Within hours of taking office you get tested with shit like this.
Don't think it is to be taken too seriously. If they were serious they'd have done it on afternoon of 6th Jan as the rioters smashed into the Capitol.
Perhaps they took Biden seriously on his "Unite the nation" theme. And decided, being jolly nice chaps, was to him something that will get through the Senate...... 101 - 0.
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
I wonder if they can do it without effectively restarting the Chinese civil war.
“Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed. It is well within the power of the card schemes to make merchants' lives easy and keep things operating as they were pre-2021,” said Joel Gladwin, head of policy at the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which represents British start-ups.
Brexiteers claim Brexit is all about opportunity.
Mastercard are taking the opportunity Brexit provides them...
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.
Also we virtually eliminated deaths in May and June last year despite having no travel restrictions.
All this scapegoating of international travellers is very distasteful, but it's always easier to blame dreaded foreigners than get your own society under control.
It's clear that the uptick in Autumn was caused by an imported strain. Had there been no travel we'd probably still be ticking along with few deaths. And the opprobrium is shared by foreigners visiting and Brits returning from holiday equally.
I don't think that's quite true.
If you look at July, UK cases were running at around 5-700/day. So, at any one time, perhaps 15,000 people in the UK had (and were infectious with) Coronavirus. Given restrictions kept being loosened in the Autumn (and we had programmes encouraging people to eat out) it was always going to grow quickly from that base.
With more onerous restrictions, we would have slowed the growth, and it would probably have bought us two or three weeks. But it wouldn't have stopped a second half of the year surge.
Travel restrictions are incredibly useful tools if cases are very low. But when they are high, they can have only a modest effect. There are probably at least 300,000 people in the UK with CV19, so it's while we don't want to import 1,000 new cases in the next week, it probably has little impact on overall rates.
Hawaii has consistently very low levels of CV19 - by far the best in the US. It manages this via (a) requiring a negative PCR test 48 hours before travel, and (b) some relatively minor restrictions such as mask wearing in public places and reduced restaurant capacity.
I would suggest that is the model we'd want to emulate medium term. It won't catch everyone, but given that we're going to probably go from 3 million vaccinations a week to 5 million, it probably achieves 98% of the efficacy for 2% of the cost.
If (hopefully) we're finally going to put a lid on Covid with mass vaccination, then my main concern wouldn't be trying to put a New Zealand-style force field around the country and keep 100% of cases out. It would be the importation of a disastrous new variant. That's what we're most concerned with here. The flow of road haulage in and out of the country presents enough of a risk to that, without adding mass passenger travel to the list.
There's a live argument that there should be no mass travel again until the whole world has been vaccinated. We ought certainly to be avoiding opening any holiday travel corridors until the mass vaccination project has been completed here and in the country at the other end, and we ought probably to be preventing individuals who refuse the vaccine from leaving the UK in the first place.
For the time being, other than road haulage truckers, I'd be entirely in favour of a total prohibition on all international travel save on compassionate grounds (basically visiting dying relatives or travelling for unusual medical treatments not offered in the UK,) and for UK officials and foreign diplomats on state business. Foreign holidays really are not necessary, and neither are non-UK or Irish passport holders, unless ordinarily resident here. And those incoming should all be carted off to airport hotel quarantine, preferably for three weeks not two, and tested half to death before being let out.
I was talking with friends in Poland and France, this evening. There is no real sense of the differing rates in vaccination as yet.
It's one of those ones, where the information is out there. But it hasn't reached critical mass in the population.
Remember the Fuel Strike? I (and everyone else in the oil business) assumed that everyone knew that the price of petrol is 70%+ tax.... Then suddenly a lot of people realised.
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Depends if Taiwan has developed a nuclear bomb by then, which is not impossible. It is a highly educated and technical population.
Isn't there already a 6pm curfew? That's significantly more strict than our lockdown.
Does the curfew mean you literally have to stay indoors after 6pm??? I presumed it meant all bars, shops, everything shut at that time
Genuine Q
I think it means no going outdoors after 6 without prior appointment which you get by filling in some form with a valid reason (like a doctors appointment).
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.
Also we virtually eliminated deaths in May and June last year despite having no travel restrictions.
All this scapegoating of international travellers is very distasteful, but it's always easier to blame dreaded foreigners than get your own society under control.
It's clear that the uptick in Autumn was caused by an imported strain. Had there been no travel we'd probably still be ticking along with few deaths. And the opprobrium is shared by foreigners visiting and Brits returning from holiday equally.
I don't think that's quite true.
If you look at July, UK cases were running at around 5-700/day. So, at any one time, perhaps 15,000 people in the UK had (and were infectious with) Coronavirus. Given restrictions kept being loosened in the Autumn (and we had programmes encouraging people to eat out) it was always going to grow quickly from that base.
With more onerous restrictions, we would have slowed the growth, and it would probably have bought us two or three weeks. But it wouldn't have stopped a second half of the year surge.
Travel restrictions are incredibly useful tools if cases are very low. But when they are high, they can have only a modest effect. There are probably at least 300,000 people in the UK with CV19, so it's while we don't want to import 1,000 new cases in the next week, it probably has little impact on overall rates.
Hawaii has consistently very low levels of CV19 - by far the best in the US. It manages this via (a) requiring a negative PCR test 48 hours before travel, and (b) some relatively minor restrictions such as mask wearing in public places and reduced restaurant capacity.
I would suggest that is the model we'd want to emulate medium term. It won't catch everyone, but given that we're going to probably go from 3 million vaccinations a week to 5 million, it probably achieves 98% of the efficacy for 2% of the cost.
If (hopefully) we're finally going to put a lid on Covid with mass vaccination, then my main concern wouldn't be trying to put a New Zealand-style force field around the country and keep 100% of cases out. It would be the importation of a disastrous new variant. That's what we're most concerned with here. The flow of road haulage in and out of the country presents enough of a risk to that, without adding mass passenger travel to the list.
There's a live argument that there should be no mass travel again until the whole world has been vaccinated. We ought certainly to be avoiding opening any holiday travel corridors until the mass vaccination project has been completed here and in the country at the other end, and we ought probably to be preventing individuals who refuse the vaccine from leaving the UK in the first place.
For the time being, other than road haulage truckers, I'd be entirely in favour of a total prohibition on all international travel save on compassionate grounds (basically visiting dying relatives or travelling for unusual medical treatments not offered in the UK,) and for UK officials and foreign diplomats on state business. Foreign holidays really are not necessary, and neither are non-UK or Irish passport holders, unless ordinarily resident here. And those incoming should all be carted off to airport hotel quarantine, preferably for three weeks not two, and tested half to death before being let out.
Yes. Agreed. They need to do all of that. eg Why are we keeping the backdoor open and allowing the Irish to come and go? They have hardly been our friends through this struggle.
Shut down the borders. It will hurt, but not doing it will hurt more.
The only way out of this fucking nightmare is a successful vaccination programme and not allowing in any new variants. We are an island. It can be done. It will cost a lot.
Isn't there already a 6pm curfew? That's significantly more strict than our lockdown.
Does the curfew mean you literally have to stay indoors after 6pm??? I presumed it meant all bars, shops, everything shut at that time
Genuine Q
I think it means no going outdoors after 6 without prior appointment which you get by filling in some form with a valid reason (like a doctors appointment).
I have heard it suggested by French people that the curfew, which is intended to stop sneaky parties etc, it causing damage by compressing the hours when people can shop. Making the shops more crowed....
They should make standby lists of people willing to come and queue up after 6pm everyday, just sign up with your local centre to be contacted on any day where there are leftovers to queue up.
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Nah. One thing Xi Jinping isn't is stupid. They can't take Taiwan without massive casualties. Or very quickly. The Taiwanese are tooled up and have been preparing for invasion for 72 years. All the road grids, beaches, landing grounds even the schools are oriented towards offering as big a kill zone as possible. Before you even consider the snow capped mountains in rainforest. The CCP know this very well. It's one reason they've never tried.
To be fair, quite a few of those countries are still showing data from Jan 20
Jan 17 - 1 - Sweden Jan 20 - 1 - Ireland Jan 21 - 2 - Slovakia/Luxembourg Jan 22 - 7 - Spain, Germany, Belgium Jan 23 - 12 - UK, Denmark, Poland Jan 24 - 5 - France, Austria
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Nah. One thing Xi Jinping isn't is stupid. They can't take Taiwan without massive casualties. Or very quickly. The Taiwanese are tooled up and have been preparing for invasion for 72 years. All the road grids, beaches, landing grounds even the schools are oriented towards offering as big a kill zone as possible. Before you even consider the snow capped mountains in rainforest. The CCP know this very well. It's one reason they've never tried.
I wish he'd invade us, frankly. Give us a proper government. Bring back the death penalty. Etc.
“Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed. It is well within the power of the card schemes to make merchants' lives easy and keep things operating as they were pre-2021,” said Joel Gladwin, head of policy at the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which represents British start-ups.
In the same way as crime is in no way a consequence of poor policing, because it is well within the power of burglars and rapists to make their targets' lives easier by refraining from rape and burglary. Bizarre point.
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Depends if Taiwan has developed a nuclear bomb by then, which is not impossible. It is a highly educated and technical population.
If Taiwan goes nuclear, Japan will follow about 5 minutes later. Then everyone in a 1000 kilometre radius will want heavy metal.
Not following up on the promise to Ukraine looks better and better all the time, doesn't it?
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Depends if Taiwan has developed a nuclear bomb by then, which is not impossible. It is a highly educated and technical population.
If Taiwan goes nuclear, Japan will follow about 5 minutes later. Then everyone in a 1000 kilometre radius will want heavy metal.
Not following up on the promise to Ukraine looks better and better all the time, doesn't it?
I should think a Taiwan nuclear weapon is more likely than not, while the US would go to war with China to defend Japan or South Korea, a Taiwan invasion would likely just be met by US sanctions on China. So Taiwan's government has to take all necessary measures to put off China from invading
Isn't there already a 6pm curfew? That's significantly more strict than our lockdown.
Does the curfew mean you literally have to stay indoors after 6pm??? I presumed it meant all bars, shops, everything shut at that time
Genuine Q
I think it means no going outdoors after 6 without prior appointment which you get by filling in some form with a valid reason (like a doctors appointment).
Bit difficult to exercise or go to the supermarket after work.
“Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed. It is well within the power of the card schemes to make merchants' lives easy and keep things operating as they were pre-2021,” said Joel Gladwin, head of policy at the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which represents British start-ups.
Brexiteers claim Brexit is all about opportunity.
Mastercard are taking the opportunity Brexit provides them...
This is what winning looks like
Talking of opportunity, can anyone point to any evidence of Brexit having a positive impact anywhere yet?
“Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed. It is well within the power of the card schemes to make merchants' lives easy and keep things operating as they were pre-2021,” said Joel Gladwin, head of policy at the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which represents British start-ups.
Brexiteers claim Brexit is all about opportunity.
Mastercard are taking the opportunity Brexit provides them...
This is what winning looks like
Talking of opportunity, can anyone point to any evidence of Brexit having a positive impact anywhere yet?
“Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed. It is well within the power of the card schemes to make merchants' lives easy and keep things operating as they were pre-2021,” said Joel Gladwin, head of policy at the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which represents British start-ups.
Brexiteers claim Brexit is all about opportunity.
Mastercard are taking the opportunity Brexit provides them...
This is what winning looks like
Talking of opportunity, can anyone point to any evidence of Brexit having a positive impact anywhere yet?
Yes. We know that we can, with our vote, kick out anyone who royally fucks up, in government. Item: Boris Johnson.
Can Europeans throw out their EU Commission, which has so impressively mishandled the EU vaccination programme? Nope.
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Nah. One thing Xi Jinping isn't is stupid. They can't take Taiwan without massive casualties. Or very quickly. The Taiwanese are tooled up and have been preparing for invasion for 72 years. All the road grids, beaches, landing grounds even the schools are oriented towards offering as big a kill zone as possible. Before you even consider the snow capped mountains in rainforest. The CCP know this very well. It's one reason they've never tried.
I wish he'd invade us, frankly. Give us a proper government. Bring back the death penalty. Etc.
While also turning us into an authoritarian dictatorship
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
How many vaccines are we talking about. 10%, 1%, 0.01%?
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Depends if Taiwan has developed a nuclear bomb by then, which is not impossible. It is a highly educated and technical population.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
How many vaccines are we talking about. 10%, 1%, 0.01%?
I suspect it’s 10s out of the 996 Pfizer box. Still should be done differently. We do not like anything that smacks of unfairness in this country, even if it does mean less waste.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
How many vaccines are we talking about. 10%, 1%, 0.01%?
I suspect it’s 10s out of the 996 Pfizer box. Still should be done differently. We do not like anything that smacks of unfairness in this country, even if it does mean less waste.
What's the phrase, the enemy of progress is perfection?
If they want to conquer and retake Taiwan, roughly about now would be ideal. Otherwise they will have to wait until about 2035, when they have total economic supremacy and regional hegemony.
Either way, it is coming
Nah. One thing Xi Jinping isn't is stupid. They can't take Taiwan without massive casualties. Or very quickly. The Taiwanese are tooled up and have been preparing for invasion for 72 years. All the road grids, beaches, landing grounds even the schools are oriented towards offering as big a kill zone as possible. Before you even consider the snow capped mountains in rainforest. The CCP know this very well. It's one reason they've never tried.
I wish he'd invade us, frankly. Give us a proper government. Bring back the death penalty. Etc.
While also turning us into an authoritarian dictatorship
Well, no one is perfect. He'd take a firm stance on secessionists, which might find favour with some.
The policy will massively suppress travel. Capacity is not a concern.
Well yes. That's it. This policy will destroy much of the UK's tourist industry (and associated businesses, from theatre to hospitality), which has been barely ticking along, anyway.
I have friends who run restaurants and hotels in Thailand. They are now facing total ruin, as Thailand has been doing precisely this (enforced hotel quarantine) for many months. It has successfully suppressed the virus, but it has incinerated a large chunk of the economy.
It's not something you do lightly. I believe the high price is sadly worth paying, but I can see why others might demur.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
I’m only talking about the extras, not the whole batch.
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.
Also we virtually eliminated deaths in May and June last year despite having no travel restrictions.
All this scapegoating of international travellers is very distasteful, but it's always easier to blame dreaded foreigners than get your own society under control.
It's clear that the uptick in Autumn was caused by an imported strain. Had there been no travel we'd probably still be ticking along with few deaths. And the opprobrium is shared by foreigners visiting and Brits returning from holiday equally.
I don't think that's quite true.
If you look at July, UK cases were running at around 5-700/day. So, at any one time, perhaps 15,000 people in the UK had (and were infectious with) Coronavirus. Given restrictions kept being loosened in the Autumn (and we had programmes encouraging people to eat out) it was always going to grow quickly from that base.
With more onerous restrictions, we would have slowed the growth, and it would probably have bought us two or three weeks. But it wouldn't have stopped a second half of the year surge.
Travel restrictions are incredibly useful tools if cases are very low. But when they are high, they can have only a modest effect. There are probably at least 300,000 people in the UK with CV19, so it's while we don't want to import 1,000 new cases in the next week, it probably has little impact on overall rates.
Hawaii has consistently very low levels of CV19 - by far the best in the US. It manages this via (a) requiring a negative PCR test 48 hours before travel, and (b) some relatively minor restrictions such as mask wearing in public places and reduced restaurant capacity.
I would suggest that is the model we'd want to emulate medium term. It won't catch everyone, but given that we're going to probably go from 3 million vaccinations a week to 5 million, it probably achieves 98% of the efficacy for 2% of the cost.
If (hopefully) we're finally going to put a lid on Covid with mass vaccination, then my main concern wouldn't be trying to put a New Zealand-style force field around the country and keep 100% of cases out. It would be the importation of a disastrous new variant. That's what we're most concerned with here. The flow of road haulage in and out of the country presents enough of a risk to that, without adding mass passenger travel to the list.
There's a live argument that there should be no mass travel again until the whole world has been vaccinated. We ought certainly to be avoiding opening any holiday travel corridors until the mass vaccination project has been completed here and in the country at the other end, and we ought probably to be preventing individuals who refuse the vaccine from leaving the UK in the first place.
For the time being, other than road haulage truckers, I'd be entirely in favour of a total prohibition on all international travel save on compassionate grounds (basically visiting dying relatives or travelling for unusual medical treatments not offered in the UK,) and for UK officials and foreign diplomats on state business. Foreign holidays really are not necessary, and neither are non-UK or Irish passport holders, unless ordinarily resident here. And those incoming should all be carted off to airport hotel quarantine, preferably for three weeks not two, and tested half to death before being let out.
Yes. Agreed. They need to do all of that. eg Why are we keeping the backdoor open and allowing the Irish to come and go? They have hardly been our friends through this struggle.
Shut down the borders. It will hurt, but not doing it will hurt more.
The only way out of this fucking nightmare is a successful vaccination programme and not allowing in any new variants. We are an island. It can be done. It will cost a lot.
The Black Death cost more.
There's been a certain amount of needle in the relationship, but consider: 1. Irish citizens have special status in British law, 2. the status of the Northern Ireland border necessitates freedom of movement and 3. Ireland itself is not to be regarded as a foreign country under the provisions of the Ireland Act of 1949, which I believe still remains in force. Thus to exclude them would be unthinkable, but we're perfectly entitled to quarantine them of course.
Anyway, putting that issue aside, we hear rumours from the newspapers that the closure of the borders may finally be upon us. We'll just have to wait and see whether we get full-fat or semi-skimmed measures. You never know with this lot: they rarely miss the opportunity to be fatally behind the curve.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
I’m only talking about the extras, not the whole batch.
I realise that, but if the policy prevents the people on the front line from doing that then the only thing they can do under the radar to stop the doses going to waste is call people they know and say, "If you can get here in the next hour then you can get the vaccine."
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
I’m only talking about the extras, not the whole batch.
I realise that, but if the policy prevents the people on the front line from doing that then the only thing they can do under the radar to stop the doses going to waste is call people they know and say, "If you can get here in the next hour then you can get the vaccine."
Have a standby list and that as well incase the standby list doesn't work.
I get that dark envelopes would be more distinctive, but I am curious if it would actually aid things or not, as it seems like those who want a jab will be on the lookout for notice, and those who don't want one won't care. Presumably they'll be able to analyse things afterwards.
I think teachers, classroom assistants and all adults dealing directly with school kids would need to be vaccinated (both doses) before schools can reopen.
Over 20% of our deaths have come since the start of the year and these wankers are fucking gibbering about re-opening schools.
GET A FUCKING GRIP
More than a full fifth of the people who have died on Covid over the last 10 months died in the last 23 days,
What is wrong with these wankers?
I don't know if this is the vaccine effect, but people have really seemed oddly unaffected by the horror story on cases and deaths in the last month.
It's a bit like the First World War.
Looking back, you think: how on earth did anyone tolerate this pointless, futile carnage? How did the troops stay loyal in the trenches? Why did they walk to certain death by machine gun?
What the F was happening on the home front in Britain (or France, or Germany)? The mass slaughter of young men, for month after month, fighting over trivial yards of Flanders mud.
It seems remarkable, from our perspective, that no politician stood up and said Stop, and got a hearing, and then a truce. Yet the idiotic blood-letting went on for four terrible years.
It's not an exact analogy, but it shows how civilised, educated nations can get used to absurd death tolls, and enter into a kind of denial
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
I’m only talking about the extras, not the whole batch.
I realise that, but if the policy prevents the people on the front line from doing that then the only thing they can do under the radar to stop the doses going to waste is call people they know and say, "If you can get here in the next hour then you can get the vaccine."
Or post on social media, or local radio, etc. There are other ways
“Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed. It is well within the power of the card schemes to make merchants' lives easy and keep things operating as they were pre-2021,” said Joel Gladwin, head of policy at the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which represents British start-ups.
Brexiteers claim Brexit is all about opportunity.
Mastercard are taking the opportunity Brexit provides them...
This is what winning looks like
Talking of opportunity, can anyone point to any evidence of Brexit having a positive impact anywhere yet?
Over 20% of our deaths have come since the start of the year and these wankers are fucking gibbering about re-opening schools.
GET A FUCKING GRIP
More than a full fifth of the people who have died on Covid over the last 10 months died in the last 23 days,
What is wrong with these wankers?
I don't know if this is the vaccine effect, but people have really seemed oddly unaffected by the horror story on cases and deaths in the last month.
It's got to be the vaccine story, hasn't it?
There's a really awkward national conversation coming up. Up to now, it's been possible to shrug off the "shield the most vulnerable and then let the virus rip" theory by the utter impossibility of shielding that many people for that long in the interconnected communities we live in.
By the middle of February, the most vulnerable will have been vaccinated, but letting it rip will still be an insane thing to do, because there will still be more than enough people to collapse the NHS pretty easily. But headlines like this are just going to get louder and more frequent.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
I’m only talking about the extras, not the whole batch.
I realise that, but if the policy prevents the people on the front line from doing that then the only thing they can do under the radar to stop the doses going to waste is call people they know and say, "If you can get here in the next hour then you can get the vaccine."
Or post on social media, or local radio, etc. There are other ways
Yes, but that isn't 'under the radar'. It needs a policy decision to allow it to happen. Plus if you only have a handful of doses then an announcement wouldn't be a good idea. @MaxPB's idea of a standby list seems like the best way to manage it.
Any guesses where an independent Scotland would fit into this list?
Plucky Luxembourg paying its share, I see.
Luxembourg is a repulsive little country. Like a fat anal polyp on the backside of Europe. We should invade, and pillage, now we have left the EU.
Admittedly it was some 3 decades ago, but I had a lovely few days staying in the charming Ardennes town of Wiltz in Luxembourg. A lovely little town, with hospitable people.
Any guesses where an independent Scotland would fit into this list?
Plucky Luxembourg paying its share, I see.
Luxembourg is a repulsive little country. Like a fat anal polyp on the backside of Europe. We should invade, and pillage, now we have left the EU.
Admittedly it was some 3 decades ago, but I had a lovely few days staying in the charming Ardennes town of Wiltz in Luxembourg. A lovely little town, with hospitable people.
I've seen pics. I am sure it is gorgeous and bucolic. It is also, as a country, a parasite and a leech.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
I’m only talking about the extras, not the whole batch.
I realise that, but if the policy prevents the people on the front line from doing that then the only thing they can do under the radar to stop the doses going to waste is call people they know and say, "If you can get here in the next hour then you can get the vaccine."
Sadly i suspect some people would pay a lot to be one of the ‘people they know’ which would incentivise people to ensure there are stocks left at the end of the day.
I’m sure the vast majority of people are decent, but can you design a policy that doesn’t encourage black-marketeering?
Over 20% of our deaths have come since the start of the year and these wankers are fucking gibbering about re-opening schools.
GET A FUCKING GRIP
More than a full fifth of the people who have died on Covid over the last 10 months died in the last 23 days,
What is wrong with these wankers?
I don't know if this is the vaccine effect, but people have really seemed oddly unaffected by the horror story on cases and deaths in the last month.
It's a bit like the First World War.
Looking back, you think: how on earth did anyone tolerate this pointless, futile carnage? How did the troops stay loyal in the trenches? Why did they walk to certain death by machine gun?
What the F was happening on the home front in Britain (or France, or Germany)? The mass slaughter of young men, for month after month, fighting over trivial yards of Flanders mud.
It seems remarkable, from our perspective, that no politician stood up and said Stop, and got a hearing, and then a truce. Yet the idiotic blood-letting went on for four terrible years.
It's not an exact analogy, but it shows how civilised, educated nations can get used to absurd death tolls, and enter into a kind of denial
Its also a disease of sick oldies.
And to a lesser extent of the urban poor.
If it struck equally throughout society then it would be more frightening for most people.
Friends and family queue jumping the vaccines. In Israel, they just let anybody queue up after a certain time, which seems fairer.
Yes, I don't get the outrage about vaccine queue jumping. It's far better for people to jump the queue than to waste doses.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are better ways to use them up, such as better planning, or general call for first come first serve, not just friends and family of nhs staff.
But that would require a change in policy from the top.
I’m only talking about the extras, not the whole batch.
I realise that, but if the policy prevents the people on the front line from doing that then the only thing they can do under the radar to stop the doses going to waste is call people they know and say, "If you can get here in the next hour then you can get the vaccine."
Or post on social media, or local radio, etc. There are other ways
Yes, but that isn't 'under the radar'. It needs a policy decision to allow it to happen. Plus if you only have a handful of doses then an announcement wouldn't be a good idea. @MaxPB's idea of a standby list seems like the best way to manage it.
Is there a policy decision for nhs friends and family to get called? Or is there no policy currently? Is that what you’re saying?
Over 20% of our deaths have come since the start of the year and these wankers are fucking gibbering about re-opening schools.
GET A FUCKING GRIP
More than a full fifth of the people who have died on Covid over the last 10 months died in the last 23 days,
What is wrong with these wankers?
I don't know if this is the vaccine effect, but people have really seemed oddly unaffected by the horror story on cases and deaths in the last month.
It's got to be the vaccine story, hasn't it?
There's a really awkward national conversation coming up. Up to now, it's been possible to shrug off the "shield the most vulnerable and then let the virus rip" theory by the utter impossibility of shielding that many people for that long in the interconnected communities we live in.
By the middle of February, the most vulnerable will have been vaccinated, but letting it rip will still be an insane thing to do, because there will still be more than enough people to collapse the NHS pretty easily. But headlines like this are just going to get louder and more frequent.
Sounds like restrictions are here for a few months yet at the very least.
Over 20% of our deaths have come since the start of the year and these wankers are fucking gibbering about re-opening schools.
GET A FUCKING GRIP
More than a full fifth of the people who have died on Covid over the last 10 months died in the last 23 days,
What is wrong with these wankers?
I don't know if this is the vaccine effect, but people have really seemed oddly unaffected by the horror story on cases and deaths in the last month.
It's got to be the vaccine story, hasn't it?
There's a really awkward national conversation coming up. Up to now, it's been possible to shrug off the "shield the most vulnerable and then let the virus rip" theory by the utter impossibility of shielding that many people for that long in the interconnected communities we live in.
By the middle of February, the most vulnerable will have been vaccinated, but letting it rip will still be an insane thing to do, because there will still be more than enough people to collapse the NHS pretty easily. But headlines like this are just going to get louder and more frequent.
We've had this conversation more than once. Tory backbenchers, amplified by their Press cheer section, shout Open Up! The public, as evidenced by all polling, demurs. The PM caves to the loud minority.
Comments
Trouble is China shows no sign of trying to get along with its neighbours
Defence of Taiwan.
Mastercard are taking the opportunity Brexit provides them...
This is what winning looks like
There's a live argument that there should be no mass travel again until the whole world has been vaccinated. We ought certainly to be avoiding opening any holiday travel corridors until the mass vaccination project has been completed here and in the country at the other end, and we ought probably to be preventing individuals who refuse the vaccine from leaving the UK in the first place.
For the time being, other than road haulage truckers, I'd be entirely in favour of a total prohibition on all international travel save on compassionate grounds (basically visiting dying relatives or travelling for unusual medical treatments not offered in the UK,) and for UK officials and foreign diplomats on state business. Foreign holidays really are not necessary, and neither are non-UK or Irish passport holders, unless ordinarily resident here. And those incoming should all be carted off to airport hotel quarantine, preferably for three weeks not two, and tested half to death before being let out.
It's one of those ones, where the information is out there. But it hasn't reached critical mass in the population.
Remember the Fuel Strike? I (and everyone else in the oil business) assumed that everyone knew that the price of petrol is 70%+ tax.... Then suddenly a lot of people realised.
https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/1353459783148269569
https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/1353459783148269569?s=09
Genuine Q
We really are a dumb species at times
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/dec/11/mastercard-class-action-gets-court-uk
Shut down the borders. It will hurt, but not doing it will hurt more.
The only way out of this fucking nightmare is a successful vaccination programme and not allowing in any new variants. We are an island. It can be done. It will cost a lot.
The Black Death cost more.
https://www.dw.com/en/rioting-dutch-youths-torch-covid-testing-center/a-56329339
They can't take Taiwan without massive casualties. Or very quickly.
The Taiwanese are tooled up and have been preparing for invasion for 72 years. All the road grids, beaches, landing grounds even the schools are oriented towards offering as big a kill zone as possible. Before you even consider the snow capped mountains in rainforest.
The CCP know this very well. It's one reason they've never tried.
Jan 20 - 1 - Ireland
Jan 21 - 2 - Slovakia/Luxembourg
Jan 22 - 7 - Spain, Germany, Belgium
Jan 23 - 12 - UK, Denmark, Poland
Jan 24 - 5 - France, Austria
Not following up on the promise to Ukraine looks better and better all the time, doesn't it?
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1353460335097901056?s=20
And must increase congestion before 6pm.
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1353464367568846849
Also, has Britain succumbed to "national populism"?
Brexit was a serious proposition for decades, if anything we *succumbed to democracy*
Can Europeans throw out their EU Commission, which has so impressively mishandled the EU vaccination programme? Nope.
GET
A
FUCKING
GRIP
More than a full fifth of the people who have died on Covid over the last 10 months died in the last 23 days,
What is wrong with these wankers?
Perhaps this shows it better.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-12-20..latest&country=GBR~DEU®ion=World&vaccinationsMetric=true&interval=daily&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=total_vaccinations_per_hundred&pickerSort=desc
Rudy just before the assault on the Capitol: This will be trial by COMBAT!
I have friends who run restaurants and hotels in Thailand. They are now facing total ruin, as Thailand has been doing precisely this (enforced hotel quarantine) for many months. It has successfully suppressed the virus, but it has incinerated a large chunk of the economy.
It's not something you do lightly. I believe the high price is sadly worth paying, but I can see why others might demur.
1) Reopen schools
2) Keep airports open
https://twitter.com/Brett_Samuels27/status/1349169559354355712
I like the fact that he surfs on this beach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swqR39aRynU
Anyway, putting that issue aside, we hear rumours from the newspapers that the closure of the borders may finally be upon us. We'll just have to wait and see whether we get full-fat or semi-skimmed measures. You never know with this lot: they rarely miss the opportunity to be fatally behind the curve.
Looking back, you think: how on earth did anyone tolerate this pointless, futile carnage? How did the troops stay loyal in the trenches? Why did they walk to certain death by machine gun?
What the F was happening on the home front in Britain (or France, or Germany)? The mass slaughter of young men, for month after month, fighting over trivial yards of Flanders mud.
It seems remarkable, from our perspective, that no politician stood up and said Stop, and got a hearing, and then a truce. Yet the idiotic blood-letting went on for four terrible years.
It's not an exact analogy, but it shows how civilised, educated nations can get used to absurd death tolls, and enter into a kind of denial
Vaccination is the new thing.
There's a really awkward national conversation coming up. Up to now, it's been possible to shrug off the "shield the most vulnerable and then let the virus rip" theory by the utter impossibility of shielding that many people for that long in the interconnected communities we live in.
By the middle of February, the most vulnerable will have been vaccinated, but letting it rip will still be an insane thing to do, because there will still be more than enough people to collapse the NHS pretty easily. But headlines like this are just going to get louder and more frequent.
I’m sure the vast majority of people are decent, but can you design a policy that doesn’t encourage black-marketeering?
And to a lesser extent of the urban poor.
If it struck equally throughout society then it would be more frightening for most people.
SNP MSP blocks SNP MP is the content I'm on Twitter for.
https://twitter.com/AngusMacNeilSNP/status/1353447558836850698
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/24/britain-faces-three-month-halfway-house-lockdown-easter-over/
The public, as evidenced by all polling, demurs.
The PM caves to the loud minority.