If it isn't the UK, my money would be on somewhere like California, where there's been a huge growth in cases. And you'd expect anything from there to arrive in London first.
Where the virus originated is irrelevant - it appears to have emerged from a seriously ill and probably immune-compromised individual who survived long enough for the virus to mutate and reinfect others.
What does matter is its identification and the (emerging, but far from complete) understanding of its properties - in this, the UK has done the world a favour.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect recent "unexplained" explosions in case numbers in some European countries will find an explanation soon enough.
As to the border closures its what panicking governments not in command of the facts do - so its far from surprising.
Here are the contributions to the understanding of one of the strains:
https://nextstrain.org/groups/neherlab/ncov/S.N501?p=grid&r=country Argentina (6) Australia (329) Bahrain (13) Bangladesh (20) Belgium (1) Botswana (1) Brazil (26) Canada (60) Chile (25) China (56) Colombia (2) Czech Republic (1) Côte d'Ivoire (4) Democratic Republic of the Congo (17) Denmark (54) Ecuador (30) Egypt (5) Finland (1) France (37) Gambia (3) Georgia (1) Germany (6) Ghana (5) Greece (1) Hong Kong (9) Iceland (2) India (92) Indonesia (2) Israel (8) Italy (23) Japan (24) Jordan (1) Kenya (20) Luxembourg (3) Madagascar (1) Malaysia (1) Mexico (3) Morocco (5) Netherlands (75) New Zealand (46) Nigeria (7) North Macedonia (3) Norway (5) Oman (1) Pakistan (4) Palestine (1) Peru (125) Russia (12) Saint Barthélemy (1) Saint Martin (1) Saudi Arabia (24) Senegal (4) Sierra Leone (1) Singapore (36) Slovenia (3) South Africa (389) South Korea (6) Spain (10) Sri Lanka (5) Sweden (8) Switzerland (5) Taiwan (6) Thailand (11) Trinidad (3) Tunisia (11) USA (306) Uganda (1) United Arab Emirates (25) United Kingdom (1547) Uruguay (2) Vietnam (7)
The world's hardest hit country:
Belgium (1).
Very interesting point. No one has adequately explained why Belgium is such a tragic outlier. Its death toll is awful and its statistics aren’t collated so very differently.
Belgian Flu 2 it is
It has a lot to do with the relatively high proportion of the population in care homes. On a population adjusted basis well above ours.
Also a very dense country which is a nexus of European travel I presume.
England is more densely populated than Belgium
Really?
England, not the UK
But that has relatively little to do with it - as we see with the US
I thought Trump was to blame for the US rates? As ever you're never going to truly know the effect of something like density, but I'm sure it does make a difference.
If it isn't the UK, my money would be on somewhere like California, where there's been a huge growth in cases. And you'd expect anything from there to arrive in London first.
Where the virus originated is irrelevant - it appears to have emerged from a seriously ill and probably immune-compromised individual who survived long enough for the virus to mutate and reinfect others.
What does matter is its identification and the (emerging, but far from complete) understanding of its properties - in this, the UK has done the world a favour.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect recent "unexplained" explosions in case numbers in some European countries will find an explanation soon enough.
As to the border closures its what panicking governments not in command of the facts do - so its far from surprising.
Here are the contributions to the understanding of one of the strains:
https://nextstrain.org/groups/neherlab/ncov/S.N501?p=grid&r=country Argentina (6) Australia (329) Bahrain (13) Bangladesh (20) Belgium (1) Botswana (1) Brazil (26) Canada (60) Chile (25) China (56) Colombia (2) Czech Republic (1) Côte d'Ivoire (4) Democratic Republic of the Congo (17) Denmark (54) Ecuador (30) Egypt (5) Finland (1) France (37) Gambia (3) Georgia (1) Germany (6) Ghana (5) Greece (1) Hong Kong (9) Iceland (2) India (92) Indonesia (2) Israel (8) Italy (23) Japan (24) Jordan (1) Kenya (20) Luxembourg (3) Madagascar (1) Malaysia (1) Mexico (3) Morocco (5) Netherlands (75) New Zealand (46) Nigeria (7) North Macedonia (3) Norway (5) Oman (1) Pakistan (4) Palestine (1) Peru (125) Russia (12) Saint Barthélemy (1) Saint Martin (1) Saudi Arabia (24) Senegal (4) Sierra Leone (1) Singapore (36) Slovenia (3) South Africa (389) South Korea (6) Spain (10) Sri Lanka (5) Sweden (8) Switzerland (5) Taiwan (6) Thailand (11) Trinidad (3) Tunisia (11) USA (306) Uganda (1) United Arab Emirates (25) United Kingdom (1547) Uruguay (2) Vietnam (7)
The world's hardest hit country:
Belgium (1).
Very interesting point. No one has adequately explained why Belgium is such a tragic outlier. Its death toll is awful and its statistics aren’t collated so very differently.
Belgian Flu 2 it is
It has a lot to do with the relatively high proportion of the population in care homes. On a population adjusted basis well above ours.
Also a very dense country which is a nexus of European travel I presume.
England is more densely populated than Belgium
Really?
Yes
England: 426 per sq km Belgium: 383 per sq km
Blimey.
As has been mentioned many times during this, population density is a strange metric. the reality is that countries tend to be more densely populated than the headline figure. I suspect the effect is more exaggerated for England than for Belgium (i.e. a greater proportion of England is uninhabited compared with Belgium).
Another relevant metric is the proportion who live in a house with a garden rather than a small flat. Even in London it's remarkably high compared with, say, Paris or NYC. Or anywhere in north Italy. This has a bearing on mental health as well as infection. Whenever I see Parisians rioting (i.e. most weekends) I tend to think "who can blame them?" If I lived in a pokey 10th-floor walk-up I'd be out there with them.
Pausing Brexit is an arguable proposition, but, politically, for it to happen, it needs an extremely prominent Brexiteer MP to make the case. Remoaner MPs calling for this will simply be ignored, or worse.
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
SAGE were clearly incensed when we moved out of lockdown in early December. They made sure their latest initiative to restore their power could not be scrutinised by parliament.
And they know that Johnson is a very weak man, happy to sacrifice those who can hurt him least on any given day.
In this case the ordinary people of Britain.
You really do live in a fantasy world.
You live in the fantasy world where SAGE are objective and infallible saints despite a stack of hard evidence to the contrary. You do know that shagger Ferguson is on the NERVTAG team right?
If we don't see deaths start to rise very significantly before the end of the year, with this huge number of cases, something will be up. It's always worth staying realistic, rather than having your head in the clouds, and it's a hope rather than a prediction, but I very much hope that's the case.
The vaccination of the over 80s will help keep the death rate down so this needs to be factored in.
To everyone suggesting Bojo is not up to the job - and I agree his upbeat personality is a bad fit with Black Death - they also need to suggest their desired alternative.
Quite frankly, we aren’t blessed with gritty, ballsy, smart, capable, determined, inspiring and unflinching leaders.
The best I can come up with is Jeremy Hunt, which says it all.
Perfectly fresh fruit is rare, so we'll just settle for the piece that is the most rotten and mouldy? It's a view, I suppose.
So who do you suggest? That’s my question. My best yet disappointing answer is Hunt
Theresa May has the experience to do the job and is available. She also appears to be less prone to panicking than many other UK politicians.
We now face the possibility of blockage to UK trade with Europe that could lead to food shortages, rationing, and economic meltdown. Did it occur to anyone in the government, scientists or ministers or advisors, that this could be the results of this weekend's scary announcements? The matter has been overdramatised, at a time when the increased transmissibility of the new variant has not been proven yet. The Johnson government seems to be disintegrating before our eyes.
Christ no. TMay? The worst prime minister since Cameron.
Seriously, she’s dreadful. Her utterly moronic ‘red line’ Conference speech single handedly turned Brexit into a nightmare. Besides being ignorant, myopic, stubborn, awkward and vain, she is deeply boring in a Merkel-esque way, without any of the Teutonic competence of Merkel.
She’s probably a nice kind person and all that, and I wish her a happy retirement, but No
I've long thought that Hague was the 'under the bus' stand in reserve leader for the Tory party. I think it still applies whilst he's a Lord
Oh Dear , we have now really reached rock bottom
What's going to cheer us up if Malcolm gets ill!
Not planning on a repeat of last year Roger. Hopping to remain fit as a butchers dog this year.
If it isn't the UK, my money would be on somewhere like California, where there's been a huge growth in cases. And you'd expect anything from there to arrive in London first.
Where the virus originated is irrelevant - it appears to have emerged from a seriously ill and probably immune-compromised individual who survived long enough for the virus to mutate and reinfect others.
What does matter is its identification and the (emerging, but far from complete) understanding of its properties - in this, the UK has done the world a favour.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect recent "unexplained" explosions in case numbers in some European countries will find an explanation soon enough.
As to the border closures its what panicking governments not in command of the facts do - so its far from surprising.
Here are the contributions to the understanding of one of the strains:
https://nextstrain.org/groups/neherlab/ncov/S.N501?p=grid&r=country Argentina (6) Australia (329) Bahrain (13) Bangladesh (20) Belgium (1) Botswana (1) Brazil (26) Canada (60) Chile (25) China (56) Colombia (2) Czech Republic (1) Côte d'Ivoire (4) Democratic Republic of the Congo (17) Denmark (54) Ecuador (30) Egypt (5) Finland (1) France (37) Gambia (3) Georgia (1) Germany (6) Ghana (5) Greece (1) Hong Kong (9) Iceland (2) India (92) Indonesia (2) Israel (8) Italy (23) Japan (24) Jordan (1) Kenya (20) Luxembourg (3) Madagascar (1) Malaysia (1) Mexico (3) Morocco (5) Netherlands (75) New Zealand (46) Nigeria (7) North Macedonia (3) Norway (5) Oman (1) Pakistan (4) Palestine (1) Peru (125) Russia (12) Saint Barthélemy (1) Saint Martin (1) Saudi Arabia (24) Senegal (4) Sierra Leone (1) Singapore (36) Slovenia (3) South Africa (389) South Korea (6) Spain (10) Sri Lanka (5) Sweden (8) Switzerland (5) Taiwan (6) Thailand (11) Trinidad (3) Tunisia (11) USA (306) Uganda (1) United Arab Emirates (25) United Kingdom (1547) Uruguay (2) Vietnam (7)
The world's hardest hit country:
Belgium (1).
Very interesting point. No one has adequately explained why Belgium is such a tragic outlier. Its death toll is awful and its statistics aren’t collated so very differently.
Belgian Flu 2 it is
It has a lot to do with the relatively high proportion of the population in care homes. On a population adjusted basis well above ours.
Also a very dense country which is a nexus of European travel I presume.
England is more densely populated than Belgium
Really?
Yes
England: 426 per sq km Belgium: 383 per sq km
Blimey.
Although I see that Brussels is much denser than London.
No, that’s Wallonia.
Are you trying to work in an old old joke by Hack and Spitt the Flemish comedians?
If it isn't the UK, my money would be on somewhere like California, where there's been a huge growth in cases. And you'd expect anything from there to arrive in London first.
Where the virus originated is irrelevant - it appears to have emerged from a seriously ill and probably immune-compromised individual who survived long enough for the virus to mutate and reinfect others.
What does matter is its identification and the (emerging, but far from complete) understanding of its properties - in this, the UK has done the world a favour.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect recent "unexplained" explosions in case numbers in some European countries will find an explanation soon enough.
As to the border closures its what panicking governments not in command of the facts do - so its far from surprising.
Here are the contributions to the understanding of one of the strains:
https://nextstrain.org/groups/neherlab/ncov/S.N501?p=grid&r=country Argentina (6) Australia (329) Bahrain (13) Bangladesh (20) Belgium (1) Botswana (1) Brazil (26) Canada (60) Chile (25) China (56) Colombia (2) Czech Republic (1) Côte d'Ivoire (4) Democratic Republic of the Congo (17) Denmark (54) Ecuador (30) Egypt (5) Finland (1) France (37) Gambia (3) Georgia (1) Germany (6) Ghana (5) Greece (1) Hong Kong (9) Iceland (2) India (92) Indonesia (2) Israel (8) Italy (23) Japan (24) Jordan (1) Kenya (20) Luxembourg (3) Madagascar (1) Malaysia (1) Mexico (3) Morocco (5) Netherlands (75) New Zealand (46) Nigeria (7) North Macedonia (3) Norway (5) Oman (1) Pakistan (4) Palestine (1) Peru (125) Russia (12) Saint Barthélemy (1) Saint Martin (1) Saudi Arabia (24) Senegal (4) Sierra Leone (1) Singapore (36) Slovenia (3) South Africa (389) South Korea (6) Spain (10) Sri Lanka (5) Sweden (8) Switzerland (5) Taiwan (6) Thailand (11) Trinidad (3) Tunisia (11) USA (306) Uganda (1) United Arab Emirates (25) United Kingdom (1547) Uruguay (2) Vietnam (7)
The world's hardest hit country:
Belgium (1).
Very interesting point. No one has adequately explained why Belgium is such a tragic outlier. Its death toll is awful and its statistics aren’t collated so very differently.
Belgian Flu 2 it is
It has a lot to do with the relatively high proportion of the population in care homes. On a population adjusted basis well above ours.
Also a very dense country which is a nexus of European travel I presume.
England is more densely populated than Belgium
Really?
England, not the UK
But that has relatively little to do with it - as we see with the US
I thought Trump was to blame for the US rates? As ever you're never going to truly know the effect of something like density, but I'm sure it does make a difference.
Habits and behaviour are more important. It doesn't make any difference how spread out people's properties are, if they all drive miles into town for shopping and church and don't take proper precautions.
Residential density at a very local level makes a difference, because it implies larger households and an environment in which proper lockdown and social isolation is harder to achieve.
At a regional level, whether people live in towns or rural areas is obviously important, but again mostly to do with lifestyle rather than the physical environment.
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
SAGE were clearly incensed when we moved out of lockdown in early December. They made sure their latest initiative to restore their power could not be scrutinised by parliament.
And they know that Johnson is a very weak man, happy to sacrifice those who can hurt him least on any given day.
In this case the ordinary people of Britain.
You really do live in a fantasy world.
You live in the fantasy world where SAGE are objective and infallible saints despite a stack of hard evidence to the contrary. You do know that shagger Ferguson is on the NERVTAG team right?
If we don't see deaths start to rise very significantly before the end of the year, with this huge number of cases, something will be up. It's always worth staying realistic, rather than having your head in the clouds, and it's a hope rather than a prediction, but I very much hope that's the case.
The vaccination of the over 80s will help keep the death rate down so this needs to be factored in.
If it ever happens for some of us!
My old Pa was vaccinated last week. Cheer up. It is getting done. And stay safe until!
Same old Remainer die hards. Ellwood's been a broken record on this in recent weeks.
Neither side appears prepared to compromise on fish. Economically unimportant in the great scheme of things, but all coastal states seem to have some mystical view of fishermen. Maybe it's because they go out into the great unknown waters or something.
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
SAGE were clearly incensed when we moved out of lockdown in early December. They made sure their latest initiative to restore their power could not be scrutinised by parliament.
And they know that Johnson is a very weak man, happy to sacrifice those who can hurt him least on any given day.
In this case the ordinary people of Britain.
You really do live in a fantasy world.
You live in the fantasy world where SAGE are objective and infallible saints despite a stack of hard evidence to the contrary. You do know that shagger Ferguson is on the NERVTAG team right?
If we don't see deaths start to rise very significantly before the end of the year, with this huge number of cases, something will be up. It's always worth staying realistic, rather than having your head in the clouds, and it's a hope rather than a prediction, but I very much hope that's the case.
The vaccination of the over 80s will help keep the death rate down so this needs to be factored in.
If it ever happens for some of us!
My old Pa was vaccinated last week. Cheer up. It is getting done. And stay safe until!
You know who else had a father that was about to be vaccinated...
I hope it's clear to all that, even though Johnson didn't know of the superspreading powers of the mutant virus until the end of the week, there was ample evidence at the start of the week that the virus was not sufficiently under control for the Xmas plans of Nov 23rd to come into effect. Johnson was regularly invited to review his plans. And 2 leading British medical journals joined forces to warn there would be "another major error that will cost many lives" unless the government scrapped its plans. Myself I hope that Johnson's desire for popularity, alongside his mocking and jeering of Keir Starmer at Wednesday's PMQs, will be enough to render him extraordinarily unpopular.
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
SAGE were clearly incensed when we moved out of lockdown in early December. They made sure their latest initiative to restore their power could not be scrutinised by parliament.
And they know that Johnson is a very weak man, happy to sacrifice those who can hurt him least on any given day.
In this case the ordinary people of Britain.
You really do live in a fantasy world.
You live in the fantasy world where SAGE are objective and infallible saints despite a stack of hard evidence to the contrary. You do know that shagger Ferguson is on the NERVTAG team right?
If we don't see deaths start to rise very significantly before the end of the year, with this huge number of cases, something will be up. It's always worth staying realistic, rather than having your head in the clouds, and it's a hope rather than a prediction, but I very much hope that's the case.
The vaccination of the over 80s will help keep the death rate down so this needs to be factored in.
If it ever happens for some of us!
My old Pa was vaccinated last week. Cheer up. It is getting done. And stay safe until!
So @Leon I'm curious, what personality and life are you adopting for your current incarnation?
Don't be so rude to new posters! Now welcome our new friend politely.
Thankyou! I’ve got to go down the mine again today, to knap a special order of flint dildos from an older gentleman in Bedford, and all this personal flak is not making it easier.
Today is the darkest day with Xmas broken, business skint Covid rampant, black dismay And Leon only thinks of flint!
Had a nice Boris Johnson anecdote on the zoom call with my family last night. Apparently he used to think that everybody gets their rubbish collected on Mondays, because that's when his rubbish got picked up. Perhaps explains a lot about how this year has unfolded.
So @Leon I'm curious, what personality and life are you adopting for your current incarnation?
Don't be so rude to new posters! Now welcome our new friend politely.
Thankyou! I’ve got to go down the mine again today, to knap a special order of flint dildos from an older gentleman in Bedford, and all this personal flak is not making it easier.
Today is the darkest day with Xmas broken, business skint Covid rampant, black dismay And Leon only thinks of flint!
Yay. Donne has returned from the grave. Things can only get better.
If it isn't the UK, my money would be on somewhere like California, where there's been a huge growth in cases. And you'd expect anything from there to arrive in London first.
Where the virus originated is irrelevant - it appears to have emerged from a seriously ill and probably immune-compromised individual who survived long enough for the virus to mutate and reinfect others.
What does matter is its identification and the (emerging, but far from complete) understanding of its properties - in this, the UK has done the world a favour.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect recent "unexplained" explosions in case numbers in some European countries will find an explanation soon enough.
As to the border closures its what panicking governments not in command of the facts do - so its far from surprising.
Here are the contributions to the understanding of one of the strains:
https://nextstrain.org/groups/neherlab/ncov/S.N501?p=grid&r=country Argentina (6) Australia (329) Bahrain (13) Bangladesh (20) Belgium (1) Botswana (1) Brazil (26) Canada (60) Chile (25) China (56) Colombia (2) Czech Republic (1) Côte d'Ivoire (4) Democratic Republic of the Congo (17) Denmark (54) Ecuador (30) Egypt (5) Finland (1) France (37) Gambia (3) Georgia (1) Germany (6) Ghana (5) Greece (1) Hong Kong (9) Iceland (2) India (92) Indonesia (2) Israel (8) Italy (23) Japan (24) Jordan (1) Kenya (20) Luxembourg (3) Madagascar (1) Malaysia (1) Mexico (3) Morocco (5) Netherlands (75) New Zealand (46) Nigeria (7) North Macedonia (3) Norway (5) Oman (1) Pakistan (4) Palestine (1) Peru (125) Russia (12) Saint Barthélemy (1) Saint Martin (1) Saudi Arabia (24) Senegal (4) Sierra Leone (1) Singapore (36) Slovenia (3) South Africa (389) South Korea (6) Spain (10) Sri Lanka (5) Sweden (8) Switzerland (5) Taiwan (6) Thailand (11) Trinidad (3) Tunisia (11) USA (306) Uganda (1) United Arab Emirates (25) United Kingdom (1547) Uruguay (2) Vietnam (7)
The world's hardest hit country:
Belgium (1).
Very interesting point. No one has adequately explained why Belgium is such a tragic outlier. Its death toll is awful and its statistics aren’t collated so very differently.
Belgian Flu 2 it is
It has a lot to do with the relatively high proportion of the population in care homes. On a population adjusted basis well above ours.
Also a very dense country which is a nexus of European travel I presume.
England is more densely populated than Belgium
Really?
Yes
England: 426 per sq km Belgium: 383 per sq km
Blimey.
As has been mentioned many times during this, population density is a strange metric. the reality is that countries tend to be more densely populated than the headline figure. I suspect the effect is more exaggerated for England than for Belgium (i.e. a greater proportion of England is uninhabited compared with Belgium).
Another relevant metric is the proportion who live in a house with a garden rather than a small flat. Even in London it's remarkably high compared with, say, Paris or NYC. Or anywhere in north Italy. This has a bearing on mental health as well as infection. Whenever I see Parisians rioting (i.e. most weekends) I tend to think "who can blame them?" If I lived in a pokey 10th-floor walk-up I'd be out there with them.
Yes but just one step outside your front door and you are in the finest capital city in the world. Small enough to walk around and enough places of interest to entertain you for years
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
If you can't see why Wednesday's attitude is a problem then I can't help you. However, were someone to try and pull that trick on a client, I would be asking them to explain what evidence they had on Wednesday to justify their attitude that day and considering whether to keep them in that role.
PMQs is Punch and Judy. Always has been. Starmer stokes that by going on the attack every week and Boris feeds into it too. C'est la vie, why get hung up on Punch and Judy gibberish from either side?
The science changed on Thursday. They immediately acted. When the facts change you need to change your mind, he did and acted quickly.
Boris on Wednesday - Christmas is fine Starmer is lying
Boris on Saturday - Christmas is off and it's off in ways you can't imagine 30 seconds earlier.
The fact it's punch and Judy means there are times you should be more careful in what you say and Wednesday was one of those days.
The Government went from possibility of an issue, to nothing to worry about and then to it's Cancelled in under a week.
And it's the middle bit there that is a problem as it wasn't necessary it was there to score points and it rather backfired.
Half my life is spent doing expectation management and Boris last week is a textbook example on how to complete screw it up by building up false hope after the initial there is a potential problem statement has been issued.
NERVTAG reported between Wednesday and Saturday.
When the facts change you change your mind. All you are doing is emphasising how rapidly and agily Boris was able to pivot and adjust to the post-NERVTAG new reality. Kudos Boris, well done.
You are missing the point - we knew there was a problem on Monday - the only thing we didn't know was the scale of it.
When the facts change you change your mind
There are no facts. The 70% quicker transmission of the disease is not a fact. It is still a hypothesis. The strength of the new strain is also completely unknown and will be for weeks.
Minds are being changed on shrill hypotheses from a body that has a track record of form in shrill hypotheses.
You don't understand science clearly.
It is a hypothesis based on facts.
I asked earlier today whether anyone could give a precise definition of “moderate confidence” in the NERVTAG context and noone’s been able to answer beyond their own woolly everyday definition.
I assume you all aware that JFK ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion based upon a misunderstanding of what a “fair chance of success” meant? He thought that meant a good chance or “more likely than not” chance. The Joint Chiefs definition was actually 3 to 1 against.
However extending our membership of the SM and CU beyond January would be terrible for the Tories and lead to mass defections to Farage exactly as happened from spring 2019 when May delayed Brexit.
65% of Tory voters and 63% of Leave voters oppose extending the transition period
The best option for Boris and the Tories is to agree a basic Canada style trade deal with the EU, however even No Deal would be better than extending the transition period for the party if that cannot be agreed by January
When the government made the announcement on Saturday did they expect other countries to stop travel ?
I wonder if they didn't because its not something they would have done if the position was reversed.
I think this is a fair question. To be able to anticipate a reaction you need to think like them. Or be caught by surprise.
Alternatively they may have been so focussed on domestic message, didn’t realise they were talking to the world. “We’ve passed what we know to WHO?” For example. Is that all you share it with and talk to?
Maybe things would be different if we hadn't left the EU. I imagine many EU countries currently feel a certain hostility towards the UK whose government seem to think that a nation's sovereignty provides it with a right to play havoc with the livelihoods of people in other nations. (I'm thinking specifically of EU fisherpeople.) NOTE: even if we'd remained in the EU, we would still have been able to use the Pfizer vaccine as early as we did.
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
SAGE were clearly incensed when we moved out of lockdown in early December. They made sure their latest initiative to restore their power could not be scrutinised by parliament.
And they know that Johnson is a very weak man, happy to sacrifice those who can hurt him least on any given day.
In this case the ordinary people of Britain.
You really do live in a fantasy world.
You live in the fantasy world where SAGE are objective and infallible saints despite a stack of hard evidence to the contrary. You do know that shagger Ferguson is on the NERVTAG team right?
If we don't see deaths start to rise very significantly before the end of the year, with this huge number of cases, something will be up. It's always worth staying realistic, rather than having your head in the clouds, and it's a hope rather than a prediction, but I very much hope that's the case.
The vaccination of the over 80s will help keep the death rate down so this needs to be factored in.
If it ever happens for some of us!
My old Pa was vaccinated last week. Cheer up. It is getting done. And stay safe until!
If it isn't the UK, my money would be on somewhere like California, where there's been a huge growth in cases. And you'd expect anything from there to arrive in London first.
Where the virus originated is irrelevant - it appears to have emerged from a seriously ill and probably immune-compromised individual who survived long enough for the virus to mutate and reinfect others.
What does matter is its identification and the (emerging, but far from complete) understanding of its properties - in this, the UK has done the world a favour.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect recent "unexplained" explosions in case numbers in some European countries will find an explanation soon enough.
As to the border closures its what panicking governments not in command of the facts do - so its far from surprising.
Here are the contributions to the understanding of one of the strains:
https://nextstrain.org/groups/neherlab/ncov/S.N501?p=grid&r=country Argentina (6) Australia (329) Bahrain (13) Bangladesh (20) Belgium (1) Botswana (1) Brazil (26) Canada (60) Chile (25) China (56) Colombia (2) Czech Republic (1) Côte d'Ivoire (4) Democratic Republic of the Congo (17) Denmark (54) Ecuador (30) Egypt (5) Finland (1) France (37) Gambia (3) Georgia (1) Germany (6) Ghana (5) Greece (1) Hong Kong (9) Iceland (2) India (92) Indonesia (2) Israel (8) Italy (23) Japan (24) Jordan (1) Kenya (20) Luxembourg (3) Madagascar (1) Malaysia (1) Mexico (3) Morocco (5) Netherlands (75) New Zealand (46) Nigeria (7) North Macedonia (3) Norway (5) Oman (1) Pakistan (4) Palestine (1) Peru (125) Russia (12) Saint Barthélemy (1) Saint Martin (1) Saudi Arabia (24) Senegal (4) Sierra Leone (1) Singapore (36) Slovenia (3) South Africa (389) South Korea (6) Spain (10) Sri Lanka (5) Sweden (8) Switzerland (5) Taiwan (6) Thailand (11) Trinidad (3) Tunisia (11) USA (306) Uganda (1) United Arab Emirates (25) United Kingdom (1547) Uruguay (2) Vietnam (7)
The world's hardest hit country:
Belgium (1).
Very interesting point. No one has adequately explained why Belgium is such a tragic outlier. Its death toll is awful and its statistics aren’t collated so very differently.
Belgian Flu 2 it is
It has a lot to do with the relatively high proportion of the population in care homes. On a population adjusted basis well above ours.
Also a very dense country which is a nexus of European travel I presume.
England is more densely populated than Belgium
Really?
Yes
England: 426 per sq km Belgium: 383 per sq km
Blimey.
As has been mentioned many times during this, population density is a strange metric. the reality is that countries tend to be more densely populated than the headline figure. I suspect the effect is more exaggerated for England than for Belgium (i.e. a greater proportion of England is uninhabited compared with Belgium).
Another relevant metric is the proportion who live in a house with a garden rather than a small flat. Even in London it's remarkably high compared with, say, Paris or NYC. Or anywhere in north Italy. This has a bearing on mental health as well as infection. Whenever I see Parisians rioting (i.e. most weekends) I tend to think "who can blame them?" If I lived in a pokey 10th-floor walk-up I'd be out there with them.
Rather unnoticed, NYC is potentially suffering worse than anywhere, economically
Put it another way: we worry about the post-Covid future of London (rightly) but the threat to New York is much greater. New York City has worse crime, more guns, harsher winters, and is all about skyscrapers. Pandemic central.
Moreover, American bankers based in nyc, who now want to WFH, have the generous choice of moving to sunny Florida or Arizona or Texas, British bankers in the same boat must choose between london or somewhere absurdly cold and horrible (Scotland), or somewhere very near London anyway. And london has more green space near the centre
I think New York is headed for a repeat of the 1970s
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
SAGE were clearly incensed when we moved out of lockdown in early December. They made sure their latest initiative to restore their power could not be scrutinised by parliament.
And they know that Johnson is a very weak man, happy to sacrifice those who can hurt him least on any given day.
In this case the ordinary people of Britain.
You really do live in a fantasy world.
You live in the fantasy world where SAGE are objective and infallible saints despite a stack of hard evidence to the contrary. You do know that shagger Ferguson is on the NERVTAG team right?
If we don't see deaths start to rise very significantly before the end of the year, with this huge number of cases, something will be up. It's always worth staying realistic, rather than having your head in the clouds, and it's a hope rather than a prediction, but I very much hope that's the case.
The vaccination of the over 80s will help keep the death rate down so this needs to be factored in.
If it ever happens for some of us!
My old Pa was vaccinated last week. Cheer up. It is getting done. And stay safe until!
Vaccinating imaginary people is very easy
The author of "Ararat" amongst other fine works.
Really? I’ll have to take your word on its quality. Not one I Noah.
Reading the NERVTAG comments, they are....er.....'moderately confident' the strain is up to 70% quicker in transmission.
So our freedoms are being curtailed and our economy smashed on the 'moderate confidence' of a group of scientists whose predictions have often been found to be very, very flawed, and the premise of whose work is profoundly disputed by other in some cases eminent scientists.
Covid is over everyone. Let's get back to normal.
When the government shut us down first, they told us a massive lie. They told us the shutdown was to beef up capacity in the NHS.
Just today, in the BBC's report, nine months on, came the truth from the NHS. We never, ever had the staff to increase NHS capacity, either then or in the near future.
Given the huge lie we were told then, surely we should be questioning everything the government tells us. Everything the SAGE committee tells us. Everything Sky News tells us.
You sound a bit paranoid - I doubt if anyone is systematically lying. The problem is more the one identified by Johnson's former speechwriter in the header - given uncertainty, Johnson's instinct is to hope for the best and tell people it'll be OK. In a period with great uncertainty, what we need is a "goalkeeper" type, constantly on the alert for possible threats and never relying on good fortune.
The new virus strain is a good example. It appears to be better at spreading. We don't know much more yet - there are scientific reasons to think the vacccinations will still work against it (though we're not yet sure). But it may or may not be more or less likely to kill you, and that will become clear in about 2-3 weeks as the current infections works through. A goalkeeper response to that is to assume it's worse in every way until research shows otherwise. Lock down everywhere, including areas with currently lower levels of infection. Don't hope it'll be no worse and wait to find out.
Contrarian, Rotten Borough and a few more here have the right suspicions. Otherwise this site apparently changed in the spring to Coronachondria.com with few able to think for themselves.
When I last posted on here I was called a loon. Most unfortunate language ... suggests that the person using it doesn't want a debate.
A senior medic (Prof Carl Heneghan, Oxford) has resorted to asking on Twitter for the scientific evidence that the 'mutant virus' is more infectious. Yesterday evening, he seemed to have had no reply.
Reading the NERVTAG comments, they are....er.....'moderately confident' the strain is up to 70% quicker in transmission.
So our freedoms are being curtailed and our economy smashed on the 'moderate confidence' of a group of scientists whose predictions have often been found to be very, very flawed, and the premise of whose work is profoundly disputed by other in some cases eminent scientists.
Covid is over everyone. Let's get back to normal.
When the government shut us down first, they told us a massive lie. They told us the shutdown was to beef up capacity in the NHS.
Just today, in the BBC's report, nine months on, came the truth from the NHS. We never, ever had the staff to increase NHS capacity, either then or in the near future.
Given the huge lie we were told then, surely we should be questioning everything the government tells us. Everything the SAGE committee tells us. Everything Sky News tells us.
You sound a bit paranoid - I doubt if anyone is systematically lying. The problem is more the one identified by Johnson's former speechwriter in the header - given uncertainty, Johnson's instinct is to hope for the best and tell people it'll be OK. In a period with great uncertainty, what we need is a "goalkeeper" type, constantly on the alert for possible threats and never relying on good fortune.
The new virus strain is a good example. It appears to be better at spreading. We don't know much more yet - there are scientific reasons to think the vacccinations will still work against it (though we're not yet sure). But it may or may not be more or less likely to kill you, and that will become clear in about 2-3 weeks as the current infections works through. A goalkeeper response to that is to assume it's worse in every way until research shows otherwise. Lock down everywhere, including areas with currently lower levels of infection. Don't hope it'll be no worse and wait to find out.
Contrarian, Rotten Borough and a few more here have the right suspicions. Otherwise this site apparently changed in the spring to Coronachondria.com with few able to think for themselves.
When I last posted on here I was called a loon. Most unfortunate language ... suggests that the person using it doesn't want a debate.
A senior medic (Prof Carl Heneghan, Oxford) has resorted to asking on Twitter for the scientific evidence that the 'mutant virus' is more infectious. Yesterday evening, he seemed to have had no reply.
Not a lot of help having the right suspicions if, when data is presented, you dismiss it as falsified or misleading because it conflicts with your theories (as contrarian invariably does, usually with the very abuse you so decry as indicating an absence of argument).
"Tier Four until Easter: Neil Ferguson warns draconian Tier Four measures may be needed for months after Matt Hancock hints millions more could be plunged into lockdown with Covid now 'out of control'"
If it isn't the UK, my money would be on somewhere like California, where there's been a huge growth in cases. And you'd expect anything from there to arrive in London first.
Where the virus originated is irrelevant - it appears to have emerged from a seriously ill and probably immune-compromised individual who survived long enough for the virus to mutate and reinfect others.
What does matter is its identification and the (emerging, but far from complete) understanding of its properties - in this, the UK has done the world a favour.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect recent "unexplained" explosions in case numbers in some European countries will find an explanation soon enough.
As to the border closures its what panicking governments not in command of the facts do - so its far from surprising.
Here are the contributions to the understanding of one of the strains:
https://nextstrain.org/groups/neherlab/ncov/S.N501?p=grid&r=country Argentina (6) Australia (329) Bahrain (13) Bangladesh (20) Belgium (1) Botswana (1) Brazil (26) Canada (60) Chile (25) China (56) Colombia (2) Czech Republic (1) Côte d'Ivoire (4) Democratic Republic of the Congo (17) Denmark (54) Ecuador (30) Egypt (5) Finland (1) France (37) Gambia (3) Georgia (1) Germany (6) Ghana (5) Greece (1) Hong Kong (9) Iceland (2) India (92) Indonesia (2) Israel (8) Italy (23) Japan (24) Jordan (1) Kenya (20) Luxembourg (3) Madagascar (1) Malaysia (1) Mexico (3) Morocco (5) Netherlands (75) New Zealand (46) Nigeria (7) North Macedonia (3) Norway (5) Oman (1) Pakistan (4) Palestine (1) Peru (125) Russia (12) Saint Barthélemy (1) Saint Martin (1) Saudi Arabia (24) Senegal (4) Sierra Leone (1) Singapore (36) Slovenia (3) South Africa (389) South Korea (6) Spain (10) Sri Lanka (5) Sweden (8) Switzerland (5) Taiwan (6) Thailand (11) Trinidad (3) Tunisia (11) USA (306) Uganda (1) United Arab Emirates (25) United Kingdom (1547) Uruguay (2) Vietnam (7)
The world's hardest hit country:
Belgium (1).
Very interesting point. No one has adequately explained why Belgium is such a tragic outlier. Its death toll is awful and its statistics aren’t collated so very differently.
Belgian Flu 2 it is
It has a lot to do with the relatively high proportion of the population in care homes. On a population adjusted basis well above ours.
Also a very dense country which is a nexus of European travel I presume.
England is more densely populated than Belgium
Really?
Yes
England: 426 per sq km Belgium: 383 per sq km
Blimey.
As has been mentioned many times during this, population density is a strange metric. the reality is that countries tend to be more densely populated than the headline figure. I suspect the effect is more exaggerated for England than for Belgium (i.e. a greater proportion of England is uninhabited compared with Belgium).
Another relevant metric is the proportion who live in a house with a garden rather than a small flat. Even in London it's remarkably high compared with, say, Paris or NYC. Or anywhere in north Italy. This has a bearing on mental health as well as infection. Whenever I see Parisians rioting (i.e. most weekends) I tend to think "who can blame them?" If I lived in a pokey 10th-floor walk-up I'd be out there with them.
Yes but just one step outside your front door and you are in the finest capital city in the world. Small enough to walk around and enough places of interest to entertain you for years
“Small enough to walk around”. Jesus. You are a caricature. You are aware Paris extends beyond the Gare du Nord? You should have a chat with some of the people who live in, say, St Denis. See if they recognise your description of their city.
You’re like people who come to London who only go to Notting hill and Harrods and love how integrated the city is
Same old Remainer die hards. Ellwood's been a broken record on this in recent weeks.
Trouble is old chap that in this instance he is right. Whilst it may not be the right thing for Johnson to do for his career it is the right thing to do for the country and, in the longer term, for Brexit. It is sad that people are so wedded to random dates that they fail to see this.
Same old Remainer die hards. Ellwood's been a broken record on this in recent weeks.
Trouble is old chap that in this instance he is right. Whilst it may not be the right thing for Johnson to do for his career it is the right thing to do for the country and, in the longer term, for Brexit. It is sad that people are so wedded to random dates that they fail to see this.
I don't think a date in particular matters, I just think there's always going to be an excuse why to kick the can.
And getting any disruption over and done with now while more people are sat at home and not on the roads or going through the borders seems more logical than kicking the can and postponing it to a later date.
However extending our membership of the SM and CU beyond January would be terrible for the Tories and lead to mass defections to Farage exactly as happened from spring 2019 when May delayed Brexit.
65% of Tory voters and 63% of Leave voters oppose extending the transition period
The best option for Boris and the Tories is to agree a basic Canada style trade deal with the EU, however even No Deal would be better than extending the transition period for the party if that cannot be agreed by January
January? The end of this month, or next week adds a little more urgency to the matter
Same old Remainer die hards. Ellwood's been a broken record on this in recent weeks.
Trouble is old chap that in this instance he is right. Whilst it may not be the right thing for Johnson to do for his career it is the right thing to do for the country and, in the longer term, for Brexit. It is sad that people are so wedded to random dates that they fail to see this.
I can't for the life of me see why the ultras want a No Deal Brexit now with all the chaos in middle of pandemic. Pretty good way of swinging public approval back towards rejoin/join customs union/sm very quickly.
Whatever the motivations, the underlying decision is right and it is a shame a few more countries aren't doing this on a regular basis. France has not been afraid to close its borders when it sees a threat to its health and security and it would help if people were a little less wedded to the concept that trade trumps all.
Same old Remainer die hards. Ellwood's been a broken record on this in recent weeks.
Trouble is old chap that in this instance he is right. Whilst it may not be the right thing for Johnson to do for his career it is the right thing to do for the country and, in the longer term, for Brexit. It is sad that people are so wedded to random dates that they fail to see this.
I can't for the life of me see why the ultras want a No Deal Brexit now with all the chaos in middle of pandemic. Pretty good way of swinging public approval back towards rejoin/join customs union/sm very quickly.
Thing is, even if you think a No Deal Brexit would be best, it has to be better to get to that point through a reasoned exhaustion of the arguments rather than because of a random expiry date in the midst of the greatest world wide crisis since 1962.
Same old Remainer die hards. Ellwood's been a broken record on this in recent weeks.
Trouble is old chap that in this instance he is right. Whilst it may not be the right thing for Johnson to do for his career it is the right thing to do for the country and, in the longer term, for Brexit. It is sad that people are so wedded to random dates that they fail to see this.
I can't for the life of me see why the ultras want a No Deal Brexit now with all the chaos in middle of pandemic. Pretty good way of swinging public approval back towards rejoin/join customs union/sm very quickly.
If you're going to have a No Deal Brexit then why get through the pandemic, through to the other side and then have a No Deal Brexit with all the chaos it entails?
If you're going to have a chaotic No Deal Brexit then get it over and done with now. Get through the chaos in one go and look to rebuild once we are through to the other side.
If you're going to have a Deal then agree it now and put this uncertainty behind us.
Waitrose at 7:30 this morning was manic..the middle classes are panicing.
Not sure if you noticed, but millions of people's plans were changed on Saturday. They're buying food for 3 days they were planning to be away...
Correct. My wife popped round to see Auntie and her friend (they live next to each other) and stood at doors. Auntie was overloaded with food. Family were due to come up (from London - Tier 4). Now all cancelled. Friend has no food in - was due to travel to London to see family!
Friend will go out to buy food therefore.... though if they both thought on, Auntie would just give excess to friend.... but that might be too much.
To everyone suggesting Bojo is not up to the job - and I agree his upbeat personality is a bad fit with Black Death - they also need to suggest their desired alternative.
Quite frankly, we aren’t blessed with gritty, ballsy, smart, capable, determined, inspiring and unflinching leaders.
The best I can come up with is Jeremy Hunt, which says it all.
Perfectly fresh fruit is rare, so we'll just settle for the piece that is the most rotten and mouldy? It's a view, I suppose.
So who do you suggest? That’s my question. My best yet disappointing answer is Hunt
Theresa May has the experience to do the job and is available. She also appears to be less prone to panicking than many other UK politicians.
We now face the possibility of blockage to UK trade with Europe that could lead to food shortages, rationing, and economic meltdown. Did it occur to anyone in the government, scientists or ministers or advisors, that this could be the results of this weekend's scary announcements? The matter has been overdramatised, at a time when the increased transmissibility of the new variant has not been proven yet. The Johnson government seems to be disintegrating before our eyes.
Christ no. TMay? The worst prime minister since Cameron.
Seriously, she’s dreadful. Her utterly moronic ‘red line’ Conference speech single handedly turned Brexit into a nightmare. Besides being ignorant, myopic, stubborn, awkward and vain, she is deeply boring in a Merkel-esque way, without any of the Teutonic competence of Merkel.
She’s probably a nice kind person and all that, and I wish her a happy retirement, but No
I've long thought that Hague was the 'under the bus' stand in reserve leader for the Tory party. I think it still applies whilst he's a Lord
Oh Dear , we have now really reached rock bottom
What's going to cheer us up if Malcolm gets ill!
Not planning on a repeat of last year Roger. Hopping to remain fit as a butchers dog this year.
Fingers crossed. The hopping is good aerobic exercise and will help to boost your immune system.
Same old Remainer die hards. Ellwood's been a broken record on this in recent weeks.
Trouble is old chap that in this instance he is right. Whilst it may not be the right thing for Johnson to do for his career it is the right thing to do for the country and, in the longer term, for Brexit. It is sad that people are so wedded to random dates that they fail to see this.
I can't for the life of me see why the ultras want a No Deal Brexit now with all the chaos in middle of pandemic. Pretty good way of swinging public approval back towards rejoin/join customs union/sm very quickly.
Thing is, even if you think a No Deal Brexit would be best, it has to be better to get to that point through a reasoned exhaustion of the arguments rather than because of a random expiry date in the midst of the greatest world wide crisis since 1962.
We've had a reasoned exhaustion of the arguments.
If a deal is agreeable then agree it. If its not then c'est la vie.
What is the purpose of kicking the can? Why not just agree the deal today if one is agreeable?
A senior medic (Prof Carl Heneghan, Oxford) has resorted to asking on Twitter for the scientific evidence that the 'mutant virus' is more infectious. Yesterday evening, he seemed to have had no reply.
Of course, what a "senior medic" does when they want to know whether something is true is they ask Twitter. It's the new Scientific Method!
A republican Senate. Biden is stalemated. Nothing will get done.
I can see a younger, smarter, savvier, undemented populist Republican candidate sweeping to power in 2024.
The American left got lucky with Trump. He’s an odious cretin, who can barely talk, and who, nonetheless, nearly won. The Left may not get lucky next time.
However extending our membership of the SM and CU beyond January would be terrible for the Tories and lead to mass defections to Farage exactly as happened from spring 2019 when May delayed Brexit.
65% of Tory voters and 63% of Leave voters oppose extending the transition period
The best option for Boris and the Tories is to agree a basic Canada style trade deal with the EU, however even No Deal would be better than extending the transition period for the party if that cannot be agreed by January
We are 4 years out from a General Election. Johnson moving the date by a month or two will have absolutely no impact on what people think in 4 years time. What will matter to Johnson at the next election is whether or not he can reasonably claim that Brexit has been a success. The fact that 4 years earlier it happened 30 or 60 days later than planned will be completely immaterial.
Reading the NERVTAG comments, they are....er.....'moderately confident' the strain is up to 70% quicker in transmission.
So our freedoms are being curtailed and our economy smashed on the 'moderate confidence' of a group of scientists whose predictions have often been found to be very, very flawed, and the premise of whose work is profoundly disputed by other in some cases eminent scientists.
Covid is over everyone. Let's get back to normal.
When the government shut us down first, they told us a massive lie. They told us the shutdown was to beef up capacity in the NHS.
Just today, in the BBC's report, nine months on, came the truth from the NHS. We never, ever had the staff to increase NHS capacity, either then or in the near future.
Given the huge lie we were told then, surely we should be questioning everything the government tells us. Everything the SAGE committee tells us. Everything Sky News tells us.
You sound a bit paranoid - I doubt if anyone is systematically lying. The problem is more the one identified by Johnson's former speechwriter in the header - given uncertainty, Johnson's instinct is to hope for the best and tell people it'll be OK. In a period with great uncertainty, what we need is a "goalkeeper" type, constantly on the alert for possible threats and never relying on good fortune.
The new virus strain is a good example. It appears to be better at spreading. We don't know much more yet - there are scientific reasons to think the vacccinations will still work against it (though we're not yet sure). But it may or may not be more or less likely to kill you, and that will become clear in about 2-3 weeks as the current infections works through. A goalkeeper response to that is to assume it's worse in every way until research shows otherwise. Lock down everywhere, including areas with currently lower levels of infection. Don't hope it'll be no worse and wait to find out.
Contrarian, Rotten Borough and a few more here have the right suspicions. Otherwise this site apparently changed in the spring to Coronachondria.com with few able to think for themselves.
When I last posted on here I was called a loon. Most unfortunate language ... suggests that the person using it doesn't want a debate.
A senior medic (Prof Carl Heneghan, Oxford) has resorted to asking on Twitter for the scientific evidence that the 'mutant virus' is more infectious. Yesterday evening, he seemed to have had no reply.
OK. I take back what I said in his defence, if he's questioning whether it is more infectious.
However extending our membership of the SM and CU beyond January would be terrible for the Tories and lead to mass defections to Farage exactly as happened from spring 2019 when May delayed Brexit.
65% of Tory voters and 63% of Leave voters oppose extending the transition period
The best option for Boris and the Tories is to agree a basic Canada style trade deal with the EU, however even No Deal would be better than extending the transition period for the party if that cannot be agreed by January
We are 4 years out from a General Election. Johnson moving the date by a month or two will have absolutely no impact on what people think in 4 years time. What will matter to Johnson at the next election is whether or not he can reasonably claim that Brexit has been a success. The fact that 4 years earlier it happened 30 or 60 days later than planned will be completely immaterial.
If moving the date by a month or two would achieve something then sure. But what would it achieve?
Would we miraculously get a magical deal that can't be agreed today? Would we miraculously get through No Deal easier? Or would we just drag out the chaos in Dover as No Deal planning gets ripped up and kicked for two months then we're in the exact same dance again?
On topic of course today's headlines are going to be poor for Boris and he undoubtedly is not the politician for this crisis.
I doubt Starmer or May would have been any better though I would think that Hunt would be
However, the talk of replacing Boris in reality is hope over expectation unless he resigns and I see very little likelihood of that happening
The news that the impasse on HGVs is on the way to being resolved is good news
The European markets have slumped and more than the UK due to the expectation the mutant virus is across Europe, so lots to worry policymakers today
Neither Starmer or May would have spent Wednesday's PMQs joking about things that then became true 3 days later.
Both would have enough sense to see that that could play out very badly.
Prior to the NERVTAG report that changed everything.
And the PMQs hasn't changed anything. You love to bang on about it but it makes no difference. If Starmer is going to spend every damn PMQs trying to score points off Boris then inevitably Boris is going to respond. It is the Punch and Judy nature of PMQs that always happens.
If NERVTAG is so important I will refer you to the fact the new mutation was explicitly referenced on Monday as London was sent (outside of normal timetable) into tier 3.
That only shows that the issue was known to be very serious.
Serious enough to justify Tier 3 yes.
Not known to be serious enough to justify Tier 4 and worldwide panic.
Probably because the world saw things as:-
Monday - there is a problem but we are working on resolving it.
Wednesday - we've fixed the issue
Thursday - standard tidying up.
Saturday - PANIC..
That's not a good look for any Government and you have to remember that for a lot of the South East it went Friday Tier 2, Saturday Tier 3, Sunday Brand new Tier 4 with zero real notice.
Because NERVTAG reported on Thursday afternoon yes.
But don't let actual facts get in the way with your pointscoring agenda. I'm sure there's enough gullible fools to believe NERVTAG are engaged in this conspiracy you are inventing.
Maybe they really are SCEPTRE. Maybe they invented it. You might be on to something - does Boris own a cat?
If you can't see why Wednesday's attitude is a problem then I can't help you. However, were someone to try and pull that trick on a client, I would be asking them to explain what evidence they had on Wednesday to justify their attitude that day and considering whether to keep them in that role.
PMQs is Punch and Judy. Always has been. Starmer stokes that by going on the attack every week and Boris feeds into it too. C'est la vie, why get hung up on Punch and Judy gibberish from either side?
The science changed on Thursday. They immediately acted. When the facts change you need to change your mind, he did and acted quickly.
Boris on Wednesday - Christmas is fine Starmer is lying
Boris on Saturday - Christmas is off and it's off in ways you can't imagine 30 seconds earlier.
The fact it's punch and Judy means there are times you should be more careful in what you say and Wednesday was one of those days.
The Government went from possibility of an issue, to nothing to worry about and then to it's Cancelled in under a week.
And it's the middle bit there that is a problem as it wasn't necessary it was there to score points and it rather backfired.
Half my life is spent doing expectation management and Boris last week is a textbook example on how to complete screw it up by building up false hope after the initial there is a potential problem statement has been issued.
NERVTAG reported between Wednesday and Saturday.
When the facts change you change your mind. All you are doing is emphasising how rapidly and agily Boris was able to pivot and adjust to the post-NERVTAG new reality. Kudos Boris, well done.
You are missing the point - we knew there was a problem on Monday - the only thing we didn't know was the scale of it.
When the facts change you change your mind
There are no facts. The 70% quicker transmission of the disease is not a fact. It is still a hypothesis. The strength of the new strain is also completely unknown and will be for weeks.
Minds are being changed on shrill hypotheses from a body that has a track record of form in shrill hypotheses.
You don't understand science clearly.
It is a hypothesis based on facts.
I asked earlier today whether anyone could give a precise definition of “moderate confidence” in the NERVTAG context and noone’s been able to answer beyond their own woolly everyday definition.
I assume you all aware that JFK ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion based upon a misunderstanding of what a “fair chance of success” meant? He thought that meant a good chance or “more likely than not” chance. The Joint Chiefs definition was actually 3 to 1 against.
Er, a perfectly understandable reaction to a new plague across The Channel?
So why abandon it so quickly?
Because they realised how much pain it would cause to everyone, including France.
Can you honestly not see HMG doing the same?
Black Death in Calais! is the Mail headline. The government would close Dover, in panic (justified or not). 12 hours later the economic ramifications would be obvious and a new arrangement would be quickly conjured, and HMG would say “we are protecting the health of Britons AND the economy”. Etc.
Reading the NERVTAG comments, they are....er.....'moderately confident' the strain is up to 70% quicker in transmission.
So our freedoms are being curtailed and our economy smashed on the 'moderate confidence' of a group of scientists whose predictions have often been found to be very, very flawed, and the premise of whose work is profoundly disputed by other in some cases eminent scientists.
Covid is over everyone. Let's get back to normal.
When the government shut us down first, they told us a massive lie. They told us the shutdown was to beef up capacity in the NHS.
Just today, in the BBC's report, nine months on, came the truth from the NHS. We never, ever had the staff to increase NHS capacity, either then or in the near future.
Given the huge lie we were told then, surely we should be questioning everything the government tells us. Everything the SAGE committee tells us. Everything Sky News tells us.
You sound a bit paranoid - I doubt if anyone is systematically lying. The problem is more the one identified by Johnson's former speechwriter in the header - given uncertainty, Johnson's instinct is to hope for the best and tell people it'll be OK. In a period with great uncertainty, what we need is a "goalkeeper" type, constantly on the alert for possible threats and never relying on good fortune.
The new virus strain is a good example. It appears to be better at spreading. We don't know much more yet - there are scientific reasons to think the vacccinations will still work against it (though we're not yet sure). But it may or may not be more or less likely to kill you, and that will become clear in about 2-3 weeks as the current infections works through. A goalkeeper response to that is to assume it's worse in every way until research shows otherwise. Lock down everywhere, including areas with currently lower levels of infection. Don't hope it'll be no worse and wait to find out.
Contrarian, Rotten Borough and a few more here have the right suspicions. Otherwise this site apparently changed in the spring to Coronachondria.com with few able to think for themselves.
When I last posted on here I was called a loon. Most unfortunate language ... suggests that the person using it doesn't want a debate.
A senior medic (Prof Carl Heneghan, Oxford) has resorted to asking on Twitter for the scientific evidence that the 'mutant virus' is more infectious. Yesterday evening, he seemed to have had no reply.
if you are going to call other people unable to think for themselves there's a limit to the amount of umbrage you can take, surely, at people pointing out that you are boring and wrong? You and your fellow sceptics might have had a case in April. It's not April any more.
Heneghan is an Evidence Based Medicine fanboy, for a definition of "evidence" which is over-restrictive, wrong and in any case completely useless for decision-making in the timeframes in which decisions are currently needed.
However extending our membership of the SM and CU beyond January would be terrible for the Tories and lead to mass defections to Farage exactly as happened from spring 2019 when May delayed Brexit.
65% of Tory voters and 63% of Leave voters oppose extending the transition period
The best option for Boris and the Tories is to agree a basic Canada style trade deal with the EU, however even No Deal would be better than extending the transition period for the party if that cannot be agreed by January
Well, that’s what’s important, then, isn’t it. Forget the trivial matter of whether it would fuck the country during an unfolding catastrophe: would it cause Tory voters to drift away from the Party? Got to get our priorities right, don’t we?
A republican Senate. Biden is stalemated. Nothing will get done.
I can see a younger, smarter, savvier, undemented populist Republican candidate sweeping to power in 2024.
The American left got lucky with Trump. He’s an odious cretin, who can barely talk, and who, nonetheless, nearly won. The Left may not get lucky next time.
It may actually be what Americans want, Biden would be the first President since Bush Snr in 1989 to enter office without his party in full control of Congress, the Bush Snr Presidency was a pretty moderate, pragmatic one.
I also would not bet on the GOP not picking either Trump or Pence or a hardliner like Cruz in 2024, at the moment Trumpites dominate the early 2024 GOP polling
However extending our membership of the SM and CU beyond January would be terrible for the Tories and lead to mass defections to Farage exactly as happened from spring 2019 when May delayed Brexit.
65% of Tory voters and 63% of Leave voters oppose extending the transition period
The best option for Boris and the Tories is to agree a basic Canada style trade deal with the EU, however even No Deal would be better than extending the transition period for the party if that cannot be agreed by January
We are 4 years out from a General Election. Johnson moving the date by a month or two will have absolutely no impact on what people think in 4 years time. What will matter to Johnson at the next election is whether or not he can reasonably claim that Brexit has been a success. The fact that 4 years earlier it happened 30 or 60 days later than planned will be completely immaterial.
If moving the date by a month or two would achieve something then sure. But what would it achieve?
Would we miraculously get a magical deal that can't be agreed today? Would we miraculously get through No Deal easier? Or would we just drag out the chaos in Dover as No Deal planning gets ripped up and kicked for two months then we're in the exact same dance again?
You miss the point. Johnson is obviously incapable of thinking about more than one thing at a time. Postponing Brexit would leave him with just two things on his mind - and one of them could be covid.
Nice to see the UK's contribution to the fight against COVID acknowledged so fulsomely by the ECDC:
The UK has an established SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing consortium called COG-UK. It consists of the national public health institutes, National Health Service organisations, academic institutions and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. They are working to keep sequencing coverage high and geographically representative and to keep turnaround times low. The consortium is by far the largest contributor to the GISAID EpiCov database in the world, with more than 120,000 of around 270,000 genomes published so far. This initiative increases the likelihood that emerging variants are identified and can be assessed in a timely fashion.
Er, a perfectly understandable reaction to a new plague across The Channel?
So why abandon it so quickly?
Where does it say they abandoned it? I can't see anything on the BBC website to that effect.
They haven't abandoned it. The EU is working on a new protocol which may restore traffic once it is developed and agreed by us. Suspect mandatory negative test will be required - so rapid testing will need to be set up at Dover / the tunnel and drivers tested before travel.
I don't need to explain what impact that will have on traffic flow! Yes they will remove the absolute blockade. And replace it with a process blockade. Happily in 10 days time they can do the rapid Covid tests whilst everyone is stuck in the day long queue to get through customs.
Reading the NERVTAG comments, they are....er.....'moderately confident' the strain is up to 70% quicker in transmission.
So our freedoms are being curtailed and our economy smashed on the 'moderate confidence' of a group of scientists whose predictions have often been found to be very, very flawed, and the premise of whose work is profoundly disputed by other in some cases eminent scientists.
Covid is over everyone. Let's get back to normal.
When the government shut us down first, they told us a massive lie. They told us the shutdown was to beef up capacity in the NHS.
Just today, in the BBC's report, nine months on, came the truth from the NHS. We never, ever had the staff to increase NHS capacity, either then or in the near future.
Given the huge lie we were told then, surely we should be questioning everything the government tells us. Everything the SAGE committee tells us. Everything Sky News tells us.
I don't feel I was told a huge lie, not even a small lie regarding this. We did beef up capacity. We acquired ventilators and built nightingale hospitals and planned for student doctors about to qualify to move into roles and doctors who had left to come back into junior roles so others could move up the chain. My wife and her fellow medics were prepared for this if necessary (it wasn't) and I know of nurses in private hospitals that were moved into the NHS. Also people who were carrying out routine operations that could be cancelled could be moved eg anesthetists. You would also stretch the resources so instead of a 1:1 ratio of nurses in ICU it may go to 1:2.
Where else did you think these human resources were going to come from? Did you really think we were going to magic up nurses and doctors?
An analogy may be the field hospital. You would rather be in a proper hospital but a field hospital is a hell of a lot better than bleeding to death on the battlefield.
I thought Trump was to blame for the US rates? As ever you're never going to truly know the effect of something like density, but I'm sure it does make a difference.
Population density, culture and modes of work type are pobably more important than restrictions. Though conformity to restrictions will also play a huge part.
Er, a perfectly understandable reaction to a new plague across The Channel?
So why abandon it so quickly?
Where does it say they abandoned it? I can't see anything on the BBC website to that effect.
They haven't abandoned it. The EU is working on a new protocol which may restore traffic once it is developed and agreed by us. Suspect mandatory negative test will be required - so rapid testing will need to be set up at Dover / the tunnel and drivers tested before travel.
I don't need to explain what impact that will have on traffic flow! Yes they will remove the absolute blockade. And replace it with a process blockade. Happily in 10 days time they can do the rapid Covid tests whilst everyone is stuck in the day long queue to get through customs.
Brilliant. Two birds one stone.
We can get customs clearance done while processing Covid tests.
Absolutely no reason whatsoever to postpone the end of transition now.
A republican Senate. Biden is stalemated. Nothing will get done.
I can see a younger, smarter, savvier, undemented populist Republican candidate sweeping to power in 2024.
The American left got lucky with Trump. He’s an odious cretin, who can barely talk, and who, nonetheless, nearly won. The Left may not get lucky next time.
It may actually be what Americans want, Biden would be the first President since Bush Snr in 1989 to enter office without his party in full control of Congress, the Bush Snr Presidency was a pretty moderate, pragmatic one.
I also would not bet on the GOP not picking either Trump or Pence or a hardliner like Cruz in 2024, at the moment Trumpites dominate the early 2024 GOP polling
Comments
Residential density at a very local level makes a difference, because it implies larger households and an environment in which proper lockdown and social isolation is harder to achieve.
At a regional level, whether people live in towns or rural areas is obviously important, but again mostly to do with lifestyle rather than the physical environment.
At national level its pretty much irrelevant.
Maybe it's because they go out into the great unknown waters or something.
Myself I hope that Johnson's desire for popularity, alongside his mocking and jeering of Keir Starmer at Wednesday's PMQs, will be enough to render him extraordinarily unpopular.
with Xmas broken, business skint
Covid rampant, black dismay
And Leon only thinks of flint!
I assume you all aware that JFK ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion based upon a misunderstanding of what a “fair chance of success” meant? He thought that meant a good chance or “more likely than not” chance. The Joint Chiefs definition was actually 3 to 1 against.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2015/12/20/gut-check/?sh=6c7b430a5b75
So I ask again. What PRECISELY is meant by this group when they write Moderate Confidence.
https://twitter.com/Simon4NDorset/status/1340944973752119298?s=20
However extending our membership of the SM and CU beyond January would be terrible for the Tories and lead to mass defections to Farage exactly as happened from spring 2019 when May delayed Brexit.
65% of Tory voters and 63% of Leave voters oppose extending the transition period
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1337443446123073537?s=20.
The best option for Boris and the Tories is to agree a basic Canada style trade deal with the EU, however even No Deal would be better than extending the transition period for the party if that cannot be agreed by January
NOTE: even if we'd remained in the EU, we would still have been able to use the Pfizer vaccine as early as we did.
Headless chicken mode can be put on hold for a few days
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/12/14/wall-street-banks-and-tech-companies-are-fleeing-new-york-and-california/
Put it another way: we worry about the post-Covid future of London (rightly) but the threat to New York is much greater. New York City has worse crime, more guns, harsher winters, and is all about skyscrapers. Pandemic central.
Moreover, American bankers based in nyc, who now want to WFH, have the generous choice of moving to sunny Florida or Arizona or Texas, British bankers in the same boat must choose between london or somewhere absurdly cold and horrible (Scotland), or somewhere very near London anyway. And london has more green space near the centre
I think New York is headed for a repeat of the 1970s
When I last posted on here I was called a loon. Most unfortunate language ... suggests that the person using it doesn't want a debate.
A senior medic (Prof Carl Heneghan, Oxford) has resorted to asking on Twitter for the scientific evidence that the 'mutant virus' is more infectious. Yesterday evening, he seemed to have had no reply.
(PS - my name isn’t Billy.)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9074765/Professor-Lockdown-Neil-Ferguson-warns-Tier-Four-needed-Easter.html
You’re like people who come to London who only go to Notting hill and Harrods and love how integrated the city is
And getting any disruption over and done with now while more people are sat at home and not on the roads or going through the borders seems more logical than kicking the can and postponing it to a later date.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1340377186847625218?s=20
If you're going to have a chaotic No Deal Brexit then get it over and done with now. Get through the chaos in one go and look to rebuild once we are through to the other side.
If you're going to have a Deal then agree it now and put this uncertainty behind us.
Friend will go out to buy food therefore.... though if they both thought on, Auntie would just give excess to friend.... but that might be too much.
If a deal is agreeable then agree it. If its not then c'est la vie.
What is the purpose of kicking the can? Why not just agree the deal today if one is agreeable?
--AS
I can see a younger, smarter, savvier, undemented populist Republican candidate sweeping to power in 2024.
The American left got lucky with Trump. He’s an odious cretin, who can barely talk, and who, nonetheless, nearly won. The Left may not get lucky next time.
Would we miraculously get a magical deal that can't be agreed today? Would we miraculously get through No Deal easier? Or would we just drag out the chaos in Dover as No Deal planning gets ripped up and kicked for two months then we're in the exact same dance again?
https://twitter.com/PeteWishart/status/1340974743319621633?s=20
Can you honestly not see HMG doing the same?
Black Death in Calais! is the Mail headline. The government would close Dover, in panic (justified or not). 12 hours later the economic ramifications would be obvious and a new arrangement would be quickly conjured, and HMG would say “we are protecting the health of Britons AND the economy”. Etc.
Heneghan is an Evidence Based Medicine fanboy, for a definition of "evidence" which is over-restrictive, wrong and in any case completely useless for decision-making in the timeframes in which decisions are currently needed.
Forget the trivial matter of whether it would fuck the country during an unfolding catastrophe: would it cause Tory voters to drift away from the Party?
Got to get our priorities right, don’t we?
I also would not bet on the GOP not picking either Trump or Pence or a hardliner like Cruz in 2024, at the moment Trumpites dominate the early 2024 GOP polling
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1338678411586228225?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1340006832593506304?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1339460403173179392?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1338993983213752320?s=20
The UK has an established SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing consortium called COG-UK. It consists of the national public health institutes, National Health Service organisations, academic institutions and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. They are working to keep sequencing coverage high and geographically representative and to keep turnaround times low. The consortium is by far the largest contributor to the GISAID EpiCov database in the world, with more than 120,000 of around 270,000 genomes published so far. This initiative increases the likelihood that emerging variants are identified and can be assessed in a timely fashion.
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/threat-assessment-brief-rapid-increase-sars-cov-2-variant-united-kingdom
I don't need to explain what impact that will have on traffic flow! Yes they will remove the absolute blockade. And replace it with a process blockade. Happily in 10 days time they can do the rapid Covid tests whilst everyone is stuck in the day long queue to get through customs.
Where else did you think these human resources were going to come from? Did you really think we were going to magic up nurses and doctors?
An analogy may be the field hospital. You would rather be in a proper hospital but a field hospital is a hell of a lot better than bleeding to death on the battlefield.
I think this is the wrong policy.
We can get customs clearance done while processing Covid tests.
Absolutely no reason whatsoever to postpone the end of transition now.