Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
You seriously think these restrictions are going to be in place until 2024?
Two points If I posted this six months ago you would have said - you seriously think these restrictions will be in place in December 2020?
and
It doesn;t really matter what's in place in 2024. The damage is being done now.
I repeat how do we get from a 400bn deficit to balancing the books?
How do we convince businesses they won't be arbitrarily shut down in the future if something Chris Whitty doesn;t like turns up? ask yourself, would you open a pub? start any people to people business whatsoever?
This is for keeps mate. Your sunlit uplands are not coming back. Not next year, not for decades. Have you not seen the numbers FFS?
I knew we were in it for the long-haul until a vaccine was approved and distributed. We are almost there now, thankfully. As for the deficit, a lot of that is temporary, although it will take a while for things to recover.
'It will take a while for things to recover' is one of the understatements of the year along with Johnson's 'turn the tide in twelve weeks' back in March.
Definitely a few years. But run the counter-factual, what would have been the impact of a collapsed health system if this had been let to run amok, as you seem to want?
Thing is, if we continue to run our lives and all our policy based on what the people who work in the health say will or will not collapse the health service, we are in massive trouble.
And anyway, the NHS HAS collapsed. Look at the hundreds of thousands of missed treatments for other diseases that are a matter of record. Try getting a GP appointment. Many thousands of non covid patients have died because of these. The NHS has effectively disintegrated, despite all our 'sacrifices' for it.
What would be the difference in 'letting covid run riot', in real terms?
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of more deaths and very likely a collapse of the Government. Then you would have had even stricter lockdowns and the only difference would be all those deaths which would be on your conscience - if you actually had one.
It most certainly would not stay at tens of thousands. We've got those now.
What concerns me is that the new strain apparently adds 0.4 to R. So, unless, you're below 0.6, Covid is liable to spread exponentially. Lockdown is going to go on for months until vaccine really kicks in. Or am I missing something?
I don't think it makes sense for it to be a constant addition to the R number. If you were able to isolate everyone, R would be zero no matter what. A 1.4x factor would be more plausible, turning 0.6 into 0.84 and Wales style 1.5 into 2.1 as currently seen in London.
Or the extra 0.4 is what you get *after* you have included that multiplicative factor.
They are saying the new strain may be up to 70% more infectious/transmissible.
Whatever the rationale was it, is the message the government scientists are presenting.
I reckon this will be more popular than however many months of lockdown would be needed as the alternative after Christmas.
I fear we will get the ultra lockdown anyway in new year.
No we won’t. No way will the government shut schools unless forced to by staffing shortages (which may well take the form of a two-week strike, the way things are going). They have invested too much political capital into saying school reopening has worked that even though we can all see it has been at best a decidedly mixed success, they won’t back down.
So we will not get ‘ultra lockdown.’
Interesting to find out what the rules are for shutting schools and who makes the decision.
Back at the end of November my son was told to self isolate because two friends he sat with had tested positive. He was due back on Friday 11th December when there would then be one week to go to end of term.
But on 1st December the school sent a letter out saying that the number of positive tests coming back were so high that, in consultation with the local health authorities, the decision had been made to shut the school to all but essential workers children and those taking mock GCSEs in year 11. This was reviewed on a weekly basis but the school did not reopen before the end of term.
I find it hard to reconcile this with the news from London that some schools are being threatened with legal action for closing. Nor did central Government seem to have any part to play in the decision in Grantham.
Outside the M25? Government won't notice, or care...
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
I am sure the scientists on here will be interested in Steve Baker MP's plan to reform scientific modelling
Before research is presented to ministers or the civil service it should be pre-vetted by a new Office of Research Integrity, that:
a. Seeks out disagreement both within and outside the academic community.
b. Is trained in how to critically review research papers using in-house statistical expertise, under time pressure. Papers found to be using obsolete data, containing logical fallacies, questionable causative and/or statistical models, or insufficiently supported or biased assumptions, should not be approved for use.
c. Requires evidence of model validation against reality. Validation studies should be performed by a third party outside the domain being validated (i.e. researchers in a field would not be allowed to validate for government use research produced by researchers in that same field)
d. Has the power to disbar researchers from being on projects that receive public money in case of detected research fraud.
Once I have stopped giggling .... I'll post Steve Baker MP's plan to ensure high coding standards.
(He does appear to have an MSc in Computation from Oxford).
Being a modeller is a bitch.
The modellers will probably spend half their time listing all their assumptions, caveats, weaknesses, uncertainties, etc., only for as soon as they then present the results of their modelled, approximate, best-guess predictions-but-don't-hang-your-hat-on-them forecasts the politician immediately will forget or not understand any of that and assume what is being presented is absolute unequivocal fact, which of course it isn't.
Most of that list is just sensible practice though, more worrying you have to put it in writing not to use bad logic or well out of date data.
Most of that list is rather interesting, to be honest.
Running A, B and C teams (Best, Medium & Worst case) is recognised practise in intelligence gathering.
The inter-disciplinary model validation is an interesting idea - again, has been used to avoid group think spirals in the past.
And so now, how much does this cost?
Most of the people who could do what Steve Baker wants in his Office of Research Integrity have plenty of other very lucrative options in life.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
Yes, reported in all areas according to Radio4 news.
There was a big question as to whether they should have been open through December. Didn’t stop the government forcing us to keep them open.
extraordinary how people are happy to deny our future their human right to a decent uninterrupted education over a disease that does not affect them whatsoever.
There are many extraordinary things in life. It’s extraordinary how dishonest and indeed nasty, badly written and foolish most of your posts are, but that doesn’t stop you typing them.
Similarly, it’s extraordinary that even somebody as dense as you can’t quite get it’s not just about the children, or even about vulnerable staff - it’s about how it causes rapid transmission of the virus.
Why are you so callous and nasty to young people? why should they suffer so badly for a virus that doesn;t affect them? Only really affects people who have lived a longer life than any generation in history? and only some of them?
I'm younger, I think @ydoethur comes across a lot more sane and caring than you do frankly.
You remind me of Abe from the Simpsons shouting at a cloud, is it you who has been posting leaflets through my letterbox about how lockdowns kill? They match a lot of the nonsense of your posts, they're just as incoherent and poorly thought out.
It’s ironic that having a busted a gut to keep schools open for the benefit of children at considerable personal risk, and seeing at first hand how the government are deliberately not implementing their own rules to suppress the virus in order to boast they have kept children in them, that I am accused of being nasty and callous by somebody who appears to work quite safely from their home.
There was a big question as to whether they should have been open through December. Didn’t stop the government forcing us to keep them open.
extraordinary how people are happy to deny our future their human right to a decent uninterrupted education over a disease that does not affect them whatsoever.
Another explicit untruth.
Seriously, if your stance keeps relying on claims that are untrue, it’s not a strong case.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
Yes, reported in all areas according to Radio4 news.
There was a big question as to whether they should have been open through December. Didn’t stop the government forcing us to keep them open.
extraordinary how people are happy to deny our future their human right to a decent uninterrupted education over a disease that does not affect them whatsoever.
There are many extraordinary things in life. It’s extraordinary how dishonest and indeed nasty, badly written and foolish most of your posts are, but that doesn’t stop you typing them.
Similarly, it’s extraordinary that even somebody as dense as you can’t quite get it’s not just about the children, or even about vulnerable staff - it’s about how it causes rapid transmission of the virus.
Why are you so callous and nasty to young people? why should they suffer so badly for a virus that doesn;t affect them? Only really affects people who have lived a longer life than any generation in history? and only some of them?
I'm younger, I think @ydoethur comes across a lot more sane and caring than you do frankly.
You remind me of Abe from the Simpsons shouting at a cloud, is it you who has been posting leaflets through my letterbox about how lockdowns kill? They match a lot of the nonsense of your posts, they're just as incoherent and poorly thought out.
It’s ironic that having a busted a gut to keep schools open for the benefit of children at considerable personal risk, and seeing at first hand how the government are deliberately not implementing their own rules to suppress the virus in order to boast they have kept children in them, that I am accused of being nasty and callous by somebody who appears to work quite safely from their home.
I don't think it's worth humouring certain people anymore, it's a waste of time and energy IMHO
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I am sure the scientists on here will be interested in Steve Baker MP's plan to reform scientific modelling
Before research is presented to ministers or the civil service it should be pre-vetted by a new Office of Research Integrity, that:
a. Seeks out disagreement both within and outside the academic community.
b. Is trained in how to critically review research papers using in-house statistical expertise, under time pressure. Papers found to be using obsolete data, containing logical fallacies, questionable causative and/or statistical models, or insufficiently supported or biased assumptions, should not be approved for use.
c. Requires evidence of model validation against reality. Validation studies should be performed by a third party outside the domain being validated (i.e. researchers in a field would not be allowed to validate for government use research produced by researchers in that same field)
d. Has the power to disbar researchers from being on projects that receive public money in case of detected research fraud.
Once I have stopped giggling .... I'll post Steve Baker MP's plan to ensure high coding standards.
(He does appear to have an MSc in Computation from Oxford).
Being a modeller is a bitch.
The modellers will probably spend half their time listing all their assumptions, caveats, weaknesses, uncertainties, etc., only for as soon as they then present the results of their modelled, approximate, best-guess predictions-but-don't-hang-your-hat-on-them forecasts the politician immediately will forget or not understand any of that and assume what is being presented is absolute unequivocal fact, which of course it isn't.
Most of that list is just sensible practice though, more worrying you have to put it in writing not to use bad logic or well out of date data.
I think the problem is that the COVID modelling had to be done quickly.
I am very critical of its quality. But, it is not obvious how Baker's Office of Research Integrity would actually help.
How in March, was it even possible to validate the COVID modelling (Baker's point c) ? And what does he mean by "researchers in a field would not be allowed to validate for government use research produced by researchers in that same field".
It sounds as though the COVID modelling is passed immediately to an aeronautical engineer for validating.
But, that is so completely daft, that Steve Baker can't mean that, surely.
(Also, why are you called solarflare? Are you a solar physicist?)
Validating any modelling is always going to be a challenge, especially when you are trying to make forecasts that then get superceded by new actual data because the situation changes on such a fast-moving basis. I think as long as your validators are people who have sufficient expertise to challenge the model and had no hand in actually building it then it's reasonable to expect them to have a decent go at validating it - it's the independent consideration of the model that you're looking for.
But obviously as you say, not an entirely different field of expertise.
(I did my PhD. in solar physics, since then I've done plenty other modelling including spacecraft orbit modelling and economic modelling. Not that it means we shouldn't expect good modelling, just that I do feel the pain of anyone actually trying to model this kind of stuff.)
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
You seriously think these restrictions are going to be in place until 2024?
Two points If I posted this six months ago you would have said - you seriously think these restrictions will be in place in December 2020?
and
It doesn;t really matter what's in place in 2024. The damage is being done now.
I repeat how do we get from a 400bn deficit to balancing the books?
How do we convince businesses they won't be arbitrarily shut down in the future if something Chris Whitty doesn;t like turns up? ask yourself, would you open a pub? start any people to people business whatsoever?
This is for keeps mate. Your sunlit uplands are not coming back. Not next year, not for decades. Have you not seen the numbers FFS?
I knew we were in it for the long-haul until a vaccine was approved and distributed. We are almost there now, thankfully. As for the deficit, a lot of that is temporary, although it will take a while for things to recover.
'It will take a while for things to recover' is one of the understatements of the year along with Johnson's 'turn the tide in twelve weeks' back in March.
Definitely a few years. But run the counter-factual, what would have been the impact of a collapsed health system if this had been let to run amok, as you seem to want?
Thing is, if we continue to run our lives and all our policy based on what the people who work in the health say will or will not collapse the health service, we are in massive trouble.
And anyway, the NHS HAS collapsed. Look at the hundreds of thousands of missed treatments for other diseases that are a matter of record. Try getting a GP appointment. Many thousands of non covid patients have died because of these. The NHS has effectively disintegrated, despite all our 'sacrifices' for it.
What would be the difference in 'letting covid run riot', in real terms?
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of more deaths and very likely a collapse of the Government. Then you would have had even stricter lockdowns and the only difference would be all those deaths which would be on your conscience - if you actually had one.
That is complete speculation from you based on nothing but supposition.
For me its you who have no conscience.
You are happy to heap on the young and the unborn any penury whatsoever, including stopping their vital education, to preserve the lives of SOME people over eighty who already have comorbidities and have already lived longer than any generation in human history.
Like a first world war general sending those young men over the top at the Somme.
Ah now I see the source of your confusion. You have failed to realise that in the eyes of the vast majority of people it is you who are the butcher here, you who are willing to let hundreds of thousands of people die simply because of your misplaced ideology. You who are unwilling to accept they are wrong even when the mountain of evidence is growing ever higher right in front of. your blinkered eyes.
It is no surprise you are so desperate when your last hope, the utterly bankrupt experiment in Sweden, has failed so comprehensively and even its architects are admitting they were wrong. Again that is what adults do. Sadly you do not seem to meet that description.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
You seriously think these restrictions are going to be in place until 2024?
Two points If I posted this six months ago you would have said - you seriously think these restrictions will be in place in December 2020?
and
It doesn;t really matter what's in place in 2024. The damage is being done now.
I repeat how do we get from a 400bn deficit to balancing the books?
How do we convince businesses they won't be arbitrarily shut down in the future if something Chris Whitty doesn;t like turns up? ask yourself, would you open a pub? start any people to people business whatsoever?
This is for keeps mate. Your sunlit uplands are not coming back. Not next year, not for decades. Have you not seen the numbers FFS?
I knew we were in it for the long-haul until a vaccine was approved and distributed. We are almost there now, thankfully. As for the deficit, a lot of that is temporary, although it will take a while for things to recover.
'It will take a while for things to recover' is one of the understatements of the year along with Johnson's 'turn the tide in twelve weeks' back in March.
Definitely a few years. But run the counter-factual, what would have been the impact of a collapsed health system if this had been let to run amok, as you seem to want?
Thing is, if we continue to run our lives and all our policy based on what the people who work in the health say will or will not collapse the health service, we are in massive trouble.
And anyway, the NHS HAS collapsed. Look at the hundreds of thousands of missed treatments for other diseases that are a matter of record. Try getting a GP appointment. Many thousands of non covid patients have died because of these. The NHS has effectively disintegrated, despite all our 'sacrifices' for it.
What would be the difference in 'letting covid run riot', in real terms?
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of more deaths and very likely a collapse of the Government. Then you would have had even stricter lockdowns and the only difference would be all those deaths which would be on your conscience - if you actually had one.
That is complete speculation from you based on nothing but supposition.
For me its you who have no conscience.
You are happy to heap on the young and the unborn any penury whatsoever, including stopping their vital education, to preserve the lives of SOME people over eighty who already have comorbidities and have already lived longer than any generation in human history.
Like a first world war general sending those young men over the top at the Somme.
Ah now I see the source of your confusion. You have failed to realise that in the eyes of the vast majority of people it is you who are the butcher here, you who are willing to let hundreds of thousands of people die simply because of your misplaced ideology. You who are unwilling to accept they are wrong even when the mountain of evidence is growing ever higher right in front of. your blinkered eyes.
It is no surprise you are so desperate when your last hope, the utterly bankrupt experiment in Sweden, has failed so comprehensively and even its architects are admitting they were wrong. Again that is what adults do. Sadly you do not seem to meet that description.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
You seriously think these restrictions are going to be in place until 2024?
Two points If I posted this six months ago you would have said - you seriously think these restrictions will be in place in December 2020?
and
It doesn;t really matter what's in place in 2024. The damage is being done now.
I repeat how do we get from a 400bn deficit to balancing the books?
How do we convince businesses they won't be arbitrarily shut down in the future if something Chris Whitty doesn;t like turns up? ask yourself, would you open a pub? start any people to people business whatsoever?
This is for keeps mate. Your sunlit uplands are not coming back. Not next year, not for decades. Have you not seen the numbers FFS?
I knew we were in it for the long-haul until a vaccine was approved and distributed. We are almost there now, thankfully. As for the deficit, a lot of that is temporary, although it will take a while for things to recover.
'It will take a while for things to recover' is one of the understatements of the year along with Johnson's 'turn the tide in twelve weeks' back in March.
Definitely a few years. But run the counter-factual, what would have been the impact of a collapsed health system if this had been let to run amok, as you seem to want?
Thing is, if we continue to run our lives and all our policy based on what the people who work in the health say will or will not collapse the health service, we are in massive trouble.
And anyway, the NHS HAS collapsed. Look at the hundreds of thousands of missed treatments for other diseases that are a matter of record. Try getting a GP appointment. Many thousands of non covid patients have died because of these. The NHS has effectively disintegrated, despite all our 'sacrifices' for it.
What would be the difference in 'letting covid run riot', in real terms?
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of more deaths and very likely a collapse of the Government. Then you would have had even stricter lockdowns and the only difference would be all those deaths which would be on your conscience - if you actually had one.
That is complete speculation from you based on nothing but supposition.
For me its you who have no conscience.
You are happy to heap on the young and the unborn any penury whatsoever, including stopping their vital education, to preserve the lives of SOME people over eighty who already have comorbidities and have already lived longer than any generation in human history.
Like a first world war general sending those young men over the top at the Somme.
Ah now I see the source of your confusion. You have failed to realise that in the eyes of the vast majority of people it is you who are the butcher here, you who are willing to let hundreds of thousands of people die simply because of your misplaced ideology. You who are unwilling to accept they are wrong even when the mountain of evidence is growing ever higher right in front of. your blinkered eyes.
It is no surprise you are so desperate when your last hope, the utterly bankrupt experiment in Sweden, has failed so comprehensively and even its architects are admitting they were wrong. Again that is what adults do. Sadly you do not seem to meet that description.
I’m endorsing the view of @CorrectHorseBattery here, Richard - we‘re not going to convince this one with anything so sordid as facts or reality. I think it’s probably better if we just leave him(?) be.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
Disappointing though hardly unexpected. The Sun had most of the key points last evening. In a sense, it's more Tier 3+ than Tier 4. It's November rather than March in terms of restrictions. Work continues though given the time of year that won't be too significant - the construction industry for example has already shut up shop.
We'll have the King George at Kempton next Saturday presumably but it's puzzling because while it could be an elite sport, I don't see how Owners can attend a Tier 4 venue when we're not supposed to be travelling.
As always, there are contradictions and anomalies aplenty to be resolved - part of me thinks if we were serious about controlling the virus, we'd have had March-style restrictions but there seems no willingness to go that far at this time. It remains to be seen whether those areas currently outside Tier 4 will be joining us in the near future.
I share the view there's no point now indulging in political point-scoring, That said, I'd like to think at some point in the future there will be a proper accounting for and scrutiny of decisions taken and I think the decision not to close borders or have arriving passengers tested in the spring looks foolhardy and requires explanation. The move of infected elderly patients from hospitals back to care homes also looks questionable at the very least.
I'll be honest - if the price of this scrutiny is two or three political careers, that's a price well worth paying. I can excuse any politician who struggles with an unforeseeable event but if a decision is taken in light of clear advice to the contrary, that requires explanation.
Been an excellent day for me . lazy one , now relaxing with a few Freedom beers.
I'm very pleased to hear that a Nat has Freedom
Excellent pale ale I may add and English to boot.
Do you get itr from Flavourly? They have mail order packs of various ales in smaller tins (which Mrs C approves of, both the size and the contents - we particularly like Black Isle).
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
You're saying you didn't make that sexual innuendo on porpoise?
I am sure the scientists on here will be interested in Steve Baker MP's plan to reform scientific modelling
Before research is presented to ministers or the civil service it should be pre-vetted by a new Office of Research Integrity, that:
a. Seeks out disagreement both within and outside the academic community.
b. Is trained in how to critically review research papers using in-house statistical expertise, under time pressure. Papers found to be using obsolete data, containing logical fallacies, questionable causative and/or statistical models, or insufficiently supported or biased assumptions, should not be approved for use.
c. Requires evidence of model validation against reality. Validation studies should be performed by a third party outside the domain being validated (i.e. researchers in a field would not be allowed to validate for government use research produced by researchers in that same field)
d. Has the power to disbar researchers from being on projects that receive public money in case of detected research fraud.
Once I have stopped giggling .... I'll post Steve Baker MP's plan to ensure high coding standards.
(He does appear to have an MSc in Computation from Oxford).
Being a modeller is a bitch.
The modellers will probably spend half their time listing all their assumptions, caveats, weaknesses, uncertainties, etc., only for as soon as they then present the results of their modelled, approximate, best-guess predictions-but-don't-hang-your-hat-on-them forecasts the politician immediately will forget or not understand any of that and assume what is being presented is absolute unequivocal fact, which of course it isn't.
Most of that list is just sensible practice though, more worrying you have to put it in writing not to use bad logic or well out of date data.
Most of that list is rather interesting, to be honest.
Running A, B and C teams (Best, Medium & Worst case) is recognised practise in intelligence gathering.
The inter-disciplinary model validation is an interesting idea - again, has been used to avoid group think spirals in the past.
And so now, how much does this cost?
Most of the people who could do what Steve Baker wants in his Office of Research Integrity have plenty of other very lucrative options in life.
Seriously, what is the point of a tweet like that? And what is the point of re-tweeting it?
If the tweet is true, we need to hear if from a scientist, preferably with a link to a scientific paper or data or evidence.
If it is false, it the worst type of fake news -- spreading unnecessary alarm and confusion.
The media have behaved exceptionally badly during this pandemic.
Peston is pissed becasue he thought he had the "this is our darkest Covid hour" quote nailed on at the presser. But the scientists just said "nah....."
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I think he was changing the subject on porpoise.
Are you stealing my puns, Doctor? If so, expect to hear sirens as the fuzz come for you...
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
You seriously think these restrictions are going to be in place until 2024?
It is difficult now to believe anything that Johnson has been saying. He said that there would be a five day relaxation in the restrictions for Christmas, and he has now gone back on this. He said that due to the vaccination programme the situation will be much better by Easter 2021. He said that there will not have to be compulsory vaccinations.
I am planning on the basis that there will still be major restrictions at Easter and into summer 2021, and that an economic and political crisis next year is looming. I am not relying on what Johnson says which is that everything will be fine soon.
I am concerned that the response to this is being led by the Chief Medical Officer. The COVID pandemic has plenty of medical consequences, but it is a biological event with medical consequences, not a medical event. As far as I know Dr Chris Whitty is not a biologist. We are not dealing with an epidemic of diabetes here.
A pandemic involves two species interacting in a complicated way. The government's bureaucratic committees of medical professors may fail to understand how both species will respond to the situation: homo sapiens and SARS-CoV-2, because they are only looking at the medical aspects of the situation. Events now seem to have the potential to spiral out of control.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I think he was changing the subject on porpoise.
Are you stealing my puns, Doctor? If so, expect to hear sirens as the fuzz come for you...
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Dugong to persist with marine mammals?
It’s difficult. Other types of sea creature want to mussel in.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Otterly shameless.....
When you took Carnyx’s pun, were you in ignorance or did you have a Tarka purpose?
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Dugong to persist with marine mammals?
It’s difficult. Other types of sea creature want to mussel in.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Dugong to persist with marine mammals?
It’s difficult. Other types of sea creature want to mussel in.
Mollusc you deviate?
Doesn’t work, doc. Honestly, the world was your oyster and you went for ‘mollusc?’
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Otterly shameless.....
When you took Carnyx’s pun, were you in ignorance or did you have a Tarka purpose?
I reckon this will be more popular than however many months of lockdown would be needed as the alternative after Christmas.
I fear we will get the ultra lockdown anyway in new year.
No we won’t. No way will the government shut schools unless forced to by staffing shortages (which may well take the form of a two-week strike, the way things are going). They have invested too much political capital into saying school reopening has worked that even though we can all see it has been at best a decidedly mixed success, they won’t back down.
So we will not get ‘ultra lockdown.’
Interesting to find out what the rules are for shutting schools and who makes the decision.
Back at the end of November my son was told to self isolate because two friends he sat with had tested positive. He was due back on Friday 11th December when there would then be one week to go to end of term.
But on 1st December the school sent a letter out saying that the number of positive tests coming back were so high that, in consultation with the local health authorities, the decision had been made to shut the school to all but essential workers children and those taking mock GCSEs in year 11. This was reviewed on a weekly basis but the school did not reopen before the end of term.
I find it hard to reconcile this with the news from London that some schools are being threatened with legal action for closing. Nor did central Government seem to have any part to play in the decision in Grantham.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Otterly shameless.....
When you took Carnyx’s pun, were you in ignorance or did you have a Tarka purpose?
Do you know what Tarka Dhal is? It's like normal dhal, just a little 'otter
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Dugong to persist with marine mammals?
It’s difficult. Other types of sea creature want to mussel in.
Mollusc you deviate?
Faced with such obvious, if occasionally repetitive, brilliance, I have clammed up.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Dugong to persist with marine mammals?
It’s difficult. Other types of sea creature want to mussel in.
Mollusc you deviate?
Doesn’t work, doc. Honestly, the world was your oyster and you went for ‘mollusc?’
Well, we are going to cachelot after Brexit, though where we will sell them is uncertain...
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
You seriously think these restrictions are going to be in place until 2024?
Two points If I posted this six months ago you would have said - you seriously think these restrictions will be in place in December 2020?
and
It doesn;t really matter what's in place in 2024. The damage is being done now.
I repeat how do we get from a 400bn deficit to balancing the books?
How do we convince businesses they won't be arbitrarily shut down in the future if something Chris Whitty doesn;t like turns up? ask yourself, would you open a pub? start any people to people business whatsoever?
This is for keeps mate. Your sunlit uplands are not coming back. Not next year, not for decades. Have you not seen the numbers FFS?
I knew we were in it for the long-haul until a vaccine was approved and distributed. We are almost there now, thankfully. As for the deficit, a lot of that is temporary, although it will take a while for things to recover.
'It will take a while for things to recover' is one of the understatements of the year along with Johnson's 'turn the tide in twelve weeks' back in March.
Definitely a few years. But run the counter-factual, what would have been the impact of a collapsed health system if this had been let to run amok, as you seem to want?
Thing is, if we continue to run our lives and all our policy based on what the people who work in the health say will or will not collapse the health service, we are in massive trouble.
And anyway, the NHS HAS collapsed. Look at the hundreds of thousands of missed treatments for other diseases that are a matter of record. Try getting a GP appointment. Many thousands of non covid patients have died because of these. The NHS has effectively disintegrated, despite all our 'sacrifices' for it.
What would be the difference in 'letting covid run riot', in real terms?
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of more deaths and very likely a collapse of the Government. Then you would have had even stricter lockdowns and the only difference would be all those deaths which would be on your conscience - if you actually had one.
That is complete speculation from you based on nothing but supposition.
For me its you who have no conscience.
You are happy to heap on the young and the unborn any penury whatsoever, including stopping their vital education, to preserve the lives of SOME people over eighty who already have comorbidities and have already lived longer than any generation in human history.
Like a first world war general sending those young men over the top at the Somme.
There’s hyperbole and then there's that last sentence of yours.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Otterly shameless.....
When you took Carnyx’s pun, were you in ignorance or did you have a Tarka purpose?
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
You seriously think these restrictions are going to be in place until 2024?
Two points If I posted this six months ago you would have said - you seriously think these restrictions will be in place in December 2020?
and
It doesn;t really matter what's in place in 2024. The damage is being done now.
I repeat how do we get from a 400bn deficit to balancing the books?
How do we convince businesses they won't be arbitrarily shut down in the future if something Chris Whitty doesn;t like turns up? ask yourself, would you open a pub? start any people to people business whatsoever?
This is for keeps mate. Your sunlit uplands are not coming back. Not next year, not for decades. Have you not seen the numbers FFS?
I knew we were in it for the long-haul until a vaccine was approved and distributed. We are almost there now, thankfully. As for the deficit, a lot of that is temporary, although it will take a while for things to recover.
'It will take a while for things to recover' is one of the understatements of the year along with Johnson's 'turn the tide in twelve weeks' back in March.
Definitely a few years. But run the counter-factual, what would have been the impact of a collapsed health system if this had been let to run amok, as you seem to want?
Thing is, if we continue to run our lives and all our policy based on what the people who work in the health say will or will not collapse the health service, we are in massive trouble.
And anyway, the NHS HAS collapsed. Look at the hundreds of thousands of missed treatments for other diseases that are a matter of record. Try getting a GP appointment. Many thousands of non covid patients have died because of these. The NHS has effectively disintegrated, despite all our 'sacrifices' for it.
What would be the difference in 'letting covid run riot', in real terms?
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of more deaths and very likely a collapse of the Government. Then you would have had even stricter lockdowns and the only difference would be all those deaths which would be on your conscience - if you actually had one.
That is complete speculation from you based on nothing but supposition. .
Shall we go back to looking at America or is it over there?
Disappointing though hardly unexpected. The Sun had most of the key points last evening. In a sense, it's more Tier 3+ than Tier 4. It's November rather than March in terms of restrictions. Work continues though given the time of year that won't be too significant - the construction industry for example has already shut up shop.
We'll have the King George at Kempton next Saturday presumably but it's puzzling because while it could be an elite sport, I don't see how Owners can attend a Tier 4 venue when we're not supposed to be travelling.
As always, there are contradictions and anomalies aplenty to be resolved - part of me thinks if we were serious about controlling the virus, we'd have had March-style restrictions but there seems no willingness to go that far at this time. It remains to be seen whether those areas currently outside Tier 4 will be joining us in the near future.
I share the view there's no point now indulging in political point-scoring, That said, I'd like to think at some point in the future there will be a proper accounting for and scrutiny of decisions taken and I think the decision not to close borders or have arriving passengers tested in the spring looks foolhardy and requires explanation. The move of infected elderly patients from hospitals back to care homes also looks questionable at the very least.
I'll be honest - if the price of this scrutiny is two or three political careers, that's a price well worth paying. I can excuse any politician who struggles with an unforeseeable event but if a decision is taken in light of clear advice to the contrary, that requires explanation.
We could have gone for tougher restrictions through December, then relaxed enough to allow most families to enjoy some sort of Christmas together. Instead of having cases rise through the month and then wrecking the holiday period.
@Big_G_NorthWales I don't respond to you anymore after your bullying incident but you have no right to call out comments to my posts, stop acting like the forum police and leave @IanB2 alone, it was clearly a light-hearted joke.
Do me a favour and sod off, thanks kindly.
He has no right? Can't anyone reply to anyone on here, unless they have been banned from doing so by the moderator?
Fine, he has the right to respond and take offence at somebody else's comment about somebody else - however stupid and pointless - but I have every right to tell him to sod off as well.
Actually, no, you don’t
This forum benefits from being generally polite. Randomly abusing a poster you don’t like is a trick worthy of Tim or @SeanT
I decided two months ago not to make plans to travel to another part of the UK to visit family members at Christmas this year, in case there was a last minute change of regulations prohibiting this travel. Guess what? Six days before Christmas, exactly this announcement has just been made. I am not at all surprised.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Totally agree. Draft the army in. Train the squaddies to administer. Get it done by end of Feb.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Otterly shameless.....
When you took Carnyx’s pun, were you in ignorance or did you have a Tarka purpose?
I doubt we will see either of the main parties out of sight for a very long time. Values seem to be what is driving support these days, rather than the competence of the government, the state of the economy and so on. And as we are a sharply divided country, we are basically falling into one of the two camps in more or less equal measure. There will be three, four or five point leads now and again - usually Tory, sometimes Labour - but mostly it will be MoE stuff.
I reckon this will be more popular than however many months of lockdown would be needed as the alternative after Christmas.
I fear we will get the ultra lockdown anyway in new year.
No we won’t. No way will the government shut schools unless forced to by staffing shortages (which may well take the form of a two-week strike, the way things are going). They have invested too much political capital into saying school reopening has worked that even though we can all see it has been at best a decidedly mixed success, they won’t back down.
So we will not get ‘ultra lockdown.’
Interesting to find out what the rules are for shutting schools and who makes the decision.
Back at the end of November my son was told to self isolate because two friends he sat with had tested positive. He was due back on Friday 11th December when there would then be one week to go to end of term.
But on 1st December the school sent a letter out saying that the number of positive tests coming back were so high that, in consultation with the local health authorities, the decision had been made to shut the school to all but essential workers children and those taking mock GCSEs in year 11. This was reviewed on a weekly basis but the school did not reopen before the end of term.
I find it hard to reconcile this with the news from London that some schools are being threatened with legal action for closing. Nor did central Government seem to have any part to play in the decision in Grantham.
I think Greenwich was the LA closing all schools in defiance of government policy while your case sounds like working within the rules set up for closing individual schools
I decided two months ago not to make plans to travel to another part of the UK to visit family members at Christmas this year, in case there was a last minute change of regulations prohibiting this travel. Guess what? Six days before Christmas, exactly this announcement has just been made. I am not at all surprised.
Same here. Would normally be going up from Devon to St. Albans to see the wife's family. Thankfully that was nixed weeks ago. Wasn't difficult to predict how this was going to play out.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Totally agree. Draft the army in. Train the squaddies to administer. Get it done by end of Feb.
CORRECT. This is the biggest national priority since the war. Get it done ASAP.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
Isn't part of the problem, which should be easy to overcome but knowing this lot... that the IT systems that they depend upon is old, crap and slow
Having had 9months to prepare not obvious that those kind of things have been addressed.
If I were Boris, I'd lockdown for 6 weeks from 30th December to mid-Feb.
Supresses the virus, gives a chance for vaccinations to really get rolling, and gives a chance for Brexit processes to bed-in.
Then, open-up progressively late Feb onwards in parallel with successive vaccination waves.
I think this is right.
I spoke to my mother earlier and she told me about another resident in her sheltered housing block who had received an invitation for vaccination, but refused to go because it was at Orpington hospital and they were scared to travel.
Get the virus levels right down and it makes the vaccination process - travelling, queuing, necessary close contact - much less risky.
It looks like either Texas has screwed up their data submission, or they just reported a huge backlog of cases, at about 15 times the moving average they must have had problems for many weeks.
Remember that the Trump effect may be unwinding in the various state governments - there has been clear, and on going manipulation of data in some states.
Meh. Let's see what happens in the spring when tens of millions have been vaccinated, the gloom lifts, and life and liberty gradually return to normal. If that goes well, no one will care too much about a necessarily truncated Christmas.
Meanwhile, at least the Northerners will be (relatively!) happy...
I'm sorry but nobody believes a word of this bullsh8t any more, based if nothing else on the assurances given to MPs and the public by Johnson's government in the past.
Today its a mutant strain. In the spring it will be some other reason. For authoritarians, there is always a good reason. If you think the people who lord it over our lives are going to give up that power so easily, well I have a bridge to sell you.
We are in this for the duration. We are in it until this government is replaced by one that realises that rule by 'not overwhelming the NHS' is destroying our country. Its culture, its economy, its mental health, its future, its liberty. Almost irretrievably.
I mention the numbers Johnson is racking up, and all I get is insults. Presumably you don;t want to face them either.
No. You don't believe it. The majority of people clearly do and were very much in favour of tougher measures well before Johnson started signalling it. Go bury your head back in the sand where you belong.
Let’s be clear. I hate Johnson. I also despise him.
But anyone who thinks his instincts are authoritarian on this is simply not looking at the facts.
On the contrary, he’s been far too relaxed for far too long far too often.
Truthfully, that is a positive about him as a person. I prefer my leaders not to be fascists. But it isn’t helpful right now. May or Brown with their controlling instincts would have done better.
Not sure, Drakeford's instincts are pretty controlling actually. He's not done much better than Boris.
I think the horrible truth is that to beat this virus, you really do have to be semi-fascist in the control that you exert on your population (cf China).
Wouldn’t have said Drakeford was that controlling. Leaving aside the fact he’s even more incoherent and inconsistent than Johnson, the problem with his famous ‘circuit breaker’ was that it lasted one week before reopening the majority of schools and then a week later almost all restrictions vanished.
A true authoritarian would have kept a much tighter grip through November.
The Welsh lockdown was simply too short - Drakeford can absolutely be held responsible for that and he should be.
Has that new virus strain reached Wales yet?
It’s still stuck with dolphins, but it has Big Ambitions.
Blow me.
Well, that’s a very generous offer, but unless you are truly magnificently endowed it would be a breach of social distancing and I must regretfully decline.
So we weren’t doing ocean mammal puns after all, then? Honest mistake.
I did it on porpoise.
Dugong to persist with marine mammals?
It’s difficult. Other types of sea creature want to mussel in.
Mollusc you deviate?
Doesn’t work, doc. Honestly, the world was your oyster and you went for ‘mollusc?’
Well, we are going to cachelot after Brexit, though where we will sell them is uncertain...
We can cock a snoek at the French fishermen though.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
Isn't part of the problem, which should be easy to overcome but knowing this lot... that the IT systems that they depend upon is old, crap and slow
Having had 9months to prepare not obvious that those kind of things have been addressed.
Tbh, the current roll out is going well under the circumstances of what is needed for the Pfizer vaccine. With the AZ vaccine we should be able to run at a much higher rate. Enough to hit 1m per day (200k Pfizer, 800k AZ) because it can be given by non specialised people in a non specialised setting allowing for community venues to be used and the army to get the jabbing.
Even at 1m per day we'd need 3 months to get everyone vaccinated but it's something we need now with this new more virulent mutation otherwise he whole country is indefinitely in tier 4.
If I were Boris, I'd lockdown for 6 weeks from 30th December to mid-Feb.
Supresses the virus, gives a chance for vaccinations to really get rolling, and gives a chance for Brexit processes to bed-in.
Then, open-up progressively late Feb onwards in parallel with successive vaccination waves.
I think this is right.
I spoke to my mother earlier and she told me about another resident in her sheltered housing block who had received an invitation for vaccination, but refused to go because it was at Orpington hospital and they were scared to travel.
Get the virus levels right down and it makes the vaccination process - travelling, queuing, necessary close contact - much less risky.
All this phoning and asking people to travel is only going to work for so long, without a lot more vaccination centres.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
Once again, the clarion calls bump up against the logistics. 68 million people equals 136 million shots (assuming we don't get the vaccine that only needs one shot).
How far have we got so far - 500,000 shots perhaps? Someone asked today for the number of vaccinations to be added to the daily figures for cases and deaths and that sounds a good idea if the information can be properly compiled.
10 million by Christmas looks a little challenging at this time - 1 million per week will take a year to get through the over 50s (25 million x 2 shots). There are 12 million over 65 so this is going to need more than a few soldiers and some fine words.
If I were Boris, I'd lockdown for 6 weeks from 30th December to mid-Feb.
Supresses the virus, gives a chance for vaccinations to really get rolling, and gives a chance for Brexit processes to bed-in.
Then, open-up progressively late Feb onwards in parallel with successive vaccination waves.
I think this is right.
I spoke to my mother earlier and she told me about another resident in her sheltered housing block who had received an invitation for vaccination, but refused to go because it was at Orpington hospital and they were scared to travel.
Get the virus levels right down and it makes the vaccination process - travelling, queuing, necessary close contact - much less risky.
All this phoning and asking people to travel is only going to work for so long, without a lot more vaccination centres.
The NHS is recruiting for coronavirus vaccination hubs. There will be a lot more vaccination centres.
It is only 12 months ago nice Johnson won an 80 seat majority. There has certainly been some buyer's remorse since then.
Nobody on here with anything about them has suggested Labour would be Infront at this point. I certainly haven't. It has been my view that the vaccine and Sunak's 3rd tranche of furlough would have given the Conservatives a bounce. I am surprised it hasn't. I would also imagine a Brexit deal bounce for Johnson next week too.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
Once again, the clarion calls bump up against the logistics. 68 million people equals 136 million shots (assuming we don't get the vaccine that only needs one shot).
How far have we got so far - 500,000 shots perhaps? Someone asked today for the number of vaccinations to be added to the daily figures for cases and deaths and that sounds a good idea if the information can be properly compiled.
10 million by Christmas looks a little challenging at this time - 1 million per week will take a year to get through the over 50s (25 million x 2 shots). There are 12 million over 65 so this is going to need more than a few soldiers and some fine words.
Havne't GPs only just started administering them? Not to mention the stadia etc that will be used for the AZN vaccine.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Totally agree. Draft the army in. Train the squaddies to administer. Get it done by end of Feb.
The NHS is ready. The systems are in place. The problem is the vaccine can’t be manufactured quickly enough.
What do you think the army would actually do that isn’t being done already?
That's with the old 600 seats. We're going 650. EC predicts Tories +15. BUT. That is assuming 2019 vote shares. So probably nearer +12 on parity of votes. So nearly. But not quite. Doubt there will be UNS either.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
Isn't part of the problem, which should be easy to overcome but knowing this lot... that the IT systems that they depend upon is old, crap and slow
Having had 9months to prepare not obvious that those kind of things have been addressed.
Tbh, the current roll out is going well under the circumstances of what is needed for the Pfizer vaccine. With the AZ vaccine we should be able to run at a much higher rate. Enough to hit 1m per day (200k Pfizer, 800k AZ) because it can be given by non specialised people in a non specialised setting allowing for community venues to be used and the army to get the jabbing.
Even at 1m per day we'd need 3 months to get everyone vaccinated but it's something we need now with this new more virulent mutation otherwise he whole country is indefinitely in tier 4.
I don’t think it’s that long. 1m per day = 30-31m per month. Around 53 million adults in the UK = 1 month, 3 weeks, and 1 or 2 days.
Disappointing though hardly unexpected. The Sun had most of the key points last evening. In a sense, it's more Tier 3+ than Tier 4. It's November rather than March in terms of restrictions. Work continues though given the time of year that won't be too significant - the construction industry for example has already shut up shop.
We'll have the King George at Kempton next Saturday presumably but it's puzzling because while it could be an elite sport, I don't see how Owners can attend a Tier 4 venue when we're not supposed to be travelling.
As always, there are contradictions and anomalies aplenty to be resolved - part of me thinks if we were serious about controlling the virus, we'd have had March-style restrictions but there seems no willingness to go that far at this time. It remains to be seen whether those areas currently outside Tier 4 will be joining us in the near future.
I share the view there's no point now indulging in political point-scoring, That said, I'd like to think at some point in the future there will be a proper accounting for and scrutiny of decisions taken and I think the decision not to close borders or have arriving passengers tested in the spring looks foolhardy and requires explanation. The move of infected elderly patients from hospitals back to care homes also looks questionable at the very least.
I'll be honest - if the price of this scrutiny is two or three political careers, that's a price well worth paying. I can excuse any politician who struggles with an unforeseeable event but if a decision is taken in light of clear advice to the contrary, that requires explanation.
We could have gone for tougher restrictions through December, then relaxed enough to allow most families to enjoy some sort of Christmas together. Instead of having cases rise through the month and then wrecking the holiday period.
The government really needs to step up the vaccination programme from January once the AZ one is available. The current strategy is no longer enough, under 50s need to be vaccinated alongside older people or we're going to have no businesses left by April.
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
Once again, the clarion calls bump up against the logistics. 68 million people equals 136 million shots (assuming we don't get the vaccine that only needs one shot).
How far have we got so far - 500,000 shots perhaps? Someone asked today for the number of vaccinations to be added to the daily figures for cases and deaths and that sounds a good idea if the information can be properly compiled.
10 million by Christmas looks a little challenging at this time - 1 million per week will take a year to get through the over 50s (25 million x 2 shots). There are 12 million over 65 so this is going to need more than a few soldiers and some fine words.
When I got my flu jab this year it was in a car park
There were 4 nurses injecting those walking through
There was an appointment every 1 minute, they were there 9-5, Mon-Fri for a week
So 480 jabs a day by 4nurses is 600 jabs a week per nurse.
I make that to be ~230k nurse weeks required to vaccinate the whole nation
We need the nurses free to do the jabs, not be busy on the positive C-19 wards
Comments
They are saying the new strain may be up to 70% more infectious/transmissible.
Whatever the rationale was it, is the message the government scientists are presenting.
Most of the people who could do what Steve Baker wants in his Office of Research Integrity have plenty of other very lucrative options in life.
Supresses the virus, gives a chance for vaccinations to really get rolling, and gives a chance for Brexit processes to bed-in.
Then, open-up progressively late Feb onwards in parallel with successive vaccination waves.
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1340346322428289024
Seriously, if your stance keeps relying on claims that are untrue, it’s not a strong case.
I've met him (briefly) twice and he was very affable both times, and most amusing once.
Sadly, it's not one that a PM who craves giving good news will implement.
But obviously as you say, not an entirely different field of expertise.
(I did my PhD. in solar physics, since then I've done plenty other modelling including spacecraft orbit modelling and economic modelling. Not that it means we shouldn't expect good modelling, just that I do feel the pain of anyone actually trying to model this kind of stuff.)
It is no surprise you are so desperate when your last hope, the utterly bankrupt experiment in Sweden, has failed so comprehensively and even its architects are admitting they were wrong. Again that is what adults do. Sadly you do not seem to meet that description.
Disappointing though hardly unexpected. The Sun had most of the key points last evening. In a sense, it's more Tier 3+ than Tier 4. It's November rather than March in terms of restrictions. Work continues though given the time of year that won't be too significant - the construction industry for example has already shut up shop.
We'll have the King George at Kempton next Saturday presumably but it's puzzling because while it could be an elite sport, I don't see how Owners can attend a Tier 4 venue when we're not supposed to be travelling.
As always, there are contradictions and anomalies aplenty to be resolved - part of me thinks if we were serious about controlling the virus, we'd have had March-style restrictions but there seems no willingness to go that far at this time. It remains to be seen whether those areas currently outside Tier 4 will be joining us in the near future.
I share the view there's no point now indulging in political point-scoring, That said, I'd like to think at some point in the future there will be a proper accounting for and scrutiny of decisions taken and I think the decision not to close borders or have arriving passengers tested in the spring looks foolhardy and requires explanation. The move of infected elderly patients from hospitals back to care homes also looks questionable at the very least.
I'll be honest - if the price of this scrutiny is two or three political careers, that's a price well worth paying. I can excuse any politician who struggles with an unforeseeable event but if a decision is taken in light of clear advice to the contrary, that requires explanation.
[Edit - pipped twice in the same minute!]
I am planning on the basis that there will still be major restrictions at Easter and into summer 2021, and that an economic and political crisis next year is looming. I am not relying on what Johnson says which is that everything will be fine soon.
I am concerned that the response to this is being led by the Chief Medical Officer. The COVID pandemic has plenty of medical consequences, but it is a biological event with medical consequences, not a medical event. As far as I know Dr Chris Whitty is not a biologist. We are not dealing with an epidemic of diabetes here.
A pandemic involves two species interacting in a complicated way. The government's bureaucratic committees of medical professors may fail to understand how both species will respond to the situation: homo sapiens and SARS-CoV-2, because they are only looking at the medical aspects of the situation. Events now seem to have the potential to spiral out of control.
Something nice and cuddly (albeit damp) Is what this board needs right now - it's getting a bit fractious.
That is why we all have to nail this fucking virus into a trunk and chuck it in the bottom of the Monterey Trench.....
Leaving yourself nowhere to go.
And I'd hope the back benches don't send enough letter to Sir Graham....
This forum benefits from being generally polite. Randomly abusing a poster you don’t like is a trick worthy of Tim or @SeanT
Over the next few weeks everyone in the army should be trained in how to give these jabs and they should all get the Pfizer vaccine so that in January they are ready to run a 1m per day vaccination programme.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1340386419294924800?s=20
Having had 9months to prepare not obvious that those kind of things have been addressed.
I spoke to my mother earlier and she told me about another resident in her sheltered housing block who had received an invitation for vaccination, but refused to go because it was at Orpington hospital and they were scared to travel.
Get the virus levels right down and it makes the vaccination process - travelling, queuing, necessary close contact - much less risky.
Even at 1m per day we'd need 3 months to get everyone vaccinated but it's something we need now with this new more virulent mutation otherwise he whole country is indefinitely in tier 4.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=39&LAB=39&LIB=6&Brexit=4&Green=4&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVBrexit=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=19.3&SCOTLAB=19&SCOTLIB=5.7&SCOTBrexit=1&SCOTGreen=1.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=51.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019
With boundary changes it is Tories 287, Labour 235, SNP 53, LDs 5.
So Starmer still PM with SNP and LD support
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=39&LAB=39&LIB=6&Brexit=4&Green=4&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVBrexit=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=19.3&SCOTLAB=19&SCOTLIB=5.7&SCOTBrexit=1&SCOTGreen=1.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=51.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nb
How far have we got so far - 500,000 shots perhaps? Someone asked today for the number of vaccinations to be added to the daily figures for cases and deaths and that sounds a good idea if the information can be properly compiled.
10 million by Christmas looks a little challenging at this time - 1 million per week will take a year to get through the over 50s (25 million x 2 shots). There are 12 million over 65 so this is going to need more than a few soldiers and some fine words.
It is only 12 months ago nice Johnson won an 80 seat majority. There has certainly been some buyer's remorse since then.
Nobody on here with anything about them has suggested Labour would be Infront at this point. I certainly haven't. It has been my view that the vaccine and Sunak's 3rd tranche of furlough would have given the Conservatives a bounce. I am surprised it hasn't. I would also imagine a Brexit deal bounce for Johnson next week too.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1340388432569352193?s=20
What do you think the army would actually do that isn’t being done already?
EC predicts Tories +15. BUT. That is assuming 2019 vote shares. So probably nearer +12 on parity of votes.
So nearly. But not quite.
Doubt there will be UNS either.
1m per day = 30-31m per month.
Around 53 million adults in the UK = 1 month, 3 weeks, and 1 or 2 days.
When I got my flu jab this year it was in a car park
There were 4 nurses injecting those walking through
There was an appointment every 1 minute, they were there 9-5, Mon-Fri for a week
So 480 jabs a day by 4nurses is 600 jabs a week per nurse.
I make that to be ~230k nurse weeks required to vaccinate the whole nation
We need the nurses free to do the jabs, not be busy on the positive C-19 wards