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Both Trump and Biden stage Georgia rallies on the eve of today’s Georgia runoffs – politicalbetting.
Both Trump and Biden stage Georgia rallies on the eve of today’s Georgia runoffs – politicalbetting.com
Trump’s was all about him and appeared like a series of whines particularly against the Republican governor of the state and, of course, the Secretary of State who stood up for democracy in face of huge pressure as we saw in the recording of a phone call he got from the outgoing president.
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Johnson & Johnson has announced that it plans to apply for FDA authorisation for its CV19 vaccine in February.
This strongly suggests that we will have positive trial results soon from J&J, and it's important to remember that this vaccine is single dose *and* does not require low temperature storage or transportation.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/georgia-senate-polls/
I'm feeling a lot more confident than I was a week ago. Back in the autumn I think I might have been the lonely pb.com voice crying in the wilderness when I tipped people bet on Jon Ossoff at 3/1 (boosted) on Betfair Sportsbook. He nearly didn't take it to the run-off but I'm beginning to feel more optimistic that he may pull this off.
I'm also on Ossoff at 250/1 for 2024 Presidential. A bet that goes into the silly category but stranger things have happened. He's young, ambitious and a very effective debater.
However, note that voters at polling places who are already in line at 7pm are eligible to vote, so IF there are long lines, the actual poll closing will be delayed until folks in line have voted.
by Tony White
Hoverin' by my suitcase
Tryin' to find a warm place to spend the night
Heavy rain's fallin'
Seems I hear your voice callin' "it's all right"
A rainy night in Georgia
A rainy night in Georgia
Lord, I believe it's rainin' all over the world
I feel like it's rainin' all over the world
Neon signs a-flashin'
Taxicabs and buses passin' through the night
A distant moanin' of a train
Seems to play a sad refrain to the night
But it's a rainy night in Georgia
Such a rainy night in Georgia
Lord, I believe it's rainin' all over the world
I feel like it's rainin' all over the world
How many times I wondered
It still comes out the same
No matter how you look at it or think of it
It's life and you just got to play the game
Find me a place in a box car
So I take my guitar to pass some time
Late at night when it's hard to rest
I hold your picture to my chest and I feel fine, I feel fine
But it's a rainy night in Georgia
Baby, it's a rainy night in Georgia
Lord, I believe it's rainin' all over the world
Kinda lonely now and it's rainin' all over the world
Fact that there are way fewer races on ballot (the two US Senate races plus whatever other local races that also went to runoff) may speed things somewhat.
In GA elections are administered at county level, and Peach State has LOTS of counties. Though smaller, rural counties have fewer election workers, they also have smaller number of votes to count, and will tend to finish before larger counties (Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnet) in metro Atlanta.
https://order-order.com/2021/01/04/margaret-ferrier-mp-arrested/
By-election incoming?
Also encouraging - prior infection confers at least six months protection in a study of 11k healthcare workers.
https://twitter.com/chrisjaduncan/status/1345873016819998721
https://twitter.com/VPrasadMDMPH/status/1346324018161360906
If Labour want to show any sign of life whatsoever in Scotland it’s one they would need to at least lose narrowly. But if (if!) the Tories played it smartly in terms of tactical votes it might be done.
IF they are positive, then end February or early March is when the vaccine might be available.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9100395/US-using-one-shot-COVID-vaccine-February.html
https://fultoncountyga.gov/news/2021/01/04/you-can-call-her-madam-da-fani-willis-on-making-history
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/01/04/2156236/singapore-police-can-access-covid-19-contact-tracing-data-for-criminal-investigations
Qantas have confirmed that it has pushed back the dates of international flights that were on sale for departures in March.
A spokesperson said the flights had already been on sale, despite some reports suggesting this was a new development. What has changed is that the airline has shifted the departure dates from March to July, in line with its forecasts about when international travel could again be possible.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/04/brian-kemp-stacey-abrams-rematch-454395
The paper compares 2 strategies, 1) reserving 50% of supply for second doses 3 weeks later. 2) giving all the first doses and relying on the supply chain to provide second doses in a timely fashion, looking at the risks if resupply didn't happen.
In both regimes to quote from the paper "all second doses were administered on schedule (within 3 weeks of first dose) in both strategies.". It is not a comparison with a 12 week deliberate gap.
This is visible in the bar chart where the vast majority in the blue bars (strategy2) were getting their second dose, for example)
In effect strategy 2) was what we were doing in the UK until last Tuesday.
If there is no evidence schools are riskier than elsewhere, would you please explain these figures?
https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-teacher-covid-rates-333-above-average
https://twitter.com/mitchprothero/status/1346354668730019841
Merkel insisted on using EU procurement scheme, going over the heads of her own health minister and those of other EU nations.
Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands were close to a joint deal for 400m doses of AZ vaccine, which was abandoned in favour of the common vaccine policy at the Chancellor’s insistence.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/04/angela-merkel-blocked-bid-secure-coronavirus-vaccine/
A conviction here could easily meet the criteria for disqualification for being an MP.
Andrew Neil would have nailed that the PM was, in the same interview, insisting that primary schools re-open and flagging another lockdown, and as soon as the clown came out with that last statement, would have zeroed in on the pointlessness - and dangers - of forcing primary school kids to school for just a few days before going into lockdown.
The culling of the Welsh seats in the impending boundary review is particularly stark, and some Labour MPs will be facing no future.
It affects Labour especially as they (in the South) often have contiguous seats. E.g, there will be only 3 seats after the boundary review made up from present-day Swansea E, Swansea W, Gower and Llanelli. One Labour MP will lose out.
An attractive option for such MPs is to jump to the Assembly in 2021.
In England, people were convicted of GBH for infecting others with HIV, and received severe custodial sentences.
Stories like this do indicate why take up of contact tracing apps was so low in the West, no matter what governments, Apple and Google had to say about them.
The reason that NHS England and others didn’t go with the Apple/Google solution in the first place, was precisely because they wanted a list of names and places, not a random string of contact reference numbers.
https://twitter.com/RichardGCorbett/status/1346359146858360833
I think the issue may well be bandwidth in the hospital oxygen pipes rather than absolute shortages. I know of UK hospitals that have had that as a problem.
I also think that your chances for selection will be more than somewhat reduced if you are going to cause your party an unnecessary bye election. That proved a significant blockage in the SNP.
Worth keeping an eye on though.
The Valleys though could be a bloodbath.
I had a suspicion the reason students were dispatched off to imprisonment in university accommodation was to lift from them which the government would otherwise had to cover. This term they cannot return but will already be at least contracted for if not paid up for their accommodation. Will these be waived/refunded and the government covering the gap? Waived/refunded and not covering the gap? Or nothing at all?
As with hospitality and entertainment there is a real risk that the sector won't be there to be picked back up when all this is over. Universities are already low on cash, and private sector landlords need rental income or the properties get sold.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1379561/coronavirus-vaccines-news-elderly-boris-johnson-coronavirus-lockdown
I would expect there is, but with the way this lot have handled this crisis to date I expect it is actually the back of some minister's cigarette packet.
What will probably happen - and it has been happening at least to some extent already - is that a lot of universities will merge. That might be a good thing, or not, depending on how it is done. If it is done by closing surplus campuses and shedding some of the rather extensive administrative staff that many have accumulated, it might be quite beneficial. For example, there is little sense in a city the size of Swansea having two smallish universities, or for Gloucestershire to have two agricultural colleges. If however, as these things usually go, the administrators survive and the academic departments are culled instead, we're going to have a pretty broken system of mediocre unis underpinned by vast subsidies going forward.
Anyway, if you will excuse me, I have a series of crisis meetings to attend. Have a good morning.
Anyone heard from Dido Harding recently? She gets paid £lots as the well qualified head of Test Track and Trace which costs £lotsandlots to apparently do absolutely nothing.
Scottish courts from Justice of the Peace Courts (maximum sentence
60 days imprisonment), the Sheriff Court either summary (maximum
sentence 1 year imprisonment) or on indictment (maximum sentence 5
years imprisonment), and in the High Court of Justiciary (maximum
sentence life imprisonment)"
it says here. Specific covid offences, are fines only. This is a sodding great message to the public at large.
That's the policy for the next months. We can do no other.
https://twitter.com/TelePolitics/status/1346371538531053569
My guess, unless they have pretty good evidence of infection of other rail passengers (and proving that they got it from her would be tricky without detailed DNA analysis of the particular variant) is that this would go before the Sheriff at summary level but indictment (which involves a sheriff and jury) is possible.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/04/pm-has-staked-credibility-february-vaccine-pledge-better-not/
If there’s evidence of vaccines sitting idle or discarded then great, let’s hear them, but otherwise it’s just saying we don’t like this government, rather than for any specific reason.
Again, what the French may or may not be doing does not negate the utter chaos and disastrous bungling of the government at almost every step it has had direct involvement in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2oldN23Ii4
I'm not sure at what point we'd then get supplies ?
The university estates actually did ok in the first lockdown, vast majority of staff furloughed and the drop in utilities and staff costs offset the refunds to students. Our CFO gave a presentation on this and emphasised that student accommodation is only run on a cost basis anyway, so taking away the vast majority of the costs means you don't have a black hole from refunding the cost-covering accommodation fees.
Money can always be found to line the pockets of Tory friends and donors. Money can never be found to feed hungry children or save hospitality and entertainment or keep the self-employed afloat.
As an example, would anything have been done about the reams of often utterly pointless forms that returning retired GPs had to to fill in just to give a jab, if the media had not got hold of the story?
Personally, I don't get hung up on day to day competence of the government. I'm more interested in their strategic thinking. So on Test, Track and Trace, I think the biggest mistake was thinking that it could ever work. Unless we're going to behave like South Korea (I mean, us as people, you know, doing as we're f****** told), then it's a complete waste of time. Even the Germans have failed to make it work.
The one big decision the government has got right was to ignore pressure to join in with any of the EU schemes. We are in a much better position doing our own thing. Whether the government meets their vaccine target for mid-February doesn't bother me all that much. But it is good that they've set a fairly ambitious target, and hopefully as with the testing arguments, whether the targets are met or not won't matter, so long as the trend is continually upward.
And as she says it's better to be with friends doing her course than sat at home.
The other Eek twin has already colonized her sisters room for "study" purposes.
My guess is that the University would have had the reserves for a one off hit but a repetition of this is going to hurt and I would expect the Treasury to be asked to help.
Also, what's going on with pre-school provision? They're open in England, which makes no sense for controlling spread, surely as high risk as primary schools if not higher. I guess the logic may be that parents can maybe do some work with a 5+ year old at home, but not with a pre-schooler, but it seems incoherent. Our 3 year old is not going today, but we're in a bit of a quandary - we think he benefits from playgroup and interacting with other kids a couple of times a week, the risk to him is low (as far as the evidence shows so far) and neither my wife nor I are in high risk groups - if he does go then we won't see anyone else even for one-to-one exercise as we then become a higher risk to others. On the other hand, we think playgroups should be closed to limit spread. What to do?