Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
The problem is, it still doesn't deal with the issue around vulnerable parents.
And nobody's even attempted to calculate the infection/mortality rate for them.
The clinically vulnerable parents/guardians should have been jabbed by then.
Really? I know you have, but how many over 40s with asthma will have been?
Assuming the vaccine delivery from AZ and Pfizer is as expected we should have made huge dent in that demographic after mid February even before the government chose to focus on that group as a priority.
How big a dent?
I shall text my father's colleague who would know the timeline.
Interesting if understated point that Labour (and Mr G. Brown) may be promising a different set of Unionist unicorns to those the Tories are trying to promise. Only one lot of promises - if that - can be valid. It also implies that Better Together will not be getting together again - i.e. no Labour penal battalions for the Tories to hide behind, like a crab wearing a sponge.
I would like Scotland to remain in the UK but I cannot see any strategy working to achieve that, which sees the Unionist forces at each other's throats. The polling for years now seems to have the unionists made up of around 20% Tories, maybe slightly less Labour and 5% LD. They either recognise political reality and fight the good fight or all face the blame for losing. I think the unwillingness is strongest on the left. So be it.
It is indeed an important point. One wouldn't expect Labour to join a coalition such as Better Together before the May (or whenever) elections, for obvious reasons - no point in getting into bed with Mr Johnson before one has to, and the Unionists might yet win that election, or at least try to define things in such a way that theu can pretend they did. But Labour did suffer dreadfully for allying with the Tories [edit: in 2014], and it will be very interesting to see what the new leader of SLAB - and his/her boss SKS - have to say.
Again, if Labour was thinking long-term about this, they would take the short-term hit and align with the Tories to make a stronger Unionist front. The biggest beneficiary of any collapse in SNP support would be Labour.
If you see Boris as I do-the most malign PM in my lifetime both personally and professionally-it's difficult to see how his party still commands support of around 40% . I can only put it down to extraordinary circumstances diverting the public gaze. If i'm right it's reasonable to suppose that when things return to normal his numbers will deflate line a punctured balloon
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Why do we "need" to prioritise school staff. Especially when school staff are one of the lowest risk of all the "key workers"?
Why not prioritise bus drivers who are one of the highest risk? Or other key workers?
Or why not prioritise according to clinical advice?
Poor old Tim, he never got over the Natz ‘stealing’ all those Labour voters.
What’s your view of Craig Murray?
Truth teller or nutter ?
It’s possible to be both, it’s just difficult to tell which characteristic is to the fore at any given time. My opinion of Mr Murray went down after his massive sulk at not being passed as a suitable SNP candidate.
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
The problem is, it still doesn't deal with the issue around vulnerable parents.
And nobody's even attempted to calculate the infection/mortality rate for them.
The clinically vulnerable parents/guardians should have been jabbed by then.
Really? I know you have, but how many over 40s with asthma will have been?
Assuming the vaccine delivery from AZ and Pfizer is as expected we should have made huge dent in that demographic after mid February even before the government chose to focus on that group as a priority.
How big a dent?
I shall text my father's colleague who would know the timeline.
Thank you, I would be interested to hear it.
One other consideration (as I said last night) is exactly how and when the Govt want schools to go back. Trying to work under Covid guidelines (which proved, in the event, to be the greatest fiasco since Hannibal ordered his elephants to charge at the Battle of Zama) very nearly broke me. If they expect us to go back to the status quo ante when another fortnight would enable us to start teaching properly again, that will cause major problems of its own.
I really don't get the snooty remarks about supermarkets providing locations. Unlike a lot of places most people know how to get there and most have both plenty of car parking and public transport options.
Apologies if this point has already been made... but has anyone modelled whether the EU co-ordinating vaccinations, so that the most vulnerable groups in 27 countries are dealt with first, will save more lives than a free-for-all in which the German 35 year-old gets it before the Bulgarian 80 year-old?* After all, isn’t this the approach the U.K. is taking for its constituent countries (as far as health is concerned)?
* taking into account the delay that a co-ordinated programme entails...
You want somehow an agreement on this level between 27 member nations (or is it 26?)..nah it'll be a normal cluster-f*** of a free for all.
Or a fudged up agreement which doesn't do much in about..3 years if your lucky.
Interesting if understated point that Labour (and Mr G. Brown) may be promising a different set of Unionist unicorns to those the Tories are trying to promise. Only one lot of promises - if that - can be valid. It also implies that Better Together will not be getting together again - i.e. no Labour penal battalions for the Tories to hide behind, like a crab wearing a sponge.
I would like Scotland to remain in the UK but I cannot see any strategy working to achieve that, which sees the Unionist forces at each other's throats. The polling for years now seems to have the unionists made up of around 20% Tories, maybe slightly less Labour and 5% LD. They either recognise political reality and fight the good fight or all face the blame for losing. I think the unwillingness is strongest on the left. So be it.
It is indeed an important point. One wouldn't expect Labour to join a coalition such as Better Together before the May (or whenever) elections, for obvious reasons - no point in getting into bed with Mr Johnson before one has to, and the Unionists might yet win that election, or at least try to define things in such a way that theu can pretend they did. But Labour did suffer dreadfully for allying with the Tories [edit: in 2014], and it will be very interesting to see what the new leader of SLAB - and his/her boss SKS - have to say.
Again, if Labour was thinking long-term about this, they would take the short-term hit and align with the Tories to make a stronger Unionist front. The biggest beneficiary of any collapse in SNP support would be Labour.
Worked well for Labour when they were thinking long term in 2012-14.
I really don't get the snooty remarks about supermarkets providing locations. Unlike a lot of places most people know how to get there and most have both plenty of car parking and public transport options.
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Why do we "need" to prioritise school staff. Especially when school staff are one of the lowest risk of all the "key workers"?
Why not prioritise bus drivers who are one of the highest risk? Or other key workers?
Or why not prioritise according to clinical advice?
I'd like to see your workings.
But it was no coincidence that cases exploded back in September/October after schools and universities reopened fully.
I really don't get the snooty remarks about supermarkets providing locations. Unlike a lot of places most people know how to get there and most have both plenty of car parking and public transport options.
Also many of them are quite large and not exactly full at the moment. Asda in Cannock and Tesco in Hednesford could run decent sized vaccination centres in their cafes, even without closing down, say, the clothing section at Asda (which is also near a separate door).
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Oh dear. No answers - let's just bash the government incoherently.
both showing a bigger fall off in the older groups. Early days, though
Can someone please explain this one to me? Firstly what is the scale - the 85+ seems to be 0.07, what does that refer to? And it looks like cases are highest amongst the over 85s rather than then youngsters, is that correct?
Maybe I'm misreading it, but it looks to me like almost all of the lines have fallen by 50% from their peak.
0-14 about 0.04 to 0.02 a fall of 50% 15-44 about 0.13 to 0.06 a fall over 50% 45-64 about 0.01 to 0.05 a fall of 50% 65-74 about 0.05 to 0.025 a fall of 50% 75-84 about 0.06 to 0.03 a fall of 50% 85+ 0.12 to 0.07 just a fall under 50%
Have I missed anything. I'm not seeing a bigger fall off in the older groups?
The last line for over 85s looks a slightly steeper decline. Could the 007 number be a higher proportion of a lower intitial figue?
The idea is that the the age groups are scaled to the size of the group. So the Y axis is the percentage of that cohort getting COVID (becoming a case). i.e. 0.7% of 85+ year olds etc.
The reason I went for scaling (in this version) is that this should show movements better on a common graph. otherwise the size of the group dominates, for simple number-of-cases.
Scaled makes sense but what is the scale? Because that says 0.07 doesn't it? We don't have 7% of 85+ with the virus surely, so is it 0.07%? And is it right then that over 85s are more likely to have the virus now than the young?
And what reason do you have to say there's a bigger fall in the older groups? Because the eldest group seems the only one not falling by 50% - it doesn't seem to be falling proportionately faster?
sorry yes, 0.07%
The point is that on the latest numbers, the fall off for the 85+ is larger than the other groups (there might be a slight effect for the 75-84).
Normally, the right hand did of graphs is effected by reporting delays. But here we are using a 7 day average - and the comparison is between ages in the same dataset. So unless there is an age skew in the reporting delays, this is somewhat interesting data.
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Oh dear. No answers - let's just bash the government incoherently.
There are answers, you just choose to ignore them.
Do you think schools should be the first thing to reopen after lockdown as per what Boris Johnson has said, a simple yes or no will suffice.
A bunch of hedge funds made big bets that the price of GameStop would fall. They did this by finding people who had shares in it, and saying "excuse me, could I borrow your shares of GameStop, and I'll pay you interest to do so". After they borrowed the shares, they sold them.
The idea being that - in the future - they would buy the shares back at a lower price and sell them back.
This is known as "short selling".
GameStop is a failing firm, being destroyed by Amazon and digital distribution of games.
Hedge funds felt that betting on its shares going down in price was a sure thing.
However, a bunch of day traders realised that if they worked together they could engineer something called a "short squeeze", where the price of the shares would rise, and this would force the hedge funds to buy back (to "cover their shorts") at higher prices. And it's worked. The price of GameStop, which was something like $2.50 in the middle of last year, got up to $380 earlier today.
Some hedge funds hand lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Quite a few day traders have made good money.
And the (current) price of GameStop is completely irrational. This is a loss making, sales falling, doomed business, that is currently worth about the same as the highly profitable, operates mobile phone networks in about 20 countries, Vodafone.
(Disclaimer: today the price of out the money calls on GameStop got so ridiculous, I decided to play too, and sold some myself.)
I believe there is also the small matter of the shorters shorting more than 100% of the stock? If so, Friday will be interesting.
Which is only possible, I believe, if some of them are naked shorts.
They be f***ked because they have a delivery requirement. People who are covered shorts (i.e. have already borrowed the stock) may have a painful discussion with the owners but there is an economic settlement that can be reached.
Apologies if this point has already been made... but has anyone modelled whether the EU co-ordinating vaccinations, so that the most vulnerable groups in 27 countries are dealt with first, will save more lives than a free-for-all in which the German 35 year-old gets it before the Bulgarian 80 year-old?* After all, isn’t this the approach the U.K. is taking for its constituent countries (as far as health is concerned)?
* taking into account the delay that a co-ordinated programme entails...
our policy in Denmark has recently changed due the lack of supply and the plan to vaccinate more frontline workers has been put back so the > 85s can be done - according to the plan we should all have been done by the end of June - so it seems there is no EU wide policy beyond allocating doses by population level - seriously doubt as a healthy mid-fifties person I'll get jabbed before September/October
There's definitely a potential case for doing all key/neccessary workers with public facing roles (Some such as say Highways Maintenance aren't public facing) (Including teachers) as a group - replacing somewhere from group 5 to 10. It's not an easy decision - but you're probably reducing the rate of infection more quickly globally if supermarket workers and teachers are vaccinated rather than strict age groups.
As for the EU, they can internally redistribute their own stocks. They might as well ask after the USA's, or Israel's - or Bahrain's - no different to the UK's . Once we're vaxxed as a nation, probably Ireland should be our priority for jabs. We share a CTA.
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Why do we "need" to prioritise school staff. Especially when school staff are one of the lowest risk of all the "key workers"?
Why not prioritise bus drivers who are one of the highest risk? Or other key workers?
Or why not prioritise according to clinical advice?
I'd like to see your workings.
But it was no coincidence that cases exploded back in September/October after schools and universities reopened fully.
"Rates of death involving COVID-19 in men and women who worked as teaching and educational professionals, such as secondary school teachers, were not statistically significantly raised when compared with the rates seen in the population among those of the same age and sex. "
Other than those already mentioned, the 10 occupations with the highest rates of death involving COVID-19 were:
restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors (119.3 deaths per 100,000 males; 26 deaths)
metal working and machine operatives (106.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 40 deaths)
food, drink and tobacco process operatives (103.7 deaths per 100,000 males; 52 deaths)
chefs (103.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 82 deaths)
taxi and cab drivers and chauffeurs (101.4 deaths per 100,000 males; 209 deaths)
nursing auxiliaries and assistants (87.2 deaths per 100,000 males; 45 deaths)
elementary construction occupations (82.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 70 deaths)
nurses (79.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 47 deaths)
local government administrative occupations (72.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 23 deaths)
bus and coach drivers (70.3 deaths per 100,000 males; 83 deaths)
Schools spread the virus amongst the community. Vaccinating the vulnerable in the community is the key.
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Why do we "need" to prioritise school staff. Especially when school staff are one of the lowest risk of all the "key workers"?
Why not prioritise bus drivers who are one of the highest risk? Or other key workers?
Or why not prioritise according to clinical advice?
Hi Philip
According to figures calculated on a rather dubious basis by the ONS, teachers are at slightly lower risk of 'mortality' than the general population. But that was achieved by averaging mortality among teachers through from March-December, not through September/October when it was actually comparable, and by leaving out older staff (bearing in mind shielding among teachers is hit and miss).
However, according to the very few statistics we have - the government are not publishing them - the infection rates are between double and treble the general population.
So either (1) the government's mortality figures are bollocks (2) teachers as a generally younger age group are generally less vulnerable (3) the infection rates given by Leeds and Birmingham are wrong or (4) some combination of all the lot.
That does NOT mean teachers should necessarily be punted to the front of the queue. HOWEVER, it does mean that it is not possible to make a meaningful statistical argument as the figures we have are not sufficiently rigorous to do so.
What it does mean, and this isn't changing, is that no teacher believes a word the DfE says.
Angela Rayner very exposed on Today this morning, and unimpressive. Teachers should go to the front of the queue for vaccine, but magically no-one in other groups would lose their place in it by this action. And the science about the risks to teachers as reported by J V-T is wrong.
It felt like bad old Labour, the friend of every large public sector group, opposed to inconvenient facts.
I’m not in favour of teachers jumping the queue for the vaccine, but she was correct that this JVT person was at best disingenuous and at worse dishonest. The statistics (please note - not science) were deeply flawed and appear, like all other statistics to do with education, to have been manipulated for political reasons.
(Incidentally, I used to work for the ONS for a time, after leaving uni. I don’t trust them a yard.)
This "JVT person" being the Deputy Chief Medical Officer?
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Why do we "need" to prioritise school staff. Especially when school staff are one of the lowest risk of all the "key workers"?
Why not prioritise bus drivers who are one of the highest risk? Or other key workers?
Or why not prioritise according to clinical advice?
Hi Philip
According to figures calculated on a rather dubious basis by the ONS, teachers are at slightly lower risk of 'mortality' than the general population. But that was achieved by averaging mortality among teachers through from March-December, not through September/October when it was actually comparable, and by leaving out older staff (bearing in mind shielding among teachers is hit and miss).
However, according to the very few statistics we have - the government are not publishing them - the infection rates are between double and treble the general population.
So either (1) the government's mortality figures are bollocks (2) teachers as a generally younger age group are generally less vulnerable (3) the infection rates given by Leeds and Birmingham are wrong or (4) some combination of all the lot.
That does NOT mean teachers should necessarily be punted to the front of the queue. HOWEVER, it does mean that it is not possible to make a meaningful statistical argument as the figures we have are not sufficiently rigorous to do so.
What it does mean, and this isn't changing, is that no teacher believes a word the DfE says.
That's entirely fair enough.
I was just disputing TSE's claim that teachers "need" to be bumped above the clinically vulnerable in priority groups 5 to 9.
Yesterday I got up to read the overnight discussion about Trump and impeachment, seeing many PB'ers arguing against pressing too hard on the trial and some suggesting Trump should be allowed to walk away in the interests of national healing.
Such sympathy and understanding seems strangely absent from last night's discussion when it comes to the hapless footsoldiers who Trump duped into his dirty work.
War is entirely reliant on duped hapless footsoldiers, prepared to risk their all for a cause.
I have sympathy for a granny from East Bumfuck, Idaho, wandering in awe around the Capitol clutching her little Stars and Stripes. But would she have tried to stop the lynching of the Vice President? Just by being there, she and hundreds like her may have blocked the way of those who would have tried.
Cross the line - and the American state is a very unforgiving place. It will be a sympathy-free zone.
Plus it doesn't seem like the FBI are particularly interested in flag waving grannies.
They've got a litany of digital evidence of who was planning sedition - who was planning to murder the politicians in the building - and are rounding them up and filing cases against them.
Funnily enough if you announce you're going to kill Vice President Mike Pence, then you're caught red handed in a storming of the Capitol Building, then the FBI are more capable of connecting the dots.
All these idiots who thought they were being big and clever online - the FBI have their confessions in black and white.
Come now Philip, who amongst us hasn't idly talked about murdering the Vice President of the United States repeatedly, met up with other people who have mused the same then formed a mob forcefully entering the seat of government with weapons?
If that is a crime then we are all guilty.
Let he amongst you who hasn't plotted to capture and execute people cast the first stone.
Angela Rayner very exposed on Today this morning, and unimpressive. Teachers should go to the front of the queue for vaccine, but magically no-one in other groups would lose their place in it by this action. And the science about the risks to teachers as reported by J V-T is wrong.
It felt like bad old Labour, the friend of every large public sector group, opposed to inconvenient facts.
I’m not in favour of teachers jumping the queue for the vaccine, but she was correct that this JVT person was at best disingenuous and at worse dishonest. The statistics (please note - not science) were deeply flawed and appear, like all other statistics to do with education, to have been manipulated for political reasons.
(Incidentally, I used to work for the ONS for a time, after leaving uni. I don’t trust them a yard.)
This "JVT person" being the Deputy Chief Medical Officer?
"The Oxford coronavirus vaccine - which is set to be manufactured at Keele following an agreement between Cobra Biologics and AstraZeneca UK - shows a strong immune response in adults in their 60s and 70s, raising hopes that it can protect age groups most at risk from the virus."
Fake news. Some chap in Germany heard from a mate down the pub it was shit, so that’s why the Germans want loads of it, or something.
Actually very good news, but not unexpected. Matches the phase II data on antibody production.
This subject was raised repeatedly on here during the demolition of the 8% story the other evening. It's discussed in the Lancet article on the phase III trials.
The issue with the trials for the Oxford vaccine does not appear to be that it is wholly ineffective in the old, but rather that there were insufficient older people included in the trials to arrive at a proper statistical conclusion as to *exactly* how effective the vaccine was in the over 55s.
One has to assume that the MHRA, when they reviewed the available evidence, concluded that the vaccine was highly likely to be good enough, despite this paucity of data, and decided to roll with it. To the layman, that seems logical: if the immune response seen in the older recipients was about as strong as that seen in the younger ones then, even if the vaccine is slightly less effective in older people, it doesn't seem plausible that any drop-off in performance would occur suddenly and catastrophically just because someone has recently received some 55th (or 65th, or 75th) birthday cards.
Quite. I didn't want to post about this as I am no scientist but even with my GCSE in Chemistry (an 'A' I'll have you know) it seemed quite incredible that a vaccine with a 70% success rate (or 90% - that's one of the problems) would have its efficacy plummit off a cliff at an arbitrary age. A gradual decline, sure, I get that. But not a compound that suddenly goes on strike the day its host becomes eligible for a bus pass.
For my part I have a biology degree, albeit that I graduated 23 years ago and never used it so it hardly counts!
But anyway, whilst I obviously can't be completely sure that this decision won't go pear-shaped, logic suggests that this is unlikely. The same applies to the decision to delay the Pfizer booster jabs as well: the regulator clearly seems to consider it improbable that extending from three weeks to twelve will render the initial shot useless, and that's good enough for me. The overall plan is obviously to maximise the number of people who receive some protection from Covid, rather than providing a gold standard service for a smaller group of very old people, at the expense of those slightly lower down the priority list having to wait months for any at all. A bit less advantageous for the ancient, better for society collectively. This seems appropriate given the circumstances.
Yes. It's a trade off. Give away some protection for some individuals in return for the greater macro benefit of double the number of people with some protection. It's a panic measure but I think it's justified.
Trade off? Yes. Panic measure? No. Seems considered and sensible.
I guess if, as a country, you're basically disease free and very isolated, which I'd suggest applies to Taiwan, New Zealand, a few small island states and nobody else, then you might feel you can be pedestrian and take plenty of time to follow manufacturer's recommendations to the letter. For the rest of the world, the overriding priority is to stamp on the disease as quickly and as hard as possible. Stem mass casualties and reduce the chance of it mutating into something nastier.
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Why do we "need" to prioritise school staff. Especially when school staff are one of the lowest risk of all the "key workers"?
Why not prioritise bus drivers who are one of the highest risk? Or other key workers?
Or why not prioritise according to clinical advice?
I'd like to see your workings.
But it was no coincidence that cases exploded back in September/October after schools and universities reopened fully.
But vaccinating only the teachers will do little to inhibit the spread among the pupils, which will then spill over into the rest of the community.
There is no shortcut to open schools early. They won't be safe until the level of cases in the community is low.
Poor old Tim, he never got over the Natz ‘stealing’ all those Labour voters.
What’s your view of Craig Murray?
Truth teller or nutter ?
It’s possible to be both, it’s just difficult to tell which characteristic is to the fore at any given time. My opinion of Mr Murray went down after his massive sulk at not being passed as a suitable SNP candidate.
Hitherto my view had been the latter. However, given the Rangers cases and the Salmond affair, that's either two very unfortunate coincidences or an awful lot of smoke.....
A bunch of hedge funds made big bets that the price of GameStop would fall. They did this by finding people who had shares in it, and saying "excuse me, could I borrow your shares of GameStop, and I'll pay you interest to do so". After they borrowed the shares, they sold them.
The idea being that - in the future - they would buy the shares back at a lower price and sell them back.
This is known as "short selling".
GameStop is a failing firm, being destroyed by Amazon and digital distribution of games.
Hedge funds felt that betting on its shares going down in price was a sure thing.
However, a bunch of day traders realised that if they worked together they could engineer something called a "short squeeze", where the price of the shares would rise, and this would force the hedge funds to buy back (to "cover their shorts") at higher prices. And it's worked. The price of GameStop, which was something like $2.50 in the middle of last year, got up to $380 earlier today.
Some hedge funds hand lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Quite a few day traders have made good money.
And the (current) price of GameStop is completely irrational. This is a loss making, sales falling, doomed business, that is currently worth about the same as the highly profitable, operates mobile phone networks in about 20 countries, Vodafone.
(Disclaimer: today the price of out the money calls on GameStop got so ridiculous, I decided to play too, and sold some myself.)
To The Moon!
"a bunch of day traders realised that if they worked together"
??
Isn't that what they call 'wire fraud' in the US?
They just love the fundamentals of the stock. No crime.
The fundamental is that by doing this the fuck naked short sellers.
I saw an interesting thread on this: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/will-wallstreetbets-face-sec-scrutiny-after-gamestop-rally The conclusion was that it's not absolutely clear whether it could attract the attention of the SEC, but it does lack any of the dishonesty normally found in pump and dump schemes. The people doing this have been completely open and honest that they are deliberately pumping up the stock, they've not tried to trick anyone that they have inside information that GameStop is going to be a success, nor that there is money to be made in backing the stock (although there is, or at least was). So, I guess, where's the 'fraud' if there is no deception?
Incidentally @ydoethur I suspect intuitively that teacher's are a healthier and less vulnerable bunch than many other professions. Anecdotally, I've never seen a morbidly obese teacher. Teachers being on their feet often and dealing with kids who can be cruel brats to be frank, are probably far less likely to be obese than the general population and we know obesity is massively tied to risk.
On the other hand according to the ONS the deadliest profession of all is "restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors" - without wanting to stereotype its far from unusual to get an obese proprietor.
Labour's stupidity over the teacher vaccine grandstanding has made me pretty angry. As mentioned below, it's old labour rearing its ugly head again. An ill-conceived populist policy which has been swiftly unmasked. They have no answer to the point that it means truly vulnerable people will be pushed down the queue, and therefore exposed, except to say that magically they can be vaccinated and no one else will have to wait longer as a result. It's the worst type of grandstanding rubbish. Grrrrr.
For an intelligent man, Sir Keir Starmer does manage to back some incredibly dumb policies. He's partly responsible for the Carl Beech fiasco: as DPP he generated the policy of always believing abuse 'victims.' Another stupid decision.
Neither the EU nor Labour are faring well right now.
It has been calculated to cost 190 extra deaths a day if implemented now (caveat: Guido).
Guido has even underestimated the number of deaths.
If Labour's policy is meant to signal a return of schools, which it clearly is, then that means children are mixing together again and some of them transmitting the virus back home: among vulnerable people who have had to wait for their vaccine because the teachers have jumped the queue.
I'm fuming at Labour's stupidity.
The government are planning a return of schools anyway so that can't be laid at Labour's door.
No you're incorrect.
Labour with this policy explicitly want schools back straight after half-term i.e. c. 21st February, which also incidentally fails to understand that even with the first jab you need to wait 21 days for it to take effect.
The Government don't want schools back until into March and, critically, once the JCVI approved most vulnerable have been vaccinated.
The Government are absolutely right on this and Labour are absolutely wrong.
No they don't want schools back circa 21st of Feb.
Labour's policy was quite clear, vaccinate the teachers around half term, they know the vaccine doesn't become properly effective on day one one of injection, but later on,
So by the time the vaccine becomes effective it'll be around the time the government wants to open schools, which is around the 8th of March (depending on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers etc.)
Does not alter the question of who gets pushed back? Nor does it deal with the issue of childfren infecting their families. Nor does it cover teaching support staff, cleaners, dinner providers, etc, etc. Apart from that it's a really great wheeze! Rock on Angie!
This is the result of government's actions, if Boris Johnson had said the school year is written off because we won't vaccinate every adult before the end of the school year, then there's no need to prioritise school staff, but since the goal of the government is to reopen schools as soon as possible then you need to prioritise school staff.
Cancelling the school year would also give us time to work out whether vaccinating schoolchildren is something we should do.
Oh dear. No answers - let's just bash the government incoherently.
There are answers, you just choose to ignore them.
Do you think schools should be the first thing to reopen after lockdown as per what Boris Johnson has said, a simple yes or no will suffice.
A simple - let's follow scientific advice on the next steps - is what you get.
Incidentally @ydoethur I suspect intuitively that teacher's are a healthier and less vulnerable bunch than many other professions. Anecdotally, I've never seen a morbidly obese teacher. Teachers being on their feet often and dealing with kids who can be cruel brats to be frank, are probably far less likely to be obese than the general population and we know obesity is massively tied to risk.
On the other hand according to the ONS the deadliest profession of all is "restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors" - without wanting to stereotype its far from unusual to get an obese proprietor.
Angela Rayner very exposed on Today this morning, and unimpressive. Teachers should go to the front of the queue for vaccine, but magically no-one in other groups would lose their place in it by this action. And the science about the risks to teachers as reported by J V-T is wrong.
It felt like bad old Labour, the friend of every large public sector group, opposed to inconvenient facts.
I have not been following it closely but surely the approach Labour should take on teacher priority (if they wish to make it an issue) is completely obvious. There are nine priority groups so far. Labours proposal should simply be to add teachers as the tenth group, to be done after the other nine, but other the rest, is that what they are proposing?
As I understand it, they are saying teachers should (effectively) become group 5 but without disadvantaging anyone currently in groups 5-9
A bunch of hedge funds made big bets that the price of GameStop would fall. They did this by finding people who had shares in it, and saying "excuse me, could I borrow your shares of GameStop, and I'll pay you interest to do so". After they borrowed the shares, they sold them.
The idea being that - in the future - they would buy the shares back at a lower price and sell them back.
This is known as "short selling".
GameStop is a failing firm, being destroyed by Amazon and digital distribution of games.
Hedge funds felt that betting on its shares going down in price was a sure thing.
However, a bunch of day traders realised that if they worked together they could engineer something called a "short squeeze", where the price of the shares would rise, and this would force the hedge funds to buy back (to "cover their shorts") at higher prices. And it's worked. The price of GameStop, which was something like $2.50 in the middle of last year, got up to $380 earlier today.
Some hedge funds hand lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Quite a few day traders have made good money.
And the (current) price of GameStop is completely irrational. This is a loss making, sales falling, doomed business, that is currently worth about the same as the highly profitable, operates mobile phone networks in about 20 countries, Vodafone.
(Disclaimer: today the price of out the money calls on GameStop got so ridiculous, I decided to play too, and sold some myself.)
To The Moon!
"a bunch of day traders realised that if they worked together"
??
Isn't that what they call 'wire fraud' in the US?
They just love the fundamentals of the stock. No crime.
The fundamental is that by doing this the fuck naked short sellers.
I saw an interesting thread on this: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/will-wallstreetbets-face-sec-scrutiny-after-gamestop-rally The conclusion was that it's not absolutely clear whether it could attract the attention of the SEC, but it does lack any of the dishonesty normally found in pump and dump schemes. The people doing this have been completely open and honest that they are deliberately pumping up the stock, they've not tried to trick anyone that they have inside information that GameStop is going to be a success, nor that there is money to be made in backing the stock (although there is, or at least was). So, I guess, where's the 'fraud' if there is no deception?
Because the rampers (ramping is abuse, of course, but these are individuals, not one party - unless the exchange/platform knows otherwise) are just buying the stock.
It then went up because of the short squeeze as the hedgies tried to cover.
They were just capitalising on supply shortage, not spreading rumours.
Comments
Why not prioritise bus drivers who are one of the highest risk? Or other key workers?
Or why not prioritise according to clinical advice?
One other consideration (as I said last night) is exactly how and when the Govt want schools to go back. Trying to work under Covid guidelines (which proved, in the event, to be the greatest fiasco since Hannibal ordered his elephants to charge at the Battle of Zama) very nearly broke me. If they expect us to go back to the status quo ante when another fortnight would enable us to start teaching properly again, that will cause major problems of its own.
Completely separately have you read the The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket - the US is really a completely different place.
Or a fudged up agreement which doesn't do much in about..3 years if your lucky.
But it was no coincidence that cases exploded back in September/October after schools and universities reopened fully.
The point is that on the latest numbers, the fall off for the 85+ is larger than the other groups (there might be a slight effect for the 75-84).
Normally, the right hand did of graphs is effected by reporting delays. But here we are using a 7 day average - and the comparison is between ages in the same dataset. So unless there is an age skew in the reporting delays, this is somewhat interesting data.
Do you think schools should be the first thing to reopen after lockdown as per what Boris Johnson has said, a simple yes or no will suffice.
They be f***ked because they have a delivery requirement. People who are covered shorts (i.e. have already borrowed the stock) may have a painful discussion with the owners but there is an economic settlement that can be reached.
NEW THREAD
It's not an easy decision - but you're probably reducing the rate of infection more quickly globally if supermarket workers and teachers are vaccinated rather than strict age groups.
As for the EU, they can internally redistribute their own stocks. They might as well ask after the USA's, or Israel's - or Bahrain's - no different to the UK's . Once we're vaxxed as a nation, probably Ireland should be our priority for jabs. We share a CTA.
"Rates of death involving COVID-19 in men and women who worked as teaching and educational professionals, such as secondary school teachers, were not statistically significantly raised when compared with the rates seen in the population among those of the same age and sex. "
Other than those already mentioned, the 10 occupations with the highest rates of death involving COVID-19 were:
- restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors (119.3 deaths per 100,000 males; 26 deaths)
- metal working and machine operatives (106.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 40 deaths)
- food, drink and tobacco process operatives (103.7 deaths per 100,000 males; 52 deaths)
- chefs (103.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 82 deaths)
- taxi and cab drivers and chauffeurs (101.4 deaths per 100,000 males; 209 deaths)
- nursing auxiliaries and assistants (87.2 deaths per 100,000 males; 45 deaths)
- elementary construction occupations (82.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 70 deaths)
- nurses (79.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 47 deaths)
- local government administrative occupations (72.1 deaths per 100,000 males; 23 deaths)
- bus and coach drivers (70.3 deaths per 100,000 males; 83 deaths)
Schools spread the virus amongst the community. Vaccinating the vulnerable in the community is the key.According to figures calculated on a rather dubious basis by the ONS, teachers are at slightly lower risk of 'mortality' than the general population. But that was achieved by averaging mortality among teachers through from March-December, not through September/October when it was actually comparable, and by leaving out older staff (bearing in mind shielding among teachers is hit and miss).
However, according to the very few statistics we have - the government are not publishing them - the infection rates are between double and treble the general population.
So either (1) the government's mortality figures are bollocks (2) teachers as a generally younger age group are generally less vulnerable (3) the infection rates given by Leeds and Birmingham are wrong or (4) some combination of all the lot.
That does NOT mean teachers should necessarily be punted to the front of the queue. HOWEVER, it does mean that it is not possible to make a meaningful statistical argument as the figures we have are not sufficiently rigorous to do so.
What it does mean, and this isn't changing, is that no teacher believes a word the DfE says.
Edit - some more info on the issues here:
https://www.tes.com/news/school-reopening-march-8-half-term-teachers-safety-covid-education
I was just disputing TSE's claim that teachers "need" to be bumped above the clinically vulnerable in priority groups 5 to 9.
(Would be helpful if I knew his full name.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence
There is no shortcut to open schools early. They won't be safe until the level of cases in the community is low.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
On the other hand according to the ONS the deadliest profession of all is "restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors" - without wanting to stereotype its far from unusual to get an obese proprietor.
Because the rampers (ramping is abuse, of course, but these are individuals, not one party - unless the exchange/platform knows otherwise) are just buying the stock.
It then went up because of the short squeeze as the hedgies tried to cover.
They were just capitalising on supply shortage, not spreading rumours.