Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
The UK messaging regarding Xmas, etc is very much in line with what we have here in Spain. There is clealry an attempt to provide some limited cheer for both business and people at Xmas with due caution al round. It will not be enough for the serial whingers on here but they will never be assuaged. WRT the US I am baffled that Biden at least is not out there much more publicly condemning the madness.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
The problem for Biden is that he can't really do nothing - Trump has left America's global leadership in tatters in crucial areas like climate change, restraining Chinese and Russian aggression, and maintaining the global liberal economic order, so all of that needs to be reversed if the US wants to retain its role as the dominant hyperpower - but his administration is going to get kicked in the shins by the radical left and radical right the moment it attempts to do anything to correct Trump's failures.
I'm not a huge fan of the Democrats but I was very much hoping they'd magange to stop navel gazing, win decisively against a terrible opponent, and get the solid Presidential/House/Senate majority they'd need to rebuild American grand strategy. Instead, I'm terrified we have the worst of all worlds: a GOP refusing to admit defeat in control of the Senate, giving them power to block or stymie legislation, leading to a lame duck Biden administration that can't introduce the big changes the US needs to compete with China, followed by a less stupid, more competent Trumpite authoritarian taking the Presidency back for the Republicans in 2024.
The problem is that there are four blocs of varying strength: on the extreme left you have the identity warriors, which the Dems need to keep on side. On the other hand, they aren't anywhere near as big or as powerful as the authoritarian isolationists (or Trumpers), who make up half the support of the Republican party. And who now outnumber the other half of the Republican party - the business minded, broadly free trade, low regulation, keep the government out of my hair. These groups have very little in common, except their opposition to some of the Democratic Party.
And then you have the moderately left wing, wouldn't really be that out of place in the UK's Conservatives, shouldn't we engage with the world bunch (i.e. Biden-ites).
I don’t see the Democrats in quite those problematic terms. If the Democrats weren’t a broad coalition incorporating a strong progressive element, there would never have been, for instance, the drive towards universal healthcare under Obama. As you rightly point out, the progressives don’t come close to controlling the party. But they do represent quite a large percentage of its vote, and have strongly influenced its platform - which Biden will bring his skills to pushing forward.
And one thing Trump has done is reinforce the message that they need each other.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
A very important point. If the low dose group were not randomised (?just accidentally mis-dosed) and happened to be in low risk areas, it could be a very misleading figure.
Perhaps comparing the low dose cases with case matched controls from the same centre could clarify, as a post analysis nested case control study. Not as good as an RCT, but might shed some light on what is going on.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
I think you overdo the negativity there. Where I live in Spain the current restrictions are way more severe than anything in the UK and are likely to last as long. The arrival of effective vaccines will make a big difference I suspect certainly by Easter if not before. Given that the misery of the English winter is hardly a novelty I'm unclear why less socialising is such a big deal frankly. Cocoa and box sets wil sustain most people through relatively easily.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Overuse might do that but I don't think they're overusing them. You've got the President of the United States making clearly false claims. Politically sophisticated people like us know that he's full of shit, but some people really don't. Twitter isn't even saying they're false, just "whoa, this isn't a generally accepted view", they're not stopping people following it up and making up their own minds.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Overuse might do that but I don't think they're overusing them. You've got the President of the United States making clearly false claims. Politically sophisticated people like us know that he's full of shit, but some people really don't. Twitter isn't even saying they're false, just "whoa, this isn't a generally accepted view", they're not stopping people following it up and making up their own minds.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
But your very language illustrates the danger - ' we the clever people need to warn the thickos and remind them how to think'. In my view that patronising approach to so much politics is why we got, eg the Brexit vote. A lot of people basically said sod off to 'politically sophisticated' people looking down at them and left us in the current mess. Clinton's attitude led to an even worse result 4 years ago.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
A very important point. If the low dose group were not randomised (?just accidentally mis-dosed) and happened to be in low risk areas, it could be a very misleading figure.
Perhaps comparing the low dose cases with case matched controls from the same centre could clarify, as a post analysis nested case control study. Not as good as an RCT, but might shed some light on what is going on.
Yep I've no idea but I'm going with Pfizer, if I possibly can even if it means shelling out money. I travel widely and I'd like the best available.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
This is why I think AZ should run a half/full dose trial over the next couple of months while community viral levels are high enough to get fast results. Put it beyond any doubt. Recruitment shouldn't be very difficult and they can use the existing paperwork to start a new trial. Chase the virus into the NE, NW and Midlands over Christmas.
In immunology terms the half/full dose method makes sense as it sidesteps vector immunity but I think a trial puts it beyond any doubt.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
"most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place" - what makes you think this? Only the worst affected will be Tier 3 surely?
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Overuse might do that but I don't think they're overusing them. You've got the President of the United States making clearly false claims. Politically sophisticated people like us know that he's full of shit, but some people really don't. Twitter isn't even saying they're false, just "whoa, this isn't a generally accepted view", they're not stopping people following it up and making up their own minds.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
But your very language illustrates the danger - ' we the clever people need to warn the thickos and remind them how to think'. In my view that patronising approach to so much politics is why we got, eg the Brexit vote. A lot of people basically said sod off to 'politically sophisticated' people looking down at them and left us in the current mess. Clinton's attitude led to an even worse result 4 years ago.
”Politically sophisticated" doesn't mean "clever" and the opposite isn't "thick", it means you pay a lot of attention to politics.
If you're going to talk about political communication, you're not going to understand what's going on if you insist on pretending to yourself that everybody knows a lot about politics.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Overuse might do that but I don't think they're overusing them. You've got the President of the United States making clearly false claims. Politically sophisticated people like us know that he's full of shit, but some people really don't. Twitter isn't even saying they're false, just "whoa, this isn't a generally accepted view", they're not stopping people following it up and making up their own minds.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
The platform that really really really helped me understand Trump and the fanbase was Bitchute.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
"most corrupt election in American political history" is a specific and demonstrably false claim. It's reasonable to point this out, I think. People are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Overuse might do that but I don't think they're overusing them. You've got the President of the United States making clearly false claims. Politically sophisticated people like us know that he's full of shit, but some people really don't. Twitter isn't even saying they're false, just "whoa, this isn't a generally accepted view", they're not stopping people following it up and making up their own minds.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
But your very language illustrates the danger - ' we the clever people need to warn the thickos and remind them how to think'. In my view that patronising approach to so much politics is why we got, eg the Brexit vote. A lot of people basically said sod off to 'politically sophisticated' people looking down at them and left us in the current mess. Clinton's attitude led to an even worse result 4 years ago.
”Politically sophisticated" doesn't mean "clever" and the opposite isn't "thick", it means you pay a lot of attention to politics.
If you're going to talk about political communication, you're not going to understand what's going on if you insist on pretending to yourself that everybody knows a lot about politics.
Self-awareness failure big-time. The essence of democracy is not to patronise people. You seem to think it is a virtue.
Mr. Pulpstar, for those of us who aren't au fait with a lot of technology/social media, could you explain what Bitchute is, and how it helped you understand Trump's base?
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Overuse might do that but I don't think they're overusing them. You've got the President of the United States making clearly false claims. Politically sophisticated people like us know that he's full of shit, but some people really don't. Twitter isn't even saying they're false, just "whoa, this isn't a generally accepted view", they're not stopping people following it up and making up their own minds.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
But your very language illustrates the danger - ' we the clever people need to warn the thickos and remind them how to think'. In my view that patronising approach to so much politics is why we got, eg the Brexit vote. A lot of people basically said sod off to 'politically sophisticated' people looking down at them and left us in the current mess. Clinton's attitude led to an even worse result 4 years ago.
”Politically sophisticated" doesn't mean "clever" and the opposite isn't "thick", it means you pay a lot of attention to politics.
If you're going to talk about political communication, you're not going to understand what's going on if you insist on pretending to yourself that everybody knows a lot about politics.
Self-awareness failure big-time. The essence of democracy is not to patronise people. You seem to think it is a virtue.
There aren't any politically unsophisticated people here so I don't know who you think I'm patronizing.
Are you denying that some people are politically sophisticated and some people aren't, or are you saying we shouldn't talk about it?
Entertaining as the whats ifs and maybes are regarding May's Brexit deal there is a simple reason that remain MPs didn't back it.
Any deal that ends our free trade with the EU cripples this country. I know that Philip likes to dismiss it as "some disruption" but the people involved in doing the actual work know its far worse than that. And lets play it forward a few years where we have actually hired the staff and built the customs points and have debugged the computer.
We go from now - where UK companies can ship things across the border in 2 minutes with no need for reams of paperwork or 3rd party agents - to then - where UK companies have had the expense of completely reconfiguring their business models to hold buffer stock to allow for the lengthy delays in crossing the border to have their expensive reams of paperwork inspected.
Nobody has ever set out a business case where reams of paperwork and expense and delay is better for the UK than no delays or expense or paperwork. The reason Thatcher pushed for the single market was to remove all of those impediments - so why are we reimposing them? Any deal that variances tariffs and standards to the EU will require paperwork and checks and cost and delays. The US Mexico and Canada have a free trade agreement and that includes tariffs and checks and paperwork and delays. Which apparently is what Philip wants for the UK.
You really are obsessed. Whatever people might say, what matters is what happens, and we'll never know what would have happened in that situation because it didn't occur.
The problem for Biden is that he can't really do nothing - Trump has left America's global leadership in tatters in crucial areas like climate change, restraining Chinese and Russian aggression, and maintaining the global liberal economic order, so all of that needs to be reversed if the US wants to retain its role as the dominant hyperpower - but his administration is going to get kicked in the shins by the radical left and radical right the moment it attempts to do anything to correct Trump's failures.
I'm not a huge fan of the Democrats but I was very much hoping they'd magange to stop navel gazing, win decisively against a terrible opponent, and get the solid Presidential/House/Senate majority they'd need to rebuild American grand strategy. Instead, I'm terrified we have the worst of all worlds: a GOP refusing to admit defeat in control of the Senate, giving them power to block or stymie legislation, leading to a lame duck Biden administration that can't introduce the big changes the US needs to compete with China, followed by a less stupid, more competent Trumpite authoritarian taking the Presidency back for the Republicans in 2024.
The problem is that there are four blocs of varying strength: on the extreme left you have the identity warriors, which the Dems need to keep on side. On the other hand, they aren't anywhere near as big or as powerful as the authoritarian isolationists (or Trumpers), who make up half the support of the Republican party. And who now outnumber the other half of the Republican party - the business minded, broadly free trade, low regulation, keep the government out of my hair. These groups have very little in common, except their opposition to some of the Democratic Party.
And then you have the moderately left wing, wouldn't really be that out of place in the UK's Conservatives, shouldn't we engage with the world bunch (i.e. Biden-ites).
Biden's views on trades unions alone mean he could never have a home in the Conservative party over here.
Entertaining as the whats ifs and maybes are regarding May's Brexit deal there is a simple reason that remain MPs didn't back it.
Any deal that ends our free trade with the EU cripples this country. I know that Philip likes to dismiss it as "some disruption" but the people involved in doing the actual work know its far worse than that. And lets play it forward a few years where we have actually hired the staff and built the customs points and have debugged the computer.
We go from now - where UK companies can ship things across the border in 2 minutes with no need for reams of paperwork or 3rd party agents - to then - where UK companies have had the expense of completely reconfiguring their business models to hold buffer stock to allow for the lengthy delays in crossing the border to have their expensive reams of paperwork inspected.
Nobody has ever set out a business case where reams of paperwork and expense and delay is better for the UK than no delays or expense or paperwork. The reason Thatcher pushed for the single market was to remove all of those impediments - so why are we reimposing them? Any deal that variances tariffs and standards to the EU will require paperwork and checks and cost and delays. The US Mexico and Canada have a free trade agreement and that includes tariffs and checks and paperwork and delays. Which apparently is what Philip wants for the UK.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
A very important point. If the low dose group were not randomised (?just accidentally mis-dosed) and happened to be in low risk areas, it could be a very misleading figure.
Perhaps comparing the low dose cases with case matched controls from the same centre could clarify, as a post analysis nested case control study. Not as good as an RCT, but might shed some light on what is going on.
It’s pseudo randomised, and if the age stratification isn’t skewed to younger or lower risk individuals, and there are sufficient ‘events’, then it may well still be a useful result. The data on asymptomatic infections might also prove very useful.
The problem for Biden is that he can't really do nothing - Trump has left America's global leadership in tatters in crucial areas like climate change, restraining Chinese and Russian aggression, and maintaining the global liberal economic order, so all of that needs to be reversed if the US wants to retain its role as the dominant hyperpower - but his administration is going to get kicked in the shins by the radical left and radical right the moment it attempts to do anything to correct Trump's failures.
I'm not a huge fan of the Democrats but I was very much hoping they'd magange to stop navel gazing, win decisively against a terrible opponent, and get the solid Presidential/House/Senate majority they'd need to rebuild American grand strategy. Instead, I'm terrified we have the worst of all worlds: a GOP refusing to admit defeat in control of the Senate, giving them power to block or stymie legislation, leading to a lame duck Biden administration that can't introduce the big changes the US needs to compete with China, followed by a less stupid, more competent Trumpite authoritarian taking the Presidency back for the Republicans in 2024.
The problem is that there are four blocs of varying strength: on the extreme left you have the identity warriors, which the Dems need to keep on side. On the other hand, they aren't anywhere near as big or as powerful as the authoritarian isolationists (or Trumpers), who make up half the support of the Republican party. And who now outnumber the other half of the Republican party - the business minded, broadly free trade, low regulation, keep the government out of my hair. These groups have very little in common, except their opposition to some of the Democratic Party.
And then you have the moderately left wing, wouldn't really be that out of place in the UK's Conservatives, shouldn't we engage with the world bunch (i.e. Biden-ites).
Biden's views on trades unions alone mean he could never have a home in the Conservative party over here.
Given the massive difference in labour laws, it’s hard directly to make comparisons.
Entertaining as the whats ifs and maybes are regarding May's Brexit deal there is a simple reason that remain MPs didn't back it.
Any deal that ends our free trade with the EU cripples this country. I know that Philip likes to dismiss it as "some disruption" but the people involved in doing the actual work know its far worse than that. And lets play it forward a few years where we have actually hired the staff and built the customs points and have debugged the computer.
We go from now - where UK companies can ship things across the border in 2 minutes with no need for reams of paperwork or 3rd party agents - to then - where UK companies have had the expense of completely reconfiguring their business models to hold buffer stock to allow for the lengthy delays in crossing the border to have their expensive reams of paperwork inspected.
Nobody has ever set out a business case where reams of paperwork and expense and delay is better for the UK than no delays or expense or paperwork. The reason Thatcher pushed for the single market was to remove all of those impediments - so why are we reimposing them? Any deal that variances tariffs and standards to the EU will require paperwork and checks and cost and delays. The US Mexico and Canada have a free trade agreement and that includes tariffs and checks and paperwork and delays. Which apparently is what Philip wants for the UK.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Which is a problem because a lot of those same MPs promised that we wouldn't have extra paperwork to export when we left the EU.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
Had a read of the notes. Looks like this mostly occurred back in the phase 2 section of the combined p2/3 trial and they decided to roll with it. Might not be that big a deal. They look like they’re going to adjust their P3 trial in the US to match the half dose scheme.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Anybody believing Trump has already made their mind up. Factual information won't have any effect on them. Apparently some are dying from Covid 19 but are telling the doctors that it doesn't exist.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
The issue is that Trump has violated Twitter's rules so often if he wasn't POTUS he'd have been banned. They're keeping him on board but flagged because of his title, not because he has a right to free speech via a private company.
The problem for Biden is that he can't really do nothing - Trump has left America's global leadership in tatters in crucial areas like climate change, restraining Chinese and Russian aggression, and maintaining the global liberal economic order, so all of that needs to be reversed if the US wants to retain its role as the dominant hyperpower - but his administration is going to get kicked in the shins by the radical left and radical right the moment it attempts to do anything to correct Trump's failures.
I'm not a huge fan of the Democrats but I was very much hoping they'd magange to stop navel gazing, win decisively against a terrible opponent, and get the solid Presidential/House/Senate majority they'd need to rebuild American grand strategy. Instead, I'm terrified we have the worst of all worlds: a GOP refusing to admit defeat in control of the Senate, giving them power to block or stymie legislation, leading to a lame duck Biden administration that can't introduce the big changes the US needs to compete with China, followed by a less stupid, more competent Trumpite authoritarian taking the Presidency back for the Republicans in 2024.
The problem is that there are four blocs of varying strength: on the extreme left you have the identity warriors, which the Dems need to keep on side. On the other hand, they aren't anywhere near as big or as powerful as the authoritarian isolationists (or Trumpers), who make up half the support of the Republican party. And who now outnumber the other half of the Republican party - the business minded, broadly free trade, low regulation, keep the government out of my hair. These groups have very little in common, except their opposition to some of the Democratic Party.
And then you have the moderately left wing, wouldn't really be that out of place in the UK's Conservatives, shouldn't we engage with the world bunch (i.e. Biden-ites).
Biden's views on trades unions alone mean he could never have a home in the Conservative party over here.
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Overuse might do that but I don't think they're overusing them. You've got the President of the United States making clearly false claims. Politically sophisticated people like us know that he's full of shit, but some people really don't. Twitter isn't even saying they're false, just "whoa, this isn't a generally accepted view", they're not stopping people following it up and making up their own minds.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
But your very language illustrates the danger - ' we the clever people need to warn the thickos and remind them how to think'. In my view that patronising approach to so much politics is why we got, eg the Brexit vote. A lot of people basically said sod off to 'politically sophisticated' people looking down at them and left us in the current mess. Clinton's attitude led to an even worse result 4 years ago.
”Politically sophisticated" doesn't mean "clever" and the opposite isn't "thick", it means you pay a lot of attention to politics.
If you're going to talk about political communication, you're not going to understand what's going on if you insist on pretending to yourself that everybody knows a lot about politics.
Self-awareness failure big-time. The essence of democracy is not to patronise people. You seem to think it is a virtue.
The essence of democracy is a free vote, not patting people on the head and saying that their views shouldn't be be criticised and don't need to be justified (which would be patronising, nicht wahr?).
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
"most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place" - what makes you think this? Only the worst affected will be Tier 3 surely?
The challenge is that the tiers will have to be set at the moment when the previous danger areas (principally 'the North') are still high but clearly now falling back from the peak, at the same time as previously safer areas (such as parts of Kent) are rising rapidly up the league table. If you do what is the sensible thing and put both rising areas and high areas into the top tier, it could indeed be much of the country.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
This is why I think AZ should run a half/full dose trial over the next couple of months while community viral levels are high enough to get fast results. Put it beyond any doubt. Recruitment shouldn't be very difficult and they can use the existing paperwork to start a new trial. Chase the virus into the NE, NW and Midlands over Christmas.
In immunology terms the half/full dose method makes sense as it sidesteps vector immunity but I think a trial puts it beyond any doubt.
How do these trials make sure the different groups (eg placebo v drug) have the same exposure to the virus and the same chance of catching it? Or is it the large sample sizes that are meant to even this out?
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
You're far too pessimistic. Vaccine rollout targeting the most vulnerable first will have a dramatic and immediate impact upon hospitalisation rates.
With hospitality in mind I would say the realistic date to keep in mind that I've not seen anyone mention yet is Valentine's Day. Winter besides Christmas/New Year sucks for much of hospitality but with Valentine's Day being a bright spot for restaurants before Mother's Day and the Spring turns the seasons to being good.
Ideally we need a good enough vaccine rollout and suppression of the virus that none of the country is still in Tier 3 by Valentine's Day. Tier 2 is fine for that since it is a day for couples anyway.
Then after that aim to try and get as much of the country into Tier 1 by Mother's Day.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
"most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place" - what makes you think this? Only the worst affected will be Tier 3 surely?
The challenge is that the tiers will have to be set at the moment when the previous danger areas (principally 'the North') are still high but clearly now falling back from the peak, at the same time as previously safer areas (such as parts of Kent) are rising rapidly up the league table. If you do what is the sensible thing and put both rising areas and high areas into the top tier, it could indeed be much of the country.
What is a positive is that we're seeing an end to the 'by local authority' approach and doing it by region. It was utterly absurd where neighbouring LAs with contiguous built-up areas had different restrictions - the pox doesn't stop at the Bolton / Wigan border. Teesside was in old Tier 2 and apparently is going into new Tier 3. As most of the shops have declared themselves essential and Cineworld is shut for the duration I'm not sure we will notice much of a difference when lockdown "ends".
I'm not sure that overuse of the little red warning notes will not rapidly prove counterproductive once they move beyond factual information and into political opinion - unless they are clearly even-handed in their usage. will, eg, 'we wuz robbed'! be followed by the red warning every time. It becomes plain silly and patronising to the general public who really have a right to listen to the arguments and make their own minds up.
Anybody believing Trump has already made their mind up. Factual information won't have any effect on them. Apparently some are dying from Covid 19 but are telling the doctors that it doesn't exist.
How did they get to the stage where they believe this nonsense? They weren't born believing it, its not what their parents or schools taught them, or even broadcast news. It is entirely from social media. Why? Because news fiction is addictive and advertisers love it and pay the social media companies many billions to promote it. Tax it heavily like any other negative addictive behaviour.
Entertaining as the whats ifs and maybes are regarding May's Brexit deal there is a simple reason that remain MPs didn't back it.
Any deal that ends our free trade with the EU cripples this country. I know that Philip likes to dismiss it as "some disruption" but the people involved in doing the actual work know its far worse than that. And lets play it forward a few years where we have actually hired the staff and built the customs points and have debugged the computer.
We go from now - where UK companies can ship things across the border in 2 minutes with no need for reams of paperwork or 3rd party agents - to then - where UK companies have had the expense of completely reconfiguring their business models to hold buffer stock to allow for the lengthy delays in crossing the border to have their expensive reams of paperwork inspected.
Nobody has ever set out a business case where reams of paperwork and expense and delay is better for the UK than no delays or expense or paperwork. The reason Thatcher pushed for the single market was to remove all of those impediments - so why are we reimposing them? Any deal that variances tariffs and standards to the EU will require paperwork and checks and cost and delays. The US Mexico and Canada have a free trade agreement and that includes tariffs and checks and paperwork and delays. Which apparently is what Philip wants for the UK.
Of course in Thatcher's day trade with the EU was more important as a share of our trade than it is now - and that paperwork couldn't be digitised and computerised in the same way it is now.
Paperwork is disappointing but not the end of the world.
But more importantly all of this was clear before we had the referendum. Prior to the referendum it was made clear that we would be leaving the Single Market and seeking a free trade deal with Europe - so why are you shocked and horrified at the consequences of that when *checks notes* that is what you voted for?
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
This is why I think AZ should run a half/full dose trial over the next couple of months while community viral levels are high enough to get fast results. Put it beyond any doubt. Recruitment shouldn't be very difficult and they can use the existing paperwork to start a new trial. Chase the virus into the NE, NW and Midlands over Christmas.
In immunology terms the half/full dose method makes sense as it sidesteps vector immunity but I think a trial puts it beyond any doubt.
How do these trials make sure the different groups (eg placebo v drug) have the same exposure to the virus and the same chance of catching it? Or is it the large sample sizes that are meant to even this out?
You set up a large, randomised trial with a placebo that mimics the side effects of the real deal and wait until there are enough cases across the whole group to get statistical significance. Then an independent panel unblinds the trial and you find out how many people in your placebo vs trial arm got the illness you were trying to prevent. The size, cohort choice and randomisations all play a factor. The Pfizer trial was very well set up IMO, although the endpoint excluded asymptomatic and very mild cases. Oxford had better monitoring but a smaller trial with a less diverse cohort. Swings and roundabouts. The independent panel won’t unblind unless the interim goal is met, which is why the 70% figure was scientifically correct but a PR misstep. Such is science comms.
Entertaining as the whats ifs and maybes are regarding May's Brexit deal there is a simple reason that remain MPs didn't back it.
Any deal that ends our free trade with the EU cripples this country. I know that Philip likes to dismiss it as "some disruption" but the people involved in doing the actual work know its far worse than that. And lets play it forward a few years where we have actually hired the staff and built the customs points and have debugged the computer.
We go from now - where UK companies can ship things across the border in 2 minutes with no need for reams of paperwork or 3rd party agents - to then - where UK companies have had the expense of completely reconfiguring their business models to hold buffer stock to allow for the lengthy delays in crossing the border to have their expensive reams of paperwork inspected.
Nobody has ever set out a business case where reams of paperwork and expense and delay is better for the UK than no delays or expense or paperwork. The reason Thatcher pushed for the single market was to remove all of those impediments - so why are we reimposing them? Any deal that variances tariffs and standards to the EU will require paperwork and checks and cost and delays. The US Mexico and Canada have a free trade agreement and that includes tariffs and checks and paperwork and delays. Which apparently is what Philip wants for the UK.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Which is a problem because a lot of those same MPs promised that we wouldn't have extra paperwork to export when we left the EU.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
"most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place" - what makes you think this? Only the worst affected will be Tier 3 surely?
The challenge is that the tiers will have to be set at the moment when the previous danger areas (principally 'the North') are still high but clearly now falling back from the peak, at the same time as previously safer areas (such as parts of Kent) are rising rapidly up the league table. If you do what is the sensible thing and put both rising areas and high areas into the top tier, it could indeed be much of the country.
Yes, I was surprised to see this. Presumably Farageland is not likely to follow new curbs either.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
A very important point. If the low dose group were not randomised (?just accidentally mis-dosed) and happened to be in low risk areas, it could be a very misleading figure.
Perhaps comparing the low dose cases with case matched controls from the same centre could clarify, as a post analysis nested case control study. Not as good as an RCT, but might shed some light on what is going on.
Yep I've no idea but I'm going with Pfizer, if I possibly can even if it means shelling out money. I travel widely and I'd like the best available.
Despite being left-of-centre I'm a capitalist
The Azn vaccine trial group resulted in not a single person hospitalised from covid.
The Pfizer trial reported 94% efficacy against “serious illness”, however that is defined.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
Let’s ignore haulage cost, logistics hubs, population density, primary markets and 30 years of economic coupling and focus of population. Gee I’m sure the Americans are queuing to buy Branston. The real world, do you live in it?
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
"most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place" - what makes you think this? Only the worst affected will be Tier 3 surely?
The challenge is that the tiers will have to be set at the moment when the previous danger areas (principally 'the North') are still high but clearly now falling back from the peak, at the same time as previously safer areas (such as parts of Kent) are rising rapidly up the league table. If you do what is the sensible thing and put both rising areas and high areas into the top tier, it could indeed be much of the country.
Yes, I was surprised to see this. Presumably Farageland is not likely to follow new curbs either.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
Let’s ignore haulage cost, logistics hubs, population density, primary markets and 30 years of economic coupling and focus of population. Gee I’m sure the Americans are queuing to buy Branston. The real world, do you live in it?
Yes lets ignore them because we are in the 21st century not the 1950s. Global transport and trade has never been as easy as it is now, the world is shrinking and Europe is a diminished and diminishing continent.
The EU already today despite "30 years [nearly 50 surely - Ed] of economic coupling" is a minority of our trade and is falling as a share annually.
We can sit and wallow in managed decline concentrating on a miniscule minority of the globe because it happens to be close and easy, or we can realise there is a big wide world out there and open up to all of it.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
A very important point. If the low dose group were not randomised (?just accidentally mis-dosed) and happened to be in low risk areas, it could be a very misleading figure.
Perhaps comparing the low dose cases with case matched controls from the same centre could clarify, as a post analysis nested case control study. Not as good as an RCT, but might shed some light on what is going on.
Yep I've no idea but I'm going with Pfizer, if I possibly can even if it means shelling out money. I travel widely and I'd like the best available.
Despite being left-of-centre I'm a capitalist
The Azn vaccine trial group resulted in not a single person hospitalised from covid.
The Pfizer trial reported 94% efficacy against “serious illness”, however that is defined.
You are being rather silly.
I'ver been around medicines a long, long time. I don't think there's ever been one which, when widely used, didn't behave differently in some people to the 'norm'. Or, to which some people didn't react differently. There are a lot of 'differences' which we haven't identified yet.
"Prof Gilbert said that people should not be worried by how quickly the vaccine has been developed.
Prof Gilbert said: “I don’t know of any long-term effects from vaccines happening much later.
“Any adverse events after vaccination either happen in a short period of time or alternatively can happen when someone has been vaccinated against a particular disease and then encounters the disease and gets a worst disease."
Of course in Thatcher's day trade with the EU was more important as a share of our trade than it is now - and that paperwork couldn't be digitised and computerised in the same way it is now.
Paperwork is disappointing but not the end of the world.
But more importantly all of this was clear before we had the referendum. Prior to the referendum it was made clear that we would be leaving the Single Market and seeking a free trade deal with Europe - so why are you shocked and horrified at the consequences of that when *checks notes* that is what you voted for?
I voted to leave the EU. A lot of things were "made clear" most of which were bullshit. Leaving the EU was what people voted for. Leaving the EEA and CU is a political decision.
Answer my second point. Business (albeit with you apparently telling them they are wrong) is telling us with detailed evidence that the proposal fucks them. Tariffs make them uncompetitive - automotive and chemicals sectors are both screaming about this. The cost of reams of paperwork. The extensive delays in border crossings that an average 45 minute transit does to journey times (as it creates massive queues). The need to costly reconfigure supply chains.
You say "this was clear". Go on then - tell us why a fuckton of cost and red tape and delay is better than zero cost or disruption or delay. Attempts are made to claim that little UK will eventually negotiate better trade deals than we have as part of the EU. But nobody adds in the on-cost of having to roll trade practices back to the 1970s.
Why is that? Because what was also "clear" from the people you cite is that none of this would happen. There would be no impediment to free trade because as we hold all the cards the EU would yield and give us free access. This was - as I succinctly put it in my first paragraph - "bullshit"
"Prof Gilbert said that people should not be worried by how quickly the vaccine has been developed.
Prof Gilbert said: “I don’t know of any long-term effects from vaccines happening much later.
“Any adverse events after vaccination either happen in a short period of time or alternatively can happen when someone has been vaccinated against a particular disease and then encounters the disease and gets a worst disease."
Telegraph
Good news.
You must be glad for the vaccine so that we can get rid of lockdowns etc I'm assuming?
"Prof Gilbert said that people should not be worried by how quickly the vaccine has been developed.
Prof Gilbert said: “I don’t know of any long-term effects from vaccines happening much later.
“Any adverse events after vaccination either happen in a short period of time or alternatively can happen when someone has been vaccinated against a particular disease and then encounters the disease and gets a worst disease."
Telegraph
Yes, but we'll need to wait for the full safety data before jumping to such conclusions about particular vaccines.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
We have always been able to trade with the rest of the world. What we're doing now is ejecting ourselves from the second largest free trading block in the world for no benefit whatsoever.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
We have always been able to trade with the rest of the world. What we're doing now is ejecting ourselves from the second largest free trading block in the world for no benefit whatsoever.
Don't worry then we'll still be able to trade with Europe even if there is no deal at all by your logic, so what's the issue?
Or do trade deals matter, in which case dealing with the 93% is more critical to our future than the 6%
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
Population =/= GDP And the comparison for current trade flows is way worse than that.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
We have always been able to trade with the rest of the world. What we're doing now is ejecting ourselves from the second largest free trading block in the world for no benefit whatsoever.
Apparently when we blockade our own border and embalm ourselves in red tape that doesn't exist at the moment we will be opening ourselves up to trading with the rest of the world. Yes I know that Honda told the Brexit committee that Swindon would be the most expensive place in the world they could build a Civic post Brexit but I'm sure the world will be willing to pay a Brexit premium in this new world of trade.
Interesting details on where the components for the new iPhone come from.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/iPhone-12-teardown-showcases-South-Korean-parts-makers ...The cost of the high-end iPhone 12 Pro is $406, of which South Korean and U.S. components account for 26.8% and 21.9% by value, respectively, according to Fomalhaut. Compared with the iPhone 11, which featured an LCD display and went on sale last fall, the South Korean share jumped 9.1 percentage points, while the figure for U.S. parts dropped 3.9 points...
R4 are reporting 5 days quarantine - cut from 14 - but there has to be a negative test.
Yes, what we really need to do now is be less cautious.
We need to keep or get 'R' below 1 or we will be doubling cases every 'n' days. Are there ways we can do that by being less cautious? If so fine.
I recently had to complete 14 days of self isolation from a close contact. The contact was short lived (no more than 20 mins, spread over 4 hours), in a very well ventilated research lab (fume hood extraction of air means rapid turnover), and both wearing face shields. Felt totally fine for the entire time, never became ill. Hell yes I'd prefer a test at 5 days... And it would have made sense, and allowed me to work at the Uni again, not just at home.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
"most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place" - what makes you think this? Only the worst affected will be Tier 3 surely?
The challenge is that the tiers will have to be set at the moment when the previous danger areas (principally 'the North') are still high but clearly now falling back from the peak, at the same time as previously safer areas (such as parts of Kent) are rising rapidly up the league table. If you do what is the sensible thing and put both rising areas and high areas into the top tier, it could indeed be much of the country.
What is a positive is that we're seeing an end to the 'by local authority' approach and doing it by region. It was utterly absurd where neighbouring LAs with contiguous built-up areas had different restrictions - the pox doesn't stop at the Bolton / Wigan border. Teesside was in old Tier 2 and apparently is going into new Tier 3. As most of the shops have declared themselves essential and Cineworld is shut for the duration I'm not sure we will notice much of a difference when lockdown "ends".
Does depend what 'region' means though - South West would include Cornwall and Bristol say. Based on counties I could accept.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
We have always been able to trade with the rest of the world. What we're doing now is ejecting ourselves from the second largest free trading block in the world for no benefit whatsoever.
Don't worry then we'll still be able to trade with Europe even if there is no deal at all by your logic, so what's the issue?
Or do trade deals matter, in which case dealing with the 93% is more critical to our future than the 6%
Don't be a hypocrite.
Laughable.
We already had trade deals with the rest of the world... They are not new.
Interesting point about the Oxford vaccine low dose regime, and its 90% success rate - while it was a statistically significant result, because the low dose group was not separately randomised, AZN were quite correct to report the average 70% efficacy of the vaccine under the trial design.
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
A very important point. If the low dose group were not randomised (?just accidentally mis-dosed) and happened to be in low risk areas, it could be a very misleading figure.
Perhaps comparing the low dose cases with case matched controls from the same centre could clarify, as a post analysis nested case control study. Not as good as an RCT, but might shed some light on what is going on.
Yep I've no idea but I'm going with Pfizer, if I possibly can even if it means shelling out money. I travel widely and I'd like the best available.
Despite being left-of-centre I'm a capitalist
The Azn vaccine trial group resulted in not a single person hospitalised from covid.
The Pfizer trial reported 94% efficacy against “serious illness”, however that is defined.
You are being rather silly.
This is something that is not being commented on - a vaccine that stops anyone getting seriously ill, is probably better than one that stops 95 % of infections, but sees some of the 5 % seriously ill or dying.
I note that C4 news last night managed to explain the vaccine percentages clearly and accurately.
BBC 10 o'clock news was better than earlier in the day but still confusing.
Note that the Today programme said this morning that AZ shares had fallen in price due to the % figures.
As the AZ vaccine has some significant benefits over the other 2 in terms of price, quantity, storage and results such as wellness and transmission, and that the effective rate is highly likely to be as good as the others, I do wonder how responsible the BBC is for share price due to the shambles of the presentation of the facts.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
Population =/= GDP And the comparison for current trade flows is way worse than that.
Good to wake up to at least one newspaper going with the responsible headline. Hopefully the message is getting across that the nightmare is nearly over, but not quite yet. A few more weeks of everyone being sensible and taking precautions, then life will be able to get back to something approaching normal.
The same can't be said of the US, where millions appear to be travelling across the country for Thanksgiving, their already-big spike is likely to become somewhat bigger in the coming weeks.
"A few more weeks of everyone being sensible" - yeah, right.
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
"most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place" - what makes you think this? Only the worst affected will be Tier 3 surely?
The challenge is that the tiers will have to be set at the moment when the previous danger areas (principally 'the North') are still high but clearly now falling back from the peak, at the same time as previously safer areas (such as parts of Kent) are rising rapidly up the league table. If you do what is the sensible thing and put both rising areas and high areas into the top tier, it could indeed be much of the country.
What is a positive is that we're seeing an end to the 'by local authority' approach and doing it by region. It was utterly absurd where neighbouring LAs with contiguous built-up areas had different restrictions - the pox doesn't stop at the Bolton / Wigan border. Teesside was in old Tier 2 and apparently is going into new Tier 3. As most of the shops have declared themselves essential and Cineworld is shut for the duration I'm not sure we will notice much of a difference when lockdown "ends".
Yes, but the Commons debate after the tiers were first announced were chock full of (mostly Tory) MPs with constituencies near to the big (mostly northern) cities arguing that their little patch was relatively safe and shouldn't be lumped in with the nearby city.
I note that C4 news last night managed to explain the vaccine percentages clearly and accurately.
BBC 10 o'clock news was better than earlier in the day but still confusing.
Note that the Today programme said this morning that AZ shares had fallen in price due to the % figures.
As the AZ vaccine has some significant benefits over the other 2 in terms of price, quantity, storage and results such as wellness and transmission, and that the effective rate is highly likely to be as good as the others, I do wonder how responsible the BBC is for share price due to the shambles of the presentation of the facts.
More likely investors understand that, for some years at least, it's going to be a cost rather than a profit.
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
We have always been able to trade with the rest of the world. What we're doing now is ejecting ourselves from the second largest free trading block in the world for no benefit whatsoever.
Apparently when we blockade our own border and embalm ourselves in red tape that doesn't exist at the moment we will be opening ourselves up to trading with the rest of the world. Yes I know that Honda told the Brexit committee that Swindon would be the most expensive place in the world they could build a Civic post Brexit but I'm sure the world will be willing to pay a Brexit premium in this new world of trade.
Brexit is a religion for the barking mad. Worth reading Gore Vidal's 'Messiah'. It's as close as you can get into understanding how irrationality can appear rational
The basic problem with any deal struck with the EU is that enough of the Conservative party will see it as a betrayal for it never to be viable.
Whatever happened to the party of business? For decades Tory MPs would bang on about the need to cut red tape to protect business. Yet here they are embalming whats going to be left of business in more red tape than ever. Whats the cost - benefit analysis of a future 'hope that we can negotiate better tariffs than our superblock neighbour' benefit vs the massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
The rest of the world is more important than our neighbour.
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
We have always been able to trade with the rest of the world. What we're doing now is ejecting ourselves from the second largest free trading block in the world for no benefit whatsoever.
Don't worry then we'll still be able to trade with Europe even if there is no deal at all by your logic, so what's the issue?
Or do trade deals matter, in which case dealing with the 93% is more critical to our future than the 6%
Don't be a hypocrite.
One more go with this.
If your trade is coming from the other side of the world, in an airplane or a container ship, the extra delays and faff of customs paperwork are pretty minor. Shipping takes ages, and there are lots of transport formalities anyway.
If your trade is coming from France in a van, today there's little to no paperwork or delay. Drive on the ship, drive off the ship. Even if the (currently non-existent) systems work well, that creates processes and cost that currently don't exist. It also creates delays which are proportionately large in the whole journey time. And that's if this goes well.
There's a reason that many people whose jobs depend on these systems working are saying there's a huge problem incoming.
I note that C4 news last night managed to explain the vaccine percentages clearly and accurately.
BBC 10 o'clock news was better than earlier in the day but still confusing.
Note that the Today programme said this morning that AZ shares had fallen in price due to the % figures.
As the AZ vaccine has some significant benefits over the other 2 in terms of price, quantity, storage and results such as wellness and transmission, and that the effective rate is highly likely to be as good as the others, I do wonder how responsible the BBC is for share price due to the shambles of the presentation of the facts.
More likely investors understand that, for some years at least, it's going to be a cost rather than a profit.
You would hope so but I'm not convinced. They are running it at no profit so the only benefit for AZ from the vaccine is publicity. That has been dented.
Comments
And despite all our comments yesterday, they pulled off something of a PR coup in getting the potential 90% effectiveness widely recognised,
Firstly, the medics and scientists are already doing their pieces over any and every suggestion of letting people back out - next week and certainly over Christmas. There will be panic, continual screaming, and poring over the hospital admission figures until we find ourselves back in lockdown at the start of January.
Secondly, most of England is going to end up in tier 3 in the first place. Exactly as I predicted, for these few weeks of house arrest lite the shops are going to be allowed to try to save Christmas but hospitality is completely, irredeemably screwed. And we'll all be incarcerated again, from December 28th for at least a month, in any event.
Thirdly, the notion that we can be out of this in any kind of rapid timescale is for the birds. The British State isn't capable of getting these vaccines into the large bulk of the population that's needed to get rid of social distancing that the recently leaked timetables suggest, and there's no prospect of significant easing before the clinically extremely vulnerable and everybody over 50, i.e. about half the entire population, has had both their injections. Trying to come out of lockdown before that will simply lead to a fresh bout of howling from the boffins and the hospitals, and a return to lockdown after about ten minutes.
"A few more weeks?" Five or six grinding, seemingly endless months lie ahead until the warm weather finally comes back. The best we can hope for is that the lockdown cycle doesn't start up again next Autumn. Hopefully the vaccines are effective enough to deliver that. But we're certainly nowhere near the end of all this.
If the Democrats weren’t a broad coalition incorporating a strong progressive element, there would never have been, for instance, the drive towards universal healthcare under Obama.
As you rightly point out, the progressives don’t come close to controlling the party. But they do represent quite a large percentage of its vote, and have strongly influenced its platform - which Biden will bring his skills to pushing forward.
And one thing Trump has done is reinforce the message that they need each other.
Perhaps comparing the low dose cases with case matched controls from the same centre could clarify, as a post analysis nested case control study. Not as good as an RCT, but might shed some light on what is going on.
That said, Twitter is the platform that needs this the least as it already has quite sophisticated users. The platforms that really need it are Facebook and YouTube.
Despite being left-of-centre I'm a capitalist
In immunology terms the half/full dose method makes sense as it sidesteps vector immunity but I think a trial puts it beyond any doubt.
If you're going to talk about political communication, you're not going to understand what's going on if you insist on pretending to yourself that everybody knows a lot about politics.
Mr. Pulpstar, for those of us who aren't au fait with a lot of technology/social media, could you explain what Bitchute is, and how it helped you understand Trump's base?
Are you denying that some people are politically sophisticated and some people aren't, or are you saying we shouldn't talk about it?
Any deal that ends our free trade with the EU cripples this country. I know that Philip likes to dismiss it as "some disruption" but the people involved in doing the actual work know its far worse than that. And lets play it forward a few years where we have actually hired the staff and built the customs points and have debugged the computer.
We go from now - where UK companies can ship things across the border in 2 minutes with no need for reams of paperwork or 3rd party agents - to then - where UK companies have had the expense of completely reconfiguring their business models to hold buffer stock to allow for the lengthy delays in crossing the border to have their expensive reams of paperwork inspected.
Nobody has ever set out a business case where reams of paperwork and expense and delay is better for the UK than no delays or expense or paperwork. The reason Thatcher pushed for the single market was to remove all of those impediments - so why are we reimposing them? Any deal that variances tariffs and standards to the EU will require paperwork and checks and cost and delays. The US Mexico and Canada have a free trade agreement and that includes tariffs and checks and paperwork and delays. Which apparently is what Philip wants for the UK.
The data on asymptomatic infections might also prove very useful.
Are there ways we can do that by being less cautious? If so fine.
massive cost of leaving that superblock now?
With hospitality in mind I would say the realistic date to keep in mind that I've not seen anyone mention yet is Valentine's Day. Winter besides Christmas/New Year sucks for much of hospitality but with Valentine's Day being a bright spot for restaurants before Mother's Day and the Spring turns the seasons to being good.
Ideally we need a good enough vaccine rollout and suppression of the virus that none of the country is still in Tier 3 by Valentine's Day. Tier 2 is fine for that since it is a day for couples anyway.
Then after that aim to try and get as much of the country into Tier 1 by Mother's Day.
And then get out of this dystopian nightmare.
Paperwork is disappointing but not the end of the world.
But more importantly all of this was clear before we had the referendum. Prior to the referendum it was made clear that we would be leaving the Single Market and seeking a free trade deal with Europe - so why are you shocked and horrified at the consequences of that when *checks notes* that is what you voted for?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/23/swale-kent-becomes-england-covid-hotspot-cases-rise
The rest of the world is 93% of the world's population; the EU is 6%
93 > 6
The Pfizer trial reported 94% efficacy against “serious illness”, however that is defined.
You are being rather silly.
The EU already today despite "30 years [nearly 50 surely - Ed] of economic coupling" is a minority of our trade and is falling as a share annually.
We can sit and wallow in managed decline concentrating on a miniscule minority of the globe because it happens to be close and easy, or we can realise there is a big wide world out there and open up to all of it.
There are a lot of 'differences' which we haven't identified yet.
Prof Gilbert said: “I don’t know of any long-term effects from vaccines happening much later.
“Any adverse events after vaccination either happen in a short period of time or alternatively can happen when someone has been vaccinated against a particular disease and then encounters the disease and gets a worst disease."
Telegraph
Answer my second point. Business (albeit with you apparently telling them they are wrong) is telling us with detailed evidence that the proposal fucks them. Tariffs make them uncompetitive - automotive and chemicals sectors are both screaming about this. The cost of reams of paperwork. The extensive delays in border crossings that an average 45 minute transit does to journey times (as it creates massive queues). The need to costly reconfigure supply chains.
You say "this was clear". Go on then - tell us why a fuckton of cost and red tape and delay is better than zero cost or disruption or delay. Attempts are made to claim that little UK will eventually negotiate better trade deals than we have as part of the EU. But nobody adds in the on-cost of having to roll trade practices back to the 1970s.
Why is that? Because what was also "clear" from the people you cite is that none of this would happen. There would be no impediment to free trade because as we hold all the cards the EU would yield and give us free access. This was - as I succinctly put it in my first paragraph - "bullshit"
You must be glad for the vaccine so that we can get rid of lockdowns etc I'm assuming?
Or do trade deals matter, in which case dealing with the 93% is more critical to our future than the 6%
Don't be a hypocrite.
And the comparison for current trade flows is way worse than that.
Relative populations is an otiose comparison.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/iPhone-12-teardown-showcases-South-Korean-parts-makers
...The cost of the high-end iPhone 12 Pro is $406, of which South Korean and U.S. components account for 26.8% and 21.9% by value, respectively, according to Fomalhaut. Compared with the iPhone 11, which featured an LCD display and went on sale last fall, the South Korean share jumped 9.1 percentage points, while the figure for U.S. parts dropped 3.9 points...
We already had trade deals with the rest of the world... They are not new.
BBC 10 o'clock news was better than earlier in the day but still confusing.
Note that the Today programme said this morning that AZ shares had fallen in price due to the % figures.
As the AZ vaccine has some significant benefits over the other 2 in terms of price, quantity, storage and results such as wellness and transmission, and that the effective rate is highly likely to be as good as the others, I do wonder how responsible the BBC is for share price due to the shambles of the presentation of the facts.
NEW THREAD
If your trade is coming from the other side of the world, in an airplane or a container ship, the extra delays and faff of customs paperwork are pretty minor. Shipping takes ages, and there are lots of transport formalities anyway.
If your trade is coming from France in a van, today there's little to no paperwork or delay. Drive on the ship, drive off the ship. Even if the (currently non-existent) systems work well, that creates processes and cost that currently don't exist. It also creates delays which are proportionately large in the whole journey time. And that's if this goes well.
There's a reason that many people whose jobs depend on these systems working are saying there's a huge problem incoming.