Apologies for going off-topic so quickly but I'm pondering.
There are 25.2 million people over the age of 50 in the UK. If the plan is to vaccinate us all, that will mean just over 50 million shots.
We vaccinated 130,000 people last week - all right, I know it's all a bit limited but if it's 1 million shots per week it will still take a year. 2 million shots a week will take 6 months.
I know people talk about the annual influenza jab but that's 15 million shots only over a period of months - this is at least three times larger.
If the take-up is 80% (let's say) that's still 40 million separate shots - that still looks like 4 months minimum. It's a logistical challenge more than anything else and it will involve doing this in the middle of winter and getting to those who may not be mobile.
It's much the same maths as the "herd immunity by winter" nonsense at the start of all this. As you say, a million a week sounds like a lot but that's actually a year
Thank for that reminder, I'm still utterly appalled at how innumerate the Chief Scientific Advisor proved himself to be in that episode.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
All these calculations are relying on folk turning up, and doing so on time. Amongst other things.
You overbook by 20%. These are solved probems.
I booked my disabled friend twice and he failed to show up twice. eventually i took him.myself .. a 20.mile round trip..and that was just for his flu jab..equally important and just as necessary.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
It probably doesn't work for very large numbers of businesses.
Losing half your visits is potentially all of your profit and then some gone.
There is in the article in this little plot of posh vs basic supermarkets and crowding. It may explain part of the social class divide in Covid. Poor people simply find it harder to avoid crowds.
The x axis is average income of shoppers, the y axis is crowd density.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
All these calculations are relying on folk turning up, and doing so on time. Amongst other things.
You overbook by 20%. These are solved probems.
The airline ticket model....does that mean if they are overbooked on the day, there will be calls for people to go to reception who wish to come back another day and will get a free upgrade to business class vaccination?
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
Big pre-lockdown blow-out parties. Covid runs riot in locked down familes. Then those families go out to have post-lockdown blow-out parties. Would be my guess.
Lockdown start-up needed to be on 2-3 hour notice. Announced at 7.00 am.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
It doesn't matter if your boss thinks you aren't fit to work for most people though. I know my place has a strict policy. Doesnt matter if you are really ill or they think you are skiving. You are on hr review with more than a very low number of days in a 6 month period. I had real flu back in january and was off for 5 days as could hardly get to the kitchen let alone work. Came back to find I am now under hr review and any further periods of illness in the next 6 months puts my job in jeapordy. Up to then I had averaged about 2 days ill a year.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
“ The Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, recently claimed a trade deal could be rushed through both Houses of Parliament very quickly. “
🤔. Putting things through parliament is the scrutiny process? Are there downsides to rushing a scrutiny process?
Not actually voting for the paper before you in the eleventh hour is de facto a vote for no deal brexit so who is going to be crazy enough not rubber stamp it.
So why not send everyone home, recall them 11th hour, get their vote supporting it. If it turns out half baked it’s still a resounding government success where May failed?
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
Ignore Wales with its incomplete data:
That's regions, that's not tiers. Two completely different things!
All regions have a mix of Tier 2 and Tier 3. Its entirely possible the Tier 3 areas have an R below 1 but Tier 2 is over 1 enough to make the net average across the region above 1.
Notably its barely above 1 across the North. The North has a mix of T2 and T3, I'm assuming since its barely above 1 the above 1 will be from T2 primarily.
Apologies for going off-topic so quickly but I'm pondering.
There are 25.2 million people over the age of 50 in the UK. If the plan is to vaccinate us all, that will mean just over 50 million shots.
We vaccinated 130,000 people last week - all right, I know it's all a bit limited but if it's 1 million shots per week it will still take a year. 2 million shots a week will take 6 months.
I know people talk about the annual influenza jab but that's 15 million shots only over a period of months - this is at least three times larger.
If the take-up is 80% (let's say) that's still 40 million separate shots - that still looks like 4 months minimum. It's a logistical challenge more than anything else and it will involve doing this in the middle of winter and getting to those who may not be mobile.
It's much the same maths as the "herd immunity by winter" nonsense at the start of all this. As you say, a million a week sounds like a lot but that's actually a year
The effort to get it out is MUCHJ greater than the usual flu effort, though. Subject to availability, I can easily see it topping a million per week by end-January, and 2 million by end-Feb. I think it's reasonable to hope that most over-50s will be done by mid-year.
The problem will be if the MHRA rule that the Oxford vaccine is insufficiently effective (as they might well be right to do, though everyone seems to be expecting they won't), at least for the over-55s who are being prioritised. My understanding is that Pfizer and Moderna are now fully booked till mid-year, so we may be looking round for another one. The suggestion thaat the Sputnik vaccine may actually work is slightly interesting, though it doesn't seem to be holding the pandemic down much in Russia yet.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
“ England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown.‘. Are the English going to share English vaccine with other home nations?
Apologies for going off-topic so quickly but I'm pondering.
There are 25.2 million people over the age of 50 in the UK. If the plan is to vaccinate us all, that will mean just over 50 million shots.
We vaccinated 130,000 people last week - all right, I know it's all a bit limited but if it's 1 million shots per week it will still take a year. 2 million shots a week will take 6 months.
I know people talk about the annual influenza jab but that's 15 million shots only over a period of months - this is at least three times larger.
If the take-up is 80% (let's say) that's still 40 million separate shots - that still looks like 4 months minimum. It's a logistical challenge more than anything else and it will involve doing this in the middle of winter and getting to those who may not be mobile.
It's much the same maths as the "herd immunity by winter" nonsense at the start of all this. As you say, a million a week sounds like a lot but that's actually a year
The effort to get it out is MUCHJ greater than the usual flu effort, though. Subject to availability, I can easily see it topping a million per week by end-January, and 2 million by end-Feb. I think it's reasonable to hope that most over-50s will be done by mid-year.
The problem will be if the MHRA rule that the Oxford vaccine is insufficiently effective (as they might well be right to do, though everyone seems to be expecting they won't), at least for the over-55s who are being prioritised. My understanding is that Pfizer and Moderna are now fully booked till mid-year, so we may be looking round for another one. The suggestion thaat the Sputnik vaccine may actually work is slightly interesting, though it doesn't seem to be holding the pandemic down much in Russia yet.
Johnson and Johnson is the next one coming down the pipeline. They have already closed their trial to new applicants because they have enrolled 40k people and will hit the required number of covid positives very shortly. So we should know in January is it is a goer.
And I believe that it is the easiest of all of them to do a mass roll out with as only a single jab.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
It doesn't matter if your boss thinks you aren't fit to work for most people though. I know my place has a strict policy. Doesnt matter if you are really ill or they think you are skiving. You are on hr review with more than a very low number of days in a 6 month period. I had real flu back in january and was off for 5 days as could hardly get to the kitchen let alone work. Came back to find I am now under hr review and any further periods of illness in the next 6 months puts my job in jeapordy. Up to then I had averaged about 2 days ill a year.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
As I suggested, a Zoom call should perhaps now be a starting point for HR.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
Big pre-lockdown blow-out parties. Covid runs riot in locked down familes. Then those families go out to have post-lockdown blow-out parties. Would be my guess.
Lockdown start-up needed to be on 2-3 hour notice. Announced at 7.00 am.
Wales rate will be confirmed as 1,000 per 100,000 7 day rate once the additional cases are included tomorrow.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
Ignore Wales with its incomplete data:
That's regions, that's not tiers. Two completely different things!
All regions have a mix of Tier 2 and Tier 3. Its entirely possible the Tier 3 areas have an R below 1 but Tier 2 is over 1 enough to make the net average across the region above 1.
Notably its barely above 1 across the North. The North has a mix of T2 and T3, I'm assuming since its barely above 1 the above 1 will be from T2 primarily.
Fair points, although I think the NE is entirely tier 3 and only the emptier parts of Yorkshire are tier 2.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
That's not the only reason people do it of course. Plenty of places might say they want you to do that in such a situation, and even think they mean it, but react very differently if people actually do take 'too much' time off with bugs.
I've had to go through an excruciating, and stressful, "health assessment" due to breaching a threshold for number of sick absence days.
So, yes, I have then gone into the office dosed up on day nurse.
At least I'm now in a position in most circumstances to simply work from home instead. But that wasn't the case before.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Agreed. And also an end to people expecting their employees to work through such bugs.
An end to absolute arseholes expecting their employees to work through such bugs surely?
The suggestion thaat the Sputnik vaccine may actually work is slightly interesting, though it doesn't seem to be holding the pandemic down much in Russia yet.
Surely they aren't that much more advanced in their mass vaccination campaign to be able to state that with confidence though? Do we have an idea of how many folk they have jabbed with it?
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
It doesn't matter if your boss thinks you aren't fit to work for most people though. I know my place has a strict policy. Doesnt matter if you are really ill or they think you are skiving. You are on hr review with more than a very low number of days in a 6 month period. I had real flu back in january and was off for 5 days as could hardly get to the kitchen let alone work. Came back to find I am now under hr review and any further periods of illness in the next 6 months puts my job in jeapordy. Up to then I had averaged about 2 days ill a year.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
As I suggested, a Zoom call should perhaps now be a starting point for HR.
A zoom call would do what ? You seem to be failing to get the point. They don't care if you are really ill or skiving. They merely care you are taking time off work. Your past record doesn't count . You have taken x days off in the last 6 months take another 1 in the next 6 months you will be out.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
That's not the only reason people do it of course. Plenty of places might say they want you to do that in such a situation, and even think they mean it, but react very differently if people actually do take 'too much' time off with bugs.
I've had to go through an excruciating, and stressful, "health assessment" due to breaching a threshold for number of sick absence days.
So, yes, I have then gone into the office dosed up on day nurse.
At least I'm now in a position in most circumstances to simply work from home instead. But that wasn't the case before.
Nods which I know the pain of as did it this year for the first time ever and am trying to explain to marqueemark
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
It doesn't matter if your boss thinks you aren't fit to work for most people though. I know my place has a strict policy. Doesnt matter if you are really ill or they think you are skiving. You are on hr review with more than a very low number of days in a 6 month period. I had real flu back in january and was off for 5 days as could hardly get to the kitchen let alone work. Came back to find I am now under hr review and any further periods of illness in the next 6 months puts my job in jeapordy. Up to then I had averaged about 2 days ill a year.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
The irony is my experience as an employer is I have more trust in someone off for a few days as being genuinely ill than someone who is too sick to work (typically on a Monday) then miraculously fully themselves the very next day.
Realistically I doubt 40% of the population with be vaccinated much before early summer
To clarify, 25.2 million people over 50 (according to 2019 estimates) represents 37.5% of the population (roughly). That's 50 million separate vaccinations in theory and 40 million based on an 80% take up.
If the BAME take-up is a little less fair enough but it's still above 30 million separate vaccinations so double the annual flu jab. At a million shots per week that's 6 months - it would have to be 1.5-2 million per week to get it to the 3-4 month range.
I'm struggling with the logistics of 1.4 million shots per week or 200,000 per day or 8,333 per hour or 138 people per minute every minute. Just can't see it.
If the best we can do is 500,000 shots it will take 80 weeks or 18 months.
1.4 million shots a week sounds insane.
But there are about 10,000 GP's practices in the UK.
To get to 200,000 a day requires each GP's practise to do... ooohhh... 20 a day. Why can't a GP practise do someone every 10 minutes for eight hours? That's about 50 vaccinations a day.
And, of course, many care homes have someone with nursing homes who can give injections. So, why not simply ship the vaccines there and let the staff handle it?
Plus there are people getting vaccinated in hospitals. Here in the US, there has been drive thru flu jabs for years. It takes literally 30 seconds (plus 10 minutes queuing behind some obscene G Wagon).
My guess is that vaccine availability will be a much bigger deal than vaccinating 1.4 million people a week.
20 a day?
With the Pfizer vaccine GP surgeries are only able to get the vaccine if they commit to 970 within 3 days.
That ramps up distribution a lot.
Has anyone ever established why it's 970, it's a slightly odd number from say a round 1,000?
9 ^ 70 and then put into base 26 results in the following:
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
It doesn't matter if your boss thinks you aren't fit to work for most people though. I know my place has a strict policy. Doesnt matter if you are really ill or they think you are skiving. You are on hr review with more than a very low number of days in a 6 month period. I had real flu back in january and was off for 5 days as could hardly get to the kitchen let alone work. Came back to find I am now under hr review and any further periods of illness in the next 6 months puts my job in jeapordy. Up to then I had averaged about 2 days ill a year.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
The irony is my experience as an employer is I have more trust in someone off for a few days as being genuinely ill than someone who is too sick to work (typically on a Monday) then miraculously fully themselves the very next day.
Yes and not claiming some don't swing the lead. I am merely commenting that many places are fairly draconian and use absolute measures like day off in the last x months and don't look at the record as there is no leeway. If an employee is averaging 2 sick days a year then this year has 10, If you treat them the same as the guy on 9 sick days a year and now has hit 10.....
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
Ignore Wales with its incomplete data:
That's regions, that's not tiers. Two completely different things!
All regions have a mix of Tier 2 and Tier 3. Its entirely possible the Tier 3 areas have an R below 1 but Tier 2 is over 1 enough to make the net average across the region above 1.
Notably its barely above 1 across the North. The North has a mix of T2 and T3, I'm assuming since its barely above 1 the above 1 will be from T2 primarily.
The percentage of positive tests is still falling in some tier 3 areas:
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
It doesn't matter if your boss thinks you aren't fit to work for most people though. I know my place has a strict policy. Doesnt matter if you are really ill or they think you are skiving. You are on hr review with more than a very low number of days in a 6 month period. I had real flu back in january and was off for 5 days as could hardly get to the kitchen let alone work. Came back to find I am now under hr review and any further periods of illness in the next 6 months puts my job in jeapordy. Up to then I had averaged about 2 days ill a year.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
The irony is my experience as an employer is I have more trust in someone off for a few days as being genuinely ill than someone who is too sick to work (typically on a Monday) then miraculously fully themselves the very next day.
Yes and not claiming some don't swing the lead. I am merely commenting that many places are fairly draconian and use absolute measures like day off in the last x months and don't look at the record as there is no leeway. If an employee is averaging 2 sick days a year then this year has 10, If you treat them the same as the guy on 9 sick days a year and now has hit 10.....
Well indeed. Plus some people treat that as an allowance so they're "entitled" to throw a sickie as they have sick days "saved up" still.
Someone off with the flu for a week is different to someone who lets you down every Monday after payday.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
The suggestion thaat the Sputnik vaccine may actually work is slightly interesting, though it doesn't seem to be holding the pandemic down much in Russia yet.
Surely they aren't that much more advanced in their mass vaccination campaign to be able to state that with confidence though? Do we have an idea of how many folk they have jabbed with it?
We are effectively in a Cold War with the Russians, where truth is replaced by bias. But surely we have to admit, if the KGB of any country rounds up its best in a field scientists and tells them their family will live in exile in the artic circle if a world beating vaccine is not produced, it’s going to yield some sort of result?
And that final paragraph? "Any attempt to remove the Trump administration will require force."
It might be fake, hard to tell with Trump though.
As for force, as soon as he's sworn the oath Biden has the entire US military at his disposal. A twitter ban will be both more likely and effective though.
And that final paragraph? "Any attempt to remove the Trump administration will require force."
I find it hard to believe it's real as well. 'Winter White House'. Filing bullshit legal challenges and whinging like a child is one thing, but that would be something else entirely. Claiming you won but for fraud is bad enough, but that would be crossing another line.
Then again, I believe the President of Mexico fake inaugurated himself in a previous election he lost, and it didn't stop him actually winning a later one.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
Think you're likely to be right.
Mark Drakeford is right to put a new lockdown in but that hardly undoes the mess he made of coming out of the last one too quickly and also refusing to cancel the Christmas easing.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Maybe now that will become more common, but that employees know they won't be believed unless they come in (at which point damage done), or will still be expected to work, but from home despite being ill (better for not spreading things, but hardly conducive to recovery) has led to many of these problems indeed, where they just go 'fuck it, I'm going to have to work anyway despite being sick, might as well do it at the office'. Selfish, sure, but a lot of things encourage it.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
If you're going to have a lockdown then bloody well do it before New Year's Eve.
I'm sure a lot of people are going to want to party to see the back of 2020 . . . but that's the problem.
Christmas may not have been cancelled, but if you're going to do a lockdown then ensure that Hogmanay is.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
That's not the only reason people do it of course. Plenty of places might say they want you to do that in such a situation, and even think they mean it, but react very differently if people actually do take 'too much' time off with bugs.
I've had to go through an excruciating, and stressful, "health assessment" due to breaching a threshold for number of sick absence days.
So, yes, I have then gone into the office dosed up on day nurse.
At least I'm now in a position in most circumstances to simply work from home instead. But that wasn't the case before.
To give another example, last year for a while I was working Mon/Fri at home and Tue-Thu on client site. On Monday I'm capable of working, just about, but I have a temperature, and I'm clearly infectious with something.
So it makes sense to me not to travel across the country and spread the infection on the client site, and work that week from home. I also didn't fancy a couple of days in a hotel if I became more sick. But the issue ends up being discussed all day, by multiple people, and I only finally receive permission to work from home ten minutes before departure from Edinburgh Waverley when I've already dragged myself into town.
Why was that necessary?
Only because the default assumption is that anyone who calls in sick is a malingerer. And that's why people with infections will drag themselves into work.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I will be very curious in the first non-covid winter whether, voluntarily, people wear masks a lot more.
I think it won't just be Asian students wearing them next winter.
They are a lot more comfortable to wear in winter than in summer.
Pain in the backside if you wear glasses though, from them fogging up.
I do, and find it’s not too bad. @Dura_Ace recommends Muc-Off spray.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
One of the governments biggest failures, as it ought to have been neither prohibitively expensive nor particularly complicated to sort out properly.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
If you're going to have a lockdown then bloody well do it before New Year's Eve.
I'm sure a lot of people are going to want to party to see the back of 2020 . . . but that's the problem.
Christmas may not have been cancelled, but if you're going to do a lockdown then ensure that Hogmanay is.
Yes Boris has said that the 23 to 27 Dec relaxation will stay so no lockdown before then.
But the government knows what is coming and they will be planning the lockdown from 28 Dec. In this case just for once Drakeford is ahead of the game.
They know we need time for the vaccinations so needs to be in place until 28 Feb minimum. Just like they knew on 23 March 2020 it would be till June minimum. But they will say 'three weeks then a review'.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
If you're going to have a lockdown then bloody well do it before New Year's Eve.
I'm sure a lot of people are going to want to party to see the back of 2020 . . . but that's the problem.
Christmas may not have been cancelled, but if you're going to do a lockdown then ensure that Hogmanay is.
Yes Boris has said that the 23 to 27 Dec relaxation will stay so no lockdown before then.
But the government knows what is coming and they will be planning the lockdown from 28 Dec. In this case just for once Drakeford is ahead of the game.
They know we need time for the vaccinations so needs to be in place until 28 Feb minimum. Just like they knew on 23 March 2020 it would be till June minimum. But they will say 'three weeks then a review'.
January is a f***ing s**t month at the best of times. I'm tempted to say just cancel January and concentrate on rolling out the vaccine and squishing the virus through January . . .
. . . but then with an ambition to take everywhere down to no higher than Tier 2 at the most by the second week of February (Valentine's Day). If restaurants can plan for and take bookings for Valentine's as a point just after reopening then that could be good business - and it doesn't require household mixing.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
Think you're likely to be right.
Mark Drakeford is right to put a new lockdown in but that hardly undoes the mess he made of coming out of the last one too quickly and also refusing to cancel the Christmas easing.
The thing is Northern England are doing OK, whereas the South are busy twinning themselves with South Wales. Johnson can get away with the tier system until mid- January. If he then runs a month long lockdown until mid- February the following easing will see him through to Easter, by which time the vaccine will have kicked in. Wales by Easter, in contrast will be enjoying the middle of lockdown five.
From here on, fatalities will prove less politically troublesome than locking down pubs.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
That's not the only reason people do it of course. Plenty of places might say they want you to do that in such a situation, and even think they mean it, but react very differently if people actually do take 'too much' time off with bugs.
I've had to go through an excruciating, and stressful, "health assessment" due to breaching a threshold for number of sick absence days.
So, yes, I have then gone into the office dosed up on day nurse.
At least I'm now in a position in most circumstances to simply work from home instead. But that wasn't the case before.
To give another example, last year for a while I was working Mon/Fri at home and Tue-Thu on client site. On Monday I'm capable of working, just about, but I have a temperature, and I'm clearly infectious with something.
So it makes sense to me not to travel across the country and spread the infection on the client site, and work that week from home. I also didn't fancy a couple of days in a hotel if I became more sick. But the issue ends up being discussed all day, by multiple people, and I only finally receive permission to work from home ten minutes before departure from Edinburgh Waverley when I've already dragged myself into town.
Why was that necessary?
Only because the default assumption is that anyone who calls in sick is a malingerer. And that's why people with infections will drag themselves into work.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
Think you're likely to be right.
Mark Drakeford is right to put a new lockdown in but that hardly undoes the mess he made of coming out of the last one too quickly and also refusing to cancel the Christmas easing.
The thing is Northern England are doing OK, whereas the South are busy twinning themselves with South Wales. Johnson can get away with the tier system until mid- January. If he then runs a month long lockdown until mid- February the following easing will see him through to Easter, by which time the vaccine will have kicked in. Wales by Easter, in contrast will be enjoying the middle of lockdown five.
From here on, fatalities will prove less politically troublesome than locking down pubs.
If you're going to have a month-long lockdown then better soon than later.
New Years Eve parties are not safe this year lets be frank. There won't be post-midnight social distancing.
Running to mid-February or late February entails missing out on Valentine's Day and I see no reason why that shouldn't be safe if action is taken soon. Especially since it is a holiday that involves couples (who will live together or bubble together already anyway) and sitting at a table, not crowded bars.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
If you're going to have a lockdown then bloody well do it before New Year's Eve.
I'm sure a lot of people are going to want to party to see the back of 2020 . . . but that's the problem.
Christmas may not have been cancelled, but if you're going to do a lockdown then ensure that Hogmanay is.
Yes Boris has said that the 23 to 27 Dec relaxation will stay so no lockdown before then.
But the government knows what is coming and they will be planning the lockdown from 28 Dec. In this case just for once Drakeford is ahead of the game.
They know we need time for the vaccinations so needs to be in place until 28 Feb minimum. Just like they knew on 23 March 2020 it would be till June minimum. But they will say 'three weeks then a review'.
January is a f***ing s**t month at the best of times. I'm tempted to say just cancel January and concentrate on rolling out the vaccine and squishing the virus through January . . .
. . . but then with an ambition to take everywhere down to no higher than Tier 2 at the most by the second week of February (Valentine's Day). If restaurants can plan for and take bookings for Valentine's as a point just after reopening then that could be good business - and it doesn't require household mixing.
Agreed I would like to get rid of lockdown as soon as possible. But we have to beat Covid this time, it's our last chance. If it goes through next year we are finished. So we need to align with the vaccine and if it means a few weeks more lockdown into Feb/March so be it.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
Think you're likely to be right.
Mark Drakeford is right to put a new lockdown in but that hardly undoes the mess he made of coming out of the last one too quickly and also refusing to cancel the Christmas easing.
The thing is Northern England are doing OK, whereas the South are busy twinning themselves with South Wales. Johnson can get away with the tier system until mid- January. If he then runs a month long lockdown until mid- February the following easing will see him through to Easter, by which time the vaccine will have kicked in. Wales by Easter, in contrast will be enjoying the middle of lockdown five.
From here on, fatalities will prove less politically troublesome than locking down pubs.
Well it may be meaningless but given the choice of attending a fake inauguration in January in Florida in Palm Beach in tropical temperatures or the real inauguration in January in Washington DC in sub zero temperatures I would take the former
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
Think you're likely to be right.
Mark Drakeford is right to put a new lockdown in but that hardly undoes the mess he made of coming out of the last one too quickly and also refusing to cancel the Christmas easing.
Hello CHB. The firebreak was never going to work.
Cancelling the Christmas arrangements would be difficult as this would lose Drakeford credibility and people would ignore it anyway. But he has been first up to announce restrictions from 28 Dec which will be applied across UK in due course.
I've two thoughts on this - first, Covid has crowded out the other influenza viruses and will become the dominant virus for the next couple of decades.
Second, even the most basic public health precautions such as mask wearing, social distancing and the "fogging" of transport carriages have reduced the transmission of other viruses so as we fight Covid we fight all the others as well including the cold virus so I'm not surprised cases of other viruses are well down.
To be honest, some of the measures we have introduced to fight Covid such as mask wearing on public transport and the routine disinfecting of carriages seem sensible measures to continue even once Covid has finally been suppressed by (hopefully) mass vaccination.
Those who blether on about the economics might like to consider the notion the cost of keeping people healthier is a more productive economy with fewer people taking days sick.
I also hope that Covid sees the end of those absolute arseholes who come into work with contagious bugs, because they have some weird notion that the world can't possibly function without them.
Stay home. Get better.
Ah you mean all those people that dont get paid if they don't work or who's companys have strict policies about if you have more than x days off in six months you get hr on your back with a disciplinary.
If somebody comes in with a streaming cold or hacking cough, that should be evidence enough for an employer to say "You - home!". It makes no sense to then have half their staff off with it over the next couple of weeks. A Zoom call in for sickness could become the new normal.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
It doesn't matter if your boss thinks you aren't fit to work for most people though. I know my place has a strict policy. Doesnt matter if you are really ill or they think you are skiving. You are on hr review with more than a very low number of days in a 6 month period. I had real flu back in january and was off for 5 days as could hardly get to the kitchen let alone work. Came back to find I am now under hr review and any further periods of illness in the next 6 months puts my job in jeapordy. Up to then I had averaged about 2 days ill a year.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
The irony is my experience as an employer is I have more trust in someone off for a few days as being genuinely ill than someone who is too sick to work (typically on a Monday) then miraculously fully themselves the very next day.
Yes and not claiming some don't swing the lead. I am merely commenting that many places are fairly draconian and use absolute measures like day off in the last x months and don't look at the record as there is no leeway. If an employee is averaging 2 sick days a year then this year has 10, If you treat them the same as the guy on 9 sick days a year and now has hit 10.....
Well indeed. Plus some people treat that as an allowance so they're "entitled" to throw a sickie as they have sick days "saved up" still.
Someone off with the flu for a week is different to someone who lets you down every Monday after payday.
Spot on. I didn't miss a day for 3 years. When I fell down some stairs broke both bones in my forearm, dislocated my elbow, and tore my groin muscle so badly I couldn't walk for a month, and was hopped up on tramadol, I had to attend an HR "assessment". Meanwhile, others had several sickie days "saved". An utterly futile waste of my and their time. Tbf. They thought so too. "Company policy" though.
I do, and find it’s not too bad. @Dura_Ace recommends Muc-Off spray.
Yep, "Muc Off Anti Fog" is great. I used the other day while doing 95mph (in first gear LOL) on my Fireblade SP2 while it was pissing down and I could clearly see the terror in the eyes of drivers coming the other way.
quite tenuous... I prefer the analysis of 1. Blair's Iraq War - demolishing trust in politicians 2. Accession of the Eastern European nations to the EU will few limits on numbers (which I was generally in favour of BTW) 3. A recession in 2009 that saw UK public services and incomes squeezed to the limits 4. A lacklustre Remain campaign dominated by the Conservatice modernising wing which was not helped by piss poor Labour support.... maybe then I would buy into the Arab Spring having a part......(assisted by N Farage et al...)
quite tenuous... I prefer the analysis of 1. Blair's Iraq War - demolishing trust in politicians 2. Accession of the Eastern European nations to the EU will few limits on numbers (which I was generally in favour of BTW) 3. A recession in 2009 that saw UK public services and incomes squeezed to the limits 4. A lacklustre Remain campaign dominated by the Conservatice modernising wing which was not helped by piss poor Labour support.... maybe then I would buy into the Arab Spring having a part......(assisted by N Farage et al...)
no mention of Red Buses from me...
The most interesting part of it is the unstated assumption that Brexit isn't a positive development.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
Yes, @Malmesbury's daily chart shows that every region now has R above 1.
I've not seen his chart for today. Last I saw it there was a mix of above and below 1 so I'm surprised and disappointed, I thought Tier 3 regions were below it.
I think London R is up to 2. We are heading for 500 cases per 100,000/7 days by the weekend.
R 2 is not good, no wonder its gone to Tier 3 then. Probably not a surprise seeing images of people shopping in London for Christmas - I've solely shopped with Amazon (and other online retailers) this year.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
But we will be up to 60,000 cases a day UK by 28 Dec. This is why Boris will announce the open ended lockdown from 28 Dec. He will announce it early next week.
Think you're likely to be right.
Mark Drakeford is right to put a new lockdown in but that hardly undoes the mess he made of coming out of the last one too quickly and also refusing to cancel the Christmas easing.
Hello CHB. The firebreak was never going to work.
Cancelling the Christmas arrangements would be difficult as this would lose Drakeford credibility and people would ignore it anyway. But he has been first up to announce restrictions from 28 Dec which will be applied across UK in due course.
It wouldn’t lose Drakeford any credibility.
Because he doesn’t have any now. He blew it by the mess he made of November.
I am starting to think my prediction at the start of this year in an unpublished thread header of Tories - most seats in the Sennedd is a possible value bet again. Not because they will pick up votes, but because exasperated Labour voters won’t turn out.
Correlation is present but not enough evidence (yet) to say there’s causation.
Given it’s a penny a day, has proven wider benefits and almost certainly does no harm, I still see no good reason why these weren’t posted through every letter box in the country in August. At least the most vulnerable 2.5m are on them as a matter of course now.
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
BBC reports this morning that about 250 LA areas have rising cases and about 50 falling
Apologies for going off-topic so quickly but I'm pondering.
There are 25.2 million people over the age of 50 in the UK. If the plan is to vaccinate us all, that will mean just over 50 million shots.
We vaccinated 130,000 people last week - all right, I know it's all a bit limited but if it's 1 million shots per week it will still take a year. 2 million shots a week will take 6 months.
I know people talk about the annual influenza jab but that's 15 million shots only over a period of months - this is at least three times larger.
If the take-up is 80% (let's say) that's still 40 million separate shots - that still looks like 4 months minimum. It's a logistical challenge more than anything else and it will involve doing this in the middle of winter and getting to those who may not be mobile.
It's much the same maths as the "herd immunity by winter" nonsense at the start of all this. As you say, a million a week sounds like a lot but that's actually a year
The effort to get it out is MUCHJ greater than the usual flu effort, though. Subject to availability, I can easily see it topping a million per week by end-January, and 2 million by end-Feb. I think it's reasonable to hope that most over-50s will be done by mid-year.
The problem will be if the MHRA rule that the Oxford vaccine is insufficiently effective (as they might well be right to do, though everyone seems to be expecting they won't), at least for the over-55s who are being prioritised. My understanding is that Pfizer and Moderna are now fully booked till mid-year, so we may be looking round for another one. The suggestion thaat the Sputnik vaccine may actually work is slightly interesting, though it doesn't seem to be holding the pandemic down much in Russia yet.
Johnson and Johnson is the next one coming down the pipeline. They have already closed their trial to new applicants because they have enrolled 40k people and will hit the required number of covid positives very shortly. So we should know in January is it is a goer.
And I believe that it is the easiest of all of them to do a mass roll out with as only a single jab.
With two Johnsons involved, how is that going to be anything other than a monumental f*** up?
Newsnight: cases in Wales twice as high as before their circuit-breaker lockdown. What's going on there?
A circuit breaker only does something useful if you use the time to fix the underlying problem in that fortnight. I see little evidence of that happening anywhere. Hence the England figures following the same course.
England changed the Tiers and got a vaccine approved during our lockdown. That's two something's, though the latter will take a while for rollout the former is having an impact.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
BBC reports this morning that about 250 LA areas have rising cases and about 50 falling
Thanks - doesn't that roughly correspond to the proportion in Tier 2 vs the proportion in T3?
The suggestion thaat the Sputnik vaccine may actually work is slightly interesting, though it doesn't seem to be holding the pandemic down much in Russia yet.
Surely they aren't that much more advanced in their mass vaccination campaign to be able to state that with confidence though? Do we have an idea of how many folk they have jabbed with it?
The size and scale of Russia and the middle of Russian winter must present massive logistical challenges.
Comments
Losing half your visits is potentially all of your profit and then some gone.
Is anywhere in Tier 3 still seeing rising case numbers?
30% capacity, 25% of infections, 75% of visits. Still not ideal but sounds more realistic.
Those who don't get paid if they don't work is part of the reason Covid is running riot. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of doctors telling people with a positive test that they have to self-isolate, but those people going straight back to work. That is much tougher to address. You can understand them doing it, coupled with a (now probably out of date) stat of 25% of the population having less than £100 savings. An easier state payment system for those diagnosed has been one of the answers suggested a good while back. But some of those impacted still won't play ball.
The x axis is average income of shoppers, the y axis is crowd density.
Not showing for me now.
Lockdown start-up needed to be on 2-3 hour notice. Announced at 7.00 am.
Don't want people to come in when ill then fine. If however you don't want them in when ill don't punish them for taking time to recover
🤔. Putting things through parliament is the scrutiny process? Are there downsides to rushing a scrutiny process?
Not actually voting for the paper before you in the eleventh hour is de facto a vote for no deal brexit so who is going to be crazy enough not rubber stamp it.
So why not send everyone home, recall them 11th hour, get their vote supporting it. If it turns out half baked it’s still a resounding government success where May failed?
All regions have a mix of Tier 2 and Tier 3. Its entirely possible the Tier 3 areas have an R below 1 but Tier 2 is over 1 enough to make the net average across the region above 1.
Notably its barely above 1 across the North. The North has a mix of T2 and T3, I'm assuming since its barely above 1 the above 1 will be from T2 primarily.
The problem will be if the MHRA rule that the Oxford vaccine is insufficiently effective (as they might well be right to do, though everyone seems to be expecting they won't), at least for the over-55s who are being prioritised. My understanding is that Pfizer and Moderna are now fully booked till mid-year, so we may be looking round for another one. The suggestion thaat the Sputnik vaccine may actually work is slightly interesting, though it doesn't seem to be holding the pandemic down much in Russia yet.
And I believe that it is the easiest of all of them to do a mass roll out with as only a single jab.
So, yes, I have then gone into the office dosed up on day nurse.
At least I'm now in a position in most circumstances to simply work from home instead. But that wasn't the case before.
v-a-c-c-i-n-e-s-k-i-l-l-y-o-u
READ THE SIGNS PEOPLE
And that final paragraph? "Any attempt to remove the Trump administration will require force."
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=ltla&areaName=Leeds
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=ltla&areaName=Manchester
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=ltla&areaName=Bradford
It may be nonsense, but it is insidious, treasonous, dangerous nonsense.
Pence needs to get out the Sharpie, and scratch his name from this circus poster.
Someone off with the flu for a week is different to someone who lets you down every Monday after payday.
Not sure the whole country should be locked down because one city is seeing cases surge prior to being put into Tier 3.
As for force, as soon as he's sworn the oath Biden has the entire US military at his disposal. A twitter ban will be both more likely and effective though.
Then again, I believe the President of Mexico fake inaugurated himself in a previous election he lost, and it didn't stop him actually winning a later one.
Mark Drakeford is right to put a new lockdown in but that hardly undoes the mess he made of coming out of the last one too quickly and also refusing to cancel the Christmas easing.
I'm sure a lot of people are going to want to party to see the back of 2020 . . . but that's the problem.
Christmas may not have been cancelled, but if you're going to do a lockdown then ensure that Hogmanay is.
So it makes sense to me not to travel across the country and spread the infection on the client site, and work that week from home. I also didn't fancy a couple of days in a hotel if I became more sick. But the issue ends up being discussed all day, by multiple people, and I only finally receive permission to work from home ten minutes before departure from Edinburgh Waverley when I've already dragged myself into town.
Why was that necessary?
Only because the default assumption is that anyone who calls in sick is a malingerer. And that's why people with infections will drag themselves into work.
@Dura_Ace recommends Muc-Off spray.
But the government knows what is coming and they will be planning the lockdown from 28 Dec. In this case just for once Drakeford is ahead of the game.
They know we need time for the vaccinations so needs to be in place until 28 Feb minimum. Just like they knew on 23 March 2020 it would be till June minimum. But they will say 'three weeks then a review'.
. . . but then with an ambition to take everywhere down to no higher than Tier 2 at the most by the second week of February (Valentine's Day). If restaurants can plan for and take bookings for Valentine's as a point just after reopening then that could be good business - and it doesn't require household mixing.
From here on, fatalities will prove less politically troublesome than locking down pubs.
New Years Eve parties are not safe this year lets be frank. There won't be post-midnight social distancing.
Running to mid-February or late February entails missing out on Valentine's Day and I see no reason why that shouldn't be safe if action is taken soon. Especially since it is a holiday that involves couples (who will live together or bubble together already anyway) and sitting at a table, not crowded bars.
(It being common practice to overfill multi-dose vials.)
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1339352484234539010
Cancelling the Christmas arrangements would be difficult as this would lose Drakeford credibility and people would ignore it anyway. But he has been first up to announce restrictions from 28 Dec which will be applied across UK in due course.
Back soon hopefully goodnight 👍
Meanwhile, others had several sickie days "saved".
An utterly futile waste of my and their time.
Tbf. They thought so too. "Company policy" though.
"How a one-man protest in Tunisia led to Brexit
The past decade's events show the impossibility of political predictions
BY DOUGLAS MURRAY"
https://unherd.com/2020/12/how-a-one-man-protest-in-tunisia-led-to-brexit/
1. Blair's Iraq War - demolishing trust in politicians
2. Accession of the Eastern European nations to the EU will few limits on numbers (which I was generally in favour of BTW)
3. A recession in 2009 that saw UK public services and incomes squeezed to the limits
4. A lacklustre Remain campaign dominated by the Conservatice modernising wing which was not helped by piss poor Labour support....
maybe then I would buy into the Arab Spring having a part......(assisted by N Farage et al...)
no mention of Red Buses from me...
Because he doesn’t have any now. He blew it by the mess he made of November.
I am starting to think my prediction at the start of this year in an unpublished thread header of Tories - most seats in the Sennedd is a possible value bet again. Not because they will pick up votes, but because exasperated Labour voters won’t turn out.
ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF COVID-19 SCREENING TESTS
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28031/w28031.pdf
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1339372719561990145?s=09
Given it’s a penny a day, has proven wider benefits and almost certainly does no harm, I still see no good reason why these weren’t posted through every letter box in the country in August. At least the most vulnerable 2.5m are on them as a matter of course now.
https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1339375643264495618?s=19
https://twitter.com/carlbaker/status/1338859031167811585?s=19