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Lest we forget – the sheer scale of the UK COVID toll – politicalbetting.com
Lest we forget – the sheer scale of the UK COVID toll – politicalbetting.com
For four years, the town of Wootton Bassett bore the sad duty of receiving the repatriated war dead from Afghanistan and Iraq. It did so with dignified compassion. For 345 men and women, the town’s people lined the streets reverently. They comforted the bereaved. They remembered the soldiers’ service. The oak of the coffins and the brass of the fittings were polished to a mirror sheen and wrapped with union flags on their final journeys. When the town’s duty was discharged in 2011, it was granted the title Royal Wootton Bassett to show the nation’s gratitude for its quiet service.
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Can we absolve Johnson because he got the vaccine right and yet still hang Drakeford for his hand in the death of 109,000 people? Possibly.
However, this piece has no balance and indeed on this week, of all weeks, he makes no reference to his beloved Europe and the objectionable behaviour of their leaders which are likely to have a devastating effect on the peoples of Europe.
I do not see him calling for their resignations
Yep, the Gov't screwed up early on. Nope, we won't forget that lots died. However, it's also time to stop being moaning whinge-bags (Alastair), be thankful for the brilliance of the vaccine rollout and for the living to get on with living.
PB Tories whataboutery re vaccines does not absolve this Government from its disgraceful performance.
It's now all about vaccination, at which we excel.
Meeks has written nothing meaningful about either vaccines or his beloved EU. Instead he has heaped blame for the evils of the world onto the tories. So it's typically unbalanced, borderline unhinged.
Makes Alistair points look even more right.
Don't forget to include the word Europe in your next Whataboutery response though.
My brother is very critical of the Gov't's handling but thinks a public inquiry would be a complete waste of time. He thinks we should now concentrate on rebuilding for the future.
He's right.
If you wish to focus solely on death, fine, do so. I think it's mistaken but if that's your only criteria then so be it. But in that case have the decency and intelligence to await the final tallies. A year from now you may well find the overall picture looks a little different.
Besides, I'm not going to succumb to your fascist censorship. Vaccination is the route out for the majority who won't have died from this pandemic and so it's right to point to the stunning, stellar, success of the Government.
yours, a Labour voter.
Do we want primarily to understand what happened, was was good and bad about the response, and what can be learned for the next time we are stuck by a pandemic or similar disaster - or do we want it to apportion blame, seek to scapegoat individuals and make political points?
If it's the former, then run it along the lines of a transport accident enquiry, with full access to data and people involved being interviewed without prejudice, their words not allowed to be used against them.
If it's the latter, which I agree is pointless, then we'll be interviewing politicians and senior civil servants with their lawyers present, unable to say anything useful for fear of implicating themselves and others.
You're like a football supporter who only looks at the number of losses and won't allow discussion of the draws, nor indeed the victories.
Find some balance.
Lest we not forget the fallen nor forgive the perpetrators.
I've been involved in several of these and have found them generally competently conducted and useful. The key, of course, it to make sure those who made the decisions can't influence them directly, which usually means waiting till those responsible have moved on. But those unglamorous exercises don't have a huge "we're doing something" feel about them.
"UK government to test mixing COVID vaccines in new trial
The trial will combine the AstraZeneca/Oxford and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines"
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/uk-government-test-mixing-covid-vaccines-trial/story?id=75668099
I have warned my parents that having just been vaccinated doesn't mean they can party like it's 1999 though! Hopefully that message is getting through to all the oldies and we don't see the sort of vaccine parties that have been happening in Israel.
Of course the government made mistakes. More lives could have been saved. In doing so more may be destroyed in other ways.
Obsession with international comparisons is still lacking much useful practical or intellectual validity. Until you take away all the variables from population type, density, adherence, mental health, average BMI, co morbidity health service capaity and many other factors influencing the outcome, you know little of use. In effect you are pissing in the wind, probably being stupid doing it into the wind and howling at the moon.
We all know the risks we face in life, assess them and select an action. Some actions kill us, some kill others and some don't kill.
In all probability the worst action is care homes early on.
But this post is the last straw. I am no fan of Boris but this has nothing to do with political betting and is just pure political vitriol that I can go and read on the Canary if I want to.
Good to luck to OGH and all of you but I vote with my feet.
And yes, I know that the devolved administrations moved broadly in line with the Government, and that other countries made similar mistakes, and that some of the deaths are attributable to bad luck (one thing that Mr Meeks probably should've acknowledged is the role of the Kent variant in exacerbating the crisis, because that was the product of bad luck and such mutations could as easily have arisen in France, Spain and Italy as they did in Britain, Brazil and South Africa.)
But regardless, here we are. And the possibility of the UK slipping down the grim league table of death in the coming months because of the success of the vaccination drive does nothing to bring back those who have already perished.
Nor has the capacity for further mistakes to be made been exhausted. Let's just hope that, if politicians scramble to open the schools back up quickly, this doesn't result in yet another avoidable spike in cases. This time around it looks like Scotland and Wales, which currently have lower per capita caseloads than England, will be leading the charge. I hope to God that they know what they're doing.
However, I am sure you are speaking for many on this forum
Why not one in gratitude to science, with the name of everybody vaccinated?
At the end of the day, the virus is a natural disaster. It’s undone the great job that medical science has done of extending life expectancy over the past century.
It’s not fair to count the coffins, then point at boris.
And I’m one of his fiercest critics.
One dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gives people about 90% protection from Covid by 21 days, according to an analysis of Israel’s mass vaccination programme.
The data analysis, carried out by researchers from the University of East Anglia with UK government funding, runs counter to an earlier study from Israel which suggested that one dose may not give adequate protection.
Prof Nachman Ash, in charge of the Israeli vaccination effort, said last month that a single dose appeared “less effective than we had thought”, and was also lower than Pfizer had suggested. Pfizer had said efficacy was 52% after a single dose.
But Prof Paul Hunter and Dr Julii Brainard say their reanalysis of the data, which has not been peer-reviewed, shows high protection just before the second dose was given at 21 days. However, they warn that the risk of infection doubled in the first eight days after vaccination – possibly because people became less cautious.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/one-pfizerbiontech-jab-gives-90-immunity-from-covid-after-21-days
It's only one study but it nonetheless provides a modicum of reassurance that delaying the second dose shouldn't greatly diminish the effectiveness of the Pfizer jab. Beyond that, the results of a very much larger field trial - the UK mass vaccination program, of course - ought hopefully to start coming through soon.
And if you follow my posts you will have seen me critise Boris and I have said he is not the person for covid
Should we have a new colour of poppy for them?
He has become an embittered old man. It's rather sad.
I like this site for mostly good debate on threads that, certainly in Mike's case, are invariably betting related.
This has bugger all to do with betting. It's just bile from an embittered man who lost on Brexit.
Sort it out OGH or your regulars will depart this site.
Which seemed a pretty odd description of a comment disagreeing with you.
Which is of course where our vaccination policy comes in. I notice that we're now below France on daily cases. That trend, whilst not linear, is set to accelerate as our vaccinations kick in.
If you want to evaluate this on death tallies do so after the final whistle.
Seems a very stark way of putting it but is that the inference?
Good morning, everyone.
To @Lord_Liverpool - Feel free to write your own header, if it’s any good, I’m sure OGH will publish it.
Abortions, sadly, are going the other way and are now a huge number, somewhere around 220,000 per year in the UK. Way more than a pandemic.
The government`s response to a natural disaster and the challenges this has had to our precious liberal democracy has been to muddle through until a vaccine saves us. Everyone wants out from this catastrophe. Making political capital out of this is poor form indeed.
"Lest we forget" FFS.
Rightly or wrongly, you were criticised for over reliance on that argument; that is neither censorship, nor ‘fascist’.
Your emotive response to comments, while calling out others for emotive language, does not come across as intelligent discourse.
1. Far far too many people have died.
2. Our death rate looks even more horrendous compared to so many other western countries
3. Unlike those other countries we don't have a land border problem
4. International comparisons suit the government just fine when it puts it in a good light - both the early weeks and the vaccine rollout.
5. The government not only dropped international comparisons as soon as it started to look bad, they and their parrots then started bleating that the exact kind of international comparison they used to make was unfair
6. At least one excruciating press conference where bad numbers are put to the PM. "I don't recognise those numbers, impossible to make international comparisons". "But those are your numbers Prime Minister from your slides the other day". Screaming hypocrisy from them and sorry to say from their parrots like Big G
7. The care homes fiasco alone slaughtered tens of thousands.
Ultimately its a question of responsibility. If the government of the UK aren't responsible then who are? If the buck doesn't stop with the PM and Cabinet Ministers then with whom? Let the EU deal with their vaccine fiasco, it has literally no impact onto what happened in this country. And "lets compare death rates once its over and Europeans die due to lack of vaccine" is the most appalling piece of whataboutery.
The disease in the British polity is on full show. Corruption. Cronyism. The people in charge aren't responsible for their failures but want our plaudits for their successes. It shames this country. And it should shame people on hear who post with such utter disregard for the death toll and misery that they are trying to excuse.
I'm really not convinced the better performance of other countries can be wholly attributed to policy decisions.
At any rate, these involve a set of trade-offs around health, the economy, personal freedoms. Effectively suspending the functioning of civil society and the economy isn't without its costs either, the relevant metric can't just be body bags (not to minimise the pain of anyone who's lost those close to them).
For me, Covid comes pretty close to qualifying as a death from natural cause (even accounting for any revelations coming from the WHO visit to China). Is it reasonable to expect the government to legislate against that?
I guess it's easy to look back in retrospect, and pinpoint errors. Xmas must be one of thoses. Given the inadequacy of the public health's establishments initial response, I think blame, if it is to be attributed, can't just be levelled on elected officials.
Mr Meeks doesn't want that. He wants revenge for Brexit. He doesn't want the dead remembered he wants the Government to fall because he hates them. That won't bring anyone back from the dead, it will however soothe Mr Meeks anger for having lost the Brexit debate.
The single most important issue of the pandemic is how to end the pandemic; vaccines are the best way to do this. On this, the most important issue of all, then the UK is doing very well. Let's hope it continues so we can move on.
If the pandemic could be over thanks to vaccines but isn't, then every month the pandemic drags on with our civil liberties trashed, with the economy trashed, with people unable to see their families ... is every bit as bad as deaths.
More people will have died from non Covid reasons in the past 12 months having had their final year wrecked by the pandemic. It should be imperative on us all to end this as soon as it is safe to do so.
The death of friends and family absolutely matters to the people affected.
Yes, there must be an understanding of what went well and what went badly - but I’d suggest today we should be focusing on what we can do NOW rather than what we should have done yesterday.
There would always have been a minority of people not complying. And the system should have warned them that they would be dealt with harshly. Had the government issued the kind of clear, unambiguous warnings that pretty much every other western country managed then our death toll would have been a lot lower.
Its frankly shameful - to you - that you are working so hard this morning to wave your team's scarf and insist that they have no responsibility.
Some lessons will be things we have done right - like vaccines and genomic sequencing - and the rest of the world should learn to do more like we did.
Some lessons will be things we did wrong - like not recommending facemasks instantly or closing the border.
Others will probably be forever debated, like at what point to call a lockdown.
I guess the header IS a political betting tip of sorts. Meeks must be attracted to the 3.85 with BF that Labour will win a majority at the next election.
Point is that mutations which evade immune response most readily occur when the immune system isn’t working very well.
They will also occur in the normal course of transmission, but at a much lower rate.
Governments wherever possible should give advice and let people decide for themselves - and the public needs to take responsibility for their own actions too which can have consequences for others, it isn't on the PM of the day to make all our decisions for us.