Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
Remind me the result of the most recent Scottish independence referendum? Scotland decided to stay.
Just because the indies shout louder shouldn't prevent democracy from triumphing, should it?
Or do you think that a vote for independence carries more weight than a vote against it?
Just sounds like sour grapes to me, Malc.
Just as was stated the conditions have changed, we were lied to in 2014 and it clearly said afterwards if conditions changed we would have another vote. That has happened and as will be proved in May , the Scottish people want another vote on it as is their sovereign right. Fact that unionists are scared to have one does not come into it.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Countries with different demographics will be impacted differently. It doesn't matter what metric you use to measure it.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
How many colonies were given a chance to leave say under seven years ago?
History , has no relevance to current position , we did not have a despot in charge then.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Also it ignores where we are undoubtedly world-beating - the vaccine programme, which will save tens of thousands of lives. The government has done exceptionally well there.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
Hindsight 20/20. At the time no one was seriously suggesting closing the entire border.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That assumes the reported figures from everywhere else are correct. Russia admitted it has underreported by 70%, analysis of excess deaths in the US show underreporting of around 40% and a mysterious rise in pneumonia deaths last year. There is a lot to fault the government on, no doubt, but international comparisons are specious becuase most countries are nowhere near as transparent as this country in reporting. I know this will fall in deaf ears and you'll keep pushing the same tired old agenda at every opportunity but hopefully someone else gets something out of it.
One of the many things that President Bidden is ordering, IIRC is a clearout of management and a reset on COVID statistical gathering. There is a lot of very shameful evidence of manipulation of numbers. And no, strangely, it wasn't done by Antifa.
Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
Remind me the result of the most recent Scottish independence referendum? Scotland decided to stay.
Just because the indies shout louder shouldn't prevent democracy from triumphing, should it?
Or do you think that a vote for independence carries more weight than a vote against it?
Just sounds like sour grapes to me, Malc.
Just as was stated the conditions have changed, we were lied to in 2014 and it clearly said afterwards if conditions changed we would have another vote. That has happened and as will be proved in May , the Scottish people want another vote on it as is their sovereign right. Fact that unionists are scared to have one does not come into it.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Who put Junker in charge of the vaccine roll-out program?
Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
How many colonies were given a chance to leave say under seven years ago?
History , has no relevance to current position , we did not have a despot in charge then.
You insult the many millions who have died from actual despots.
The government saying 75% of over 80s have had at least first jab. I wonder how many of the 25% haven't because they turned it down?
I noted that the BBC were reporting that Matt Hancock said 75% of over 80s had had vaccine and that three quarters of care home residents had had the vaccine. I don't know if this is Matt Hancock or the BBC that have expressed this like this, but it gave me the impression that someone didn't understand that 3/4 = 75%.
And what is not surprising is that was my first assumption when seeing something written like that. Is it very cynical of me to assume when seeing something like this that these people don't understand very basic arithmetic rather than it being an inconsistency.
Two different populations, just coincidence it's the same fraction.
That is not the point I was making. Why say 75% and 3/4 in the same sentence for 2 different things. Use either 75% or 3/4 for both. It was written in such a way as to imply they were different numbers. It looked very odd.
Either use 75% or 3/4 for each stat. It was written in such a way as if the person didn't understand they were the same number.
To avoid repetition I would have thought. The fact they are the same is not really relevant though, so it doesn't matter whether someone understood they were the same or not.
Your more charitable than me. I assumed it was written by someone who didn't pass their GCSE maths.
The only time I would find it possibly acceptable to mix them up would be with the use of 1/3 and 2/3.
The fact that each stat was identical made it really stand out.
Written by someone who struggled with his O level English. Good job @MarqueeMark isn't here.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
Remind me the result of the most recent Scottish independence referendum? Scotland decided to stay.
Just because the indies shout louder shouldn't prevent democracy from triumphing, should it?
Or do you think that a vote for independence carries more weight than a vote against it?
Just sounds like sour grapes to me, Malc.
Just as was stated the conditions have changed, we were lied to in 2014 and it clearly said afterwards if conditions changed we would have another vote. That has happened and as will be proved in May , the Scottish people want another vote on it as is their sovereign right. Fact that unionists are scared to have one does not come into it.
Lies about the price of oil?
Or about being able to remain in EU?
About being able to use Sterling?
Not those lies no.
Perhaps Nicola has gone to the expense, trouble and time of procuring blue envelopes to acknowledge the contribution of the Conservative government in London in procuring Scotland's jabs?
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
...and consequent disorder? Riots? Police outnumbered? Mass disobedience? We are not NZ.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
He'll find something else.
I know that. You know that. He knows that.
A waste of oxygen.
We certainly don't hear anything about testing anymore.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Countries with different demographics will be impacted differently. It doesn't matter what metric you use to measure it.
LOL
So when in the early numbers we were looking terrible compared to elsewhere it was "wait for the excess death numbers thats the only way to compare".
Now its "we cant compare"
People will demand answers, so comparisons will be done, all look bad for Boris apologists.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
Hindsight 20/20. At the time no one was seriously suggesting closing the entire border.
The countries that have been most successful in dealing with Covid - both medically and economically - are those which have had the strictest lockdowns - New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, even China despite their role at the start - all closed their borders in March last year. So it clearly was suggested, sensible countries were doing it.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Countries with different demographics will be impacted differently. It doesn't matter what metric you use to measure it.
LOL
So when in the early numbers we were looking terrible compared to elsewhere it was "wait for the excess death numbers thats the only way to compare".
Now its "we cant compare"
People will demand answers, so comparisons will be done, all look bad for Boris apologists.
Comparing similar countries is fine, but comparing to the global population is just dumb.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
Hindsight 20/20. At the time no one was seriously suggesting closing the entire border.
The countries that have been most successful in dealing with Covid - both medically and economically - are those which have gad the strictest lockdowns - New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, even China despite their role at the start - all closed their borders in March last year. So it clearly was suggested, sensible countries were doing it.
Yet it wasn't seriously suggested here at the time. By the time those suggestions came about, it was already seeded and community transmission was widespread.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
Hindsight 20/20. At the time no one was seriously suggesting closing the entire border.
The countries that have been most successful in dealing with Covid - both medically and economically - are those which have gad the strictest lockdowns - New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, even China despite their role at the start - all closed their borders in March last year. So it clearly was suggested, sensible countries were doing it.
Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
Remind me the result of the most recent Scottish independence referendum? Scotland decided to stay.
Just because the indies shout louder shouldn't prevent democracy from triumphing, should it?
Or do you think that a vote for independence carries more weight than a vote against it?
Just sounds like sour grapes to me, Malc.
Just as was stated the conditions have changed, we were lied to in 2014 and it clearly said afterwards if conditions changed we would have another vote. That has happened and as will be proved in May , the Scottish people want another vote on it as is their sovereign right. Fact that unionists are scared to have one does not come into it.
Lies about the price of oil?
Or about being able to remain in EU?
About being able to use Sterling?
The currency issue is simply set in stone. Scotland can use the pound if they like post independence, but they'll have no role in the management or direction of the currency.
Scottish Independence would have the immediate effect that all those fruity banknotes you so love to print have to be tendered to a bank in the UK for cancellation.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Countries with different demographics will be impacted differently. It doesn't matter what metric you use to measure it.
LOL
So when in the early numbers we were looking terrible compared to elsewhere it was "wait for the excess death numbers thats the only way to compare".
Now its "we cant compare"
People will demand answers, so comparisons will be done, all look bad for Boris apologists.
Comparisons will be done, I agree, but that neither makes them relevant, nor wise. May I recommend 'The Tyranny of Metrics' by Jerry Z Muller on the tiny off-chance that you'd like to seriously engage.
Martin again demonstrating the mystery of why he gets paid the big bucks (I actually assume it's reasonably substantial rather than big, but same applies)
In the UK, Scotland is as important as England; all British citizens are a priority to get vaccinated by the British government.
In the EU, Scotland would be well down the EU28 list, and, to the extent it could get its bureaucracy together to respond to future viral outbreaks, behind the French and German governments, who have their own priorities and would pull the EU's attentions toward them.
"In the UK, Scotland is as important as England" Ha ha, top satirical post.
Scottish and English people have precisely the same rights as British citizens.
Our fellow nationalist posters like to play the victim. They are treated no differently to how I am.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
Hindsight 20/20. At the time no one was seriously suggesting closing the entire border.
The countries that have been most successful in dealing with Covid - both medically and economically - are those which have had the strictest lockdowns - New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, even China despite their role at the start - all closed their borders in March last year. So it clearly was suggested, sensible countries were doing it.
To be absolutely fair, China is a hardline totalitarian dictatorship and the rest are effectively isolated island states (the land border between the two Koreas is obviously so heavily militarized that the South effectively counts as an island for this purpose.)
We could've gone very hard on lockdown, but we have a much higher population density than NZ or Australia at least, a lot of poor inner cities and towns where this thing has proven very stubborn to shift, and NZ-style isolation is unlikely to have been fully effective due to the percentage of trade that moves by road haulage being too high for the continuous flow of truck drivers simply to be cut off.
The Government could've gone in harder and earlier with restrictions, but I don't think zero Covid was ever a realistic strategy as in those countries which you list (and even some of them haven't managed it, along with Ireland which was both stricter than us and may have been in a better position to attempt such a thing as well.)
Question is will those vaccinated, asymptomatic people get tests and will that spook the government.
Why would they? Close proximity to someone who tests positive perhaps. Mild symptoms. Not sure.
But as far as positive test numbers it's crucial otherwise high positive test numbers of vaccinated people will affect policy.
Hospitalisations is the only metric that matters.
I doubt it, as you say as long as they aren't filling up hospitals it doesn't really matter. Even for lockdown 3 the government pushed the panic button when they realised that hospitals were about to get completey buggered.
On that note, it looks like the hospital funnel has got more people leaving than entering, it won't be long now until the death rate starts to fall. Sadly because of the Kent mutation the fall isn't going to be as quick as it was in lockdown 1, but we have the added effect of the vaccines which may counteract that.
Kent itself appears to be following Farr's Law in the second wave.
I'm glad they've got over Nicola's aversion to mentioning "Oxford".
Do you think they lost much time in procuring blue envelopes? - I'm sure the London Conservative government is flattered, but it was surely unnecessary....
Martin again demonstrating the mystery of why he gets paid the big bucks (I actually assume it's reasonably substantial rather than big, but same applies)
In the UK, Scotland is as important as England; all British citizens are a priority to get vaccinated by the British government.
In the EU, Scotland would be well down the EU28 list, and, to the extent it could get its bureaucracy together to respond to future viral outbreaks, behind the French and German governments, who have their own priorities and would pull the EU's attentions toward them.
"In the UK, Scotland is as important as England" Ha ha, top satirical post.
Scottish and English people have precisely the same rights as British citizens.
Our fellow nationalist posters like to play the victim. They are treated no differently to how I am.
They ARE treated differently. They get more public spending per head.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Countries with different demographics will be impacted differently. It doesn't matter what metric you use to measure it.
That is true and ideally you would want to compare like with like. That said for broader comparisons excess deaths is the right thing to compare, because whilst we might disagree on what constitutes a death due to COVID-19 — and that assumes countries are even in a position to make such an attribution — hardly anybody disagrees about what dead means.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
I think, for the reasons you highlight, Britain would have had a comparatively high death toll anyway, all the more so due to our ratio-limited health service, and poor arms-length social care system, but Boris has added to the toll by repeatedly prevaricating.
I don't know what that counts for in the end. Possibly 10-20k in numbers?
Just in from a fairly busy day at work. What an excellent analysis @tlg86
I think the lack of "sophmore" effect, by which I understand incumbency, may well be that we are only a year in, and with few opportunities to impress the local punters. I think though that incumbency is only a modest effect, with a few exceptions. Indeed sometimes a negative effect when people find their MP to be particularly useless and unresponsive.
The MRP model does seem to be an interesting approach though.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
I'm glad they've got over Nicola's aversion to mentioning "Oxford".
Do you think they lost much time in procuring blue envelopes? - I'm sure the London Conservative government is flattered, but it was surely unnecessary....
I didn't think you'd top the whole "cover up of secret Scottish death figures (that are discussed every day at the daily briefing)" but this genuinely is giving me concern over you.
I'm glad they've got over Nicola's aversion to mentioning "Oxford".
Do you think they lost much time in procuring blue envelopes? - I'm sure the London Conservative government is flattered, but it was surely unnecessary....
What on earth are you talking about? The SG has been talking about Oxford/Astrazeneca for weeks now, over a month, probably before you got it in your bonnet that it didn't like OU.
Guernsey COVID cases have gone from 6 (all inbound travel) to 10 (+4 community transmission with one from a school) to 35 (cases in 7 schools) - all schools shut, island in lockdown. It will be interesting to see how transmission is modelled later. Testing capacity is UK equivalent of 1,000,000/day. Samples being sent to UK for genomic sequencing.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
Martin again demonstrating the mystery of why he gets paid the big bucks (I actually assume it's reasonably substantial rather than big, but same applies)
In the UK, Scotland is as important as England; all British citizens are a priority to get vaccinated by the British government.
In the EU, Scotland would be well down the EU28 list, and, to the extent it could get its bureaucracy together to respond to future viral outbreaks, behind the French and German governments, who have their own priorities and would pull the EU's attentions toward them.
"In the UK, Scotland is as important as England" Ha ha, top satirical post.
Scottish and English people have precisely the same rights as British citizens.
Our fellow nationalist posters like to play the victim. They are treated no differently to how I am.
They ARE treated differently. They get more public spending per head.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
Hindsight 20/20. At the time no one was seriously suggesting closing the entire border.
The countries that have been most successful in dealing with Covid - both medically and economically - are those which have had the strictest lockdowns - New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, even China despite their role at the start - all closed their borders in March last year. So it clearly was suggested, sensible countries were doing it.
To be absolutely fair, China is a hardline totalitarian dictatorship and the rest are effectively isolated island states (the land border between the two Koreas is obviously so heavily militarized that the South effectively counts as an island for this purpose.)
We could've gone very hard on lockdown, but we have a much higher population density than NZ or Australia at least, a lot of poor inner cities and towns where this thing has proven very stubborn to shift, and NZ-style isolation is unlikely to have been fully effective due to the percentage of trade that moves by road haulage being too high for the continuous flow of truck drivers simply to be cut off.
The Government could've gone in harder and earlier with restrictions, but I don't think zero Covid was ever a realistic strategy as in those countries which you list (and even some of them haven't managed it, along with Ireland which was both stricter than us and may have been in a better position to attempt such a thing as well.)
If we were going to go for NZ-style isolation the date to do it was mid-February. This would have meant stranding thousands of foreigners here and thousands of Brits overseas, and at that stage there was absolutely no public appetite for an economic shut-down. By mid-March it was too late. Community transmission was already established all over the UK. NZ was never a realistic option at any time.
There is no magic government lever that will cause 65 million people to behave as instructed. This has always been the overwhelming constraint.
Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
Remind me the result of the most recent Scottish independence referendum? Scotland decided to stay.
Just because the indies shout louder shouldn't prevent democracy from triumphing, should it?
Or do you think that a vote for independence carries more weight than a vote against it?
Just sounds like sour grapes to me, Malc.
Just as was stated the conditions have changed, we were lied to in 2014 and it clearly said afterwards if conditions changed we would have another vote. That has happened and as will be proved in May , the Scottish people want another vote on it as is their sovereign right. Fact that unionists are scared to have one does not come into it.
Lies about the price of oil?
Or about being able to remain in EU?
About being able to use Sterling?
Go on, guess when the Tory government hit the N Sea sector with a massive tax grab...
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
I don't think the age, income or obesity levels are very different in NZ. Neither are urban residence or risky ethnic minorities, albeit those being Polynesian in the main.
Just in from a fairly busy day at work. What an excellent analysis @tlg86
I think the lack of "sophmore" effect, by which I understand incumbency, may well be that we are only a year in, and with few opportunities to impress the local punters. I think though that incumbency is only a modest effect, with a few exceptions. Indeed sometimes a negative effect when people find their MP to be particularly useless and unresponsive.
The MRP model does seem to be an interesting approach though.
Thanks, fingers crossed things start to get quieter for you and your colleagues in the not too distant future.
Reflecting on the SNP plan I have come to the conclusion that Sturgeon is better at politics than me:
I had assumed that it would be the SNP suing the Westminster government to ascertain the legality of an advisory referendum. By inverting it and daring Westminster to sue the Scottish Gov after the Scottish government had been elected on an explicit platform of having a referendum utterly changes the narrative.
Also publishing this plan completely and utterly shoots the foxes of her "wHeRE is PLaN B Nicola??!?" internal opponents.
She’s not though?
My understanding was that without a Section 30 order the Scottish law is ultra vires.
She can hold a poll but it wouldn’t have legal standing. I could see she might even get into trouble for spending public money on it although I am sure there will be a way around it.
Just drafting a section 30 notice doesn’t solve anything because it needs to be agreed by the U.K. government as well as the Scottish government
But I’ve not made a close study of it so perhaps someone can explain what I’ve missed?
There is no law stopping the Scottish government having and advisory referendum on any topic.
But equally there is no power vested in the Scottish government vis a vis constitutional matters. They're reserved powers.
Any such poll would surely be boycotted by unionists and ignored, don't you think?
We shall see when challenged in court, UK cannot imprison people, International law does not allow it. We are either in a union or we are a colony, make up your mind. Unusual in a democracy to hold people prisoner against their will.
Remind me the result of the most recent Scottish independence referendum? Scotland decided to stay.
Just because the indies shout louder shouldn't prevent democracy from triumphing, should it?
Or do you think that a vote for independence carries more weight than a vote against it?
Just sounds like sour grapes to me, Malc.
Just as was stated the conditions have changed, we were lied to in 2014 and it clearly said afterwards if conditions changed we would have another vote. That has happened and as will be proved in May , the Scottish people want another vote on it as is their sovereign right. Fact that unionists are scared to have one does not come into it.
Lies about the price of oil?
Or about being able to remain in EU?
About being able to use Sterling?
Go on, guess when the Tory government hit the N Sea sector with a massive tax grab...
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
I don't think the age, income or obesity levels are very different in NZ. Neither are urban residence or risky ethnic minorities, albeit those being Polynesian in the main.
Depends who "these people" are. The Republican Party is perhaps fatally split. Biden may be able to do deals with the Non-Trump bit. Not with these loons.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
I'm glad they've got over Nicola's aversion to mentioning "Oxford".
Do you think they lost much time in procuring blue envelopes? - I'm sure the London Conservative government is flattered, but it was surely unnecessary....
What on earth are you talking about? The SG has been talking about Oxford/Astrazeneca for weeks now, over a month, probably before you got it in your bonnet that it didn't like OU.
I welcome the change (from 7 January, so barely a fortnight, let alone "over a month"):
Scotland wildly under-performs in all sorts of social measures.
Off you go!
Ah but you don't want to - you want to still bear allegiance - ok.
You want to use the pound and have some say in it - no.
You want to wipe out all of your share of the national debt - no.
You want to have the EU welcome you with open arms and be even more generous than the UK was - not a chance. You want the EU to let you choose what your currency is - not a chance. You want the EU to let you choose to have a monarch that is part of a foreign trade bloc - tricky. You want the EU to entirely rule out and sub-secession - who knows.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
I don't think the age, income or obesity levels are very different in NZ. Neither are urban residence or risky ethnic minorities, albeit those being Polynesian in the main.
Geographic isolation obviously helps though.
NZ is actually a tad more obese per capita than we are but it doesn't have a Heathrow Airport or a global financial hub and its a fair bit younger in demographics.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
If our early vaccine roll-out stops us going into another spike later in the year that others don't manage to avoid, that could save us tens of thousands of deaths.
Martin again demonstrating the mystery of why he gets paid the big bucks (I actually assume it's reasonably substantial rather than big, but same applies)
In the UK, Scotland is as important as England; all British citizens are a priority to get vaccinated by the British government.
In the EU, Scotland would be well down the EU28 list, and, to the extent it could get its bureaucracy together to respond to future viral outbreaks, behind the French and German governments, who have their own priorities and would pull the EU's attentions toward them.
"In the UK, Scotland is as important as England" Ha ha, top satirical post.
Scottish and English people have precisely the same rights as British citizens.
Our fellow nationalist posters like to play the victim. They are treated no differently to how I am.
They ARE treated differently. They get more public spending per head.
We don't "spend" the allocation of sovereign debt, depreciation or all of the allocated defence expenditure.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Also it ignores where we are undoubtedly world-beating - the vaccine programme, which will save tens of thousands of lives. The government has done exceptionally well there.
I think it's pretty fair to take a look at the current position and where it will be in the next few months and based on that predict that once all this is over (inasmuch as it can be) the UK will appear to have done pretty darn badly even accounting for density etc. However, the excellent vaccination response may go some way to altering that position somewhat overall. But thought it cannot be a certainty, an initial view is bound to be very negative.
Should get to over 500k today, hopefully we do that on a regular basis next week for 3-3.5m doses per week. It would completely short circuit the whole 12 week cycle slowdown that people are worried about. AZ have really smashed it, with government help.
I said something about the AZ vaccine being the real deal at the time it was first announced.
What’s annoying is I can’t find the quote to prove it using Google and I can’t be bothered to scroll through all the old threads to find it, so you’ll just have to take my word for my awesome prescience.
If you are on mobile the search function on vanilla is really quite good now. You can filter by author and date range.
It is how I keep turning up peoples' (my own included) blown predictions.
Sir, you are officially a genius. I didn’t know about that feature.
Here it is, in all its glory: If it's 90% effective on a more rigorous testing regime than the others, costs a tenth to make and can be stored in a bog-standard piece of kit without spending zillions on dry ice:
Then screw the other vaccines, this is the real deal.
South Africa will pay $5.25 per dose for COVID-19 vaccines from the Serum Institute of India (SII) - well above what others, including developed nations, are paying for the same shots, local newspaper Business Day reported on Thursday.
The Business Day report cited health department Deputy Director-General Anban Pillay as saying the price was based on South Africa’s level of development and its past investment in research and development.
“We were advised that SII has applied a tiered pricing system, and given that (South Africa) is an upper-middle-income country, their price is $5.25. The explanation we were given for why other high-income countries have a lower price is that they have invested in the (research and development), hence the discount on the price,” it quoted him as saying.
The SII, which Business Day said did not respond to requests for comment, is one of several manufacturers licensed by AstraZeneca to make its COVID-19 vaccine. South Africa is due to procure 1.5 million of the shots from the institute.
Other nations or blocs are paying much less. In June, for instance, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and France negotiated a price of around $2.50 per shot for 300 million doses from AstraZeneca as part of a European deal to secure supplies of the drug.
Looks scandalous to me. South Africa is certainly not an "Upper middle income" country per head - it's 92nd, behind countries like Colombia and a third of Italy (https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/). Has Italy really been been investing massively in AZ's R&D?
The EU are buying directly from AZ, SA are buying from SII. It's not a comparable situation, I'm surprised that they aren't going down the COVAX route though as I'm sure they'd be eligible. The other issue is that, predicably, the Indian government put an export ban on SII for three months which means lower income countries buying from them are going to be waiting while AZ direct clients will get them immediately.
The upside is that with SII supply will be fairly reliable as they are a formidable outfit, unlike AZ which doesn't have a history of vaccine production. We've seen that with our order being late and underwhelming initially and the EU initial delivery going from 80m to 31m because of production issues.
Ultimately, it's going to be tough going for developing nations until at least the middle of summer when western manufacturing capacity has expanded to a level to supply western countries and have leftover for exports.
Perhaps this is one of the lessons we can learn from the pandemic - that a capacity gap in the production of vaccines exists which needs to be closed, and can then be used not only to respond quickly to a future pandemic but also to attempt to stamp out existing infectious diseases?
The UK Government has already sunk a lot of funding into a new facility for the research and manufacture of vaccines: it was on the drawing board anyway when the Plague started, so they signed contracts and chucked a load of money at it, and told the contractors to hurry up. Now, what if that facility was expanded to give us something like the production capacity of the SII? Perhaps the UK and India put together could build enough strength to go after a whole range of deadly diseases, and the Treasury could pay for lower income countries to receive the vaccines for nothing?
It would certainly be a good use of part of the controversial foreign aid budget, and one which the public might be happy to buy into.
Now I could be wrong, but I'm not sure you use the same equipment to produce mRNA vaccines as adenovirus ones. So, you also need to make sure you've built the right capacity for the vaccine that works best.
Scotland wildly under-performs in all sorts of social measures.
Off you go!
Ah but you don't want to - you want to still bear allegiance - ok.
You want to use the pound and have some say in it - no.
You want to wipe out all of your share of the national debt - no.
You want to have the EU welcome you with open arms and be even more generous than the UK was - not a chance. You want the EU to let you choose what your currency is - not a chance. You want the EU to let you choose to have a monarch that is part of a foreign trade bloc - tricky. You want the EU to entirely rule out and sub-secession - who knows.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
If our early vaccine roll-out stops us going into another spike later in the year that others don't manage to avoid, that could save us tens of thousands of deaths.
It's a crying shame that we weren't so lucky as to avoid massive spikes right before we were able to roll out the vaccination programme. Heroic work was done to get vaccines developed as fast as they did, no criticism there, but so many would have been saved if the spike had been just a little bit later. Scary thought.
We have to hope that this reduction speeds up, otherwise it's a very slow descent to zero, even with the vaccine.
The Israelis are well ahead of everyone else in the world but if the figures I'm reading are accurate they are still only at about 40 doses per 100 head of population, a decent fraction of those will be seconds, and many of the firsts will only have recently been administered and may therefore confer little or no protection.
So yes, assuming no disasters with exotic strains, the rate of decline should indeed accelerate over time, and quite soon at that.
I read an article in the Jerusalem Post about how the vaccination program was causing big problems with behaviour. 70 year olds, immediately after getting the vaccination, would throw caution to the wind and go and meet with their extended families; and younger people have been saying "now grandpa is vaccinated, I don't need to worry".
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
Hmm, UK 18% of the population over 65, South Korea 15%. Not a huge difference there. I'm sure we have more obesity but SK population density is much higher. So are we saying that it all comes down to being a global hub? But what about Hong Kong and Singapore?
No, the UK's poor performance is primarily, though not exclusively, the fault of the government, and the PM in particular.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
10k extra? I'd like to see the working here.
Little more than order of magnitude guesstimation, to be fair. But the contents of my envelope back were roughly:
We're at about 1000 a day now, have been for a week, will be for at least another week. Comparing England with other home nations, about a half of those look like they're Christmas related (from the English rise not happening elsewhere). 14 days x 500 gives 7000, round it up because we won't return to trend immediately.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
10k extra? I'd like to see the working here.
Little more than order of magnitude guesstimation, to be fair. But the contents of my envelope back were roughly:
We're at about 1000 a day now, have been for a week, will be for at least another week. Comparing England with other home nations, about a half of those look like they're Christmas related (from the English rise not happening elsewhere). 14 days x 500 gives 7000, round it up because we won't return to trend immediately.
I'd argue that disentangling the effect of Christmas day from the spread of the new variant is quite challenging. I don't think you can just assert that half of them came from the relaxed restrictions.
On topic, I agree. Outside of election periods the MRP is really trying to apply measures of current public opinion to seats.
It's rather accurate during an election period, particularly the final two weeks, because that's when postal voting is in full swing and election day itself is imminent.
A good MRP depends on looking at a very wide variety of different factors:
- how are Labour voters thinking in Con/SNP rural seats? - how are Remainer Con voters thinking suburban seats with councils run by the LDs? - how are students voting, etc
The more factors you have, the better able you able to extrapolate. Otherwise, you end up just reverting to the mean.
Just in from a fairly busy day at work. What an excellent analysis @tlg86
I think the lack of "sophmore" effect, by which I understand incumbency, may well be that we are only a year in, and with few opportunities to impress the local punters. I think though that incumbency is only a modest effect, with a few exceptions. Indeed sometimes a negative effect when people find their MP to be particularly useless and unresponsive.
The MRP model does seem to be an interesting approach though.
Thanks, fingers crossed things start to get quieter for you and your colleagues in the not too distant future.
Yes, it is busy, but we are coping locally, albeit by pulling out of everything other than emergency work. In the Midlands we are in the position in the wave of being about 2 weeks behind London, which does seem to be past the current peak. We are expecting our peak next weekend.
Catching up with the backlogs of cancelled elective work is going to be an absolute nightmare, but we have this nightmare to get through first.
On the positive side, a good second half from the LCFC reserves.
Martin again demonstrating the mystery of why he gets paid the big bucks (I actually assume it's reasonably substantial rather than big, but same applies)
In the UK, Scotland is as important as England; all British citizens are a priority to get vaccinated by the British government.
In the EU, Scotland would be well down the EU28 list, and, to the extent it could get its bureaucracy together to respond to future viral outbreaks, behind the French and German governments, who have their own priorities and would pull the EU's attentions toward them.
"In the UK, Scotland is as important as England" Ha ha, top satirical post.
Scottish and English people have precisely the same rights as British citizens.
Our fellow nationalist posters like to play the victim. They are treated no differently to how I am.
They ARE treated differently. They get more public spending per head.
We don't "spend" the allocation of sovereign debt, depreciation or all of the allocated defence expenditure.
The £13.5bn (based on most recent available figures) annual public sector net fiscal deficit is funded by the UK taxpayer. By which we mean, in fact, a transfer payment from England.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
Hmm, UK 18% of the population over 65, South Korea 15%. Not a huge difference there. I'm sure we have more obesity but SK population density is much higher. So are we saying that it all comes down to being a global hub? But what about Hong Kong and Singapore?
No, the UK's poor performance is primarily, though not exclusively, the fault of the government, and the PM in particular.
A bit older (esp over 80), a bit fatter, and lacking the mask-wearing culture seen in Asian countries. These all add up.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
Hmm, UK 18% of the population over 65, South Korea 15%. Not a huge difference there. I'm sure we have more obesity but SK population density is much higher. So are we saying that it all comes down to being a global hub? But what about Hong Kong and Singapore?
No, the UK's poor performance is primarily, though not exclusively, the fault of the government, and the PM in particular.
A bit older (esp over 80), a bit fatter, and lacking the mask-wearing culture seen in Asian countries. These all add up.
Certainly but they do not explain why the UK has almost 100,000 deaths and South Korea has 1300!
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That might be a valid comparison if every country had the same demographics.
That might be a valid comparison if Corbyn was PM
Fixed it for you
PB Tories in its down to our demographics DENIAL
Are you seriously suggesting demographics don't come into it?
Nah, Britain being a global transit hub with a disproportionately elderly and overweight population, many of them crammed into some of the highest-density areas in the world, clearly makes us no different from New Zealand.
Population density has little to do with it - Taiwan and South Korea are much denser than the UK and they have hardly any deaths, the US and Brazil are much less dense but they have suffered badly. Hong Kong and Singapore are transit hubs with very high population densities, they also have far fewer deaths than the UK.
It's a perfect storm of age, obesety and being a global transport hub. New York State and England are very similar in that respect.
Hmm, UK 18% of the population over 65, South Korea 15%. Not a huge difference there. I'm sure we have more obesity but SK population density is much higher. So are we saying that it all comes down to being a global hub? But what about Hong Kong and Singapore?
No, the UK's poor performance is primarily, though not exclusively, the fault of the government, and the PM in particular.
A bit older (esp over 80), a bit fatter, and lacking the mask-wearing culture seen in Asian countries. These all add up.
Certainly but they do not explain why the UK has almost 100,000 deaths and South Korea has 1300!
Isn't that where they have the ability to track every person so it is trivial to see who you have been in contact with? Not sure that'd go down too well in the UK.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Boris should have closed the airports last March.
Point is, March was too late. In feb there were thousands of infections already in the community. Lot of skiing trips etc. We were seeded everywhere, but notably in London. Arguably we should have locked down a week earlier, which I am sure would have saved many lives in the first wave. It’s also clear that we should have kept the nov lockdown on because of new variant and because the cases were still too high.
TRULY SHOCKING thing about the (alleged) photo of BoJo taking Joe's phone call, is the total, indeed glaring absence of any bust or other tribute, memento, etc., etc. in honor of WINSTON CHURCHILL.
Sure, we know that the PM has NEVER had any use for Franklin Roosevelt, due to FDR's failure to say "aye, ready, aye" in support of Britain's war effort in the fall of 1939, OR in the spring of 1940. Thus his refusal to display a bust of FDR.
But surely he could pay some respect to his (alleged) hero and role model, WSC? Mr. Johnson, have you no shame?!?
Possibly the most cringeworthy episode in our history was that manufactured outrage about a foreign leader's choice of office ornamentation. It's only rivalled by HYUFD's excruciatingly embarrasing insistence that US Presidents of English descent are nicer to us...conveniently ignoring the fact that Washington and Madison were both of English descent.
According to above, only three POTUS with zero English ancestry (Van Buren, Polk, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Trump). Most in addition to English also have Welsh, Scottish and Scots-Irish heritage, in some combination.
In other words, all but ONE (JFK) was NOT what we in America used to call WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant; though some might challenge inclusion of President Obama in this category - including him!
Below is summary from wiki article, including also the non-WASP "lesser breeds beyond the law" or in this case the pale.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
10k extra? I'd like to see the working here.
Little more than order of magnitude guesstimation, to be fair. But the contents of my envelope back were roughly:
We're at about 1000 a day now, have been for a week, will be for at least another week. Comparing England with other home nations, about a half of those look like they're Christmas related (from the English rise not happening elsewhere). 14 days x 500 gives 7000, round it up because we won't return to trend immediately.
I'd argue that disentangling the effect of Christmas day from the spread of the new variant is quite challenging. I don't think you can just assert that half of them came from the relaxed restrictions.
Fair point; it's certainly the weakest link in the chain. However, the comparison with other parts of the UK is suggestive, and if those responsible for England had a more relaxed set of restrictions despite knowing that New Improved Covid was around, more fool them.
Certainly been some pretty nasty outbreaks in sunny parts of the world. Indeed Sub-Saharan Africa has some nasty outbreaks at present.
Yeah, you could add any number of countries to completely invalidate the conclusion of this study. the introduction also suggests that the wave in each country was triggered by the same thing, which I think is strongly suspect.
The reason Nicola hasn't committed to it is because there's enough people who voted Yes and Leave that would sit on their hands or switch to No that it could swing the referendum to No. Everything is based around "Scotland could join the EU once independent" leaving the door open for Yes/Leave voters to vote Yes again.
I also think the idea of EU membership crystallising in having to adopt the Euro would be very unpopular.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
10k extra? I'd like to see the working here.
Little more than order of magnitude guesstimation, to be fair. But the contents of my envelope back were roughly:
We're at about 1000 a day now, have been for a week, will be for at least another week. Comparing England with other home nations, about a half of those look like they're Christmas related (from the English rise not happening elsewhere). 14 days x 500 gives 7000, round it up because we won't return to trend immediately.
I'd argue that disentangling the effect of Christmas day from the spread of the new variant is quite challenging. I don't think you can just assert that half of them came from the relaxed restrictions.
Fair point; it's certainly the weakest link in the chain. However, the comparison with other parts of the UK is suggestive, and if those responsible for England had a more relaxed set of restrictions despite knowing that New Improved Covid was around, more fool them.
Were behaviours in the four nations really that different for Christmas day. If I am remembering correctly the differences between the restrictions were not that significant.
Politics is a strange game, and one that frequently features strange bedfellows.
For example, same logic as stated above, would mean that you'd have to be "delusional" to ever believe that the great anti-communists Churchill AND Nixon could ever "do deals" with the likes of Stalin and Mao.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
That is a very very simplistic calculation that is would fall apart rapidly. There is no consideration for population density, age groups, country location etc, and then there is each country's definition of a death due to covid.
It's like those who use Sweden's death rate Vs UK death rate to oppose lockdowns, comparing an apple to a cricket ball.
I don't think the government has handled this very well, certainly when it has come to learning lessons from ourselves or abroad, but using statistics like that reminds me of how an ex orange president liked to do.
Excess deaths is the acknowledged way of comparing.
How do you think we rank in an excess death comparison?
Given the way the vaccine rollout is going, it is entirely possible we move down the excess deaths/total deaths league table as we have highly vaccinated population whilst the EU have enough to vaccinate Luxembourg.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
Tricky now, I'd have thought.
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
10k extra? I'd like to see the working here.
Little more than order of magnitude guesstimation, to be fair. But the contents of my envelope back were roughly:
We're at about 1000 a day now, have been for a week, will be for at least another week. Comparing England with other home nations, about a half of those look like they're Christmas related (from the English rise not happening elsewhere). 14 days x 500 gives 7000, round it up because we won't return to trend immediately.
I'd argue that disentangling the effect of Christmas day from the spread of the new variant is quite challenging. I don't think you can just assert that half of them came from the relaxed restrictions.
Fair point; it's certainly the weakest link in the chain. However, the comparison with other parts of the UK is suggestive, and if those responsible for England had a more relaxed set of restrictions despite knowing that New Improved Covid was around, more fool them.
Were behaviours in the four nations really that different for Christmas day. If I am remembering correctly the differences between the restrictions were not that significant.
The key bit was immediately post-Christmas; England went temporarily back into tiers, the others went into a pre-arranged lockdown.
So the UK represents 0.87% of the World Population - 21st biggest Population
The UK has 4.59% of the Worlds COVID deaths - 5th highest in terms of total deaths
Of the Worlds 75 biggest Nations by Population the UK has the worst death rate per Million
WORLD BEATING BORIS
Yes, it's a terrible record. The fact is that prime ministerial indolence and incompetence has cost many tens of thousands of lives. These are on Boris - had he acted sooner the toll could have been much much lower. He is personally responsible for more grief and suffering in the the UK than anyone since the Nazis.
For the last 12 months the government have been steering a course between those who wanted to act sooner and harder and those who wanted to wait and see. They were always constrained by the fear of social disorder wrecking the NHS. As we see almost every evening, that danger has not entirely gone away.
If the government wanted to give maximum protection to the NHS they would have gone for a New Zealand type lockdown on day 1.
Hindsight 20/20. At the time no one was seriously suggesting closing the entire border.
The countries that have been most successful in dealing with Covid - both medically and economically - are those which have gad the strictest lockdowns - New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, even China despite their role at the start - all closed their borders in March last year. So it clearly was suggested, sensible countries were doing it.
No. Taiwan didn't have a lockdown.
That is quibbling. Taiwan had, and has a very strict, and very well organised and monitored quarantine program for all arrivals, We had something barely better than a gesture.
Obviously spending too much time in London at that point. If only Tramp had opened up in Edinburgh he might have had his finger more on the pulse, though that might have meant seeing more of the other Andrew in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book.
Comments
Fact that unionists are scared to have one does not come into it.
Then I suspect you'll stop mentioning these metrics.
We need to develop vaccination certificates as quickly as possible to liberalise international travel.
Or about being able to remain in EU?
About being able to use Sterling?
Shame on you Malcolm, shame.
I know that.
You know that.
He knows that.
A waste of oxygen.
Perhaps Nicola has gone to the expense, trouble and time of procuring blue envelopes to acknowledge the contribution of the Conservative government in London in procuring Scotland's jabs?
So when in the early numbers we were looking terrible compared to elsewhere it was "wait for the excess death numbers thats the only way to compare".
Now its "we cant compare"
People will demand answers, so comparisons will be done, all look bad for Boris apologists.
https://www.gov.scot/news/oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-national-roll-out/
Scottish Independence would have the immediate effect that all those fruity banknotes you so love to print have to be tendered to a bank in the UK for cancellation.
Our fellow nationalist posters like to play the victim. They are treated no differently to how I am.
We could've gone very hard on lockdown, but we have a much higher population density than NZ or Australia at least, a lot of poor inner cities and towns where this thing has proven very stubborn to shift, and NZ-style isolation is unlikely to have been fully effective due to the percentage of trade that moves by road haulage being too high for the continuous flow of truck drivers simply to be cut off.
The Government could've gone in harder and earlier with restrictions, but I don't think zero Covid was ever a realistic strategy as in those countries which you list (and even some of them haven't managed it, along with Ireland which was both stricter than us and may have been in a better position to attempt such a thing as well.)
Do you think they lost much time in procuring blue envelopes? - I'm sure the London Conservative government is flattered, but it was surely unnecessary....
I don't know what that counts for in the end. Possibly 10-20k in numbers?
I think the lack of "sophmore" effect, by which I understand incumbency, may well be that we are only a year in, and with few opportunities to impress the local punters. I think though that incumbency is only a modest effect, with a few exceptions. Indeed sometimes a negative effect when people find their MP to be particularly useless and unresponsive.
The MRP model does seem to be an interesting approach though.
Guernsey COVID cases have gone from 6 (all inbound travel) to 10 (+4 community transmission with one from a school) to 35 (cases in 7 schools) - all schools shut, island in lockdown. It will be interesting to see how transmission is modelled later. Testing capacity is UK equivalent of 1,000,000/day. Samples being sent to UK for genomic sequencing.
There is no magic government lever that will cause 65 million people to behave as instructed. This has always been the overwhelming constraint.
Geographic isolation obviously helps though.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1353394913568677889?s=20
On negative incumbency, I give you Lembit Opik:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomeryshire_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Boris's Big Christmas Party has given about 10k extra deaths.
That's a couple of months at 100-200 deaths per day.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/01/07/welcome-sturgeon-u-turn-daily-figures-wont-give-oxford-vaccine/
And the Tory blue envelopes! (Though I hope they didn't cost too much time or money)
Scotland is wildly over-represented politically.
Scotland is wildly over-funded economically.
Scotland wildly under-performs in all sorts of social measures.
Off you go!
Ah but you don't want to - you want to still bear allegiance - ok.
You want to use the pound and have some say in it - no.
You want to wipe out all of your share of the national debt - no.
You want to have the EU welcome you with open arms and be even more generous than the UK was - not a chance.
You want the EU to let you choose what your currency is - not a chance.
You want the EU to let you choose to have a monarch that is part of a foreign trade bloc - tricky.
You want the EU to entirely rule out and sub-secession - who knows.
Bored of fucking Scotland.
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/1327601642880053250
https://twitter.com/DanKaszeta/status/1353416218921873409?s=20
No, the UK's poor performance is primarily, though not exclusively, the fault of the government, and the PM in particular.
https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1352268197383335940?s=20
But the contents of my envelope back were roughly:
We're at about 1000 a day now, have been for a week, will be for at least another week.
Comparing England with other home nations, about a half of those look like they're Christmas related (from the English rise not happening elsewhere).
14 days x 500 gives 7000, round it up because we won't return to trend immediately.
- how are Labour voters thinking in Con/SNP rural seats?
- how are Remainer Con voters thinking suburban seats with councils run by the LDs?
- how are students voting, etc
The more factors you have, the better able you able to extrapolate. Otherwise, you end up just reverting to the mean.
Catching up with the backlogs of cancelled elective work is going to be an absolute nightmare, but we have this nightmare to get through first.
On the positive side, a good second half from the LCFC reserves.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/435670212709736448
https://twitter.com/Alerta_News_/status/1353399125262311425
Found this on wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_background_of_presidents_of_the_United_States#:~:text=The ancestral background of presidents,of German and Swiss heritage.
According to above, only three POTUS with zero English ancestry (Van Buren, Polk, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Trump). Most in addition to English also have Welsh, Scottish and Scots-Irish heritage, in some combination.
In other words, all but ONE (JFK) was NOT what we in America used to call WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant; though some might challenge inclusion of President Obama in this category - including him!
Below is summary from wiki article, including also the non-WASP "lesser breeds beyond the law" or in this case the pale.
Dutch – 3 • English – 39 • French – 8 • German – 11 • Irish – 3 • Kenyan (Luo) – 1 • Scottish – 18 • Swiss – 3 • Ulster Scots – 21 • Welsh – 15
Note that
> The first five POTUS who all took part in the American Revolution against English rule were of part-English, totally British descent.
> So were Jackson and Wm H. Harrison, who both fought against the British in War of 1812; arguably America's most anti-British president.
> On the flip side, among the two most pro-Brit POTUS were Ike and JFK, who had zero British ancestry.
Will see if I can find what HYFUD had to say on this topic.
I also think the idea of EU membership crystallising in having to adopt the Euro would be very unpopular.
For example, same logic as stated above, would mean that you'd have to be "delusional" to ever believe that the great anti-communists Churchill AND Nixon could ever "do deals" with the likes of Stalin and Mao.
Until it happened.
Taiwan had, and has a very strict, and very well organised and monitored quarantine program for all arrivals,
We had something barely better than a gesture.