so devastating.
So the system magically fixes itself? If it was possible to do it then it would have happened by now.
The system has a capacity it can handle and a capacity it cannot.
If there was 1 covid case in the UK, I suspect even Dido Harding could manage to trace all of those contacts in 24 hours and get enough of them to isolate to keep R under 1.
Presumably the continuing efforts to improve capacity are having some positive effect.
So capacity is continually growing, unfortunately it is lagging the virus. Circuit break for 3 weeks could plausibly reduce cases by 40-50%.
That *might* be enough to get things back under control.
What a load of rubbish. It's the same system that had plenty of capacity in August and we ended up in this situation.
Testing capacity isn't a problem, it's keeping the people who have the virus separate from those who don't. You like many others have completely misunderstood what the problem actually is. More of the same testing capacity won't change anything and we're going to be back where we are today within a couple of weeks at best, or more realistically nothing is actually going to change.
Testing capacity is more than just numbers of tests. *The speed is key*. Turnaround time meets the 24 hour target in less than half of cases. That needs to be 100%. We don't currently have the capacity to do that.
Utterly predictable we would end up in national lockdown. Boris has wasted weeks dithering and kidding himself all would be fine.
Not sure Drakeford is wise either to promise what will happen post- firebreak.
At some point politicians need to understand - the virus sets the timetable, not them.
Yep Drakeford is trying to get political "credit" for acting early. But come next week Wales is going to be on a par, at best, with middle of the road English regions. So quite why they will be in a position to say a decisive "no" to a longer lockdown, as England enters one, isn't clear.
Sturgeon also seems to be claiming that she might not need to follow England because "the signs are that transmission in Scotland is coming down". Well exactly the same is true in England on their published data. R number falling. Almost below 1 in the North West - the area with the harshest restrictions. Quite why we are publishing data in England when the scientists seems to dismiss everything it is saying in favour of their own models, who knows?
Drakeford deserves a bit of credit for recognising the obvious a few weeks earlier than Boris (or Sturgeon...)
I suspect the firebreak will have a big impact and will reduce infections substantially. Time will tell.
Unless Drakeford has data to back him up we haven't seen, it's foolish to promise what he will do after the firebreak.
And then what? We stay in those measures forever because as soon as they are relaxed we're back to where we are now in a few short weeks.
Look at the graph of UK Covid deaths* on, say, Worldometer:
The up-curve of each wave is steep, the down-curve is shallow, the valley bottom was broad. For the UK those stages were approximately 3 weeks, 10 weeks and 10 weeks. One week's increase takes approximately 3 weeks to remove.
It therefore makes sense to apply lock-down very early in the rise of each wave, since it can be applied for less time. Each week earlier a lockdown is applied, saves three weeks of lockdown.
Of course, we have missed that chance in wave 2 despite the scientists proposing it.
(*Sadly, deaths are more useful here than cases because case numbers are afftected by testing levels.)
Well, the earlier you apply a new lockdown the less time you have spent out of lockdown. The earlier you impose a new lockdown the closer you get to being in lockdown all the time.
And, in any case, it's not like we were able to enjoy life out of lockdown in between. We didn't have mass spectator sport back as they do in Australia and New Zealand. What proportion of the time do you think we'd have to spend in lockdown?
I just don't see it as a sustainable plan. The longer it goes on the more wild the excesses will be in the windows between lockdown, and the faster a new lockdown would have to be imposed.
Isolate the infectious instead of isolating everyone.
It's not an either or - I'd advocate both. Unfortunately HMG have put a numpty in charge of test and trace (but hey, at least she's 'one of us').
Also, you miss the point that we ran for 10-12 weeks through the summer with low levels of infection. No reason to think we wouldn't have had a similar 'quiet' period if we had locked down at the start of March and reduced the peak, and therefore the time to get the nubers right back down, by half or two-thirds.
Instead of 3 weeks rise, 9 weeks fall and 10-12 weeks relative abeyance, we could have had a pattern of 1:3:10. So say 4 weeks in lock down out of 14 rather than 12 out of 24.
And btw, anyone who thinks this next lockdown is now going to be just a few weeks is deluded.
I'm going to try and understand it with a very simple model, where the case rate increases by 30% a week in between lockdowns, and decreases by 20% a week during lockdown. Lockdown is released when the case rate declines to below 10 (per 100k). In the Early version lockdown is imposed when the case rate goes above 100 and in the Late version lockdown is not imposed until the case rate goes above 1000. Cases start at 10.
Early. After 9 weeks without lockdown the case rate reaches 106 and lockdown is imposed. After 11 weeks the case rate declines to 9.1 and lockdown is released. After 10 weeks the case rate reaches 126 and lockdown is imposed again. This time it takes 12 weeks to reduce the case rate to 8.6. 10 more weeks without lockdown, 12 with. So 29 weeks without lockdown and 35 with, 55% of the time in lockdown.
Late. 18 weeks without lockdown, 22 weeks with lockdown. 19 without, 22 with lockdown. Then another cycle of 18 without and 21 with lockdown. So 55 weeks without and 65 with, 54% of the time in lockdown.
Imposing lockdown early doesn't make much difference to the amount of time you spend in lockdown, if lockdown is your only method of controlling the spread of the virus. What it will do is avoid a greater number of deaths.
On government data, I think the R is more reliably calculated from hospital admissions data, but unfortunately it runs 12-17 days behind the true R, specimen day cases run around 7-10 days behind the true R. I think the specimen day R values are no longer representative of what's actually happening in the country even if they do tell a better story than they were two weeks ago with many regions and countries now showing a negative R value.
All well and good to say that, but what...We have 500k a day testing capacity, thats plenty. "Improve Track and Trace", how?....what other systems can be put in place in a month?
Its dead easy to claim better handling, but much harder to come up with plans that a) can be implemented within a few weeks and b) people, especially the media, will accept e.g sending people to gulags to quarantine (as they would phrase it).
Relation of mine had a test last Saturday, got the result Tuesday. Positive, as she expected.
Remember when I said that there were in effect 5 tiers of Shagger's 3 tier plan? That as well the missing "Low" tier we would have to have an "Extremely High" tier because Whitty said 3 wouldn't be enough? I remember some (like Philip) doggedly insisting that wasn't true.
And yet here we are with Tier 4. Don't forget folks. It is NOT a national lockdown. Merely a new very high regional tier shutting pubs and shops and banning travel being applied to all regions at once.
Oh how they scoffed when Sturgeon announced a Tier 4.
Sky reporting from Liverpool just now showing a queue for a Halloween fancy dress shop.
The reporter commented that on speaking to those in the queue they want to get their fancy dress for their parties tonight and have no intention of following the rules
No matter what Boris does or anyone else fighting this pandemic until a strictly policed stay at home curfew is introduced this pandemic will continue unchecked
So rather than lockdown the shops, have a strictly policed curfew? For someone who needed regular inhalations of smelling salts just 'cos of the great Drakeford repression of toaster sales, you have a strangely inconsistent position on authoritarian measures.
In the areas that need it...
So allow shops to stay open but use (scarce) police resources to keep people off the streets so those shops don't make sales anyway?
I'm sure Boris wouldn't mind floating a shoot-to-kill policy to enforce a curfew for mawkishly sentimental Scousers and 'a society that has become hooked on grief and likes to wallow in a sense of vicarious victimhood’.
Not sure you understand the curfew
It is designed to stop people socialising in the evening but allowing normal social distancing shopping
France has introduced one between 9.00pm and 6.00am
In France you can't leave your home without telling the government online where you are going, when and why.
That's a level of lockdown we never had even in March.
I doubt that is correct , you have to print off a template and fill it in with times, places you are going and why and carry it with you. Given you are allowed an hour for shopping , if you are stopped and your signed paper does not match you are huckled.
So... On holiday in Cornwall this week. Will we have to come home before Thursday? Or can we stay until Saturday as planned and paid for?
Just stay, the only thing is that everything will be shut despite the incidence rate in SW England basically being nothing.
That is what I am hoping we can do. We came here to do nothing anyway, maybe a few long walks and some sea air.
But I am pretty sure hotels will be told to enforce the law: this will be policed. And you are only allowed to stay overnight outside your home for work from Thursday on, No more holidays.
Of course if you are in some self catering or, even better, a 2nd home you'll probably be fine. You will be breaking the rules but no one will check.
Have you tried microdosing psychedelics? I absolutely would never recommend such a thing, but a friend of mine finds it the most effective way of tackling major depression he has encountered in 30 years of research. Or rather he thinks it might be, if only it were legal to give it a try.
Utterly predictable we would end up in national lockdown. Boris has wasted weeks dithering and kidding himself all would be fine.
Not sure Drakeford is wise either to promise what will happen post- firebreak.
At some point politicians need to understand - the virus sets the timetable, not them.
Yep Drakeford is trying to get political "credit" for acting early. But come next week Wales is going to be on a par, at best, with middle of the road English regions. So quite why they will be in a position to say a decisive "no" to a longer lockdown, as England enters one, isn't clear.
Sturgeon also seems to be claiming that she might not need to follow England because "the signs are that transmission in Scotland is coming down". Well exactly the same is true in England on their published data. R number falling. Almost below 1 in the North West - the area with the harshest restrictions. Quite why we are publishing data in England when the scientists seems to dismiss everything it is saying in favour of their own models, who knows?
Drakeford deserves a bit of credit for recognising the obvious a few weeks earlier than Boris (or Sturgeon...)
I suspect the firebreak will have a big impact and will reduce infections substantially. Time will tell.
Unless Drakeford has data to back him up we haven't seen, it's foolish to promise what he will do after the firebreak.
And then what? We stay in those measures forever because as soon as they are relaxed we're back to where we are now in a few short weeks.
If we can get cases down to the point where track, trace, isolate can cope, then we can control the epidemic and we won't need more lockdowns.
In addition - more time gives us chance to improve TTI system, gets us closer to a vaccine and better treatments, AND prevents the inevitable Christmas increase in contacts from being quite so devastating.
So the system magically fixes itself? If it was possible to do it then it would have happened by now.
The system has a capacity it can handle and a capacity it cannot.
If there was 1 covid case in the UK, I suspect even Dido Harding could manage to trace all of those contacts in 24 hours and get enough of them to isolate to keep R under 1.
Presumably the continuing efforts to improve capacity are having some positive effect.
So capacity is continually growing, unfortunately it is lagging the virus. Circuit break for 3 weeks could plausibly reduce cases by 40-50%.
That *might* be enough to get things back under control.
What a load of rubbish. It's the same system that had plenty of capacity in August and we ended up in this situation.
Testing capacity isn't a problem, it's keeping the people who have the virus separate from those who don't. You like many others have completely misunderstood what the problem actually is. More of the same testing capacity won't change anything and we're going to be back where we are today within a couple of weeks at best, or more realistically nothing is actually going to change.
Testing capacity is more than just numbers of tests. *The speed is key*. Turnaround time meets the 24 hour target in less than half of cases. That needs to be 100%. We don't currently have the capacity to do that.
24hrs still too long, if you think you can test your way out of it. South Korea, they have automated AI system with works out who needs the tests, what order they need to do the tests, which type of test to book you in for, and they get results with a few hours. Again, not possible without huge technological infrastructure.
Have you tried microdosing psychedelics? I absolutely would never recommend such a thing, but a friend of mine finds it the most effective way of tackling major depression he has encountered in 30 years of research. Or rather he thinks it might be, if only it were legal to give it a try.
I have friends doing that who approve, likewise
My secret tipple, apart from red wine and Plymouth gin, is cannabis tincture. I have quite a few bottles. Just a few drops at night are very relaxing.
Utterly predictable we would end up in national lockdown. Boris has wasted weeks dithering and kidding himself all would be fine.
Not sure Drakeford is wise either to promise what will happen post- firebreak.
At some point politicians need to understand - the virus sets the timetable, not them.
Yep Drakeford is trying to get political "credit" for acting early. But come next week Wales is going to be on a par, at best, with middle of the road English regions. So quite why they will be in a position to say a decisive "no" to a longer lockdown, as England enters one, isn't clear.
Sturgeon also seems to be claiming that she might not need to follow England because "the signs are that transmission in Scotland is coming down". Well exactly the same is true in England on their published data. R number falling. Almost below 1 in the North West - the area with the harshest restrictions. Quite why we are publishing data in England when the scientists seems to dismiss everything it is saying in favour of their own models, who knows?
Drakeford deserves a bit of credit for recognising the obvious a few weeks earlier than Boris (or Sturgeon...)
I suspect the firebreak will have a big impact and will reduce infections substantially. Time will tell.
Unless Drakeford has data to back him up we haven't seen, it's foolish to promise what he will do after the firebreak.
And then what? We stay in those measures forever because as soon as they are relaxed we're back to where we are now in a few short weeks.
If we can get cases down to the point where track, trace, isolate can cope, then we can control the epidemic and we won't need more lockdowns.
In addition - more time gives us chance to improve TTI system, gets us closer to a vaccine and better treatments, AND prevents the inevitable Christmas increase in contacts from being quite so devastating.
So the system magically fixes itself? If it was possible to do it then it would have happened by now.
The system has a capacity it can handle and a capacity it cannot.
If there was 1 covid case in the UK, I suspect even Dido Harding could manage to trace all of those contacts in 24 hours and get enough of them to isolate to keep R under 1.
Presumably the continuing efforts to improve capacity are having some positive effect.
So capacity is continually growing, unfortunately it is lagging the virus. Circuit break for 3 weeks could plausibly reduce cases by 40-50%.
That *might* be enough to get things back under control.
What a load of rubbish. It's the same system that had plenty of capacity in August and we ended up in this situation.
Testing capacity isn't a problem, it's keeping the people who have the virus separate from those who don't. You like many others have completely misunderstood what the problem actually is. More of the same testing capacity won't change anything and we're going to be back where we are today within a couple of weeks at best, or more realistically nothing is actually going to change.
Testing capacity is more than just numbers of tests. *The speed is key*. Turnaround time meets the 24 hour target in less than half of cases. That needs to be 100%. We don't currently have the capacity to do that.
That isn't capacity related, though. It's structural. The turnaround time in the UK is bad because we have a centralised system requiring swabs to be collected from regional satellites to be processed at hub labs, that add 1-2 days of lag by itself. Capacity isn't the issue and tbh, our testing system is has basically turned into a very expensive monitoring system given that people who have the virus don't isolate it really makes no difference whether they know they have it or not.
If I was in the Cabinet, the price of my support would be Dido being sacked and Hancock being sacked. Both of them have proved to be completely inadequate for this challenge.
Dido Harding is so useless she was just meant to fail. (total setup)
I'd radically disagree about Hancock. I think he's doing quite well.
If I was in the Cabinet, the price of my support would be Dido being sacked and Hancock being sacked. Both of them have proved to be completely inadequate for this challenge.
I would consider that a start. Cummings, Shapps, Williamson?
Utterly predictable we would end up in national lockdown. Boris has wasted weeks dithering and kidding himself all would be fine.
Not sure Drakeford is wise either to promise what will happen post- firebreak.
At some point politicians need to understand - the virus sets the timetable, not them.
Yep Drakeford is trying to get political "credit" for acting early. But come next week Wales is going to be on a par, at best, with middle of the road English regions. So quite why they will be in a position to say a decisive "no" to a longer lockdown, as England enters one, isn't clear.
Sturgeon also seems to be claiming that she might not need to follow England because "the signs are that transmission in Scotland is coming down". Well exactly the same is true in England on their published data. R number falling. Almost below 1 in the North West - the area with the harshest restrictions. Quite why we are publishing data in England when the scientists seems to dismiss everything it is saying in favour of their own models, who knows?
Drakeford deserves a bit of credit for recognising the obvious a few weeks earlier than Boris (or Sturgeon...)
I suspect the firebreak will have a big impact and will reduce infections substantially. Time will tell.
Unless Drakeford has data to back him up we haven't seen, it's foolish to promise what he will do after the firebreak.
And then what? We stay in those measures forever because as soon as they are relaxed we're back to where we are now in a few short weeks.
If we can get cases down to the point where track, trace, isolate can cope, then we can control the epidemic and we won't need more lockdowns.
In addition - more time gives us chance to improve TTI system, gets us closer to a vaccine and better treatments, AND prevents the inevitable Christmas increase in contacts from being quite so devastating.
So the system magically fixes itself? If it was possible to do it then it would have happened by now.
The system has a capacity it can handle and a capacity it cannot.
If there was 1 covid case in the UK, I suspect even Dido Harding could manage to trace all of those contacts in 24 hours and get enough of them to isolate to keep R under 1.
Presumably the continuing efforts to improve capacity are having some positive effect.
So capacity is continually growing, unfortunately it is lagging the virus. Circuit break for 3 weeks could plausibly reduce cases by 40-50%.
That *might* be enough to get things back under control.
What a load of rubbish. It's the same system that had plenty of capacity in August and we ended up in this situation.
Testing capacity isn't a problem, it's keeping the people who have the virus separate from those who don't. You like many others have completely misunderstood what the problem actually is. More of the same testing capacity won't change anything and we're going to be back where we are today within a couple of weeks at best, or more realistically nothing is actually going to change.
Testing capacity is more than just numbers of tests. *The speed is key*. Turnaround time meets the 24 hour target in less than half of cases. That needs to be 100%. We don't currently have the capacity to do that.
That isn't capacity related, though. It's structural. The turnaround time in the UK is bad because we have a centralised system requiring swabs to be collected from regional satellites to be processed at hub labs, that add 1-2 days of lag by itself. Capacity isn't the issue and tbh, our testing system is has basically turned into a very expensive monitoring system given that people who have the virus don't isolate it really makes no difference whether they know they have it or not.
We have a system designed to test as many people as possible, rather than a system designed to reduce onward transmission of the virus. Wrong target, wrong outcome.
Brave for Wales to say that the fire break is definitely going to be enough.....I of course know about lag etc, but the public (and most politicians don't seem to).
Sky’s Beth Rigby has also been given a briefing on what to expect.
She said:
I’ve been told that all of England is into tier four. It will mean that all pubs and restaurants have to close. All shops will close apart from non-essential retail, but as I understand it supermarkets will still be able to sell nonessential goods. There will be no mixing inside homes. In terms of what can continue: schools and universities and colleges all will remain open. Courts will remain open and parliament will remain open.
The idea would be that while we all go into tier 4 for a period of a few weeks. Then we come out of it back into other [existing] tiering system. So different parts of the country will be released from this tier 4 at different periods depending on where they are with the virus.
This is what happens when you surround yourself with weak lying toerags. Gove would always be number 1 suspect as the biggest lying back stabber of them all.
Sky’s Beth Rigby has also been given a briefing on what to expect.
She said:
I’ve been told that all of England is into tier four. It will mean that all pubs and restaurants have to close. All shops will close apart from non-essential retail, but as I understand it supermarkets will still be able to sell nonessential goods. There will be no mixing inside homes. In terms of what can continue: schools and universities and colleges all will remain open. Courts will remain open and parliament will remain open.
The idea would be that while we all go into tier 4 for a period of a few weeks. Then we come out of it back into other [existing] tiering system. So different parts of the country will be released from this tier 4 at different periods depending on where they are with the virus.
Realistically, we are going to be in this until Christmas.
Sky’s Beth Rigby has also been given a briefing on what to expect.
She said:
I’ve been told that all of England is into tier four. It will mean that all pubs and restaurants have to close. All shops will close apart from non-essential retail, but as I understand it supermarkets will still be able to sell nonessential goods. There will be no mixing inside homes. In terms of what can continue: schools and universities and colleges all will remain open. Courts will remain open and parliament will remain open.
The idea would be that while we all go into tier 4 for a period of a few weeks. Then we come out of it back into other [existing] tiering system. So different parts of the country will be released from this tier 4 at different periods depending on where they are with the virus.
That identical to the leak obtained by Peston, so that seems to be it. Here we go.
Come off it. This ISN'T a national lockdown - such a thing would be a disaster. No, it is simply an extension of the regional tier strategy. With a new tier added on top that we definitely didn't need. Applied in every region of the nation. With a travel ban to keep our country moving.
Sky’s Beth Rigby has also been given a briefing on what to expect.
She said:
I’ve been told that all of England is into tier four. It will mean that all pubs and restaurants have to close. All shops will close apart from non-essential retail, but as I understand it supermarkets will still be able to sell nonessential goods. There will be no mixing inside homes. In terms of what can continue: schools and universities and colleges all will remain open. Courts will remain open and parliament will remain open.
The idea would be that while we all go into tier 4 for a period of a few weeks. Then we come out of it back into other [existing] tiering system. So different parts of the country will be released from this tier 4 at different periods depending on where they are with the virus.
Realistically, we are going to be in this until Christmas.
To be fair some bright spark discovered dexamethasone helped the very ill.
While the "Public policy" pandemic handling in the UK has been shambolic (at best) there has been some pretty impressive (dare one say "world beating") scientific work. Nowt to do with the government
I was just wondering, did anything happen while you were away? They do say a week is a long time in politics. Let's see... oh yes, Jeremy Corbyn was unceremoniously thrown out of the Labour Party...and CROSSOVER!
Sky’s Beth Rigby has also been given a briefing on what to expect.
She said:
I’ve been told that all of England is into tier four. It will mean that all pubs and restaurants have to close. All shops will close apart from non-essential retail, but as I understand it supermarkets will still be able to sell nonessential goods. There will be no mixing inside homes. In terms of what can continue: schools and universities and colleges all will remain open. Courts will remain open and parliament will remain open.
The idea would be that while we all go into tier 4 for a period of a few weeks. Then we come out of it back into other [existing] tiering system. So different parts of the country will be released from this tier 4 at different periods depending on where they are with the virus.
Realistically, we are going to be in this until Christmas.
So... On holiday in Cornwall this week. Will we have to come home before Thursday? Or can we stay until Saturday as planned and paid for?
Just stay, the only thing is that everything will be shut despite the incidence rate in SW England basically being nothing.
That is what I am hoping we can do. We came here to do nothing anyway, maybe a few long walks and some sea air.
But I am pretty sure hotels will be told to enforce the law: this will be policed. And you are only allowed to stay overnight outside your home for work from Thursday on, No more holidays.
Of course if you are in some self catering or, even better, a 2nd home you'll probably be fine. You will be breaking the rules but no one will check.
Air bnb. We'll go if the owner asks us to, obvs. Let's see what the rules say.
To be fair some bright spark discovered dexamethasone helped the very ill.
While the "Public policy" pandemic handling in the UK has been shambolic (at best) there has been some pretty impressive (dare one say "world beating") scientific work. Nowt to do with the government
Mixed bag. Fantastic scientific work on the health trials, but even then lets not forget Oxford vaccine gave the wrong dosages and have been overtaken due to better run Phase III trials from other organisations, and as for modelling....we have done that to death.
I would give credit to the government for securing wide range of vaccine rights, quick off the mark to turbo charge the building of the production facility and being involved facilitating the health trials. Also, they have funded a number of different ways of reporting / surveying the virus.
Come off it. This ISN'T a national lockdown - such a thing would be a disaster. No, it is simply an extension of the regional tier strategy. With a new tier added on top that we definitely didn't need. Applied in every region of the nation. With a travel ban to keep our country moving.
Is this a massive problem 33.7m mail ballots outstanding?
Total Early Votes: 90,012,433
In-Person Votes: 32,663,560 •
Mail Ballots Returned: 57,348,873 •
Mail Ballots Outstanding: 33,680,976
Nine states and DC automatically send out postal votes to all registered voters including some big ones. They are California, New Jersey, Vermont, Nevada, Colorado, Washington, Utah, Hawaii, and Oregon. So I'd assume all non-voters in these states would be in "mail ballots outstanding". It therefore doesn't strike me as a surprising figure (and of course some will still get there in time or be dropped off in person on the day).
Thanks for that information. I was getting anxious about that figure but that puts my mind at rest.
Why shut "non essential shops". How much genuine transmission occurs in those?
I presume it is to minimize the reasons people would venture out. It is too easy when bored to say hey why not go to town and have a look at some clothes, which then involves a trip on the bus etc etc etc.
However, I have to say, there are loads of things I would close before that e.g. leisure stuff like cinemas, trampoline parks.
London published numbers falling. But the published numbers can be safely ignored of course.
A lot depends on the age range. If dropping in youths, but rising in the older generation, then quite compatible with a worsening epidemic. That was the pattern in a number of university cities in the North and Midlands.
Why shut "non essential shops". How much genuine transmission occurs in those?
I presume it is to minimize the reasons people would venture out. It is too easy when bored to say hey why not go to town and have a look at some clothes, which then involves a trip on the bus etc etc etc.
However, I have to say, there are loads of things I would close before that e.g. leisure stuff like cinemas, trampoline parks.
They will all be closed as well. Everything is closing.
If I was in the Cabinet, the price of my support would be Dido being sacked and Hancock being sacked. Both of them have proved to be completely inadequate for this challenge.
I would consider that a start. Cummings, Shapps, Williamson?
Sacking Cummings would immeasurable improve governance. We can worry about other names once he has been escorted from the building.
London published numbers falling. But the published numbers can be safely ignored of course.
I think you read too much into the headline numbers. They may be falling, but this may be, for example, because the large numbers of students testing positive are gradually falling out of the system, which you would expect by now - it has almost reached all the students who are going to get it, with the peak about a month ago.
If the headline numbers are falling but the numbers for those who are middle-aged and above are still rising, there is a problem. I think that's where we are.
Jesus Christ. The leaks and now this. It's not the murderous incompetence that kills you, it's the sheer discourtesy.
I'm assuming the Speaker is going to go ballistic on Monday as yet another massive announcement is made via twitter leak and press event rather than dispatch box.
Imagine you are that Liverpool gym guy. All the fighting you did to keep your business open.
arbitrarily shut down with a wave of a hand by a highly paid medical advisor with big salary and a huge pension. That you are trying to finance by keeping your business open and paying taxes.
As I have said before, these people are not vassals, they are voters. When the time comes, do the politicians of today honestly think they are going to get these votes, or millions of others?
Does anyone else think that, sadly, without closing schools and education generally it is not a lock down? The (Peston) provisions are a national extension of Tier 3 with small additions. I wish I thought it could work, but the millions of daily movements and interactions involved in education generally are a critical factor.
Comments
To be fair some bright spark discovered dexamethasone helped the very ill.
Or did they give it to journalists and put a 4pm embargo on it to coincide with the Press Conference. Forgetting to change the embargo time when they moved the press conference?
Lets everybody from all over Europe head to Spanish beaches, bars and restaurants was insanity, and every country is now paying the price.
I will just have to do this one alone with my newts. And several hundred bottles of Rioja Gran Reserva
*The speed is key*. Turnaround time meets the 24 hour target in less than half of cases.
That needs to be 100%. We don't currently have the capacity to do that.
Early. After 9 weeks without lockdown the case rate reaches 106 and lockdown is imposed. After 11 weeks the case rate declines to 9.1 and lockdown is released. After 10 weeks the case rate reaches 126 and lockdown is imposed again. This time it takes 12 weeks to reduce the case rate to 8.6. 10 more weeks without lockdown, 12 with. So 29 weeks without lockdown and 35 with, 55% of the time in lockdown.
Late. 18 weeks without lockdown, 22 weeks with lockdown. 19 without, 22 with lockdown. Then another cycle of 18 without and 21 with lockdown. So 55 weeks without and 65 with, 54% of the time in lockdown.
Imposing lockdown early doesn't make much difference to the amount of time you spend in lockdown, if lockdown is your only method of controlling the spread of the virus. What it will do is avoid a greater number of deaths.
😎🌞
Of course if you are in some self catering or, even better, a 2nd home you'll probably be fine. You will be breaking the rules but no one will check.
If you can make it, next year there will be elections. Locals, true, but just the same.
IF you have the chance to vote, remember how you feel now. Remember Whitty and Vallance, Johnson and Starmer and that awful halloween.
My secret tipple, apart from red wine and Plymouth gin, is cannabis tincture. I have quite a few bottles. Just a few drops at night are very relaxing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RP131/status/1322573030292393984
Northern Ireland looking promising.
I'd radically disagree about Hancock. I think he's doing quite well.
Cummings, Shapps, Williamson?
Britain isn’t suffering from lockdown fatigue, it has just lost faith in the cocksure claims of politicians and scientists
Matthew Parris" (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/our-leaders-should-admit-theyre-totally-lost-gtpjzkr9p
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Elq5KHrXYAAcbqv?format=png&name=large
She said:
I’ve been told that all of England is into tier four. It will mean that all pubs and restaurants have to close. All shops will close apart from non-essential retail, but as I understand it supermarkets will still be able to sell nonessential goods. There will be no mixing inside homes. In terms of what can continue: schools and universities and colleges all will remain open. Courts will remain open and parliament will remain open.
The idea would be that while we all go into tier 4 for a period of a few weeks. Then we come out of it back into other [existing] tiering system. So different parts of the country will be released from this tier 4 at different periods depending on where they are with the virus.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RP131/status/1322576912577953794
So you didn't miss much.
The only candidate right now is Farage and he has his head so far up Trump's backside he has no conception of what is going on
I would give credit to the government for securing wide range of vaccine rights, quick off the mark to turbo charge the building of the production facility and being involved facilitating the health trials. Also, they have funded a number of different ways of reporting / surveying the virus.
Has somebody resigned?
However, I have to say, there are loads of things I would close before that e.g. leisure stuff like cinemas, trampoline parks.
It's like spectators at sporting events are unlikely to spread the virus at the event, much more so the travelling to and from the event.
Shut those non-essential shops and you reduce dramatically social interaction on transport travelling to and from those shops.
No local cases for 202 days. GDP is growing. Life is basically normal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/hugs-sequins-and-rainbows-as-taiwan-enjoys-victory-over-virus
Perhaps we will have tier 6.5 instead of tier 4.0?
If the headline numbers are falling but the numbers for those who are middle-aged and above are still rising, there is a problem. I think that's where we are.
arbitrarily shut down with a wave of a hand by a highly paid medical advisor with big salary and a huge pension. That you are trying to finance by keeping your business open and paying taxes.
As I have said before, these people are not vassals, they are voters. When the time comes, do the politicians of today honestly think they are going to get these votes, or millions of others?
https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1322580353819774977?s=20
As published by government yesterday:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/30october2020#age-analysis-of-the-number-of-people-in-england-who-had-covid-19
There’s a strong case for keeping primaries open - and I suspect the one for keeping universities open is entirely financial.
Unless the Spanners are beating Liverpool.