OK Billy Bunters, 2nd Test starts tomorrow. We cleaned up last time and we can do the same again.
The wicket will be if anything drier and more baked than the adjacent pitch which yielded fourty wickets in a session and a half short of five days in the first Test. There is no rain forecast in an area where weather forecasting is a little easier than it is in this country. There is no way this match will result in a draw.
The toss will be vital again. The odds should be heavily in favor of whoever bats first. Betfair odds are: India 1.66 England 4.1 Draw 6.4 The draw is a gift but if you want to back England you will be getting terrific odds on the toss of a coin. India's odds can only be explained by 'heart ruling head' amongst Asian punters. They lost the first Test by 227 ffs and it was no fluke. England have made changes but I don't think the side is any the weaker for it. They may even be a shade stronger.
Starts 4am on Channel 4. Set your alarm and try not to miss the toss.
England the value bet there.
On those odds undoubtedly. The first test win was built on an extraordinary innings by Joe Root who not only scored big but also scored quickly enough to get the time for the win. Counting on a repeat of that seems a bit optimistic but I would make the match pretty much 50:50 with much (too much really) depending on the toss. It would be really great to see Moeen having a good game, England need him with both the ball and the bat.
Is time that big of an issue?
I didn't think draws in India were that common nowadays.
OK Billy Bunters, 2nd Test starts tomorrow. We cleaned up last time and we can do the same again.
The wicket will be if anything drier and more baked than the adjacent pitch which yielded fourty wickets in a session and a half short of five days in the first Test. There is no rain forecast in an area where weather forecasting is a little easier than it is in this country. There is no way this match will result in a draw.
The toss will be vital again. The odds should be heavily in favor of whoever bats first. Betfair odds are: India 1.66 England 4.1 Draw 6.4 The draw is a gift but if you want to back England you will be getting terrific odds on the toss of a coin. India's odds can only be explained by 'heart ruling head' amongst Asian punters. They lost the first Test by 227 ffs and it was no fluke. England have made changes but I don't think the side is any the weaker for it. They may even be a shade stronger.
Starts 4am on Channel 4. Set your alarm and try not to miss the toss.
Those odds look crazy to me, but I don't feel the draw is a gift. Adverse weather isn't expected is it?
6.4 feels right to me in the subcontinent with clear weather but 4.1 for a team that could have enforced the follow-on and won handsomely just a few days ago is incredible.
And who has won their last 6 away matches, the last three in sub continent.
Only 48% of black people of over 80s have been vaccinated, compared to 82% white, 62% South Asian for the same age group.
If we can't convince certain demographics over the next few months, come next winter the NHS will be filling up again with those people.
It shouldnt be compulsory to have the vaccine but it should be the next level down from compulsory IMO, which is people being very strongly encouraged to have it, and you may not be able to travel to other countries if you dont, (much as I dislike the idea of vaccine passports).
Yep. Which is, I think, about where we are with it. There will be no domestic vaccine passport. There will be no confining non-takers to home and lifting lockdown for everyone else. People can forget about all that. Just not happening. But there will be a stigma associated with refusing. And international travel issues too. Hopefully the overall take-up will be sufficient to end widespread community transmission. I think it will be.
I can see a case - although I am not necessarily advocating it without further discussion - for making having the vaccine a condition of obtaining or continuing in a job that puts you in direct close contact with at risk groups - so medical staff and care home staff for a start. Obviously there would have to be exemptions for genuine groups who are advised not to take the vaccine. But otherwise I think it could come under a duty of care challenge for the NHS and the care home operators.
Yes I think you could do that. If you are working with old people you need "covid clearance" which comes with being vaccinated. It's a little like for a job with children you need a CRB (or something) check.
OK Billy Bunters, 2nd Test starts tomorrow. We cleaned up last time and we can do the same again.
The wicket will be if anything drier and more baked than the adjacent pitch which yielded fourty wickets in a session and a half short of five days in the first Test. There is no rain forecast in an area where weather forecasting is a little easier than it is in this country. There is no way this match will result in a draw.
The toss will be vital again. The odds should be heavily in favor of whoever bats first. Betfair odds are: India 1.66 England 4.1 Draw 6.4 The draw is a gift but if you want to back England you will be getting terrific odds on the toss of a coin. India's odds can only be explained by 'heart ruling head' amongst Asian punters. They lost the first Test by 227 ffs and it was no fluke. England have made changes but I don't think the side is any the weaker for it. They may even be a shade stronger.
Starts 4am on Channel 4. Set your alarm and try not to miss the toss.
4am? I salute your indefatigability. For me watching cricket is necessarily a sensuous experience: sunny day, shady spot, beer at hand, sparrows singing, all's well with the world. Rather difficult to recreate the feeling at 4am on a cold winter morning. Watching on TV is like a disembodied brain in a SciFi dystopia, tenuously connected to the world via electrodes, shooting off plumes of steam at unpredictable intervals.
Only 48% of black people of over 80s have been vaccinated, compared to 82% white, 62% South Asian for the same age group.
If we can't convince certain demographics over the next few months, come next winter the NHS will be filling up again with those people.
It shouldnt be compulsory to have the vaccine but it should be the next level down from compulsory IMO, which is people being very strongly encouraged to have it, and you may not be able to travel to other countries if you dont, (much as I dislike the idea of vaccine passports).
If people don't want the vaccine then fine. But by law they should be confined to their homes.
As everyone's life has been put on hold for the past 12 months, by-law, to protect those most likely to die from the virus, then when an opportunity comes along so that people can live their lives again those most likely to die form should virus can bloody-well have it. If they don't, don't expect he rest of us to put up with this nonsense any more. Their lives should be restricted so the rest of us can get on with it.
Then you'll be back to what we were talking about a couple of days ago. Good luck with a policy that will, effectively, discriminate against minorities.
This is exactly why the government has ruled out vaccination passports for everyday usage.
The only reason anything about vaccine passports is being discussed, is that when travelling aboard they will soon be mandatory to many destinations. If not all.
No-ones discriminating against minorities. Having the vaccine isn't contingent on the colour of your skin or your religion or anything else. It's not the governments fault, your fault, my fault or anyone's fault that (some) minorities aren't taking-it up. I'm sorry to say that if (some) minority groups want to believe whatever bullshit they read or have been told about the vaccine on Twitter or elsewhere then that's on them.
Why should the overwhelming majority of the population have to suffer, including minorities which have had the vaccine because a small section of our population, for whatever reason, refuse to accept it.
Is it discriminatory against those who refuse? Absolutely! And I include all refuseniks in that whether they're white, black, brown, blue or green. We've all suffered far too much in many ways to pander to a minority of all, which includes "minorities" who refuse to see sense.
The problem you will hit with that policy is that the official definitions of discrimination will be tripped by such as system.
You are asking people working in the apparatus of government to go against "best practise" and potentially commit career suicide.
I get that but it's not as if the apparatus of government hasn't done things in the past 12 months which were previously considered beyond the pale, or never even thought of before.
The government being the government can change whatever official definitions they like. Just change the law - it's not as if they haven't done that to put us all under effective house-arrest.
I think you will find that certain things are off limits. It's not defined in law (I believe). But in the social and operating structures of government.
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
I thought they discovered that those on oral steroids are actually much less likely to end up in hospital?
Yes, but like a lot of more up to date evidence, not everything is making it through to policy. Good example is fomites. Now seen as very unlikely to be a major vector of infection, so there is no real need for the constant theatre of surface cleaning, and excessive hand sanitising that is still happening. I'm not saying washing hands is a bad thing, but the extreme levels are crazy, as is isolating parcels for 3 days before opening, or washing all your shopping when you get home. It would probably not be wise to change the messaging at this stage of the pandemic ("U-turn") but personally I have little fear of surfaces any more.
That might be one of the reasons that seasonal 'flu is so much lower this winter though.
That's not too surprising when you look at how our death figures have remained at such a high level despite a fall in cases. I very much hope that this week has seen the last day of deaths over 1,000 but it will be touch and go next week in particular.
Only 48% of black people of over 80s have been vaccinated, compared to 82% white, 62% South Asian for the same age group.
If we can't convince certain demographics over the next few months, come next winter the NHS will be filling up again with those people.
It shouldnt be compulsory to have the vaccine but it should be the next level down from compulsory IMO, which is people being very strongly encouraged to have it, and you may not be able to travel to other countries if you dont, (much as I dislike the idea of vaccine passports).
Yep. Which is, I think, about where we are with it. There will be no domestic vaccine passport. There will be no confining non-takers to home and lifting lockdown for everyone else. People can forget about all that. Just not happening. But there will be a stigma associated with refusing. And international travel issues too. Hopefully the overall take-up will be sufficient to end widespread community transmission. I think it will be.
I can see a case - although I am not necessarily advocating it without further discussion - for making having the vaccine a condition of obtaining or continuing in a job that puts you in direct close contact with at risk groups - so medical staff and care home staff for a start. Obviously there would have to be exemptions for genuine groups who are advised not to take the vaccine. But otherwise I think it could come under a duty of care challenge for the NHS and the care home operators.
I believe a Hep B vaccination is already mandatory for certain healthcare professions?
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
I thought they discovered that those on oral steroids are actually much less likely to end up in hospital?
I hadn’t seen that; the green book guidance last updated in January still restricts asthmatics in group 6 to those taking systemic steroids. The proposal that inhaler users be prioritised is to give relief to those who may not actually be at high risk but have suffered the stress, over the past year, of knowing they have a condition that affects their breathing and fearing that it will make COVID-19 much worse.
I know three inhaler users within my immediate family who have been shielding themselves. One had asthma attacks in childhood and has been very frightened by the chance of getting infected. Such people, and I’m sure it’s not uncommon amongst inhaler users, getting a jab early on in phase two, seems reasonable.
How does everyone reckon it's going to work once we are through groups 1 - 9 ? New group 10 for key workers ? Free for all ?
Phase 2 will be key workers that have to deal with the general public on a day to day basis. Teachers, police, supermarket workers, transportation workers and anyone who works in the supermarket supply chain. That's probably about 5m people so it would only take a couple of weeks but I think it would have a hugely positive effect on national morale and the infection rate.
My thought is that bits of loosening (possibly including schools) will begin from early April after Groups 1-9 done by late March. Easter hols this year would be approx April 2 to April 14 so that gives an evaluation / mid-point if needed.
Groups 1-9 both jabs done by sometime in May, second done in tandem (maybe) with other groups. That would fit the pragmatic strategy so far.
Much looser and more open from June.
One point worth a note is that we will get a summer, whereas EU will not - unfortunately. Based on the EU 70% by Sept vaccination target.
OK Billy Bunters, 2nd Test starts tomorrow. We cleaned up last time and we can do the same again.
The wicket will be if anything drier and more baked than the adjacent pitch which yielded fourty wickets in a session and a half short of five days in the first Test. There is no rain forecast in an area where weather forecasting is a little easier than it is in this country. There is no way this match will result in a draw.
The toss will be vital again. The odds should be heavily in favor of whoever bats first. Betfair odds are: India 1.66 England 4.1 Draw 6.4 The draw is a gift but if you want to back England you will be getting terrific odds on the toss of a coin. India's odds can only be explained by 'heart ruling head' amongst Asian punters. They lost the first Test by 227 ffs and it was no fluke. England have made changes but I don't think the side is any the weaker for it. They may even be a shade stronger.
Starts 4am on Channel 4. Set your alarm and try not to miss the toss.
Only 48% of black people of over 80s have been vaccinated, compared to 82% white, 62% South Asian for the same age group.
If we can't convince certain demographics over the next few months, come next winter the NHS will be filling up again with those people.
It shouldnt be compulsory to have the vaccine but it should be the next level down from compulsory IMO, which is people being very strongly encouraged to have it, and you may not be able to travel to other countries if you dont, (much as I dislike the idea of vaccine passports).
Yep. Which is, I think, about where we are with it. There will be no domestic vaccine passport. There will be no confining non-takers to home and lifting lockdown for everyone else. People can forget about all that. Just not happening. But there will be a stigma associated with refusing. And international travel issues too. Hopefully the overall take-up will be sufficient to end widespread community transmission. I think it will be.
One possible outcome is the barring refuseniks from pubs, clubs, shops, museums, galleries, restaurants – basically anywhere interesting or fun – rights of admission reserved. Show your vax card at the door otherwise do one?
This isn't going to happen.
I can't wait for my jab, but any notion that vaccinated or not is going to be a real thing after next spring is for the birds. The odd person in the UK will catch covid, in a fluke event, and a few every year might even die. But it will be an exception. And most importantly, it won't make the news.
What will happen is this -
- The government will quietly work to reduce the number of refuseniks - Going forward, the consequences of COVID will begin to skew towards the less protected groups. - Many furrowed brows about the problem of discrimination. - A non-trivial number of avoidable funerals.
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
I thought they discovered that those on oral steroids are actually much less likely to end up in hospital?
Yes, but like a lot of more up to date evidence, not everything is making it through to policy. Good example is fomites. Now seen as very unlikely to be a major vector of infection, so there is no real need for the constant theatre of surface cleaning, and excessive hand sanitising that is still happening. I'm not saying washing hands is a bad thing, but the extreme levels are crazy, as is isolating parcels for 3 days before opening, or washing all your shopping when you get home. It would probably not be wise to change the messaging at this stage of the pandemic ("U-turn") but personally I have little fear of surfaces any more.
I think that safety theatre is counterproductive because it provides a false sense of safety when the real danger is airborne transmission via aerosols.
Only 48% of black people of over 80s have been vaccinated, compared to 82% white, 62% South Asian for the same age group.
If we can't convince certain demographics over the next few months, come next winter the NHS will be filling up again with those people.
It shouldnt be compulsory to have the vaccine but it should be the next level down from compulsory IMO, which is people being very strongly encouraged to have it, and you may not be able to travel to other countries if you dont, (much as I dislike the idea of vaccine passports).
If people don't want the vaccine then fine. But by law they should be confined to their homes.
As everyone's life has been put on hold for the past 12 months, by-law, to protect those most likely to die from the virus, then when an opportunity comes along so that people can live their lives again those most likely to die form should virus can bloody-well have it. If they don't, don't expect he rest of us to put up with this nonsense any more. Their lives should be restricted so the rest of us can get on with it.
Then you'll be back to what we were talking about a couple of days ago. Good luck with a policy that will, effectively, discriminate against minorities.
This is exactly why the government has ruled out vaccination passports for everyday usage.
The only reason anything about vaccine passports is being discussed, is that when travelling aboard they will soon be mandatory to many destinations. If not all.
However they dress up their reasons for not being vaccinated, the only people discriminating against them are the minorities themselves.
The only people getting any satisfaction out of a mere 48% of black over-80's getting vaccinated are sick-minded white supremacists. "Get the jab - and piss off a racist."
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
Won't the first of those be included in the 'At Risk (under 65)' group anyway?
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
I thought they discovered that those on oral steroids are actually much less likely to end up in hospital?
Yes, but like a lot of more up to date evidence, not everything is making it through to policy. Good example is fomites. Now seen as very unlikely to be a major vector of infection, so there is no real need for the constant theatre of surface cleaning, and excessive hand sanitising that is still happening. I'm not saying washing hands is a bad thing, but the extreme levels are crazy, as is isolating parcels for 3 days before opening, or washing all your shopping when you get home. It would probably not be wise to change the messaging at this stage of the pandemic ("U-turn") but personally I have little fear of surfaces any more.
And people will only bother with so many precautionary measures, so it makes sense to emphasise the most important ones. 'Deep cleaning' premises in particular is an expensive waste of time if 90% of the risk is airborne infection.
Only 48% of black people of over 80s have been vaccinated, compared to 82% white, 62% South Asian for the same age group.
If we can't convince certain demographics over the next few months, come next winter the NHS will be filling up again with those people.
It shouldnt be compulsory to have the vaccine but it should be the next level down from compulsory IMO, which is people being very strongly encouraged to have it, and you may not be able to travel to other countries if you dont, (much as I dislike the idea of vaccine passports).
If people don't want the vaccine then fine. But by law they should be confined to their homes.
As everyone's life has been put on hold for the past 12 months, by-law, to protect those most likely to die from the virus, then when an opportunity comes along so that people can live their lives again those most likely to die form should virus can bloody-well have it. If they don't, don't expect he rest of us to put up with this nonsense any more. Their lives should be restricted so the rest of us can get on with it.
Then you'll be back to what we were talking about a couple of days ago. Good luck with a policy that will, effectively, discriminate against minorities.
This is exactly why the government has ruled out vaccination passports for everyday usage.
The only reason anything about vaccine passports is being discussed, is that when travelling aboard they will soon be mandatory to many destinations. If not all.
No-ones discriminating against minorities. Having the vaccine isn't contingent on the colour of your skin or your religion or anything else. It's not the governments fault, your fault, my fault or anyone's fault that (some) minorities aren't taking-it up. I'm sorry to say that if (some) minority groups want to believe whatever bullshit they read or have been told about the vaccine on Twitter or elsewhere then that's on them.
Why should the overwhelming majority of the population have to suffer, including minorities which have had the vaccine because a small section of our population, for whatever reason, refuse to accept it.
Is it discriminatory against those who refuse? Absolutely! And I include all refuseniks in that whether they're white, black, brown, blue or green. We've all suffered far too much in many ways to pander to a minority of all, which includes "minorities" who refuse to see sense.
The problem you will hit with that policy is that the official definitions of discrimination will be tripped by such as system.
You are asking people working in the apparatus of government to go against "best practise" and potentially commit career suicide.
I get that but it's not as if the apparatus of government hasn't done things in the past 12 months which were previously considered beyond the pale, or never even thought of before.
The government being the government can change whatever official definitions they like. Just change the law - it's not as if they haven't done that to put us all under effective house-arrest.
I think you will find that certain things are off limits. It's not defined in law (I believe). But in the social and operating structures of government.
This is where my issue arises. The "social and operating structures of government" seem absolutely fine and dandy locking us all up for a year leading to 100,000's if not millions of lives ruined financially and emotionally, tanking the economy for at least a generation to save lives, but have a problem in denying vaccine-refusenik Johnny Smith access to the pub ( which save lives), because he read on Twitter that it contains microchips which control his mind?
How does everyone reckon it's going to work once we are through groups 1 - 9 ? New group 10 for key workers ? Free for all ?
Phase 2 will be key workers that have to deal with the general public on a day to day basis. Teachers, police, supermarket workers, transportation workers and anyone who works in the supermarket supply chain. That's probably about 5m people so it would only take a couple of weeks but I think it would have a hugely positive effect on national morale and the infection rate.
My thought is that bits of loosening (possibly including schools) will begin from early April after Groups 1-9 done by late March. Easter hols this year would be approx April 2 to April 14 so that gives an evaluation / mid-point if needed.
Groups 1-9 both jabs done by sometime in May, second done in tandem (maybe) with other groups. That would fit the pragmatic strategy so far.
Much looser and more open from June.
One point worth a note is that we will get a summer, whereas EU will not - unfortunately. Based on the EU 70% by Sept vaccination target.
Jabbed Johnny Foreigner can come here. But there won't be much point in Jabbed Brits going abroad if abroad isn't open.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
Won't the first of those be included in the 'At Risk (under 65)' group anyway?
No, they won’t. That was the expectation for many - i.e. if you get the flu jab you will be in the At Risk group - but, for some reason, asthmatics on inhalers are excluded. I think @Cyclefree is in the same bind.
"Social media provides a similar example. Facebook has certainly been very good for Mark Zuckerberg’s bank balance. But the platform’s sheer size has caused it to seep into areas of public life where it was never supposed to be, and where it is not always welcome. As to the economic benefits of these new technologies, in The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the historian Robert Gordon searched the data for any signs that the information technology revolution has yielded any substantial economic benefits. He concluded that it has not." (£)
Information technology has not created economic benefits apparently.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
How does everyone reckon it's going to work once we are through groups 1 - 9 ? New group 10 for key workers ? Free for all ?
Phase 2 will be key workers that have to deal with the general public on a day to day basis. Teachers, police, supermarket workers, transportation workers and anyone who works in the supermarket supply chain. That's probably about 5m people so it would only take a couple of weeks but I think it would have a hugely positive effect on national morale and the infection rate.
Basically what I'm saying is that office workers under 50 will be last in the queue. Sucks for me but tbh, if the pubs are open I'm going to go with or without a vaccine.
Agreed, really not remotely concerned about catching it myself, and the odds would be very slim anyway given we're clearly not going to be allowed to unlock until levels are absolutely tiny, and immunised + infected rate will be over 70% of adults by then anyway so it's going to have a tough time bouncing back even if we went big bang reopen
OK Billy Bunters, 2nd Test starts tomorrow. We cleaned up last time and we can do the same again.
The wicket will be if anything drier and more baked than the adjacent pitch which yielded fourty wickets in a session and a half short of five days in the first Test. There is no rain forecast in an area where weather forecasting is a little easier than it is in this country. There is no way this match will result in a draw.
The toss will be vital again. The odds should be heavily in favor of whoever bats first. Betfair odds are: India 1.66 England 4.1 Draw 6.4 The draw is a gift but if you want to back England you will be getting terrific odds on the toss of a coin. India's odds can only be explained by 'heart ruling head' amongst Asian punters. They lost the first Test by 227 ffs and it was no fluke. England have made changes but I don't think the side is any the weaker for it. They may even be a shade stronger.
Starts 4am on Channel 4. Set your alarm and try not to miss the toss.
4am? I salute your indefatigability. For me watching cricket is necessarily a sensuous experience: sunny day, shady spot, beer at hand, sparrows singing, all's well with the world. Rather difficult to recreate the feeling at 4am on a cold winter morning. Watching on TV is like a disembodied brain in a SciFi dystopia, tenuously connected to the world via electrodes, shooting off plumes of steam at unpredictable intervals.
Alternatively you can listen on Talk Radio and Talk Radio 2. Commentators include Mark Nicholas and Darren Gough.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
I speculated that in the last week as it would fit with the evidence.
Although I think the anecdotes from yesterday are true that England has been hunting around trying to get the 70+ done. There was a post on our village FB page from the local surgery asking anyone over 70 who has not been done to let them know as they had appointments for Saturday. I imagine they were reserving slots which is likely to cause a slowdown if not filled. One would hope with the target out the way on Monday that they crack on with everyone over 60 ASAP.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
OK Billy Bunters, 2nd Test starts tomorrow. We cleaned up last time and we can do the same again.
The wicket will be if anything drier and more baked than the adjacent pitch which yielded fourty wickets in a session and a half short of five days in the first Test. There is no rain forecast in an area where weather forecasting is a little easier than it is in this country. There is no way this match will result in a draw.
The toss will be vital again. The odds should be heavily in favor of whoever bats first. Betfair odds are: India 1.66 England 4.1 Draw 6.4 The draw is a gift but if you want to back England you will be getting terrific odds on the toss of a coin. India's odds can only be explained by 'heart ruling head' amongst Asian punters. They lost the first Test by 227 ffs and it was no fluke. England have made changes but I don't think the side is any the weaker for it. They may even be a shade stronger.
Starts 4am on Channel 4. Set your alarm and try not to miss the toss.
4am? I salute your indefatigability. For me watching cricket is necessarily a sensuous experience: sunny day, shady spot, beer at hand, sparrows singing, all's well with the world. Rather difficult to recreate the feeling at 4am on a cold winter morning. Watching on TV is like a disembodied brain in a SciFi dystopia, tenuously connected to the world via electrodes, shooting off plumes of steam at unpredictable intervals.
I indelibly connect watching Test cricket with flapjacks, as it was my habit in my long university summers to make a batch of flapjacks before play started on Day 1 and then eat my way through the sugary goodness until the conclusion of the match.
So I will be baking myself a batch of flapjacks tonight, but I have to make them last longer these days now that England are less often rolled over in three days.
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
Won't the first of those be included in the 'At Risk (under 65)' group anyway?
No, they won’t. That was the expectation for many - i.e. if you get the flu jab you will be in the At Risk group - but, for some reason, asthmatics on inhalers are excluded. I think @Cyclefree is in the same bind.
Well that does seem crazy but not being a medical person I can't really judge. I presume there's some science behind it.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
Looks to be spot on. The good thing is that the Govt. seems to have been on the money when it said it would reach its mid-February target - but only just. It knew what supplies were due and when - and thankfully they have arrived without any buggering about. It knew that supply should be capable of being stuck in arms - and they have organised it brilliantly.
There will now be little reason to doubt them when they give future roll-out targets. Which will be a wonderful novelty...
It's really frustrating how long the Northern Irish take to report their numbers. I had wrapped up for the day yesterday by the time they declared, thus PB was deprived of its daily dose of Vaxometer.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
Looks to be spot on. The good thing is that the Govt. seems to have been on the money when it said it would reach its mid-February target - but only just. It knew what supplies were due and when - and thankfully they have arrived without any buggering about. It knew that supply should be capable of being stuck in arms - and they have organised it brilliantly.
There will now be little reason to doubt them when they give future roll-out targets. Which will be a wonderful novelty...
Especially given what's happened to UVDL they must have had justified confidence on the supplies too.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
Looks to be spot on. The good thing is that the Govt. seems to have been on the money when it said it would reach its mid-February target - but only just. It knew what supplies were due and when - and thankfully they have arrived without any buggering about. It knew that supply should be capable of being stuck in arms - and they have organised it brilliantly.
There will now be little reason to doubt them when they give future roll-out targets. Which will be a wonderful novelty...
On a positive note surgeries round here are booking vaccinations 2-3 weeks in advance as they know they will be getting supplies
On vaccine passports for every day life, all that is required is for the government to not explicitly ban them. If I owned an independent cinema and I wanted the more nervous punters to come through the turnstile, I see you're left with two choices. Enforced face masks (no thanks say the other 80%), or vaccine passport at point of admission.
The private sector could quite quickly make life pretty unliveable for the anti-vaxxers and stop them free-riding on the rest of us. Some subtle nudge theory application by the government on this might be where we end up.
"Social media provides a similar example. Facebook has certainly been very good for Mark Zuckerberg’s bank balance. But the platform’s sheer size has caused it to seep into areas of public life where it was never supposed to be, and where it is not always welcome. As to the economic benefits of these new technologies, in The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the historian Robert Gordon searched the data for any signs that the information technology revolution has yielded any substantial economic benefits. He concluded that it has not." (£)
Information technology has not created economic benefits apparently.
Is that because of the paradox that things that used to cost a lot of money are now essentially free, so they show up as a decrease in GDP? Think Google Maps: who buys an atlas (or even a road map) these days? But as a society we are better off.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
On vaccine passports for every day life, all that is required is for the government to not explicitly ban them. If I owned an independent cinema and I wanted the more nervous punters to come through the turnstile, I see you're left with two choices. Enforced face masks (no thanks say the other 80%), or vaccine passport at point of admission.
The private sector could quite quickly make life pretty unliveable for the anti-vaxxers and stop them free-riding on the rest of us. Some subtle nudge theory application by the government on this might be where we end up.
The question is how long it goes on for. Will reasons keep being found to continue these measures for a long time?
E-fit reveals public thinks lawyers are posh white men in crap ties
A team at the University of Law has made the most of lockdown by compiling an e-fit purporting to represent the British public's idea of a typical worker in the legal industry, and RollOnFriday is sorry to report that it's an estate agent.
Ulaw generated Frankenployee after surveying 2,000 members of the public. Their answers produced a diversity killer who is male, 35-44 year-old, clean-shaven, tattoo-free and unpierced.
Patrick Johnson, ULaw's Director of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, said the research "has highlighted a stark reality, which is that more needs to be done to give solicitors septum rings and ink up bazzas redefine what someone working in the legal industry can look like. It is no longer a profession solely for upper class white males, but in fact, accessible to all".
Legal regulators hope the new Solicitors Qualifying Exam and cheaper Bar courses will improve access to the profession in England and Wales, and hasten the demise of the privileged legal stereotype represented by the e-fit.
However, the survey results indicate that the public's conception of law is marginally less pale, male and posh than the e-fit suggests.
While 48% of people pictured those working in the legal industry as white, 12% pictured them as BAME and 38% pictured them as having any ethnicity. And although 25% pictured legal industry workers as male, 19% visualised them as female and 55% saw them as male or female. The public was more certain on class, with 48% or the respondents picturing someone in the legal industry to be upper middle class, and 8% picturing them as upper class.
Far more interesting that required rate to hit a target that's already in the can, is what happens next.
The govenment set themselves a genuinely ambitious target and hit it. They're now setting themselves very low targets.
Hopefully that is because they know we have this licked and are reverting to playing to just run up the political score before this finishes, rather than they have some bad news in the vaccine pipeline.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
Looks to be spot on. The good thing is that the Govt. seems to have been on the money when it said it would reach its mid-February target - but only just. It knew what supplies were due and when - and thankfully they have arrived without any buggering about. It knew that supply should be capable of being stuck in arms - and they have organised it brilliantly.
There will now be little reason to doubt them when they give future roll-out targets. Which will be a wonderful novelty...
Especially given what's happened to UVDL they must have had justified confidence on the supplies too.
It was my understanding that, quite a while ago, there was sufficient vaccine physically in the UK to make the 14th deadline.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
The front pages today were a bit confusing to me. "Letters to over 65s out from Monday". Every over 65 I know has either got their letter or already been vaccinated.
Two more nominations for priority at the start of the next phase: under 50 asthmatics who use an inhaler (oral steroids only included on group six of phase one) and those whose pre-existing mental health conditions have been exacerbated by lockdown.
I thought they discovered that those on oral steroids are actually much less likely to end up in hospital?
Yes, but like a lot of more up to date evidence, not everything is making it through to policy. Good example is fomites. Now seen as very unlikely to be a major vector of infection, so there is no real need for the constant theatre of surface cleaning, and excessive hand sanitising that is still happening. I'm not saying washing hands is a bad thing, but the extreme levels are crazy, as is isolating parcels for 3 days before opening, or washing all your shopping when you get home. It would probably not be wise to change the messaging at this stage of the pandemic ("U-turn") but personally I have little fear of surfaces any more.
That might be one of the reasons that seasonal 'flu is so much lower this winter though.
Anyway @Philip_Thompson answer the question. Are you really suggesting that someone being sentenced to 4 years in prison is the justice system not "taking the offence seriously" compared to say, 4.5 years in prison?
And if not, at what point is the cut off? Because realistically these are the differences we are talking about. There seems to be a level of Daily Mail-esque scare mongering here that a white person committing GBH on a black person will get 5 years in prison and a black person committing GBH on a white person will get no prison sentence. It doesn't work like that.
That's not the cut off. It isn't 4 years versus 4.5 years - for most offences its no jail time at all versus potentially years.
The fact that most people don't go to prison is because most crimes are low level.
It's also government policy that prison should always be a last resort.
Indeed because we don't take crime seriously - hence why when we do it is the exception not the rule.
What's the median custodial sentence actually served for GBH? Do you think its closer to 4 years or 4.5 years? Or closer to 2 months?
You do realise that a person can be convicted of GBH from a single punch in anger that accidentally causes moderate damage?
A person can also be convicted of GBH from a sustained and purposeful attack that causes serious damage.
They are in many cases the same offence.
Therefore the mean is pointless because it covers both scenarios. Stop misusing statistics you don't understand.
Both should be taken seriously. We already have ABH as a different crime, GBH is already meant to be a more serious crime in the first place and you chose it as the example.
You also chose possession with intent to supply as another example, I didn't choose it, and the median sentence for that is unless I'm misreading it . . . 0 prison time. None whatsoever.
I'm sorry but you're showing your ignorance here and misunderstanding of the GBH offence.
GBH can and is prosecuted for a wide variety of crimes ranging from accidental harm to purposeful attacks.
This is the problem. You're using statistics to justify your point of view without understanding the statistics.
Except you haven't provided any counterevidence. If you want to provide some statistics as to what proportion of GBH convictions were for accidents then please be my guest.
I said already that mitigation should be an option for eg accidental harm - though the attack I was a victim of that I spoke about last night that got a six month sentence was no accident and the problem is my story is not an unusual one. That's an anecdote but it is all to real reality of how crime is dealt with in this country - serious sentences of years are exceptional not the norm.
You're the one asserting that crimes are not taken seriously. I'm not saying that on the whole sentences are not "low", but that's government policy on the whole.
I was merely pointing out that "GBH" is not what you think. The Section 20 GBH offence relies upon the harm done and not the intention to cause that harm.
You've moved the goalposts somewhat anyway. The original discussion was about aggravating factors and you've clearly demonstrated your ignorance in how the criminal justice system works and how specific crimes can cover a whole range of situations.
So let's give you an example:
A man is getting out of a taxi drunk, keys in hand, having just thrown up in the taxi. The taxi driver makes a move to take the keys from the man's hand and in response the man punches the taxi driver. Due to having the keys in his hand, the punch causes a laceration on the taxi driver's face.
That is GBH.
The whole point of aggravating and mitigating factors is that the above scenario would be given a lesser punishment than a random attack on someone.
You seem to be suggesting that both scenarios should receive the same 5+ years in prison?
No I'm not suggesting that both should get the same 5+ years in prison, since I've said consistently from the beginning that of course mitigating factors should be taken into account.
However I would say that I really feel that accidental and deliberate GBH etc should be separate classes of crime - if intent is important (and I agree with you 100% that it is) then the onus on proving the mens rea beyond a reasonable doubt should fall upon the prosecution.
This is where it gets a bit complicated.
There are already two separate GBH offences - sections 18 and 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The problem is that proving intent to specifically cause *GBH* is actually quite a high evidential burden.
You can be prosecuted on the lesser offence, intent to cause some harm, which lead to GBH, much more easily.
Hence why most convictions are of the lesser offence.
The only time I've been in a courtroom so far was for a GBH case: I was on the jury.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
That is not where the fallacy is.
So you admit the boomer generation had it the best ever. Good. The choice, given the nature of covid, was to at least keep our children in school so maybe some more very sick boomers died. Or maybe didn't, who knows.
Epic point missing.
No point spending time on this, but you do realise there is nothing uniquely age-specific about covid? It kills the same age groups in the same proportions as - for starters - flu, cancer, heart disease and pneumonia. What do you think the knock-on effects on the younger-than-boomers would be if you let the disease run unchecked? You only take the "boomers" out of the picture if you not only take no steps to prevent them getting the disease but also deny them hospital care when they get it. Is that what you are proposing?
Please do not pretend that the rationing of healthcare did not exist before covid, when it manifestly did and always has done. The idea that doctors were suddenly faced with difficult decisions after decades of plenty is completely false.
I accept healthcare would have been rationed more thinly than it even was at the height of covid, and perhaps some more people (of an average age of 80) might have died.
But out children would have stayed in school. Its not we would have sent a a quarter of a million 20-year olds over the top at the Somme.
Oh, that's a relief. Only really old people would have died.
(Checks stats)
Oh, and only really old people die of cancer. Or heart disease. Or any other disease. Aren't averages useful. They mean only people of that age die.
Or might die. I guess maybe it would have all magically gone away. Hmm. Hundreds of thousands of people under sixty hospitalised. Most of those in ICU under 60. The greatest pressure on the NHS in recent history by far.
And some people still, after all this time, want to believe SO HARD that it's not really an issue or we could just have ignored it that they manage to delude themselves so consistently that IT'S ONLY REALLY OLD PEOPLE WHO WERE ABOUT TO DIE ANYWAY, HONEST. And VIRUSES CAN'T BE STOPPED, VIRUS GOING TO VIRUS!
(As Florence Nightingale screams silently from her grave in despair at you)
It really is a desperately closed mind. The decision was made: lockdowns must be wrong. The disease mustn't be a real problem. We must have been able to continue as we were.
And all evidence against that must be discounted. Anything that could possibly look to be in its favour must be credulously swallowed (the sheer consistent gullibility and credulousness of the self-proclaimed "sceptics" over at Toby's Lockdown Sceptics site is truly astonishing: anything must be believed if it supports their worldview, no matter how incoherent, inconsistent, implausible, or downright impossible it may be; any evidence against must be picked at and discounted no matter what).
To be honest, it's downright boring. Your lines were discredited thoroughly six to nine months ago, and you persist in reeling them out again and again. I suppose at least we're now spared the invocation of Sunetra Gupta, or Michael Yeadon, or the False Positives, but you're going back to the "average age" stuff yet again. And the "Politicians love the power of lockdown and will keep it going despite it costing billions per week and stopping them from doing anything fun themselves and scientists love locking people down because they're authoritarian and weird" thing. I had thought you'd moved on from that, but you've reverted again. I'm disappointed.
Anyone think he'll shut up when the kids go back to school if lockdown continues? Or is the "Will nobody think of the children?" just an excuse to keep whining about lockdown.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
14.6m is 15m when rounded. The table in the official vaccine strategy says ~15m but the numbers add up to 14.6. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with the rounding of numbers what the real target it. It's also clear to anyone with a grasp of reality how unimportant this distinction is given both will be easily hit, likely on the same day.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
Looks to be spot on. The good thing is that the Govt. seems to have been on the money when it said it would reach its mid-February target - but only just. It knew what supplies were due and when - and thankfully they have arrived without any buggering about. It knew that supply should be capable of being stuck in arms - and they have organised it brilliantly.
There will now be little reason to doubt them when they give future roll-out targets. Which will be a wonderful novelty...
Especially given what's happened to UVDL they must have had justified confidence on the supplies too.
It was my understanding that, quite a while ago, there was sufficient vaccine physically in the UK to make the 14th deadline.
The question is what comes after that, I think...
Indeed. Zahawi has clearly done a good job monitoring and organising this. I thought it was interesting the other day when he spoke about "having sight" of vaccines more than a month in advance - while the EU Commission acted with shock and horror days before their vaccinations were due to begin.
Not just the ordering, but the whole supply chain from order to distribution has been incredibly well put together in this country. Not something you get to say very often.
On topic, I'm loathe to call the outcome of the election now, there's too many known unknowns.
We might have another pandemic, Brexit could turn out to be a success or a disaster mis-sold to the public.
I see more potential for conflicts around the world in which get dragged into.
China might test the resolve of the West by annexing Taiwan, or resolve their issues in Kashmir, which is just what the world needs, two or three nuclear armed powers slugging it out.
Then there's Hong Kong.
We also need to talk about Russia as well.
Historically speaking the 2024 will be when the Tories have been in continuous power for 14 years, that's the sort of time frame when governing parties start losing substantial seats.
Labour lost 48 seats net in 2005 and the Tories lost 40 seats net in 1992.
As this long article on an interview with her makes clear, though, she is still full of crap on the subject of Trump. Whether that will endear her to whatever the Republican party has become is anyone's guess.
“No,” she replied. “When he was talking about that, I didn’t address it.”
Since January 20, 2017, the Republican Party has become defined by its unwillingness to confront—and, in many cases, its willingness to enable—an out-of-control president. Here was Haley, someone with a reputation for speaking candidly to Trump, someone who had the courage as governor to remove the Confederate flag from her state capitol, admitting that she hadn’t bothered to challenge him—even in private—on a deception that threatened the stability of American life. Why not?
“I understand the president. I understand that genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged,” Haley told me. “This is not him making it up.”...
...“You have the president of the United States telling everyone that he was cheated, that the voting systems are corrupt, that we’re living in a banana republic where the deep state has rigged this election against him,” I told her. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“He believes it,” she smiled.
Haley clearly wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. Like so many Republicans, she had expected Trump would either eke out a second term, putting a date-certain on the end of his presidency, or lose so lopsidedly that his career would be toast. Instead, he split the difference, losing by less than one percentage point in each of three decisive states, a result that sent him spiraling into delirium. The resulting paralysis could be seen across the GOP, but Haley was a special case. She knew she could not afford to antagonize the president. But her rationalizations for his behavior were so strained that they called into question her own judgment. This was a test for Haley, an early opportunity to define herself on a question of great national urgency. And she was failing...
On vaccine passports for every day life, all that is required is for the government to not explicitly ban them. If I owned an independent cinema and I wanted the more nervous punters to come through the turnstile, I see you're left with two choices. Enforced face masks (no thanks say the other 80%), or vaccine passport at point of admission.
The private sector could quite quickly make life pretty unliveable for the anti-vaxxers and stop them free-riding on the rest of us. Some subtle nudge theory application by the government on this might be where we end up.
The question is how long it goes on for. Will reasons keep being found to continue these measures for a long time?
Civil society has just experienced a fairly unprecedented trauma and will be suffering from the macro version of PTSD for some time to come. I assume that quite a few fairly harmless activities will not be conducted in the same way for the foreseeable future and it will take a while for state healthy policy (and some individual behaviours) to stop being seen first and foremost through the prism of infectious disease.
For one thing, governments use the blunt instruments of state available to them, whether the most appropriate tool or not. And this government now has at its disposal an extraordinary capacity for vaccine production, infectious disease testing and viral genome sequencing.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
14.6m is 15m when rounded. The table in the official vaccine strategy says ~15m but the numbers add up to 14.6. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with the rounding of numbers what the real target it. It's also clear to anyone with a grasp of reality how unimportant this distinction is given both will be easily hit, likely on the same day.
It was a stretch target, I believe. To get within 10% of it would have been a decent result. As it is I think we can be glad, and impressed.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
14.6m is 15m when rounded. The table in the official vaccine strategy says ~15m but the numbers add up to 14.6. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with the rounding of numbers what the real target it. It's also clear to anyone with a grasp of reality how unimportant this distinction is given both will be easily hit, likely on the same day.
It was a stretch target, I believe. To get within 10% of it would have been a decent result. As it is I think we can be glad, and impressed.
Yep, if they had said the target was end of Feb everyone would have thought it was impressive - they stretched themselves and still hit.
More interesting question is why their new publically announced targets are massively unstretching - are they getting cocky, or is there bad news coming?
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
That is not where the fallacy is.
So you admit the boomer generation had it the best ever. Good. The choice, given the nature of covid, was to at least keep our children in school so maybe some more very sick boomers died. Or maybe didn't, who knows.
Epic point missing.
No point spending time on this, but you do realise there is nothing uniquely age-specific about covid? It kills the same age groups in the same proportions as - for starters - flu, cancer, heart disease and pneumonia. What do you think the knock-on effects on the younger-than-boomers would be if you let the disease run unchecked? You only take the "boomers" out of the picture if you not only take no steps to prevent them getting the disease but also deny them hospital care when they get it. Is that what you are proposing?
Please do not pretend that the rationing of healthcare did not exist before covid, when it manifestly did and always has done. The idea that doctors were suddenly faced with difficult decisions after decades of plenty is completely false.
I accept healthcare would have been rationed more thinly than it even was at the height of covid, and perhaps some more people (of an average age of 80) might have died.
But out children would have stayed in school. Its not we would have sent a a quarter of a million 20-year olds over the top at the Somme.
Anyone think he'll shut up when the kids go back to school if lockdown continues? Or is the "Will nobody think of the children?" just an excuse to keep whining about lockdown.
It is absolutely justified for people, whether they be Mark Harper, David Blunkett, Julia Hartley-Brewer, god help us, or our very own @contrarian, to question and continue to question the reasons for lockdown.
The government has taken away a significant amount of our freedom and gets to determine who we are and are not allowed to have sex with and where.
That to my mind, and whatever the justification, does not just get a nod through. It may be, and as we have seen with the case numbers, and the trolleys in corridors of national health services very very probably is, absolutely justified. But not automatically because some scientists say so.
Wonderful as PB is, full as it is of questioning, thoughtful, intellectually demanding folk, the complete and whole falling in behind the government on this, while seeking to ostracise those who dissent, I find strange, perhaps disturbing.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
I speculated that in the last week as it would fit with the evidence.
Although I think the anecdotes from yesterday are true that England has been hunting around trying to get the 70+ done. There was a post on our village FB page from the local surgery asking anyone over 70 who has not been done to let them know as they had appointments for Saturday. I imagine they were reserving slots which is likely to cause a slowdown if not filled. One would hope with the target out the way on Monday that they crack on with everyone over 60 ASAP.
Point of order: over 65s, then they have to stop to do the clinically not-quite-so-vulnerable. However, the good news is that, assuming the current rate of progress is maintained, the state jab machine should be through all of those in three weeks, or perhaps a bit less given that we know that cohorts 5 & 6 have already started being seen in some areas.
The only thing that makes me think they might slow down a little is the fact that, again running at the current rate, cohort 9 should be cleared through their first jabs by about the end of March, but the Government is talking about the start of May. Given that they were almost spot on with the first target, I do wonder now if they're genuinely expecting supply issues to cause a bit of a slowdown over the next few weeks; Sturgeon and Drakeford have both suggested as much already.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
This is a very lucid and compellingly constructed argument that could have easily been a header but I still think ego wins. There is simply nothing more to him than ego.
It is a very well argued and compelling argument from @Bournville. I think I am going to put some money on Johnson going in 2021.
Amazed there isn't more comment on Scotland vaccinating over 100% of it's older care home residents in long term care.
30,027
Congratulations on the mathematically inevitable achievement.
I hope that puts to rest any notions that the 99.6% of really being 30k figure was ever at all credible. Though oddly now that >60k per day are being done we're not hearing about 100.1% being claimed anymore.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
This is a very lucid and compellingly constructed argument that could have easily been a header but I still think ego wins. There is simply nothing more to him than ego.
It is a very well argued and compelling argument from @Bournville. I think I am going to put some money on Johnson going in 2021.
Join the club - I am on him to leave any time until September this year but I think @Dura has it also - ego. He simply will not step down while he is in power. As indeed has no other PM done.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
That is not where the fallacy is.
So you admit the boomer generation had it the best ever. Good. The choice, given the nature of covid, was to at least keep our children in school so maybe some more very sick boomers died. Or maybe didn't, who knows.
Epic point missing.
No point spending time on this, but you do realise there is nothing uniquely age-specific about covid? It kills the same age groups in the same proportions as - for starters - flu, cancer, heart disease and pneumonia. What do you think the knock-on effects on the younger-than-boomers would be if you let the disease run unchecked? You only take the "boomers" out of the picture if you not only take no steps to prevent them getting the disease but also deny them hospital care when they get it. Is that what you are proposing?
Please do not pretend that the rationing of healthcare did not exist before covid, when it manifestly did and always has done. The idea that doctors were suddenly faced with difficult decisions after decades of plenty is completely false.
I accept healthcare would have been rationed more thinly than it even was at the height of covid, and perhaps some more people (of an average age of 80) might have died.
But out children would have stayed in school. Its not we would have sent a a quarter of a million 20-year olds over the top at the Somme.
Oh, that's a relief. Only really old people would have died.
(Checks stats)
Oh, and only really old people die of cancer. Or heart disease. Or any other disease. Aren't averages useful. They mean only people of that age die.
Or might die. I guess maybe it would have all magically gone away. Hmm. Hundreds of thousands of people under sixty hospitalised. Most of those in ICU under 60. The greatest pressure on the NHS in recent history by far.
And some people still, after all this time, want to believe SO HARD that it's not really an issue or we could just have ignored it that they manage to delude themselves so consistently that IT'S ONLY REALLY OLD PEOPLE WHO WERE ABOUT TO DIE ANYWAY, HONEST. And VIRUSES CAN'T BE STOPPED, VIRUS GOING TO VIRUS!
(As Florence Nightingale screams silently from her grave in despair at you)
It really is a desperately closed mind. The decision was made: lockdowns must be wrong. The disease mustn't be a real problem. We must have been able to continue as we were.
And all evidence against that must be discounted. Anything that could possibly look to be in its favour must be credulously swallowed (the sheer consistent gullibility and credulousness of the self-proclaimed "sceptics" over at Toby's Lockdown Sceptics site is truly astonishing: anything must be believed if it supports their worldview, no matter how incoherent, inconsistent, implausible, or downright impossible it may be; any evidence against must be picked at and discounted no matter what).
To be honest, it's downright boring. Your lines were discredited thoroughly six to nine months ago, and you persist in reeling them out again and again. I suppose at least we're now spared the invocation of Sunetra Gupta, or Michael Yeadon, or the False Positives, but you're going back to the "average age" stuff yet again. And the "Politicians love the power of lockdown and will keep it going despite it costing billions per week and stopping them from doing anything fun themselves and scientists love locking people down because they're authoritarian and weird" thing. I had thought you'd moved on from that, but you've reverted again. I'm disappointed.
Anyone think he'll shut up when the kids go back to school if lockdown continues? Or is the "Will nobody think of the children?" just an excuse to keep whining about lockdown.
Many on here are, I guess of your mind Andy. They hope I will simply go away. They hope the people of Britain will forget what has been committed in their name. But here's the thing.
We aren't going away, and we aren't going to forget. I believe the people who imposed lockdown, a first second and third time are not fit to lead us, those on the SAGE committee who advised them are in many cases not fit to advise, and I am not going to stop until both are depowered peacefully and democratically.
Maybe that will never be. But then, the conventional wisdom says we would never brexit. I may well be banned from this site one day because I annoy so many on here.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
14.6m is 15m when rounded. The table in the official vaccine strategy says ~15m but the numbers add up to 14.6. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with the rounding of numbers what the real target it. It's also clear to anyone with a grasp of reality how unimportant this distinction is given both will be easily hit, likely on the same day.
It was a stretch target, I believe. To get within 10% of it would have been a decent result. As it is I think we can be glad, and impressed.
Yep, if they had said the target was end of Feb everyone would have thought it was impressive - they stretched themselves and still hit.
More interesting question is why their new publically announced targets are massively unstretching - are they getting cocky, or is there bad news coming?
Second doses will be underway in earnest.
My wife's booked in for her second dose later this month. There will be millions of second doses over March and April.
Amazed there isn't more comment on Scotland vaccinating over 100% of it's older care home residents in long term care.
30,027
Congratulations on the mathematically inevitable achievement.
I hope that puts to rest any notions that the 99.6% of really being 30k figure was ever at all credible. Though oddly now that >60k per day are being done we're not hearing about 100.1% being claimed anymore.
I honestly don't understand the confusion. There's never been any deception that the 30k was a nearest 1000 rounding. The technical notes for the Scottish vaccination plan makes it clear that there is no accurate "to the resident" figure for all the reasons that you've previously stated and they rounded to the nearest 1000.
Canada has been dragged into the EU's vaccine chaos with Pfizer and Moderna both cutting back deliveries from Europe while Brussels goes to war on jab exports to rescue its own stumbling vaccine roll-out.
With no home-grown vaccines in Canada and no jabs being shipped from the United States, the country is reliant on factories in Europe to supply the doses.
But Moderna's next shipment will be one-third smaller than expected - with only 168,000 jabs arriving instead of 250,000 - while Pfizer deliveries have seen a month-long slowdown because of delays at a manufacturing plant in Belgium.
A Canadian government source told the Toronto Star that the EU's new checks had hampered the delivery of Moderna supplies to countries such as Canada.
Amazed there isn't more comment on Scotland vaccinating over 100% of it's older care home residents in long term care.
30,027
Congratulations on the mathematically inevitable achievement.
I hope that puts to rest any notions that the 99.6% of really being 30k figure was ever at all credible. Though oddly now that >60k per day are being done we're not hearing about 100.1% being claimed anymore.
I honestly don't understand the confusion. There's never been any deception that the 30k was a nearest 1000 rounding. The technical notes for the Scottish vaccination plan makes it clear that there is no accurate "to the resident" figure for all the reasons that you've previously stated and they rounded to the nearest 1000.
Indeed but some were taking the 99.6% figure seriously while others were saying it was ridiculous and clearly incorrect. It didn't pass the sniff test.
Its fine using round figures as ballparks but once people start putting third degrees of significance and claiming its accurate it all becomes silly. Even saying 99% would have come across as less silly than 99.6%
What I like is when the various Scottish Health Boards gave figures for how many healthcare workers there would be to vaccinate they under-estimated by almost 40,000 staff (21% underestimate!).
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
14.6m is 15m when rounded. The table in the official vaccine strategy says ~15m but the numbers add up to 14.6. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with the rounding of numbers what the real target it. It's also clear to anyone with a grasp of reality how unimportant this distinction is given both will be easily hit, likely on the same day.
It was a stretch target, I believe. To get within 10% of it would have been a decent result. As it is I think we can be glad, and impressed.
Yep, if they had said the target was end of Feb everyone would have thought it was impressive - they stretched themselves and still hit.
More interesting question is why their new publically announced targets are massively unstretching - are they getting cocky, or is there bad news coming?
Second doses will be underway in earnest.
My wife's booked in for her second dose later this month. There will be millions of second doses over March and April.
Aptil sure, but if they're following their own dosing policy there shouldn't be more than 0.7m due before the last week of March, and on current trends they should therefore be able to complete all 1-9 on first doses by then. Either they are not following the 12 week policy, or they expect to be losing supply rather than ramping up.
Very odd given Oxford only delivered 3m doses in January so should be primed for a speed up very soon if their 100m are arriving even half as quick as claimed.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
That is not where the fallacy is.
So you admit the boomer generation had it the best ever. Good. The choice, given the nature of covid, was to at least keep our children in school so maybe some more very sick boomers died. Or maybe didn't, who knows.
Epic point missing.
No point spending time on this, but you do realise there is nothing uniquely age-specific about covid? It kills the same age groups in the same proportions as - for starters - flu, cancer, heart disease and pneumonia. What do you think the knock-on effects on the younger-than-boomers would be if you let the disease run unchecked? You only take the "boomers" out of the picture if you not only take no steps to prevent them getting the disease but also deny them hospital care when they get it. Is that what you are proposing?
Please do not pretend that the rationing of healthcare did not exist before covid, when it manifestly did and always has done. The idea that doctors were suddenly faced with difficult decisions after decades of plenty is completely false.
I accept healthcare would have been rationed more thinly than it even was at the height of covid, and perhaps some more people (of an average age of 80) might have died.
But out children would have stayed in school. Its not we would have sent a a quarter of a million 20-year olds over the top at the Somme.
Anyone think he'll shut up when the kids go back to school if lockdown continues? Or is the "Will nobody think of the children?" just an excuse to keep whining about lockdown.
It is absolutely justified for people, whether they be Mark Harper, David Blunkett, Julia Hartley-Brewer, god help us, or our very own @contrarian, to question and continue to question the reasons for lockdown.
The government has taken away a significant amount of our freedom and gets to determine who we are and are not allowed to have sex with and where.
That to my mind, and whatever the justification, does not just get a nod through. It may be, and as we have seen with the case numbers, and the trolleys in corridors of national health services is very very probably is, absolutely justified. But not automatically because some scientists say so.
Wonderful as PB is, full as it is of questioning, thoughtful, intellectually demanding folk, the complete and whole falling in behind the government on this, while seeking to ostracise those who dissent, I find strange, perhaps disturbing.
I am very much with you and @contrarian on this one. It seems with Covid what everyone has focused on is the "gross" cost of Covid i.e. what is the impact of Covid on people's health. What they should be focusing on is the "net" cost i.e. what is the impact of Covid offset by the impacts that Government restrictions are having on mental health, delayed treatments, impact on childrens' education and so forth. For example, we don't get to see the suicide rates until nine months out plus but in countries such as Japan, which reports its data on a monthly basis, we know that the Covid waves have been associated with increased suicides (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-covid-dst-intl-hnk/index.html). If you want a look at the impact of the crisis on childrens' mental health, look at what is happening around Las Vegas (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/student-suicides-nevada-coronavirus.html)
My fear is that the net cost of this crisis is going to be far, far more significant and that we are not asking enough questions as we should because anyone who questions the official line is deemed to be some sort of flat-earther.
Canada seems to have got particularly unlucky in the vaccine rollout given it's ordered absolubtely shitloads. Squeezed from all angles by other larger countries I think.
Scottish government warning that vaccinations will slow down due to reduced supplies, which implies that England was already supply-limited while Scotland was working through its stockpile.
I speculated that in the last week as it would fit with the evidence.
Although I think the anecdotes from yesterday are true that England has been hunting around trying to get the 70+ done. There was a post on our village FB page from the local surgery asking anyone over 70 who has not been done to let them know as they had appointments for Saturday. I imagine they were reserving slots which is likely to cause a slowdown if not filled. One would hope with the target out the way on Monday that they crack on with everyone over 60 ASAP.
Point of order: over 65s, then they have to stop to do the clinically not-quite-so-vulnerable. However, the good news is that, assuming the current rate of progress is maintained, the state jab machine should be through all of those in three weeks, or perhaps a bit less given that we know that cohorts 5 & 6 have already started being seen in some areas.
The only thing that makes me think they might slow down a little is the fact that, again running at the current rate, cohort 9 should be cleared through their first jabs by about the end of March, but the Government is talking about the start of May. Given that they were almost spot on with the first target, I do wonder now if they're genuinely expecting supply issues to cause a bit of a slowdown over the next few weeks; Sturgeon and Drakeford have both suggested as much already.
Whilst the Government can reasonably expect to have far higher deliveries, they are maybe only counting certified, delivered vaccine in vials they KNOW will be available to go into arms.
Opening up from lockdown will be based on actuals, but until those reasonably expected supplies actually land with vaccination centres/GPs surgeries, nothing is being taken for granted. They just cannot disappoint on this. The next release from lockdown HAS to be the last.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
This is a very lucid and compellingly constructed argument that could have easily been a header but I still think ego wins. There is simply nothing more to him than ego.
It is a very well argued and compelling argument from @Bournville. I think I am going to put some money on Johnson going in 2021.
Join the club - I am on him to leave any time until September this year but I think @Dura has it also - ego. He simply will not step down while he is in power. As indeed has no other PM done.
Who's to say that ego doesn't mitigate in favour of retirement?
I think it's fair to assume that the man isn't completely stupid. As @Bournville wrote, there's a ton of really unpopular shit to be shovelled once this is all over, with the prospect of losing an election (the Tories will have been in power for 14 years by 2024) and/or losing Scotland thrown into the mix on top of that. He knows all of this. There must be some appeal to retiring undefeated?
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
14.6m is 15m when rounded. The table in the official vaccine strategy says ~15m but the numbers add up to 14.6. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with the rounding of numbers what the real target it. It's also clear to anyone with a grasp of reality how unimportant this distinction is given both will be easily hit, likely on the same day.
It was a stretch target, I believe. To get within 10% of it would have been a decent result. As it is I think we can be glad, and impressed.
Yep, if they had said the target was end of Feb everyone would have thought it was impressive - they stretched themselves and still hit.
More interesting question is why their new publically announced targets are massively unstretching - are they getting cocky, or is there bad news coming?
Second doses will be underway in earnest.
My wife's booked in for her second dose later this month. There will be millions of second doses over March and April.
Aptil sure, but if they're following their own dosing policy there shouldn't be more than 0.7m due before the last week of March, and on current trends they should therefore be able to complete all 1-9 on first doses by then. Either they are not following the 12 week policy, or they expect to be losing supply rather than ramping up.
Very odd given Oxford only delivered 3m doses in January so should be primed for a speed up very soon if their 100m are arriving even half as quick as claimed.
12 weeks is a limit not a target. My wife's second jab is 10 weeks after her first for what its worth, not sure how others will be scheduled.
Canada seems to have got particularly unlucky in the vaccine rollout given it's ordered absolubtely shitloads. Squeezed from all angles by other larger countries I think.
You make your own luck. I can think of a plucky little country on the doorstep of a superpower (lol) who managed to make it happen.
I find something terribly depressing about people over egging themselves as brave, bold heroes. Principled skepticism and consideration of wider factors, even if considered wrong, is one thing (a la the contrarian approach), but repeatedly acting like they are visionary resistance leaders like her is just sad. She so wants adulation for it.
Close to half a million including NI then. RRR should come tumbling down today.
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
Given the real target is 14.6m, we'll probably basically hit it by 10am tomorrow, even if it isn;t reported as such until Sunday.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
Once again, the real target is NOT 14.6 million. It is 15 million.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
14.6m is 15m when rounded. The table in the official vaccine strategy says ~15m but the numbers add up to 14.6. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with the rounding of numbers what the real target it. It's also clear to anyone with a grasp of reality how unimportant this distinction is given both will be easily hit, likely on the same day.
It was a stretch target, I believe. To get within 10% of it would have been a decent result. As it is I think we can be glad, and impressed.
Yep, if they had said the target was end of Feb everyone would have thought it was impressive - they stretched themselves and still hit.
More interesting question is why their new publically announced targets are massively unstretching - are they getting cocky, or is there bad news coming?
Second doses will be underway in earnest.
My wife's booked in for her second dose later this month. There will be millions of second doses over March and April.
Aptil sure, but if they're following their own dosing policy there shouldn't be more than 0.7m due before the last week of March, and on current trends they should therefore be able to complete all 1-9 on first doses by then. Either they are not following the 12 week policy, or they expect to be losing supply rather than ramping up.
Very odd given Oxford only delivered 3m doses in January so should be primed for a speed up very soon if their 100m are arriving even half as quick as claimed.
12 weeks is a limit not a target. My wife's second jab is 10 weeks after her first for what its worth, not sure how others will be scheduled.
Indeed, and I know others with similar time gaps. Does seem a little cautious at least for Oxford 2nd doses given what we know of the impact of lag on efficacy - perhaps 12 weeks should be a target and not a limit for them.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Why are you like this contrarian?
The published evidence is pretty clear - after the first jab it takes around two weeks before you see signs of immunity showing up in the data, and after three weeks it’s overwhelmingly obvious. If I was in your Mum’s position Andy_JS I’d personally give it another week to be sure, but your Dad should be pretty safe.
If we got variants spreading widely that these vaccines offered no protection at all against, then that calculus might change in the future.
I am like this because I believe I have sacrificed quite enough, in terms of my liberty, my mental well being and in the near future probably quite large amounts of my hard earned cash. And for what?
Even before the pandemic struck, the most long lived and most prosperous generation in history.
Young people have sacrificed far, far more than enough. Far more. As will soon be very apparent.
Irish joke: Paddy and Liam are trying to get a horse under a bridge, but the bridge is just too low. Liam: We could take his shoes off. Paddy: But it's not his feet that don't fit, it's his ears.
Almost impossible to believe that after a year of this you still don't see the fallacy in this most long lived and most prosperous generation in history stuff.
Come forward and name a generation that has fared better. You can't, because there isn't.
That is not where the fallacy is.
So you admit the boomer generation had it the best ever. Good. The choice, given the nature of covid, was to at least keep our children in school so maybe some more very sick boomers died. Or maybe didn't, who knows.
Epic point missing.
No point spending time on this, but you do realise there is nothing uniquely age-specific about covid? It kills the same age groups in the same proportions as - for starters - flu, cancer, heart disease and pneumonia. What do you think the knock-on effects on the younger-than-boomers would be if you let the disease run unchecked? You only take the "boomers" out of the picture if you not only take no steps to prevent them getting the disease but also deny them hospital care when they get it. Is that what you are proposing?
Please do not pretend that the rationing of healthcare did not exist before covid, when it manifestly did and always has done. The idea that doctors were suddenly faced with difficult decisions after decades of plenty is completely false.
I accept healthcare would have been rationed more thinly than it even was at the height of covid, and perhaps some more people (of an average age of 80) might have died.
But out children would have stayed in school. Its not we would have sent a a quarter of a million 20-year olds over the top at the Somme.
Anyone think he'll shut up when the kids go back to school if lockdown continues? Or is the "Will nobody think of the children?" just an excuse to keep whining about lockdown.
It is absolutely justified for people, whether they be Mark Harper, David Blunkett, Julia Hartley-Brewer, god help us, or our very own @contrarian, to question and continue to question the reasons for lockdown.
The government has taken away a significant amount of our freedom and gets to determine who we are and are not allowed to have sex with and where.
That to my mind, and whatever the justification, does not just get a nod through. It may be, and as we have seen with the case numbers, and the trolleys in corridors of national health services is very very probably is, absolutely justified. But not automatically because some scientists say so.
Wonderful as PB is, full as it is of questioning, thoughtful, intellectually demanding folk, the complete and whole falling in behind the government on this, while seeking to ostracise those who dissent, I find strange, perhaps disturbing.
I am very much with you and @contrarian on this one. It seems with Covid what everyone has focused on is the "gross" cost of Covid i.e. what is the impact of Covid on people's health. What they should be focusing on is the "net" cost i.e. what is the impact of Covid offset by the impacts that Government restrictions are having on mental health, delayed treatments, impact on childrens' education and so forth. For example, we don't get to see the suicide rates until nine months out plus but in countries such as Japan, which reports its data on a monthly basis, we know that the Covid waves have been associated with increased suicides (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-covid-dst-intl-hnk/index.html). If you want a look at the impact of the crisis on childrens' mental health, look at what is happening around Las Vegas (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/student-suicides-nevada-coronavirus.html)
My fear is that the net cost of this crisis is going to be far, far more significant and that we are not asking enough questions as we should because anyone who questions the official line is deemed to be some sort of flat-earther.
Yes, and I`ve felt this from way back, that the pandemic is far more of a disaster than people think. And a lot of those people have safe jobs, live in large houses with gardens, and actually don`t mind being dog-kenneled that much.
At the end of the day there doesn't seem that big a disparity across the various nations of the UK. Some a little faster here, then a little slower, but it's pretty close overall.
OK Billy Bunters, 2nd Test starts tomorrow. We cleaned up last time and we can do the same again.
The wicket will be if anything drier and more baked than the adjacent pitch which yielded fourty wickets in a session and a half short of five days in the first Test. There is no rain forecast in an area where weather forecasting is a little easier than it is in this country. There is no way this match will result in a draw.
The toss will be vital again. The odds should be heavily in favor of whoever bats first. Betfair odds are: India 1.66 England 4.1 Draw 6.4 The draw is a gift but if you want to back England you will be getting terrific odds on the toss of a coin. India's odds can only be explained by 'heart ruling head' amongst Asian punters. They lost the first Test by 227 ffs and it was no fluke. England have made changes but I don't think the side is any the weaker for it. They may even be a shade stronger.
Starts 4am on Channel 4. Set your alarm and try not to miss the toss.
Cricinfo, which is pretty good on these things, reckons the pitch will take spin from day one. It will be a result pitch, That's perfectly legitimate and understandable, but if India lose the toss again I expect them to lose the match again.
Johnson won't be Prime Minister by the next election.
Firstly, there are several factors pushing him to go. He's clearly not in good health; not only is he suffering from the long term impact of Covid-19 and ventilation, the physical and mental strain of being a world leader is pretty well documented. He has clear financial problems; not only has he had to give up his well-compensated role as a Telegraph columnist, he's got several children to support, including a newborn. He has clear personal problems; not only does he currently have a strained relationship with the mother of his newborn, he's got family members messing around and causing problems every other week, requiring his intervention. Once he stops being PM, he can resolve some or all of these problems. He can take some time to recuperate, he can go back to low-effort, high-pay jobs, he can spend more time trying to rebuild his relationship with Carrie, and no one really cares what the relatives of ex-PMs get up to.
For all his faults, Johnson also isn't stupid. He's acutely aware of history and how political careers tend to end in failure. The obvious comparison is with Churchill; after his role in winning WW2, Churchill was seen as a national hero, but his insistence on seeking a peacetime term, with no real ideas on what to do with it, was a mistake. I think Johnson won't want to repeat that mistake.
If he resigns in the summer, after the UK becomes one of the first major nations to vaccinate their adult populations and return to semi-normality, I think Johnson knows he goes down in history as an iconic Prime Minister. He's remembered as the man who successfully campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, negotiated our exit, led the UK through the worst global pandemic in modern times, and had his 'Victory over Covid' moment.
If he stays on, then he has to deal with the hangover of all this - the long, unpleasant years of spending cuts to pay for the Covid spending spree, boring negotiations with the EU over phytosanitary rules, and all his personal problems becoming more and more burdensome.
Every factor other than pure ego and a desire to cling on to the top job is pushing him to go. It's entirely possible that ego will win out, but my money is on him going before the end of the year.
This is a very lucid and compellingly constructed argument that could have easily been a header but I still think ego wins. There is simply nothing more to him than ego.
It is a very well argued and compelling argument from @Bournville. I think I am going to put some money on Johnson going in 2021.
Join the club - I am on him to leave any time until September this year but I think @Dura has it also - ego. He simply will not step down while he is in power. As indeed has no other PM done.
Who's to say that ego doesn't mitigate in favour of retirement?
I think it's fair to assume that the man isn't completely stupid. As @Bournville wrote, there's a ton of really unpopular shit to be shovelled once this is all over, with the prospect of losing an election (the Tories will have been in power for 14 years by 2024) and/or losing Scotland thrown into the mix on top of that. He knows all of this. There must be some appeal to retiring undefeated?
Not so sure. He will believe that having charmed the country once he can do it again. And again.
And who's to say he's wrong. But yes I certainly hope he fucks off sooner rather than later not only for my bf account reasons but because he is a shite PM.
Comments
I didn't think draws in India were that common nowadays.
I know three inhaler users within my immediate family who have been shielding themselves. One had asthma attacks in childhood and has been very frightened by the chance of getting infected. Such people, and I’m sure it’s not uncommon amongst inhaler users, getting a jab early on in phase two, seems reasonable.
England down by less than 1K on last week for 1st doses. Another big number from Scotland.
Groups 1-9 both jabs done by sometime in May, second done in tandem (maybe) with other groups. That would fit the pragmatic strategy so far.
Much looser and more open from June.
One point worth a note is that we will get a summer, whereas EU will not - unfortunately. Based on the EU 70% by Sept vaccination target.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/12/england-make-four-changes-as-bess-and-anderson-rested-for-second-test-india-cricket
...While the pitch for the first Test had a red soil top that broke up over time, a report in the Indian Express suggests they will now move further along the square to a strip with black or clay soil, something that supposedly offers more bounce and carry....
- The government will quietly work to reduce the number of refuseniks
- Going forward, the consequences of COVID will begin to skew towards the less protected groups.
- Many furrowed brows about the problem of discrimination.
- A non-trivial number of avoidable funerals.
The only people getting any satisfaction out of a mere 48% of black over-80's getting vaccinated are sick-minded white supremacists. "Get the jab - and piss off a racist."
Funny to think that this time last month many people were talking about potentially doing 200k per week.
'Deep cleaning' premises in particular is an expensive waste of time if 90% of the risk is airborne infection.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-progressive-thinking
"Social media provides a similar example. Facebook has certainly been very good for Mark Zuckerberg’s bank balance. But the platform’s sheer size has caused it to seep into areas of public life where it was never supposed to be, and where it is not always welcome. As to the economic benefits of these new technologies, in The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the historian Robert Gordon searched the data for any signs that the information technology revolution has yielded any substantial economic benefits. He concluded that it has not." (£)
Information technology has not created economic benefits apparently.
https://twitter.com/Kevin_Maguire/status/1360212075059019777?s=20
Although I think the anecdotes from yesterday are true that England has been hunting around trying to get the 70+ done. There was a post on our village FB page from the local surgery asking anyone over 70 who has not been done to let them know as they had appointments for Saturday. I imagine they were reserving slots which is likely to cause a slowdown if not filled. One would hope with the target out the way on Monday that they crack on with everyone over 60 ASAP.
Of course the target is just to offer a dose to everyone in 1-4 and that target has clearly been met - anyone not already vaccinated or booked in simply didn't want / made no effort to get one.
But, they are made of sterner stuff north of the Tweed.
So I will be baking myself a batch of flapjacks tonight, but I have to make them last longer these days now that England are less often rolled over in three days.
There will now be little reason to doubt them when they give future roll-out targets. Which will be a wonderful novelty...
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/538573-haley-breaks-with-trump-we-shouldnt-have-followed-him
getting supplies
The private sector could quite quickly make life pretty unliveable for the anti-vaxxers and stop them free-riding on the rest of us. Some subtle nudge theory application by the government on this might be where we end up.
I can't, someone on the internet is wrong.
Although it is true that if you add up every cohort you reach 14.6 million, the NHS itself chose to use the 15 million number, thus that is the target.
That all said, it's all academic stuff reserved for pedanticbetting.com because it will surpass the 15 million anyway, possibly without needing the final counting day on Monday.
E-fit reveals public thinks lawyers are posh white men in crap ties
A team at the University of Law has made the most of lockdown by compiling an e-fit purporting to represent the British public's idea of a typical worker in the legal industry, and RollOnFriday is sorry to report that it's an estate agent.
Ulaw generated Frankenployee after surveying 2,000 members of the public. Their answers produced a diversity killer who is male, 35-44 year-old, clean-shaven, tattoo-free and unpierced.
Patrick Johnson, ULaw's Director of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, said the research "has highlighted a stark reality, which is that more needs to be done to give solicitors septum rings and ink up bazzas redefine what someone working in the legal industry can look like. It is no longer a profession solely for upper class white males, but in fact, accessible to all".
Legal regulators hope the new Solicitors Qualifying Exam and cheaper Bar courses will improve access to the profession in England and Wales, and hasten the demise of the privileged legal stereotype represented by the e-fit.
However, the survey results indicate that the public's conception of law is marginally less pale, male and posh than the e-fit suggests.
While 48% of people pictured those working in the legal industry as white, 12% pictured them as BAME and 38% pictured them as having any ethnicity. And although 25% pictured legal industry workers as male, 19% visualised them as female and 55% saw them as male or female. The public was more certain on class, with 48% or the respondents picturing someone in the legal industry to be upper middle class, and 8% picturing them as upper class.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/e-fit-reveals-public-thinks-lawyers-are-posh-white-men-crap-ties
The govenment set themselves a genuinely ambitious target and hit it. They're now setting themselves very low targets.
Hopefully that is because they know we have this licked and are reverting to playing to just run up the political score before this finishes, rather than they have some bad news in the vaccine pipeline.
The question is what comes after that, I think...
(Checks stats)
Oh, and only really old people die of cancer. Or heart disease. Or any other disease.
Aren't averages useful. They mean only people of that age die.
Or might die. I guess maybe it would have all magically gone away.
Hmm. Hundreds of thousands of people under sixty hospitalised.
Most of those in ICU under 60.
The greatest pressure on the NHS in recent history by far.
And some people still, after all this time, want to believe SO HARD that it's not really an issue or we could just have ignored it that they manage to delude themselves so consistently that IT'S ONLY REALLY OLD PEOPLE WHO WERE ABOUT TO DIE ANYWAY, HONEST. And VIRUSES CAN'T BE STOPPED, VIRUS GOING TO VIRUS!
(As Florence Nightingale screams silently from her grave in despair at you)
It really is a desperately closed mind. The decision was made: lockdowns must be wrong. The disease mustn't be a real problem. We must have been able to continue as we were.
And all evidence against that must be discounted. Anything that could possibly look to be in its favour must be credulously swallowed (the sheer consistent gullibility and credulousness of the self-proclaimed "sceptics" over at Toby's Lockdown Sceptics site is truly astonishing: anything must be believed if it supports their worldview, no matter how incoherent, inconsistent, implausible, or downright impossible it may be; any evidence against must be picked at and discounted no matter what).
To be honest, it's downright boring. Your lines were discredited thoroughly six to nine months ago, and you persist in reeling them out again and again. I suppose at least we're now spared the invocation of Sunetra Gupta, or Michael Yeadon, or the False Positives, but you're going back to the "average age" stuff yet again.
And the "Politicians love the power of lockdown and will keep it going despite it costing billions per week and stopping them from doing anything fun themselves and scientists love locking people down because they're authoritarian and weird" thing. I had thought you'd moved on from that, but you've reverted again. I'm disappointed.
Anyone think he'll shut up when the kids go back to school if lockdown continues? Or is the "Will nobody think of the children?" just an excuse to keep whining about lockdown.
Not just the ordering, but the whole supply chain from order to distribution has been incredibly well put together in this country. Not something you get to say very often.
We might have another pandemic, Brexit could turn out to be a success or a disaster mis-sold to the public.
I see more potential for conflicts around the world in which get dragged into.
China might test the resolve of the West by annexing Taiwan, or resolve their issues in Kashmir, which is just what the world needs, two or three nuclear armed powers slugging it out.
Then there's Hong Kong.
We also need to talk about Russia as well.
Historically speaking the 2024 will be when the Tories have been in continuous power for 14 years, that's the sort of time frame when governing parties start losing substantial seats.
Labour lost 48 seats net in 2005 and the Tories lost 40 seats net in 1992.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/magazine-nikki-haleys-choice/
...I asked Haley whether she had attempted to persuade the president that he was wrong—that the election wasn’t rigged, that he had lost legitimately.
“No,” she replied. “When he was talking about that, I didn’t address it.”
Since January 20, 2017, the Republican Party has become defined by its unwillingness to confront—and, in many cases, its willingness to enable—an out-of-control president. Here was Haley, someone with a reputation for speaking candidly to Trump, someone who had the courage as governor to remove the Confederate flag from her state capitol, admitting that she hadn’t bothered to challenge him—even in private—on a deception that threatened the stability of American life. Why not?
“I understand the president. I understand that genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged,” Haley told me. “This is not him making it up.”...
...“You have the president of the United States telling everyone that he was cheated, that the voting systems are corrupt, that we’re living in a banana republic where the deep state has rigged this election against him,” I told her. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“He believes it,” she smiled.
Haley clearly wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. Like so many Republicans, she had expected Trump would either eke out a second term, putting a date-certain on the end of his presidency, or lose so lopsidedly that his career would be toast. Instead, he split the difference, losing by less than one percentage point in each of three decisive states, a result that sent him spiraling into delirium. The resulting paralysis could be seen across the GOP, but Haley was a special case. She knew she could not afford to antagonize the president. But her rationalizations for his behavior were so strained that they called into question her own judgment. This was a test for Haley, an early opportunity to define herself on a question of great national urgency. And she was failing...
30,027
For one thing, governments use the blunt instruments of state available to them, whether the most appropriate tool or not. And this government now has at its disposal an extraordinary capacity for vaccine production, infectious disease testing and viral genome sequencing.
More interesting question is why their new publically announced targets are massively unstretching - are they getting cocky, or is there bad news coming?
The government has taken away a significant amount of our freedom and gets to determine who we are and are not allowed to have sex with and where.
That to my mind, and whatever the justification, does not just get a nod through. It may be, and as we have seen with the case numbers, and the trolleys in corridors of national health services very very probably is, absolutely justified. But not automatically because some scientists say so.
Wonderful as PB is, full as it is of questioning, thoughtful, intellectually demanding folk, the complete and whole falling in behind the government on this, while seeking to ostracise those who dissent, I find strange, perhaps disturbing.
The only thing that makes me think they might slow down a little is the fact that, again running at the current rate, cohort 9 should be cleared through their first jabs by about the end of March, but the Government is talking about the start of May. Given that they were almost spot on with the first target, I do wonder now if they're genuinely expecting supply issues to cause a bit of a slowdown over the next few weeks; Sturgeon and Drakeford have both suggested as much already.
I hope that puts to rest any notions that the 99.6% of really being 30k figure was ever at all credible. Though oddly now that >60k per day are being done we're not hearing about 100.1% being claimed anymore.
Apologies punters, especially any that read it the wrong way.
We aren't going away, and we aren't going to forget. I believe the people who imposed lockdown, a first second and third time are not fit to lead us, those on the SAGE committee who advised them are in many cases not fit to advise, and I am not going to stop until both are depowered peacefully and democratically.
Maybe that will never be. But then, the conventional wisdom says we would never brexit. I may well be banned from this site one day because I annoy so many on here.
But going way? no way.
My wife's booked in for her second dose later this month. There will be millions of second doses over March and April.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccinations-data---technical-note/
'All done and dusted, corporal?'
'Yes sah!
Some of the wrinklies was complaining that they'd already been done but we held 'em down and did 'em anyway, just to be sure.'
With no home-grown vaccines in Canada and no jabs being shipped from the United States, the country is reliant on factories in Europe to supply the doses.
But Moderna's next shipment will be one-third smaller than expected - with only 168,000 jabs arriving instead of 250,000 - while Pfizer deliveries have seen a month-long slowdown because of delays at a manufacturing plant in Belgium.
A Canadian government source told the Toronto Star that the EU's new checks had hampered the delivery of Moderna supplies to countries such as Canada.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9253473/Canada-faces-delays-vaccine-shipments-Europe.html
Its fine using round figures as ballparks but once people start putting third degrees of significance and claiming its accurate it all becomes silly. Even saying 99% would have come across as less silly than 99.6%
Who do they think they have been paying?
Very odd given Oxford only delivered 3m doses in January so should be primed for a speed up very soon if their 100m are arriving even half as quick as claimed.
My fear is that the net cost of this crisis is going to be far, far more significant and that we are not asking enough questions as we should because anyone who questions the official line is deemed to be some sort of flat-earther.
Squeezed from all angles by other larger countries I think.
Opening up from lockdown will be based on actuals, but until those reasonably expected supplies actually land with vaccination centres/GPs surgeries, nothing is being taken for granted. They just cannot disappoint on this. The next release from lockdown HAS to be the last.
Is my hope.
I think it's fair to assume that the man isn't completely stupid. As @Bournville wrote, there's a ton of really unpopular shit to be shovelled once this is all over, with the prospect of losing an election (the Tories will have been in power for 14 years by 2024) and/or losing Scotland thrown into the mix on top of that. He knows all of this. There must be some appeal to retiring undefeated?
But yep, does seem rather unfair.
And who's to say he's wrong. But yes I certainly hope he fucks off sooner rather than later not only for my bf account reasons but because he is a shite PM.