A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
The Leaver view is that the EU was - is - on a path towards political union of such scope and completeness that our membership would in due course become incompatible with the very existence of the UK as a nation state. It was therefore essential to bail out now while we still can. Leave it much longer and we'd have been trapped in a train hurtling down a one way track to just one destination. A United States Of Europe.
Exciting stuff.
Of course it is.
You can't long-term have federal powers without federal accountability and federal decision making.
That you do is not a good thing, it is a bad one. Mr Nabavi seems to be waving around an absence of accountability as a "strength" rather than a weakness.
Well if we're now sovereign whereas before we were ruled by Brussels I look forward to general elections where Conservative voters are truly worried by what Labour might do if they get in. Because this has not been the case for a while.
It happened as recently as 2019. I was terrified by the concept of Prime Minister Corbyn.
Why, given we were ruled by Brussels not Westminster?
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because it takes weeks for them to become effective and then another few weeks for it to feed through into the actual case/hospital numbers. To see what effect the vaccinated numbers have today, you need to see how many people cumulatively had it 5 weeks ago, and that's still a pretty small number, even for us. Which is why all eyes are in Israel right now which was very fast out of the blocks compared to us.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
For very much the same reasons it took some time to get clear answers on efficacy from PIII trials of the same vaccines. You have to be patient, and wait for the data to accumulate.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
The Leaver view is that the EU was - is - on a path towards political union of such scope and completeness that our membership would in due course become incompatible with the very existence of the UK as a nation state. It was therefore essential to bail out now while we still can. Leave it much longer and we'd have been trapped in a train hurtling down a one way track to just one destination. A United States Of Europe.
Exciting stuff.
Of course it is.
You can't long-term have federal powers without federal accountability and federal decision making.
That you do is not a good thing, it is a bad one. Mr Nabavi seems to be waving around an absence of accountability as a "strength" rather than a weakness.
Well if we're now sovereign whereas before we were ruled by Brussels I look forward to general elections where Conservative voters are truly worried by what Labour might do if they get in. Because this has not been the case for a while.
It happened as recently as 2019. I was terrified by the concept of Prime Minister Corbyn.
Why, given we were ruled by Brussels not Westminster?
We were not. We had a federal system were rules were set by both. That's the whole meaning of the word federal.
Czechs flocking to escape coronavirus restrictions with a day’s cross-country skiing or sledding in a national park have brought a surge of Covid infections to a tiny village, a local official said.
Modrava’s mayor, Antonin Schubert, said tests last week had identified 13 positive cases among the 90 people who live there, making the hamlet that sits in central Europe’s largest forest area, the Sumava national park, the most infected in the region.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Yes it is clear there is a 2 day lag in these figures.
Can we please have an orderly, sensible queuing for the Mindless! Panic! ?
People blaming minorities should take a ticket to queue 3, over there. People blaming the government, should join queue 5 People blaming the EU should join queue 6 People blaming the Lizard People can go straight to embarkation at the spaceship terminal
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
Getting 7-day full capacity is much more important to me than getting 24h opening. When the programme moves down to working age people weekend appointments will be even more important than usual.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
Well stuff like closing mass vaccination centres so the horse racing doesn't get cancelled might give a hint.
My guess is supply isn't there to offer 7 day a week at full capacity of 500k a day, so for the moment, at weekends they dial it back as they are basically running out.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
The Leaver view is that the EU was - is - on a path towards political union of such scope and completeness that our membership would in due course become incompatible with the very existence of the UK as a nation state. It was therefore essential to bail out now while we still can. Leave it much longer and we'd have been trapped in a train hurtling down a one way track to just one destination. A United States Of Europe.
Exciting stuff.
Of course it is.
You can't long-term have federal powers without federal accountability and federal decision making.
That you do is not a good thing, it is a bad one. Mr Nabavi seems to be waving around an absence of accountability as a "strength" rather than a weakness.
Well if we're now sovereign whereas before we were ruled by Brussels I look forward to general elections where Conservative voters are truly worried by what Labour might do if they get in. Because this has not been the case for a while. Certainly in 17 and 19 it wasn't.
That would have been the case if Corbyn was still Labour leader post Brexit, less so now Starmer is Labour leader
But why was it the case with Corbyn PRE Brexit? That is my point. If Brussels not Westminster was calling the shots before we escaped its clutches, how come the prospect of a Left Labour government was so scary to so many? Could it just possibly be because Brussels was NOT calling the shots?
Any case, you're not a Leaver, so I imagine you get my point completely and didn't need this clarifier.
Though you could also turn the question on its head and ask why Corbyn was a livelong Leaver if his policies could all have been enacted within the EU.
You could. But he wasn't the brightest. The vast majority of left wingers voted Remain.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
For very much the same reasons it took some time to get clear answers on efficacy from PIII trials of the same vaccines. You have to be patient, and wait for the data to accumulate.
I think living in an era of 24h news has made everyone impatient. Good science takes time, we have sped up the process by as much as we can without taking shortcuts, now people need to learn to wait for the results. I have no doubt that this will work, the Pfizer trial was very well done.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
Well stuff like closing mass vaccination centres so the horse racing doesn't get cancelled might give a hint.
My guess is supply isn't there to offer 7 day a week at full capacity of 500k a day, so for the moment, at weekends they dial it back as they are basically running out.
That and they are probably not having much of a problem using the vaccine they have at the moment - hence stories of centres vaccinating for a less than 5 days a week.
That of course isn't the claim in the video....its is owned by a Cypriot businessman.
Is Putin saying he agrees with Navalny’s video?
(The problem, of course, being that almost no-one actually in Russia will have seen the whole video, and everyone will have seen Putin on the news).
I don't know how he thinks he gets away with it when he does step down. Is he going to claim he is only living there as a guest of the Cypriot guy? I suppose he doesn't care, his replacement will protect him from anybody getting close. Still it could all goes tit up.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because its something very difficult to test for. Correlation is not causation and its easier to test for whether someone is positive themselves than to test whether someone has infected somebody else.
To do that for certain would require challenge trials - and running those even moderately safely would take some time, too. There's certainly an argument that they should have been allowed much earlier in the pandemic, but it's deeply controversial.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
Getting 7-day full capacity is much more important to me than getting 24h opening. When the programme moves down to working age people weekend appointments will be even more important than usual.
100% agreed.
Many GP surgeries are closed over the weekend, but a solution is needed for 7-day operations.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
Yeah yeah that's dancing on the head of a pin. The point stands.
As with the one/two dose thing we have plenty of information but no trial has, AFAIA, been conducted to understand the transmissability of people who have been vaccinated.
So as it stands, we don't know if having the vaccine reduces transmission beyond people not coughing and sneezing as a result of reducing the impact/symptoms of the virus.
Which is the same as asymptomatic carriers, presumably.
You have nothing to offer but hate have you? You have no evidence for any of that. Indeed, Transparency International rates the UK is the 12 least corrupt nation in the world - could do better but in the top 10% of the least corrupt nations in the world. Your nationalistic hate eats you up little by litle daily. I pity you you sad sad despicable little man.
I suspect our rating is somewhat whitewashed (no disrespect to TI). Our engrained oligarchical political/electoral system means that most corruption flies under the radar and is not even illegal: central government spending (witness the jobs-for-the-tory-boys-and-girls sleaze that we have now), planning under laughable local government "control", nepotism and old boy networks, etc.
That's even ignoring the financial outrages perpetrated in London a thousand times a second. What percentage of the world's laundered money passes through London or pseudo-British tax havens at some point? And what percentage of the post-imperial financial outflows that are still devastating the global south?
We are an island of filth. I suspect a comeuppance at some point this century. It won't come from within of course, as our ossified politics will prevent that, but at some point our name will deservedly be mud at the global level.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because it takes weeks for them to become effective and then another few weeks for it to feed through into the actual case/hospital numbers. To see what effect the vaccinated numbers have today, you need to see how many people cumulatively had it 5 weeks ago, and that's still a pretty small number, even for us. Which is why all eyes are in Israel right now which was very fast out of the blocks compared to us.
Roughly 2 weeks and several thousand were innoculated in December. Is there evidence of any of them having the virus (even without being ill) or being a link in a chain of transmission? It is so important.
Take schools for example. If we can be confident that teachers exposed to children who may well have the virus asymptomatically will not be infected and take it home to their families the arguments about reopening schools (once teachers have been vaccinated) becomes very different. I honestly don't think that there is a more important question out there at the moment. Possibly does any of the variations avoid the protection of vaccination ( a provisional no but watch this space carefully) but short of that.
The thing is, there are arguments out there to argue against current policy which have some worth.
So why consistently use the cretinous ones?
It is also worth point out something about the Blitz comment.
Due to a lot of hard work by the RAF in reducing the number of German bombers that got to their targets during the day, most of the Blitz against London and other towns was at night.
Schools have a tendency to operate in daylight hours.
Though, my Aunt tells me that there was a bit of an issue with children falling asleep in class, having been up all night in the shelter.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
I was wondering this also about reporting. We are in the middle of a hugely serious global pandemic - ask @Leon - why on earth are we not operating these things 24/7 (not vaccinating 24hrs but the effort).
Why don't we have more people on shift work if necessary so as to ensure no "weekend" effects?
Watching bitesize today on BBC2 with education on the human body.
Michael Mosley has just managed to crowbar a strip dancing club into his explanation of human reproduction, as well as a group of braying rugby lads cheering on the quality of their sperm samples under the microscope.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
Yeah yeah that's dancing on the head of a pin. The point stands.
As with the one/two dose thing we have plenty of information but no trial has, AFAIA, been conducted to understand the transmissability of people who have been vaccinated.
So as it stands, we don't know if having the vaccine reduces transmission beyond people not coughing and sneezing as a result of reducing the impact/symptoms of the virus.
Which is the same as asymptomatic carriers, presumably.
It's normally the kind of stuff that would be investigated in a P4 trial because doing it with a smaller P3 sample isn't easy. Essentially Pfizer will be studying the Israeli and UK data very carefully to find any information on this as we speak. Hopefully we'll get those results in the next few weeks.
Presumably they have huge capacity to make it if it hd proved successful? So they need to roll that production over to making one of the successful ones on licence, no?
You have nothing to offer but hate have you? You have no evidence for any of that. Indeed, Transparency International rates the UK is the 12 least corrupt nation in the world - could do better but in the top 10% of the least corrupt nations in the world. Your nationalistic hate eats you up little by litle daily. I pity you you sad sad despicable little man.
I suspect our rating is somewhat whitewashed (no disrespect to TI). Our engrained oligarchical political/electoral system means that most corruption flies under the radar and is not even illegal: central government spending (witness the jobs-for-the-tory-boys-and-girls sleaze that we have now), planning under laughable local government "control", nepotism and old boy networks, etc.
That's even ignoring the financial outrages perpetrated in London a thousand times a second. What percentage of the world's laundered money passes through London or pseudo-British tax havens at some point? And what percentage of the post-imperial financial outflows that are still devastating the global south?
We are an island of filth. I suspect a comeuppance at some point this century. It won't come from within of course, as our ossified politics will prevent that, but at some point our name will deservedly be mud at the global level.
We clearly have issues and methodologies of others should not simply be accepted without consideration, but simply declaring a suspicion theres been whitewashing seems quite disrespectful to them indeed. Its also very convenient to arrive back at a conclusion whatever evidence is proffered against it.
Not sure that a laundry list of cliches adds up to an island of filth.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2021-- Moderna Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA), a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, today announced results from in vitro neutralization studies of sera from individuals vaccinated with Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine showing activity against emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine produced neutralizing titers against all key emerging variants tested, including B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, first identified in the UK and Republic of South Africa, respectively. The study showed no significant impact on neutralizing titers against the B.1.1.7 variant relative to prior variants. A six-fold reduction in neutralizing titers was observed with the B.1.351 variant relative to prior variants. Despite this reduction, neutralizing titer levels with B.1.351 remain above levels that are expected to be protective. This study was conducted in collaboration with the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The manuscript has been submitted as a preprint to bioRxiv and will be submitted for peer-reviewed publication.
The two-dose regimen of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine at the 100 µg dose is expected to be protective against emerging strains detected to date. Nonetheless, Moderna today announced its clinical strategy to proactively address the pandemic as the virus continues to evolve. First, the Company will test an additional booster dose of its COVID-19 Vaccine (mRNA-1273) to study the ability to further increase neutralizing titers against emerging strains beyond the existing primary vaccination series. Second, the Company is advancing an emerging variant booster candidate (mRNA-1273.351) against the B.1.351 variant first identified in the Republic of South Africa. The Company is advancing mRNA-1273.351 into preclinical studies and a Phase 1 study in the U.S. to evaluate the immunological benefit of boosting with strain-specific spike proteins. Moderna expects that its mRNA-based booster vaccine (whether mRNA-1273 or mRNA-1273.351) will be able to further boost neutralizing titers in combination with all of the leading vaccine candidates....
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because it takes weeks for them to become effective and then another few weeks for it to feed through into the actual case/hospital numbers. To see what effect the vaccinated numbers have today, you need to see how many people cumulatively had it 5 weeks ago, and that's still a pretty small number, even for us. Which is why all eyes are in Israel right now which was very fast out of the blocks compared to us.
Roughly 2 weeks and several thousand were innoculated in December. Is there evidence of any of them having the virus (even without being ill) or being a link in a chain of transmission? It is so important.
Take schools for example. If we can be confident that teachers exposed to children who may well have the virus asymptomatically will not be infected and take it home to their families the arguments about reopening schools (once teachers have been vaccinated) becomes very different. I honestly don't think that there is a more important question out there at the moment. Possibly does any of the variations avoid the protection of vaccination ( a provisional no but watch this space carefully) but short of that.
How do you find out with any scientific certainty that they were the chains in transmission?
Surely the issue with schools isn't teachers, it is children catching it asymptomatically and then taking it back to their families. That will happen even if teachers are vaccinated.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
I was wondering this also about reporting. We are in the middle of a hugely serious global pandemic - ask @Leon - why on earth are we not operating these things 24/7 (not vaccinating 24hrs but the effort).
Why don't we have more people on shift work if necessary so as to ensure no "weekend" effects?
If you can use up all the vaccine (currently) during the week, 8am-8pm, why operate 24/7?
A new mass vaccination centre aimed at expanding the roll-out of the Covid-19 jab has opened in Northamptonshire. The NHS said the hub, based at Moulton Park in Northampton, could enable thousands of people to vaccinated each week. The centre will operate seven days a week from 08:00 to 20:00 GMT. Chief executive of Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Toby Sanders, said it would create "significant extra capacity".
There were 21 cases reported to the AmericAN CDC in the first week of vaccination. That works out to 11.1 cases per million or 0.001%. - There were no deaths - Roughly half had Brighton level 1 symptoms, the worst; the remainder were level 2. - The most common symptoms were itching, rash, swelling, and a sense of “throat closure.” - 81% were treated in hospital emergency departments (the typical treatment involves the immediate injection of epinephrine delivered at the vaccination centre) - The median time of onset was 13 minutes, although the range was up to two hours. - Roughly a third of those cases had a prior anaphylactic reaction, and 80% had previous allergic reactions to various allergens.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because you can't set it up to test for in a trial, at least not without very significant challenges that might delay the results.
If you can't get it even asymptomatically, you can't pass it on at all. (Call it "Group A" out of the 90% or however many are protected against symptomatic infection). There are indications that for the Pfizer vaccine, this starts at 33% of the total about 12 days after jab and grows to over 50%, but the data is not yet confirmed. One of those involved with the Oxford vaccine estimated about 50% for that one.
If you can get it but only asymptomatically (Call it "Group B" and have this as the remainder from the 33%-50%+ all the way up to the 90% or 95%), you could pass it on, but at a far lesser viral load and the transmissibility would be far less.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2021-- Moderna Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA), a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, today announced results from in vitro neutralization studies of sera from individuals vaccinated with Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine showing activity against emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine produced neutralizing titers against all key emerging variants tested, including B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, first identified in the UK and Republic of South Africa, respectively. The study showed no significant impact on neutralizing titers against the B.1.1.7 variant relative to prior variants. A six-fold reduction in neutralizing titers was observed with the B.1.351 variant relative to prior variants. Despite this reduction, neutralizing titer levels with B.1.351 remain above levels that are expected to be protective. This study was conducted in collaboration with the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The manuscript has been submitted as a preprint to bioRxiv and will be submitted for peer-reviewed publication.
The two-dose regimen of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine at the 100 µg dose is expected to be protective against emerging strains detected to date. Nonetheless, Moderna today announced its clinical strategy to proactively address the pandemic as the virus continues to evolve. First, the Company will test an additional booster dose of its COVID-19 Vaccine (mRNA-1273) to study the ability to further increase neutralizing titers against emerging strains beyond the existing primary vaccination series. Second, the Company is advancing an emerging variant booster candidate (mRNA-1273.351) against the B.1.351 variant first identified in the Republic of South Africa. The Company is advancing mRNA-1273.351 into preclinical studies and a Phase 1 study in the U.S. to evaluate the immunological benefit of boosting with strain-specific spike proteins. Moderna expects that its mRNA-based booster vaccine (whether mRNA-1273 or mRNA-1273.351) will be able to further boost neutralizing titers in combination with all of the leading vaccine candidates....
So no change in efficacy for Kent COVID, great news for the UK and shows how important border controls are given the efficacy dilution seen for the SA variant.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
For very much the same reasons it took some time to get clear answers on efficacy from PIII trials of the same vaccines. You have to be patient, and wait for the data to accumulate.
I just don't think that the urgency of this question is being appreciated. If those who are vaccinated can still pass on the virus our strategy going forward is going to be materially and unpleasantly different.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
Our opt-outs were never very meaningful and just left us ever more ostracised as an outside within the tent. Given the UK had could be outvoted by QMV by the Eurozone, being tied to the project but outside the room was the worst sort of "influence".
What we've got now is going well IMHO. Its going better than forecast by the likes of you - and exactly as I forecast.
Nothing ever goes "exactly" as forecast. Not by anybody. And you have a hole in your forecasting portfolio you are never going to recover from. @Kinabalu forecast a deal in December, and acquired kudos. I forecast no deal (I said 80% chance of no deal, which I think is as close to certainty as any such forcast should be) and looked like an arse. And you made no commitment either way, because your task in life is to postdict what Johnson does and affirm that it is the best thing that could ever have happened in this best possible of worlds. So "As I foretold you" is not a line you can really use.
Thank you, Ishmael. Yes, that was peak me, I suspect. Probably on my way down now, starting with a Trump conviction which I backed at 4 and is now approaching 7. I've had a good roll on the political forecasting/betting front since I joined PB three years ago. In fact I'm inclined to think it's to some extent because I came here, since there is a correlation. The last big event before I discovered PB - the GE of 2017 - I got entirely wrong and dropped a packet. But since then, gosh, close to spooky!
You were right there would be a deal, but your logic why was wrong.
I also said there would be a deal but gave different logic.
Dignity, Philip. It's worth hanging on to, if you can.
Indeed and I can hold my head up high not only for predicting there would be a deal but also why there would be one too.
I am one of the few people to consistently, since Theresa May was PM, have proposed the UK taking a hardline in talks and suggesting the EU would make moves so long as the UK held firm.
I was right. I was not just right last month, I was right for years and since Theresa May was PM. I hold my head up high in being able to say "I told you so."
"Boris" will be hoping that most of his hardcore Leaver base also inhabit this alternative reality.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
I was wondering this also about reporting. We are in the middle of a hugely serious global pandemic - ask @Leon - why on earth are we not operating these things 24/7 (not vaccinating 24hrs but the effort).
Why don't we have more people on shift work if necessary so as to ensure no "weekend" effects?
If you can use up all the vaccine (currently) during the week, 8am-8pm, why operate 24/7?
Good point.
If we can get through all our supply and aren't bottlenecked by distribution then that seems a very good sign that can lead to more potential distribution once supply increases.
But once supply does increase then 7 day rollout will be critical. Especially for working age adults.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
Our opt-outs were never very meaningful and just left us ever more ostracised as an outside within the tent. Given the UK had could be outvoted by QMV by the Eurozone, being tied to the project but outside the room was the worst sort of "influence".
What we've got now is going well IMHO. Its going better than forecast by the likes of you - and exactly as I forecast.
Nothing ever goes "exactly" as forecast. Not by anybody. And you have a hole in your forecasting portfolio you are never going to recover from. @Kinabalu forecast a deal in December, and acquired kudos. I forecast no deal (I said 80% chance of no deal, which I think is as close to certainty as any such forcast should be) and looked like an arse. And you made no commitment either way, because your task in life is to postdict what Johnson does and affirm that it is the best thing that could ever have happened in this best possible of worlds. So "As I foretold you" is not a line you can really use.
Thank you, Ishmael. Yes, that was peak me, I suspect. Probably on my way down now, starting with a Trump conviction which I backed at 4 and is now approaching 7. I've had a good roll on the political forecasting/betting front since I joined PB three years ago. In fact I'm inclined to think it's to some extent because I came here, since there is a correlation. The last big event before I discovered PB - the GE of 2017 - I got entirely wrong and dropped a packet. But since then, gosh, close to spooky!
You were right there would be a deal, but your logic why was wrong.
I also said there would be a deal but gave different logic.
Dignity, Philip. It's worth hanging on to, if you can.
Indeed and I can hold my head up high not only for predicting there would be a deal but also why there would be one too.
I am one of the few people to consistently, since Theresa May was PM, have proposed the UK taking a hardline in talks and suggesting the EU would make moves so long as the UK held firm.
I was right. I was not just right last month, I was right for years and since Theresa May was PM. I hold my head up high in being able to say "I told you so."
"Boris" will be hoping that most of his hardcore Leaver base also inhabit this alternative reality.
Can you see many as you gaze around?
Its our present reality.
Everything I predicted since Theresa May was PM has come to pass. Its a shame you lack the decency to say "well done" for sticking to my guns and calling it right. Oh well.
The pandemic can be defeated if nations* and companies are quick to swallow pride, change tack quickly and take a cautious approach to reopening generally. It's humanity against the virus, but being agile will help everyone.
*(I'll include the EU as their vaccine buying program was a joint one)
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because it takes weeks for them to become effective and then another few weeks for it to feed through into the actual case/hospital numbers. To see what effect the vaccinated numbers have today, you need to see how many people cumulatively had it 5 weeks ago, and that's still a pretty small number, even for us. Which is why all eyes are in Israel right now which was very fast out of the blocks compared to us.
Roughly 2 weeks and several thousand were innoculated in December. Is there evidence of any of them having the virus (even without being ill) or being a link in a chain of transmission? It is so important.
Take schools for example. If we can be confident that teachers exposed to children who may well have the virus asymptomatically will not be infected and take it home to their families the arguments about reopening schools (once teachers have been vaccinated) becomes very different. I honestly don't think that there is a more important question out there at the moment. Possibly does any of the variations avoid the protection of vaccination ( a provisional no but watch this space carefully) but short of that.
How do you find out with any scientific certainty that they were the chains in transmission?
Surely the issue with schools isn't teachers, it is children catching it asymptomatically and then taking it back to their families. That will happen even if teachers are vaccinated.
The kids passing it around between families was one issue, the other was the number of staff absent - either with the virus itself, or isolating having been in contact with someone sick.
If we can exempt vaccinated school staff from having to isolate when not positive themselves, perhaps with regular testing, that will help keep the schools open.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
Our opt-outs were never very meaningful and just left us ever more ostracised as an outside within the tent. Given the UK had could be outvoted by QMV by the Eurozone, being tied to the project but outside the room was the worst sort of "influence".
What we've got now is going well IMHO. Its going better than forecast by the likes of you - and exactly as I forecast.
Nothing ever goes "exactly" as forecast. Not by anybody. And you have a hole in your forecasting portfolio you are never going to recover from. @Kinabalu forecast a deal in December, and acquired kudos. I forecast no deal (I said 80% chance of no deal, which I think is as close to certainty as any such forcast should be) and looked like an arse. And you made no commitment either way, because your task in life is to postdict what Johnson does and affirm that it is the best thing that could ever have happened in this best possible of worlds. So "As I foretold you" is not a line you can really use.
Thank you, Ishmael. Yes, that was peak me, I suspect. Probably on my way down now, starting with a Trump conviction which I backed at 4 and is now approaching 7. I've had a good roll on the political forecasting/betting front since I joined PB three years ago. In fact I'm inclined to think it's to some extent because I came here, since there is a correlation. The last big event before I discovered PB - the GE of 2017 - I got entirely wrong and dropped a packet. But since then, gosh, close to spooky!
Did you predict a big Maybot majority?
Yes, I thought she'd win easy. Also bet that way and lost a fair amount. But since then on the Big 3 events since, Brexit, GE19, WH20, it's been close to flawless.
Q for you. How likely iyo is a Sindy2 in 2022?
Brexit wasn't since then.
Actually I'm guessing you mean actual Brexit, not the referendum, so you're right..
Yes, I'm talking about the process of it. Deal vs No Deal. Transition extensions. What type of Deal. All of that stuff.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
Our opt-outs were never very meaningful and just left us ever more ostracised as an outside within the tent. Given the UK had could be outvoted by QMV by the Eurozone, being tied to the project but outside the room was the worst sort of "influence".
What we've got now is going well IMHO. Its going better than forecast by the likes of you - and exactly as I forecast.
Nothing ever goes "exactly" as forecast. Not by anybody. And you have a hole in your forecasting portfolio you are never going to recover from. @Kinabalu forecast a deal in December, and acquired kudos. I forecast no deal (I said 80% chance of no deal, which I think is as close to certainty as any such forcast should be) and looked like an arse. And you made no commitment either way, because your task in life is to postdict what Johnson does and affirm that it is the best thing that could ever have happened in this best possible of worlds. So "As I foretold you" is not a line you can really use.
Thank you, Ishmael. Yes, that was peak me, I suspect. Probably on my way down now, starting with a Trump conviction which I backed at 4 and is now approaching 7. I've had a good roll on the political forecasting/betting front since I joined PB three years ago. In fact I'm inclined to think it's to some extent because I came here, since there is a correlation. The last big event before I discovered PB - the GE of 2017 - I got entirely wrong and dropped a packet. But since then, gosh, close to spooky!
You were right there would be a deal, but your logic why was wrong.
I also said there would be a deal but gave different logic.
Dignity, Philip. It's worth hanging on to, if you can.
Indeed and I can hold my head up high not only for predicting there would be a deal but also why there would be one too.
I am one of the few people to consistently, since Theresa May was PM, have proposed the UK taking a hardline in talks and suggesting the EU would make moves so long as the UK held firm.
I was right. I was not just right last month, I was right for years and since Theresa May was PM. I hold my head up high in being able to say "I told you so."
It turns out that your great concession on trusted trader schemes was actually won by Theresa May. I hope you will take this opportunity to acknowledge her successful negotiation.
What is even funnier is that the EU has not yet authorised AZN so any delay is somewhat moot!
They really don’t want to have to use the British one. Especially not when there’s a French one in the pipeline.
Also it is the one with the worst protection levels.
So the corner stone of our plans
As with all vaccines the true efficacy will not be known for some time but there is evidence that all give pretty good protection against dying compared to having no vaccine. And every extra day without protection will cost more lives and risk more serious mutations.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
Our opt-outs were never very meaningful and just left us ever more ostracised as an outside within the tent. Given the UK had could be outvoted by QMV by the Eurozone, being tied to the project but outside the room was the worst sort of "influence".
What we've got now is going well IMHO. Its going better than forecast by the likes of you - and exactly as I forecast.
Nothing ever goes "exactly" as forecast. Not by anybody. And you have a hole in your forecasting portfolio you are never going to recover from. @Kinabalu forecast a deal in December, and acquired kudos. I forecast no deal (I said 80% chance of no deal, which I think is as close to certainty as any such forcast should be) and looked like an arse. And you made no commitment either way, because your task in life is to postdict what Johnson does and affirm that it is the best thing that could ever have happened in this best possible of worlds. So "As I foretold you" is not a line you can really use.
Thank you, Ishmael. Yes, that was peak me, I suspect. Probably on my way down now, starting with a Trump conviction which I backed at 4 and is now approaching 7. I've had a good roll on the political forecasting/betting front since I joined PB three years ago. In fact I'm inclined to think it's to some extent because I came here, since there is a correlation. The last big event before I discovered PB - the GE of 2017 - I got entirely wrong and dropped a packet. But since then, gosh, close to spooky!
You were right there would be a deal, but your logic why was wrong.
I also said there would be a deal but gave different logic.
Dignity, Philip. It's worth hanging on to, if you can.
Indeed and I can hold my head up high not only for predicting there would be a deal but also why there would be one too.
I am one of the few people to consistently, since Theresa May was PM, have proposed the UK taking a hardline in talks and suggesting the EU would make moves so long as the UK held firm.
I was right. I was not just right last month, I was right for years and since Theresa May was PM. I hold my head up high in being able to say "I told you so."
The EU did not really change position from what it was saying with May, just Boris was willing to have an Irish Sea border and she wasn't.
A middle ground was then found on fishing to get a trade deal and reduce the scale of that border
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Williamson, oh dear.
Hancock is a worthy minister. Once this is over, he deserves some combination of promotion and time away from the trenches- Foreign Secretary is customary in that situation, is it not?
Williamson wasn't worthy last time round. And he's not improved.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
I was wondering this also about reporting. We are in the middle of a hugely serious global pandemic - ask @Leon - why on earth are we not operating these things 24/7 (not vaccinating 24hrs but the effort).
Why don't we have more people on shift work if necessary so as to ensure no "weekend" effects?
If you can use up all the vaccine (currently) during the week, 8am-8pm, why operate 24/7?
Yes that is fair. But why would there not be a regular "run rate" seven days a week?
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
Our opt-outs were never very meaningful and just left us ever more ostracised as an outside within the tent. Given the UK had could be outvoted by QMV by the Eurozone, being tied to the project but outside the room was the worst sort of "influence".
What we've got now is going well IMHO. Its going better than forecast by the likes of you - and exactly as I forecast.
Nothing ever goes "exactly" as forecast. Not by anybody. And you have a hole in your forecasting portfolio you are never going to recover from. @Kinabalu forecast a deal in December, and acquired kudos. I forecast no deal (I said 80% chance of no deal, which I think is as close to certainty as any such forcast should be) and looked like an arse. And you made no commitment either way, because your task in life is to postdict what Johnson does and affirm that it is the best thing that could ever have happened in this best possible of worlds. So "As I foretold you" is not a line you can really use.
Thank you, Ishmael. Yes, that was peak me, I suspect. Probably on my way down now, starting with a Trump conviction which I backed at 4 and is now approaching 7. I've had a good roll on the political forecasting/betting front since I joined PB three years ago. In fact I'm inclined to think it's to some extent because I came here, since there is a correlation. The last big event before I discovered PB - the GE of 2017 - I got entirely wrong and dropped a packet. But since then, gosh, close to spooky!
You were right there would be a deal, but your logic why was wrong.
I also said there would be a deal but gave different logic.
Dignity, Philip. It's worth hanging on to, if you can.
Indeed and I can hold my head up high not only for predicting there would be a deal but also why there would be one too.
I am one of the few people to consistently, since Theresa May was PM, have proposed the UK taking a hardline in talks and suggesting the EU would make moves so long as the UK held firm.
I was right. I was not just right last month, I was right for years and since Theresa May was PM. I hold my head up high in being able to say "I told you so."
The EU did not really change position from what it was saying with May, just Boris was willing to have an Irish Sea border and she wasn't.
A middle ground was then found on fishing to get a trade deal and reduce the scale of that border
As far as I can see the only ones to benefit from the fishing deal are the fish (which might not be a bad outcome).
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
We will have the answers in time, but we are barely a month or so into a vaccination program, with a country in lockdown, and notably, most of those who have been vaccinated, likely to be shielding (effectively or actually). I think most scientists will expect the level of transmission to drop significantly. Essentially if the virus cannot take hold in the body, it cannot replicate to provide the source for new infections. However, most clinical trials have not specifically looked for proof of this, rather they have focussed on preventing illness in those vaccinated. Have patience.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because it takes weeks for them to become effective and then another few weeks for it to feed through into the actual case/hospital numbers. To see what effect the vaccinated numbers have today, you need to see how many people cumulatively had it 5 weeks ago, and that's still a pretty small number, even for us. Which is why all eyes are in Israel right now which was very fast out of the blocks compared to us.
Roughly 2 weeks and several thousand were innoculated in December. Is there evidence of any of them having the virus (even without being ill) or being a link in a chain of transmission? It is so important.
Take schools for example. If we can be confident that teachers exposed to children who may well have the virus asymptomatically will not be infected and take it home to their families the arguments about reopening schools (once teachers have been vaccinated) becomes very different. I honestly don't think that there is a more important question out there at the moment. Possibly does any of the variations avoid the protection of vaccination ( a provisional no but watch this space carefully) but short of that.
How do you find out with any scientific certainty that they were the chains in transmission?
Surely the issue with schools isn't teachers, it is children catching it asymptomatically and then taking it back to their families. That will happen even if teachers are vaccinated.
The kids passing it around between families was one issue, the other was the number of staff absent - either with the virus itself, or isolating having been in contact with someone sick.
If we can exempt vaccinated school staff from having to isolate when not positive themselves, perhaps with regular testing, that will help keep the schools open.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
Yeah yeah that's dancing on the head of a pin. The point stands.
As with the one/two dose thing we have plenty of information but no trial has, AFAIA, been conducted to understand the transmissability of people who have been vaccinated.
So as it stands, we don't know if having the vaccine reduces transmission beyond people not coughing and sneezing as a result of reducing the impact/symptoms of the virus.
Which is the same as asymptomatic carriers, presumably.
It's normally the kind of stuff that would be investigated in a P4 trial because doing it with a smaller P3 sample isn't easy. Essentially Pfizer will be studying the Israeli and UK data very carefully to find any information on this as we speak. Hopefully we'll get those results in the next few weeks.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
Yeah yeah that's dancing on the head of a pin. The point stands.
As with the one/two dose thing we have plenty of information but no trial has, AFAIA, been conducted to understand the transmissability of people who have been vaccinated.
So as it stands, we don't know if having the vaccine reduces transmission beyond people not coughing and sneezing as a result of reducing the impact/symptoms of the virus.
Which is the same as asymptomatic carriers, presumably.
It's normally the kind of stuff that would be investigated in a P4 trial because doing it with a smaller P3 sample isn't easy. Essentially Pfizer will be studying the Israeli and UK data very carefully to find any information on this as we speak. Hopefully we'll get those results in the next few weeks.
Yep absolutely.
My two main Covid focuses:
1. Israel; and 2. Hospitalisations.
Israel and the NHS? You are Jeremy Corbyn and I claim my £5.
I am going to have 1 more go at this and then let it go. If you test 5k people vaccinated before Christmas in London statistically something like 480 of them will have the virus right now. If its materially less than that it is probable that immunisation prevents infection to some degree. Of course you would need to consider if those tested, given their age, were more sheltered than the community as a whole but you would very rapidly get some idea. If next to none of them have the virus you can be reasonably confident that you are not just symptomless but uninfected and therefore extremely likely not to infect anyone else.
I just don't believe that this would be that hard. We have huge testing capacity at the present time. Lets find out!
PB government supporters on here today are on cracking form:
Making international comparisons about death rates is a very bad thing to do at this stage of the pandemic.
Making international comparisons about vaccination rates is a very good thing to do at this stage of the pandemic.
The latter is very important actually both wrt to saving lives but also with respect to potential mutations a risk which grows every day the virus is allowed to flourish unchecked. It has very little to do with which government or organisation floats your boat.
On topic: I agree that Puerto Rico might get statehood before DC. In fact, PR just voted in an advisory referendum in November to seek statehood. There have been previous referendums on the island but these were all three-choice: statehood, independence or status quo with no one option getting a majority. Many of these referendums were boycotted by the supporters of one or more of the options. November's referendum was the first to be a simple yes/no to statehood (yes got 52.5%, no 47.5%) with a decent turnout (54.7%, close to the 55% turnout in the simultaneous Puerto Rico general election).
Congress can admit a new state with a simple Joint Resolution of both houses (the other way Congress can make law other than passing a full Act). Like an Act, a JR requires Presidential assent, or a 2/3 override by both Houses. However, in practice it's a bit more complicated than that: usually in the past Congress has first passed an Organizing Act authorizing and requiring the putative state to draw up a constitution for itself and this needs to be adopted by a referendum of the new state's voters and approved by Congress before the JR admitting it to the Union. In Puerto Rico's case, it already has a constitution that has been adopted by its electorate and approved by Congress. Most likely it might require some amendment to be an actual state constitution, but it would seem that Congress could probably go straight to an admitting resolution in the case of PR. The precedent would be Vermont, which had already adopted a constitution as an independent republic although it did adopt a new constitution in 1793, two years after joining the Union, which is still in effect today.
DC statehood would certainly require more than a simple Act or JR of Admission: the District does not have a formal constitution, it's current quasi-municipal government was established by Act of Congress. The US Constitution requires the establishment of a federal district, which is why the proposals for DC statehood always include redrawing the federal district to a rump containing the main federal buildings. Unfortunately, the really big fly in the ointment is the 23rd Amendment which grants the federal district as many Electoral College votes as the least populous states (currently three). Repealing this amendment would need a full 2/3 majority of both Houses and ratification by 3/4 of the states. If it's not repealed, then as things stand, the only remaining inhabitants of the federal district, i.e. the incumbent First Family, would have the power to choose three Electoral College members all by themselves!
However, the 23rd does state that Congress can legislate to establish the manner by which the District appoints its Electoral College members, so any bill to organize for DC statehood could include provisions to reform that; perhaps the obvious solution would be for the District's electors to be assigned to whoever wins a majority of the states' electoral votes
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
Yeah yeah that's dancing on the head of a pin. The point stands.
As with the one/two dose thing we have plenty of information but no trial has, AFAIA, been conducted to understand the transmissability of people who have been vaccinated.
So as it stands, we don't know if having the vaccine reduces transmission beyond people not coughing and sneezing as a result of reducing the impact/symptoms of the virus.
Which is the same as asymptomatic carriers, presumably.
It's normally the kind of stuff that would be investigated in a P4 trial because doing it with a smaller P3 sample isn't easy. Essentially Pfizer will be studying the Israeli and UK data very carefully to find any information on this as we speak. Hopefully we'll get those results in the next few weeks.
Yep absolutely.
My two main Covid focuses:
1. Israel; and 2. Hospitalisations.
Israel and the NHS? You are Jeremy Corbyn and I claim my £5.
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
Getting 7-day full capacity is much more important to me than getting 24h opening. When the programme moves down to working age people weekend appointments will be even more important than usual.
100% agreed.
Many GP surgeries are closed over the weekend, but a solution is needed for 7-day operations.
Is it though? If we can deliver say 3-4 million doses a week, mainly on Mon-Fri, does it matter if the total every day is not the same?
Hardly surprising given the £14bn class action that Mastercard is currently having to fight it hardly gives them an incentive to be nice.
Bloody hell.
I did not know about that lawsuit.
Ouch. That will surely cause them to file for bankruptcy if it goes ahead?
The whole card payments system was in flux before all this. Various players trying to squeeze costs down - part of the new world of banking, where entrants are trying to offer minimum cost offerings to customers and retailers. Rather than just quasi-monopolies getting fat on their curiously similar fees.
I am going to have 1 more go at this and then let it go. If you test 5k people vaccinated before Christmas in London statistically something like 480 of them will have the virus right now. If its materially less than that it is probable that immunisation prevents infection to some degree. Of course you would need to consider if those tested, given their age, were more sheltered than the community as a whole but you would very rapidly get some idea. If next to none of them have the virus you can be reasonably confident that you are not just symptomless but uninfected and therefore extremely likely not to infect anyone else.
I just don't believe that this would be that hard. We have huge testing capacity at the present time. Lets find out!
It's not that hard (check me out the viral immunologist) but this is anecdotal information, not a formal trial. As such although adding to the picture, no one in their right mind would take the results of such observations as the basis for policy.
It is why eg Pfizer (and of course many others) was pretty clear on the single vs double dose efficacy. Not to say there are not very good reasons for the govt's decision.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because it takes weeks for them to become effective and then another few weeks for it to feed through into the actual case/hospital numbers. To see what effect the vaccinated numbers have today, you need to see how many people cumulatively had it 5 weeks ago, and that's still a pretty small number, even for us. Which is why all eyes are in Israel right now which was very fast out of the blocks compared to us.
Roughly 2 weeks and several thousand were innoculated in December. Is there evidence of any of them having the virus (even without being ill) or being a link in a chain of transmission? It is so important.
Take schools for example. If we can be confident that teachers exposed to children who may well have the virus asymptomatically will not be infected and take it home to their families the arguments about reopening schools (once teachers have been vaccinated) becomes very different. I honestly don't think that there is a more important question out there at the moment. Possibly does any of the variations avoid the protection of vaccination ( a provisional no but watch this space carefully) but short of that.
How do you find out with any scientific certainty that they were the chains in transmission?
Surely the issue with schools isn't teachers, it is children catching it asymptomatically and then taking it back to their families. That will happen even if teachers are vaccinated.
The kids passing it around between families was one issue, the other was the number of staff absent - either with the virus itself, or isolating having been in contact with someone sick.
If we can exempt vaccinated school staff from having to isolate when not positive themselves, perhaps with regular testing, that will help keep the schools open.
Just because the teachers are vaccinated that doesn't mean they can't infect others though
On topic: I agree that Puerto Rico might get statehood before DC. In fact, PR just voted in an advisory referendum in November to seek statehood. There have been previous referendums on the island but these were all three-choice: statehood, independence or status quo with no one option getting a majority. Many of these referendums were boycotted by the supporters of one or more of the options. November's referendum was the first to be a simple yes/no to statehood (yes got 52.5%, no 47.5%) with a decent turnout (54.7%, close to the 55% turnout in the simultaneous Puerto Rico general election).
Congress can admit a new state with a simple Joint Resolution of both houses (the other way Congress can make law other than passing a full Act). Like an Act, a JR requires Presidential assent, or a 2/3 override by both Houses. However, in practice it's a bit more complicated than that: usually in the past Congress has first passed an Organizing Act authorizing and requiring the putative state to draw up a constitution for itself and this needs to be adopted by a referendum of the new state's voters and approved by Congress before the JR admitting it to the Union. In Puerto Rico's case, it already has a constitution that has been adopted by its electorate and approved by Congress. Most likely it might require some amendment to be an actual state constitution, but it would seem that Congress could probably go straight to an admitting resolution in the case of PR. The precedent would be Vermont, which had already adopted a constitution as an independent republic although it did adopt a new constitution in 1793, two years after joining the Union, which is still in effect today.
DC statehood would certainly require more than a simple Act or JR of Admission: the District does not have a formal constitution, it's current quasi-municipal government was established by Act of Congress. The US Constitution requires the establishment of a federal district, which is why the proposals for DC statehood always include redrawing the federal district to a rump containing the main federal buildings. Unfortunately, the really big fly in the ointment is the 23rd Amendment which grants the federal district as many Electoral College votes as the least populous states (currently three). Repealing this amendment would need a full 2/3 majority of both Houses and ratification by 3/4 of the states. If it's not repealed, then as things stand, the only remaining inhabitants of the federal district, i.e. the incumbent First Family, would have the power to choose three Electoral College members all by themselves!
However, the 23rd does state that Congress can legislate to establish the manner by which the District appoints its Electoral College members, so any bill to organize for DC statehood could include provisions to reform that; perhaps the obvious solution would be for the District's electors to be assigned to whoever wins a majority of the states' electoral votes
That's an amusing factoid that the first family would in effect be given three whole electoral votes to themselves. Hah!
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
Getting 7-day full capacity is much more important to me than getting 24h opening. When the programme moves down to working age people weekend appointments will be even more important than usual.
100% agreed.
Many GP surgeries are closed over the weekend, but a solution is needed for 7-day operations.
Is it though? If we can deliver say 3-4 million doses a week, mainly on Mon-Fri, does it matter if the total every day is not the same?
It's really only an issue if stocks of the jab back up on weekends, when they could be being put to work days earlier. By February it might be more of an issue.
On topic: I agree that Puerto Rico might get statehood before DC. In fact, PR just voted in an advisory referendum in November to seek statehood. There have been previous referendums on the island but these were all three-choice: statehood, independence or status quo with no one option getting a majority. Many of these referendums were boycotted by the supporters of one or more of the options. November's referendum was the first to be a simple yes/no to statehood (yes got 52.5%, no 47.5%) with a decent turnout (54.7%, close to the 55% turnout in the simultaneous Puerto Rico general election).
Congress can admit a new state with a simple Joint Resolution of both houses (the other way Congress can make law other than passing a full Act). Like an Act, a JR requires Presidential assent, or a 2/3 override by both Houses. However, in practice it's a bit more complicated than that: usually in the past Congress has first passed an Organizing Act authorizing and requiring the putative state to draw up a constitution for itself and this needs to be adopted by a referendum of the new state's voters and approved by Congress before the JR admitting it to the Union. In Puerto Rico's case, it already has a constitution that has been adopted by its electorate and approved by Congress. Most likely it might require some amendment to be an actual state constitution, but it would seem that Congress could probably go straight to an admitting resolution in the case of PR. The precedent would be Vermont, which had already adopted a constitution as an independent republic although it did adopt a new constitution in 1793, two years after joining the Union, which is still in effect today.
DC statehood would certainly require more than a simple Act or JR of Admission: the District does not have a formal constitution, it's current quasi-municipal government was established by Act of Congress. The US Constitution requires the establishment of a federal district, which is why the proposals for DC statehood always include redrawing the federal district to a rump containing the main federal buildings. Unfortunately, the really big fly in the ointment is the 23rd Amendment which grants the federal district as many Electoral College votes as the least populous states (currently three). Repealing this amendment would need a full 2/3 majority of both Houses and ratification by 3/4 of the states. If it's not repealed, then as things stand, the only remaining inhabitants of the federal district, i.e. the incumbent First Family, would have the power to choose three Electoral College members all by themselves!
However, the 23rd does state that Congress can legislate to establish the manner by which the District appoints its Electoral College members, so any bill to organize for DC statehood could include provisions to reform that; perhaps the obvious solution would be for the District's electors to be assigned to whoever wins a majority of the states' electoral votes
Which would be a nice compromise for those people who currently want to remove the electoral college and just use the popular vote.
On topic: I agree that Puerto Rico might get statehood before DC. In fact, PR just voted in an advisory referendum in November to seek statehood. There have been previous referendums on the island but these were all three-choice: statehood, independence or status quo with no one option getting a majority. Many of these referendums were boycotted by the supporters of one or more of the options. November's referendum was the first to be a simple yes/no to statehood (yes got 52.5%, no 47.5%) with a decent turnout (54.7%, close to the 55% turnout in the simultaneous Puerto Rico general election).
Congress can admit a new state with a simple Joint Resolution of both houses (the other way Congress can make law other than passing a full Act). Like an Act, a JR requires Presidential assent, or a 2/3 override by both Houses. However, in practice it's a bit more complicated than that: usually in the past Congress has first passed an Organizing Act authorizing and requiring the putative state to draw up a constitution for itself and this needs to be adopted by a referendum of the new state's voters and approved by Congress before the JR admitting it to the Union. In Puerto Rico's case, it already has a constitution that has been adopted by its electorate and approved by Congress. Most likely it might require some amendment to be an actual state constitution, but it would seem that Congress could probably go straight to an admitting resolution in the case of PR. The precedent would be Vermont, which had already adopted a constitution as an independent republic although it did adopt a new constitution in 1793, two years after joining the Union, which is still in effect today.
DC statehood would certainly require more than a simple Act or JR of Admission: the District does not have a formal constitution, it's current quasi-municipal government was established by Act of Congress. The US Constitution requires the establishment of a federal district, which is why the proposals for DC statehood always include redrawing the federal district to a rump containing the main federal buildings. Unfortunately, the really big fly in the ointment is the 23rd Amendment which grants the federal district as many Electoral College votes as the least populous states (currently three). Repealing this amendment would need a full 2/3 majority of both Houses and ratification by 3/4 of the states. If it's not repealed, then as things stand, the only remaining inhabitants of the federal district, i.e. the incumbent First Family, would have the power to choose three Electoral College members all by themselves!
However, the 23rd does state that Congress can legislate to establish the manner by which the District appoints its Electoral College members, so any bill to organize for DC statehood could include provisions to reform that; perhaps the obvious solution would be for the District's electors to be assigned to whoever wins a majority of the states' electoral votes
Very interesting - but didn’t Texas have to adopt a new constitution in 1845 (admittedly, the earlier one did start with ‘Constitution of the Republic of Texas’).
I seem to remember that holding a constitutional convention was a requirement before Hawaii and Alaska were admitted to statehood as well.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
For very much the same reasons it took some time to get clear answers on efficacy from PIII trials of the same vaccines. You have to be patient, and wait for the data to accumulate.
I just don't think that the urgency of this question is being appreciated. If those who are vaccinated can still pass on the virus our strategy going forward is going to be materially and unpleasantly different.
It's simply a difficult question to answer, which is why we don't have definitive answers yet.
- You can look at changes in detected infection rates, but we're in the middle of a lockdown, which changes infection rates (and the effect of lockdown is hard to quantify exactly as we have different rules, different behaviours and different strains to the spring. - You can look at changes in detection in the vaccinated age groups, but there may also be differential lockdown effects in these age groups (and maybe differential transmission of new strains) - You can look at changes in detection of infection in vaccinated/un-vaccinated in similar age groups. This is the best, but it's not an RCT - the vaccinated and un-vaccinated will differ in where they are, how mobile they are (could they get to a vaccination site?) which are also things that will affect their risks - You can compare countries vaccinating at different rates, but countries have different rules, demographics, local numbers of cases before vaccination
Now, assuming the vaccinations work as well as they did in the trials, when we get to large % of the populations vaccinated, the differences will become obvious, particularly if there's lockdown easing and a continued fall in cases. But at present we're still looking for fairly small differences which can be hard to pick out from the other noise. Over 5m have been vaccinated, but most of those were not vaccinated two weeks ago, so have pretty limited protection just yet. You then have to allow another few days for symptoms.
Patience But, per @Andy_Cooke 's post, vaccination is pretty much certain to reduce transmission, what we don't know yet is exactly how much.
Watching bitesize today on BBC2 with education on the human body.
Michael Mosley has just managed to crowbar a strip dancing club into his explanation of human reproduction, as well as a group of braying rugby lads cheering on the quality of their sperm samples under the microscope.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Williamson, oh dear.
Hancock is a worthy minister. Once this is over, he deserves some combination of promotion and time away from the trenches- Foreign Secretary is customary in that situation, is it not?
Williamson wasn't worthy last time round. And he's not improved.
Williamson continued presence in the cabinet is more confusing than the way in which covid effects people in such drastically different ways.
A European demos will evolve over time. It is the history of federations.
The choice is whether you want to be federal (in which case give its Parliament full accountability) or not (in which case Brexit). Mr Nabavi wanting the EU to have federal powers but trumpetting the lack of federal accountability as a strength is just bizarre.
Not at all, the choice was between our semi-detached membership, with lots of opt-outs and enhanced by Cameron's renegotiation and what we've got now, which to put it at its mildest, is not exactly going well.
Our opt-outs were never very meaningful and just left us ever more ostracised as an outside within the tent. Given the UK had could be outvoted by QMV by the Eurozone, being tied to the project but outside the room was the worst sort of "influence".
What we've got now is going well IMHO. Its going better than forecast by the likes of you - and exactly as I forecast.
Nothing ever goes "exactly" as forecast. Not by anybody. And you have a hole in your forecasting portfolio you are never going to recover from. @Kinabalu forecast a deal in December, and acquired kudos. I forecast no deal (I said 80% chance of no deal, which I think is as close to certainty as any such forcast should be) and looked like an arse. And you made no commitment either way, because your task in life is to postdict what Johnson does and affirm that it is the best thing that could ever have happened in this best possible of worlds. So "As I foretold you" is not a line you can really use.
Thank you, Ishmael. Yes, that was peak me, I suspect. Probably on my way down now, starting with a Trump conviction which I backed at 4 and is now approaching 7. I've had a good roll on the political forecasting/betting front since I joined PB three years ago. In fact I'm inclined to think it's to some extent because I came here, since there is a correlation. The last big event before I discovered PB - the GE of 2017 - I got entirely wrong and dropped a packet. But since then, gosh, close to spooky!
You were right there would be a deal, but your logic why was wrong.
I also said there would be a deal but gave different logic.
Dignity, Philip. It's worth hanging on to, if you can.
Indeed and I can hold my head up high not only for predicting there would be a deal but also why there would be one too.
I am one of the few people to consistently, since Theresa May was PM, have proposed the UK taking a hardline in talks and suggesting the EU would make moves so long as the UK held firm.
I was right. I was not just right last month, I was right for years and since Theresa May was PM. I hold my head up high in being able to say "I told you so."
The EU did not really change position from what it was saying with May, just Boris was willing to have an Irish Sea border and she wasn't.
A middle ground was then found on fishing to get a trade deal and reduce the scale of that border
As far as I can see the only ones to benefit from the fishing deal are the fish (which might not be a bad outcome).
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Williamson, oh dear.
Hancock is a worthy minister. Once this is over, he deserves some combination of promotion and time away from the trenches- Foreign Secretary is customary in that situation, is it not?
Williamson wasn't worthy last time round. And he's not improved.
I am on Hancock (now 36s bf) for next Cons leader.
Rishi's fate will be in the hands of the extent of the furlough.
I'm not sure there are too many other candidates. Raab perhaps. Gove I can't see it.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
Because it takes weeks for them to become effective and then another few weeks for it to feed through into the actual case/hospital numbers. To see what effect the vaccinated numbers have today, you need to see how many people cumulatively had it 5 weeks ago, and that's still a pretty small number, even for us. Which is why all eyes are in Israel right now which was very fast out of the blocks compared to us.
Roughly 2 weeks and several thousand were innoculated in December. Is there evidence of any of them having the virus (even without being ill) or being a link in a chain of transmission? It is so important.
Take schools for example. If we can be confident that teachers exposed to children who may well have the virus asymptomatically will not be infected and take it home to their families the arguments about reopening schools (once teachers have been vaccinated) becomes very different. I honestly don't think that there is a more important question out there at the moment. Possibly does any of the variations avoid the protection of vaccination ( a provisional no but watch this space carefully) but short of that.
How do you find out with any scientific certainty that they were the chains in transmission?
Surely the issue with schools isn't teachers, it is children catching it asymptomatically and then taking it back to their families. That will happen even if teachers are vaccinated.
The kids passing it around between families was one issue, the other was the number of staff absent - either with the virus itself, or isolating having been in contact with someone sick.
If we can exempt vaccinated school staff from having to isolate when not positive themselves, perhaps with regular testing, that will help keep the schools open.
Just because the teachers are vaccinated that doesn't mean they can't infect others though
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Williamson, oh dear.
Hancock is a worthy minister. Once this is over, he deserves some combination of promotion and time away from the trenches- Foreign Secretary is customary in that situation, is it not?
Williamson wasn't worthy last time round. And he's not improved.
I am on Hancock (now 36s bf) for next Cons leader.
Rishi's fate will be in the hands of the extent of the furlough.
I'm not sure there are too many other candidates. Raab perhaps. Gove I can't see it.
Hunt would likely run again, if Sunak was not now a contender he might even win next time with Brexit delivered and no longer an issue and Corbyn defeated and no more
Incoming Daily Mail headline claiming vaccine programme is off track and will fail.
Weekend figures day 1
Still curious why the numbers halve between Friday and Saturday.
Getting 7-day full capacity is much more important to me than getting 24h opening. When the programme moves down to working age people weekend appointments will be even more important than usual.
100% agreed.
Many GP surgeries are closed over the weekend, but a solution is needed for 7-day operations.
Is it though? If we can deliver say 3-4 million doses a week, mainly on Mon-Fri, does it matter if the total every day is not the same?
Right now? No.
When it comes to those who work Monday-Firday then yes weekend slots would be ideal. Better to offer a weekend slot than a middle of the night slot.
On topic: I agree that Puerto Rico might get statehood before DC. In fact, PR just voted in an advisory referendum in November to seek statehood. There have been previous referendums on the island but these were all three-choice: statehood, independence or status quo with no one option getting a majority. Many of these referendums were boycotted by the supporters of one or more of the options. November's referendum was the first to be a simple yes/no to statehood (yes got 52.5%, no 47.5%) with a decent turnout (54.7%, close to the 55% turnout in the simultaneous Puerto Rico general election).
Congress can admit a new state with a simple Joint Resolution of both houses (the other way Congress can make law other than passing a full Act). Like an Act, a JR requires Presidential assent, or a 2/3 override by both Houses. However, in practice it's a bit more complicated than that: usually in the past Congress has first passed an Organizing Act authorizing and requiring the putative state to draw up a constitution for itself and this needs to be adopted by a referendum of the new state's voters and approved by Congress before the JR admitting it to the Union. In Puerto Rico's case, it already has a constitution that has been adopted by its electorate and approved by Congress. Most likely it might require some amendment to be an actual state constitution, but it would seem that Congress could probably go straight to an admitting resolution in the case of PR. The precedent would be Vermont, which had already adopted a constitution as an independent republic although it did adopt a new constitution in 1793, two years after joining the Union, which is still in effect today.
DC statehood would certainly require more than a simple Act or JR of Admission: the District does not have a formal constitution, it's current quasi-municipal government was established by Act of Congress. The US Constitution requires the establishment of a federal district, which is why the proposals for DC statehood always include redrawing the federal district to a rump containing the main federal buildings. Unfortunately, the really big fly in the ointment is the 23rd Amendment which grants the federal district as many Electoral College votes as the least populous states (currently three). Repealing this amendment would need a full 2/3 majority of both Houses and ratification by 3/4 of the states. If it's not repealed, then as things stand, the only remaining inhabitants of the federal district, i.e. the incumbent First Family, would have the power to choose three Electoral College members all by themselves!
However, the 23rd does state that Congress can legislate to establish the manner by which the District appoints its Electoral College members, so any bill to organize for DC statehood could include provisions to reform that; perhaps the obvious solution would be for the District's electors to be assigned to whoever wins a majority of the states' electoral votes
Which would be a nice compromise for those people who currently want to remove the electoral college and just use the popular vote.
Or you could redistribute Electoral Votes proportionally by State, with the smallest (inc. DC) getting 1.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Who gives a crap? Midterm polls are meaningless at best of times, in the middle a pandemic they are beyond meaningless. Why anyone pays the slightest attention is beyond me.
A few weeks ago we were assured that the Tories would get a Brexit bounce inn the polls. After that failed to materialise a vaccine bounce was predicted. So this poll is interesting in that it seems to show no sign of any bouncing.
There is a bounce but I suspect it's more like this
with polls continuing as they are until reality suddenly hits.
It's not often PB includes a pic of one of my heroes.
Wile E Coyote reminds me of a few current Government Ministers (Hancock and Williamson in particular) who keep on going even though every single one of their plans is thwarted.
Hancock has vastly improved. After a shaky start, admittedly.
Williamson, oh dear.
Hancock is a worthy minister. Once this is over, he deserves some combination of promotion and time away from the trenches- Foreign Secretary is customary in that situation, is it not?
Williamson wasn't worthy last time round. And he's not improved.
I am on Hancock (now 36s bf) for next Cons leader.
Rishi's fate will be in the hands of the extent of the furlough.
I'm not sure there are too many other candidates. Raab perhaps. Gove I can't see it.
Hunt would likely run again, if Sunak was not now a contender he might even win next time with Brexit no longer an issue and Corbyn defeated and no more
That is a good point. Hunt might tempt me back to the Party.
The government needs act in regards care homes and NHS front line. We can't have people who work in those settings turn a jab down.
It will need a change in the law.
Being compelled to take a vaccine can be a part of the job if it is a part of their terms and conditions of employment, but it is not for existing staff - and companies struggle to easily unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment for people who've been working there for years and are on a contract that doesn't include that in their terms.
Having a jab doesn't stop you passing the virus on. Being asymptomatic helps not to pass the virus on.
People are now happy to elide this for the moment but if you are talking legislation (O Mr Libertarian, btw)) then the nitty gritty will be reached pretty soon.
Which is that vaccine or no vaccine you don't want people coughing and sneezing in care homes. How to legislate that.
That is an explicitly untrue statement. You are eliding "We do not have explicit proof as to the degree by which it does or does not stop people passing on the virus so we are being cautious" with a specific statement that it certainly doesn't.
So why the hell, with over 5m vaccinated in this country alone, do we not have a clear answer to this? It is absolutely critical to the extent that we can hope for normal life later this year.
We will have the answers in time, but we are barely a month or so into a vaccination program, with a country in lockdown, and notably, most of those who have been vaccinated, likely to be shielding (effectively or actually). I think most scientists will expect the level of transmission to drop significantly. Essentially if the virus cannot take hold in the body, it cannot replicate to provide the source for new infections. However, most clinical trials have not specifically looked for proof of this, rather they have focussed on preventing illness in those vaccinated. Have patience.
It's not proven the vaccine reduces infection and thus spread, since the trials didn't test for this and it's too early in the rollout for it to show up, nevertheless in theory it should and the subject matter experts are confident it will. So it will be an unpleasant surprise if it doesn't. That's my understanding on this.
Comments
So why consistently use the cretinous ones?
You have to be patient, and wait for the data to accumulate.
People blaming minorities should take a ticket to queue 3, over there.
People blaming the government, should join queue 5
People blaming the EU should join queue 6
People blaming the Lizard People can go straight to embarkation at the spaceship terminal
Tea and biscuits will be arriving shortly.
My guess is supply isn't there to offer 7 day a week at full capacity of 500k a day, so for the moment, at weekends they dial it back as they are basically running out.
Daniel Hannan
Toby Young
Contrarian...
(The problem, of course, being that almost no-one actually in Russia will have seen the whole video, and everyone will have seen Putin on the news).
There's certainly an argument that they should have been allowed much earlier in the pandemic, but it's deeply controversial.
Many GP surgeries are closed over the weekend, but a solution is needed for 7-day operations.
https://twitter.com/moderna_tx/status/1353698953108353024
As with the one/two dose thing we have plenty of information but no trial has, AFAIA, been conducted to understand the transmissability of people who have been vaccinated.
So as it stands, we don't know if having the vaccine reduces transmission beyond people not coughing and sneezing as a result of reducing the impact/symptoms of the virus.
Which is the same as asymptomatic carriers, presumably.
means that most corruption flies under the radar and is not even illegal: central government spending (witness the jobs-for-the-tory-boys-and-girls sleaze that we have now), planning under laughable local government "control", nepotism and old boy networks, etc.
That's even ignoring the financial outrages perpetrated in London a thousand times a second. What percentage of the world's laundered money passes through London or pseudo-British tax havens at some point? And what percentage of the post-imperial financial outflows that are still devastating the global south?
We are an island of filth. I suspect a comeuppance at some point this century. It won't come from within of course, as our ossified politics will prevent that, but at some point our name will deservedly be mud at the global level.
Williamson, oh dear.
Take schools for example. If we can be confident that teachers exposed to children who may well have the virus asymptomatically will not be infected and take it home to their families the arguments about reopening schools (once teachers have been vaccinated) becomes very different. I honestly don't think that there is a more important question out there at the moment. Possibly does any of the variations avoid the protection of vaccination ( a provisional no but watch this space carefully) but short of that.
Due to a lot of hard work by the RAF in reducing the number of German bombers that got to their targets during the day, most of the Blitz against London and other towns was at night.
Schools have a tendency to operate in daylight hours.
Though, my Aunt tells me that there was a bit of an issue with children falling asleep in class, having been up all night in the shelter.
For everything else there's Mastercard.
https://twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler/status/1353618589912326145?s=19
Why don't we have more people on shift work if necessary so as to ensure no "weekend" effects?
Michael Mosley has just managed to crowbar a strip dancing club into his explanation of human reproduction, as well as a group of braying rugby lads cheering on the quality of their sperm samples under the microscope.
Strong effort for 2pm on a Monday.
Not sure that a laundry list of cliches adds up to an island of filth.
The two-dose regimen of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine at the 100 µg dose is expected to be protective against emerging strains detected to date. Nonetheless, Moderna today announced its clinical strategy to proactively address the pandemic as the virus continues to evolve. First, the Company will test an additional booster dose of its COVID-19 Vaccine (mRNA-1273) to study the ability to further increase neutralizing titers against emerging strains beyond the existing primary vaccination series. Second, the Company is advancing an emerging variant booster candidate (mRNA-1273.351) against the B.1.351 variant first identified in the Republic of South Africa. The Company is advancing mRNA-1273.351 into preclinical studies and a Phase 1 study in the U.S. to evaluate the immunological benefit of boosting with strain-specific spike proteins. Moderna expects that its mRNA-based booster vaccine (whether mRNA-1273 or mRNA-1273.351) will be able to further boost neutralizing titers in combination with all of the leading vaccine candidates....
Surely the issue with schools isn't teachers, it is children catching it asymptomatically and then taking it back to their families. That will happen even if teachers are vaccinated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q5SSoho0cs
If you can't get it even asymptomatically, you can't pass it on at all. (Call it "Group A" out of the 90% or however many are protected against symptomatic infection). There are indications that for the Pfizer vaccine, this starts at 33% of the total about 12 days after jab and grows to over 50%, but the data is not yet confirmed. One of those involved with the Oxford vaccine estimated about 50% for that one.
If you can get it but only asymptomatically (Call it "Group B" and have this as the remainder from the 33%-50%+ all the way up to the 90% or 95%), you could pass it on, but at a far lesser viral load and the transmissibility would be far less.
"Moderna develops new vaccine to tackle mutant Covid strain
US drugmaker warns current jab is less effective against South African variant"
https://www.ft.com/content/c0c8f72c-e58e-4319-80c4-0db153ad85db
Can you see many as you gaze around?
If we can get through all our supply and aren't bottlenecked by distribution then that seems a very good sign that can lead to more potential distribution once supply increases.
But once supply does increase then 7 day rollout will be critical. Especially for working age adults.
Hardly surprising given the £14bn class action that Mastercard is currently having to fight it hardly gives them an incentive to be nice.
Everything I predicted since Theresa May was PM has come to pass. Its a shame you lack the decency to say "well done" for sticking to my guns and calling it right. Oh well.
It's humanity against the virus, but being agile will help everyone.
*(I'll include the EU as their vaccine buying program was a joint one)
If we can exempt vaccinated school staff from having to isolate when not positive themselves, perhaps with regular testing, that will help keep the schools open.
A middle ground was then found on fishing to get a trade deal and reduce the scale of that border
Williamson wasn't worthy last time round. And he's not improved.
I did not know about that lawsuit.
Ouch. That will surely cause them to file for bankruptcy if it goes ahead?
Have patience.
My two main Covid focuses:
1. Israel; and
2. Hospitalisations.
I just don't believe that this would be that hard. We have huge testing capacity at the present time. Lets find out!
Congress can admit a new state with a simple Joint Resolution of both houses (the other way Congress can make law other than passing a full Act). Like an Act, a JR requires Presidential assent, or a 2/3 override by both Houses. However, in practice it's a bit more complicated than that: usually in the past Congress has first passed an Organizing Act authorizing and requiring the putative state to draw up a constitution for itself and this needs to be adopted by a referendum of the new state's voters and approved by Congress before the JR admitting it to the Union. In Puerto Rico's case, it already has a constitution that has been adopted by its electorate and approved by Congress. Most likely it might require some amendment to be an actual state constitution, but it would seem that Congress could probably go straight to an admitting resolution in the case of PR. The precedent would be Vermont, which had already adopted a constitution as an independent republic although it did adopt a new constitution in 1793, two years after joining the Union, which is still in effect today.
DC statehood would certainly require more than a simple Act or JR of Admission: the District does not have a formal constitution, it's current quasi-municipal government was established by Act of Congress. The US Constitution requires the establishment of a federal district, which is why the proposals for DC statehood always include redrawing the federal district to a rump containing the main federal buildings. Unfortunately, the really big fly in the ointment is the 23rd Amendment which grants the federal district as many Electoral College votes as the least populous states (currently three). Repealing this amendment would need a full 2/3 majority of both Houses and ratification by 3/4 of the states. If it's not repealed, then as things stand, the only remaining inhabitants of the federal district, i.e. the incumbent First Family, would have the power to choose three Electoral College members all by themselves!
However, the 23rd does state that Congress can legislate to establish the manner by which the District appoints its Electoral College members, so any bill to organize for DC statehood could include provisions to reform that; perhaps the obvious solution would be for the District's electors to be assigned to whoever wins a majority of the states' electoral votes
It is why eg Pfizer (and of course many others) was pretty clear on the single vs double dose efficacy. Not to say there are not very good reasons for the govt's decision.
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1351483423173521408
Granted it's going to be less of a problem but it's still a possible problem.
I seem to remember that holding a constitutional convention was a requirement before Hawaii and Alaska were admitted to statehood as well.
- You can look at changes in detected infection rates, but we're in the middle of a lockdown, which changes infection rates (and the effect of lockdown is hard to quantify exactly as we have different rules, different behaviours and different strains to the spring.
- You can look at changes in detection in the vaccinated age groups, but there may also be differential lockdown effects in these age groups (and maybe differential transmission of new strains)
- You can look at changes in detection of infection in vaccinated/un-vaccinated in similar age groups. This is the best, but it's not an RCT - the vaccinated and un-vaccinated will differ in where they are, how mobile they are (could they get to a vaccination site?) which are also things that will affect their risks
- You can compare countries vaccinating at different rates, but countries have different rules, demographics, local numbers of cases before vaccination
Now, assuming the vaccinations work as well as they did in the trials, when we get to large % of the populations vaccinated, the differences will become obvious, particularly if there's lockdown easing and a continued fall in cases. But at present we're still looking for fairly small differences which can be hard to pick out from the other noise. Over 5m have been vaccinated, but most of those were not vaccinated two weeks ago, so have pretty limited protection just yet. You then have to allow another few days for symptoms.
Patience
Rishi's fate will be in the hands of the extent of the furlough.
I'm not sure there are too many other candidates. Raab perhaps. Gove I can't see it.
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1353713505879420928?s=20
When it comes to those who work Monday-Firday then yes weekend slots would be ideal. Better to offer a weekend slot than a middle of the night slot.