Trouser update: they have been sitting in f*cking Cologne since Wednesday waiting for export. Buying anything from abroad is a right PIA right now, clearly.
I'm worried that the Oxford/AZ vaccine may not be sufficiently efficacious to halt the spread of the new variant virus. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about vaccines, though. Is this a justifiable concern, or can we be pretty sure that it is good enough?
That's one of the worries, especially in the single shot format. There are some numbers on it that suggest it's just under 70% effective with a single jab after three weeks but it is a big gamble. However, with the AZ vaccine we may not have much choice as the numbers support a 12 week gap as it looks to give 95% efficacy two weeks after the second shot with the 12 week gap.
Someone on here, perhaps @CarlottaVance or @Malmesbury, highlighted that the WHO regards a vaccine as effective if it has over 50% efficiency. So against that benchmark 70% is pretty good.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Therein lies many a contemporary problem.
Life would be much better if people who wished themselves to be socially conservative nevertheless respected other people's right to live their own lives in their own way.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
This doesn't scan. You're both over and under thinking it. Quite a feat.
Yes, "Trumpism" might have a future if its key ingredient - Trump - had not been exposed by the pandemic as an incompetent fraud and by events post election as a wannabe fascist.
I'm worried that the Oxford/AZ vaccine may not be sufficiently efficacious to halt the spread of the new variant virus. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about vaccines, though. Is this a justifiable concern, or can we be pretty sure that it is good enough?
Well Pfizer seem to think not, and I think AZ will be the same (I hope anyway)
It's not so much a worry about whether the vaccine is less efficacious with the new variant; rather a worry about whether the efficaciousness (70%?) is sufficient to counter the transmissibility of the virus. You could imagine a scenario where a sufficiently infectious virus continues to spread even if everyone is vaccinated due to the remaining 30% of the population being sufficient to maintain transmission.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster in fairness
Come on BigG. You were the one laughing at Drakeford because he had to cancel Christmas, and lockdown on December 20th due to the disastrously short "fire-break", when Boris didn't have to.
I believe Arlene cancelled Christmas too.
Yes, Drakeford is useless, but you are putting him behind the 8 ball whatever shot he plays.
COVID very high in Wales but looks like they *might* be peaking for patients in hospital. England & to a lesser extent Scotland really driving the growth.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
The morons are surely the people who thought putting households together on Christmas was a good idea, legal or not legal.
And the absolute fucking morons who thought it would be a good idea to have one day of school of household mixing for 3m kids. Absolutely huge amount of negligence.
That was bewilderingly stupid. Although, once again, there were apparently 140 kids in my son's school on Wednesday, mainly the children of doctors. This is an order of magnitude higher than were being sent in in May and June before the summer holidays. Attitudes are different, at least around here, despite this awful death toll.
I received an email from my employer (university) telling me that under government rules I'm a 'critical worker' (seems to be he new term for key worker) and therefore can send my kids (if applicable*) to school and that they could provide a signed letter on headed paper to this effect if needed. Very flattering, but I'm in no way a critical worker. I get that lecturers might be considered as such, but I do little teaching, none at all this term and my research (while obviously world-leading and of vital importance!) can wait a bit if needed. No one told me I was a key worker in March.
This is a sprint, not a marathon, and right now it is a sprint we are LOSING. We are hurtling towards the brick wall of a crashed health system, the brakes are nearly gone, the throttle is jammed, we are accelerating.
I fear I wasn't exaggerating when I said these coming weeks are potentially the most dangerous for the UK since WW2
I think one problem is there was such a big deal made about the health system crashing last March, flatten that curve etc and it didn't, no Nightingales were used, that when the message comes around again, too many people say yeah yeah, you said that last time. I doubt they fully grasp how bad Cockney Covid is.
I walked around central London yesterday, with a friend (at a distance). We went from Trafalgar Sq down the South Bank.
Interestingly, it was a route I took on a walk in lockdown 1, in the spring. Back then, the scene ws utterly desolate. Barely a soul.
This time it was very quiet, but there was noticeably more activity. Joggers, tourists (it looked like), cyclists, market traders... and yes I suppose I ws one of them, but at least I am rightly terrified.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Wasn't it ever thus for Constable country though ?
Haven't seen a constable around here for months! Actually we're a bit South of John's beat; Pritis territory, I'm rather ashamed to admit.
Count yourself lucky. I'd much rather have Priti than Philip bloody Davies.
I'm worried that the Oxford/AZ vaccine may not be sufficiently efficacious to halt the spread of the new variant virus. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about vaccines, though. Is this a justifiable concern, or can we be pretty sure that it is good enough?
Well Pfizer seem to think not, and I think AZ will be the same (I hope anyway)
It's not so much a worry about whether the vaccine is less efficacious with the new variant; rather a worry about whether the efficaciousness (70%?) is sufficient to counter the transmissibility of the virus. You could imagine a scenario where a sufficiently infectious virus continues to spread even if everyone is vaccinated due to the remaining 30% of the population being sufficient to maintain transmission.
But that still does not make it ineffective from a public health perspective, as it means we get to that 70% level faster and at less cost, and we can then address the remaining 30% with other vaccines.
There will be an irreducible number of the population who will not mount an effective immune response regardless of vaccine. But I would expect this to be in the low single digit percent.
I’m surprised that people look at daily numbers anymore. What’s the point? They will continue grow rapidly until we roll out the vaccines.
Let’s focus on vaccination numbers - that’s the only game in town.
I think when we record the worst daily death rate per capita of anywhere else in the world at any point in the history of time it warrants a small peek.
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
The morons are surely the people who thought putting households together on Christmas was a good idea, legal or not legal.
And the absolute fucking morons who thought it would be a good idea to have one day of school of household mixing for 3m kids. Absolutely huge amount of negligence.
That was bewilderingly stupid. Although, once again, there were apparently 140 kids in my son's school on Wednesday, mainly the children of doctors. This is an order of magnitude higher than were being sent in in May and June before the summer holidays. Attitudes are different, at least around here, despite this awful death toll.
I received an email from my employer (university) telling me that under government rules I'm a 'critical worker' (seems to be he new term for key worker) and therefore can send my kids (if applicable*) to school and that they could provide a signed letter on headed paper to this effect if needed. Very flattering, but I'm in no way a critical worker. I get that lecturers might be considered as such, but I do little teaching, none at all this term and my research (while obviously world-leading and of vital importance!) can wait a bit if needed. No one told me I was a key worker in March.
*it's not, mine are both pre-school
Yes that is something else that has happened. The term we use is "key worker" and frankly, its easier to work out who isn't. Presumably those chaps doing click and collect on printer ink in Currys this afternoon qualify as well.
Hell's teeth, even I am a key worker apparently and workers don't come much less useful in an emergency than lawyers.
Boris was between a rock and a hard place on christmas - the real problem was not keeping in the country under stronger measures for the couple of weeks before christmas.
Those pox numbers are fucking awful and it'll get even worse before it gets better.
Boris Johnson is an irresponsible cnut. It doesn't seem to matter to him how many people die as long as he gets positive headlines and scores a few political points. The cretin at the top and his death cabal are bad. The brainless morons out there who have utterly given up trying to keep themselves or anyone else safe are worse.
But the worst of all? The Parrots. The people who know that what they are saying is only going to encourage or gaslight the morons to behave even more irresponsibly and kill even more people. But its all worth it to promote their team and put down the other team. Scoring cheap and transient political points is worth more than human life.
I'm politically homeless, so I tend to find fault in political ideologies whichever direction I look. A recurring one in conservatism is undernourished empathy: too often, Tories are unable to grasp the suffering of others, when they haven't personally been through something similar.
But Boris Johnson is a weird one. He's unable to grasp the urgency of preventing people going through even something he's been through himself. You'd have thought his own profoundly frightening experience with Covid-19 would have spurred him on to be better. To be better than... this.
It's easy to be unempathic when you haven't been there yourself. But to allow others to tumble into the same hell you personally went through must be something they only teach at Oxford, because it's un-fuckingin-fathomable to me.
I'm building a wall....and the neighbours are going to pay for it.
Some previous neighbours of mine actually put up a higher fence between our properties, so my untidy garden wouldn't appear in their daughter's wedding video.
Should have got them to pay for someone to sort your garden out instead.
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
I hope it will be a more exponential curve than that. As in doubling week by week for a while.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
The morons are surely the people who thought putting households together on Christmas was a good idea, legal or not legal.
And the absolute fucking morons who thought it would be a good idea to have one day of school of household mixing for 3m kids. Absolutely huge amount of negligence.
That was bewilderingly stupid. Although, once again, there were apparently 140 kids in my son's school on Wednesday, mainly the children of doctors. This is an order of magnitude higher than were being sent in in May and June before the summer holidays. Attitudes are different, at least around here, despite this awful death toll.
I received an email from my employer (university) telling me that under government rules I'm a 'critical worker' (seems to be he new term for key worker) and therefore can send my kids (if applicable*) to school and that they could provide a signed letter on headed paper to this effect if needed. Very flattering, but I'm in no way a critical worker. I get that lecturers might be considered as such, but I do little teaching, none at all this term and my research (while obviously world-leading and of vital importance!) can wait a bit if needed. No one told me I was a key worker in March.
*it's not, mine are both pre-school
Yes that is something else that has happened. The term we use is "key worker" and frankly, its easier to work out who isn't. Presumably those chaps doing click and collect on printer ink in Currys this afternoon qualify as well.
Hell's teeth, even I am a key worker apparently and workers don't come much less useful in an emergency than lawyers.
I'm a key worker as well and I'm know I'd be rubbish in a health emergency, my response would be 'Dad, come over here'
World Beating single day death rate as a % of population today?
Quite possibly. I asked this question t'other day: is the UK recording world records of positive daily cases per capita? I suspect we are, and now daily deaths, as well
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster in fairness
Come on BigG. You were the one laughing at Drakeford because he had to cancel Christmas, and lockdown on December 20th due to the disastrously short "fire-break", when Boris didn't have to.
I believe Arlene cancelled Christmas too.
Yes, Drakeford is useless, but you are putting him behind the 8 ball whatever shot he plays.
COVID very high in Wales but looks like they *might* be peaking for patients in hospital. England & to a lesser extent Scotland really driving the growth.
Interesting, the local R numbers across much of south Wales seem to be heading to 1 or even below.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
I think that's right. When I drove into work back then, there were a couple of weeks when I encountered maybe two or three other vehicles on a ten mile journey. Now traffic is like any normal school holiday.
Same here. I live on a main (urban) road and I've no idea where all the cars are going.
Perhaps the problem is that some people absolutely must do some leisure shopping and if the supermarket is the only place open, then that's where they'll go. A bit like those that must have foreign holidays but on a local scale.
This isn't stopping the new variant. No chance.
No idea what's wrong with people. Can they not imagine what it is going to be like for them personally if they pick this up and fall ill and need hospital and find themselves in the car park waiting, queuing, hoping, for an admission?
They may find they are triaged into the 'not sufficient resources to treat' category.
World Beating single day death rate as a % of population today?
Quite possibly. I asked this question t'other day: is the UK recording world records of positive daily cases per capita? I suspect we are, and now daily deaths, as well
Over the whole pandemic we are actually relatively low dow the table of per capita cases.
He's not exactly an unbiased source of course, but the thing is it makes way more sense than the alternative. He loves whipping up his supporters, he whipped them up, of course he would be excited that they responded to him so much.
I love it when people who are implacably opposed to the Republican Party try to give it lessons. Presumably to maintain the notion that everything is alright in the West and its business as usual, and what you are seeing is not a hologram.
But here's the thing. It really isn't all right.
The right is completely split in America. The party elite and the Trumpist base despise each other totally. The latter will not turn out for the former, as Georgia showed, and what follows is a hugely bitter primaries battle between the two factions ahead of 2022. When millions will not turn out again and the democrat hegemony intensifies.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will be deliberating just how much of a Jihad they want to declare on the many millions of Americans who turned out for Trump and now have zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions.
Trump showed his millions of supporters a glimpse of an America they were comfortable with and where they were welcome and valuable citizens.
They are not going back to the likes of Romney. Not now. Not ever.
Trump is a symptom not a cause, and the cause is still very much there, if not more so than previously.
Agreed. But I don;t know if anyone can harness it like Trump. I quite like Kristi Noem.
Noem is a homophobic religious bigot. What is it you like about her?
I like her videos promoting SD as a tourist destination. I had a great time there in 2019
Next, Hitler was a decentish bloke, as evidenced by him doing a promo to "come visit the pretty town of Berchtesgaden..."
You can’t argue that it’s not located at a truly fine spot.
One of the benefits of being Fuhrer was not being troubled by nimby's.....for long.
One of Philip Kerr's rather good Dritten Reich noir novels is based in part on exactly that theme - nimbys at Berchtesgaden.
I liked them from the start (much more than his more airporty thrillers) but it's gratifying to see how the whole series has grown in stature, particularly since Kerr's death. They've even earned the ultimate accolade of having (fairly mediocre) copyists.
The Berlin Noir books & sequels must be ripe for a film or televisualisation - I'm thinking Philip Glenister for Bernie might be good casting?
Edit: just did a check & apparently there is an HBO movie proposal floating about. Kerr himself liked Michael Fassbinder for the role, also not a bad choice.
Ooh, now that is not a bad thought (Fassbinder).
BTW what did you make of Burgessian's spot of the latest Alex Bell?
More a regurgitation than anything new.
Telling that he uses terms like 'the Nats' & 'Nat Nostrodamus' quite happily, presumably why Unionists invariably feel the need to put former advisor to Alex Samond next to his name, as if this was some guarantee of objective insight. Says quite a lot that referring to something that he hasn't been for 10 years is his USP.
Thanks. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't being unfair, but no. (Though it was a bit later than 2010-11 that they parted brass rags: https://archive.is/vGZEp - but on the other hand he started attacking Salmond etc soon after that, which raises some interesting questions.)
I'm reminded that such newspapers often feel the need to roll out Jim Sillars as former deputy leader of the SNP - in 1991-2. Bit like relying solely on Michael Heseltime for your up to date critique of Tory Party policy, only worse - at least the latter is your actual live Lord. No reflection on the good peer, of course, who was sound on helicopters inter aliis, but if there weren't a wider palette one would start suspecting that the criticism was deliberately black and white by editorial policy.
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
I pray you are right, and you might well be right, the problem is can we get to March without total apocalypse?
I do not see how the NHS can sustain 3000+ new patients every day. IF it stays at that level. That's at least 150,000 new patients by the end of Feb. Impossible.
At that point Neil Ferguson's original prediction (much derided on here) of a possible death toll from Covid plus a crashed NHS, comes into focus. 500,000 dead.
The vaccines and lockdowns need to start working very very soon.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find these charts you post daily to be neither use nor ornament.
You certainly don't speak for me.
Thanks, once again, Malmesbury. The whole point of this site is to discuss new information, and make forecasts on it. You assist that.
Indeed, so many PBers appreciate Malmesbury's hard work, we're lucky to have him.
Including OGH.
I'm going to say that some of them are currently less useful than they were simply because the old peak colours (dark red, bright green) dominate the chart. You almost need to add a different colour with shards to highlight how bad things actually are and where the real disaster zones are.
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
I am hoping the end of February. I think things will start to move really fast once we have got adequate supplies on hand.
World Beating single day death rate as a % of population today?
Quite possibly. I asked this question t'other day: is the UK recording world records of positive daily cases per capita? I suspect we are, and now daily deaths, as well
Over the whole pandemic we are actually relatively low dow the table of per capita cases.
I really struggle to comprehend the absolute god like worship of Trump. He really hasn't done much for those down trodden who seem to think he is the second coming of Christ. Even if you believe all the media stuff about his dodgy dealings are fake news, what has he actually done for all the factory workers etc.
I mean I don't agree with Corbyn, but I understand why many people became hardened followers. He was promising (and I think everybody thought he would give it a damn good go) at a totally different approach to government. Big state, return to nationalization, much higher wages set by the government and unions.
He would have run up borrow like a COVID crisis, but I think the people would have at least in the short term seem improvements in the things he claimed he would do....it was the difficult second album where he would run into the big trouble.
Whatever Trump's specific intentions with inciting the mob were, given a guy ended up in the Senate chamber crying out for Pence, Pence sure has good self control to not immediately seek to destroy Trump for setting them loose on him.
This is a sprint, not a marathon, and right now it is a sprint we are LOSING. We are hurtling towards the brick wall of a crashed health system, the brakes are nearly gone, the throttle is jammed, we are accelerating.
I fear I wasn't exaggerating when I said these coming weeks are potentially the most dangerous for the UK since WW2
I think one problem is there was such a big deal made about the health system crashing last March, flatten that curve etc and it didn't, no Nightingales were used, that when the message comes around again, too many people say yeah yeah, you said that last time. I doubt they fully grasp how bad Cockney Covid is.
Maybe. There's been a lot of hubris from the politicians, talking about how we know more now, and then sending the message that it's not as serious as last time by effectively keeping the schools open.
Even if cases have reached their peak, for which there's little evidence, except in Wales, perhaps, there's so much more to come in terms of hospital admissions.
When was the last time we had a week this bad? Covid out of control, attempted coup in the US, disrupted trade thanks to the substandard deal.
I'm going to try and cheer myself up with a bit of knitting and perhaps a lot of brandy. Take care guys.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find these charts you post daily to be neither use nor ornament.
You certainly don't speak for me.
Thanks, once again, Malmesbury. The whole point of this site is to discuss new information, and make forecasts on it. You assist that.
Yes, I can see how an image of data tables in Some Order Or Other would be useful... I suppose I should be grateful it's the right way up. Good work, Malmesbury.
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Once Guernsey has the vaccines on the island they are building the capacity to do 3,000/day. That's the entire population in 22 days - and the first tranche in half that time.
Some Canadian snowbirds - retired people who travel south for the winter - are finding they are able to get vaccinations in Florida earlier than they could if they remained at home.
Florida is allowing anyone over the age of 65 to be vaccinated for no charge. That includes non-citizens.
Getting a vaccine there is like winning the lottery, one couple tell CBC News. They say they were able to book vaccinations for other Canadian friends, who are now planning to travel to Florida for the jab after initially postponing their trip due to lack of vaccination.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
This doesn't scan. You're both over and under thinking it. Quite a feat.
Yes, "Trumpism" might have a future if its key ingredient - Trump - had not been exposed by the pandemic as an incompetent fraud and by events post election as a wannabe fascist.
But he was and he was, so it doesn't.
There is also the practical matter that, come January 2025, that poisonous key ingredient will be older than Joe Biden is now, assuming he's still alive.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find these charts you post daily to be neither use nor ornament.
You certainly don't speak for me.
Thanks, once again, Malmesbury. The whole point of this site is to discuss new information, and make forecasts on it. You assist that.
Indeed, so many PBers appreciate Malmesbury's hard work, we're lucky to have him.
Including OGH.
Agreed keep them coming
I would appreciate some feedback on which ones to keep/drop.
Keep them all - people can decide whether to look at them or not. Personally I preferred it when they were readable on PB without having to click through but there's no pleasing some people.
Says Sadiq Khan and other politicians now saying younger people are ending up seriously ill (about 5 mins in)
Earlier than that he appears to be saying Friday prayers are still going on in London - that seems utterly stupid if he is right given the infection rates reported.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster in fairness
Come on BigG. You were the one laughing at Drakeford because he had to cancel Christmas, and lockdown on December 20th due to the disastrously short "fire-break", when Boris didn't have to.
I believe Arlene cancelled Christmas too.
Yes, Drakeford is useless, but you are putting him behind the 8 ball whatever shot he plays.
COVID very high in Wales but looks like they *might* be peaking for patients in hospital. England & to a lesser extent Scotland really driving the growth.
Interesting, the local R numbers across much of south Wales seem to be heading to 1 or even below.
wimps - in RoI its currently 3 and thats despte running much tighter lock downs
World Beating single day death rate as a % of population today?
Quite possibly. I asked this question t'other day: is the UK recording world records of positive daily cases per capita? I suspect we are, and now daily deaths, as well
No. Cases per capita is pretty meaningless given the huge variation in testing. On deaths the latest day is just over half Belgium's worst day - to match it we'd need another 900 cases per day.
He's not exactly an unbiased source of course, but the thing is it makes way more sense than the alternative. He loves whipping up his supporters, he whipped them up, of course he would be excited that they responded to him so much.
Totally consistent with utterly ill-judged "we love you" video.
But it goes further that that. It was, in Trump's mind, a genuine coup attempt. Have no doubt - he intended this. It is textbook coup. Plausible deniability by not physically being in the mob. But the aim is to create a crisis which you alone can resolve. His fantasy was a siege with hostages where only he could call off the dogs... at a huge price.
Whatever Trump's specific intentions with inciting the mob were, given a guy ended up in the Senate chamber crying out for Pence, Pence sure has good self control to not immediately seek to destroy Trump for setting them loose on him.
It was a planned Coup. Incite a riot. Storm the Capitol thanks to a lack of law enforcement which Trump ordered. Take Pence, Pelosi etc hostage. Trump forced to call for martial law. Electoral College certificates destroyed. Fraudulent election result set aside.
Trump described as excitedly pacing the White House as it went on.
Some Canadian snowbirds - retired people who travel south for the winter - are finding they are able to get vaccinations in Florida earlier than they could if they remained at home.
Florida is allowing anyone over the age of 65 to be vaccinated for no charge. That includes non-citizens.
Getting a vaccine there is like winning the lottery, one couple tell CBC News. They say they were able to book vaccinations for other Canadian friends, who are now planning to travel to Florida for the jab after initially postponing their trip due to lack of vaccination.
I heard from a military type friend yesterday that private clinics in Bahrain are offering Pfizer for hard money.
I love it when people who are implacably opposed to the Republican Party try to give it lessons. Presumably to maintain the notion that everything is alright in the West and its business as usual, and what you are seeing is not a hologram.
But here's the thing. It really isn't all right.
The right is completely split in America. The party elite and the Trumpist base despise each other totally. The latter will not turn out for the former, as Georgia showed, and what follows is a hugely bitter primaries battle between the two factions ahead of 2022. When millions will not turn out again and the democrat hegemony intensifies.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will be deliberating just how much of a Jihad they want to declare on the many millions of Americans who turned out for Trump and now have zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions.
Trump showed his millions of supporters a glimpse of an America they were comfortable with and where they were welcome and valuable citizens.
They are not going back to the likes of Romney. Not now. Not ever.
Trump is a symptom not a cause, and the cause is still very much there, if not more so than previously.
Agreed. But I don;t know if anyone can harness it like Trump. I quite like Kristi Noem.
Noem is a homophobic religious bigot. What is it you like about her?
I like her videos promoting SD as a tourist destination. I had a great time there in 2019
Next, Hitler was a decentish bloke, as evidenced by him doing a promo to "come visit the pretty town of Berchtesgaden..."
You can’t argue that it’s not located at a truly fine spot.
One of the benefits of being Fuhrer was not being troubled by nimby's.....for long.
One of Philip Kerr's rather good Dritten Reich noir novels is based in part on exactly that theme - nimbys at Berchtesgaden.
I liked them from the start (much more than his more airporty thrillers) but it's gratifying to see how the whole series has grown in stature, particularly since Kerr's death. They've even earned the ultimate accolade of having (fairly mediocre) copyists.
The Berlin Noir books & sequels must be ripe for a film or televisualisation - I'm thinking Philip Glenister for Bernie might be good casting?
Edit: just did a check & apparently there is an HBO movie proposal floating about. Kerr himself liked Michael Fassbinder for the role, also not a bad choice.
Ooh, now that is not a bad thought (Fassbinder).
BTW what did you make of Burgessian's spot of the latest Alex Bell?
More a regurgitation than anything new.
Telling that he uses terms like 'the Nats' & 'Nat Nostrodamus' quite happily, presumably why Unionists invariably feel the need to put former advisor to Alex Samond next to his name, as if this was some guarantee of objective insight. Says quite a lot that referring to something that he hasn't been for 10 years is his USP.
Thanks. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't being unfair, but no. (Though it was a bit later than 2010-11 that they parted brass rags: https://archive.is/vGZEp - but on the other hand he started attacking Salmond etc soon after that, which raises some interesting questions.)
I'm reminded that such newspapers often feel the need to roll out Jim Sillars as former deputy leader of the SNP - in 1991-2. Bit like relying solely on Michael Heseltime for your up to date critique of Tory Party policy, only worse - at least the latter is your actual live Lord. No reflection on the good peer, of course, who was sound on helicopters inter aliis, but if there weren't a wider palette one would start suspecting that the criticism was deliberately black and white by editorial policy.
Ah, I knew he was advisor to Salmond for 3 years, just assumed it was from 2007.
Whatever Trump's specific intentions with inciting the mob were, given a guy ended up in the Senate chamber crying out for Pence, Pence sure has good self control to not immediately seek to destroy Trump for setting them loose on him.
It was a planned Coup. Incite a riot. Storm the Capitol thanks to a lack of law enforcement which Trump ordered. Take Pence, Pelosi etc hostage. Trump forced to call for martial law. Electoral College certificates destroyed. Fraudulent election result set aside.
Trump described as excitedly pacing the White House as it went on.
That sounds like way too complicated a plan for Trump.
World Beating single day death rate as a % of population today?
Quite possibly. I asked this question t'other day: is the UK recording world records of positive daily cases per capita? I suspect we are, and now daily deaths, as well
No. Cases per capita is pretty meaningless given the huge variation in testing. On deaths the latest day is just over half Belgium's worst day - to match it we'd need another 900 cases per day.
Or, alternatively, delay reporting some cases and then report them all on the same day. Remember, these are deaths by reporting date, so one-day spikes mean nothing at all. It is sustained high levels that indicate disaster. On that metric, I'd say we're pretty close to Belgium's worst levels already.
Alex Salmond has launched an extraordinary personal attack on Nicola Sturgeon, calling her testimony to the inquiry into sexual assault claims made against him “simply untrue”.
In his submission to the inquiry, the former first minister said Ms Sturgeon misled parliament and broken the ministerial code which, if he is proven to be correct, would almost certainly spell the end of her political career.
Mr Salmond said the breaches included a failure to inform the civil service in good time of her meetings with him, and allowing the Scottish government to contest a civil court case against him despite having had legal advice that it was likely to collapse.
The allegations against Ms Sturgeon, who replaced Mr Salmond as first minister and leader of the SNP after the 2014 independence referendum, show how far relations have soured between the two most influential figures in the SNP have become.
The ministerial code says that any meetings about government business should be recorded and that ministers must ensure the government complies with the law. A minister found to have knowingly misled Holyrood “will be expected to offer their resignation”.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
I think that's right. When I drove into work back then, there were a couple of weeks when I encountered maybe two or three other vehicles on a ten mile journey. Now traffic is like any normal school holiday.
Same here. I live on a main (urban) road and I've no idea where all the cars are going.
Perhaps the problem is that some people absolutely must do some leisure shopping and if the supermarket is the only place open, then that's where they'll go. A bit like those that must have foreign holidays but on a local scale.
This isn't stopping the new variant. No chance.
Same in my city. On our dog walk every day, around 11am, cars are streaming towards the city centre on the main road. In March/April it was really quiet. And every day we ask one another the same question: where on earth are they all going? There are no supermarkets in the city centre. It's baffling.
Whatever Trump's specific intentions with inciting the mob were, given a guy ended up in the Senate chamber crying out for Pence, Pence sure has good self control to not immediately seek to destroy Trump for setting them loose on him.
It was a planned Coup. Incite a riot. Storm the Capitol thanks to a lack of law enforcement which Trump ordered. Take Pence, Pelosi etc hostage. Trump forced to call for martial law. Electoral College certificates destroyed. Fraudulent election result set aside.
Trump described as excitedly pacing the White House as it went on.
The point was even if he had only wanted to stir up a crowd to scare the Congress, that some people showed up in the building wanting to do Pence harm would, if I were Pence, incline me to take revenge.
Whatever Trump's specific intentions with inciting the mob were, given a guy ended up in the Senate chamber crying out for Pence, Pence sure has good self control to not immediately seek to destroy Trump for setting them loose on him.
It was a planned Coup. Incite a riot. Storm the Capitol thanks to a lack of law enforcement which Trump ordered. Take Pence, Pelosi etc hostage. Trump forced to call for martial law. Electoral College certificates destroyed. Fraudulent election result set aside.
Trump described as excitedly pacing the White House as it went on.
That sounds like way too complicated a plan for Trump.
Yeah - hence he bolloxed it up.
I think it was something like
- make sure riled up crowd (complete with crazies) was at fever pitch - stand down as much security as possible - hope that they make some kind of mess - {Under pants gnomes here} - Martial law - Victory!
Alex Salmond has launched an extraordinary personal attack on Nicola Sturgeon, calling her testimony to the inquiry into sexual assault claims made against him “simply untrue”.
In his submission to the inquiry, the former first minister said Ms Sturgeon misled parliament and broken the ministerial code which, if he is proven to be correct, would almost certainly spell the end of her political career.
Mr Salmond said the breaches included a failure to inform the civil service in good time of her meetings with him, and allowing the Scottish government to contest a civil court case against him despite having had legal advice that it was likely to collapse.
The allegations against Ms Sturgeon, who replaced Mr Salmond as first minister and leader of the SNP after the 2014 independence referendum, show how far relations have soured between the two most influential figures in the SNP have become.
The ministerial code says that any meetings about government business should be recorded and that ministers must ensure the government complies with the law. A minister found to have knowingly misled Holyrood “will be expected to offer their resignation”.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find these charts you post daily to be neither use nor ornament.
You certainly don't speak for me.
Thanks, once again, Malmesbury. The whole point of this site is to discuss new information, and make forecasts on it. You assist that.
Indeed, so many PBers appreciate Malmesbury's hard work, we're lucky to have him.
Including OGH.
MaxPB knows way more of the science, I think. My thing is more shovelling data...
It is appreciated, I remember seeing in October/November lots of red emerging on your charts and thinking this doesn't look and lo and behold.
For those that are interested -
That's every single case the epidemic. Yes, distorted by the introduction of mass testing.... but its a something.... not sure really
When this thing is done, I'm going to print it wall sized and get it put somewhere.
Malmesbury,
Thank you for these charts, I find them fascinating.
Given the higher numbers at present, is it possible to have differential shades of red to show how very bad it has got.
I thought about that - but it means altering the mechanism by which I create them. I try very hard to create process for each one and then not touch it.
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
I pray you are right, and you might well be right, the problem is can we get to March without total apocalypse?
I do not see how the NHS can sustain 3000+ new patients every day. IF it stays at that level. That's at least 150,000 new patients by the end of Feb. Impossible.
At that point Neil Ferguson's original prediction (much derided on here) of a possible death toll from Covid plus a crashed NHS, comes into focus. 500,000 dead.
The vaccines and lockdowns need to start working very very soon.
The lockdown will start showing effects by the beginning of next week. Yes, the new variant is more contagious.
But if people aren't seeing other people, the virus won't spread.
Go look at Belgium - disaster on the vaccines front, but at least they've got their second wave under control.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
I think that's right. When I drove into work back then, there were a couple of weeks when I encountered maybe two or three other vehicles on a ten mile journey. Now traffic is like any normal school holiday.
Same here. I live on a main (urban) road and I've no idea where all the cars are going.
Perhaps the problem is that some people absolutely must do some leisure shopping and if the supermarket is the only place open, then that's where they'll go. A bit like those that must have foreign holidays but on a local scale.
This isn't stopping the new variant. No chance.
Same in my city. On our dog walk every day, around 11am, cars are streaming towards the city centre on the main road. In March/April it was really quiet. And every day we ask one another the same question: where on earth are they all going? There are no supermarkets in the city centre. It's baffling.
Around here traffic is about the same as the autumn lockdown but higher than the spring one.
He's not exactly an unbiased source of course, but the thing is it makes way more sense than the alternative. He loves whipping up his supporters, he whipped them up, of course he would be excited that they responded to him so much.
Totally consistent with utterly ill-judged "we love you" video.
But it goes further that that. It was, in Trump's mind, a genuine coup attempt. Have no doubt - he intended this. It is textbook coup. Plausible deniability by not physically being in the mob. But the aim is to create a crisis which you alone can resolve. His fantasy was a siege with hostages where only he could call off the dogs... at a huge price.
I don't know how much I believe the level of forethought he put into things. But I don't think there is any question whatsoever that he wanted a riot and he wanted that riot to, bare minimum, scare the Congress into stopping what it was doing or changing what it ws doing. And that has to be a crime even if that was 'all' he wanted to do, particularly given the outcome.
President Trump, who begrudgingly recognized his defeat less than two weeks before he was due to leave office, announced on Twitter that he would not be attending President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Some Canadian snowbirds - retired people who travel south for the winter - are finding they are able to get vaccinations in Florida earlier than they could if they remained at home.
Florida is allowing anyone over the age of 65 to be vaccinated for no charge. That includes non-citizens.
Getting a vaccine there is like winning the lottery, one couple tell CBC News. They say they were able to book vaccinations for other Canadian friends, who are now planning to travel to Florida for the jab after initially postponing their trip due to lack of vaccination.
I heard from a military type friend yesterday that private clinics in Bahrain are offering Pfizer for hard money.
A friend whose wife is stuck in Juarez, Mexico bought one for herself and her mother.
That testing curve you see? That's *exactly* what we're going to see with vaccinations. It'll start slowly and grow and grow.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
I am hoping the end of February. I think things will start to move really fast once we have got adequate supplies on hand.
I think it's more likely that the date is earlier rather than later. 20 million doses of AZN will go a long way to controlling this thing.
World Beating single day death rate as a % of population today?
Not, yet, remotely near the Belgian horror show:
Thanks. So despite this shitshow, we're still not as bad as Belgium. My god, how bad was Belgium?!
I think it was only half of Belgium, the other bit getting off lightly. Can't remember which half though.
Our surge planners today reckon we have trebbled our ICU capacity, and added 120 ward beds. We are still taking transfers from other hospitals though.
I reckon the daily mortality number will be near 2000 next Wednesday.
How close do you think we are to the NHS falling apart? By that I mean, triaging in the hospital car parks and sending home people over 70, then 60, then 55......
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
I think that's right. When I drove into work back then, there were a couple of weeks when I encountered maybe two or three other vehicles on a ten mile journey. Now traffic is like any normal school holiday.
Same here. I live on a main (urban) road and I've no idea where all the cars are going.
Perhaps the problem is that some people absolutely must do some leisure shopping and if the supermarket is the only place open, then that's where they'll go. A bit like those that must have foreign holidays but on a local scale.
This isn't stopping the new variant. No chance.
Same in my city. On our dog walk every day, around 11am, cars are streaming towards the city centre on the main road. In March/April it was really quiet. And every day we ask one another the same question: where on earth are they all going? There are no supermarkets in the city centre. It's baffling.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
The morons are surely the people who thought putting households together on Christmas was a good idea, legal or not legal.
And the absolute fucking morons who thought it would be a good idea to have one day of school of household mixing for 3m kids. Absolutely huge amount of negligence.
That was bewilderingly stupid. Although, once again, there were apparently 140 kids in my son's school on Wednesday, mainly the children of doctors. This is an order of magnitude higher than were being sent in in May and June before the summer holidays. Attitudes are different, at least around here, despite this awful death toll.
I received an email from my employer (university) telling me that under government rules I'm a 'critical worker' (seems to be he new term for key worker) and therefore can send my kids (if applicable*) to school and that they could provide a signed letter on headed paper to this effect if needed. Very flattering, but I'm in no way a critical worker. I get that lecturers might be considered as such, but I do little teaching, none at all this term and my research (while obviously world-leading and of vital importance!) can wait a bit if needed. No one told me I was a key worker in March.
*it's not, mine are both pre-school
Yes, same here. Some colleagues were wondering the other day whether it was really moral for professors to take up school spaces, especially in a University town. Apparently it also applies to University administrators.
I think the new policy of allowing children to attend if one, rather than both (if two) parents are key workers is a mistake. There's not a lot of point closing schools to reduce the spread of COVID if too many children still attend school. Plus risk to teachers. I'm concerned that this lockdown is really not happening like in March, which is obvious even just from traffic noise. Denial of treatment due to overwhelmed hospitals was already a risk (in a week or two, when pre-lockdown infections plus intra-household spread filter through), and every day that cases grow further makes it more likely.
Joe Biden stumbles over his words really is not that strong an attack. Can't say I think his quip was necessary, though her angry body language was mesmerising to watch.
Whatever Trump's specific intentions with inciting the mob were, given a guy ended up in the Senate chamber crying out for Pence, Pence sure has good self control to not immediately seek to destroy Trump for setting them loose on him.
It was a planned Coup. Incite a riot. Storm the Capitol thanks to a lack of law enforcement which Trump ordered. Take Pence, Pelosi etc hostage. Trump forced to call for martial law. Electoral College certificates destroyed. Fraudulent election result set aside.
Trump described as excitedly pacing the White House as it went on.
That sounds like way too complicated a plan for Trump.
As mentioned earlier, I think he may have planned up to the early stages, making sure that there was insufficient police and national guard support at Capitol and sufficient anger among his people, and beyond that probably just the best he could get and any extra destruction as a bonus. He loves to take revenge on whoever's annoyed him, in this case most of the political class.
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Life would be much better if people who wished themselves to be socially conservative nevertheless respected other people's right to live their own lives in their own way.
Including OGH.
Let’s focus on vaccination numbers - that’s the only game in town.
Yes, "Trumpism" might have a future if its key ingredient - Trump - had not been exposed by the pandemic as an incompetent fraud and by events post election as a wannabe fascist.
But he was and he was, so it doesn't.
England & to a lesser extent Scotland really driving the growth.
*it's not, mine are both pre-school
https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1347558657945448453
Down to her last private charter.
Interestingly, it was a route I took on a walk in lockdown 1, in the spring. Back then, the scene ws utterly desolate. Barely a soul.
This time it was very quiet, but there was noticeably more activity. Joggers, tourists (it looked like), cyclists, market traders... and yes I suppose I ws one of them, but at least I am rightly terrified.
How close are we to a Wuhan-style meltdown?
There will be an irreducible number of the population who will not mount an effective immune response regardless of vaccine. But I would expect this to be in the low single digit percent.
Over the course of a week, we'll go from "we're not doing enough!" to "oh, the end is in sight". I forecast that week to be in the first half of March.
https://twitter.com/Mediaite/status/1347586006132924417
Hell's teeth, even I am a key worker apparently and workers don't come much less useful in an emergency than lawyers.
But Boris Johnson is a weird one. He's unable to grasp the urgency of preventing people going through even something he's been through himself. You'd have thought his own profoundly frightening experience with Covid-19 would have spurred him on to be better. To be better than... this.
It's easy to be unempathic when you haven't been there yourself. But to allow others to tumble into the same hell you personally went through must be something they only teach at Oxford, because it's un-fuckingin-fathomable to me.
https://twitter.com/wizardenai/status/1347584782075482112
They may find they are triaged into the 'not sufficient resources to treat' category.
I'm reminded that such newspapers often feel the need to roll out Jim Sillars as former deputy leader of the SNP - in 1991-2. Bit like relying solely on Michael Heseltime for your up to date critique of Tory Party policy, only worse - at least the latter is your actual live Lord. No reflection on the good peer, of course, who was sound on helicopters inter aliis, but if there weren't a wider palette one would start suspecting that the criticism was deliberately black and white by editorial policy.
I do not see how the NHS can sustain 3000+ new patients every day. IF it stays at that level. That's at least 150,000 new patients by the end of Feb. Impossible.
At that point Neil Ferguson's original prediction (much derided on here) of a possible death toll from Covid plus a crashed NHS, comes into focus. 500,000 dead.
The vaccines and lockdowns need to start working very very soon.
I mean I don't agree with Corbyn, but I understand why many people became hardened followers. He was promising (and I think everybody thought he would give it a damn good go) at a totally different approach to government. Big state, return to nationalization, much higher wages set by the government and unions.
He would have run up borrow like a COVID crisis, but I think the people would have at least in the short term seem improvements in the things he claimed he would do....it was the difficult second album where he would run into the big trouble.
That's every single case the epidemic. Yes, distorted by the introduction of mass testing.... but its a something.... not sure really
When this thing is done, I'm going to print it wall sized and get it put somewhere.
Even if cases have reached their peak, for which there's little evidence, except in Wales, perhaps, there's so much more to come in terms of hospital admissions.
When was the last time we had a week this bad? Covid out of control, attempted coup in the US, disrupted trade thanks to the substandard deal.
I'm going to try and cheer myself up with a bit of knitting and perhaps a lot of brandy. Take care guys.
I suppose I should be grateful it's the right way up. Good work, Malmesbury.
Florida is allowing anyone over the age of 65 to be vaccinated for no charge. That includes non-citizens.
Getting a vaccine there is like winning the lottery, one couple tell CBC News. They say they were able to book vaccinations for other Canadian friends, who are now planning to travel to Florida for the jab after initially postponing their trip due to lack of vaccination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOyM97Y_RdM
Says Sadiq Khan and other politicians now saying younger people are ending up seriously ill (about 5 mins in)
Earlier than that he appears to be saying Friday prayers are still going on in London - that seems utterly stupid if he is right given the infection rates reported.
It won't look good.
Who's to blame - we are. Oddly the dead perhaps have a bigger share of blame. Some of the dead were fools. Some more of them knew fools.
Our surge planners today reckon we have trebbled our ICU capacity, and added 120 ward beds. We are still taking transfers from other hospitals though.
I reckon the daily mortality number will be near 2000 next Wednesday.
But it goes further that that. It was, in Trump's mind, a genuine coup attempt. Have no doubt - he intended this. It is textbook coup. Plausible deniability by not physically being in the mob. But the aim is to create a crisis which you alone can resolve. His fantasy was a siege with hostages where only he could call off the dogs... at a huge price.
Trump described as excitedly pacing the White House as it went on.
Is it up to yesterday??
Thank you for these charts, I find them fascinating.
Given the higher numbers at present, is it possible to have differential shades of red to show how very bad it has got.
Alex Salmond has launched an extraordinary personal attack on Nicola Sturgeon, calling her testimony to the inquiry into sexual assault claims made against him “simply untrue”.
In his submission to the inquiry, the former first minister said Ms Sturgeon misled parliament and broken the ministerial code which, if he is proven to be correct, would almost certainly spell the end of her political career.
Mr Salmond said the breaches included a failure to inform the civil service in good time of her meetings with him, and allowing the Scottish government to contest a civil court case against him despite having had legal advice that it was likely to collapse.
The allegations against Ms Sturgeon, who replaced Mr Salmond as first minister and leader of the SNP after the 2014 independence referendum, show how far relations have soured between the two most influential figures in the SNP have become.
The ministerial code says that any meetings about government business should be recorded and that ministers must ensure the government complies with the law. A minister found to have knowingly misled Holyrood “will be expected to offer their resignation”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/nicola-sturgeons-account-of-sex-assault-inquiry-simply-untrue-says-alex-salmond-s050xl3wg
I think it was something like
- make sure riled up crowd (complete with crazies) was at fever pitch
- stand down as much security as possible
- hope that they make some kind of mess
- {Under pants gnomes here}
- Martial law
- Victory!
What a pathetic LOSER!
Hmmmmm....
But if people aren't seeing other people, the virus won't spread.
Go look at Belgium - disaster on the vaccines front, but at least they've got their second wave under control.
A bunch of entryists spitting their dummies out. I think I'll give it a miss.
A very bad loser.
Our worst day so far ie today is 19.47 per million 65.6% of the Belgian worst day
NYTimes blog
I think the new policy of allowing children to attend if one, rather than both (if two) parents are key workers is a mistake. There's not a lot of point closing schools to reduce the spread of COVID if too many children still attend school. Plus risk to teachers. I'm concerned that this lockdown is really not happening like in March, which is obvious even just from traffic noise. Denial of treatment due to overwhelmed hospitals was already a risk (in a week or two, when pre-lockdown infections plus intra-household spread filter through), and every day that cases grow further makes it more likely.
--AS