I don't think there will be one. Tier 3 plus mass testing plus Pfizer alone will be enough to take the edge off and have that as a peak.
In fact I predict that almost the entire nation will be Tier 2 or below by 14 February (Valentine's Day).
You may be right but the rose-tinted spectacles you wear as a supporter of Boris Johnson and the Government aren't universally worn.
The limited current restrictions (and, let's face it, they are nothing like as draconian as those in late March and April) have slowed the spread of the virus though the number of fatalities is and remains awful and a sign that whatever form of "victory" some would like to declare over the virus, that victory has not come without a cost.
We are now three weeks into restrictions and given the normal spread of 2-14 days any new infections must be occurring during the restrictions and while the testing process is several orders of magnitude superior to what existed in the spring, the numbers of infections remains high.
I'd have hoped to see daily infections below 5000 by the end of restrictions and I suspect the overall positive trend will continue in the first half of next month.
The test will come 10-14 days after the current restrictions end and we'll see if renewed social mixing and interaction has given the virus a new lease of life. We may go into Christmas on an upward trend in cases but it seems that is a price and risk deemed to be worth paying for some semblance of "normality" through the festive season.
The likely spike in cases in January will see more areas move into Tier 3 and fewer move into Tier 1 until, as you say, the coming of widespread vaccination has the desired effect in terms of reducing case numbers.
The rollout of vaccination will be critical in determining how quickly areas can transit back to Tier 1 - I know you want to be optimistic, it's understandable. I want to be realistic.
If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Your constant lying about the statistics is dishonest and should be called out.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
@Peter_the_punter One thing about Betfair, the popular vote market wasn't settled till December in 2016.
That suggests that until the last vote has been counted, all legal action and other queries have been exhausted, and the defeated party has conceded, they are not going to pay out. That could mean we will be waiting years.
I really would write to the Gambling Commission in those circumstances. I might even try my MP. Laurence Robertson has a well-merited reputation for idleness but he is something of a betting man, although I expect he has had enough free lunches from the bookies to ensure he takes the proper view of disputes. Nevertheless, maybe worth a go.
Suppose they pay out on Biden, but then Trump's Supreme Court judges do come out to swing for him?
Most of the world wouldn't pay much notice to Betfair going under in those circumstances, but the cost of settling it the wrong way would surely break them.
If they'd just said that they wouldn't settle until a concession, or the formal vote on the 14th, then it wouldn't seem so bad. It's the woolly language of "projected" without saying who by, that has left them with a degree of doubt.
No.
In the extremely unlikely event it gets as far as the SC and the even unlikelier event that it reverses the result of the election Betfair would STILL be obliged to pay out on Biden under the terms of their own rules. The 'projected' wording actually gives them quite a bit of cover precisely because it is woolly. Within reason they can decide whose projection. By convention, this is the major networks but since all relevant authorities are agreed on the result there's no need to cherry pick.
Any unlikely reversal before a court or similar is easily dispensed with under the 'subsequent events' contingency. They quote 'faithless electors' but that is clearly intended to avoid backtracking from any perverse or unforeseen later event. It's abit like the situation where a horse wins but days later is found to have been doped. The bookies don't pay out on the second.
The result became final when all the networks and similar agencies called it for Biden. Everything since can be disregarded for betting purposes. Betfair are well out of order and if they get into deep shit over it they will deserve it.
I read the 'projected' terminology alongside the following sentence on subsequent events such as faithless electors, to mean they'd settle based on the EC votes from the certified results of the States, rather than the actions of the actual electoral college - where some individual might throw a spanner in the works.
I don't think anyone expected them to settle based on media projections.
Media projections is what Betfair settled all the states on, bar the five that remain open, so I think that is what people expected and what Betfair meant. Trouble is, as I suggested in the other post, maybe in not settling, Betfair might inadvertantly have changed the meaning along the lines you suggest.
Exactly. Betfair are being inconsistent. The way they settled most of the States is exactly the way most of us expected it to be done. If they had something else in mind, or they wished to change the rules mid-event they had to explain themselves. They haven't.
To be honest, I suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy but it is bloody aggravating.
If there's no legal challenge in a state and the loser has conceded that state it seems fair enough to settle those states while leaving only those in dispute to be still in play.
Would have been fair enough if something to that effect had been stated in the rules, but it wasn't. The rules are very clear and the settlements to date have fallen squarely within the rules. The trouble is that the States which have not been settled also fall squarely within the same rules, and no reason has been given for treating them differently. The reason no reason has been given is that there is no reason. They're making the rules up as they go along.
It isn't good Philip. I've been involved in betting all my life, and so have generations of my family before me. This is a breach of trust. If you can't trust the bookie, don't bet them.
The reason I've seen quoted from them is they are waiting for legal challenges to be resolved.
That seems different to there being no reason.
That wasn't stated in their rules, nor even implied by them, nor does it make any kind of sense in its own terms. They may as well have said they are waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. That too would have been 'a reason', of sorts.
To be fair there is a difference between waiting for legal disputes over the results to be resolved and waiting for Santa.
If you'd bet on Trump and the Supreme Court ruled that he was the winner by eg disqualifying enouh "illegal" Biden votes then they'd have to pay out on Trump.
No. Why do so many people think this? The rule is very clear.
'This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election.'
This outcome is now known. It doesn't matter what comes later. The Supreme Court could make Trump President, or you, or me; it wouldn't change the the result according to the principle as stated above.
You are only quoting part of the rules. Another line says "If there is any material change to the established role or any ambiguity as to who occupies the position, then Betfair may determine, using its reasonable discretion, how to settle the market based on all the information available to it at the relevant time."
There is ambiguity as 70% of Republicans think Trump won. I may think they have been brain washed by social media but there is clearly ambiguity. At which point all information available absolutely could be relevant in their reasonable discretion.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
If it reports by 1 July 2023 when will it be voted on? When will it be in force from?
Seems to be cutting it close for the constituencies to be in place in time for selections before May 2024.
I believe they have (very sensibly) removed the provision for MPs to vote on it, haven't they?
Oh good.
So it would come in force automatically? No statutory instrument necessary?
Also, not surprised that AZ are going to run a specific trial for the half/full vaccine mode. I suggested they might do it on the day the initial results came out.
If they get recruiting immediately in the UK they could run a 20k trial and get results pretty quickly during the months after Xmas.
It wouldn't even slow down the vaccination programme as we have for 45m doses from Pfizer and Moderna lined up which is about 12-15 weeks worth of vaccinations.
The AZ vaccine will still get approved here as it only has to be 50% effective for approval, and the results show that it is.
Why do they not try a 50%/50% vaccine, with lower doses at both stages, to reduce the side-effects? Bear in mind that the vaccine producers have no liability. The govt pays any claims for harm and has some incentive to support a milder dose if the benefit is almost unchanged.
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Your constant lying about the statistics is dishonest and should be called out.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
--AS
Exactly. And half of all those hospitalised as critically ill are younger than 60.
As a rule of thumb, someone only has to lie if they know their case is weak.
If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Your constant lying about the statistics is dishonest and should be called out.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Your constant lying about the statistics is dishonest and should be called out.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
--AS
BiB - How has that been estimated?
It was a piece in the Lancet, I think, but I don't have a link to hand I'm afraid. It was an actuarial calculation based on the age and pre-existing condition profile of the victims in the first wave. Foxy or someone linked it a few weeks back. (Sorry no time to chase the reference right now, but a quick google found this -- unreviewed -- article for US data https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.08.20050559v2)
BTW Sporting Index hasn't settled the ECV markets either.
At least the ECV markets can be affected by a single successful lawsuit. Not that that is on the cards.
True.
I think we just need to be patient (or take the free money on Betfair). Not long now.
How do you know?
I suspect you are right, and they will pay out before long, but when they do there will be no rhyme or reason in it, just as there is no rhyme or reason in their failure to pay out now.
Basically, I don't think they know what they're doing and are just blundering forward on the advice of lawyers, accountants and senior execs who have no understanding of the business, the issues and the implications of their decisions.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
While some turkeys may be pardoned and some others not so fortunate, it appears the turkeys doing the counting of the votes in America aren't stopping (that's cruel, those that have been counting the votes for more than three weeks deserve some recognition whatever the flaws in the system).
Biden's lead has edged to 6,136,000 votes.
States which have not counted at least 99% of the votes are:
Washington DC (98%) Iowa (98%) Maryland (97%) New York (84%) Ohio (97%)
According to 270towin.com the House is now 222-209 to the Democrats with four races to be called.
New York 1 will go to the Republicans, New York 22 has the challenging Republican just 281 votes ahead of the incumbent Democrat with 315,574 votes or 97% counted. In California 25, the incumbent Republican leads by 405 votes with 338,345 or 99% counted. Finally, Iowa 2 has the Republican leading the Democrat by just 35 votes out of 393,725 or 91% counted and if you want a definition of Too Close To Call, that's it.
The noose tightens, getting ever closer to the centre.
I've not been paying too much attention to this Scottish soap opera, but reading that piece gives the impression of something close to a civil war at the top of the SNP.
For once Boris / eggheads dropped the truth bombs. You can't stop this without a vaccine and tiers only do so much. There is no quick fix, no 2 week holiday from life and able to return to normal, this is the long haul.
Also, not surprised that AZ are going to run a specific trial for the half/full vaccine mode. I suggested they might do it on the day the initial results came out.
If they get recruiting immediately in the UK they could run a 20k trial and get results pretty quickly during the months after Xmas.
It wouldn't even slow down the vaccination programme as we have for 45m doses from Pfizer and Moderna lined up which is about 12-15 weeks worth of vaccinations.
The AZ vaccine will still get approved here as it only has to be 50% effective for approval, and the results show that it is.
Why do they not try a 50%/50% vaccine, with lower doses at both stages, to reduce the side-effects? Bear in mind that the vaccine producers have no liability. The govt pays any claims for harm and has some incentive to support a milder dose if the benefit is almost unchanged.
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
'Medical science' is an oxymoron, faced with such people.
You're coming across like a loon. In what way can you justify being skeptical about the need for a vaccine? Have you not seen what's been happening in the world since February 2020?
@Peter_the_punter One thing about Betfair, the popular vote market wasn't settled till December in 2016.
That suggests that until the last vote has been counted, all legal action and other queries have been exhausted, and the defeated party has conceded, they are not going to pay out. That could mean we will be waiting years.
I really would write to the Gambling Commission in those circumstances. I might even try my MP. Laurence Robertson has a well-merited reputation for idleness but he is something of a betting man, although I expect he has had enough free lunches from the bookies to ensure he takes the proper view of disputes. Nevertheless, maybe worth a go.
Suppose they pay out on Biden, but then Trump's Supreme Court judges do come out to swing for him?
Most of the world wouldn't pay much notice to Betfair going under in those circumstances, but the cost of settling it the wrong way would surely break them.
If they'd just said that they wouldn't settle until a concession, or the formal vote on the 14th, then it wouldn't seem so bad. It's the woolly language of "projected" without saying who by, that has left them with a degree of doubt.
No.
In the extremely unlikely event it gets as far as the SC and the even unlikelier event that it reverses the result of the election Betfair would STILL be obliged to pay out on Biden under the terms of their own rules. The 'projected' wording actually gives them quite a bit of cover precisely because it is woolly. Within reason they can decide whose projection. By convention, this is the major networks but since all relevant authorities are agreed on the result there's no need to cherry pick.
Any unlikely reversal before a court or similar is easily dispensed with under the 'subsequent events' contingency. They quote 'faithless electors' but that is clearly intended to avoid backtracking from any perverse or unforeseen later event. It's abit like the situation where a horse wins but days later is found to have been doped. The bookies don't pay out on the second.
The result became final when all the networks and similar agencies called it for Biden. Everything since can be disregarded for betting purposes. Betfair are well out of order and if they get into deep shit over it they will deserve it.
I read the 'projected' terminology alongside the following sentence on subsequent events such as faithless electors, to mean they'd settle based on the EC votes from the certified results of the States, rather than the actions of the actual electoral college - where some individual might throw a spanner in the works.
I don't think anyone expected them to settle based on media projections.
Media projections is what Betfair settled all the states on, bar the five that remain open, so I think that is what people expected and what Betfair meant. Trouble is, as I suggested in the other post, maybe in not settling, Betfair might inadvertantly have changed the meaning along the lines you suggest.
Exactly. Betfair are being inconsistent. The way they settled most of the States is exactly the way most of us expected it to be done. If they had something else in mind, or they wished to change the rules mid-event they had to explain themselves. They haven't.
To be honest, I suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy but it is bloody aggravating.
If there's no legal challenge in a state and the loser has conceded that state it seems fair enough to settle those states while leaving only those in dispute to be still in play.
Would have been fair enough if something to that effect had been stated in the rules, but it wasn't. The rules are very clear and the settlements to date have fallen squarely within the rules. The trouble is that the States which have not been settled also fall squarely within the same rules, and no reason has been given for treating them differently. The reason no reason has been given is that there is no reason. They're making the rules up as they go along.
It isn't good Philip. I've been involved in betting all my life, and so have generations of my family before me. This is a breach of trust. If you can't trust the bookie, don't bet them.
The reason I've seen quoted from them is they are waiting for legal challenges to be resolved.
That seems different to there being no reason.
That wasn't stated in their rules, nor even implied by them, nor does it make any kind of sense in its own terms. They may as well have said they are waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. That too would have been 'a reason', of sorts.
To be fair there is a difference between waiting for legal disputes over the results to be resolved and waiting for Santa.
If you'd bet on Trump and the Supreme Court ruled that he was the winner by eg disqualifying enouh "illegal" Biden votes then they'd have to pay out on Trump.
No. Why do so many people think this? The rule is very clear.
'This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election.'
This outcome is now known. It doesn't matter what comes later. The Supreme Court could make Trump President, or you, or me; it wouldn't change the the result according to the principle as stated above.
The real question is whether, should Trump somehow emerge as the president, do you really think Betfair could get away with your interpretation of the rules (which I agree is the literal one as they currently stand) and pay out on Biden?
Or, would they play their right to interpret card and pay out on Trump?
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
It retains aspects of Tory gerrymandering insofar as it is designed to be out of sync with elections that boost registration (because registration lag hits mainly Labour (and now Tory red wall) areas). Labour needs to have a close look at what Stacey Abrams has been doing to sign up voters in America.
Farage is standing candidates in the county council elections across England next year on an anti lockdown, anti tier, pro No Deal Brexit ticket which explains it
Brexit and the lockdown will essentially be over by May anyway.
Hundreds of thousands are seeing the small businesses they have dedicated their lives and staked everything on simply going down the drain. By government fiat. from a conservative government. On data that is not reliable. Based on science that is at best disputed, at worst discredited.
Millions of others middle class tories face soaring tax bills, poor health outcomes because of NHS neglect, ongoing mental health issues, a government debt and deficit that is barely controllable, for the foreseeable. Probably for a decade or longer.
The notion that these copper bottomed conservative voters will simply fall into line next May has to be one of the stupidest and most complacent opinions I have read on here in some time.
"Based on science that is at best disputed, at worst discredited"
What?
Ask yourself why Whitty and Vallance do not appear before cameras any more.
Its because nobody believes a word they say.
Soon nobody will believe a word their replacements, even more obscure scientists with even larger control freak issues, are saying.
And what has that got to do with the question? What science has been discredited? The germ theory of disease? That covid is a respiratory tract infection that is passed on by aerosol? You said: "based on science that is at best disputed, at worst discredited."
Science does not care who said what. Reality doesn't care who said what. The virus doesn't care who said what.
What science has been discredited?
See Andy here;s the thing.
Boris's sage committee have one way of responding to the virus.
Heneghan, Gupta, and others, including a nobel prize winner, have another way.
Which way is better? I incline to Heneghan, but I'm not the final arbiter of epidemiological theory, and neither are you and neither is RCS.
What I do know is that the Barrington way does not destroy our economy, culture and well being. And so I'm willing to take a risk. If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Here's the 'Barrington Way' for you. It doesn't look pretty:
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
It retains aspects of Tory gerrymandering insofar as it is designed to be out of sync with elections that boost registration (because registration lag hits mainly Labour (and now Tory red wall) areas). Labour needs to have a close look at what Stacey Abrams has been doing to sign up voters in America.
I see in particular that the seat quota is based on electoral rolls rather than censuses for population figures.
MD It was a stitch up at the highest level. Her husband was up to his neck in it and looks like she was as well , given the meetings she forgot , the obfuscation of providing documents , all senior civil servants questioned had memory lapses , the people writing the policies discussed with claimants before changing the policy to include Salmond and on and on and on. It appears to be slowly unravelling and she is either involved or will be dragged in if being kind. Swinney has said civil servants cannot speak at the enquiry and the parliament has voted twice against and we may see him facing a vote of no confidence as well and still to see how the Sturgeon lying to parliament inquiry goes. Lots of stuff on the go and even fact Salmond may sue in civil courts.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
If it reports by 1 July 2023 when will it be voted on? When will it be in force from?
Seems to be cutting it close for the constituencies to be in place in time for selections before May 2024.
Not really. The boundary changes which became operative at the June 1983 election were only approved less than a couple of months prior to dissolution in May.
Will really annoy a lot of election officials if it's that close.
Any guesses for when Lockdown 3 is going to commence? I'm leaning towards Friday 8th January at the moment.
The muddying of the waters on the Oxford vaccine is another thoroughly depressing setback, but entirely predictable (not the specific circumstances, but the fact that something would go horribly wrong. It was bound to go wrong, wasn't it?) Pray God this doesn't end with six more months of faffing about with trials whilst the NHS makes an award-winning hash of trying to lance all the olds with the Pfizer effort, which is bound to involve numerous cold chain collapses. If we find ourselves returning to eight more months of cyclical lockdowns next September then we might as well all reach for the whisky and the pearl-handled pistol.
I don't think there will be one. Tier 3 plus mass testing plus Pfizer alone will be enough to take the edge off and have that as a peak.
In fact I predict that almost the entire nation will be Tier 2 or below by 14 February (Valentine's Day).
I substantially agree with that, and off the tier scale almost entirely by mid April.
As well as Christmas, the care we will need to take is that a vaccine strategy may suppress deaths In the very elderly and vaccinated quicker than it suppresses hospitalisations in a wider, less vaccinated population, and that cases and hospitalisations are actually the indicators that end up lagging in coming down. There is a couple of months window where an NHS crisis could sneak up whilst government thinks it is over and focusses on any firefighting that might possibly just come about elsewhere.
Also, not surprised that AZ are going to run a specific trial for the half/full vaccine mode. I suggested they might do it on the day the initial results came out.
If they get recruiting immediately in the UK they could run a 20k trial and get results pretty quickly during the months after Xmas.
It wouldn't even slow down the vaccination programme as we have for 45m doses from Pfizer and Moderna lined up which is about 12-15 weeks worth of vaccinations.
The AZ vaccine will still get approved here as it only has to be 50% effective for approval, and the results show that it is.
Why do they not try a 50%/50% vaccine, with lower doses at both stages, to reduce the side-effects? Bear in mind that the vaccine producers have no liability. The govt pays any claims for harm and has some incentive to support a milder dose if the benefit is almost unchanged.
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
For once Boris / eggheads dropped the truth bombs. You can't stop this without a vaccine and tiers only do so much. There is no quick fix, no 2 week holiday from life and able to return to normal, this is the long haul.
There might be a case for steaming ahead with the AZ/Oxford vaccine and switching later on if it proves not to work as well as we'd hoped. Anything to get out of the lockdown cycle which cannot provide a permanent fix, or even a temporary one in the north-east.
If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Your constant lying about the statistics is dishonest and should be called out.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
--AS
BiB - How has that been estimated?
They looked at the actuarial tables given age and existing conditions. There have been a number of separate studies done on this, and they all come up with broadly similar numbers. This could be herding... or it could be because that's the right number.
@Peter_the_punter One thing about Betfair, the popular vote market wasn't settled till December in 2016.
That suggests that until the last vote has been counted, all legal action and other queries have been exhausted, and the defeated party has conceded, they are not going to pay out. That could mean we will be waiting years.
I really would write to the Gambling Commission in those circumstances. I might even try my MP. Laurence Robertson has a well-merited reputation for idleness but he is something of a betting man, although I expect he has had enough free lunches from the bookies to ensure he takes the proper view of disputes. Nevertheless, maybe worth a go.
Suppose they pay out on Biden, but then Trump's Supreme Court judges do come out to swing for him?
Most of the world wouldn't pay much notice to Betfair going under in those circumstances, but the cost of settling it the wrong way would surely break them.
If they'd just said that they wouldn't settle until a concession, or the formal vote on the 14th, then it wouldn't seem so bad. It's the woolly language of "projected" without saying who by, that has left them with a degree of doubt.
No.
In the extremely unlikely event it gets as far as the SC and the even unlikelier event that it reverses the result of the election Betfair would STILL be obliged to pay out on Biden under the terms of their own rules. The 'projected' wording actually gives them quite a bit of cover precisely because it is woolly. Within reason they can decide whose projection. By convention, this is the major networks but since all relevant authorities are agreed on the result there's no need to cherry pick.
Any unlikely reversal before a court or similar is easily dispensed with under the 'subsequent events' contingency. They quote 'faithless electors' but that is clearly intended to avoid backtracking from any perverse or unforeseen later event. It's abit like the situation where a horse wins but days later is found to have been doped. The bookies don't pay out on the second.
The result became final when all the networks and similar agencies called it for Biden. Everything since can be disregarded for betting purposes. Betfair are well out of order and if they get into deep shit over it they will deserve it.
I read the 'projected' terminology alongside the following sentence on subsequent events such as faithless electors, to mean they'd settle based on the EC votes from the certified results of the States, rather than the actions of the actual electoral college - where some individual might throw a spanner in the works.
I don't think anyone expected them to settle based on media projections.
Media projections is what Betfair settled all the states on, bar the five that remain open, so I think that is what people expected and what Betfair meant. Trouble is, as I suggested in the other post, maybe in not settling, Betfair might inadvertantly have changed the meaning along the lines you suggest.
Exactly. Betfair are being inconsistent. The way they settled most of the States is exactly the way most of us expected it to be done. If they had something else in mind, or they wished to change the rules mid-event they had to explain themselves. They haven't.
To be honest, I suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy but it is bloody aggravating.
If there's no legal challenge in a state and the loser has conceded that state it seems fair enough to settle those states while leaving only those in dispute to be still in play.
Would have been fair enough if something to that effect had been stated in the rules, but it wasn't. The rules are very clear and the settlements to date have fallen squarely within the rules. The trouble is that the States which have not been settled also fall squarely within the same rules, and no reason has been given for treating them differently. The reason no reason has been given is that there is no reason. They're making the rules up as they go along.
It isn't good Philip. I've been involved in betting all my life, and so have generations of my family before me. This is a breach of trust. If you can't trust the bookie, don't bet them.
The reason I've seen quoted from them is they are waiting for legal challenges to be resolved.
That seems different to there being no reason.
That wasn't stated in their rules, nor even implied by them, nor does it make any kind of sense in its own terms. They may as well have said they are waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. That too would have been 'a reason', of sorts.
To be fair there is a difference between waiting for legal disputes over the results to be resolved and waiting for Santa.
If you'd bet on Trump and the Supreme Court ruled that he was the winner by eg disqualifying enouh "illegal" Biden votes then they'd have to pay out on Trump.
No. Why do so many people think this? The rule is very clear.
'This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election.'
This outcome is now known. It doesn't matter what comes later. The Supreme Court could make Trump President, or you, or me; it wouldn't change the the result according to the principle as stated above.
You are only quoting part of the rules. Another line says "If there is any material change to the established role or any ambiguity as to who occupies the position, then Betfair may determine, using its reasonable discretion, how to settle the market based on all the information available to it at the relevant time."
There is ambiguity as 70% of Republicans think Trump won. I may think they have been brain washed by social media but there is clearly ambiguity. At which point all information available absolutely could be relevant in their reasonable discretion.
You have to read the rules as a whole. The reference to 'the position' relates back to whoever is deemed to be the projected winner. (It doesn't mean President. If it did, they would simply have said 'President')
The question of who is, or was, the 'projected winner' was settled long ago.
I suspect they worded it like this precisely to avoid any confusion if, say, you got Biden winning most votes but through faithless electors or some other fiddle Trump got most ECVs. In that case I would have expected them to pay out on Biden, leaving it to the courts, the military, or the Proud Boys to decide who actually claimed the Presidency.
On reflection, whoever worded the rules knew what they were doing. They are remarkably unambiguous, and shot through with common sense. It is Betfair's interpretation that is the problem. It is incoherent and illogical.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
Probably glad of the job security in this pandemic
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
They could work at the local government boundary commission for England. Pretty sure their changes go through the Houses nem con.
Well, the graphs didn't look remotely questionable this time. As we said the other day - there's plenty of force in readouts of what has in fact happened without needing projections.
I think they've learned not to BS the public with fake news graphs. Which scientists were present? I don't trust either Whitty or Valance to present proper data.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Congratulations, I think you win the all time award for most absurdly hyperbolic statement on PB.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Why? What's their motive? Is there some QAnon type conspiracy I'm missing here? What's in it for them?
Also, not surprised that AZ are going to run a specific trial for the half/full vaccine mode. I suggested they might do it on the day the initial results came out.
If they get recruiting immediately in the UK they could run a 20k trial and get results pretty quickly during the months after Xmas.
It wouldn't even slow down the vaccination programme as we have for 45m doses from Pfizer and Moderna lined up which is about 12-15 weeks worth of vaccinations.
The AZ vaccine will still get approved here as it only has to be 50% effective for approval, and the results show that it is.
Why do they not try a 50%/50% vaccine, with lower doses at both stages, to reduce the side-effects? Bear in mind that the vaccine producers have no liability. The govt pays any claims for harm and has some incentive to support a milder dose if the benefit is almost unchanged.
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
'Medical science' is an oxymoron, faced with such people.
You're coming across like a loon. In what way can you justify being skeptical about the need for a vaccine? Have you not seen what's been happening in the world since February 2020?
You come across as someone probably with an arts or social science degree who's never heard of the scientific method, observational trials, randomised double-blind trials and the value of such experiments in medical practice, nor of cost-benefit analysis as a tool to maximise societal benefits. Doubtless you'd also condemn Dr M Kendrick, Dr D Grimes, Dr D Unwin, Prof M Levitt, Prof S Gupta, Prof B Stadler et al.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Why? What's their motive? Is there some QAnon type conspiracy I'm missing here? What's in it for them?
One life lost is one too many for a lot of these people, their remit is to save lives, not consider the cost of what they are doing.
As an aside, all the forecasts for 2020 economic growth are wrong, because they wrongly assumed that the virus was not coming back.
Seems strange - I thought second waves were expected.
I think people expected that - because there were some social distancing guidelines in places - the second wave would be less severe than the first. I must admit, I did. I assumed that while numbers would grow through the Autumn, it would be at a much shallower rate, due to a much lower value of R.
I don't think there will be one. Tier 3 plus mass testing plus Pfizer alone will be enough to take the edge off and have that as a peak.
In fact I predict that almost the entire nation will be Tier 2 or below by 14 February (Valentine's Day).
You may be right but the rose-tinted spectacles you wear as a supporter of Boris Johnson and the Government aren't universally worn.
The limited current restrictions (and, let's face it, they are nothing like as draconian as those in late March and April) have slowed the spread of the virus though the number of fatalities is and remains awful and a sign that whatever form of "victory" some would like to declare over the virus, that victory has not come without a cost.
We are now three weeks into restrictions and given the normal spread of 2-14 days any new infections must be occurring during the restrictions and while the testing process is several orders of magnitude superior to what existed in the spring, the numbers of infections remains high.
I'd have hoped to see daily infections below 5000 by the end of restrictions and I suspect the overall positive trend will continue in the first half of next month.
The test will come 10-14 days after the current restrictions end and we'll see if renewed social mixing and interaction has given the virus a new lease of life. We may go into Christmas on an upward trend in cases but it seems that is a price and risk deemed to be worth paying for some semblance of "normality" through the festive season.
The likely spike in cases in January will see more areas move into Tier 3 and fewer move into Tier 1 until, as you say, the coming of widespread vaccination has the desired effect in terms of reducing case numbers.
The rollout of vaccination will be critical in determining how quickly areas can transit back to Tier 1 - I know you want to be optimistic, it's understandable. I want to be realistic.
I don't think anywhere is plausibly going to transition into Tier 1 until vaccinations have begun to roll out. By January some should have received their second dose of vaccine already and be immune hopefully.
The way I view the Tiers is as follows, without a vaccine.
Tier 1: Insufficient to contain the virus unless it's already suppressed. Rates would go up. Tier 2: Possibly keeps the virus rate flat, could go marginally up or down. Tier 3: Enough to keep the virus rate flat or marginally down but not down fast.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
Indeed.
The only amendment of any great significance to the outcome of the review itself was the Lords pushing for an amendment to return to the old 7.5% tolerance. Given that many conservatives were concerned that the narrower 5% tolerance, coupled with other almost-rules like using wards as the building blocks, forces some very peculiar proposed seats, it is a little surprising that the amendment didn’t get a more sympathetic hearing. I can only assume the Tories feel the other parties are better at exploiting what flexibility there is in the system to nudge the boundaries a little in their direction.
Also, not surprised that AZ are going to run a specific trial for the half/full vaccine mode. I suggested they might do it on the day the initial results came out.
If they get recruiting immediately in the UK they could run a 20k trial and get results pretty quickly during the months after Xmas.
It wouldn't even slow down the vaccination programme as we have for 45m doses from Pfizer and Moderna lined up which is about 12-15 weeks worth of vaccinations.
The AZ vaccine will still get approved here as it only has to be 50% effective for approval, and the results show that it is.
Why do they not try a 50%/50% vaccine, with lower doses at both stages, to reduce the side-effects? Bear in mind that the vaccine producers have no liability. The govt pays any claims for harm and has some incentive to support a milder dose if the benefit is almost unchanged.
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
'Medical science' is an oxymoron, faced with such people.
You're coming across like a loon. In what way can you justify being skeptical about the need for a vaccine? Have you not seen what's been happening in the world since February 2020?
You come across as someone probably with an arts or social science degree who's never heard of the scientific method, observational trials, randomised double-blind trials and the value of such experiments in medical practice, nor of cost-benefit analysis as a tool to maximise societal benefits. Doubtless you'd also condemn Dr M Kendrick, Dr D Grimes, Dr D Unwin, Prof M Levitt, Prof S Gupta, Prof B Stadler et al.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Congratulations, I think you win the all time award for most absurdly hyperbolic statement on PB.
Any guesses for when Lockdown 3 is going to commence? I'm leaning towards Friday 8th January at the moment.
The muddying of the waters on the Oxford vaccine is another thoroughly depressing setback, but entirely predictable (not the specific circumstances, but the fact that something would go horribly wrong. It was bound to go wrong, wasn't it?) Pray God this doesn't end with six more months of faffing about with trials whilst the NHS makes an award-winning hash of trying to lance all the olds with the Pfizer effort, which is bound to involve numerous cold chain collapses. If we find ourselves returning to eight more months of cyclical lockdowns next September then we might as well all reach for the whisky and the pearl-handled pistol.
I don't think there will be one. Tier 3 plus mass testing plus Pfizer alone will be enough to take the edge off and have that as a peak.
In fact I predict that almost the entire nation will be Tier 2 or below by 14 February (Valentine's Day).
I substantially agree with that, and off the tier scale almost entirely by mid April.
As well as Christmas, the care we will need to take is that a vaccine strategy may suppress deaths In the very elderly and vaccinated quicker than it suppresses hospitalisations in a wider, less vaccinated population, and that cases and hospitalisations are actually the indicators that end up lagging in coming down. There is a couple of months window where an NHS crisis could sneak up whilst government thinks it is over and focusses on any firefighting that might possibly just come about elsewhere.
I hope that you are right. The main questions over the Oxford/AZ vaccine trial results are about effectiveness. The government should issue guidance about how long after being vaccinated with the AZ vaccine a member of the public can be vaccinated with another vaccine.
Would there be risks attached such as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE)? By taking a vaccine is that person locked into using that vaccine in the future? If so it would be best if they were to take the most effective vaccine right from the start.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
Indeed.
The only amendment of any great significance to the outcome of the review itself was the Lords pushing for an amendment to return to the old 7.5% tolerance. Given that many conservatives were concerned that the narrower 5% tolerance, coupled with other almost-rules like using wards as the building blocks, forces some very peculiar proposed seats, it is a little surprising that the amendment didn’t get a more sympathetic hearing. I can only assume the Tories feel the other parties are better at exploiting what flexibility there is in the system to nudge the boundaries a little in their direction.
Or it could just be the macho wing of Number 10 refusing to give way. This would not be the first government to reverse even sensible amendments.
I don't think there will be one. Tier 3 plus mass testing plus Pfizer alone will be enough to take the edge off and have that as a peak.
In fact I predict that almost the entire nation will be Tier 2 or below by 14 February (Valentine's Day).
You may be right but the rose-tinted spectacles you wear as a supporter of Boris Johnson and the Government aren't universally worn.
The limited current restrictions (and, let's face it, they are nothing like as draconian as those in late March and April) have slowed the spread of the virus though the number of fatalities is and remains awful and a sign that whatever form of "victory" some would like to declare over the virus, that victory has not come without a cost.
We are now three weeks into restrictions and given the normal spread of 2-14 days any new infections must be occurring during the restrictions and while the testing process is several orders of magnitude superior to what existed in the spring, the numbers of infections remains high.
I'd have hoped to see daily infections below 5000 by the end of restrictions and I suspect the overall positive trend will continue in the first half of next month.
The test will come 10-14 days after the current restrictions end and we'll see if renewed social mixing and interaction has given the virus a new lease of life. We may go into Christmas on an upward trend in cases but it seems that is a price and risk deemed to be worth paying for some semblance of "normality" through the festive season.
The likely spike in cases in January will see more areas move into Tier 3 and fewer move into Tier 1 until, as you say, the coming of widespread vaccination has the desired effect in terms of reducing case numbers.
The rollout of vaccination will be critical in determining how quickly areas can transit back to Tier 1 - I know you want to be optimistic, it's understandable. I want to be realistic.
I don't think anywhere is plausibly going to transition into Tier 1 until vaccinations have begun to roll out. By January some should have received their second dose of vaccine already and be immune hopefully.
The way I view the Tiers is as follows, without a vaccine.
Tier 1: Insufficient to contain the virus unless it's already suppressed. Rates would go up. Tier 2: Possibly keeps the virus rate flat, could go marginally up or down. Tier 3: Enough to keep the virus rate flat or marginally down but not down fast.
That's probably about right now. I suspect it was the plan for Tiers v1, but they were a bit undercooked. With the effects we've seen.
The other caveat is that school holidays give about 1 tier's worth isolation to play with (or school opening costs about 1 tier). We might be OK for Christmas, but it's awfully tight.
As an aside, all the forecasts for 2020 economic growth are wrong, because they wrongly assumed that the virus was not coming back.
Seems strange - I thought second waves were expected.
I think people expected that - because there were some social distancing guidelines in places - the second wave would be less severe than the first. I must admit, I did. I assumed that while numbers would grow through the Autumn, it would be at a much shallower rate, due to a much lower value of R.
Hasn't that been proved across Europe though? The lockdowns have been much weaker than in the spring and the case/death rate hasn't been as bad. The R peaked at around 1.5 in some parts of the UK vs well over 5 in the spring.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Why? What's their motive? Is there some QAnon type conspiracy I'm missing here? What's in it for them?
One life lost is one too many for a lot of these people, their remit is to save lives, not consider the cost of what they are doing.
If you take @contrarian's statement at face value - that "Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere" - then you have to assume there's some conspiracy at work.
SAGE (and me and most other people, I suspect) will have been surprised by how quickly the virus took off again, and how quickly the hospitals filled.
I think we all missed what a big factor the arrival of winter, and everybody being forced indoors, would have on transmission rates. I think we all also assumed that the measures to shield older people would be more effective, and that a lot of this would burn through younger cohorts quickly.
We were wrong. The fact that even Sweden and the most liberatarian of US states are imposing pretty serious measures tells us that we have a few more months of unpleasantness ahead of us.
But we also have two and a half working vaccines. It's highly likely we'll see more vaccine good news from J&J and Novavax in the next couple of weeks. And the first people in the UK will get the vaccine next week. By the end of the year, I'd expect most NHS front line staff to have been vaccinated.
At the beginning of next year the days start to lengthen again. More and more people will have been vaccinated.
Now, Whitty and Valance may be overly cautious. But they also want to avoid disaster - which is when hospitals lack the capacity to treat the sick. Because when that happens, that IFR isn't going to be 0.2% or 1% - it'll be 3-4%.
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
What sort of society will be left by the time their lockdown ends?
Its quite clear that Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
What sort of society will be left by the time their lockdown ends?
As an aside, all the forecasts for 2020 economic growth are wrong, because they wrongly assumed that the virus was not coming back.
Current forecasts assume a renewed hit in Q4. The OBR's forecast assumes a decline of 2-3% in Q4 (that is probably too much in my view). Most forecasts even from a few months ago probably assumed a weak Q4 owing to some likelihood of a difficult winter.
Also, not surprised that AZ are going to run a specific trial for the half/full vaccine mode. I suggested they might do it on the day the initial results came out.
If they get recruiting immediately in the UK they could run a 20k trial and get results pretty quickly during the months after Xmas.
It wouldn't even slow down the vaccination programme as we have for 45m doses from Pfizer and Moderna lined up which is about 12-15 weeks worth of vaccinations.
The AZ vaccine will still get approved here as it only has to be 50% effective for approval, and the results show that it is.
Why do they not try a 50%/50% vaccine, with lower doses at both stages, to reduce the side-effects? Bear in mind that the vaccine producers have no liability. The govt pays any claims for harm and has some incentive to support a milder dose if the benefit is almost unchanged.
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
Also, not surprised that AZ are going to run a specific trial for the half/full vaccine mode. I suggested they might do it on the day the initial results came out.
If they get recruiting immediately in the UK they could run a 20k trial and get results pretty quickly during the months after Xmas.
It wouldn't even slow down the vaccination programme as we have for 45m doses from Pfizer and Moderna lined up which is about 12-15 weeks worth of vaccinations.
The AZ vaccine will still get approved here as it only has to be 50% effective for approval, and the results show that it is.
Why do they not try a 50%/50% vaccine, with lower doses at both stages, to reduce the side-effects? Bear in mind that the vaccine producers have no liability. The govt pays any claims for harm and has some incentive to support a milder dose if the benefit is almost unchanged.
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
'Medical science' is an oxymoron, faced with such people.
You're coming across like a loon. In what way can you justify being skeptical about the need for a vaccine? Have you not seen what's been happening in the world since February 2020?
You come across as someone probably with an arts or social science degree who's never heard of the scientific method, observational trials, randomised double-blind trials and the value of such experiments in medical practice, nor of cost-benefit analysis as a tool to maximise societal benefits. Doubtless you'd also condemn Dr M Kendrick, Dr D Grimes, Dr D Unwin, Prof M Levitt, Prof S Gupta, Prof B Stadler et al.
If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Your constant lying about the statistics is dishonest and should be called out.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
--AS
BiB - How has that been estimated?
They looked at the actuarial tables given age and existing conditions. There have been a number of separate studies done on this, and they all come up with broadly similar numbers. This could be herding... or it could be because that's the right number.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
Indeed.
The only amendment of any great significance to the outcome of the review itself was the Lords pushing for an amendment to return to the old 7.5% tolerance. Given that many conservatives were concerned that the narrower 5% tolerance, coupled with other almost-rules like using wards as the building blocks, forces some very peculiar proposed seats, it is a little surprising that the amendment didn’t get a more sympathetic hearing. I can only assume the Tories feel the other parties are better at exploiting what flexibility there is in the system to nudge the boundaries a little in their direction.
I personally prefer the 7.5% tolerance, because I'd rather avoid splitting up historic entities as much as possible. I'd rather be in Little Missenden with 107% of target voters, than in some crazy hybrid with half of one town and a third of another just to get us really close to 100%.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
Indeed.
The only amendment of any great significance to the outcome of the review itself was the Lords pushing for an amendment to return to the old 7.5% tolerance. Given that many conservatives were concerned that the narrower 5% tolerance, coupled with other almost-rules like using wards as the building blocks, forces some very peculiar proposed seats, it is a little surprising that the amendment didn’t get a more sympathetic hearing. I can only assume the Tories feel the other parties are better at exploiting what flexibility there is in the system to nudge the boundaries a little in their direction.
Or it could just be the macho wing of Number 10 refusing to give way. This would not be the first government to reverse even sensible amendments.
True. And that was one of the most frustrating things about serving on a majority council. Few members were willing to think on their feet, and the administration just saw the object of meetings being to get their business through. I lose count of the number of times administration councillors would come up to me afterwards and say how sensible they thought my amendment was, having just voted against it. Often even obvious mistakes wouldn’t be corrected (officers would of course try and sort things out afterwards).
On a balanced council, even where two of the parties had usually agreed the principal business beforehand, members were far more willing to take on board good points raised in discussion, both because decision-making in general was more deliberative, members were more aware of the risks of blanking other parties’ ideas, and no party wanted to be the one left defending the nonsense and finding themselves defeated.
The noose tightens, getting ever closer to the centre.
Don't think people fully (or even partly) appreciate the sheer blinding fury of Alex Salmond at what happened to him He has been turned into a pariah, his reputation trashed - and that doesn't take account of the excruciating experience of the criminal trial. (NB - The premise of the Kirsty Wark BBC documentary was obviously premised on him going down.) Few would forgive those who they felt were responsible and I don't think Eck is a forgiving kind.
I think this has the potential, when we look back at it, to make "I Claudius" read like a kindergarten fairy tale.
@Peter_the_punter One thing about Betfair, the popular vote market wasn't settled till December in 2016.
That suggests that until the last vote has been counted, all legal action and other queries have been exhausted, and the defeated party has conceded, they are not going to pay out. That could mean we will be waiting years.
I really would write to the Gambling Commission in those circumstances. I might even try my MP. Laurence Robertson has a well-merited reputation for idleness but he is something of a betting man, although I expect he has had enough free lunches from the bookies to ensure he takes the proper view of disputes. Nevertheless, maybe worth a go.
Suppose they pay out on Biden, but then Trump's Supreme Court judges do come out to swing for him?
Most of the world wouldn't pay much notice to Betfair going under in those circumstances, but the cost of settling it the wrong way would surely break them.
If they'd just said that they wouldn't settle until a concession, or the formal vote on the 14th, then it wouldn't seem so bad. It's the woolly language of "projected" without saying who by, that has left them with a degree of doubt.
No.
In the extremely unlikely event it gets as far as the SC and the even unlikelier event that it reverses the result of the election Betfair would STILL be obliged to pay out on Biden under the terms of their own rules. The 'projected' wording actually gives them quite a bit of cover precisely because it is woolly. Within reason they can decide whose projection. By convention, this is the major networks but since all relevant authorities are agreed on the result there's no need to cherry pick.
Any unlikely reversal before a court or similar is easily dispensed with under the 'subsequent events' contingency. They quote 'faithless electors' but that is clearly intended to avoid backtracking from any perverse or unforeseen later event. It's abit like the situation where a horse wins but days later is found to have been doped. The bookies don't pay out on the second.
The result became final when all the networks and similar agencies called it for Biden. Everything since can be disregarded for betting purposes. Betfair are well out of order and if they get into deep shit over it they will deserve it.
I read the 'projected' terminology alongside the following sentence on subsequent events such as faithless electors, to mean they'd settle based on the EC votes from the certified results of the States, rather than the actions of the actual electoral college - where some individual might throw a spanner in the works.
I don't think anyone expected them to settle based on media projections.
Media projections is what Betfair settled all the states on, bar the five that remain open, so I think that is what people expected and what Betfair meant. Trouble is, as I suggested in the other post, maybe in not settling, Betfair might inadvertantly have changed the meaning along the lines you suggest.
Exactly. Betfair are being inconsistent. The way they settled most of the States is exactly the way most of us expected it to be done. If they had something else in mind, or they wished to change the rules mid-event they had to explain themselves. They haven't.
To be honest, I suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy but it is bloody aggravating.
If there's no legal challenge in a state and the loser has conceded that state it seems fair enough to settle those states while leaving only those in dispute to be still in play.
Would have been fair enough if something to that effect had been stated in the rules, but it wasn't. The rules are very clear and the settlements to date have fallen squarely within the rules. The trouble is that the States which have not been settled also fall squarely within the same rules, and no reason has been given for treating them differently. The reason no reason has been given is that there is no reason. They're making the rules up as they go along.
It isn't good Philip. I've been involved in betting all my life, and so have generations of my family before me. This is a breach of trust. If you can't trust the bookie, don't bet them.
The reason I've seen quoted from them is they are waiting for legal challenges to be resolved.
That seems different to there being no reason.
That wasn't stated in their rules, nor even implied by them, nor does it make any kind of sense in its own terms. They may as well have said they are waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. That too would have been 'a reason', of sorts.
To be fair there is a difference between waiting for legal disputes over the results to be resolved and waiting for Santa.
If you'd bet on Trump and the Supreme Court ruled that he was the winner by eg disqualifying enouh "illegal" Biden votes then they'd have to pay out on Trump.
No. Why do so many people think this? The rule is very clear.
'This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election.'
This outcome is now known. It doesn't matter what comes later. The Supreme Court could make Trump President, or you, or me; it wouldn't change the the result according to the principle as stated above.
You are only quoting part of the rules. Another line says "If there is any material change to the established role or any ambiguity as to who occupies the position, then Betfair may determine, using its reasonable discretion, how to settle the market based on all the information available to it at the relevant time."
There is ambiguity as 70% of Republicans think Trump won. I may think they have been brain washed by social media but there is clearly ambiguity. At which point all information available absolutely could be relevant in their reasonable discretion.
You have to read the rules as a whole. The reference to 'the position' relates back to whoever is deemed to be the projected winner. (It doesn't mean President. If it did, they would simply have said 'President')
The question of who is, or was, the 'projected winner' was settled long ago.
I suspect they worded it like this precisely to avoid any confusion if, say, you got Biden winning most votes but through faithless electors or some other fiddle Trump got most ECVs. In that case I would have expected them to pay out on Biden, leaving it to the courts, the military, or the Proud Boys to decide who actually claimed the Presidency.
On reflection, whoever worded the rules knew what they were doing. They are remarkably unambiguous, and shot through with common sense. It is Betfair's interpretation that is the problem. It is incoherent and illogical.
One suspects lawyers got involved.
Yes, you have to read the rules as a whole was the point of my post, as opposed to selectively focusing on one line and drawing from there. You are making lots of assumptions that are perfectly logical and reasonable, but they don't rule out someone else making other assumptions and also being within the bounds of reasonableness.
Should they have settled on Biden already? Yes. Are they doing anything nefarious by waiting? No. It shouldn't make much difference to those who think Biden is a certainty anyway.
As an aside, all the forecasts for 2020 economic growth are wrong, because they wrongly assumed that the virus was not coming back.
Seems strange - I thought second waves were expected.
I think people expected that - because there were some social distancing guidelines in places - the second wave would be less severe than the first. I must admit, I did. I assumed that while numbers would grow through the Autumn, it would be at a much shallower rate, due to a much lower value of R.
In terms of its medical consequences, it has been. For total case numbers it is very difficult to identify the effects of greater awareness and much greater testing. Some of the estimates for the spring wave suggest only a small minority of cases were ever detected back then.
On the SCOTUS case, if I'm reading the bill of rights correctly it mentions "congress shall". A governor's temporary orders are not "congress shall". I feel that particular bit of textualism has been missed by Gorsuch et al.
The noose tightens, getting ever closer to the centre.
Don't think people fully (or even partly) appreciate the sheer blinding fury of Alex Salmond at what happened to him He has been turned into a pariah, his reputation trashed - and that doesn't take account of the excruciating experience of the criminal trial. (NB - The premise of the Kirsty Wark BBC documentary was obviously premised on him going down.) Few would forgive those who they felt were responsible and I don't think Eck is a forgiving kind.
I think this has the potential, when we look back at it, to make "I Claudius" read like a kindergarten fairy tale.
Ooohhhh... who's Livia? And which children got their heads smashed open?
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill - Lords has today accepted all Commons reversals of original Lords amendments.
So it's all over - Bill completes passage today.
Key points:
- Report by 1 July 2023 - Then 1 Oct 2031 and then every 8 years - 5% tolerance - ie seats must be between 95% and 105% of quota - 5 protected constuencies - Isle of Wight x2, Anglesey, Western Isles, Orkney & Shetland
There are quibbles on aspects of it, but it really needs doing and shouldn't result in so much wasted effort. Ingeel bad for the officers working in the field.
Imagine being a Boundary Commission worker, having seen your whole output publicly thrown in the bin three times in a decade.
Though for us election wonks, having 4 elections on the same boundaries was a rare treat.
As an aside, all the forecasts for 2020 economic growth are wrong, because they wrongly assumed that the virus was not coming back.
Seems strange - I thought second waves were expected.
I think people expected that - because there were some social distancing guidelines in places - the second wave would be less severe than the first. I must admit, I did. I assumed that while numbers would grow through the Autumn, it would be at a much shallower rate, due to a much lower value of R.
In terms of its medical consequences, it has been. For total case numbers it is very difficult to identify the effects of greater awareness and much greater testing. Some of the estimates for the spring wave suggest only a small minority of cases were ever detected back then.
Oh, that's certainly true. Real case numbers are - I'm sure - well below the highs from early in the year.
As an aside, all the forecasts for 2020 economic growth are wrong, because they wrongly assumed that the virus was not coming back.
Seems strange - I thought second waves were expected.
In the summer there was lots of confidence from posters on here that weather played no part in covid spreading despite the northern hemisphere having very seasonal outbreaks of most other colds and flus each year.
If it’s all time, that’s not surprising. I’ve been assaulted several times, including being hit with a chair (although books are more usual). And I am sure the same can be said for most teachers.
If it’s recently, that’s a big worry.
Edit - although Nick Gibb will be along shortly to explain that ‘over half’ is really about 0.4%.
If a few more 82 two year olds with two co-morbidities pass away a few months early, well, that's sad. But what we have now is utterly unsustainable.
Your constant lying about the statistics is dishonest and should be called out.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
--AS
BiB - How has that been estimated?
They looked at the actuarial tables given age and existing conditions. There have been a number of separate studies done on this, and they all come up with broadly similar numbers. This could be herding... or it could be because that's the right number.
Have I missed something really obvious, or does that imply that it is almost completely random as to who dies from COVID other than age?
EDIT: and sex, of course.
I'm not quite sure how to interpret the question: perhaps it's better phrased as "unpredictable" rather then "random". No doubt there are causative mechanisms (e.g. genetics), only some of which are random (e.g. whether a cell happens to find another) but most of them aren't known to us yet. It's likely that things not captured in the actuarial tables (e.g. plain old fitness, conditions usually undetected) are significant factors, and a good doctor could make a better-than-random assessment of risk of dying.
I had no idea betting was so ingrained in this country - just reading Around the World in Eighty Days and it loftily declares 'England is the world of betting men, who are of a higher class than mere gamblers; to bet is in the English temperament'.
The noose tightens, getting ever closer to the centre.
Don't think people fully (or even partly) appreciate the sheer blinding fury of Alex Salmond at what happened to him He has been turned into a pariah, his reputation trashed - and that doesn't take account of the excruciating experience of the criminal trial. (NB - The premise of the Kirsty Wark BBC documentary was obviously premised on him going down.) Few would forgive those who they felt were responsible and I don't think Eck is a forgiving kind.
I think this has the potential, when we look back at it, to make "I Claudius" read like a kindergarten fairy tale.
Isn’t there an episode where Claudius shags an underage girl?
Because I don’t think anyone has accused Salmond of that?
The noose tightens, getting ever closer to the centre.
Don't think people fully (or even partly) appreciate the sheer blinding fury of Alex Salmond at what happened to him He has been turned into a pariah, his reputation trashed - and that doesn't take account of the excruciating experience of the criminal trial. (NB - The premise of the Kirsty Wark BBC documentary was obviously premised on him going down.) Few would forgive those who they felt were responsible and I don't think Eck is a forgiving kind.
I think this has the potential, when we look back at it, to make "I Claudius" read like a kindergarten fairy tale.
Kirsty Wark's state sponsored political assassination of Salmond is the most unfair and ghastly thing.
I don't approve of Salmond, I don't really like him that much, but no matter what he's done the idea of mobilising the resources of BBC to make him out to be a monster is horrible.
Given how much they rely on tourism, they’re stuffed.
Hmm, Turkey stuffed on Thanksgiving?
Nut a chance.
Edit - I had an embarrassing moment recently that I think you will appreciate. I was teaching sex ed, and doing a match up on key vocabulary. ‘Testicles’ was ‘n’ and I thoughtlessly said, when somebody asked me whether I’d said m or n, ‘n for nut.’
I don't think anywhere is plausibly going to transition into Tier 1 until vaccinations have begun to roll out. By January some should have received their second dose of vaccine already and be immune hopefully.
The way I view the Tiers is as follows, without a vaccine.
Tier 1: Insufficient to contain the virus unless it's already suppressed. Rates would go up. Tier 2: Possibly keeps the virus rate flat, could go marginally up or down. Tier 3: Enough to keep the virus rate flat or marginally down but not down fast.
I don't disagree with your general direction of travel - I just think it's a little optimistic.
I'm still to be convinced the "mass" vaccination proposed is going to happen with the alacrity and ease some on here seem to think. Those comparing it with the annual flu jab forget there are twice as many shots involved and the flu jabs are rolled out over a number of weeks and months whereas there will be huge public pressure to shove needles into arms on a 24/7 basis.
Given what else we've seen, I question the Government's competence with large-scale logistics - clearly, if the military get involved, things will get done right but if there is an ideological bias toward the private sector leading the delivery of the vaccine, you'll forgive me if I have some concerns.
It may well be that as case numbers improve, some of the Tier 3 areas will move to Tier 2 on the 16th December and that wouldn't surprise with a return to stronger restrictions later.
Comments
The limited current restrictions (and, let's face it, they are nothing like as draconian as those in late March and April) have slowed the spread of the virus though the number of fatalities is and remains awful and a sign that whatever form of "victory" some would like to declare over the virus, that victory has not come without a cost.
We are now three weeks into restrictions and given the normal spread of 2-14 days any new infections must be occurring during the restrictions and while the testing process is several orders of magnitude superior to what existed in the spring, the numbers of infections remains high.
I'd have hoped to see daily infections below 5000 by the end of restrictions and I suspect the overall positive trend will continue in the first half of next month.
The test will come 10-14 days after the current restrictions end and we'll see if renewed social mixing and interaction has given the virus a new lease of life. We may go into Christmas on an upward trend in cases but it seems that is a price and risk deemed to be worth paying for some semblance of "normality" through the festive season.
The likely spike in cases in January will see more areas move into Tier 3 and fewer move into Tier 1 until, as you say, the coming of widespread vaccination has the desired effect in terms of reducing case numbers.
The rollout of vaccination will be critical in determining how quickly areas can transit back to Tier 1 - I know you want to be optimistic, it's understandable. I want to be realistic.
The median age of a COVID victim is around 80, but (by definition) 50% of such deaths are in younger people. To imply that all victims are 82 is false. More than 10% are under 70. That's many thousands of extremely premature deaths.
The number of co-morbidities is irrelevant for older people. Pretty much all people over 80 have some co-morbidities. You are falsely attempting to imply that only the frailest die.
The average life expectancy of COVID victims is about 10 years. It is a utterly untrue to say that they lose only a few months of life. Very few of the victims would have died anyway within a few months.
Furthermore you omit to mention those who are treated in ICU and survive but suffer, long or short term, life-changing aftereffects.
--AS
There is ambiguity as 70% of Republicans think Trump won. I may think they have been brain washed by social media but there is clearly ambiguity. At which point all information available absolutely could be relevant in their reasonable discretion.
Polls have consistently backed lockdowns over the economy
I remain extremely sceptical about vaccines for diseases with a 0.1% IFR (source = Ioannidis but other sceptical scientists are available). This is not smallpox, Ebola, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200918-the-fiasco-of-the-us-swine-flu-affair-of-1976
Some of the bodies which run UK healthcare have lost the plot and are sabotaging attempts to utilise vitamin D to treat patients or prevent the disease
http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2020/10/covid-19-and-vitamin-d-nice-fails-us.html
'Medical science' is an oxymoron, faced with such people.
And half of all those hospitalised as critically ill are younger than 60.
As a rule of thumb, someone only has to lie if they know their case is weak.
--AS
I suspect you are right, and they will pay out before long, but when they do there will be no rhyme or reason in it, just as there is no rhyme or reason in their failure to pay out now.
Basically, I don't think they know what they're doing and are just blundering forward on the advice of lawyers, accountants and senior execs who have no understanding of the business, the issues and the implications of their decisions.
While some turkeys may be pardoned and some others not so fortunate, it appears the turkeys doing the counting of the votes in America aren't stopping (that's cruel, those that have been counting the votes for more than three weeks deserve some recognition whatever the flaws in the system).
Biden's lead has edged to 6,136,000 votes.
States which have not counted at least 99% of the votes are:
Washington DC (98%)
Iowa (98%)
Maryland (97%)
New York (84%)
Ohio (97%)
According to 270towin.com the House is now 222-209 to the Democrats with four races to be called.
New York 1 will go to the Republicans, New York 22 has the challenging Republican just 281 votes ahead of the incumbent Democrat with 315,574 votes or 97% counted. In California 25, the incumbent Republican leads by 405 votes with 338,345 or 99% counted. Finally, Iowa 2 has the Republican leading the Democrat by just 35 votes out of 393,725 or 91% counted and if you want a definition of Too Close To Call, that's it.
Or, would they play their right to interpret card and pay out on Trump?
Lots of stuff on the go and even fact Salmond may sue in civil courts.
As well as Christmas, the care we will need to take is that a vaccine strategy may suppress deaths In the very elderly and vaccinated quicker than it suppresses hospitalisations in a wider, less vaccinated population, and that cases and hospitalisations are actually the indicators that end up lagging in coming down. There is a couple of months window where an NHS crisis could sneak up whilst government thinks it is over and focusses on any firefighting that might possibly just come about elsewhere.
The question of who is, or was, the 'projected winner' was settled long ago.
I suspect they worded it like this precisely to avoid any confusion if, say, you got Biden winning most votes but through faithless electors or some other fiddle Trump got most ECVs. In that case I would have expected them to pay out on Biden, leaving it to the courts, the military, or the Proud Boys to decide who actually claimed the Presidency.
On reflection, whoever worded the rules knew what they were doing. They are remarkably unambiguous, and shot through with common sense. It is Betfair's interpretation that is the problem. It is incoherent and illogical.
One suspects lawyers got involved.
Be interesting to see how that actually turns out.
Anyway, I must be off.
Ordinary people are completely stupid idiots who cannot be trusted to make the simplest decisions. They should only be allowed out when they have been fully vaccinated and then only with supervision.
Congratulations, I think you win the all time award for most absurdly hyperbolic statement on PB.
Why? What's their motive? Is there some QAnon type conspiracy I'm missing here? What's in it for them?
That rebellion now.....ffs.....will labour even support?
Goodbye.
Surely such a thing is impossible.
The way I view the Tiers is as follows, without a vaccine.
Tier 1: Insufficient to contain the virus unless it's already suppressed. Rates would go up.
Tier 2: Possibly keeps the virus rate flat, could go marginally up or down.
Tier 3: Enough to keep the virus rate flat or marginally down but not down fast.
The only amendment of any great significance to the outcome of the review itself was the Lords pushing for an amendment to return to the old 7.5% tolerance. Given that many conservatives were concerned that the narrower 5% tolerance, coupled with other almost-rules like using wards as the building blocks, forces some very peculiar proposed seats, it is a little surprising that the amendment didn’t get a more sympathetic hearing. I can only assume the Tories feel the other parties are better at exploiting what flexibility there is in the system to nudge the boundaries a little in their direction.
--AS
Some of us remember SeanT
Would there be risks attached such as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE)? By taking a vaccine is that person locked into using that vaccine in the future? If so it would be best if they were to take the most effective vaccine right from the start.
The other caveat is that school holidays give about 1 tier's worth isolation to play with (or school opening costs about 1 tier). We might be OK for Christmas, but it's awfully tight.
Stuart in a highly poxy bit of T2.
If you take @contrarian's statement at face value - that "Whitty and Vallance want total lockdown, for ever, everywhere" - then you have to assume there's some conspiracy at work.
SAGE (and me and most other people, I suspect) will have been surprised by how quickly the virus took off again, and how quickly the hospitals filled.
I think we all missed what a big factor the arrival of winter, and everybody being forced indoors, would have on transmission rates. I think we all also assumed that the measures to shield older people would be more effective, and that a lot of this would burn through younger cohorts quickly.
We were wrong. The fact that even Sweden and the most liberatarian of US states are imposing pretty serious measures tells us that we have a few more months of unpleasantness ahead of us.
But we also have two and a half working vaccines. It's highly likely we'll see more vaccine good news from J&J and Novavax in the next couple of weeks. And the first people in the UK will get the vaccine next week. By the end of the year, I'd expect most NHS front line staff to have been vaccinated.
At the beginning of next year the days start to lengthen again. More and more people will have been vaccinated.
Now, Whitty and Valance may be overly cautious. But they also want to avoid disaster - which is when hospitals lack the capacity to treat the sick. Because when that happens, that IFR isn't going to be 0.2% or 1% - it'll be 3-4%.
https://twitter.com/C_CPeebles/status/1332027314373357569
57,000 deaths to date.
That IFR implies 57 million of us infected.
That’s 85% of us. Way past the point of herd immunity.
Which means that it all went away (checks the older data) - in July.
As it didn’t, that IFR is palpably wrong.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/articles/lifeexpectancycalculator/2019-06-07
Have I missed something really obvious, or does that imply that it is almost completely random as to who dies from COVID other than age?
EDIT: and sex, of course.
The Paddys will give up on BF.
They need to settle though as they're already clearly in breech of their own terms. Every bet now placed is a potential legal case.
They may void.
On a balanced council, even where two of the parties had usually agreed the principal business beforehand, members were far more willing to take on board good points raised in discussion, both because decision-making in general was more deliberative, members were more aware of the risks of blanking other parties’ ideas, and no party wanted to be the one left defending the nonsense and finding themselves defeated.
I think this has the potential, when we look back at it, to make "I Claudius" read like a kindergarten fairy tale.
Should they have settled on Biden already? Yes. Are they doing anything nefarious by waiting? No. It shouldn't make much difference to those who think Biden is a certainty anyway.
https://www.lgcplus.com/politics/lgc-briefing/the-public-health-funding-freeze-shows-covid-lessons-havent-been-learnt-26-11-2020/
I feel that particular bit of textualism has been missed by Gorsuch et al.
The SNP leader, who is also Scotland's first minister, said her focus was currently on guiding the country through the pandemic.
But she insisted that the UK government's current opposition to indyref2 was unsustainable.
She would not be drawn on what she might do if it consent was refused.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55094835?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
If it’s all time, that’s not surprising. I’ve been assaulted several times, including being hit with a chair (although books are more usual). And I am sure the same can be said for most teachers.
If it’s recently, that’s a big worry.
Edit - although Nick Gibb will be along shortly to explain that ‘over half’ is really about 0.4%.
Is that helpful? Sorry if not.
--AS
I reckon Verne would have been a PBer.
Because I don’t think anyone has accused Salmond of that?
I don't approve of Salmond, I don't really like him that much, but no matter what he's done the idea of mobilising the resources of BBC to make him out to be a monster is horrible.
https://twitter.com/George_Osborne/status/1332006899286499330?s=20
https://twitter.com/NSoames/status/1332031162538217472?s=20
The chances are that the number of actual infections in the first wave, was much higher than we observe now.
Edit - I had an embarrassing moment recently that I think you will appreciate. I was teaching sex ed, and doing a match up on key vocabulary. ‘Testicles’ was ‘n’ and I thoughtlessly said, when somebody asked me whether I’d said m or n, ‘n for nut.’
https://twitter.com/tomparkerbowles/status/1331928489424007171?s=20
I'm still to be convinced the "mass" vaccination proposed is going to happen with the alacrity and ease some on here seem to think. Those comparing it with the annual flu jab forget there are twice as many shots involved and the flu jabs are rolled out over a number of weeks and months whereas there will be huge public pressure to shove needles into arms on a 24/7 basis.
Given what else we've seen, I question the Government's competence with large-scale logistics - clearly, if the military get involved, things will get done right but if there is an ideological bias toward the private sector leading the delivery of the vaccine, you'll forgive me if I have some concerns.
It may well be that as case numbers improve, some of the Tier 3 areas will move to Tier 2 on the 16th December and that wouldn't surprise with a return to stronger restrictions later.