More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Good to have a bit of levity and cheer before one goes to bed.
I really can't get my head around why it has to be 5 days. If they said 2 days due to the worsening situation, would that be totally unacceptable?
It's to give people who have family in distant parts of the country ample time to travel, and thus make sure that the Plague spreads absolutely everywhere.
If you want a terrifying public information campaign check out Victoria's TAC anti drink driving campaign. I grew up watching these and they absolutely pull no punches. Ran heavily over Christmas period especially.
It doesn't seem to explain why Scotland is doing so much worse than anyone, even if other places are undercounting.
No. A lot of the deaths seem to go back to the trainspotting generation who first got addicted in the late 80's and 90's whose bodies are now giving out.
We really desperately need to try something else and the Portugal model looks the most promising.
There is some interesting work in Glasgow, but the UK government is being pretty reactionary and has got into a fight with the Scottish Gmt over what can and can't be permitted, which has rather distracted matters from what I can see.
I think the Scottish government/SNP have been pretty weedy on this. They should really be pushing the constitutional envelope and acting unilaterally when they think it necessary, telling HMG to foxtrot oscar when push comes to shove. As DavidL suggests, 2/3 of last year’s deaths were men aged 35-55; if nothing else it’s a big clue on who they should be targeting.
I sympathisw with that - but just imagine how the Tories (with some honourable exceptions, as DavidL's comments show) would have kicked off on this. "Disrespecting Boris and Her Maj for a bunch of junkies!" Never mind the newspapers. Not many votes in druggies as opposed to other causes.
I really can't get my head around why it has to be 5 days. If they said 2 days due to the worsening situation, would that be totally unacceptable?
Probably yes for the key workers who have worked all year long and work on those 2 days?
Not everyone gets the days off themselves. Some certainly could be wanting to see their loved ones on the 23rd or 27th because they're working on the 25th and 26th.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
I see Germany has passed 800 deaths announced today compared with 16,258 cases three weeks earlier. Last Tuesday they announced 622 deaths compared with 16,206 cases three weeks before. I wonder just how bad things are going to get there over the next few weeks.
Germany has more followed the Eastern European pattern rather than the Western European pattern for covid.
So mildly hit in the spring but much harder, perhaps exacerbated by complacency, in the autumn.
Kind of, but I think Germany is a bit different: it had early cases and outbreaks, but there was enough testing happening to keep it low until lockdown. Many Eastern European countries didn't get cases until weeks later when things were already being locked down. And then summer started coming.
I don't see a great display of competence by the German government, though some of the shambles seen sometimes in the UK was avoided. And at least people weren't forever claiming everything was "world-beating" even when it looked like Germany was doing a bit better than some its neighbours.
The big early testing capacity was a natural consequence of the very decentralised health system. I expect the more centralised NHS to do a better job of getting millions of people vaccinated, because it's something where a piecemeal approach isn't going to work so well. If so, people might start asking questions about aspects of how health is organised here.
The 'world beating' obsession really deserves some serious academic research.
There's probably some sort of public school / Oxbridge / central London factor to it.
But even disregarding that it reaches into the depths of numerous English footballers being described as 'world class'.
I suspect its also connected to the 'save the world' / international meddling mentality.
More convinced than lever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
And all because the lady loves...
No, and all because government could not see what most of us could see, that the optimum strategy was simply to run the second lockdown for another fortnight, until round about now....
It doesn't seem to explain why Scotland is doing so much worse than anyone, even if other places are undercounting.
No. A lot of the deaths seem to go back to the trainspotting generation who first got addicted in the late 80's and 90's whose bodies are now giving out.
We really desperately need to try something else and the Portugal model looks the most promising.
I wonder how muich is complications of hepatitis, HIV etc. There was a shop in the Pubic Triangle area of Edinburgh which sold clean needles but a Chief Constable insisted that it be closed down about that sort of time, with predictable results.
I agree. So much of our war on drugs has been a disaster. We lost. A long time ago.
Somebody here said the Tories would build lots of houses, that lasted a whole year.
Same old Tories...
Eh?
Did you read the article? Still building more houses - just the algorithm has been changed so building more houses where there's more demand (at least pre-Covid).
It was a strange algorithm to be fair that was planning on decreasing housebuilding in Manchester and Newcastle.
More houses is a good thing though and actually getting them built and onto the market needs to be the priority.
It doesn't seem to explain why Scotland is doing so much worse than anyone, even if other places are undercounting.
No. A lot of the deaths seem to go back to the trainspotting generation who first got addicted in the late 80's and 90's whose bodies are now giving out.
We really desperately need to try something else and the Portugal model looks the most promising.
There is some interesting work in Glasgow, but the UK government is being pretty reactionary and has got into a fight with the Scottish Gmt over what can and can't be permitted, which has rather distracted matters from what I can see.
I think the Scottish government/SNP have been pretty weedy on this. They should really be pushing the constitutional envelope and acting unilaterally when they think it necessary, telling HMG to foxtrot oscar when push comes to shove. As DavidL suggests, 2/3 of last year’s deaths were men aged 35-55; if nothing else it’s a big clue on who they should be targeting.
I was always a bit confused by this. Criminal Justice is a devolved matter. If the Scottish Police were given instructions not to report for prosecution simple possession what exactly does the UK government do about it? I agree that the Scottish government should have pushed it harder.
Na, they did so well in the first wave that being slightly worse than that is still very good.
Still a shock to German self-confidence.
To a degree, but to keep things in perspective, our second wave (13k) has exceeded our first wave (9k), but is still less than your second wave (~25k) or your first one (~40k).
The European second wave is far from over. In terms of the death rate the vaccine roll out is going to be the biggest factor in getting it under control, it's clear that lockdowns are losing their effectiveness across all European countries, people have just had enough of living half lives, especially around this time of year when they are out with their friends and family.
I think it's a mixed picture. For some countries the second wave seems to be over, or at least approaching it. Those countries better prepare for the third one. I agree that it will take probably a year until the vaccination is making a substantial impact.
On the effect of lockdown measures, I do agree that compliance has declined. Which means you have to demand more than the last time to achieve the same result.
I don't think it will be as long as a year, at least not in terms of the death rate. Given that people over 75 account for almost all of the deaths it's actually not a huge number of people to vaccinate before the rate comes down by quite a big number. From the research I've seen Germany is preparing to start a vaccination programme in early January with deliveries if the Pfizer vaccine commencing days into the new year, it won't take long from then to distribute it to those most at risk of death. Here it should be done and dusted by mid Feb for the very high risk groups and mid April for the medium risk ones. Is there any reason you think it will take up to a year?
On lockdown I think it's to do with schools staying open as much as it is people, especially younger and lower risk ones, being much less careful. I can only speak for London, even just a few days ago I went to a late night lock in at a pub that went on well beyond the 10pm closing time, not a big deal for us because I'm in my early 30s, my wife is in her late 20s and we live alone. For other people there it may have been worse but this is what's happening all across the country right now. People are making their own decisions and almost all of them are higher risk than what is currently allowed. Asking for more isn't going to work, in London four weeks of "stay home, save the NHS" lockdown achieved a very tiny drop in the infection rate. I think for most of Europe our hopes rest on a fast and efficient rollout of the vaccine, I think we have it within us to do that before the end of the summer across all countries in Europe.
I see Germany has passed 800 deaths announced today compared with 16,258 cases three weeks earlier. Last Tuesday they announced 622 deaths compared with 16,206 cases three weeks before. I wonder just how bad things are going to get there over the next few weeks.
Germany has more followed the Eastern European pattern rather than the Western European pattern for covid.
So mildly hit in the spring but much harder, perhaps exacerbated by complacency, in the autumn.
Kind of, but I think Germany is a bit different: it had early cases and outbreaks, but there was enough testing happening to keep it low until lockdown. Many Eastern European countries didn't get cases until weeks later when things were already being locked down. And then summer started coming.
I don't see a great display of competence by the German government, though some of the shambles seen sometimes in the UK was avoided. And at least people weren't forever claiming everything was "world-beating" even when it looked like Germany was doing a bit better than some its neighbours.
The big early testing capacity was a natural consequence of the very decentralised health system. I expect the more centralised NHS to do a better job of getting millions of people vaccinated, because it's something where a piecemeal approach isn't going to work so well. If so, people might start asking questions about aspects of how health is organised here.
The 'world beating' obsession really deserves some serious academic research.
There's probably some sort of public school / Oxbridge / central London factor to it.
But even disregarding that it reaches into the depths of numerous English footballers being described as 'world class'.
I suspect its also connected to the 'save the world' / international meddling mentality.
You’d think that Oxbridge arts and humanities graduates of all people would have spotted the number of nouns you can put after “world beating” that don’t mean we are better?
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
I think you're being overly pessimistic about the state of vaccinations.
The UK is going to get out of this wave much better off in the New Year than most of our neighbours thanks to the key variable of a vaccine. It won't take until April for vaccinations to make a notable difference.
Already a number of people have been vaccinated and it won't take long for this to have an impact, especially since the vaccinations are being prioritised to where they'll have the most immediate impact in the hospitalisations. I've read a few people here say they know someone (eg their father) who's already getting their vaccine booked in. I spoke to my granddad earlier and he's waiting for confirmation he should hopefully get his first one next week.
Given the vaccine seems to have an almost-immediate impact from the first not second dose early rollout now is great news. By New Years Day we'll have hundreds of thousands if not a million or more who're already effectively immune. By February millions of the most vulnerable and/or health/care workers should be immune.
In a very difficult year, vaccinations are the one bit of unalloyed good news we're ending the year with.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
There's a massive streak of (small p) presbyterian moral puritanism when it comes to dealing with the drug problem in Scotland, it runs through all parties and the public. Drug addicts are not considered worthy of 'saving' unless they meet specific moral criteria.
It became particularly bad when Police Scotland was formed as the Glasgow polis were especially punitive on both sex work and drug addicts and the Glasgow top coppers became the Police Scotland leadership. So local efforts were swept away with a one size doesn't fit anyone policy.
The problems started for everyone when people were allowed to go on European ski holidays,
Everyone is so white, so rich, so upper middle-class ... so diverse.
And the bloody skiiers caused Patient Zero in a dozen European countries with their stupid, whiny holidays.
We should bill the cost of the pandemic to every last wanker who went skiing in the Winter & Spring last year.
Sod off. I went to Switzerland on 1 Feb for a week. On that day Spain had its first case, on the Canaries. Italy had its first two reported cases (I understand there is suspicion it arrived earlier) the day before - and I assure you I had not heard the news when I left for the airport, the bulletins wwere dominated by our departure from the EU the previous night. Switzerland, my destination, had its first case on 25 February - two weeks after I got home.
The borders should have been shut earlier but ascribing clarvoyance to an entire group of holidaymakers in January and early February 2020 is a little unreasonable.
Somebody here said the Tories would build lots of houses, that lasted a whole year.
Same old Tories...
Eh?
Did you read the article? Still building more houses - just the algorithm has been changed so building more houses where there's more demand (at least pre-Covid).
It was a strange algorithm to be fair that was planning on decreasing housebuilding in Manchester and Newcastle.
More houses is a good thing though and actually getting them built and onto the market needs to be the priority.
The issue is that the controversial algorithm would have build more houses where demand is highest (near London) and fewer in areas less in demand: in principle it would have reduced the gap in house prices beteween south and north, but it would have put pressure on the green belt (and dampened house price rises in the rural south). As a Labour councillor in the south I didn't oppose the algorithm, because without it we keep house prices impossibly high.
We're not seriously revisiting the fake outrage over the use of standard cliches are we? I refuse to believe people genuinely have never heard people use words like fight or war in situations which are not real fights or wars. People aren't that stupid.
Here are the rules. Please ignore them and follow the advice.
But they promised to save xmas. It said so, in big letters all over the newspapers.
Seriously: Who cares?
Does anyone? Hand on heart honestly give a shit what newspapers months ago said?
We have a vaccine now. Getting the virus now is like going over the top in autumn 1918.
Oldies care.
Kids want to play with their toys and have time off school.
Workers want to relax and have time off work.
But oldies want to 'see the family'.
Do they? Do they actually want to?
My family may be different but we've all agreed between ourselves that nobody is meeting up at all. Even if I wanted to see them, they wouldn't see us anyway.
Prior to this year I've for a long time treated Christmas with my grandparents as if it could be my last with them, I'm incredibly fortunate to still have all of mine (my wife has lost all of hers) but this year they're shielding and won't even contemplate seeing anyone.
I could never live with myself if I saw them and then a week later they were diagnosed and the worst should happen.
Goodness me, how terrible it must have been to get housing built to bring house prices down, anyone young will continue to be priced out. The Tory way
The only surprise in that decision is that it took this long to give in. They have the majority to push through things their members and councillors would dislike, but have no faith in themselves whenever they are criticised.
In fairness I don't have faith in them either, so I can understand that.
It doesn't seem to explain why Scotland is doing so much worse than anyone, even if other places are undercounting.
No. A lot of the deaths seem to go back to the trainspotting generation who first got addicted in the late 80's and 90's whose bodies are now giving out.
We really desperately need to try something else and the Portugal model looks the most promising.
There is some interesting work in Glasgow, but the UK government is being pretty reactionary and has got into a fight with the Scottish Gmt over what can and can't be permitted, which has rather distracted matters from what I can see.
I think the Scottish government/SNP have been pretty weedy on this. They should really be pushing the constitutional envelope and acting unilaterally when they think it necessary, telling HMG to foxtrot oscar when push comes to shove. As DavidL suggests, 2/3 of last year’s deaths were men aged 35-55; if nothing else it’s a big clue on who they should be targeting.
I was always a bit confused by this. Criminal Justice is a devolved matter. If the Scottish Police were given instructions not to report for prosecution simple possession what exactly does the UK government do about it? I agree that the Scottish government should have pushed it harder.
AIUI Criminal Justice with relation to drugs is reserved. Thus Westminster blocking the safe consumption rooms in Glasgow.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
The problem is far too many of the population have been shown time and time again, give an inch and it take a mile...be it you can go to the pub sensibly...nah stuff that unlimited Scot eggs so i can get plastered...to isolate for 14 days...well i have done 5 and i feel ok, so i am off to do the big shop in Asda.
In fairness to governments of all stripes, I do sympathise with them when it comes to house building. It's more complicated than not being able to get permissions done quickly - plenty are granted and sat on - but I've seen so many absolutely stupid objections to building, well, anything, even in locations that seem perfect for it, that it's turned me into something of a development hawk.
Public support for the Welsh Government handling of covid collapses
Will be interesting to see if that’s reflected in the next Welsh barometer poll.
It’s obvious that people have lost love for Welsh Labour, but so far they haven’t quite worked out who to turn to instead.
Do you think there's a chance of polarisation on constitutional lines happening? Abolish the parliament versus independence.
No. Because only a few fruitcakes on either side in Wales want either option. The question in constitutional terms is more powers first vs. competent governance first. But that frankly is a secondary issue to the problems in public services, rampant corruption and a fragile, unstable economy.
You have certainly given a very accurate diagnosis of endemic and intractable problems facing Wales in that last line.
The question is whether any of those problems are related to Wales' constitutional status.
In the 1960s, Welsh GDP was twice that of the Republic of Ireland. Now in the 2020s, the economy of the Republic of Ireland is four times that of Wales.
Why is that ? Why has an independent Ireland prospered mightily, whereas a Wales tied to Westminster become more and more impoverished ?
And is the pauperization of Wales related to the behaviour of the Westminster parties ?
No. And no. The problem in Wales is simple. It relied for its brief burst of prosperity on extraction of natural resources and heavy industry from that. The former became impracticable and the latter then became uneconomic (although Wales still does of course have a large steel industry).
When these went, its location and geographic limitations (being bloody hilly makes transport hard) made it unattractive to investment. That is despite the fact that a very great deal of hard work was put in by the then Tory government (working, uncharacteristically, with the unions) to try and persuade major firms to set up shop there.
That would (and did) happen regardless of who was in charge. Ireland, meanwhile, on the main route between Europe and America with strong links to both was able to prosper.
Does that mean it will always be this way? No. In an age when renewable energy is king, Wales, as one vast potential power station, could easily come into its own again.
But that DOES - to contradict myself - depend on half decent public services and a stable political and governmental system, which right now it hasn’t got.
There is a reason why there are so very few Welsh Americans, but there are many more Scottish Americans and many, many more Irish Americans.
Immigration is a sign that a country is poor, that the indigenous population cannot survive in its native land, that people see better economic prospects and greater prosperity elsewhere.
For much of recent history -- not just "a brief burst" -- Wales was MORE prosperous than Scotland and Ireland.
There was a time when Glamorgan was the richest county in England & Wales & Scotland. It was richer than Surrey and richer than Hampshire.
Wales has been made poor by the Westminster governments -- and the endless draining of resources from these islands to the great, selfish, wheedling, caterwauling, monster that is London & the South East of England.
Wales is a colony. Colonial economies are not run to make the indigenous population wealthy. The economy is run to make outsiders rich. That is e.g., why the Welsh economy has seen little benefit from the numerous wind-farms or renewables. There will be no great renaissance from greening the Welsh economy as long as the current regime persists.
The Republic of Ireland is becoming wealthier because it -- admittedly -- is a corporate tax haven.
The RoI has the freedom to undercut the corporation tax of neighbouring countries because it is independent. As long as the money from the US corporations is invested to reduce such dependence long term, as long as it is invested in the education of the population and in its public service infrastructure, I have no great problem with what the RoI is doing.
In fact, I'd be far, far happier with Wales following the path of the RoI than being a crying, cringing, abominable hyena, whining at the ashcans for another titbit from London.
I think the problems started for Wales when people were allowed to go on European ski holidays. With strong leadership (and the banning of ski holidays) prosperity will be restored to Wales.
The problems started for everyone when people were allowed to go on European ski holidays,
Everyone is so white, so rich, so upper middle-class ... so diverse.
And the bloody skiiers caused Patient Zero in a dozen European countries with their stupid, whiny holidays.
We should bill the cost of the pandemic to every last wanker who went skiing in the Winter & Spring last year.
You sound like one of those crazy anti-hunt people.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
A trusted friend whose daughter works in a large Brighton hospital says there are 45 Covid patients queuing in corridors there.
A degree of urgency in clamping down would be very welcome to most.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Only if Sir Keith supports the govt (or abstains) - honestly don't think there are the votes for a third Lockdown on Tory benches.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think you're being overly pessimistic about the state of vaccinations.
The UK is going to get out of this wave much better off in the New Year than most of our neighbours thanks to the key variable of a vaccine. It won't take until April for vaccinations to make a notable difference.
Already a number of people have been vaccinated and it won't take long for this to have an impact, especially since the vaccinations are being prioritised to where they'll have the most immediate impact in the hospitalisations. I've read a few people here say they know someone (eg their father) who's already getting their vaccine booked in. I spoke to my granddad earlier and he's waiting for confirmation he should hopefully get his first one next week.
Given the vaccine seems to have an almost-immediate impact from the first not second dose early rollout now is great news. By New Years Day we'll have hundreds of thousands if not a million or more who're already effectively immune. By February millions of the most vulnerable and/or health/care workers should be immune.
In a very difficult year, vaccinations are the one bit of unalloyed good news we're ending the year with.
I think I'm being nothing but realistic over the likely progress of the vaccination programme. Just to get through the over 80s and health and care workers will require somewhere not too far short of five million people to be immunised twice. This has to be done at the same time as the health service attempts to care for huge and increasing numbers of Covid patients and to keep everything else running.
At the end of all that you've inoculated 8% of the population. That should at least cut down the death rate significantly, but it won't do much to ease the pressure on the hospitals. The fact that many fewer people are dying of Covid won't mean that that wards aren't clogged up with huge number of sick patients. Realistically you're not going to be able to return to anything close to normal life until at least everyone over 60 and all the shielders have been immunised too. That's an additional thirteen million people, each requiring two shots as well. Even if everything goes very well that's not going to be done until the Summer.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
This is off topic even for PB, but if anyone ever suggests we have too much time on our hands, this should show others have even more time to kill. What am I even looking at? https://twitter.com/rachel/status/1338309584260395009
If you want to look on the very limited bright side, from a statistical perspective we are probably going to get some useful data/evidence to see if we can answer the question of whether loads of masked-up folk packing out the shops for several weeks is more or less of a problem than reasonably limited-size family gatherings coming together indoors for a few short days.
The narrower the window the Christmas rules are in effect the more easy it might be to distinguish any specific signals from that.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
The very practical problem about locking down now is that most firms are closing for around 2 weeks from next Monday. Being made to spend two weeks more or less alone in the middle of winter probably would send me mad*. I had six weeks furloughed in March / April and that was pretty grim, and that was before the mental toll the rest of this year has taken.
I'm low risk from Covid. The people I will be meeting are low risk (and have almost certainly had it, so are immune anyway). I'll see far fewer people across the Christmas period than in my normal working week.
I live in an area with very few cases, which is in tier 3 mostly because of a load of cases 50 miles away at the opposite end of the county.
Just because the government made a stupid political decision not to put London into tier 3 despite all the indications showing it was going to be a problem (whilst blanketing huge chunks of the North with tier 3 even where there are almost no cases because of a mad insistence of using county level areas), why should I be punished.
* I have a support bubble, but personal circumstances mean that's not entirely straightforward - it means a 400 mile round trip done in a day for one of us, which normally works fine, but I can't do that every day over Christmas.
Public support for the Welsh Government handling of covid collapses
Will be interesting to see if that’s reflected in the next Welsh barometer poll.
It’s obvious that people have lost love for Welsh Labour, but so far they haven’t quite worked out who to turn to instead.
Do you think there's a chance of polarisation on constitutional lines happening? Abolish the parliament versus independence.
No. Because only a few fruitcakes on either side in Wales want either option. The question in constitutional terms is more powers first vs. competent governance first. But that frankly is a secondary issue to the problems in public services, rampant corruption and a fragile, unstable economy.
You have certainly given a very accurate diagnosis of endemic and intractable problems facing Wales in that last line.
The question is whether any of those problems are related to Wales' constitutional status.
In the 1960s, Welsh GDP was twice that of the Republic of Ireland. Now in the 2020s, the economy of the Republic of Ireland is four times that of Wales.
Why is that ? Why has an independent Ireland prospered mightily, whereas a Wales tied to Westminster become more and more impoverished ?
And is the pauperization of Wales related to the behaviour of the Westminster parties ?
No. And no. The problem in Wales is simple. It relied for its brief burst of prosperity on extraction of natural resources and heavy industry from that. The former became impracticable and the latter then became uneconomic (although Wales still does of course have a large steel industry).
When these went, its location and geographic limitations (being bloody hilly makes transport hard) made it unattractive to investment. That is despite the fact that a very great deal of hard work was put in by the then Tory government (working, uncharacteristically, with the unions) to try and persuade major firms to set up shop there.
That would (and did) happen regardless of who was in charge. Ireland, meanwhile, on the main route between Europe and America with strong links to both was able to prosper.
Does that mean it will always be this way? No. In an age when renewable energy is king, Wales, as one vast potential power station, could easily come into its own again.
But that DOES - to contradict myself - depend on half decent public services and a stable political and governmental system, which right now it hasn’t got.
There is a reason why there are so very few Welsh Americans, but there are many more Scottish Americans and many, many more Irish Americans.
Immigration is a sign that a country is poor, that the indigenous population cannot survive in its native land, that people see better economic prospects and greater prosperity elsewhere.
For much of recent history -- not just "a brief burst" -- Wales was MORE prosperous than Scotland and Ireland.
There was a time when Glamorgan was the richest county in England & Wales & Scotland. It was richer than Surrey and richer than Hampshire.
Wales has been made poor by the Westminster governments -- and the endless draining of resources from these islands to the great, selfish, wheedling, caterwauling, monster that is London & the South East of England.
Wales is a colony. Colonial economies are not run to make the indigenous population wealthy. The economy is run to make outsiders rich. That is e.g., why the Welsh economy has seen little benefit from the numerous wind-farms or renewables. There will be no great renaissance from greening the Welsh economy as long as the current regime persists.
The Republic of Ireland is becoming wealthier because it -- admittedly -- is a corporate tax haven.
The RoI has the freedom to undercut the corporation tax of neighbouring countries because it is independent. As long as the money from the US corporations is invested to reduce such dependence long term, as long as it is invested in the education of the population and in its public service infrastructure, I have no great problem with what the RoI is doing.
In fact, I'd be far, far happier with Wales following the path of the RoI than being a crying, cringing, abominable hyena, whining at the ashcans for another titbit from London.
I think the problems started for Wales when people were allowed to go on European ski holidays. With strong leadership (and the banning of ski holidays) prosperity will be restored to Wales.
The problems started for everyone when people were allowed to go on European ski holidays,
Everyone is so white, so rich, so upper middle-class ... so diverse.
And the bloody skiiers caused Patient Zero in a dozen European countries with their stupid, whiny holidays.
We should bill the cost of the pandemic to every last wanker who went skiing in the Winter & Spring last year.
You sound like one of those crazy anti-hunt people.
I think you're being overly pessimistic about the state of vaccinations.
The UK is going to get out of this wave much better off in the New Year than most of our neighbours thanks to the key variable of a vaccine. It won't take until April for vaccinations to make a notable difference.
Already a number of people have been vaccinated and it won't take long for this to have an impact, especially since the vaccinations are being prioritised to where they'll have the most immediate impact in the hospitalisations. I've read a few people here say they know someone (eg their father) who's already getting their vaccine booked in. I spoke to my granddad earlier and he's waiting for confirmation he should hopefully get his first one next week.
Given the vaccine seems to have an almost-immediate impact from the first not second dose early rollout now is great news. By New Years Day we'll have hundreds of thousands if not a million or more who're already effectively immune. By February millions of the most vulnerable and/or health/care workers should be immune.
In a very difficult year, vaccinations are the one bit of unalloyed good news we're ending the year with.
I think I'm being nothing but realistic over the likely progress of the vaccination programme. Just to get through the over 80s and health and care workers will require somewhere not too far short of five million people to be immunised twice. This has to be done at the same time as the health service attempts to care for huge and increasing numbers of Covid patients and to keep everything else running.
At the end of all that you've inoculated 8% of the population. That should at least cut down the death rate significantly, but it won't do much to ease the pressure on the hospitals. The fact that many fewer people are dying of Covid won't mean that that wards aren't clogged up with huge number of sick patients. Realistically you're not going to be able to return to anything close to normal life until at least everyone over 60 and all the shielders have been immunised too. That's an additional thirteen million people, each requiring two shots as well. Even if everything goes very well that's not going to be done until the Summer.
Yes everyone needs to be vaccinated twice but the data shows you're protected from before the time you get the booster shot. Protection is virtually 100% ten days after your first not second shot - whether the second shot is needed to maintain protection or not we don't know so it will still be given. But that brings forwards by a few weeks when people get their protection.
Cutting down the death rates will ease the pressure on the hospitalised since these no-longer-dying people are no-longer-hospitalised people too. Others may still be hospitalised absolutely, but not as many. Plus for health workers I imagine going from a point where you're working with people half of whom in ICU may die, to a point where very few are dying then on a mental health basis that's got to be healthier to work with.
Finally I think you're underestimating how quickly the vaccine will be getting rolled out. GP surgeries are getting doses of 970 vaccines per box and all vaccines need to be given within 3 days. If a GP surgery gets through 2 boxes per week that's 2k vaccinations per GP surgery per week. If a thousand surgeries are vaccinating then that's 2 million vaccinations per week just from GPs.
Getting sufficient stock of vaccine doses is going to be the hard part more than rolling them out. Needs must means the doses will be rolled out one way or another because they absolutely have to be.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
We wanted folk to stay home as much as possible, and avoid in particular places like gyms.
And in the first lockdown the only thing anyone could do that wasn't at home was go for a walk, I'd never seen some of my normal dead-quiet routes so busy. I'm not really sure there was much scope for much else.
Other than perhaps Gym Out To Help Out in the summer to get the double swing of more folk exercising and less folk sitting on their bums eating in restaurants.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
Indeed. Mum has lost over 3 stone this year. So proud of her.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
Yeah its playing on my mind. I was being good during the summer, watching what I ate and doing Joe Wicks workouts with my kids.
Now its mince pies and winter comfort food and alcohol and I can not face exercising outside in this weather. 🤷🏻♂️ 🥧 🍺
It doesn't seem to explain why Scotland is doing so much worse than anyone, even if other places are undercounting.
No. A lot of the deaths seem to go back to the trainspotting generation who first got addicted in the late 80's and 90's whose bodies are now giving out.
We really desperately need to try something else and the Portugal model looks the most promising.
There is some interesting work in Glasgow, but the UK government is being pretty reactionary and has got into a fight with the Scottish Gmt over what can and can't be permitted, which has rather distracted matters from what I can see.
I think the Scottish government/SNP have been pretty weedy on this. They should really be pushing the constitutional envelope and acting unilaterally when they think it necessary, telling HMG to foxtrot oscar when push comes to shove. As DavidL suggests, 2/3 of last year’s deaths were men aged 35-55; if nothing else it’s a big clue on who they should be targeting.
I was always a bit confused by this. Criminal Justice is a devolved matter. If the Scottish Police were given instructions not to report for prosecution simple possession what exactly does the UK government do about it? I agree that the Scottish government should have pushed it harder.
AIUI Criminal Justice with relation to drugs is reserved. Thus Westminster blocking the safe consumption rooms in Glasgow.
I think that it is correct that the Scottish Parliament can't change the Misuse of Drugs Act but as I have suggested there is a lot of things that they could have done within their powers which they chose not to.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
We wanted folk to stay home as much as possible, and avoid in particular places like gyms.
And in the first lockdown the only thing anyone could do that wasn't at home was go for a walk, I'd never seen some of my normal dead-quiet routes so busy. I'm not really sure there was much scope for much else.
Other than perhaps Gym Out To Help Out in the summer to get the double swing of more folk exercising and less folk sitting on their bums eating in restaurants.
The key to losing weight is eating (and drinking) less. Frankly, encouraging a bit of personal responsibility would have been an excellent idea.
It doesn't seem to explain why Scotland is doing so much worse than anyone, even if other places are undercounting.
No. A lot of the deaths seem to go back to the trainspotting generation who first got addicted in the late 80's and 90's whose bodies are now giving out.
We really desperately need to try something else and the Portugal model looks the most promising.
There is some interesting work in Glasgow, but the UK government is being pretty reactionary and has got into a fight with the Scottish Gmt over what can and can't be permitted, which has rather distracted matters from what I can see.
I think the Scottish government/SNP have been pretty weedy on this. They should really be pushing the constitutional envelope and acting unilaterally when they think it necessary, telling HMG to foxtrot oscar when push comes to shove. As DavidL suggests, 2/3 of last year’s deaths were men aged 35-55; if nothing else it’s a big clue on who they should be targeting.
I was always a bit confused by this. Criminal Justice is a devolved matter. If the Scottish Police were given instructions not to report for prosecution simple possession what exactly does the UK government do about it? I agree that the Scottish government should have pushed it harder.
AIUI Criminal Justice with relation to drugs is reserved. Thus Westminster blocking the safe consumption rooms in Glasgow.
I think that it is correct that the Scottish Parliament can't change the Misuse of Drugs Act but as I have suggested there is a lot of things that they could have done within their powers which they chose not to.
Fair enough, but what is SCUP policy on those other things, do you think (in all seriousness)? It will tend to be followed by most of the Scxottish media, given its ownership and policies.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
Yeah its playing on my mind. I was being good during the summer, watching what I ate and doing Joe Wicks workouts with my kids.
Now its mince pies and winter comfort food and alcohol and I can not face exercising outside in this weather. 🤷🏻♂️ 🥧 🍺
Yep. In February-May I lost about 30 lbs and drank nothing for about 3 months as I got fitter to cope with the virus. I've now put nearly 20 of those lbs back on again and struggle to have 2 alcohol free days a week.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
We wanted folk to stay home as much as possible, and avoid in particular places like gyms.
And in the first lockdown the only thing anyone could do that wasn't at home was go for a walk, I'd never seen some of my normal dead-quiet routes so busy. I'm not really sure there was much scope for much else.
Other than perhaps Gym Out To Help Out in the summer to get the double swing of more folk exercising and less folk sitting on their bums eating in restaurants.
The key to losing weight is eating (and drinking) less. Frankly, encouraging a bit of personal responsibility would have been an excellent idea.
It's not an unfair point, but the government simultaneously telling everyone to Eat Out To Help Out but also to eat less and do more exercise as part of a general fitness campaign would probably have been peak-2020.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
I fear you are going to be disappointed.
I think Dorset is 7th lowest in the country, and less than half the rates of a fortnight ago. What is the logical basis for restricting our lives and economies? It is no long tenable.
It doesn't seem to explain why Scotland is doing so much worse than anyone, even if other places are undercounting.
No. A lot of the deaths seem to go back to the trainspotting generation who first got addicted in the late 80's and 90's whose bodies are now giving out.
We really desperately need to try something else and the Portugal model looks the most promising.
There is some interesting work in Glasgow, but the UK government is being pretty reactionary and has got into a fight with the Scottish Gmt over what can and can't be permitted, which has rather distracted matters from what I can see.
I think the Scottish government/SNP have been pretty weedy on this. They should really be pushing the constitutional envelope and acting unilaterally when they think it necessary, telling HMG to foxtrot oscar when push comes to shove. As DavidL suggests, 2/3 of last year’s deaths were men aged 35-55; if nothing else it’s a big clue on who they should be targeting.
I was always a bit confused by this. Criminal Justice is a devolved matter. If the Scottish Police were given instructions not to report for prosecution simple possession what exactly does the UK government do about it? I agree that the Scottish government should have pushed it harder.
AIUI Criminal Justice with relation to drugs is reserved. Thus Westminster blocking the safe consumption rooms in Glasgow.
I think that it is correct that the Scottish Parliament can't change the Misuse of Drugs Act but as I have suggested there is a lot of things that they could have done within their powers which they chose not to.
Fair enough, but what is SCUP policy on those other things, do you think (in all seriousness)? It will tend to be followed by most of the Scxottish media, given its ownership and policies.
SCUP policy on this is wrong. And the death toll needs more imagination than is currently being shown by all parties.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
Yeah its playing on my mind. I was being good during the summer, watching what I ate and doing Joe Wicks workouts with my kids.
Now its mince pies and winter comfort food and alcohol and I can not face exercising outside in this weather. 🤷🏻♂️ 🥧 🍺
Yep. In February-May I lost about 30 lbs and drank nothing for about 3 months as I got fitter to cope with the virus. I've now put nearly 20 of those lbs back on again and struggle to have 2 alcohol free days a week.
Na, they did so well in the first wave that being slightly worse than that is still very good.
Still a shock to German self-confidence.
To a degree, but to keep things in perspective, our second wave (13k) has exceeded our first wave (9k), but is still less than your second wave (~25k) or your first one (~40k).
The European second wave is far from over. In terms of the death rate the vaccine roll out is going to be the biggest factor in getting it under control, it's clear that lockdowns are losing their effectiveness across all European countries, people have just had enough of living half lives, especially around this time of year when they are out with their friends and family.
I think it's a mixed picture. For some countries the second wave seems to be over, or at least approaching it. Those countries better prepare for the third one. I agree that it will take probably a year until the vaccination is making a substantial impact.
On the effect of lockdown measures, I do agree that compliance has declined. Which means you have to demand more than the last time to achieve the same result.
I don't think it will be as long as a year, at least not in terms of the death rate. Given that people over 75 account for almost all of the deaths it's actually not a huge number of people to vaccinate before the rate comes down by quite a big number. From the research I've seen Germany is preparing to start a vaccination programme in early January with deliveries if the Pfizer vaccine commencing days into the new year, it won't take long from then to distribute it to those most at risk of death. Here it should be done and dusted by mid Feb for the very high risk groups and mid April for the medium risk ones. Is there any reason you think it will take up to a year?
On lockdown I think it's to do with schools staying open as much as it is people, especially younger and lower risk ones, being much less careful. I can only speak for London, even just a few days ago I went to a late night lock in at a pub that went on well beyond the 10pm closing time, not a big deal for us because I'm in my early 30s, my wife is in her late 20s and we live alone. For other people there it may have been worse but this is what's happening all across the country right now. People are making their own decisions and almost all of them are higher risk than what is currently allowed. Asking for more isn't going to work, in London four weeks of "stay home, save the NHS" lockdown achieved a very tiny drop in the infection rate. I think for most of Europe our hopes rest on a fast and efficient rollout of the vaccine, I think we have it within us to do that before the end of the summer across all countries in Europe.
Sorry for the late reply. I'm a little more sceptical on the timeframe, indeed. The rollout will probably start just before christmas, the CHMP session has been rescheduled for the 21st. But I think doing more than a million a week will be a tall order, so I'd like to underassume and be (possibly) pleasantly surprised. CureVac has entered Phase III trials today, so in a best case scenario it will be available around easter time. It may be quicker to process, but would require wholly different distribution procedures, which may put some constraints on resources.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
I fear you are going to be disappointed.
I think Dorset is 7th lowest in the country, and less than half the rates of a fortnight ago. What is the logical basis for restricting our lives and economies? It is no long tenable.
In Devon we are almost as low as Tier 1 Cornwall. I bumped into my MP at the petrol station and asked what chance we had of going to Tier 1. He was not optimistic.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
We wanted folk to stay home as much as possible, and avoid in particular places like gyms.
And in the first lockdown the only thing anyone could do that wasn't at home was go for a walk, I'd never seen some of my normal dead-quiet routes so busy. I'm not really sure there was much scope for much else.
Other than perhaps Gym Out To Help Out in the summer to get the double swing of more folk exercising and less folk sitting on their bums eating in restaurants.
The key to losing weight is eating (and drinking) less. Frankly, encouraging a bit of personal responsibility would have been an excellent idea.
I'm not sure that that is the key to losing weight. I think it's probably more about eating differently.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
I fear you are going to be disappointed.
I think Dorset is 7th lowest in the country, and less than half the rates of a fortnight ago. What is the logical basis for restricting our lives and economies? It is no long tenable.
In Devon we are almost as low as Tier 1 Cornwall. I bumped into my MP at the petrol station and asked what chance we had of going to Tier 1. He was not optimistic.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
I fear you are going to be disappointed.
I think Dorset is 7th lowest in the country, and less than half the rates of a fortnight ago. What is the logical basis for restricting our lives and economies? It is no long tenable.
In Devon we are almost as low as Tier 1 Cornwall. I bumped into my MP at the petrol station and asked what chance we had of going to Tier 1. He was not optimistic.
Somebody here said the Tories would build lots of houses, that lasted a whole year.
Same old Tories...
No, just more of them will be built in our 20 largest cities rather than just the Home Counties, I can tell you here in Epping plans to build all over the greenbelt and our green fields and countryside went down like a cup of cold sick
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
I fear you are going to be disappointed.
I think Dorset is 7th lowest in the country, and less than half the rates of a fortnight ago. What is the logical basis for restricting our lives and economies? It is no long tenable.
In Devon we are almost as low as Tier 1 Cornwall. I bumped into my MP at the petrol station and asked what chance we had of going to Tier 1. He was not optimistic.
That is terribly disappointing.
Not even a 1% chance of Dorset going to Tier 1 tomorrow
The government know another lockdown is coming so they are not going to reduce any Tiers now.
Can I just say before I head to bed that Soul Music on R4 this morning just blew me away. Sunshine on Leith by the Proclaimers was the subject and I had tears running down my face. Just an absolutely magic 30 minutes of radio. I urge people to take time to hear it.
More convinced than ever tonight that a prolonged lockdown is coming shortly after Christmas. Seems virtually inevitable. I would expect something akin to April plus schools until at least mid-February, and it might drag on all the way to Easter.
Most of the medical profession already appears to be in a state of complete panic over the Christmas break, and no wonder. Covid has been going on for nearly a year now and everybody has had more than enough of it. I've heard it suggested that the decline in cases started to level off halfway through the second lockdown as adherence waned; there will be more than enough people who will ignore the Government's rules altogether to guarantee a massive spike in transmission over Christmas and a deluge of new patients swamping the healthcare system early in the New Year.
The authorities face a complete no-win scenario here. If they stick with their Christmas plans then they'll be blamed for the consequences; however, if they attempt to cancel Christmas then it might help to reduce the height of the January tsunami wave a little, but it won't stop it because of a combination of lack of compliance and the extreme contagiousness of the virus. When Lockdown 3.0 inevitably commences, the people who didn't bother to follow the rules over Christmas will feel vindicated, those who did will feel like mugs, and an awful lot of people (perhaps a majority) will conclude that all these restrictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and come both to resent and to increasingly disregard them.
The most frightened and those with the means to do so will do their best to shield given their circumstances; it'll go like a dose of salts through the rest of the population.
The only thing, in the end, that will finally stop this disease in its tracks is widespread immunisation and warm weather, and neither of those is going to be forthcoming until April at the earliest. The first three months of 2021 are going to be worse than 2020, as the hospitals buckle under the strain and mass unemployment arrives with the final closure of thousands and thousands of forcibly shuttered businesses. It's going to be absolutely bloody terrible.
Still, silver linings: who gives a flying fuck about Brexit anymore? Certainly not me.
Absolutely nailed on. The potential for further infection/death is huge in Q1 2021 unless the government takes firm and urgent action. The key is to apply proper control until end Feb when hopefully most 65+ will have had their second vaccination. Caution still needed in March, hopefully some form of return to normality from April, maybe not entirely until July. The vaccination progress is key.
Yes, but... the notion that the entire pensioner population and all the shielders will have had both shots by the end of February is preposterous. The health service has to pull off this gargantuan logistical challenge whilst firefighting the post-Christmas tsunami of the sick at the same time. It's simply not going to happen on such a timescale.
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
Given the concentration of the death rate among the 80+ demographic we're likely to see a big reduction in deaths by the end of January.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
My one worry for vaccinations is that we might unintentionally simultaneously both slash death rates while overwhelming the NHS.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
I doubt there would be many young needing treatment but it could certainly apply to the middle aged.
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
Yeah its playing on my mind. I was being good during the summer, watching what I ate and doing Joe Wicks workouts with my kids.
Now its mince pies and winter comfort food and alcohol and I can not face exercising outside in this weather. 🤷🏻♂️ 🥧 🍺
Yep. In February-May I lost about 30 lbs and drank nothing for about 3 months as I got fitter to cope with the virus. I've now put nearly 20 of those lbs back on again and struggle to have 2 alcohol free days a week.
You two need a dog
I have one, but its a tiny one we got when my youngest was brand newborn so it gets most of its exercise running in our back garden and up and regularly running up down the stairs. It doesn't particularly like going for walks.
Jack Russell/Chihuahua crossbreed which we chose because they're good with kids even newborns.
Somebody here said the Tories would build lots of houses, that lasted a whole year.
Same old Tories...
No, just more of them will be built in our 20 largest cities, I can tell you here in Epping plans to build all over the greenbelt and our green fields and countryside went down like a cup of cold sick
They're just not going to plug the housing shortage by squeezing in extra flats above shops and from converted office buildings.
I get the argument from the point of view of people in Epping. I'd probably feel the same if I was a councillor in Epping. But if substantial numbers of houses aren't built in places like that, the targets simply won't be met - not a chance.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Not that surprising. To manage this sort of thing well, you need 1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do. 2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches. 3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
I think there is fundamental misunderstanding amongst the commentariat over how difficult this year has been for so many people.
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
All the government had to do was extend the November lockdown to mid december - cases and deaths would have been falling/steady, and there would not have been argument that that the tiers were not working or that a Xmas hall pass could not be risked in the circumstances, at least not as noisily.
Here in Dorset we're hoping to go down to Tier 1 tomorrow. There needs to be some recognition that having an economy after all this ends is fundamentally very important. I for one am proud that the Tory backbenches have been holding the government to account over this. Heavens knows Sir Keith hasn't
I fear you are going to be disappointed.
I think Dorset is 7th lowest in the country, and less than half the rates of a fortnight ago. What is the logical basis for restricting our lives and economies? It is no long tenable.
In Devon we are almost as low as Tier 1 Cornwall. I bumped into my MP at the petrol station and asked what chance we had of going to Tier 1. He was not optimistic.
That is terribly disappointing.
Not even a 1% chance of Dorset going to Tier 1 tomorrow
The government know another lockdown is coming so they are not going to reduce any Tiers now.
So absolutely no reward for individuals within an area taking personal responsibility? Great.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of a Health Service with a state and greatly reduced economy attached. I don't see it ending well.
Somebody here said the Tories would build lots of houses, that lasted a whole year.
Same old Tories...
No, just more of them will be built in our 20 largest cities rather than just the Home Counties, I can tell you here in Epping plans to build all over the greenbelt and our green fields and countryside went down like a cup of cold sick
Where I'm from in Hampshire young people leave because they can't afford to live here. Anyone under about 50 is priced out of the market and will be for good because Tories don't like new houses being built.
We had our first houses built in twenty years about five years ago and they've had nothing but complaints since. Damn people for wanting to live here.
When house prices have risen again by 2024 and the targets have been missed again and again, Tories here will still insist the Tories will do better next time.
I am tired of hearing it, they won't. They are not interested.
When house prices have risen again by 2024 and the targets have been missed again and again, Tories here will still insist the Tories will do better next time.
I am tired of hearing it, they won't. They are not interested.
Hang on. Didn't house prices go up more during the Blair years?
When house prices have risen again by 2024 and the targets have been missed again and again, Tories here will still insist the Tories will do better next time.
I am tired of hearing it, they won't. They are not interested.
Hang on. Didn't house prices go up more during the Blair years?
That was indeed one of the biggest failures of New Labour.
When house prices have risen again by 2024 and the targets have been missed again and again, Tories here will still insist the Tories will do better next time.
I am tired of hearing it, they won't. They are not interested.
Hang on. Didn't house prices go up more during the Blair years?
The Tories can't even do that without cocking it up, utterly useless.
But having said that, what is Labour proposing? They're MIA on this proposal currently.
First of all we need to control immigration to reduce demand, then we would not need so many new houses in the first place, which this government is now doing by replacing free movement with a points based immigration system
The Tories can't even do that without cocking it up, utterly useless.
But having said that, what is Labour proposing? They're MIA on this proposal currently.
First of all we need to control immigration to reduce demand, then we would not need so many new houses in the first place, which this government is now doing by replacing free movement with a points based immigration system
Yeah by 2024 I'm sure that's going to have resolved the housing crisis.
Or will this be another "ambition" that will be missed? I think the latter.
The Tories can't even do that without cocking it up, utterly useless.
But having said that, what is Labour proposing? They're MIA on this proposal currently.
In a lot of the south-east there isn't much room left for new houses. For example I'm thinking of that area around Reading, Wokingham, Aldershot, Maidenhead, etc. Continuous urban and suburban development.
Comments
Idiotic.
Not everyone gets the days off themselves. Some certainly could be wanting to see their loved ones on the 23rd or 27th because they're working on the 25th and 26th.
Somebody here said the Tories would build lots of houses, that lasted a whole year.
Same old Tories...
There's probably some sort of public school / Oxbridge / central London factor to it.
But even disregarding that it reaches into the depths of numerous English footballers being described as 'world class'.
I suspect its also connected to the 'save the world' / international meddling mentality.
And all because the lady loves...
No, and all because government could not see what most of us could see, that the optimum strategy was simply to run the second lockdown for another fortnight, until round about now....
Did you read the article? Still building more houses - just the algorithm has been changed so building more houses where there's more demand (at least pre-Covid).
It was a strange algorithm to be fair that was planning on decreasing housebuilding in Manchester and Newcastle.
More houses is a good thing though and actually getting them built and onto the market needs to be the priority.
I say again, the Christmas easing must be cancelled. We must lockdown now.
An absolutely flawless vaccine rollout
Kids want to play with their toys and have time off school.
Workers want to relax and have time off work.
But oldies want to 'see the family'.
I don't understand how the Government have at every stage, done the wrong thing. It's kind of shocking.
Get off twatter and experience the real world.
On lockdown I think it's to do with schools staying open as much as it is people, especially younger and lower risk ones, being much less careful. I can only speak for London, even just a few days ago I went to a late night lock in at a pub that went on well beyond the 10pm closing time, not a big deal for us because I'm in my early 30s, my wife is in her late 20s and we live alone. For other people there it may have been worse but this is what's happening all across the country right now. People are making their own decisions and almost all of them are higher risk than what is currently allowed. Asking for more isn't going to work, in London four weeks of "stay home, save the NHS" lockdown achieved a very tiny drop in the infection rate. I think for most of Europe our hopes rest on a fast and efficient rollout of the vaccine, I think we have it within us to do that before the end of the summer across all countries in Europe.
The UK is going to get out of this wave much better off in the New Year than most of our neighbours thanks to the key variable of a vaccine. It won't take until April for vaccinations to make a notable difference.
Already a number of people have been vaccinated and it won't take long for this to have an impact, especially since the vaccinations are being prioritised to where they'll have the most immediate impact in the hospitalisations. I've read a few people here say they know someone (eg their father) who's already getting their vaccine booked in. I spoke to my granddad earlier and he's waiting for confirmation he should hopefully get his first one next week.
Given the vaccine seems to have an almost-immediate impact from the first not second dose early rollout now is great news. By New Years Day we'll have hundreds of thousands if not a million or more who're already effectively immune. By February millions of the most vulnerable and/or health/care workers should be immune.
In a very difficult year, vaccinations are the one bit of unalloyed good news we're ending the year with.
What fight? What are we fighting with?
It's a virus FFS
They'll struggle to get segments 1 and 2 (health and care staff, Shady Pines and the 80-pluses) done by the end of February. I'm afraid that my husband, who's clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore down in segment 4, won't get his vaccinations done until the Spring. Things ought hopefully to improve substantially in April or May once we have a combination of quite a lot of people having been immunised and the return of warmer weather (and we could really, really do with a repeat of the remarkable Spring heatwave we enjoyed, which is just about the only good thing to come out of this stinking year, but I can't believe we'll be that lucky.) We're then reliant on getting to herd immunity by September to avoid going into further endless lockdown cycles.
That, at least, seems achievable, so there is hope. But the dawn has yet to break upon the horizon: there's a very, very long night to get through first.
It became particularly bad when Police Scotland was formed as the Glasgow polis were especially punitive on both sex work and drug addicts and the Glasgow top coppers became the Police Scotland leadership. So local efforts were swept away with a one size doesn't fit anyone policy.
Goodness me, how terrible it must have been to get housing built to bring house prices down, anyone young will continue to be priced out. The Tory way
The borders should have been shut earlier but ascribing clarvoyance to an entire group of holidaymakers in January and early February 2020 is a little unreasonable.
What an irresponsible media we have.
My family may be different but we've all agreed between ourselves that nobody is meeting up at all. Even if I wanted to see them, they wouldn't see us anyway.
Prior to this year I've for a long time treated Christmas with my grandparents as if it could be my last with them, I'm incredibly fortunate to still have all of mine (my wife has lost all of hers) but this year they're shielding and won't even contemplate seeing anyone.
I could never live with myself if I saw them and then a week later they were diagnosed and the worst should happen.
In fairness I don't have faith in them either, so I can understand that.
That at least will give a big boost to public morale.
Even though that might not help those who are also highly vulnerable.
A degree of urgency in clamping down would be very welcome to most.
1 An ability to understand the science and numbers, or a willingness to defer to those who do.
2 A recognition that there is a hard objective reality that can't be finessed by personal charm or witty speeches.
3 The ability to do things that are unpopular in the short term to avert disaster in the longer term.
I don't think I can be fairly accused of Boris Derangement Syndrome in scoring our current PM at 0/3.
Maybe a Christmas ban is unenforceable. But on current trends, a "we can't stop you moving about, but for the sake of all those who you love, please don't" message might be all that's left. Given by Olivia Colman, or a similar National Treasure. This is getting beyond something that can be managed by harm reduction.
At the end of all that you've inoculated 8% of the population. That should at least cut down the death rate significantly, but it won't do much to ease the pressure on the hospitals. The fact that many fewer people are dying of Covid won't mean that that wards aren't clogged up with huge number of sick patients. Realistically you're not going to be able to return to anything close to normal life until at least everyone over 60 and all the shielders have been immunised too. That's an additional thirteen million people, each requiring two shots as well. Even if everything goes very well that's not going to be done until the Summer.
The perverse logic is that the deaths come disproportionately almost entirely from the vulnerable demographics getting vaccinated. So once they're safe very few should die.
But younger adults can still be hospitalised - they just don't tend to die. If people think "wahey its over, granddad's been vaccinated lets get back to normal" we could see an even bigger spike in young people - but no corresponding spike in old people. So large numbers of moderately sick young people who don't die but do need treatment.
Still if the death's stop, that's the main thing.
https://twitter.com/rachel/status/1338309584260395009
The narrower the window the Christmas rules are in effect the more easy it might be to distinguish any specific signals from that.
Yeah, I'm grasping at straws here...
Without something to look forward to (and for most people this isn't a TSE thread on AV), order will break down. Christmas is, IMO, worth the sensible risks that many people are taking.
I was uncertain at first, but both sets of parents want to see us (and otherwise would be alone). I'm defering to them and we're keeping ourselves to ourselves for a week beforehand/
We could really have done with a general health and fitness campaign this year.
Instead we're going to get the eating and drinking of Christmas.
I'm low risk from Covid. The people I will be meeting are low risk (and have almost certainly had it, so are immune anyway). I'll see far fewer people across the Christmas period than in my normal working week.
I live in an area with very few cases, which is in tier 3 mostly because of a load of cases 50 miles away at the opposite end of the county.
Just because the government made a stupid political decision not to put London into tier 3 despite all the indications showing it was going to be a problem (whilst blanketing huge chunks of the North with tier 3 even where there are almost no cases because of a mad insistence of using county level areas), why should I be punished.
* I have a support bubble, but personal circumstances mean that's not entirely straightforward - it means a 400 mile round trip done in a day for one of us, which normally works fine, but I can't do that every day over Christmas.
Cutting down the death rates will ease the pressure on the hospitalised since these no-longer-dying people are no-longer-hospitalised people too. Others may still be hospitalised absolutely, but not as many. Plus for health workers I imagine going from a point where you're working with people half of whom in ICU may die, to a point where very few are dying then on a mental health basis that's got to be healthier to work with.
Finally I think you're underestimating how quickly the vaccine will be getting rolled out. GP surgeries are getting doses of 970 vaccines per box and all vaccines need to be given within 3 days. If a GP surgery gets through 2 boxes per week that's 2k vaccinations per GP surgery per week. If a thousand surgeries are vaccinating then that's 2 million vaccinations per week just from GPs.
Getting sufficient stock of vaccine doses is going to be the hard part more than rolling them out. Needs must means the doses will be rolled out one way or another because they absolutely have to be.
And in the first lockdown the only thing anyone could do that wasn't at home was go for a walk, I'd never seen some of my normal dead-quiet routes so busy. I'm not really sure there was much scope for much else.
Other than perhaps Gym Out To Help Out in the summer to get the double swing of more folk exercising and less folk sitting on their bums eating in restaurants.
Btw, good to see BlackRook back with some more relentlessly positive posts. I was beginning to worry for her.
Now its mince pies and winter comfort food and alcohol and I can not face exercising outside in this weather. 🤷🏻♂️ 🥧 🍺
I'm a little more sceptical on the timeframe, indeed. The rollout will probably start just before christmas, the CHMP session has been rescheduled for the 21st. But I think doing more than a million a week will be a tall order, so I'd like to underassume and be (possibly) pleasantly surprised.
CureVac has entered Phase III trials today, so in a best case scenario it will be available around easter time. It may be quicker to process, but would require wholly different distribution procedures, which may put some constraints on resources.
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKDEVONCC/bulletins/2b05208
The government know another lockdown is coming so they are not going to reduce any Tiers now.
Jack Russell/Chihuahua crossbreed which we chose because they're good with kids even newborns.
I get the argument from the point of view of people in Epping. I'd probably feel the same if I was a councillor in Epping. But if substantial numbers of houses aren't built in places like that, the targets simply won't be met - not a chance.
People will ignore it and do as they please is the real issue.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of a Health Service with a state and greatly reduced economy attached. I don't see it ending well.
We had our first houses built in twenty years about five years ago and they've had nothing but complaints since. Damn people for wanting to live here.
I am tired of hearing it, they won't. They are not interested.
Will Scotland do the right thing? What say Drakeford?
The Tories can't even do that without cocking it up, utterly useless.
But having said that, what is Labour proposing? They're MIA on this proposal currently.
Or will this be another "ambition" that will be missed? I think the latter.
So glad I escaped these pillocks and moved to London, rents here at least seem to be falling