Keir Starmer will be Captain Foresight again if Johnson ignores him.
Time to get Wales, Scotland, England, NI around the table, cancel this Christmas easing as a unified decision and then implement a unified nationwide lockdown from this weekend.
What do you mean again....the one time he has looked forward he proposed a circuit breaker...that approach that failed massively twice in NI and also in Wales.
The mistake wasn't the lockdown itself, it was it being too short. If we had locked down when Keir said we'd be in a better position, that is unarguable. Wales made the same mistake, should have kept it in place.
Not letting you have that. Circuit breaker was a specific policy put forward by SAGE, and Starmer explicitly said he wanted us to follow that. People like me and Max pointed out at the time, the modelling it was based on was.bollocks. It was not a call to repeat the lockdown of March / April, which is what we needed.
Keir said the two week lockdown should have been over half term - it wasn't - and a working test + trace system with tiers needed to be put into place. They weren't.
What he asked for wasn't done - but the idea of locking down he was spot on about. Because of Government incompetence we cocked that up.
And I asked for the lockdown to be extended. It was wrong to open up, that was a mistake both Tories and Labour made.
You seem to imply Boris has UK wide powers which he does not
You say fhe idea of lockdown was spot on but that has spectacularly failed as implemented by Drakeford in Wales
He shouldn't have put so muich pressure oin the devolved admins to "save Xmas" then.
Dad got a letter to ring for a vaccination appointment for Wednesday or Thursday. It arrived in the post on Thursday afternoon, and his preparation time from being disabled precluded going. Told Mum to ring back anyway and see what the score is.
I'm impressed with the speed they're going at, but the need for speed round the Pfizer requirement is going to mean a few misses as well, and I'm obviously a bit disappointed and concerned over that one.
The circuit breaker crash diet policy was a key part of the problem. It was an attempt to do a quick lockdown, which is flawed thinking from the start.
Exactly. There's no such thing as a quick lockdown, you operate at the speed of the virus, and you wait until the chains of infection have ended within the household. In an ideal world the entire population would lock their doors for 4+ weeks and that would be the end of it. Unfortunately we need food, water, electricity and the like, so you can't do a perfect lockdown, but for those that can you want them to stay inside until the virus has done its work in their household. Two weeks does not seem remotely long enough to me, and certainly doesn't fit the sort of timelines the government has set with 14 and now 10 day clocks for each person showing symptoms.
Keir Starmer will be Captain Foresight again if Johnson ignores him.
Time to get Wales, Scotland, England, NI around the table, cancel this Christmas easing as a unified decision and then implement a unified nationwide lockdown from this weekend.
What do you mean again....the one time he has looked forward he proposed a circuit breaker...that approach that failed massively twice in NI and also in Wales.
The mistake wasn't the lockdown itself, it was it being too short. If we had locked down when Keir said we'd be in a better position, that is unarguable. Wales made the same mistake, should have kept it in place.
Not letting you have that. Circuit breaker was a specific policy put forward by SAGE, and Starmer explicitly said he wanted us to follow that. People like me and Max pointed out at the time, the modelling it was based on was.bollocks. It was not a call to repeat the lockdown of March / April, which is what we needed.
Keir said the two week lockdown should have been over half term - it wasn't - and a working test + trace system with tiers needed to be put into place. They weren't.
What he asked for wasn't done - but the idea of locking down he was spot on about. Because of Government incompetence we cocked that up.
And I asked for the lockdown to be extended. It was wrong to open up, that was a mistake both Tories and Labour made.
You seem to imply Boris has UK wide powers which he does not
You say fhe idea of lockdown was spot on but that has spectacularly failed as implemented by Drakeford in Wales
He shouldn't have put so muich pressure oin the devolved admins to "save Xmas" then.
Looks like a U-turn is on the cards, thank God for that. Well done Johnson, if it is done.
Cole is wrong about one thing. It isn't too late to change the Christmas advice. You can invoke the civil contingencies act or recall parliament for monday to change the law while stating "Christmas is Cancelled" to the public. Dare the loons to vote against it. Labour certainly won't and will certainly support it.
Bad news, but almost convenient for him politically in giving him cover with the backbenchers and headlines he seems terrified of, without saying it is all the public's fault for being irresponsible.
More infectious is a better way of describing this than more virulent imho.
More infectious but less dangerous wouldn't be a bad combination.
Though the vulnerable would have to be told to shield while its spreading.
iirc virus have a tendency to mutate to more infectious but less fatal.
Pedantically, they mutate randomly and those are the mutations that tend to get selected for. Substantively, lethality doesn't really matter when you have an absolutely huge supply of new hosts. Even when it does matter, speed of lethality is the key: you want your host to be milling around infecting others for as long as possible. Whether the host then dies or recovers is immaterial because a recovered and now immune victim and a corpse are of equal value to you.
New varient in RSA too
"In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness. The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant."
Keir Starmer will be Captain Foresight again if Johnson ignores him.
Time to get Wales, Scotland, England, NI around the table, cancel this Christmas easing as a unified decision and then implement a unified nationwide lockdown from this weekend.
What do you mean again....the one time he has looked forward he proposed a circuit breaker...that approach that failed massively twice in NI and also in Wales.
The mistake wasn't the lockdown itself, it was it being too short. If we had locked down when Keir said we'd be in a better position, that is unarguable. Wales made the same mistake, should have kept it in place.
Not letting you have that. Circuit breaker was a specific policy put forward by SAGE, and Starmer explicitly said he wanted us to follow that. People like me and Max pointed out at the time, the modelling it was based on was.bollocks. It was not a call to repeat the lockdown of March / April, which is what we needed.
Keir said the two week lockdown should have been over half term - it wasn't - and a working test + trace system with tiers needed to be put into place. They weren't.
What he asked for wasn't done - but the idea of locking down he was spot on about. Because of Government incompetence we cocked that up.
And I asked for the lockdown to be extended. It was wrong to open up, that was a mistake both Tories and Labour made.
You seem to imply Boris has UK wide powers which he does not
You say fhe idea of lockdown was spot on but that has spectacularly failed as implemented by Drakeford in Wales
He shouldn't have put so muich pressure oin the devolved admins to "save Xmas" then.
Pressure Nicola - now that is a keeper
It was quite clear at the time she was not at all happy about it.
Bad news, but almost convenient for him politically in giving him cover with the backbenchers and headlines he seems terrified of, without saying it is all the public's fault for being irresponsible.
More infectious is a better way of describing this than more virulent imho.
More infectious but less dangerous wouldn't be a bad combination.
Though the vulnerable would have to be told to shield while its spreading.
iirc virus have a tendency to mutate to more infectious but less fatal.
Pedantically, they mutate randomly and those are the mutations that tend to get selected for. Substantively, lethality doesn't really matter when you have an absolutely huge supply of new hosts. Even when it does matter, speed of lethality is the key: you want your host to be milling around infecting others for as long as possible. Whether the host then dies or recovers is immaterial because a recovered and now immune victim and a corpse are of equal value to you.
New varient in RSA too
"In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness. The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant."
Labour are not brilliant, I would never say they were. Have they done brilliant things in Government, absolutely.
Labour are in a better position than year ago, but a long way is still to go.
I think Keir would have handled it better than Johnson, that's all.
I frankly doubt it. Keir is a lawyer, not a scientist.
Nothing Keir has said about COVID makes me believe Labour would have done much better than e.g., the Socialists in Spain.
Two kinds of politicians have had a really good COVID:
(i) Politicians who are scientists. They are able to understand the data, to question the scientists and to take them on. (See Germany and Taiwan)
(ii) Politicians who are blind panickers. They shut down everything as soon as possible, banned travel, etc (See Norway and NZ). Although no-one could have known this right at the beginning, it turns out that screaming panic in March was the best response.
@Black_Rook is right as usual, I may as well just stop posting and let them represent me
Black Rook has always been about the quality not quantity of posts, makes some of us look bad frankly.
A sly dig at me was that?
That would be somewhat hypocritical of me.
I think your posts are fantastic, even if I don't agree with a lot of them - still don't know where you stand politically frankly but that's fine - but they're always interesting and you're never unkind to anyone
Time to cancel this 5 day free pass. It's going to result in so many unnecessary hospitalisations and deaths.
What an f*ing mess. Yet again Johnson and co have made an epic balls up.
It's in Johnson's nature to be optimistic and upbeat. He was like that as Mayor of London and he was like that before Covid. He praises the country and the people to the skies - fair enough, most of the time a bit of inspiration doesn't go amiss. Back in July, he wanted people "cheek by jowl" at Christmas.
He understands the symbolic nature of Christmas in terms of it being an oasis of normality and hope in an ocean of bad news and anxiety. He wanted to save as much of that as possible - to give people something for which to aspire, to be hopeful, to be optimistic because that's the kind of Britain he wants to lead - upbeat, confident, optimistic.
Instead, he's got a pandemic and millions are frightened, frustrated and worried for the future. Yes, he can trumpet a vaccine all he wants but for the vast majority it's meaningless as they won't be getting it any time soon - 10 million vaccinated by Christmas anyone?
In his desire to keep spirits up, he panders - he treats us like children endlessly promising jam tomorrow if we keep the faith. He's not alone - many other leaders have played that game. Perhaps Merkel is one of the few who hasn't.
The problem is when the hope turns out to be a chimera - when he has to be "honest" and tell his audience what they don't want to hear - his limitations as a Prime Minister become painfully evident. He doesn't want to be the PM who lost Christmas - it would be a millstone round his political career. Quite apart from anything else, why would anyone believe a syllable he utters ever again?
I'll be honest - Theresa May, for all her flaws, would have done this so much better.
I think Cameron would have been very good. His personal history with Ivan would have allowed him to project to people having to deal with family members in ICU - and do all he could to prevent that. I don't think he would have been at all squeamish about calling lockdowns.
I agree. DC would have been fine. And Corbyn would probably have knocked it out of the park.
If we had repeated the March lockdown from Half Term until now we could be slowly opening up for Christmas now.
The Tories are useless.
You may well be right that the Tories are useless and Labour are brilliant.
It is just a pity that all the Labour brilliance did not manifest itself in running a competent COVID response in Wales.
Looking at England and Wales, it doesn't look like a choice between useless and brilliant.
It looks like a choice between a crap bloke with blonde hair and a crap bloke with a personality bypass.
Labour are not brilliant, I would never say they were. Have they done brilliant things in Government, absolutely.
Labour are in a better position than year ago, but a long way is still to go.
I think Keir would have handled it better than Johnson, that's all.
I'm not sure he would have done anything very different. If Boris has mostly followed scientific advice it would take huge gumption from Keir to go against it. He might have done some things better than Boris, but equally he might have joined the EU vaccine thing, in which case we might still be waiting to vaccinate people, and he might have imposed a two week lockdown in October like the one which totally failed in Wales.
But that's all speculation. What I don't think one can say is that he would have been way better than Boris based on what he's argued at the time, without hindsight.
With all this talk of whether or not these lockdowns work, is it not worth looking at Spain?
I am not familiar at all with the details but my impression is that their lockdowns have been far more extensive and severe than in Britain and yet they seem to have fared even worse than we have, not just at the start but in the second wave as well. What have they done wrong that means lockdown has not worked?
Labour are not brilliant, I would never say they were. Have they done brilliant things in Government, absolutely.
Labour are in a better position than year ago, but a long way is still to go.
I think Keir would have handled it better than Johnson, that's all.
I frankly doubt it. Keir is a lawyer, not a scientist.
Nothing Keir has said about COVID makes me believe Labour would have done much better than e.g., the Socialists in Spain.
Two kinds of politicians have had a really good COVID:
(i) Politicians who are scientists. They are able to understand the data, to question the scientists and to take them on. (See Germany and Taiwan)
(ii) Politicians who are blind panickers. They shut down everything as soon as possible, banned travel, etc (See Norway and NZ). Although no-one could have known this right at the beginning, it turns out that screaming panic in March was the best response.
Not sure Germany are in the really good category these days....relegated from the Premier League and now in the relegation zone of the Championship.
Bad news, but almost convenient for him politically in giving him cover with the backbenchers and headlines he seems terrified of, without saying it is all the public's fault for being irresponsible.
More infectious is a better way of describing this than more virulent imho.
More infectious but less dangerous wouldn't be a bad combination.
Though the vulnerable would have to be told to shield while its spreading.
iirc virus have a tendency to mutate to more infectious but less fatal.
Pedantically, they mutate randomly and those are the mutations that tend to get selected for. Substantively, lethality doesn't really matter when you have an absolutely huge supply of new hosts. Even when it does matter, speed of lethality is the key: you want your host to be milling around infecting others for as long as possible. Whether the host then dies or recovers is immaterial because a recovered and now immune victim and a corpse are of equal value to you.
New varient in RSA too
"In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness. The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant."
I am sure I don't understand the detail but the impression I get is that (probably unsurprisingly) there are new variants popping up all the time.
Yes, single stranded RNA viruses are rather prone to mutation, and the greater numbers of virus out there increases the probability of a nasty mutation.
It is one reason that vaccination needs to be worldwide, or we would just have a source for new versions.
Dad got a letter to ring for a vaccination appointment for Wednesday or Thursday. It arrived in the post on Thursday afternoon, and his preparation time from being disabled precluded going. Told Mum to ring back anyway and see what the score is.
I'm impressed with the speed they're going at, but the need for speed round the Pfizer requirement is going to mean a few misses as well, and I'm obviously a bit disappointed and concerned over that one.
It may be a case of having to leave some people out and mopping them up, perhaps with the Oxford jab instead, at a later date. Quite a lot of folk are going to get missed out because they're called in at very short notice and have mobility issues or, especially in more rural areas, can't obtain or can't afford transport to distant vaccination centres, but we're just going to have to do our best to get as many people lanced as quickly as possible. Getting the vaccine to only 80% of the vulnerable people who want it is very imperfect but, needless to say, still light years better than the 0% situation that prevailed until earlier in the month.
Labour are not brilliant, I would never say they were. Have they done brilliant things in Government, absolutely.
Labour are in a better position than year ago, but a long way is still to go.
I think Keir would have handled it better than Johnson, that's all.
I frankly doubt it. Keir is a lawyer, not a scientist.
Nothing Keir has said about COVID makes me believe Labour would have done much better than e.g., the Socialists in Spain.
Two kinds of politicians have had a really good COVID:
(i) Politicians who are scientists. They are able to understand the data, to question the scientists and to take them on. (See Germany and Taiwan)
(ii) Politicians who are blind panickers. They shut down everything as soon as possible, banned travel, etc (See Norway and NZ). Although no-one could have known this right at the beginning, it turns out that screaming panic in March was the best response.
Not sure Germany are in the really good category these days....relegated from the Premier League and now in the relegation zone of the Championship.
It still looks the stand out country in Western Europe, though for sure a bit more tarnished than in the Summer.
Still probably an Arsenal rather than a Sheffield Wednesday, IMO.
Time to cancel this 5 day free pass. It's going to result in so many unnecessary hospitalisations and deaths.
What an f*ing mess. Yet again Johnson and co have made an epic balls up.
It's in Johnson's nature to be optimistic and upbeat. He was like that as Mayor of London and he was like that before Covid. He praises the country and the people to the skies - fair enough, most of the time a bit of inspiration doesn't go amiss. Back in July, he wanted people "cheek by jowl" at Christmas.
He understands the symbolic nature of Christmas in terms of it being an oasis of normality and hope in an ocean of bad news and anxiety. He wanted to save as much of that as possible - to give people something for which to aspire, to be hopeful, to be optimistic because that's the kind of Britain he wants to lead - upbeat, confident, optimistic.
Instead, he's got a pandemic and millions are frightened, frustrated and worried for the future. Yes, he can trumpet a vaccine all he wants but for the vast majority it's meaningless as they won't be getting it any time soon - 10 million vaccinated by Christmas anyone?
In his desire to keep spirits up, he panders - he treats us like children endlessly promising jam tomorrow if we keep the faith. He's not alone - many other leaders have played that game. Perhaps Merkel is one of the few who hasn't.
The problem is when the hope turns out to be a chimera - when he has to be "honest" and tell his audience what they don't want to hear - his limitations as a Prime Minister become painfully evident. He doesn't want to be the PM who lost Christmas - it would be a millstone round his political career. Quite apart from anything else, why would anyone believe a syllable he utters ever again?
I'll be honest - Theresa May, for all her flaws, would have done this so much better.
I think Cameron would have been very good. His personal history with Ivan would have allowed him to project to people having to deal with family members in ICU - and do all he could to prevent that. I don't think he would have been at all squeamish about calling lockdowns.
I agree. DC would have been fine. And Corbyn would probably have knocked it out of the park.
I fear PM Corbyn might have wanted to vaccinate Palestine before the UK
Bad news, but almost convenient for him politically in giving him cover with the backbenchers and headlines he seems terrified of, without saying it is all the public's fault for being irresponsible.
More infectious is a better way of describing this than more virulent imho.
More infectious but less dangerous wouldn't be a bad combination.
Though the vulnerable would have to be told to shield while its spreading.
iirc virus have a tendency to mutate to more infectious but less fatal.
Pedantically, they mutate randomly and those are the mutations that tend to get selected for. Substantively, lethality doesn't really matter when you have an absolutely huge supply of new hosts. Even when it does matter, speed of lethality is the key: you want your host to be milling around infecting others for as long as possible. Whether the host then dies or recovers is immaterial because a recovered and now immune victim and a corpse are of equal value to you.
New varient in RSA too
"In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness. The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant."
I am sure I don't understand the detail but the impression I get is that (probably unsurprisingly) there are new variants popping up all the time.
Yes, single stranded RNA viruses are rather prone to mutation, and the greater numbers of virus out there increases the probability of a nasty mutation.
It is one reason that vaccination needs to be worldwide, or we would just have a source for new versions.
Wise words. Let's also hope that the vaccines cover a broad spectrum of variants.
Labour are not brilliant, I would never say they were. Have they done brilliant things in Government, absolutely.
Labour are in a better position than year ago, but a long way is still to go.
I think Keir would have handled it better than Johnson, that's all.
I frankly doubt it. Keir is a lawyer, not a scientist.
Nothing Keir has said about COVID makes me believe Labour would have done much better than e.g., the Socialists in Spain.
Two kinds of politicians have had a really good COVID:
(i) Politicians who are scientists. They are able to understand the data, to question the scientists and to take them on. (See Germany and Taiwan)
(ii) Politicians who are blind panickers. They shut down everything as soon as possible, banned travel, etc (See Norway and NZ). Although no-one could have known this right at the beginning, it turns out that screaming panic in March was the best response.
Not sure Germany are in the really good category these days....relegated from the Premier League and now in the relegation zone of the Championship.
It still looks the stand out country in Western Europe, though for sure a bit more tarnished than in the Summer.
Still probably an Arsenal rather than a Sheffield Wednesday, IMO.
Summer holiday vacation decision was disastrous and then coke zero of lockdowns (was even worse than many other European countries). They are both inexcusable wrong think. Plus unwillingness to take rapid vaccine approval.
Time to cancel this 5 day free pass. It's going to result in so many unnecessary hospitalisations and deaths.
What an f*ing mess. Yet again Johnson and co have made an epic balls up.
It's in Johnson's nature to be optimistic and upbeat. He was like that as Mayor of London and he was like that before Covid. He praises the country and the people to the skies - fair enough, most of the time a bit of inspiration doesn't go amiss. Back in July, he wanted people "cheek by jowl" at Christmas.
He understands the symbolic nature of Christmas in terms of it being an oasis of normality and hope in an ocean of bad news and anxiety. He wanted to save as much of that as possible - to give people something for which to aspire, to be hopeful, to be optimistic because that's the kind of Britain he wants to lead - upbeat, confident, optimistic.
Instead, he's got a pandemic and millions are frightened, frustrated and worried for the future. Yes, he can trumpet a vaccine all he wants but for the vast majority it's meaningless as they won't be getting it any time soon - 10 million vaccinated by Christmas anyone?
In his desire to keep spirits up, he panders - he treats us like children endlessly promising jam tomorrow if we keep the faith. He's not alone - many other leaders have played that game. Perhaps Merkel is one of the few who hasn't.
The problem is when the hope turns out to be a chimera - when he has to be "honest" and tell his audience what they don't want to hear - his limitations as a Prime Minister become painfully evident. He doesn't want to be the PM who lost Christmas - it would be a millstone round his political career. Quite apart from anything else, why would anyone believe a syllable he utters ever again?
I'll be honest - Theresa May, for all her flaws, would have done this so much better.
I think Cameron would have been very good. His personal history with Ivan would have allowed him to project to people having to deal with family members in ICU - and do all he could to prevent that. I don't think he would have been at all squeamish about calling lockdowns.
I agree. DC would have been fine. And Corbyn would probably have knocked it out of the park.
All the smoke signals are very bad.....just got to pray the vaccines are still.effective against this mutant version otherwise I really don't know what...
All the smoke signals are very bad.....just got to pray the vaccines are still.effective against this mutant version otherwise I really don't know what...
With all this talk of whether or not these lockdowns work, is it not worth looking at Spain?
I am not familiar at all with the details but my impression is that their lockdowns have been far more extensive and severe than in Britain and yet they seem to have fared even worse than we have, not just at the start but in the second wave as well. What have they done wrong that means lockdown has not worked?
It is possible that they're done nothing in particular wrong. They may have been very unlucky - it certainly looks like we have now, with the rumoured mutant strain - and it's also likely to be the case that imperfect lockdowns (and all lockdowns are by necessity imperfect, because no Government can shut down everything including utilities and the food supply and weld the whole population into their homes for 4-6 weeks,) merely slow down the progress of a disease like this rather than stopping it.
However, if it is true that the thing is now completely out of control and sweeping through the populace like wildfire then it would seem we have little choice but to resort yet again to draconian measures. If there were no prospect of a vaccine then it would be a different matter, because this can't go on forever, but we have one already in use and a second that's much easier to deploy on the way very soon, if reports are to be believed. So, what else can the Government do under the circumstances?
I think we should set up antiCovidiot Patrols. During my 15 minute walk to the shops and back earlier I encountered 7 groups of fools. 2 groups of kids, around ten in each group, outdoors but stood about a foot between them and blocking pathways through a garden. 4 I presume family groups of 3-5 walking side by side along the pavement, filling its width without masks and shouting to each other. 1 group of I think three families stood outside the main entrance/exit shouting to each other without masks and in the way of everybody else.
I would have loved to have had some official antiCovidiot Patrol power that I could have harangued them, photographed them, and shamed them with.
Are these the real covidiots? Family groups outdoors will presumably spend the rest of their time indoors together, without masks. Groups of children outdoors would yesterday have been at school in even larger groups. Only your group of three families potentially contains covidiots, and that is subject to tiers and Christmas rules.
This is the problem. Regulations and guidelines that are arbitrary, inconsistent and unintuitive.
Bad news, but almost convenient for him politically in giving him cover with the backbenchers and headlines he seems terrified of, without saying it is all the public's fault for being irresponsible.
More infectious is a better way of describing this than more virulent imho.
More infectious but less dangerous wouldn't be a bad combination.
Though the vulnerable would have to be told to shield while its spreading.
iirc virus have a tendency to mutate to more infectious but less fatal.
Pedantically, they mutate randomly and those are the mutations that tend to get selected for. Substantively, lethality doesn't really matter when you have an absolutely huge supply of new hosts. Even when it does matter, speed of lethality is the key: you want your host to be milling around infecting others for as long as possible. Whether the host then dies or recovers is immaterial because a recovered and now immune victim and a corpse are of equal value to you.
New varient in RSA too
"In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness. The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant."
I am sure I don't understand the detail but the impression I get is that (probably unsurprisingly) there are new variants popping up all the time.
Yes, single stranded RNA viruses are rather prone to mutation, and the greater numbers of virus out there increases the probability of a nasty mutation.
It is one reason that vaccination needs to be worldwide, or we would just have a source for new versions.
Wise words. Let's also hope that the vaccines cover a broad spectrum of variants.
Generally they target multiple parts of the spike protein to cover these bases so one or two mutations are still unlikely to render them ineffective. You can also quite rapidly tweak them (within weeks) to target any new strain. I don't know what the approval process would be for that change but presumably it would be similar to the flu vaccine changes we make every year.
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
I don't understand why we have all these delays....if I ran my businesses like this, I would be out of business. With Zoom, no reason you can't get together whenever required and make decisions.
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
Wonder if the new strain is only marginally more transmissible but the relaxation around Christmas and the government's shitty messaging campaign have eroded the edges of the rules and caused people to mix more readily. Depressingly that's probably the best case scenario.
EDIT: also paging @ydoethur turns out the people on the ground were actually right!
I think we should set up antiCovidiot Patrols. During my 15 minute walk to the shops and back earlier I encountered 7 groups of fools. 2 groups of kids, around ten in each group, outdoors but stood about a foot between them and blocking pathways through a garden. 4 I presume family groups of 3-5 walking side by side along the pavement, filling its width without masks and shouting to each other. 1 group of I think three families stood outside the main entrance/exit shouting to each other without masks and in the way of everybody else.
I would have loved to have had some official antiCovidiot Patrol power that I could have harangued them, photographed them, and shamed them with.
Are these the real covidiots? Family groups outdoors will presumably spend the rest of their time indoors together, without masks. Groups of children outdoors would yesterday have been at school in even larger groups. Only your group of three families potentially contains covidiots, and that is subject to tiers and Christmas rules.
This is the problem. Regulations and guidelines that are arbitrary, inconsistent and unintuitive.
They were all blocking the way for other people. Masklessly. When people block walkways they're being massive idiots. Walk behind each other on narrow paths. Stand talking to the side, not in the middle. Don't gather in groups of ten. None of it is complicated.
Bad news, but almost convenient for him politically in giving him cover with the backbenchers and headlines he seems terrified of, without saying it is all the public's fault for being irresponsible.
More infectious is a better way of describing this than more virulent imho.
More infectious but less dangerous wouldn't be a bad combination.
Though the vulnerable would have to be told to shield while its spreading.
iirc virus have a tendency to mutate to more infectious but less fatal.
Pedantically, they mutate randomly and those are the mutations that tend to get selected for. Substantively, lethality doesn't really matter when you have an absolutely huge supply of new hosts. Even when it does matter, speed of lethality is the key: you want your host to be milling around infecting others for as long as possible. Whether the host then dies or recovers is immaterial because a recovered and now immune victim and a corpse are of equal value to you.
New varient in RSA too
"In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness. The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant."
I am sure I don't understand the detail but the impression I get is that (probably unsurprisingly) there are new variants popping up all the time.
Yes, single stranded RNA viruses are rather prone to mutation, and the greater numbers of virus out there increases the probability of a nasty mutation.
It is one reason that vaccination needs to be worldwide, or we would just have a source for new versions.
Wise words. Let's also hope that the vaccines cover a broad spectrum of variants.
The good news is that the current vaccines should be effective against all known variants as the key part of the virus - the spike protein and the RNA that codes for that, is stable. Indeed, chances are that mutations to that part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus would make it less transmissible, given what an efficient binding solution the current variants share.
With all this talk of whether or not these lockdowns work, is it not worth looking at Spain?
I am not familiar at all with the details but my impression is that their lockdowns have been far more extensive and severe than in Britain and yet they seem to have fared even worse than we have, not just at the start but in the second wave as well. What have they done wrong that means lockdown has not worked?
It is possible that they're done nothing in particular wrong. They may have been very unlucky - it certainly looks like we have now, with the rumoured mutant strain - and it's also likely to be the case that imperfect lockdowns (and all lockdowns are by necessity imperfect, because no Government can shut down everything including utilities and the food supply and weld the whole population into their homes for 4-6 weeks,) merely slow down the progress of a disease like this rather than stopping it.
However, if it is true that the thing is now completely out of control and sweeping through the populace like wildfire then it would seem we have little choice but to resort yet again to draconian measures. If there were no prospect of a vaccine then it would be a different matter, because this can't go on forever, but we have one already in use and a second that's much easier to deploy on the way very soon, if reports are to be believed. So, what else can the Government do under the circumstances?
For sure I am not arguing against another lockdown. I think it is inevitable. I would just want to know whether in fact they are going to work. They certainly don't seem to have succeeded in Spain from what I can see although as I say that is just an outsiders perspective. I was hoping some of our contributors who live there might be able to shine some light on this.
With all this talk of whether or not these lockdowns work, is it not worth looking at Spain?
I am not familiar at all with the details but my impression is that their lockdowns have been far more extensive and severe than in Britain and yet they seem to have fared even worse than we have, not just at the start but in the second wave as well. What have they done wrong that means lockdown has not worked?
Talking of over promise, under deliver...CD Projekt Red....gone so badly, Sony have delisted Cyberpunk 2077 from their own playstation store.
Don't know how these things happen. Further delay would have been bad, sure, and a somewhat buggy release need not have long term repercussions (never done Bethesda any harm), but so bad it needs to be pulled? They built up such a great reputation off The Witcher 3 (when the first game was pretty meh all things considered), and this could hit them hard.
Bad news, but almost convenient for him politically in giving him cover with the backbenchers and headlines he seems terrified of, without saying it is all the public's fault for being irresponsible.
More infectious is a better way of describing this than more virulent imho.
More infectious but less dangerous wouldn't be a bad combination.
Though the vulnerable would have to be told to shield while its spreading.
iirc virus have a tendency to mutate to more infectious but less fatal.
Pedantically, they mutate randomly and those are the mutations that tend to get selected for. Substantively, lethality doesn't really matter when you have an absolutely huge supply of new hosts. Even when it does matter, speed of lethality is the key: you want your host to be milling around infecting others for as long as possible. Whether the host then dies or recovers is immaterial because a recovered and now immune victim and a corpse are of equal value to you.
New varient in RSA too
"In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness. The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant."
I am sure I don't understand the detail but the impression I get is that (probably unsurprisingly) there are new variants popping up all the time.
Yes, single stranded RNA viruses are rather prone to mutation, and the greater numbers of virus out there increases the probability of a nasty mutation.
It is one reason that vaccination needs to be worldwide, or we would just have a source for new versions.
Wise words. Let's also hope that the vaccines cover a broad spectrum of variants.
The good news is that the current vaccines should be effective against all known variants as the key part of the virus - the spike protein and the RNA that codes for that, is stable. Indeed, chances are that mutations to that part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus would make it less transmissible, given what an efficient binding solution the virus has.
I thought a big concern with this new variant was a mutation on the spike protein?
Labour are not brilliant, I would never say they were. Have they done brilliant things in Government, absolutely.
Labour are in a better position than year ago, but a long way is still to go.
I think Keir would have handled it better than Johnson, that's all.
I frankly doubt it. Keir is a lawyer, not a scientist.
Nothing Keir has said about COVID makes me believe Labour would have done much better than e.g., the Socialists in Spain.
Two kinds of politicians have had a really good COVID:
(i) Politicians who are scientists. They are able to understand the data, to question the scientists and to take them on. (See Germany and Taiwan)
(ii) Politicians who are blind panickers. They shut down everything as soon as possible, banned travel, etc (See Norway and NZ). Although no-one could have known this right at the beginning, it turns out that screaming panic in March was the best response.
Not sure Germany are in the really good category these days....relegated from the Premier League and now in the relegation zone of the Championship.
It still looks the stand out country in Western Europe, though for sure a bit more tarnished than in the Summer.
Still probably an Arsenal rather than a Sheffield Wednesday, IMO.
Summer holiday vacation decision was disastrous and then coke zero of lockdowns (was even worse than many other European countries). They are both inexcusable wrong think.
I agree. But the world is full of wankers who must have their summer holiday or their skiing trip.
So, Merkel (along with every other European leader) probably felt she could not do what was really needed to be done.
My solution is we bill everyone who went skiing or went on summer holidays to Spain the full economic cost of the virus.
Of course, the chavs who went to Magaluf don't have any money, but at least we can reduce the Tyrolean skiers to penury.
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
If schools are the vector, they have just broken up for Christmas anyway.
And maybe the government needs to rip up the vaccine priority list and start jabbing away at schoolchildren who, conveniently enough, gather together in large buildings.
Talking of over promise, under deliver...CD Projekt Red....gone so badly, Sony have delisted Cyberpunk 2077 from their own playstation store.
Don't know how these things happen. Further delay would have been bad, sure, and a somewhat buggy release need not have long term repercussions (never done Bethesda any harm), but so bad it needs to be pulled? They built up such a great reputation off The Witcher 3 (when the first game was pretty meh all things considered), and this could hit them hard.
Apparently the game is not only buggy, but lots of last gen tech in what was a supposed next gen game e.g. the AI of the NPCs is like something out of a game from 10 years ago. Which is totally indefensible.
I think we should set up antiCovidiot Patrols. During my 15 minute walk to the shops and back earlier I encountered 7 groups of fools. 2 groups of kids, around ten in each group, outdoors but stood about a foot between them and blocking pathways through a garden. 4 I presume family groups of 3-5 walking side by side along the pavement, filling its width without masks and shouting to each other. 1 group of I think three families stood outside the main entrance/exit shouting to each other without masks and in the way of everybody else.
I would have loved to have had some official antiCovidiot Patrol power that I could have harangued them, photographed them, and shamed them with.
Are these the real covidiots? Family groups outdoors will presumably spend the rest of their time indoors together, without masks. Groups of children outdoors would yesterday have been at school in even larger groups. Only your group of three families potentially contains covidiots, and that is subject to tiers and Christmas rules.
This is the problem. Regulations and guidelines that are arbitrary, inconsistent and unintuitive.
They were all blocking the way for other people. Masklessly. When people block walkways they're being massive idiots. Walk behind each other on narrow paths. Stand talking to the side, not in the middle. Don't gather in groups of ten. None of it is complicated.
Perhaps pedestrians should adopt traffic rules - e.g. always walk on the left pavement.
With all this talk of whether or not these lockdowns work, is it not worth looking at Spain?
I am not familiar at all with the details but my impression is that their lockdowns have been far more extensive and severe than in Britain and yet they seem to have fared even worse than we have, not just at the start but in the second wave as well. What have they done wrong that means lockdown has not worked?
Open their massive night clubs?
Yeah the Spanish unlocked too early (like we did) because they desperately wanted the tourist season and between them and the complicity of a lot of other European governments they ended up reseeding infections into countries where the virus was dying embers.
I think we should set up antiCovidiot Patrols. During my 15 minute walk to the shops and back earlier I encountered 7 groups of fools. 2 groups of kids, around ten in each group, outdoors but stood about a foot between them and blocking pathways through a garden. 4 I presume family groups of 3-5 walking side by side along the pavement, filling its width without masks and shouting to each other. 1 group of I think three families stood outside the main entrance/exit shouting to each other without masks and in the way of everybody else.
I would have loved to have had some official antiCovidiot Patrol power that I could have harangued them, photographed them, and shamed them with.
Are these the real covidiots? Family groups outdoors will presumably spend the rest of their time indoors together, without masks. Groups of children outdoors would yesterday have been at school in even larger groups. Only your group of three families potentially contains covidiots, and that is subject to tiers and Christmas rules.
This is the problem. Regulations and guidelines that are arbitrary, inconsistent and unintuitive.
They were all blocking the way for other people. Masklessly. When people block walkways they're being massive idiots. Walk behind each other on narrow paths. Stand talking to the side, not in the middle. Don't gather in groups of ten. None of it is complicated.
Perhaps pedestrians should adopt traffic rules - e.g. always walk on the left pavement.
The idiots should certainly be encouraged to avoid five abreast.
Talking of over promise, under deliver...CD Projekt Red....gone so badly, Sony have delisted Cyberpunk 2077 from their own playstation store.
Don't know how these things happen. Further delay would have been bad, sure, and a somewhat buggy release need not have long term repercussions (never done Bethesda any harm), but so bad it needs to be pulled? They built up such a great reputation off The Witcher 3 (when the first game was pretty meh all things considered), and this could hit them hard.
Apparently the game is not only buggy, but lots of last gen tech in what was a supposed next gen game e.g. the AI of the NPCs is like something out of a game from 10 years ago. Which is totally indefensible.
I'm enjoying it but there are some baffling things in it which are clearly as a result of "Oh shit out of time" crunch. The most jarring one is that the game simulates tail lights of cars ahead of you on freeways as sprites but they don't align properly with the road so they sort of float. Then you get totally booted from the immersion because the headlights coming towards you just vanish and don't resolve themselves into an actual vehicles.
I've consulted my astrology charts and this conjuction is a strong sign of the following events:
- A grate plague will sweep ye whole worlde*. - The Chief of Men in ye New Worlde will suffer ignomie & defete, & become withall the Great Loser & spouter of ye Sour Grapes*. - Her Royal Majestie's Chief Minister will seek comfort once again in the remedie of a U-turne & will proclaim that Christ's mass this year be cancelled. - Her Majestie's Chief Minister will make a Treatie of Trade with the Continent as the clock striketh 11pm on the last day of December, & will proclaim a Great Victory.
(Do thine own re-search.)
(*Some of these projections may be retrospective.)
It's a slap on the head moment for me that SA article, which states the variant has turned up in the UK.
I'd been puzzling Kent - saying it must be spreading in places that are not locked down.
I'd been saying that the high-ish rates of infections in secondary children were actually still really low when you considered the level of social contact they'd had.
D'oh, the evolution went where the social contact was. A form better at infecting younger people was favoured with the adults still distancing and the kids not. And even if that's not the whole accurate story quite yet, the hindsight of a form more infectious to kids being favoured was there for all to see.
I don't think I've immediately changed my mind on schools' opening back in September, but the longer holidays call was a good one, and perhaps we should have been alive to this.
It might require some interruption to the new secondary term to assess more fully how it is behaving (I don't know if primary and nursery school kids are more prone yet, perhaps they could yet go back OK, but that might ultimately be the beginning of another forcing).
I guess I'm not entirely sure how I think we should play this turn.
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
If schools are the vector, they have just broken up for Christmas anyway.
And maybe the government needs to rip up the vaccine priority list and start jabbing away at schoolchildren who, conveniently enough, gather together in large buildings.
They can't it hasn't been tested in children yet. That's an ethical line we really, really shouldn't cross. The answer is, I'm afraid, back to e-learning for a while.
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
If schools are the vector, they have just broken up for Christmas anyway.
And maybe the government needs to rip up the vaccine priority list and start jabbing away at schoolchildren who, conveniently enough, gather together in large buildings.
No, the best thing to do is to keep the schools shut until the vulnerable people can be vaccinated. Besides which, if the vaccines haven't been tested in children (and my understanding is that they haven't) then the regulator wouldn't licence them for use anyway.
You don't use a medicine on kids that hasn't been tested for its suitability for use on kids, most especially not when the condition it is intended to prevent causes few cases of serious illnesses and practically zero mortality in kids.
It was interesting that London / SE didn't see any increase in hospital admissions, despite increases everywhere else in the UK....some suggestion perhaps some community immunity...then this rapid increase. Could just be coincidence with this new variant.
I thought a big concern with this new variant was a mutation on the spike protein?
I know this is a snit time and things are really pretty bad but there is really no need to have the sort of breakdown I myself had in May. Variations like this are commonplace. There have already, apparently, been 4000 mutations in the COVID-19 spike protein. They are used to monitor new strains. The British Medical Journal reports as follows -
SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus, and mutations arise naturally as the virus replicates. Many thousands of mutations have already arisen, but only a very small minority are likely to be important and to change the virus in an appreciable way. COG-UK says that there are currently around 4000 mutations in the spike protein.
Sharon Peacock, director of COG-UK, told the Science Media Centre briefing, “Mutations are expected and are a natural part of evolution. Many thousands of mutations have already arisen, and the vast majority have no effect on the virus but can be useful as a barcode to monitor outbreaks. ... The new variant has mutations to the spike protein that the three leading vaccines are targeting. However, vaccines produce antibodies against many regions in the spike protein, so it’s unlikely that a single change would make the vaccine less effective.
Over time, as more mutations occur, the vaccine may need to be altered. This happens with seasonal flu, which mutates every year, and the vaccine is adjusted accordingly. The SARS-CoV-2 virus doesn’t mutate as quickly as the flu virus, and the vaccines that have so far proved effective in trials are types that can easily be tweaked if necessary
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
If schools are the vector, they have just broken up for Christmas anyway.
And maybe the government needs to rip up the vaccine priority list and start jabbing away at schoolchildren who, conveniently enough, gather together in large buildings.
They can't it hasn't been tested in children yet. That's an ethical line we really, really shouldn't cross. The answer is, I'm afraid, back to e-learning for a while.
If we get the over 80s vaccinated.
If we can get enough likely spreaders vaccinated to demonstrate that the vaccines do indeed suppress spread via the vaccinated.
London admissions have indeed taken a very steep rise over the last week.
But at least no Councils were permitted to recklessly close schools. So there is that.
If one London borough had been allowed to get away with closing schools, when the whole system at the moment is based on keeping schools open and screw everything else, wouldn't that have just led to all schools closing again as all authorities took independent action under pressure from teaching unions?
It was interesting that London / SE didn't see any increase in hospital admissions, despite increases everywhere else in the UK....some suggestion perhaps some community immunity...then this rapid increase. Could just be coincidence with this new variant.
I don't think the prevalence has ever reached the levels needed for community immunity in the UK. They didn't in Stockholm either.
It's a slap on the head moment for me that SA article, which states the variant has turned up in the UK.
I'd been puzzling Kent - saying it must be spreading in places that are not locked down.
I'd been saying that the high-ish rates of infections in secondary children were actually still really low when you considered the level of social contact they'd had.
D'oh, the evolution went where the social contact was. A form better at infecting younger people was favoured with the adults still distancing and the kids not. And even if that's not the whole accurate story quite yet, the hindsight of a form more infectious to kids being favoured was there for all to see.
I don't think I've immediately changed my mind on schools' opening back in September, but the longer holidays call was a good one, and perhaps we should have been alive to this.
It might require some interruption to the new secondary term to assess more fully how it is behaving (I don't know if primary and nursery school kids are more prone yet, perhaps they could yet go back OK, but that might ultimately be the beginning of another forcing).
I guess I'm not entirely sure how I think we should play this turn.
Makes the recently cancelled one dayers look a bit dodge too.
London admissions have indeed taken a very steep rise over the last week.
But at least no Councils were permitted to recklessly close schools. So there is that.
If one London borough had been allowed to get away with closing schools, when the whole system at the moment is based on keeping schools open and screw everything else, wouldn't that have just led to all schools closing again as all authorities took independent action under pressure from teaching unions?
There's going to be seven of us at my parents this Xmas as we're forming a single household bubble this weekend until the 27th now that our 7 day isolation is complete.
That's going to be an interesting week coming up from tomorrow. My wife and I are back into my room which was barely big enough for one teenager. My sister, brother-in-law and niece are in her old room, that means sharing with a 2 year old and my sister is pregnant. It's a big house but it's going to be absolute hell because my mum is going to go insane and basically cook all the food. At least last year it was only two days and we were able to escape to the pub.
Labour are not brilliant, I would never say they were. Have they done brilliant things in Government, absolutely.
Labour are in a better position than year ago, but a long way is still to go.
I think Keir would have handled it better than Johnson, that's all.
I frankly doubt it. Keir is a lawyer, not a scientist.
Nothing Keir has said about COVID makes me believe Labour would have done much better than e.g., the Socialists in Spain.
Two kinds of politicians have had a really good COVID:
(i) Politicians who are scientists. They are able to understand the data, to question the scientists and to take them on. (See Germany and Taiwan)
(ii) Politicians who are blind panickers. They shut down everything as soon as possible, banned travel, etc (See Norway and NZ). Although no-one could have known this right at the beginning, it turns out that screaming panic in March was the best response.
Not sure Germany are in the really good category these days....relegated from the Premier League and now in the relegation zone of the Championship.
It still looks the stand out country in Western Europe, though for sure a bit more tarnished than in the Summer.
Still probably an Arsenal rather than a Sheffield Wednesday, IMO.
Summer holiday vacation decision was disastrous and then coke zero of lockdowns (was even worse than many other European countries). They are both inexcusable wrong think.
I agree. But the world is full of wankers who must have their summer holiday or their skiing trip.
So, Merkel (along with every other European leader) probably felt she could not do what was really needed to be done.
My solution is we bill everyone who went skiing or went on summer holidays to Spain the full economic cost of the virus.
Of course, the chavs who went to Magaluf don't have any money, but at least we can reduce the Tyrolean skiers to penury.
I couldn't agree more.
The UK is an island, the easiest thing in the world would be contain the virus by going full Stasi and stopping the indulgent from coming and going.
London admissions have indeed taken a very steep rise over the last week.
But at least no Councils were permitted to recklessly close schools. So there is that.
If one London borough had been allowed to get away with closing schools, when the whole system at the moment is based on keeping schools open and screw everything else, wouldn't that have just led to all schools closing again as all authorities took independent action under pressure from teaching unions?
Comments
I'm impressed with the speed they're going at, but the need for speed round the Pfizer requirement is going to mean a few misses as well, and I'm obviously a bit disappointed and concerned over that one.
Check out this site for new strains of COVID: https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global?animate=2019-12-21,2020-12-06,0,0,30000&fbclid=IwAR2SKKs1-oAP8rPdqvXJN2NGGo48hMzVOGC43ODxMP6-UZKicwWYFmm5ED8
I just cannot stop, it's like crack cocaine!
Seems like a disaster is brewing.
I am sure I don't understand the detail but the impression I get is that (probably unsurprisingly) there are new variants popping up all the time.
Nothing Keir has said about COVID makes me believe Labour would have done much better than e.g., the Socialists in Spain.
Two kinds of politicians have had a really good COVID:
(i) Politicians who are scientists. They are able to understand the data, to question the scientists and to take them on. (See Germany and Taiwan)
(ii) Politicians who are blind panickers. They shut down everything as soon as possible, banned travel, etc (See Norway and NZ). Although no-one could have known this right at the beginning, it turns out that screaming panic in March was the best response.
But that's all speculation. What I don't think one can say is that he would have been way better than Boris based on what he's argued at the time, without hindsight.
I am not familiar at all with the details but my impression is that their lockdowns have been far more extensive and severe than in Britain and yet they seem to have fared even worse than we have, not just at the start but in the second wave as well. What have they done wrong that means lockdown has not worked?
It is one reason that vaccination needs to be worldwide, or we would just have a source for new versions.
Still probably an Arsenal rather than a Sheffield Wednesday, IMO.
I did see a BBC Wales debate earlier in the week. I was very impressed with Adam Price. Significantly ess so with Paul Davies.
Plus unwillingness to take rapid vaccine approval.
That's worse than Arteta management.
Lockdown. 3.0.
Who could have predicted it...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/19/tasmanian-devils-glow-in-the-dark-australian-animals-glowing-platypus-wombat-echidna-bandicoot-scientists-investigate-australia-marsupials-light
My guess is Paul yearns for a Welsh Labour Government, and he is working day and night to make the Welsh Tories look ridiculous and unelectable.
However, if it is true that the thing is now completely out of control and sweeping through the populace like wildfire then it would seem we have little choice but to resort yet again to draconian measures. If there were no prospect of a vaccine then it would be a different matter, because this can't go on forever, but we have one already in use and a second that's much easier to deploy on the way very soon, if reports are to be believed. So, what else can the Government do under the circumstances?
Why mess around?
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
This is the problem. Regulations and guidelines that are arbitrary, inconsistent and unintuitive.
EDIT: also paging @ydoethur turns out the people on the ground were actually right!
Useless.
So, Merkel (along with every other European leader) probably felt she could not do what was really needed to be done.
My solution is we bill everyone who went skiing or went on summer holidays to Spain the full economic cost of the virus.
Of course, the chavs who went to Magaluf don't have any money, but at least we can reduce the Tyrolean skiers to penury.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/18/jupiter-and-saturn-meet-in-closest-great-conjunction-since-1623
I've consulted my astrology charts and this conjuction is a strong sign of the following events:
- A grate plague will sweep ye whole worlde*.
- The Chief of Men in ye New Worlde will suffer ignomie & defete, & become withall the Great Loser & spouter of ye Sour Grapes*.
- Her Royal Majestie's Chief Minister will seek comfort once again in the remedie of a U-turne & will proclaim that Christ's mass this year be cancelled.
- Her Majestie's Chief Minister will make a Treatie of Trade with the Continent as the clock striketh 11pm on the last day of December, & will proclaim a Great Victory.
(Do thine own re-search.)
(*Some of these projections may be retrospective.)
Pleasant evening to all - it truly is a long december.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrsSbjcKCBg
I'd been puzzling Kent - saying it must be spreading in places that are not locked down.
I'd been saying that the high-ish rates of infections in secondary children were actually still really low when you considered the level of social contact they'd had.
D'oh, the evolution went where the social contact was. A form better at infecting younger people was favoured with the adults still distancing and the kids not. And even if that's not the whole accurate story quite yet, the hindsight of a form more infectious to kids being favoured was there for all to see.
I don't think I've immediately changed my mind on schools' opening back in September, but the longer holidays call was a good one, and perhaps we should have been alive to this.
It might require some interruption to the new secondary term to assess more fully how it is behaving (I don't know if primary and nursery school kids are more prone yet, perhaps they could yet go back OK, but that might ultimately be the beginning of another forcing).
I guess I'm not entirely sure how I think we should play this turn.
So there is that.
You don't use a medicine on kids that hasn't been tested for its suitability for use on kids, most especially not when the condition it is intended to prevent causes few cases of serious illnesses and practically zero mortality in kids.
SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus, and mutations arise naturally as the virus replicates. Many thousands of mutations have already arisen, but only a very small minority are likely to be important and to change the virus in an appreciable way. COG-UK says that there are currently around 4000 mutations in the spike protein.
Sharon Peacock, director of COG-UK, told the Science Media Centre briefing, “Mutations are expected and are a natural part of evolution. Many thousands of mutations have already arisen, and the vast majority have no effect on the virus but can be useful as a barcode to monitor outbreaks.
...
The new variant has mutations to the spike protein that the three leading vaccines are targeting. However, vaccines produce antibodies against many regions in the spike protein, so it’s unlikely that a single change would make the vaccine less effective.
Over time, as more mutations occur, the vaccine may need to be altered. This happens with seasonal flu, which mutates every year, and the vaccine is adjusted accordingly. The SARS-CoV-2 virus doesn’t mutate as quickly as the flu virus, and the vaccines that have so far proved effective in trials are types that can easily be tweaked if necessary
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857
If we can get enough likely spreaders vaccinated to demonstrate that the vaccines do indeed suppress spread via the vaccinated.
That's when we adjust the priority list.
Give it a month or so on the current path first.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-55274437
That's going to be an interesting week coming up from tomorrow. My wife and I are back into my room which was barely big enough for one teenager. My sister, brother-in-law and niece are in her old room, that means sharing with a 2 year old and my sister is pregnant. It's a big house but it's going to be absolute hell because my mum is going to go insane and basically cook all the food. At least last year it was only two days and we were able to escape to the pub.
The UK is an island, the easiest thing in the world would be contain the virus by going full Stasi and stopping the indulgent from coming and going.
Another fail from Drakeford.