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.
The suggestion is that Manaus has achieved herd immunity, if you want an up to date exemplar of that approach. Stockholm is so passé. But I can't for a minute picture Andrew Neil jumping on a Manaus bandwagon.
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.
And when stopping to talk, both stand on the same side, rather than making people pass through your word/virus clouds.
Truss appears to have done well with the trade agreements. However, she needs to continue that momentum (or do well in a new role) for her odds and leadership prospects to improve further.
It has come to something when maintaining the trading status quo, a status quo achieved by EU not British negotiators, with a number of countries is seen as some sort of major achievement. Still, we're in the land of the blind these days so she deserves one small cheer for doing what Liam Fox so dismally failed to do. She did not distinguish herself as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, however.
Yet we were continually told on PB that replicating the EU trade deals would be impossible.
Not to mention that replicating those deals is only the first step - you can then look to build and improve upon them.
Its not as if we need to worry about the interests of olive oil producers any more for example.
On the contrary @rcs1000 repeatedly posted on here that replicating existing trade deals, rolling them over was exactly what the government needed to be doing and why was Liam Fox being such an idiot in not doing so.
Truss is way better than Fox at doing her job. But maintaining the status quo is the bare minimum. Let's see if she can now get something much better.
And, btw, if we want a trade deal with a country which produces olive oil, we are going to have to worry quite a lot about their interests if we want them to give something to us.
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.
Wales had a lockdown which reduced rates. It was too short, which was a huge error. At the end of the two weeks there were no significant precautions put into place. That was a fiasco.
The fire break would have worked had the Welsh Government not made such monumental errors.
No it wouldn't...they didn't get the rates down anywhere near enough in several.key areas...but they made it worse...next...
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.
You are wrong- unfortunately because of the mismanagement of the lockdown by the Welsh Government it ultimately failed. That is not to say it would have failed had it been managed properly.
I am sure Johnson's programme was magnificent and because of his undoubted genius it has worked like clockwork. Maybe if Johnson had tried the Welsh strategy he would not have made the errors Drakeford made and the idea would have proved valid. Locking down at the same time schools are closed seems sensible to me,
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.
The suggestion is that Manaus has achieved herd immunity, if you want an up to date exemplar of that approach. Stockholm is so passé. But I can't for a minute picture Andrew Neil jumping on a Manaus bandwagon.
What's a few bulldozed mass graves when we can save Whetherspoons?
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
While I have no doubt that there is a new strain of Covid-19 floating around, largely because mutations are found all the time, I think the messaging concentrating on that, and not the increase in risky behaviour that scientists believe may have been caused by the joyous announcement of the vaccine earlier this month, is a lot to do with providing cover for a U-Turn.
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.
Wales had a lockdown which reduced rates. It was too short, which was a huge error. At the end of the two weeks there were no significant precautions put into place. That was a fiasco.
The fire break would have worked had the Welsh Government not made such monumental errors.
No it wouldn't...they didn't get the rates down anywhere near enough in several.key areas...but they made it worse...next...
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.
You are wrong- unfortunately because of the mismanagement of the lockdown by the Welsh Government it ultimately failed. That is not to say it would have failed had it been managed properly.
I am sure Johnson's programme was magnificent and because of his undoubted genius it has worked like clockwork. Maybe if Johnson had tried the Welsh strategy he would not have made the errors Drakeford made and the idea would have proved valid. Locking down at the same time schools are closed seems sensible to me,
I am not...I can't be bothered to go and dig out the BBC interactive map, but it clearly showed the regions in Wales that the fire break didn't squish down levels of infections anywhere near enough. But of course you don't know that when you only lockdown for 2 weeks until 3-4 weeks down the road.
You can try to convince yourself if only Wales implemented Tier system coming out of their crash diet it would have been ok, it just isn't the case. They didn't squash infections enough, and they didn't know this until another 3 weeks down the road, so couldn't have selected the correct Tier system / local lockdown system anyway.
The policy was a failure.
As for Boris, yes again too slow, and I said as we came to the end of the month, I didn't think it was long enough, needed another few weeks. And I am totally against this idea of having these revolving Tiers, like the airbridges. By the time you know you have a problem, its too late. You have to stick to consistent rules for the long term, not be reactive nor oh our rate is down this week, down a tier we go.
Truss appears to have done well with the trade agreements. However, she needs to continue that momentum (or do well in a new role) for her odds and leadership prospects to improve further.
It has come to something when maintaining the trading status quo, a status quo achieved by EU not British negotiators, with a number of countries is seen as some sort of major achievement. Still, we're in the land of the blind these days so she deserves one small cheer for doing what Liam Fox so dismally failed to do. She did not distinguish herself as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, however.
Yet we were continually told on PB that replicating the EU trade deals would be impossible.
Not to mention that replicating those deals is only the first step - you can then look to build and improve upon them.
Its not as if we need to worry about the interests of olive oil producers any more for example.
On the contrary @rcs1000 repeatedly posted on here that replicating existing trade deals, rolling them over was exactly what the government needed to be doing and why was Liam Fox being such an idiot in not doing so.
Truss is way better than Fox at doing her job. But maintaining the status quo is the bare minimum. Let's see if she can now get something much better.
And, btw, if we want a trade deal with a country which produces olive oil, we are going to have to worry quite a lot about their interests if we want them to give something to us.
Does it matter? We can just set the tariff to zero and buy it as normal. We don't *need* a trade deal to buy anything really. For a product like olive oil where we have no domestic industry to protect we would set the tariff rate to zero.
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
While I have no doubt that there is a new strain of Covid-19 floating around, largely because mutations are found all the time, I think the messaging concentrating on that, and not the increase in risky behaviour that scientists believe may have been caused by the joyous announcement of the vaccine earlier this month, is a lot to do with providing cover for a U-Turn.
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.
Could also be because news of a vaccine prompted more risky behaviour which caused most problems in this most densely populated part of the country. No one here in Kent ever believed we were even close to community immunity because we were spared the worst of precious waves.
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.
I think you are being harsh on Starmer for the moment, at least
I did see a BBC Wales debate earlier in the week. I was very impressed with Adam Price. Significantly ess so with Paul Davies.
Paul Davies has to be a Labour plant. Surely nobody can be as bad as Paul Davies, unless they are doing it deliberately.
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.
Indeed. I believe Paul Davies, ably hindered by RT shoots Ydoethur's fox of Conservatives most seats in May.
I would like to see an improved performance by PC. I voted for PC at the last Assembly Election only for Leanne to jump under the covers with UKIP, so I am reluctant to do so again, although it is looking possible.
Truss appears to have done well with the trade agreements. However, she needs to continue that momentum (or do well in a new role) for her odds and leadership prospects to improve further.
It has come to something when maintaining the trading status quo, a status quo achieved by EU not British negotiators, with a number of countries is seen as some sort of major achievement. Still, we're in the land of the blind these days so she deserves one small cheer for doing what Liam Fox so dismally failed to do. She did not distinguish herself as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, however.
Yet we were continually told on PB that replicating the EU trade deals would be impossible.
Not to mention that replicating those deals is only the first step - you can then look to build and improve upon them.
Its not as if we need to worry about the interests of olive oil producers any more for example.
On the contrary @rcs1000 repeatedly posted on here that replicating existing trade deals, rolling them over was exactly what the government needed to be doing and why was Liam Fox being such an idiot in not doing so.
Truss is way better than Fox at doing her job. But maintaining the status quo is the bare minimum. Let's see if she can now get something much better.
And, btw, if we want a trade deal with a country which produces olive oil, we are going to have to worry quite a lot about their interests if we want them to give something to us.
Robert wasn't the only one saying that but there were plenty of Remainers who said that the UK would not be able to replicate the existing deals because apparently 'size matters' is the key advantage in trade deals.
And you're not picking up the point I was trying to make - its easier for the UK to negotiate with a country with olive oil interests because the UK isn't a producer whereas the EU has to take the interests of its own olive oil producers into account.
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.
Could also be because news of a vaccine prompted more risky behaviour which caused most problems in this most densely populated part of the country. No one here in Kent ever believed we were even close to community immunity because we were spared the worst of precious waves.
Also, I think the initial part of the second wave was sort of a mirror image of the first one because people in areas badly affected by the first one were more careful start with. But then they convinced themselves that the second wave is passing them by and dropped their collective guards.
Talking in broad sweeps here because it doesn't actually take much change in behaviour to push R from just below 1 (aka happiness) to above 1 (aka misery).
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.
Could also be because news of a vaccine prompted more risky behaviour which caused most problems in this most densely populated part of the country. No one here in Kent ever believed we were even close to community immunity because we were spared the worst of precious waves.
I am not saying there was community immunity, more people taking more care plus a reduced susceptible population....but the evidence of New York and Lombardy showed this wasn't the case. Until two weeks ago London was the stand out case, both in the UK and also among the original hard hit areas that had all seen resurgences. Could just have been luck.
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
While I have no doubt that there is a new strain of Covid-19 floating around, largely because mutations are found all the time, I think the messaging concentrating on that, and not the increase in risky behaviour that scientists believe may have been caused by the joyous announcement of the vaccine earlier this month, is a lot to do with providing cover for a U-Turn.
I pray that's the case.
The BMJ article I posted earlier may give you some comfort (unless you are a medic yourself in which case apologies for patronising you) that mutations are almost everyday occurrences, this one has effected the part of the spike protein to do with communicablity so is of interest, but otherwise it is just one of thousands of mutations that have been found.
Apparently this “new” mutant strain was first noted two and a half months ago -
“Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics and bioinformation at the University of Birmingham, told a briefing by the Science Media Centre on 15 December that the variant was first spotted in late September and now accounts for 20% of viruses sequenced in Norfolk, 10% in Essex, and 3% in Suffolk. “There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad, so it is likely to have evolved in the UK,” he said.”
Tomorrow evening, 7PM, announce a new English lockdown and cancel the Christmas easing
While I have no doubt that there is a new strain of Covid-19 floating around, largely because mutations are found all the time, I think the messaging concentrating on that, and not the increase in risky behaviour that scientists believe may have been caused by the joyous announcement of the vaccine earlier this month, is a lot to do with providing cover for a U-Turn.
I pray that's the case.
The BMJ article I posted earlier may give you some comfort (unless you are a medic yourself in which case apologies for patronising you) that mutations are almost everyday occurrences, this one has effected the part of the spike protein to do with communicablity so is of interest, but otherwise it is just one of thousands of mutations that have been found.
Yep, but that mutation lottery will eventually come up with a winner for the virus (especially when we're currently giving it 600,000 chances a day worldwide). So it would be good to see the evidence that the briefing is based on.
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
About 0.8% if the 0.5 million number claimed is anywhere near accurate.
The slightly concerning thing is that the effective rates of vaccination will presumably approximately halve in about a week's time as they start having to do the 2nd dose for the 1st cohort. There is an easy win for the first three weeks, when every "customer" will be a new customer, but after that it takes two doses per person immunised.
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
About 0.8% if the 0.5 million number claimed is anywhere near accurate.
The slightly concerning thing is that the effective rates of vaccination will presumably approximately halve in about a week's time as they start having to do the 2nd dose for the 1st cohort. There is an easy win for the first three weeks, when every "customer" will be a new customer, but after that it takes two doses per person immunised.
I think it will be unlikely for the rates to go down.
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
Apparently this “new” mutant strain was first noted two and a half months ago -
“Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics and bioinformation at the University of Birmingham, told a briefing by the Science Media Centre on 15 December that the variant was first spotted in late September and now accounts for 20% of viruses sequenced in Norfolk, 10% in Essex, and 3% in Suffolk. “There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad, so it is likely to have evolved in the UK,” he said.”
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
It appears though from what I am reading in the scientific reporting that the immunity develops quite quickly after the first doses and the second is just to be sure. So at least some of those who have had the first dose should already be immune.
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
It appears though from what I am reading in the scientific reporting that the immunity develops quite quickly after the first doses and the second is just to be sure. So at least some of those who have had the first dose should already be immune.
Well...yes...what you say does appear to be the case...but as a responsible poster on a widely read message board I was trying to err on the side of caution. I strongly suspect that people began to let their guard down a couple of weeks ago when the papers were reporting the first vaccine shots as akin to VJ Day.
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.
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
Sorry to say your maths is off by an order of magnitude. It's 0.75%. (if only it was 7.5%!)
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
It appears though from what I am reading in the scientific reporting that the immunity develops quite quickly after the first doses and the second is just to be sure. So at least some of those who have had the first dose should already be immune.
Well...yes...what you say does appear to be the case...but as a responsible poster on a widely read message board I was trying to err on the side of caution. I strongly suspect that people began to let their guard down a couple of weeks ago when the papers were reporting the first vaccine shots as akin to VJ Day.
LOL. Sorry understood. I am kind of the view that everyone posting on here is adult enough to realise that these aren't odds worth messing around with. I would openly talk about stuff on here with people that I would not advertise more widely in the population because, I am sad to say, this whole event has proved too many of them to be fecking idiots.
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
Sorry to say your maths is off by an order of magnitude. It's 0.75%. (if only it was 7.5%!)
Indeed. It’s late and if I had been any good with numbers I would have become a banker or an accountant rather than a lawyer. Apologies.
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.
I think you are being harsh on Starmer for the moment, at least
I did see a BBC Wales debate earlier in the week. I was very impressed with Adam Price. Significantly ess so with Paul Davies.
Paul Davies has to be a Labour plant. Surely nobody can be as bad as Paul Davies, unless they are doing it deliberately.
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.
Indeed. I believe Paul Davies, ably hindered by RT shoots Ydoethur's fox of Conservatives most seats in May.
I would like to see an improved performance by PC. I voted for PC at the last Assembly Election only for Leanne to jump under the covers with UKIP, so I am reluctant to do so again, although it is looking possible.
What's the most likely coalition if Labour, Con and PC all ended up with >15 seats (meaning two of them would be needed for any government)?
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.
I think you are being harsh on Starmer for the moment, at least
I did see a BBC Wales debate earlier in the week. I was very impressed with Adam Price. Significantly ess so with Paul Davies.
Paul Davies has to be a Labour plant. Surely nobody can be as bad as Paul Davies, unless they are doing it deliberately.
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.
Indeed. I believe Paul Davies, ably hindered by RT shoots Ydoethur's fox of Conservatives most seats in May.
I would like to see an improved performance by PC. I voted for PC at the last Assembly Election only for Leanne to jump under the covers with UKIP, so I am reluctant to do so again, although it is looking possible.
What's the most likely coalition if Labour, Con and PC all ended up with >15 seats (meaning two of them would be needed for any government)?
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.
I think you are being harsh on Starmer for the moment, at least
I did see a BBC Wales debate earlier in the week. I was very impressed with Adam Price. Significantly ess so with Paul Davies.
Paul Davies has to be a Labour plant. Surely nobody can be as bad as Paul Davies, unless they are doing it deliberately.
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.
Indeed. I believe Paul Davies, ably hindered by RT shoots Ydoethur's fox of Conservatives most seats in May.
I would like to see an improved performance by PC. I voted for PC at the last Assembly Election only for Leanne to jump under the covers with UKIP, so I am reluctant to do so again, although it is looking possible.
What's the most likely coalition if Labour, Con and PC all ended up with >15 seats (meaning two of them would be needed for any government)?
That isn't going to happen. Labour will be the largest party. Perhaps the most interesting perspective is whether Plaid will benefit from an apparent move towards Independence in Wales. Adam Price not everyone's cup of tea but an effective campaigner.
"South Africa has been affected more by the coronavirus than other countries on the continent, and as of today had recorded 24,845 deaths and more than 900,000 cases among a population of almost 60 million people.
More than 8,700 cases were detected there in the previous 24 hours"
Still, it's not like she drove to Barnard Castle in her own car, is it?
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
Sorry to say your maths is off by an order of magnitude. It's 0.75%. (if only it was 7.5%!)
The total vaccination cohort != the total population. There are no plans to vaccinate children (sensibly, given they are almost impervious to COVID, and few of the major vaccines have been developed for paediatric use).
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.
I think you are being harsh on Starmer for the moment, at least
I did see a BBC Wales debate earlier in the week. I was very impressed with Adam Price. Significantly ess so with Paul Davies.
Paul Davies has to be a Labour plant. Surely nobody can be as bad as Paul Davies, unless they are doing it deliberately.
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.
Indeed. I believe Paul Davies, ably hindered by RT shoots Ydoethur's fox of Conservatives most seats in May.
I would like to see an improved performance by PC. I voted for PC at the last Assembly Election only for Leanne to jump under the covers with UKIP, so I am reluctant to do so again, although it is looking possible.
What's the most likely coalition if Labour, Con and PC all ended up with >15 seats (meaning two of them would be needed for any government)?
A very good question. I have no idea. PC would I guess be reluctant to join with either. Maybe Labour slightly less unlikely than Johnson's Welsh Tories on the proviso that Price was FM. I am however hopeful that Kirsty holds her seat.
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.
Ugh. Yes. Evolutionary pressure to spread better amongst the population with the most contact. That sounds horribly plausible.
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?
Spain has lots of intergenerational households (ditto Italy), which I think really screws them.
It's a genuinely excellent game so long as you happen to have an incredibly powerful PC, an Xbox Series X, or don't mind using one of the streaming services (Stadia, GeForce Now).
It's a genuinely excellent game so long as you happen to have an incredibly powerful PC, an Xbox Series X, or don't mind using one of the streaming services (Stadia, GeForce Now).
Abd don't mind all the other massive list of bugs...
Does anyone know what percentage of the UK population has been vaccinated so far?
I think zero because even the first people to have had the initial shots will still be waiting for the follow up dose 21 days later. The Pfizer vaccine gives immunity seven days after the second dose.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
Sorry to say your maths is off by an order of magnitude. It's 0.75%. (if only it was 7.5%!)
The total vaccination cohort != the total population. There are no plans to vaccinate children (sensibly, given they are almost impervious to COVID, and few of the major vaccines have been developed for paediatric use).
Pfizer's vaccine is currently being trialed on 13-16 year olds.
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!
Yes. Which makes me even angrier with this stupid pseudo-scientist, who is either completely useless or completely dishonest;
Comments
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9068973/Kay-Burley-flies-home-UK-jetting-South-Africa-following-suspension-Sky-News.html
Truss is way better than Fox at doing her job. But maintaining the status quo is the bare minimum. Let's see if she can now get something much better.
And, btw, if we want a trade deal with a country which produces olive oil, we are going to have to worry quite a lot about their interests if we want them to give something to us.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherlands/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/czech-republic/
I am sure Johnson's programme was magnificent and because of his undoubted genius it has worked like clockwork. Maybe if Johnson had tried the Welsh strategy he would not have made the errors Drakeford made and the idea would have proved valid. Locking down at the same time schools are closed seems sensible to me,
Because I am not sure it is in Labour's interest to unseat Paul Davies. 😀
You can try to convince yourself if only Wales implemented Tier system coming out of their crash diet it would have been ok, it just isn't the case. They didn't squash infections enough, and they didn't know this until another 3 weeks down the road, so couldn't have selected the correct Tier system / local lockdown system anyway.
The policy was a failure.
As for Boris, yes again too slow, and I said as we came to the end of the month, I didn't think it was long enough, needed another few weeks. And I am totally against this idea of having these revolving Tiers, like the airbridges. By the time you know you have a problem, its too late. You have to stick to consistent rules for the long term, not be reactive nor oh our rate is down this week, down a tier we go.
I would like to see an improved performance by PC. I voted for PC at the last Assembly Election only for Leanne to jump under the covers with UKIP, so I am reluctant to do so again, although it is looking possible.
And you're not picking up the point I was trying to make - its easier for the UK to negotiate with a country with olive oil interests because the UK isn't a producer whereas the EU has to take the interests of its own olive oil producers into account.
Talking in broad sweeps here because it doesn't actually take much change in behaviour to push R from just below 1 (aka happiness) to above 1 (aka misery).
“Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics and bioinformation at the University of Birmingham, told a briefing by the Science Media Centre on 15 December that the variant was first spotted in late September and now accounts for 20% of viruses sequenced in Norfolk, 10% in Essex, and 3% in Suffolk. “There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad, so it is likely to have evolved in the UK,” he said.”
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857
There's probably 10%+ who have have at least temporary immunity from prior infection.
The slightly concerning thing is that the effective rates of vaccination will presumably approximately halve in about a week's time as they start having to do the 2nd dose for the 1st cohort. There is an easy win for the first three weeks, when every "customer" will be a new customer, but after that it takes two doses per person immunised.
The Telegraph say 500000 people have had the first dose which is about 7.5% assuming a population of 67 million.
Funnily enough our candidate for 2021 was selected tonight. A former MEP Jackie Jones.
Her cv is pretty good, unfortunately.
https://newsthump.com/2019/12/05/fears-grow-over-fate-of-missing-simpleton-mark-francois/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/18/lorry-drivers-heading-to-eu-face-ham-sandwich-ban
More than 8,700 cases were detected there in the previous 24 hours"
Still, it's not like she drove to Barnard Castle in her own car, is it?
https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1339939720558563328
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55370999
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/schools-not-increasing-covid-spread-stay-open-experts-b352746.html
His work would appear to have been commissioned by the Department for Education.
When this is over some bastards need prosecuting and jailing for wilful manslaughter.
And no Yorkcity, I have no intention of apologising for my language.