1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
I'm trying to stay away from here as much as possible at the moment because it all makes me so very, very depressed.
However, now that I've been proven right in my assumption that we'd end up this Autumn, and probably sooner rather than later, essentially with April plus schools and masks everywhere, I return to make a further prediction.
The lockdown will continue, effectively, until next Summer.
There *might* be a very brief hiatus to allow household mixing over Christmas, presumably because the Government thinks that nobody will obey its rules at that time (although they might not bother to obey them anymore regardless,) but other than that we're going to be locked up all the way until the warm weather comes around. It's inevitable. Lockdowns don't work, they just kick the can of the disease down the road. Finish one and, save for during the Summer, the start of the next is only weeks away.
The mad scientists are now running the show (Parliament and the Government might as well dissolve themselves and save us the cost of their useless presence,) and their dodgy computer models will demand that we are all incarcerated for the duration. Indeed, under the circumstances it is probably for the best that the affected businesses simply roll over and die rather than being allowed to open for a fortnight and then being shut back down again. Trying to pretend that hospitality, tourism, leisure, the arts and non-food retail are viable when they're going to be opening and closing every five minutes until May or June (and that will all start again if the octogenarians haven't been vaccinated by September) is laughable. Keeping all the doomed employees on furlough is simply delaying the inevitable under such circumstances.
Therefore, by May or June 2021, all of the shuttered sectors of the economy will have been more-or-less eradicated and unemployment will be running, at an educated guess, somewhere in the ballpark of eight million. At best, next year is going to be a more catastrophic version of 1931. At worst, we're talking 1348, or possibly 410. Broad scale societal collapse. Basically we've had our chips.
Crumbs that's bleak. Much sympathy. This too will pass. Trite but true.
Ha! Bollocks. At best we'll be dealing with the consequences of this for decades (and some of the more lunatic scientists are already suggesting that masks and social distancing will be with us literally forever.) At worst, it's the end of European civilization as currently constituted. A new Dark Age. Hundreds of years before we recover.
The country simply can't carry the weight of children, the elderly and a very large fraction of the working age population demanding handouts all at once. The economy will implode, and once it implodes, it will take society with it. It is inevitable.
I’ve not been slow at any point in being apprehensive about the economic consequences of Covid but this is hysterical nonsense. We are facing a fall in GDP of about 10%, slightly worse than 2008 where GDP fell about 8%. That hurt and brought in a decade of “austerity” whilst we rebalanced the economy but it did not bring the end of times and neither will this. vel It does we seem will have had the best part of 20 years with no net growth in Europe, something unprecedented since WW 2 and possibly a lot longer. Our default assumptions of growth and increasing wealth will be sorely hit which will no doubt have an impact on confidence. But we will survive and so will our society.
GDP has much, much further to fall. Vast swathes of the economy are being propped up by Government spending on such a gargantuan scale that it cannot possibly continue indefinitely. Either the lending will cease or all that money printing will cause the value of the pound to collapse, so that the trillions being sprayed everywhere will become about as valuable as the Zimbabwean dollar anyway.
So, how are the old, kiddies and the eight million unemployed to be housed, fed and clothed by our woefully depleted residuum of taxpayers? They won't be.
Like I said, best case scenario: "Buddy, can you spare a dime?" and the Jarrow Crusade. Worst case scenario: Fall of the Roman Empire.
Well, we will see but I think that you are seriously wrong. We will probably lose 2-4m jobs but that will put us back to the level of employment we had in 2015. I do not believe we will see anything like the level of unemployment we suffered in the 80s.
Given that about a million people were unemployed going into this, that puts your projection up to about three to five million. That's at about 1985 levels at the lower end, and even that seems very optimistic given the substantial tracts of the economy which won't survive (at the very minimum) six months of cyclical or continuous lockdowns.
One simply arrives at the point where the number of benefit claimants can no longer be supported by the remaining number of taxpayers, and then we'll find ourselves in the situation typical of developing countries. People who can still support themselves can get by. Those who can't are told to shuffle off to their favelas or mud huts and starve to death quietly.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
This week there’s a great private eye podcast, “page 94” - Ian hislop interviews the pizza guy at the centre of the q conspiracy.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
This week there’s a great private eye podcast, “page 94” - Ian hislop interviews the pizza guy at the centre of the q conspiracy.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Right from the start we have known that the current method of swabbing for the PCR test creates up to 30% false negatives. This is why multiple tests are often performed.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Not much asymptomatic screening of staff is happening, even though close contact rules for isolation are not applied to staff within hospital. It seems our PPE is 100% effective, so impossible to catch off a colleague, even in the staff room...
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
Shouldn't we just lockdown the Conservative Party?
Not sure why creating one which nearly won, ie it still lost, makes them such sages. Low ambition, these Corbynistas.
That they "nearly won" in 2017, and would have won if not for treacherous Centrists, is quite a persistent myth amongst a few of my Corbynite friends.
It is bollocks of course, as in 2017 Labour were 63 seats short of even a nominal majority, and 75 short of a working majority.
But probably only 12 seats from preventing a Tory minority government continuing in office with DUP support.
But way, way short of forming a Socialist government. Corbyn would have needed support from err...Centrist parties. If he couldn't get support from Centrist Labour, how could he have got it from Centrists in other parties?
So no Corbyn government, indeed almost certainly a further election in 2017, with May being replaced in the meantime.
SNP, Plaid and Green would have supported him Had Labour managed 274 seats that would have given him 314 before considering what LDs might have done. Difficult to see the latter supporting the Tories.
Yes, but only PC and Green would have supported a Socialist manifesto.
FPT
Not sure about that, after Mr Corbyn's infamous keynote speech in Scotland in which he demanded Socialist obectives A, B, C ... which had either always been the case in Scotland (water never privatised), already implemented by the SNP (mitigation of bedroom tax), or explicitly forbidden by Labour intervention post-indyref (renationalisation of railways).
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
This week there’s a great private eye podcast, “page 94” - Ian hislop interviews the pizza guy at the centre of the q conspiracy.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Right from the start we have known that the current method of swabbing for the PCR test creates up to 30% false negatives. This is why multiple tests are often performed.
Yep, though there's a difference between errors that are only weakly correlated among multiple samples (e.g. swab errors) and errors that are strongly correlated (e.g. for bacterial infections after a patient has been given antibiotics, where the damn thing won't culture no matter what).
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Not much asymptomatic screening of staff is happening, even though close contact rules for isolation are not applied to staff within hospital. It seems our PPE is 100% effective, so impossible to catch off a colleague, even in the staff room...
What, even when you play doctors and nurses? What's wrong with the medical profession these days?
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Not much asymptomatic screening of staff is happening, even though close contact rules for isolation are not applied to staff within hospital. It seems our PPE is 100% effective, so impossible to catch off a colleague, even in the staff room...
I think if the networks don't call it then he won't be able to do this. And the networks won't call it. Even more so if the exit polls aren't in his favour. For election coverage, even the likes of Fox News focus heavily on their news teams. Which still aren't particularly corruptible.
If he makes a statement, the networks will have to cover it, so it will be difficult to prevent him setting the agenda.
Up to a point. I think the networks, including Fox, aren’t going to play those games on the night. In any event, I’m calling Texas* for Biden (narrowly), so I’m not expecting the issue to arise.
* Hat tip to Mike’s suggestion from a few days back, which is looking good.
FWIW I will be amazed if Biden wins Texas, Trump by 2-3% I think.
Just read the Texas SC make up is Republicans 9 Democrats 0
Main event is however still on Monday in federal district court though apparently.
I thought the GOP were all for State Authority?
One of the things I have some confidence in is not EVERY judge etc thinks the way Trump and his more zealous followers do and just perhaps not all the GOP are looking to 'win at any cost even if its borderline undemocratic'
PB wrecked again on the iPhone thanks to people posting big images and endless retweets.
It’s like talking to a brick wall.
Well I have a lowly Sony Experia and often dodgy mobile reception in SE Spain and have no problems loading the site..............
You’re using Vanilla or not?
I use both but prefer Vanilla because it loads in timne order from the top.
For exactly the opposite reason I prefer PB.com. To pick up new comments on Vanilla you have to refresh and then page to the last page and scroll to the bottom. Tedious.
1. Stay at home. 2. Do as much outddor exercise as possible.
Makes sense if you've got a country estate I suppose.
What, in England? In the winter?
The second one is fuck all anyway. They probably only added it as a token gesture.
But, but, but - what happened to "get fit to keep yourself safe from the virus" - copyright Boris Johnson...
Like practically every other message ever to have emanated from this Government, it is valid only for about 37 seconds from the moment that it is announced.
I'm sure that someone will come along to shoot me down here, but I believe that actual available data suggests that gyms (amongst other businesses, notably the non-food shops) have almost no apparent role in transmitting Covid. So, of course, we have shut them down whilst keeping secondary schools and universities, where the plague is absolutely bloody rampant, operational for the duration.
So, students transmit the disease to the ever-increasing number of fat fucks out there, who then end up clogging the hospitals. It's complete bollocks. But what do we expect? Neither the politicians nor the mad scientists have a bloody clue what they are doing.
PB wrecked again on the iPhone thanks to people posting big images and endless retweets.
It’s like talking to a brick wall.
Well I have a lowly Sony Experia and often dodgy mobile reception in SE Spain and have no problems loading the site..............
You’re using Vanilla or not?
I use both but prefer Vanilla because it loads in timne order from the top.
Both are bullshit for me on the iPhone. The posting of gigantic images and endless tweets seems to exacerbate the situation massively. It makes the site completely inaccessible at times.
I think if the networks don't call it then he won't be able to do this. And the networks won't call it. Even more so if the exit polls aren't in his favour. For election coverage, even the likes of Fox News focus heavily on their news teams. Which still aren't particularly corruptible.
If he makes a statement, the networks will have to cover it, so it will be difficult to prevent him setting the agenda.
He can make any statements he likes. If he can't point to any numbers, even dodgy ones to back it up then it won't get anywhere.
It gets to his supporters. That matters if it leads to disruption of the count.
Just read the Texas SC make up is Republicans 9 Democrats 0
Main event is however still on Monday in federal district court though apparently.
I thought the GOP were all for State Authority?
One of the things I have some confidence in is not EVERY judge etc thinks the way Trump and his more zealous followers do and just perhaps not all the GOP are looking to 'win at any cost even if its borderline undemocratic'
I trust and believe you are right. The Texas SC of 9 GOP appointees seems to bear that out. Well done them.
1. Stay at home. 2. Do as much outddor exercise as possible.
Makes sense if you've got a country estate I suppose.
But don't do any risky sports like golf....that one where a max of 4 of you spend 4hrs miles from everybody else, with no need to go near each other and you use all your own equipment.
Or even a max of 2 of you spending 4 hours miles from anyone else, which is what we were initially allowed back in May and which does not contradict the new lockdown rules permitting outdoor contact with one person from a different household.
As I write, the online petition opposing closure of golf courses is up to 234,000 signatures which is quite impressive in the space of just 24 hours. It can be found here:
Just read the Texas SC make up is Republicans 9 Democrats 0
Main event is however still on Monday in federal district court though apparently.
I thought the GOP were all for State Authority?
One of the things I have some confidence in is not EVERY judge etc thinks the way Trump and his more zealous followers do and just perhaps not all the GOP are looking to 'win at any cost even if its borderline undemocratic'
I'm sure that is true, but giventhe way they are appointed, and by whom, and the extreme partisanship now rife, there's probably too many that are (too many being 'any number at all, and enough to do damage').
I trust and believe you are right. The Texas SC of 9 GOP appointees seems to bear that out. Well done them.
I'd also be surprised if SCOTUS overturned it as well because they've been reluctant to overturn state judgements, it's been more federal court judgements.
1. Stay at home. 2. Do as much outddor exercise as possible.
Makes sense if you've got a country estate I suppose.
What, in England? In the winter?
The second one is fuck all anyway. They probably only added it as a token gesture.
But, but, but - what happened to "get fit to keep yourself safe from the virus" - copyright Boris Johnson...
Like practically every other message ever to have emanated from this Government, it is valid only for about 37 seconds from the moment that it is announced.
I'm sure that someone will come along to shoot me down here, but I believe that actual available data suggests that gyms (amongst other businesses, notably the non-food shops) have almost no apparent role in transmitting Covid. So, of course, we have shut them down whilst keeping secondary schools and universities, where the plague is absolutely bloody rampant, operational for the duration.
So, students transmit the disease to the ever-increasing number of fat fucks out there, who then end up clogging the hospitals. It's complete bollocks. But what do we expect? Neither the politicians nor the mad scientists have a bloody clue what they are doing.
I would argue that shutting down the "non-essential" shops is even counterproductive as it will lead to greater overcrowding in the essential ones. People will be going shopping as an excuse to leave the house - limiting the shops they can go in will make any problems worse.
Likewise the limitations on basically safe social contact in outdoor spaces. If you put extreme limits on the ability to make social contact (to the extent that you ban safe activities) then people will seek illegal, but basically unenforceable/undetectable ways to do it. ie. meeting in private homes. Therefore making any problems work.
It is interesting to note that Wales's numbers appear to have soared since they entered their lockdown. I think a similar thing happened in april. Lockdowns will bring the numbers down eventually (although keeping schools open is a complicating factor). But i think they might generate an initial spurt as people are forced into closer contact in the homes than they would otherwise have had.
PB wrecked again on the iPhone thanks to people posting big images and endless retweets.
It’s like talking to a brick wall.
If you have a browser that works with the uBlock Origin add-on then installing that and configuring it to block platform.twitter.com will stop all tweets automatically loading and this site then works well. This is how mine is configured...
It's weird, other than when there is something taking the entire site down, I don't think I've ever had a problem accessing it, pc or phone, but apparently it is super common.
PB wrecked again on the iPhone thanks to people posting big images and endless retweets.
It’s like talking to a brick wall.
Well I have a lowly Sony Experia and often dodgy mobile reception in SE Spain and have no problems loading the site..............
You’re using Vanilla or not?
I use both but prefer Vanilla because it loads in timne order from the top.
Both are bullshit for me on the iPhone. The posting of gigantic images and endless tweets seems to exacerbate the situation massively. It makes the site completely inaccessible at times.
They are not really gigantic images though are they? Nor should a handful of tweets take long to load.
Clearly there are issues with Vanilla but I guess the site is run on a shoestring given the subscription rates charged (!)
Just like to thank Mike, Probert, TSE, the other thread header writers and anyone else involved for keeping this great resource going.
One of my pet theories has been that Boris plans to survive as PM by suspending potential 1922 letter writers from the party and burning through some of his majority, pretty much as he did in the last parliament.
I think this lockdown vote is a potential opportunity to suspend much of the ERG should he be eyeing a deal from the EU.
Mind you, I think many of the ERG would happily VoNC down the line if it came to that pass (something that might not apply to the TMay wing)
The one thing that looks really bad for ALL Governments irrespective of their political stripe is the perception they are not in control of events or the situation. Covid has tested this and it's interesting the public has tended to support the more stringent health measures.
Would you sacrifice November to save Christmas? I think most people would. The other aspect is the apocalyptic hyperbole on the economy - the evidence suggest we will take a hit and it may be comparable if not slightly worse than 2008-09 and will as these things always are the impacts will be disproportionately adverse to the poorer, the less secure, the more at risk.
Indeed, for those able to sell their property, times have never been better with house prices surging on the back of a stamp duty holiday and there seems plenty of demand out there for property.
It may be there will be some profound impacts in some sectors but I sense demand hasn't and won't disappear - indeed, the wealthier middle classes who have bene confined to working at home have been building up financial, reserves and will want the nice things (especially holidays) they haven't had this year.
What may "save" the Government in a year or two is the post-Covid boom and the general feelgood the release from pandemic anxiety will bring.
This is why it's so important to count all the votes swiftly overnight.
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
I take th epoint often made on here about there being lots of other votes on the ballots to complicate and delay things, but I really don't see why, given the importance of the presidential vote (even with the formal EC vote some way off) that they couldn't separate things out so they can prioritise the presidential.
This is why it's so important to count all the votes swiftly overnight.
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
Multiple counties in PA have committed to counting postal votes the next day. Due to the GOP fuckery they can't even verify the postal until after polls close. Given staffing levels in some counties it will take days to simply open and check signatures on the votes never mind actually count them. Given the huge preponderance of Dem votes in the postals (see my post above/below) this is going to have a massive red shift effect on election night.
I've heard a lot of people on here saying that cases are levelling off. Looking at the data up to the 25th (i.e. to avoid the @Malmesbury death sentence) I'm not seeing a levelling occurring.
Are people doing something like looking at the reporting date charts?
Specimen date. Seven-day averages. Not including the lagged data. It's appeared to be levelling off earlier, before taking off again.
Its just their classic tactic to promise both things to different groups simultaneously. No idea why Tory MPs still seem to think the govts words carry any meaning or weight.
Yes saw this earlier and mentioned it, wasnt it Philip or someone mentioned Trump needs to roll snake eyes on here? Though that was probably nationally, but Ralston isnt usually bullish unless he is pretty sure, I doubt he would speak in such terms if he wasn't,
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
This week there’s a great private eye podcast, “page 94” - Ian hislop interviews the pizza guy at the centre of the q conspiracy.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Right from the start we have known that the current method of swabbing for the PCR test creates up to 30% false negatives. This is why multiple tests are often performed.
Yep, though there's a difference between errors that are only weakly correlated among multiple samples (e.g. swab errors) and errors that are strongly correlated (e.g. for bacterial infections after a patient has been given antibiotics, where the damn thing won't culture no matter what).
--AS
My understanding is that the PCR test is very accurate - if a decent sample is collected by the swab.
On the testing - the positivity hasn't rocketed *copared to other countries)
The number of tests actually used has climbed continuously - up 80K in the last month. In a rather linear fashion....
This is why it's so important to count all the votes swiftly overnight.
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
I take th epoint often made on here about there being lots of other votes on the ballots to complicate and delay things, but I really don't see why, given the importance of the presidential vote (even with the formal EC vote some way off) that they couldn't separate things out so they can prioritise the presidential.
Red ballot for President, white ballot for Senate, blue ballot for House, yellow ballot for State, green ballot for propositions, pink ballot for county.
This is why it's so important to count all the votes swiftly overnight.
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
Multiple counties in PA have committed to counting postal votes the next day. Due to the GOP fuckery they can't even verify the postal until after polls close. Given staffing levels in some counties it will take days to simply open and check signatures on the votes never mind actually count them. Given the huge preponderance of Dem votes in the postals (see my post above/below) this is going to have a massive red shift effect on election night.
It’s a mixed picture in the state. It seems Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are going to start processing the ballots from 7am and are going to be counting them 24/7 . Many of the counties waiting till the next day are ironically red leaning areas .
Likewise the limitations on basically safe social contact in outdoor spaces. If you put extreme limits on the ability to make social contact (to the extent that you ban safe activities) then people will seek illegal, but basically unenforceable/undetectable ways to do it. ie. meeting in private homes. Therefore making any problems worse.
Specifically on the point of meeting in homes, that's the most basic flaw of all in the application of lockdown. Household transmission (not shopping, or going to the gym, or dining out, or getting your nails done) is the main driver of this unholy disaster - and, although I freely admit I'm guessing here, there has to be a reasonable supposition that it could continue unchecked this time.
As you say, the prohibition on households mixing is all but impossible to police (the coppers are only going to catch the most egregious violations, typically very stupid people holding large, loud and obvious house parties,) and this shitshow has now been dragging on for such a very long time that a large fraction of the population is liable to ignore the rules. The reasons: the novelty, along with the fear, has worn off for many; they can't bear to be socially isolated for months and months and months again (because who believes a single word the Government has to say about this only lasting through November); they've seen lockdown fail already and view it is a pointless measure; consequently, they think the authorities haven't a bloody clue what they're doing; or some combination of all of those things.
Of course, if lockdown fails this time then it will continue indefinitely anyway. Both the politicians and the government scientists have burned through all of their capital now. The sunk costs of this endeavour, and the credibility staked on the thing (i.e. all of it) are so vast that there is no room in which to perform a u-turn.
Hence my prediction earlier. If lockdown shows any signs of working then we won't be let out of it for more than a couple of weeks, before there's blind panic caused by more made-up computer projections and another cycle is entered. If lockdown doesn't work then there is no political room in which to make that admission, so the blame will be pinned on the public for not following the rules and it will continue anyway. Regardless, we are stuck with this situation until next Summer.
PB wrecked again on the iPhone thanks to people posting big images and endless retweets.
It’s like talking to a brick wall.
If you have a browser that works with the uBlock Origin add-on then installing that and configuring it to block platform.twitter.com will stop all tweets automatically loading and this site then works well. This is how mine is configured...
It’s fine on my laptop. It’s accessing through the phone that is problematic.
PB wrecked again on the iPhone thanks to people posting big images and endless retweets.
It’s like talking to a brick wall.
Well I have a lowly Sony Experia and often dodgy mobile reception in SE Spain and have no problems loading the site..............
You’re using Vanilla or not?
I use both but prefer Vanilla because it loads in timne order from the top.
Both are bullshit for me on the iPhone. The posting of gigantic images and endless tweets seems to exacerbate the situation massively. It makes the site completely inaccessible at times.
They are not really gigantic images though are they? Nor should a handful of tweets take long to load.
Clearly there are issues with Vanilla but I guess the site is run on a shoestring given the subscription rates charged (!)
Just like to thank Mike, Probert, TSE, the other thread header writers and anyone else involved for keeping this great resource going.
Sure it’s a great site.
But it’s not running properly. It needs to be looked at.
Not sure why it matters where an announcement is made these days.
Esther McVey is clearly a top-class parliamentarian, announcing which way she is going to vote before she has even listened to the debate. Maybe she should countenance the possibility that her tiny mind could be swayed by the arguments put forward?
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
This week there’s a great private eye podcast, “page 94” - Ian hislop interviews the pizza guy at the centre of the q conspiracy.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Right from the start we have known that the current method of swabbing for the PCR test creates up to 30% false negatives. This is why multiple tests are often performed.
Yep, though there's a difference between errors that are only weakly correlated among multiple samples (e.g. swab errors) and errors that are strongly correlated (e.g. for bacterial infections after a patient has been given antibiotics, where the damn thing won't culture no matter what).
--AS
My understanding is that the PCR test is very accurate - if a decent sample is collected by the swab.
On the testing - the positivity hasn't rocketed *copared to other countries)
The number of tests actually used has climbed continuously - up 80K in the last month. In a rather linear fashion....
Agreed about PCR sensitivity. Unlike culturing bacteria, it only requires chemistry rather than biology to amplify the target.
The fact that our test positivity hasn't climbed much is really rather good news, in my opinion. Goodness only knows what is really going on in France and Belgium, and how bad their death rates will be in 2-3 weeks...
This is why it's so important to count all the votes swiftly overnight.
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
Multiple counties in PA have committed to counting postal votes the next day. Due to the GOP fuckery they can't even verify the postal until after polls close. Given staffing levels in some counties it will take days to simply open and check signatures on the votes never mind actually count them. Given the huge preponderance of Dem votes in the postals (see my post above/below) this is going to have a massive red shift effect on election night.
It’s a mixed picture in the state. It seems Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are going to start processing the ballots from 7am and are going to be counting them 24/7 . Many of the counties waiting till the next day are ironically red leaning areas .
It's truly crazy that the 2.3m mail ballots already returned in PA cannot be counted or at least processed ready for feeding through counting machines ahead of Tuesday.
If lockdown-lite (i.e. lockdown but with education open) doesn't work then keeping it going until the Christmas holidays start will make it full-fat lockdown by default. And we know that that works, as long as we have the same level of compliance as last time.
It is interesting to note that Wales's numbers appear to have soared since they entered their lockdown. I think a similar thing happened in april. Lockdowns will bring the numbers down eventually (although keeping schools open is a complicating factor). But i think they might generate an initial spurt as people are forced into closer contact in the homes than they would otherwise have had.
The other reason is that, before lockdown begins, there are big parties, people go to out to the pub, many people go out shopping to the "non-essential" shops because it is their last chance for a month, or whatever. Cardiff the Thursday before lockdown was packed with young people enjoying themselves one last time.
You begin lockdown by seeding a whole bunch of new cases.
Next week will tell us whether Drakeford's policy has worked.
This is why it's so important to count all the votes swiftly overnight.
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
Multiple counties in PA have committed to counting postal votes the next day. Due to the GOP fuckery they can't even verify the postal until after polls close. Given staffing levels in some counties it will take days to simply open and check signatures on the votes never mind actually count them. Given the huge preponderance of Dem votes in the postals (see my post above/below) this is going to have a massive red shift effect on election night.
It’s a mixed picture in the state. It seems Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are going to start processing the ballots from 7am and are going to be counting them 24/7 . Many of the counties waiting till the next day are ironically red leaning areas .
It's truly crazy that the 2.3m mail ballots already returned in PA cannot be counted or at least processed ready for feeding through counting machines ahead of Tuesday.
Solti's Ring worth listening to. I've mixed feelings about the Boulez Ring on DVD. Mark Elder and The Halle recorded The Ring live in Manchester. Barenboim's set has John Tomlinson as Wotan.
The one thing that looks really bad for ALL Governments irrespective of their political stripe is the perception they are not in control of events or the situation. Covid has tested this and it's interesting the public has tended to support the more stringent health measures.
Would you sacrifice November to save Christmas? I think most people would. The other aspect is the apocalyptic hyperbole on the economy - the evidence suggest we will take a hit and it may be comparable if not slightly worse than 2008-09 and will as these things always are the impacts will be disproportionately adverse to the poorer, the less secure, the more at risk.
Indeed, for those able to sell their property, times have never been better with house prices surging on the back of a stamp duty holiday and there seems plenty of demand out there for property.
It may be there will be some profound impacts in some sectors but I sense demand hasn't and won't disappear - indeed, the wealthier middle classes who have bene confined to working at home have been building up financial, reserves and will want the nice things (especially holidays) they haven't had this year.
What may "save" the Government in a year or two is the post-Covid boom and the general feelgood the release from pandemic anxiety will bring.
I'm not exactly a high earner (although I'm not badly off) and I've saved quite a lot over the last six months. I've been lucky to spend more than two thirds of my salary after the mortgage, cycle to work, essentials and my streaming subs. I'm not spending anything on holidays, car travel, lunches (my word, I wasted so much on lunch and coffee at work), cinema, restaurants...
I feel a bit guilty actually given I have no kids and a secure job.
Not sure why it matters where an announcement is made these days.
Esther McVey is clearly a top-class parliamentarian, announcing which way she is going to vote before she has even listened to the debate. Maybe she should countenance the possibility that her tiny mind could be swayed by the arguments put forward?
As if that's how parliament works!
Next you'll be saying that US Supreme Court judges listen to legal argument before making a ruling.
Not sure why it matters where an announcement is made these days.
Esther McVey is clearly a top-class parliamentarian, announcing which way she is going to vote before she has even listened to the debate. Maybe she should countenance the possibility that her tiny mind could be swayed by the arguments put forward?
As if that's how parliament works!
Next you'll be saying that US Supreme Court judges listen to legal argument before making a ruling.
Esther McVey is hardly a first rate intellect. More like a badly razee'd third rate.
If lockdown-lite (i.e. lockdown but with education open) doesn't work then keeping it going until the Christmas holidays start will make it full-fat lockdown by default. And we know that that works, as long as we have the same level of compliance as last time.
1. *IF* there's the same level of compliance 2. *IF* it continues all the way until the Summer (because when you stop you go into another cycle of panic about rising cases after approximately seven minutes) 3. *IF* a large fraction of the population doesn't starve to death in the meantime, because so many people are out of work and destitute that the state can no longer afford to stuff all their mouths with food anymore. The fact that the Treasury won't so much as cave to the Marcus Rashford school meals campaign anymore is telling
Apart from that, lockdown is a fantastic solution.
Has anyone come up with an answer to the basic question -
Why are the reported case numbers diverting from the ONS numbers? And why are the case number diverging from the hospitalisations?
Our contact tracing strategy is rubbish so we're not finding new cases?
New Excel issue which limits us to reporting 25k cases per day maximum?
In which case the ONS data and the hospitalisation is the one to go with - and the government tis right to impose increased restrictions.
So far the ONS data has followed the trend of the case data, we'll see if this is still the case on Friday with a continued reduction in the R in some regions.
We have had enough time to see an effect on hospital admissions - yet we haven't.... What is happening there?
I think it will be two more weeks until we see any slowdown feed into the hospitalisation rate. That's don't forget that even at R1.1 we're still going to see an addition of 20k cases per week over the previous week, at current hospitalisation rates that's around 1.5k worth of case growth.
We won't see that number start to fall until the R drops to below 1 and that might actually only have happened in the past week in some areas. Scotland which has a tier 3 type policy covering most of the population introduced about 3 weeks ago should start seeing new hospitalisations per day drop over the next week and English areas which introduced tier 3 restrictions should start to see them drop next week or the week after.
Not sure why it matters where an announcement is made these days.
Esther McVey is clearly a top-class parliamentarian, announcing which way she is going to vote before she has even listened to the debate. Maybe she should countenance the possibility that her tiny mind could be swayed by the arguments put forward?
On topic (and hi folks hope everyone is safe and well)
TSE is talking rubbish about the EU and Scottish Independence referendums. The voting system had nothing to do with it. The problem with Parliamentary elections is no matter who you vote for the Government always wins. There is bugger all difference between the parties on many issues people really care about when it actually comes to doing something about them. So they generally think why bother? Back when people really did think there was a chance to change things or to prevent change - in the 92 and 97 elections - turnout was much higher. Indeed the 92 election saw turnout 5 points higher than the EU referendum.
In both the EU and Scottish referendums people knew that their vote would mean something, not because of the voting system but because the votes themselves were about a meaningful change - or not. Not just refilling the Commons with the same old faces once again.
I think the AV system is actually pretty good but to try and claim that the lack of turnout in the Parliamentary elections here is anything to do with the voting system is just garbage.
1. Stay at home. 2. Do as much outddor exercise as possible.
Makes sense if you've got a country estate I suppose.
What, in England? In the winter?
The second one is fuck all anyway. They probably only added it as a token gesture.
But, but, but - what happened to "get fit to keep yourself safe from the virus" - copyright Boris Johnson...
Like practically every other message ever to have emanated from this Government, it is valid only for about 37 seconds from the moment that it is announced.
I'm sure that someone will come along to shoot me down here, but I believe that actual available data suggests that gyms (amongst other businesses, notably the non-food shops) have almost no apparent role in transmitting Covid. So, of course, we have shut them down whilst keeping secondary schools and universities, where the plague is absolutely bloody rampant, operational for the duration.
So, students transmit the disease to the ever-increasing number of fat fucks out there, who then end up clogging the hospitals. It's complete bollocks. But what do we expect? Neither the politicians nor the mad scientists have a bloody clue what they are doing.
I would argue that shutting down the "non-essential" shops is even counterproductive as it will lead to greater overcrowding in the essential ones. People will be going shopping as an excuse to leave the house - limiting the shops they can go in will make any problems worse.
Likewise the limitations on basically safe social contact in outdoor spaces. If you put extreme limits on the ability to make social contact (to the extent that you ban safe activities) then people will seek illegal, but basically unenforceable/undetectable ways to do it. ie. meeting in private homes. Therefore making any problems work.
It is interesting to note that Wales's numbers appear to have soared since they entered their lockdown. I think a similar thing happened in april. Lockdowns will bring the numbers down eventually (although keeping schools open is a complicating factor). But i think they might generate an initial spurt as people are forced into closer contact in the homes than they would otherwise have had.
I agree, if legitimate, controlled meet ups in pubs, etc are banned, people will meet up in houses etc.
The point about enhanced contact within houses too. It is why a short circuit break is less effective than a 3 or 4 week one.
If lockdown-lite (i.e. lockdown but with education open) doesn't work then keeping it going until the Christmas holidays start will make it full-fat lockdown by default. And we know that that works, as long as we have the same level of compliance as last time.
One thing I can't get my head around is we know who are most at risk, the old, diabetes, etc and the first lockdown they were asked to shield. This time Boris made a specific point that those people don't need to do that this time around.
Do we really want 80 year Maureen popping down the shops, especially when the food box system was actually a big success in April.
Johnson got 5% last time and Stein got 1% so where the Libertarian and Green votes go will be interesting
My guess is that high % will be non-transferable. BUT as you say, the actual result will be interesting, from a psephological AND practical perspective, esp. up in CD02.
Much of which BTW was lost to New Brunswick when stout American woodsmen drove off degenerate British land-rapers from our rightful soil (Aroostook War). This victory was subsequently ratified by the (Daniel) Webster-(Alexander Baring, 1st Baron) Ashburton Treaty of 1842.
Once again (and not for the last time) Blustering John Bull was out-finagled by Savvy Uncle Sam . . .
Solti's Ring worth listening to. I've mixed feelings about the Boulez Ring on DVD. Mark Elder and The Halle recorded The Ring live in Manchester. Barenboim's set has John Tomlinson as Wotan.
It is worth trawling YouTube for excepts of Wagner's music - The Ring, Tristan, Meistersinger et al. Give it a go.
Opera North's acclaimed Ring Cycle is still on YouTube (in full). It is only semi-staged, but still...
The Met broadcast their latest one during the first lockdown - I thought it was good but some critics disagreed (but then, that seems to be what critics are paid to do).
A shame the Barenboim Ring at the Proms wasn't filmed...
If lockdown-lite (i.e. lockdown but with education open) doesn't work then keeping it going until the Christmas holidays start will make it full-fat lockdown by default. And we know that that works, as long as we have the same level of compliance as last time.
1. *IF* there's the same level of compliance 2. *IF* it continues all the way until the Summer (because when you stop you go into another cycle of panic about rising cases after approximately seven minutes) 3. *IF* a large fraction of the population doesn't starve to death in the meantime, because so many people are out of work and destitute that the state can no longer afford to stuff all their mouths with food anymore. The fact that the Treasury won't so much as cave to the Marcus Rashford school meals campaign anymore is telling
Apart from that, lockdown is a fantastic solution.
That is a particularly stupid post.
- We had about 10 weeks of lockdown followed by a period of 17 weeks (not 7 minutes) of no lockdown; lockdown will not continue all the way to summer, even under the mismanagement of this inpet government. - No one is starving. - The state can continue to borrow cheap money and/or print money for the foreseeable. - The economic consequences of no lock-down are likely to be worse given the case numbers, hospital overload and deaths would continue to rise.
I'm not exactly a high earner (although I'm not badly off) and I've saved quite a lot over the last six months. I've been lucky to spend more than two thirds of my salary after the mortgage, cycle to work, essentials and my streaming subs. I'm not spending anything on holidays, car travel, lunches (my word, I wasted so much on lunch and coffee at work), cinema, restaurants...
I feel a bit guilty actually given I have no kids and a secure job.
The issue is that there are too few people in that situation and too many who are already on the employment scrapheap, or will find that they are when the locked down sections of the economy turn up their toes and die.
Besides which, if the Government taxes the shit out of the handful of remaining taxpayers then it chokes what demand there is left in the consumer economy; if it doesn't and it prints more and more money, which is what QE amounts to of course, then that loads us up with an agonizingly large debt burden and risks ruin through hyperinflation.
So, the fact that there's a cohort of comfortably off people who are saving money because they aren't allowed out to do anything is of somewhat limited value...
FPT - many people seem to think Trump is some evil genius, like Blofeld, rather than a paranoid egotistical big mouth who shouts his gob off whenever he can, with a constituency of fans who hang on his every word.
The Trump Corporation doesn't have its tentacles extended into every part of the GOP, let alone the whole constitution of the USA. Yes, he has a few people personally loyal to (and dependent) on him but he has a lot of others who keep their mouths shut and heads down whilst he's ahead but hold no love for him (if you don't believe me just look at how quickly his ex-employees speak out).
I don't think the votes will be fixed or the counts. Almost all the legal challenges will fail. There are a lot of decent people in American (just as here) most of whom even if Republican or GOP will do the honourable thing.
He might try (very loudly) to declare victory on election night off the back of some early half-baked results.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
All the hospitalisations and deaths are really Boris & Cummings kidnapping people and imprisoning them in the basement of Pizza Express, Dean Street, Soho, of course.....
This week there’s a great private eye podcast, “page 94” - Ian hislop interviews the pizza guy at the centre of the q conspiracy.
1) Lots of tests. Not finding big increases in COVID. 2) Surveys finding lots of COVID and big increases. 3) Rapidly increasing hospitalisation.
I've got it! It must be due to increasing rates of false negatives!
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: the opposite of what Toby Young believes must be true!
--AS
One of my colleagues had two negative antigen tests a couple of weeks back, despite being quite unwell and a spouse testing positive and changes on CT chest. There are certainly a number of false negatives about.
Another colleague was asymptomatic, but tested positive on routine surveillance by occy health.
I suspect asymptomatic contacts are not being swabbed at present, as tracing falls apart when prevalence is so high.
Certainly. I was being facetious in mocking the false positive "theory", but there's no doubt that lab tests give false negative results. It's one reason to have clinical judgement involved. In the case of COVID quite likely some errors are in the taking of the sample.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Right from the start we have known that the current method of swabbing for the PCR test creates up to 30% false negatives. This is why multiple tests are often performed.
Yep, though there's a difference between errors that are only weakly correlated among multiple samples (e.g. swab errors) and errors that are strongly correlated (e.g. for bacterial infections after a patient has been given antibiotics, where the damn thing won't culture no matter what).
--AS
My understanding is that the PCR test is very accurate - if a decent sample is collected by the swab.
On the testing - the positivity hasn't rocketed *copared to other countries)
The number of tests actually used has climbed continuously - up 80K in the last month. In a rather linear fashion....
Any idea about the weekly cycling in the positivity rate? Artefact? And if so, from what?
FPT - many people seem to think Trump is some evil genius, like Blofeld, rather than a paranoid egotistical big mouth who shouts his gob off whenever he can, with a constituency of fans who hang on his every word.
The Trump Corporation doesn't have its tentacles extended into every part of the GOP, let alone the whole constitution of the USA. Yes, he has a few people personally loyal to (and dependent) on him but he has a lot of others who keep their mouths shut and heads down whilst he's ahead but hold no love for him (if you don't believe me just look at how quickly his ex-employees speak out).
I don't think the votes will be fixed or the counts. Almost all the legal challenges will fail. There are a lot of decent people in American (just as here) most of whom even if Republican or GOP will do the honourable thing.
He might try (very loudly) to declare victory on election night off the back of some early half-baked results.
He will simply be ignored.
I don't think people need tot hink he is an evil genius to think his blundering, blustering approach could cause great difficulty (assuming he doesn't just win legitimately anyway), nor that the failure of most legal challenges makes the attempt at many spurious ones a concern, since either they know many are spurious and are doing it anyway to make things awkward, don't know what is spurious and what is not, or know it is spurious but hope, perhaps wrongly, that partisan concerns will win out.
FPT - many people seem to think Trump is some evil genius, like Blofeld, rather than a paranoid egotistical big mouth who shouts his gob off whenever he can, with a constituency of fans who hang on his every word.
The Trump Corporation doesn't have its tentacles extended into every part of the GOP, let alone the whole constitution of the USA. Yes, he has a few people personally loyal to (and dependent) on him but he has a lot of others who keep their mouths shut and heads down whilst he's ahead but hold no love for him (if you don't believe me just look at how quickly his ex-employees speak out).
I don't think the votes will be fixed or the counts. Almost all the legal challenges will fail. There are a lot of decent people in American (just as here) most of whom even if Republican or GOP will do the honourable thing.
He might try (very loudly) to declare victory on election night off the back of some early half-baked results.
He will simply be ignored.
Trump is the embodiment of the Dunning Kruger Effect.
FPT - many people seem to think Trump is some evil genius, like Blofeld, rather than a paranoid egotistical big mouth who shouts his gob off whenever he can, with a constituency of fans who hang on his every word.
The Trump Corporation doesn't have its tentacles extended into every part of the GOP, let alone the whole constitution of the USA. Yes, he has a few people personally loyal to (and dependent) on him but he has a lot of others who keep their mouths shut and heads down whilst he's ahead but hold no love for him (if you don't believe me just look at how quickly his ex-employees speak out).
I don't think the votes will be fixed or the counts. Almost all the legal challenges will fail. There are a lot of decent people in American (just as here) most of whom even if Republican or GOP will do the honourable thing.
He might try (very loudly) to declare victory on election night off the back of some early half-baked results.
He will simply be ignored.
The problem is he won't be ignored. Enough excitable Trump fans armed with automatic weapons will take the spurious notion that they had their election stolen very badly indeed.
Not sure why it matters where an announcement is made these days.
Esther McVey is clearly a top-class parliamentarian, announcing which way she is going to vote before she has even listened to the debate. Maybe she should countenance the possibility that her tiny mind could be swayed by the arguments put forward?
As if that's how parliament works!
Next you'll be saying that US Supreme Court judges listen to legal argument before making a ruling.
I actually think they do, since it will help them figure out how justify what they almost always intended to do anyway.
As for parliament, yes they should accept the possibility of changing their minds - though an indication of a given view beforehand is not in itself evidence of predetermination, depending how firmly it is worded - but as you note we all know that is not how it really happens.
This is why it's so important to count all the votes swiftly overnight.
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
No way that can be achieved. For example, in WA State ballots are good if postmarked by EDay, and received afterwards.
What matters in vote counting is ACCURACY, not speed.
The faster the better - but speed secondary to correctly counting ALL valid votes.
Yes way, if states change their rules so all postals must be received by election day. Which is what we do. And it compromises neither accuracy nor speed. You don't post later than five working days before EDay, and otherwise you hand the ballot into a polling station on the day.
(PS. dial back the Daily Mail random capitals please too mate - it's an annoying habit of all your posts)
Comments
One simply arrives at the point where the number of benefit claimants can no longer be supported by the remaining number of taxpayers, and then we'll find ourselves in the situation typical of developing countries. People who can still support themselves can get by. Those who can't are told to shuffle off to their favelas or mud huts and starve to death quietly.
Do you think the reason for The Malmesbury Divergence is the combination of increasing numbers (and perhaps age) of infection plus a reduction in testing of asymptomatic contacts? My only question there is whether much asymptomatic testing was really being done in the first place.
--AS
Main event is however still on Monday in federal district court though apparently.
I thought the GOP were all for State Authority?
Not sure about that, after Mr Corbyn's infamous keynote speech in Scotland in which he demanded Socialist obectives A, B, C ... which had either always been the case in Scotland (water never privatised), already implemented by the SNP (mitigation of bedroom tax), or explicitly forbidden by Labour intervention post-indyref (renationalisation of railways).
UK and India manage it. No excuses for USA.
--AS
Or maybe you've just all already had it!
We're going to be ok.
I'm sure that someone will come along to shoot me down here, but I believe that actual available data suggests that gyms (amongst other businesses, notably the non-food shops) have almost no apparent role in transmitting Covid. So, of course, we have shut them down whilst keeping secondary schools and universities, where the plague is absolutely bloody rampant, operational for the duration.
So, students transmit the disease to the ever-increasing number of fat fucks out there, who then end up clogging the hospitals. It's complete bollocks. But what do we expect? Neither the politicians nor the mad scientists have a bloody clue what they are doing.
Likewise the limitations on basically safe social contact in outdoor spaces. If you put extreme limits on the ability to make social contact (to the extent that you ban safe activities) then people will seek illegal, but basically unenforceable/undetectable ways to do it. ie. meeting in private homes. Therefore making any problems work.
It is interesting to note that Wales's numbers appear to have soared since they entered their lockdown. I think a similar thing happened in april. Lockdowns will bring the numbers down eventually (although keeping schools open is a complicating factor). But i think they might generate an initial spurt as people are forced into closer contact in the homes than they would otherwise have had.
Clearly there are issues with Vanilla but I guess the site is run on a shoestring given the subscription rates charged (!)
Just like to thank Mike, Probert, TSE, the other thread header writers and anyone else involved for keeping this great resource going.
I think this lockdown vote is a potential opportunity to suspend much of the ERG should he be eyeing a deal from the EU.
Mind you, I think many of the ERG would happily VoNC down the line if it came to that pass (something that might not apply to the TMay wing)
The one thing that looks really bad for ALL Governments irrespective of their political stripe is the perception they are not in control of events or the situation. Covid has tested this and it's interesting the public has tended to support the more stringent health measures.
Would you sacrifice November to save Christmas? I think most people would. The other aspect is the apocalyptic hyperbole on the economy - the evidence suggest we will take a hit and it may be comparable if not slightly worse than 2008-09 and will as these things always are the impacts will be disproportionately adverse to the poorer, the less secure, the more at risk.
Indeed, for those able to sell their property, times have never been better with house prices surging on the back of a stamp duty holiday and there seems plenty of demand out there for property.
It may be there will be some profound impacts in some sectors but I sense demand hasn't and won't disappear - indeed, the wealthier middle classes who have bene confined to working at home have been building up financial, reserves and will want the nice things (especially holidays) they haven't had this year.
What may "save" the Government in a year or two is the post-Covid boom and the general feelgood the release from pandemic anxiety will bring.
witter.com/RP131/status/1322934833841135621
Just like originalism.
Other dates are of course possible, but I just can't imagine anything that would prompt the Tories to go for them.
A shame BF don't have more markets on that sort of stuff.
Starmer has to survive Labour in-fighting for nearly 4 years. At best 66% chance? Again a Starmer exit market on BF would be good.
On the testing - the positivity hasn't rocketed *copared to other countries)
The number of tests actually used has climbed continuously - up 80K in the last month. In a rather linear fashion....
It's not hard.
As you say, the prohibition on households mixing is all but impossible to police (the coppers are only going to catch the most egregious violations, typically very stupid people holding large, loud and obvious house parties,) and this shitshow has now been dragging on for such a very long time that a large fraction of the population is liable to ignore the rules. The reasons: the novelty, along with the fear, has worn off for many; they can't bear to be socially isolated for months and months and months again (because who believes a single word the Government has to say about this only lasting through November); they've seen lockdown fail already and view it is a pointless measure; consequently, they think the authorities haven't a bloody clue what they're doing; or some combination of all of those things.
Of course, if lockdown fails this time then it will continue indefinitely anyway. Both the politicians and the government scientists have burned through all of their capital now. The sunk costs of this endeavour, and the credibility staked on the thing (i.e. all of it) are so vast that there is no room in which to perform a u-turn.
Hence my prediction earlier. If lockdown shows any signs of working then we won't be let out of it for more than a couple of weeks, before there's blind panic caused by more made-up computer projections and another cycle is entered. If lockdown doesn't work then there is no political room in which to make that admission, so the blame will be pinned on the public for not following the rules and it will continue anyway. Regardless, we are stuck with this situation until next Summer.
But it’s not running properly. It needs to be looked at.
Huge polling outfit.
The fact that our test positivity hasn't climbed much is really rather good news, in my opinion. Goodness only knows what is really going on in France and Belgium, and how bad their death rates will be in 2-3 weeks...
--AS
You begin lockdown by seeding a whole bunch of new cases.
Next week will tell us whether Drakeford's policy has worked.
Solti's Ring worth listening to. I've mixed feelings about the Boulez Ring on DVD. Mark Elder and The Halle recorded The Ring live in Manchester. Barenboim's set has John Tomlinson as Wotan.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/04/siegfried-review-mark-elder-halle-bridgewater-hall-manchester-wagnerian
https://mostlyopera.blogspot.com/2008/11/chreau-and-boulez-nibelungen-ring-on.html
It is worth trawling YouTube for excepts of Wagner's music - The Ring, Tristan, Meistersinger et al. Give it a go.
I feel a bit guilty actually given I have no kids and a secure job.
Next you'll be saying that US Supreme Court judges listen to legal argument before making a ruling.
2. *IF* it continues all the way until the Summer (because when you stop you go into another cycle of panic about rising cases after approximately seven minutes)
3. *IF* a large fraction of the population doesn't starve to death in the meantime, because so many people are out of work and destitute that the state can no longer afford to stuff all their mouths with food anymore. The fact that the Treasury won't so much as cave to the Marcus Rashford school meals campaign anymore is telling
Apart from that, lockdown is a fantastic solution.
We won't see that number start to fall until the R drops to below 1 and that might actually only have happened in the past week in some areas. Scotland which has a tier 3 type policy covering most of the population introduced about 3 weeks ago should start seeing new hospitalisations per day drop over the next week and English areas which introduced tier 3 restrictions should start to see them drop next week or the week after.
TSE is talking rubbish about the EU and Scottish Independence referendums. The voting system had nothing to do with it. The problem with Parliamentary elections is no matter who you vote for the Government always wins. There is bugger all difference between the parties on many issues people really care about when it actually comes to doing something about them. So they generally think why bother? Back when people really did think there was a chance to change things or to prevent change - in the 92 and 97 elections - turnout was much higher. Indeed the 92 election saw turnout 5 points higher than the EU referendum.
In both the EU and Scottish referendums people knew that their vote would mean something, not because of the voting system but because the votes themselves were about a meaningful change - or not. Not just refilling the Commons with the same old faces once again.
I think the AV system is actually pretty good but to try and claim that the lack of turnout in the Parliamentary elections here is anything to do with the voting system is just garbage.
The point about enhanced contact within houses too. It is why a short circuit break is less effective than a 3 or 4 week one.
Do we really want 80 year Maureen popping down the shops, especially when the food box system was actually a big success in April.
Much of which BTW was lost to New Brunswick when stout American woodsmen drove off degenerate British land-rapers from our rightful soil (Aroostook War). This victory was subsequently ratified by the (Daniel) Webster-(Alexander Baring, 1st Baron) Ashburton Treaty of 1842.
Once again (and not for the last time) Blustering John Bull was out-finagled by Savvy Uncle Sam . . .
The Met broadcast their latest one during the first lockdown - I thought it was good but some critics disagreed (but then, that seems to be what critics are paid to do).
A shame the Barenboim Ring at the Proms wasn't filmed...
- We had about 10 weeks of lockdown followed by a period of 17 weeks (not 7 minutes) of no lockdown; lockdown will not continue all the way to summer, even under the mismanagement of this inpet government.
- No one is starving.
- The state can continue to borrow cheap money and/or print money for the foreseeable.
- The economic consequences of no lock-down are likely to be worse given the case numbers, hospital overload and deaths would continue to rise.
Besides which, if the Government taxes the shit out of the handful of remaining taxpayers then it chokes what demand there is left in the consumer economy; if it doesn't and it prints more and more money, which is what QE amounts to of course, then that loads us up with an agonizingly large debt burden and risks ruin through hyperinflation.
So, the fact that there's a cohort of comfortably off people who are saving money because they aren't allowed out to do anything is of somewhat limited value...
The Trump Corporation doesn't have its tentacles extended into every part of the GOP, let alone the whole constitution of the USA. Yes, he has a few people personally loyal to (and dependent) on him but he has a lot of others who keep their mouths shut and heads down whilst he's ahead but hold no love for him (if you don't believe me just look at how quickly his ex-employees speak out).
I don't think the votes will be fixed or the counts. Almost all the legal challenges will fail. There are a lot of decent people in American (just as here) most of whom even if Republican or GOP will do the honourable thing.
He might try (very loudly) to declare victory on election night off the back of some early half-baked results.
He will simply be ignored.
What matters in vote counting is ACCURACY, not speed.
The faster the better - but speed secondary to correctly counting ALL valid votes.
And Trumpsky can say any fucking thing he wants - he is NOT counting the votes - THANK GOD!
As for parliament, yes they should accept the possibility of changing their minds - though an indication of a given view beforehand is not in itself evidence of predetermination, depending how firmly it is worded - but as you note we all know that is not how it really happens.
(PS. dial back the Daily Mail random capitals please too mate - it's an annoying habit of all your posts)