Saw some data that showed the transmission rates in education settings, having a lockdown and not closing schools and unis is like using a condom with holes in both ends.
From a pure epidemiological POV it is a no brainer.
Which is why lockdown as a concept doesn't work. We need to keep schools and supermarkets open, those two things together plus healthcare and other basic services add up to an R of over 1 already. There is no combination of things we can keep open that includes schools that doesn't have an R over 1. So we need a different way of doing this.
We're using a broad measure of stopping some forms of interaction to reduce the overall R, it's an untargeted method which causes a lot of secondary damage. It also doesn't work because stopping interaction in public just drives the same interaction into front rooms which are impossible to police.
There is no form of lockdown that will make any kind of difference in this country, not without closing schools and that is an unacceptable cost and needs to be avoided even if it means more deaths than would otherwise happen.
The only way to resolve this is targeted measures to stop people who have the virus interacting with people who don't. There is no other way to do it, none. Everything else is going to fail and cost the nation more than just money.
I don't think that's necessarily true: in Sweden schools were kept open (albeit universities and older kids went on-line), while there were a reasonable number of other restrictions.
And I think it would have been sensible to do something similar in the UK - kept Universities on-line until January, and bring schools back from youngest to oldest. Doing it all in one go meant that you didn't go from R of 1 to 1.2, but from 1 to 3.
Sweden isn't exactly an example that should be held up as worth following, with our population density and social nature their death rate would be more than double what it is IMO.
Sure: but my point is that incrementalism (or iteration)is almost always the best approach (whether in business or politics). Do something small, see what the effect is, and decide whether to do more or less of it.
Combining people returing from summer holidays abroad (importing cases), the days turning colder (and therefore people spending more time inside), and schools and universities returning all at once was a recipe for a soaring R.
Add to this that the summer was wasted in building out efficient tracking or testing. If the government had stockpiled 100 million rapid tests, we could really have done a great job of getting on top of outbreaks.
We're now faced with a really horrible set of choices, none of which are good.
- We can follow the Toby Young school of thought, which will almost certainly result in a massive spike of deaths as hospitals are overloaded, followed by a de facto lockdown as people are too scared to go out
- We can maintain the current restrictions, and accept that cases will continue rising (albeit I would expect the pace to start slowing now)
- We can lockdown...
All the options are horrible, and all involve trade offs. There is no perfect outcome, because there are different winners and losers and people will be sore as hell, irrespective.
My personal option is (2), because I think we're staring into the rear view mirror, and I think case numbers will start coming down sooner rather than later. But I admit this is not without its risks: what if hospitals do end up being stretched beyond capacity?
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
This is literally a news conference of lies. Those graphs are all bullshit, the models are all bullshit and Boris is too stupid to question the arse covering scientists.
Boris confirms stay at home order from Thursday until start of December unless for work where unable to work from home or exercise or study and to shop for food and essentials, pubs, bars and restaurants to close unless for takeaways.
Support bubbles still allowed
Yes. Stay at home unless you don't stay at home. Thats the only way to keep everyone safe, by letting them go out in the same way they have been during this period of exponential growth
It is no different to the rules in Germany now and about the same even as those in France
Boris confirms stay at home order from Thursday until start of December unless for work where unable to work from home or exercise or study and to shop for food and essentials, pubs, bars and restaurants to close unless for takeaways.
Support bubbles still allowed
Gyms?
Why would a new non-national national lockdown not lockdown mean the gyms need to close? We need to stop people from passing on the pox - they can't spread it in a Gym or tesco but can in a Pub or Superdrug.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
What's the difference between a polling station and a car park? Or a postbox for that matter.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
The Texas Supreme Court already allowed it before people voted. So yes absolutely.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
Is there any serious increased risk of personation?
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
The problem, though, is that it is combined with Texas having far too few polling stations, and people being forced to wait for hours on election day.
Very true.
Slightly on / off topic, I had a chat with a lawyer friend in DC who is very well plugged into Republican thinking. Apparently what the Republicans are scared off is the Democrats are going to try to do is turn up "undiscovered" bundles of postal votes post-election day that they will claim have been somewhat overlooked, and continue to do so until they get the result wanted. It is what the Republicans are convinced happened in 2018 in CA when several House seats were sold Republican on the night and then turned Blue once extra postal votes came in. However, they don't trust Roberts enough to side with them if any cases get to the SC, hence why the nomination of Barrett was rushed through.
Labour is going to be seeing double digit leads soon, I believe Mori shows personal approval some 30+ points ahead of Johnson.
Captain Hindsight, the one attack they had - has now been shattered by the work of this Government.
We had months to prepare - and we managed to repeat our March performance. The usual suspects will pretend this is not a UK issue - but we have handled this by far the worst in Europe and that is reflected in our number of deaths.
We're an island, we had a unique opportunity to protect our country and yet we're still being beaten by Germany, who have 9 borders. Disaster.
This is literally a news conference of lies. Those graphs are all bullshit, the models are all bullshit and Boris is too stupid to question the arse covering scientists.
I said earlier but I thought the graphics did not convince me but others have far more knowledge than I have
Boris confirms stay at home order from Thursday until start of December unless for work where unable to work from home or exercise or study and to shop for food and essentials, pubs, bars and restaurants to close unless for takeaways.
Support bubbles still allowed
Gyms?
Why would a new non-national national lockdown not lockdown mean the gyms need to close? We need to stop people from passing on the pox - they can't spread it in a Gym or tesco but can in a Pub or Superdrug.
Haven't you been keeping up?
It seems to me from the research I have seen restaurants and pubs waaaay down the list of places people get infected
And some will pretend I am happy about this lockdown. Let me assure you I am not, this is going to have devastating impacts on my mental health and the health of others. This was not inevitable - but it has been since September and I said so. Johnson is entirely to blame for this and I will never vote Tory in my life as a result.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
Is there any serious increased risk of personation?
How hard is it to extend the bounds of "the scrutiny" of the polling station to the car park? Drive through voting sounds like an excellent idea to me.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
What's the difference between a polling station and a car park? Or a postbox for that matter.
It's how disabled people have voted in Texas for a while. So it is a perfectly well understood and secure method of voting.
Now I am going to go and speak to my friends and family and wish them all the very best, I promised I would reduce my posting and I will stand by that. Wish you all the best.
Boris confirms stay at home order from Thursday until start of December unless for work where unable to work from home or exercise or study and to shop for food and essentials, pubs, bars and restaurants to close unless for takeaways.
Support bubbles still allowed
Gyms?
Why would a new non-national national lockdown not lockdown mean the gyms need to close? We need to stop people from passing on the pox - they can't spread it in a Gym or tesco but can in a Pub or Superdrug.
Haven't you been keeping up?
It seems to me from the research I have seen restaurants and pubs waaaay down the list of places people get infected
University on the other hand............
Have got wife/kids in 3 local schools. All of which have had to send students / staff home with the pox.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
The Texas Supreme Court already allowed it before people voted. So yes absolutely.
Court cases before people vote not after it.
I know that re the TX SC. I didn't say the votes should be disqualified. What I was pointing out was that even the author recognised that Harris was pushing the boundaries very far.
And some will pretend I am happy about this lockdown. Let me assure you I am not, this is going to have devastating impacts on my mental health and the health of others. This was not inevitable - but it has been since September and I said so. Johnson is entirely to blame for this and I will never vote Tory in my life as a result.
In fairness, Horse, I don’t think you were ever that likely to.
But it’s driving me, the classic soft slightly right of centre swing voter hard towards Labour right now.
Boris's delivery was utterly woeful. Luckily for him this time he doesn't have a Sturgeon statement immediately after him to highlight how terrible his Covid delivery is.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
Is there any serious increased risk of personation?
I don't know the checks in Harris TBH. But it has always struck me that polling security in the US was maybe less lax than here (but that is probably a gross generalisation).
That was a case study of a poor PowerPoint presentation.
Convinced Steve Baker who subjected the scientists to detailed and critical questioning though...
I love the fact that they are trying to scare the South West, in particular, with the idea that the numbers in hospital are going to surpass the March/April peak. This is the South West where all we heard was how empty the hospitals were.
Boris confirms stay at home order from Thursday until start of December unless for work where unable to work from home or exercise or study and to shop for food and essentials, pubs, bars and restaurants to close unless for takeaways.
Support bubbles still allowed
Gyms?
Why would a new non-national national lockdown not lockdown mean the gyms need to close? We need to stop people from passing on the pox - they can't spread it in a Gym or tesco but can in a Pub or Superdrug.
Haven't you been keeping up?
It seems to me from the research I have seen restaurants and pubs waaaay down the list of places people get infected
University on the other hand............
Have got wife/kids in 3 local schools. All of which have had to send students / staff home with the pox.
And some will pretend I am happy about this lockdown. Let me assure you I am not, this is going to have devastating impacts on my mental health and the health of others. This was not inevitable - but it has been since September and I said so. Johnson is entirely to blame for this and I will never vote Tory in my life as a result.
Because you were going to vote Tory otherwise before today?
And some will pretend I am happy about this lockdown. Let me assure you I am not, this is going to have devastating impacts on my mental health and the health of others. This was not inevitable - but it has been since September and I said so. Johnson is entirely to blame for this and I will never vote Tory in my life as a result.
Because you were going to vote Tory otherwise before today?
And some will pretend I am happy about this lockdown. Let me assure you I am not, this is going to have devastating impacts on my mental health and the health of others. This was not inevitable - but it has been since September and I said so. Johnson is entirely to blame for this and I will never vote Tory in my life as a result.
'Shall I put you down as a maybe?'
Lets be honest. Polls show people don't blame the government for the rise in the virus.
However, Boris has just lost his right flank. Those who will blame the govt for the economic fallout.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
What's the difference between a polling station and a car park? Or a postbox for that matter.
It's how disabled people have voted in Texas for a while. So it is a perfectly well understood and secure method of voting.
MrEd is just flailing.
And by pure coincidence, the Republicans are only asking for the practice to be thrown out in Democrat voting areas.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
What's the difference between a polling station and a car park? Or a postbox for that matter.
It's how disabled people have voted in Texas for a while. So it is a perfectly well understood and secure method of voting.
MrEd is just flailing.
And the Texas Supreme Court had the opportunity to review this BEFORE people voted. They allowed this vote to happen.
To get an injunction before people vote is one thing, to throw the votes out without redress is literally evil and inexcusable.
Labour is going to be seeing double digit leads soon, I believe Mori shows personal approval some 30+ points ahead of Johnson.
Captain Hindsight, the one attack they had - has now been shattered by the work of this Government.
We had months to prepare - and we managed to repeat our March performance. The usual suspects will pretend this is not a UK issue - but we have handled this by far the worst in Europe and that is reflected in our number of deaths.
We're an island, we had a unique opportunity to protect our country and yet we're still being beaten by Germany, who have 9 borders. Disaster.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
The problem, though, is that it is combined with Texas having far too few polling stations, and people being forced to wait for hours on election day.
Very true.
Slightly on / off topic, I had a chat with a lawyer friend in DC who is very well plugged into Republican thinking. Apparently what the Republicans are scared off is the Democrats are going to try to do is turn up "undiscovered" bundles of postal votes post-election day that they will claim have been somewhat overlooked, and continue to do so until they get the result wanted. It is what the Republicans are convinced happened in 2018 in CA when several House seats were sold Republican on the night and then turned Blue once extra postal votes came in. However, they don't trust Roberts enough to side with them if any cases get to the SC, hence why the nomination of Barrett was rushed through.
I was wracking my brain as to why one would legitimately seek to limit the time for receipt of duly stamped postal ballots, and that was the only reason I could come up with. Still, 3-5 days seems a quite reasonable limit after election day to set. Same day does not.
In the gloom of his present situation Jezza would be forgiven for having an ironic smile as the printing presses splurge out countless more billions. His magic money tree has become a Conservative fantastical forest.
Saw some data that showed the transmission rates in education settings, having a lockdown and not closing schools and unis is like using a condom with holes in both ends.
From a pure epidemiological POV it is a no brainer.
Which is why lockdown as a concept doesn't work. We need to keep schools and supermarkets open, those two things together plus healthcare and other basic services add up to an R of over 1 already. There is no combination of things we can keep open that includes schools that doesn't have an R over 1. So we need a different way of doing this.
We're using a broad measure of stopping some forms of interaction to reduce the overall R, it's an untargeted method which causes a lot of secondary damage. It also doesn't work because stopping interaction in public just drives the same interaction into front rooms which are impossible to police.
There is no form of lockdown that will make any kind of difference in this country, not without closing schools and that is an unacceptable cost and needs to be avoided even if it means more deaths than would otherwise happen.
The only way to resolve this is targeted measures to stop people who have the virus interacting with people who don't. There is no other way to do it, none. Everything else is going to fail and cost the nation more than just money.
I don't think that's necessarily true: in Sweden schools were kept open (albeit universities and older kids went on-line), while there were a reasonable number of other restrictions.
And I think it would have been sensible to do something similar in the UK - kept Universities on-line until January, and bring schools back from youngest to oldest. Doing it all in one go meant that you didn't go from R of 1 to 1.2, but from 1 to 3.
Sweden isn't exactly an example that should be held up as worth following, with our population density and social nature their death rate would be more than double what it is IMO.
Sure: but my point is that incrementalism (or iteration)is almost always the best approach (whether in business or politics). Do something small, see what the effect is, and decide whether to do more or less of it.
Combining people returing from summer holidays abroad (importing cases), the days turning colder (and therefore people spending more time inside), and schools and universities returning all at once was a recipe for a soaring R.
Add to this that the summer was wasted in building out efficient tracking or testing. If the government had stockpiled 100 million rapid tests, we could really have done a great job of getting on top of outbreaks.
We're now faced with a really horrible set of choices, none of which are good.
- We can follow the Toby Young school of thought, which will almost certainly result in a massive spike of deaths as hospitals are overloaded, followed by a de facto lockdown as people are too scared to go out
- We can maintain the current restrictions, and accept that cases will continue rising (albeit I would expect the pace to start slowing now)
- We can lockdown...
All the options are horrible, and all involve trade offs. There is no perfect outcome, because there are different winners and losers and people will be sore as hell, irrespective.
My personal option is (2), because I think we're staring into the rear view mirror, and I think case numbers will start coming down sooner rather than later. But I admit this is not without its risks: what if hospitals do end up being stretched beyond capacity?
We need to stop thinking of this as a trade off between saving lives or saving the economy. That's a false choice. We can have both with good testing and isolation measures and we don't need a lockdown to implement them. Any isolation system that doesn't have daily door knocks at random times, GPS tracking or government quarantine facilities is going to fail, people are too irresponsible and have proved they can't be trusted to isolate when they have the virus. That the problem we need to solve, it has a hugely negative effect on the R, we've been building a model of different isolation rates based on studies done on the subject and an average of 5 days spent being infectious before being isolated. If we isolate 60% of people properly the R falls below 1, if we get to 100% it falls to around 0.8 even with that 5 day infectious period.
We can use the same shit testing system we have which waits for people to come to it and have an R significantly below 1 if we make people isolate properly.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
What's the difference between a polling station and a car park? Or a postbox for that matter.
It's how disabled people have voted in Texas for a while. So it is a perfectly well understood and secure method of voting.
MrEd is just flailing.
Come on @Alistair, if this was a heavily Republican county, we would have plenty of people on here calling about the GOP not playing by the rules.
The US has an woefully inadequate electoral system and terrible rules - and both sides play the game.
He said something about something starting in a few days, but it wasn't super specific, so I'm unsure if it was referring to a pilot program or something.
Boris confirms stay at home order from Thursday until start of December unless for work where unable to work from home or exercise or study and to shop for food and essentials, pubs, bars and restaurants to close unless for takeaways.
Support bubbles still allowed
Gyms?
Why would a new non-national national lockdown not lockdown mean the gyms need to close? We need to stop people from passing on the pox - they can't spread it in a Gym or tesco but can in a Pub or Superdrug.
Haven't you been keeping up?
It seems to me from the research I have seen restaurants and pubs waaaay down the list of places people get infected
University on the other hand............
Have got wife/kids in 3 local schools. All of which have had to send students / staff home with the pox.
Try 1000 infections................. not 1 or 2
I know - my point is that whilst education is important it is a massive spreader conduit. Just wait until all the students come home for Christmas...
In the gloom of his present situation Jezza would be forgiven for having an ironic smile as the printing presses splurge out countless more billions. His magic money tree has become a Conservative fantastical forest.
Can you imagine the shite poured on Corbyn if he had taken the exact same economic route. The Tory right would be in meltdown.
Mr Ed’s posts today re: voter suppression don’t really surprise me. Through a veneer of respectability and politeness, this poster has been luxuriating in the prospect of stopping people voting for many weeks now.
No mention of bans on outgoing or incoming travel. If you take that announcement as the rules, Christmas trips away for a spot of skiing or warmer climates are still on.
Again Boris has said just stick with it, Christmas will be ok, by Spring things will be looking up...despite all the charts showing a shit show all the way through.
You have to be honest. There isn't any easy solutions, nor are any quick. Supressing the virus is something we have to do constantly until we get a vaccine, which best case will be a year before everybody has got their shot.
No mention of bans on outgoing or incoming travel. If you take that announcement as the rules, Christmas trips away for a spot of skiing or warmer climates are still on.
Not watching this new form of tenth-rate seaside entertainment on a Saturday night.
One observation - Parliament will vote on the measures on Wednesday. Can anyone envisage a scenario where the Government is defeated and what the consequences of that would be?
He said something about something starting in a few days, but it wasn't super specific, so I'm unsure if it was referring to a pilot program or something.
It's slightly more nuanced than that as the author admits further down the thread. Curbside voting is allowed in TX but only if you physically can't get in the polling station (it's intended for disabled / elderly voters). What Harris County did was allow drive-through voting - where a clerk brings the poll to your car - and call it curbside voting to get round the restrictions on drive-through voting, which is not allowed. Also in TX, the state legislature makes the voting rules, not the counties.
Throwing out a hundred thousand ballots is facism. Nothing complicated about it.
It they want to void the election and call for a revote that would be one thing, to simply throw out people's votes is inexcusable.
Tell you what, we have a General Election here. We allow people to cast their votes from their cars and put into a box outside the scrutiny of polling stations, and where a clerk is holding the box in a parking lot.
You happy with that?
What's the difference between a polling station and a car park? Or a postbox for that matter.
It's how disabled people have voted in Texas for a while. So it is a perfectly well understood and secure method of voting.
MrEd is just flailing.
Come on @Alistair, if this was a heavily Republican county, we would have plenty of people on here calling about the GOP not playing by the rules.
The US has an woefully inadequate electoral system and terrible rules - and both sides play the game.
Any criticism of the system should have happened before people voted, when the case was filed with the Texas Supreme Court before it happened seeking an injunction.
There is no excuse to throw out 100k votes after they have voted. None whatsoever.
Reading through this and many other similar threads over the last few months, I cannot escape the thought that the UK would be in a better position re COVID if people didn't constantly bewail how awful every response to the outbreak has been.
In the gloom of his present situation Jezza would be forgiven for having an ironic smile as the printing presses splurge out countless more billions. His magic money tree has become a Conservative fantastical forest.
Can you imagine the shite poured on Corbyn if he had taken the exact same economic route. The Tory right would be in meltdown.
Lots of people are not happy with the expenditure - but a global pandemic is a bit of a different fish than Labours pans right?
He said something about something starting in a few days, but it wasn't super specific, so I'm unsure if it was referring to a pilot program or something.
Hes just shooting for the moon, is he not?
No, I think it's been an aim for quite a while now. And I don't think he'd say something was starting in a few days if it wasn't. It'd be a more nebulous statement saying it was soon.
Comments
Combining people returing from summer holidays abroad (importing cases), the days turning colder (and therefore people spending more time inside), and schools and universities returning all at once was a recipe for a soaring R.
Add to this that the summer was wasted in building out efficient tracking or testing. If the government had stockpiled 100 million rapid tests, we could really have done a great job of getting on top of outbreaks.
We're now faced with a really horrible set of choices, none of which are good.
- We can follow the Toby Young school of thought, which will almost certainly result in a massive spike of deaths as hospitals are overloaded, followed by a de facto lockdown as people are too scared to go out
- We can maintain the current restrictions, and accept that cases will continue rising (albeit I would expect the pace to start slowing now)
- We can lockdown...
All the options are horrible, and all involve trade offs. There is no perfect outcome, because there are different winners and losers and people will be sore as hell, irrespective.
My personal option is (2), because I think we're staring into the rear view mirror, and I think case numbers will start coming down sooner rather than later. But I admit this is not without its risks: what if hospitals do end up being stretched beyond capacity?
How many hostages to fortune are needed?
Haven't you been keeping up?
Here he is at 3am with Mike Oldfield wandering around a stately home (Viv, I mean)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmRUJGRwkj0
Court cases before people vote not after it.
--AS
Slightly on / off topic, I had a chat with a lawyer friend in DC who is very well plugged into Republican thinking. Apparently what the Republicans are scared off is the Democrats are going to try to do is turn up "undiscovered" bundles of postal votes post-election day that they will claim have been somewhat overlooked, and continue to do so until they get the result wanted. It is what the Republicans are convinced happened in 2018 in CA when several House seats were sold Republican on the night and then turned Blue once extra postal votes came in. However, they don't trust Roberts enough to side with them if any cases get to the SC, hence why the nomination of Barrett was rushed through.
Captain Hindsight, the one attack they had - has now been shattered by the work of this Government.
We had months to prepare - and we managed to repeat our March performance. The usual suspects will pretend this is not a UK issue - but we have handled this by far the worst in Europe and that is reflected in our number of deaths.
We're an island, we had a unique opportunity to protect our country and yet we're still being beaten by Germany, who have 9 borders. Disaster.
University on the other hand............
Perhaps we should try it in the UK.
MrEd is just flailing.
Below are the % of RV turnout for the top few, and the votes remaining to be cast for them to reach 2016 RV turnout % levels:
NC 59.45% 2,268,764.28 (90.49%)
FL 58.97% 4,268,874.21 (89.32%)
TX 57.03% 4,252,097.05 (82.11%)
GA 55.42% 2,196,670.27 (86.79%)
AZ 53.79% 1,466,563.52 (88.04%)
WI 51.71% 1,455,736.45 (92.33%)
NV 50.18% 729,479.35 (87.16%)
(...%) = % RV turnout in 2016 using US Census Bureau numbers
But it’s driving me, the classic soft slightly right of centre swing voter hard towards Labour right now.
I love the fact that they are trying to scare the South West, in particular, with the idea that the numbers in hospital are going to surpass the March/April peak. This is the South West where all we heard was how empty the hospitals were.
Be serious not party political.
If you lockdown you destroy mental health and the economy, if you don't, you get a rampant virus and many dead.
The idea a brisk 2 week Starmer circuit breaker would have fixed this is nuts. No other country has done that, successfully.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Lets be honest. Polls show people don't blame the government for the rise in the virus.
However, Boris has just lost his right flank. Those who will blame the govt for the economic fallout.
To get an injunction before people vote is one thing, to throw the votes out without redress is literally evil and inexcusable.
That’s conclusive.
I give it seven days before they shut.
We can use the same shit testing system we have which waits for people to come to it and have an R significantly below 1 if we make people isolate properly.
The US has an woefully inadequate electoral system and terrible rules - and both sides play the game.
Cf national lockdown, border in the Irish Sea, calling an election, sundry wedding vows...
Again Boris has said just stick with it, Christmas will be ok, by Spring things will be looking up...despite all the charts showing a shit show all the way through.
You have to be honest. There isn't any easy solutions, nor are any quick. Supressing the virus is something we have to do constantly until we get a vaccine, which best case will be a year before everybody has got their shot.
Lets face it the world is in for a torrid time and if you look at news from around the world plenty of countries in the same or similar position
One observation - Parliament will vote on the measures on Wednesday. Can anyone envisage a scenario where the Government is defeated and what the consequences of that would be?
There is no excuse to throw out 100k votes after they have voted. None whatsoever.
He’ll change his mind on those in a few days as well for Christmas. You watch.