Macron may just have put a really nasty crack in the dam. The dam that protects from a National Ramblers President - "vote for anyone in the last round but the Fascist"
Excellent thread piece, Matt. Why you never done one before?
I agree with the main thrust of your argument. You shouldn't draw too many conclusions from the bare figures, especially as we don't know where it all ends yet. I do however think it is reasonable to pause over the current results and reflect that the UK's vaccination roll-out probably would almost certainly have gone less well had the country still been part of the EU.
This gives unreconstructed Europhiles like myself food for thought. My habit has been to mock Leavers over the absence of palpable benefits of leaving the EU. Now we appear to have a very tangible one.
Of course nobody could have foreseen this, but it would be dishonest of Remainers to deny these very real consequences. If it can be reasonably argued that they derive from the very nature of the EU, and therefore further benefits of leaving the EU are likely to accrue in due course, there will be a lot of humble pie to be eaten, not least on this site.
I might even have some myself.
That’s a fair argument, but it also need to incorporate the counter-factual of what the response might have been had the perpetually awkward and non communitaire UK remained part of the EU. I cannot see that we’d happily have acquiesced to the current EU scheme - and it’s quite conceivable we’d still have gone our own way.
We might even have persuaded the EU to have been more proactive.
I don't think that the EU scheme would have changed significantly. Ultimately the issue with it is that they were spending EU money and that means using it to invest in manufacturing is impossible without interminable arguments about which countries/companies receive the subsidies. It's why the EU took the approach it did, to avoid three day summits and one minute to midnight decisions as is usually the case with spending money.
Our whole approach would have been simply impossible within the confines of the EU and our scheme would have been pre-empted with the commission ruling that these deals are subject to state aid rules and not possible as they are reliant on huge subsidies for UK industry and it has given the UK a long term leg up on the rest of the EU for vaccine development and manufacturing for the next decade.
There is an exception to state aid rules in response to natural disasters. We could have ignored them if we so chose.
Doesn't the commission still need to give permission for this, I remember that Denmark and other EU countries were finding themselves up against the slowness of commission decision making early on for domestic economic support packages which had huge elements of state aid.
Excellent thread piece, Matt. Why you never done one before?
I agree with the main thrust of your argument. You shouldn't draw too many conclusions from the bare figures, especially as we don't know where it all ends yet. I do however think it is reasonable to pause over the current results and reflect that the UK's vaccination roll-out probably would almost certainly have gone less well had the country still been part of the EU.
This gives unreconstructed Europhiles like myself food for thought. My habit has been to mock Leavers over the absence of palpable benefits of leaving the EU. Now we appear to have a very tangible one.
Of course nobody could have foreseen this, but it would be dishonest of Remainers to deny these very real consequences. If it can be reasonably argued that they derive from the very nature of the EU, and therefore further benefits of leaving the EU are likely to accrue in due course, there will be a lot of humble pie to be eaten, not least on this site.
I might even have some myself.
That’s a fair argument, but it also need to incorporate the counter-factual of what the response might have been had the perpetually awkward and non communitaire UK remained part of the EU. I cannot see that we’d happily have acquiesced to the current EU scheme - and it’s quite conceivable we’d still have gone our own way.
We might even have persuaded the EU to have been more proactive.
I don't think that the EU scheme would have changed significantly. Ultimately the issue with it is that they were spending EU money and that means using it to invest in manufacturing is impossible without interminable arguments about which countries/companies receive the subsidies. It's why the EU took the approach it did, to avoid three day summits and one minute to midnight decisions as is usually the case with spending money.
Our whole approach would have been simply impossible within the confines of the EU and our scheme would have been pre-empted with the commission ruling that these deals are subject to state aid rules and not possible as they are reliant on huge subsidies for UK industry and it has given the UK a long term leg up on the rest of the EU for vaccine development and manufacturing for the next decade.
There is an exception to state aid rules in response to natural disasters. We could have ignored them if we so chose.
Citing the EU Commission as a "natural disaster" might not have won us many friends in Brussels....
15 million in 67 days. Average = c. 225,000 a day since 8th December.
That’s true but the run rate in the early date was very low, which skews the figures. Will be interesting to calculate the run rate since, say, Burn’s Night.
Around 425,000 per day.
Which means that if we sustain that average, we'll have completed Groups 1-6 (24.8 million total) by the 8th of March. And Groups 1-9 (31.8 million total) by the 25th of March. Which gives a week or so to start on the under 50s before second doses start being necessary (down to over 45s?) and even then, the rate of second doses starts off low as the first doses in early January were slow. We could probably do all over 40s by mid-to-late April.
Don't forget that by the time we need to do second doses in any significant volume we'll have deliveries of Moderna and Novavax arriving as well as AZ resolving some of theor manufacturing difficulties. In April our bottleneck will move from supply to distribution which I'd say is a very good problem to have.
Excellent thread piece, Matt. Why you never done one before?
I agree with the main thrust of your argument. You shouldn't draw too many conclusions from the bare figures, especially as we don't know where it all ends yet. I do however think it is reasonable to pause over the current results and reflect that the UK's vaccination roll-out probably would almost certainly have gone less well had the country still been part of the EU.
This gives unreconstructed Europhiles like myself food for thought. My habit has been to mock Leavers over the absence of palpable benefits of leaving the EU. Now we appear to have a very tangible one.
Of course nobody could have foreseen this, but it would be dishonest of Remainers to deny these very real consequences. If it can be reasonably argued that they derive from the very nature of the EU, and therefore further benefits of leaving the EU are likely to accrue in due course, there will be a lot of humble pie to be eaten, not least on this site.
I might even have some myself.
That’s a fair argument, but it also need to incorporate the counter-factual of what the response might have been had the perpetually awkward and non communitaire UK remained part of the EU. I cannot see that we’d happily have acquiesced to the current EU scheme - and it’s quite conceivable we’d still have gone our own way.
We might even have persuaded the EU to have been more proactive.
I agree with all of this. The takeaway for me, as I said yesterday, is that the EU is fantastic at running an extremely effective free trade area. It’s trying to be a federal government in waiting though and is pants at that. It was less the vaccine cock up, any individual government could screw that up, as the Hungary situation. Orban is a dictator, Hungary is at best a semi-democracy, and the EU can/will do nothing while Poland is still there to veto any Art 7 proceedings. And visa versa. So it is an extremely less effective guarantor of democratic values on the Continent than I believed it to have been.
I only present it as a possible counter argument; none of the counterfactuals are certain.
What’s certain is that the EU would be significantly different, had we remained a member. Just how different is unknowable.
I would still vote to rejoin, although EFTA was and remains my preferred option, but my faith in the project has been massively shaken. My point re Poland and Hungary is that the structure of the institution means we would have made no difference. We would have gone our own way on vaccines I am sure if Boris were PM, probably if May were, less sure about Cameron, Brown and Blair.
There's so much of this virus that has nuanced elements.
On the one hand, seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 seems pretty limited at best, with the outbreaks north and south of the equator and during spring, summer, autumn, and winter being largely based on mobility data (official and de facto restrictions/lockdowns) rather than the season - but on the other hand, one would expect some benefit to weather that encourages people being outside and/or with windows open. It could be wishful thinking, of course, but I'd be a bit surprised if there was none.
Even if it's not very visible when R0 is high, we would expect the benefits to be considerably stronger when vaccines push transmission down such that the R without restrictions would be a lot lower.
On the cross-reactive coronaviruses - after some excitement in autumn when activity was seen (albeit the scientists involved strongly warned that inhibition of transmission and effective boosts to herd immunity were so unlikely as to be implausible), further study has shown no real discernable benefit. T-cells get a bit excited, but then don't actually do anything useful - they have low avidity for the virus (there's some weak evidence that it can make things worse - almost as if they assume they've recognised it, decided it's not a big deal, and buggered off again). Still, it would just have been a bonus if it had come off, and now we have something (vaccines) that DOES give real immunity.
Herd immunity-wise - they've found that antibody levels decline slower than expected, which is good for avoidance of re-infection or even transmission of the virus by the infected-and-recovered; bad for assumptions of higher levels of infection-and-recovery.
But while the levels of herd immunity will be lower than we'd have hoped from infection, restrictions act to multiply the effect of whatever herd immunity there is. If there's 25% immunity, that means R is pushed down to three quarters of what it would be without it. So restrictions that would otherwise push R down to 1.2 (September growth levels) would actually put it down to 0.9 (comfortably declining). I wouldn't be surprised if this was what had made the difference with controlling the B.1.1.7 variant (about four-thirds more infections, coupled with about 25% immunity leads to a wash - restrictions that would have controlled the original variant can now control the new one)
But this falls into the same trap as the original COVID actuaries report which just assumed that the vaccine programme stops at 25% of the population, in reality around 1% of the adult population are being added to the "newly immunised" everyday further decreasing the potential reservoir of non-immune hosts that can end up on hospital.
Tbh, it doesn't matter if the R hits 4 or 5 in the summer as long as it doesn't result in hospitalisations/death so I don't think having a high infection rate should be an impediment to reopening the economy fully.
This needs saying more often. We need to give Zero Fucks if some people contract mild covid. This is why the mad Zero Covidians should be ignored.
Has anyone advocated post vaccination zero Covid?
Ultimately even if people are getting Covid, if the hospital's aren't filling up let alone the morgues then nobody will care besides cranks.
I think recent lockdowns in Aus and NZ will dent the Zero Coviders. With everything they have in place they cannot prevent outbreaks. Vaccination is the only game in town if you want to avoid achieving population level immunity via more lethal methods.
The Auz/NZ lockdowns are plasters. They're like jamming your fingers into a hole in a ship to stop water coming in - better than the alternative but not a fix.
An actual fix is needed. That's the vaccines. Their plaster buys time for the vaccines to arrive, the vaccines end the problem.
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has ordered the country's biggest city Auckland to go into lockdown after the discovery of three new local cases of Covid-19.
The measures will last three days and require residents to stay at home.
Ms Ardern said the country was going "hard and early" after the cases were identified.
Great achievement, but can we get it up to a million jabs a day with younger people?
Once we start vaccinating the young, fit and healthy, we can have them queue up outside. So I see no reason why 1 million / day should be beyond us. Plenty of liquid on its way!
Drive thrus.....especially with one shot vaccine. Get jabbed as you roll through for your Starbucks or McDonalds.
Fair play. I keep forgetting that the J&J jab is one shot.
Once NI has vaccinated its entire population, I'd like to see their clinics stay open offering jabs to anyone who turns up. The one-shot J&J would be perfect for that. No need for any official problems with the RoI/EU - just people going where they can get what they want/need. Be interesting to see what the figures continued to be after they hit 100% of NI's own population.
15 million in 67 days. Average = c. 225,000 a day since 8th December.
That’s true but the run rate in the early date was very low, which skews the figures. Will be interesting to calculate the run rate since, say, Burn’s Night.
Around 425,000 per day.
Which means that if we sustain that average, we'll have completed Groups 1-6 (24.8 million total) by the 8th of March. And Groups 1-9 (31.8 million total) by the 25th of March. Which gives a week or so to start on the under 50s before second doses start being necessary (down to over 45s?) and even then, the rate of second doses starts off low as the first doses in early January were slow. We could probably do all over 40s by mid-to-late April.
Don't forget that by the time we need to do second doses in any significant volume we'll have deliveries of Moderna and Novavax arriving as well as AZ resolving some of theor manufacturing difficulties. In April our bottleneck will move from supply to distribution which I'd say is a very good problem to have.
We really should be targeting, as a new stretch target "All adults by end of April" I don't know if data will be in by then for the trials in children, but it would be good to get "all over-6" done by midsummer, if possible.
Deliveroo are, somewhat surprisingly, in a rather bad way.
Their systems were chaotic and the surge in business over the lockdown didn't actually do them much good. In addition, their poor behaviour towards delivery people meant that tons of them got better gigs elsewhere.... no shortage of jobs in delivery these days.
@MattW Well done for the header. There's nothing to be had though in the competition for fewer deaths.
The EU has done what the EU has done. As has the UK. They've done their best and they should be roundly congratulated on that. All of them. Even Gavin Williamson.
So, not a butcher's bill, but more a recognition that many have died, and a huge thank-you to those that have helped us battle through it.
Amazing that an entity with a population of 440m has a total of Covid deaths higher than a state with a population of 68m, took me a while to get my head round that.
Amazing that an entity of 440m people has spent barely a seventh of the the one with 68m people on securing the necessary supplies to vaccinate its population so quickly. And less on supporting Covax too.
I'm pretty sure it's one seventh on a per capita basis. Ie we've spent about the same in absolute terms, but obviously we have a much smaller population.
Of course, this comes with the caveat that it would be the highest achievers that would want to improve their grades.
But at the same time, the overall pass rate was lower than in the summer. Which suggests that it wasn’t just high flyers sitting the exams.
Which leads to one conclusion.
I have been right all along and the new GCSEs are completely meaningless bullshit.
Question from someone who has had nothing whatever to do with schools since he finished 6th form in 1994: is there any point at all to GCSEs now that education is compulsory to age 18? Would it not be easier simply to have recognised basic skills qualifications in Maths and English (something limited and practical, which most kids could pass at 14 never mind 16,) and leave assessment of everything else until A-level?
Amazing that an entity with a population of 440m has a total of Covid deaths higher than a state with a population of 68m, took me a while to get my head round that.
Amazing that an entity of 440m people has spent barely a seventh of the the one with 68m people on securing the necessary supplies to vaccinate its population so quickly. And less on supporting Covax too.
I'm pretty sure it's one seventh on a per capita basis. Ie we've spent about the same in absolute terms, but obviously we have a much smaller population.
It is. The amounts invested upfront in vaccine development are roughly the same for the UK and the EU. Obviously purchasing the actual vaccinations will be broadly pro-rata to population, with any variation being down to supplier pricing.
Of course, this comes with the caveat that it would be the highest achievers that would want to improve their grades.
But at the same time, the overall pass rate was lower than in the summer. Which suggests that it wasn’t just high flyers sitting the exams.
Which leads to one conclusion.
I have been right all along and the new GCSEs are completely meaningless bullshit.
Question from someone who has had nothing whatever to do with schools since he finished 6th form in 1994: is there any point at all to GCSEs now that education is compulsory to age 18? Would it not be easier simply to have recognised basic skills qualifications in Maths and English (something limited and practical, which most kids could pass at 14 never mind 16,) and leave assessment of everything else until A-level?
If you had asked me a year ago I would probably have said no, and that we needed qualifications at 16 (just not the current shambolic ones).
I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I was wrong, although given the sheer narrowness of A-levels I don’t think they would work as qualifications on their own.
There's so much of this virus that has nuanced elements.
On the one hand, seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 seems pretty limited at best, with the outbreaks north and south of the equator and during spring, summer, autumn, and winter being largely based on mobility data (official and de facto restrictions/lockdowns) rather than the season - but on the other hand, one would expect some benefit to weather that encourages people being outside and/or with windows open. It could be wishful thinking, of course, but I'd be a bit surprised if there was none.
Even if it's not very visible when R0 is high, we would expect the benefits to be considerably stronger when vaccines push transmission down such that the R without restrictions would be a lot lower.
On the cross-reactive coronaviruses - after some excitement in autumn when activity was seen (albeit the scientists involved strongly warned that inhibition of transmission and effective boosts to herd immunity were so unlikely as to be implausible), further study has shown no real discernable benefit. T-cells get a bit excited, but then don't actually do anything useful - they have low avidity for the virus (there's some weak evidence that it can make things worse - almost as if they assume they've recognised it, decided it's not a big deal, and buggered off again). Still, it would just have been a bonus if it had come off, and now we have something (vaccines) that DOES give real immunity.
Herd immunity-wise - they've found that antibody levels decline slower than expected, which is good for avoidance of re-infection or even transmission of the virus by the infected-and-recovered; bad for assumptions of higher levels of infection-and-recovery.
But while the levels of herd immunity will be lower than we'd have hoped from infection, restrictions act to multiply the effect of whatever herd immunity there is. If there's 25% immunity, that means R is pushed down to three quarters of what it would be without it. So restrictions that would otherwise push R down to 1.2 (September growth levels) would actually put it down to 0.9 (comfortably declining). I wouldn't be surprised if this was what had made the difference with controlling the B.1.1.7 variant (about four-thirds more infections, coupled with about 25% immunity leads to a wash - restrictions that would have controlled the original variant can now control the new one)
Yes, I have come to much the same conclusions. The big question is to what extent vaccination will suppress transmission and hence R: this will be fairly clear with hindsight, but very difficult to determine over the next few months. I don't expect it to become clear until we have vaccinated most people already. I will be highly suspicious of any claim to know this with any accuracy before then, just as I am suspicious of anyone currently claiming to see a clear vaccination effect in the UK data: it's still a bit too early to expect to see that through the noise. Furthermore, one can easily imagine how a false signal might be detected.
(There's also a question about whether prior infection truly gives neutralizing immunity, as opposed to reducing subsequent infection to asymptomatic, but it's not a major concern for now.)
Seasonality is a strange thing. Contrary to what you hear in the news, not all viruses are at their busiest in the winter. Although found all year round, rhinovirus is (from memory) more frequent in autumn and spring (slightly less frequent in winter, much less in summer). I believe adenovirus peaks in late winter and spring; enterovirus in the summer. One can form hypotheses for the causes, but not everything can be driven by humans staying indoors in the winter. I think it will remain to be seen what the COVID season settles into.
15 million in 67 days. Average = c. 225,000 a day since 8th December.
That’s true but the run rate in the early date was very low, which skews the figures. Will be interesting to calculate the run rate since, say, Burn’s Night.
Around 425,000 per day.
Which means that if we sustain that average, we'll have completed Groups 1-6 (24.8 million total) by the 8th of March. And Groups 1-9 (31.8 million total) by the 25th of March. Which gives a week or so to start on the under 50s before second doses start being necessary (down to over 45s?) and even then, the rate of second doses starts off low as the first doses in early January were slow. We could probably do all over 40s by mid-to-late April.
Don't forget that by the time we need to do second doses in any significant volume we'll have deliveries of Moderna and Novavax arriving as well as AZ resolving some of theor manufacturing difficulties. In April our bottleneck will move from supply to distribution which I'd say is a very good problem to have.
We really should be targeting, as a new stretch target "All adults by end of April" I don't know if data will be in by then for the trials in children, but it would be good to get "all over-6" done by midsummer, if possible.
All adults by end of April would imply a mean of about 500k first doses per day, every day between now and then - and very large numbers of second doses must also be due from around the back end of March onwards. I know that the project has gone very well so far but might that not be just a tad unrealistic?
Great achievement, but can we get it up to a million jabs a day with younger people?
Once we start vaccinating the young, fit and healthy, we can have them queue up outside. So I see no reason why 1 million / day should be beyond us. Plenty of liquid on its way!
Drive thrus.....especially with one shot vaccine. Get jabbed as you roll through for your Starbucks or McDonalds.
Fair play. I keep forgetting that the J&J jab is one shot.
I'll have a trenta vanilla sweet cream cold brew with two pumps of vanilla, three pumps of caramel syrup, two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup, two pumps of hazelnut, two pumps of toffee nut syrup, two pumps of mocha, two pumps of white mocha, two pumps of pumpkin sauce, three pumps of maple pecan syrup, and five shots of espresso......and a jab...please.
Have you ever tried a Canadiano? Which is same as an Americano but with maple syrup.
Thus my standard order: "One decaf Canadiano please - but hold the maple syrup."
Great achievement, but can we get it up to a million jabs a day with younger people?
Once we start vaccinating the young, fit and healthy, we can have them queue up outside. So I see no reason why 1 million / day should be beyond us. Plenty of liquid on its way!
Drive thrus.....especially with one shot vaccine. Get jabbed as you roll through for your Starbucks or McDonalds.
Fair play. I keep forgetting that the J&J jab is one shot.
I'll have a trenta vanilla sweet cream cold brew with two pumps of vanilla, three pumps of caramel syrup, two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup, two pumps of hazelnut, two pumps of toffee nut syrup, two pumps of mocha, two pumps of white mocha, two pumps of pumpkin sauce, three pumps of maple pecan syrup, and five shots of espresso......and a jab...please.
Have you ever tried a Canadiano? Which is same as an Americano but with maple syrup.
Thus my standard order: "One decaf Canadiano please - but hold the maple syrup."
@MattW Well done for the header. There's nothing to be had though in the competition for fewer deaths.
The EU has done what the EU has done. As has the UK. They've done their best and they should be roundly congratulated on that. All of them. Even Gavin Williamson.
So, not a butcher's bill, but more a recognition that many have died, and a huge thank-you to those that have helped us battle through it.
Deaths are what we focus on because they are the easiest to count (although even that has some caveats). However, as a lagging indicator, they actually tell us very little about how well or otherwise governments and societies did in their responses to COVID, as each country's starting position was different and how pandemics play out is very sensitive to those initial conditions.
I hate this constant national league tables of deaths, hospitalizations and infections, as they are all lagging indicators which measure outcomes. We should be focusing more on the leading indicators (mask wearing, social distancing, hand and respiratory hygiene, expansion of healthcare capacity, development of better treatments and, yes, rates of vaccination) but still not as some nationalistic bragging rights exercise, but as a means of better informing our future decisions and learning how to focus efforts.
And, yes, we should look at the lagging indicators to see if our efforts in improving our leading indicators are changing the trends in outcomes (i.e. to validate the leading indicator metrics we have chosen), and to see if we can learn how other countries' focus on the leading indicators is impacting their outcomes. But never as a measure of how well we or they did.
15 million in 67 days. Average = c. 225,000 a day since 8th December.
That’s true but the run rate in the early date was very low, which skews the figures. Will be interesting to calculate the run rate since, say, Burn’s Night.
Around 425,000 per day.
Which means that if we sustain that average, we'll have completed Groups 1-6 (24.8 million total) by the 8th of March. And Groups 1-9 (31.8 million total) by the 25th of March. Which gives a week or so to start on the under 50s before second doses start being necessary (down to over 45s?) and even then, the rate of second doses starts off low as the first doses in early January were slow. We could probably do all over 40s by mid-to-late April.
Don't forget that by the time we need to do second doses in any significant volume we'll have deliveries of Moderna and Novavax arriving as well as AZ resolving some of theor manufacturing difficulties. In April our bottleneck will move from supply to distribution which I'd say is a very good problem to have.
But there have already been on-the-record comments from devolved administrations to the effect that supply is seriously constrained for the rest of this month, perhaps halving for the next two weeks. Beyond that, I am also less optimistic than you about supply: I see your projection as the best-cast scenario, but there are plenty of opportunities for low yield of the new vaccines or further interruptions to AZ and Pfizer.
Also, second doses are being scheduled a bit earlier than 12 weeks. Most people (at least that I know of) are being given dates 10-11 weeks after the first. I would love to believe that they will get all the over 50s' first doses done before the end of March, but I no longer think that will happen.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
Great achievement, but can we get it up to a million jabs a day with younger people?
Once we start vaccinating the young, fit and healthy, we can have them queue up outside. So I see no reason why 1 million / day should be beyond us. Plenty of liquid on its way!
Drive thrus.....especially with one shot vaccine. Get jabbed as you roll through for your Starbucks or McDonalds.
Fair play. I keep forgetting that the J&J jab is one shot.
I'll have a trenta vanilla sweet cream cold brew with two pumps of vanilla, three pumps of caramel syrup, two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup, two pumps of hazelnut, two pumps of toffee nut syrup, two pumps of mocha, two pumps of white mocha, two pumps of pumpkin sauce, three pumps of maple pecan syrup, and five shots of espresso......and a jab...please.
Have you ever tried a Canadiano? Which is same as an Americano but with maple syrup.
Thus my standard order: "One decaf Canadiano please - but hold the maple syrup."
Does it make you talk a bit funny afterwards?
No, but you do have to repeat your order in French.
They held street parties last summer to celebrate the defeat of the virus.
"People of Czech Republic bid farewell to coronavirus by holding a dinner party
Nearly a month after the Czech Republic eased lockdown limitations for its citizens, a large number of people assembled on Prague's iconic Charles Bridge, for a symbolic “farewell party" to celebrate their renewed freedom." 11 AUGUST 2020
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
The poor Czechs are a particular example of a country that did well early on in the pandemic, but which is now having a horror show. Matters haven't been helped by the latest news: the Czech parliament has recently refused to extend the country's current state of emergency which means that, as things stand, most of its lockdown measures expire tonight.
Given the limited or entirely absent state of genomic sequencing surveillance of the virus in most of Europe, they wouldn't know for sure whether the new variants were on the rampage or not.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We should ask Rohit Sharma to go and stand on the beaches, on the basis that nothing gets past him until it’s far too late.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
Turning the boats away by any and all means available. It's not difficult for an island nation to have zero illegal immigration, we just lack the will.
The poor Czechs are a particular example of a country that did well early on in the pandemic, but which is now having a horror show. Matters haven't been helped by the latest news: the Czech parliament has recently refused to extend the country's current state of emergency which means that, as things stand, most of its lockdown measures expire tonight.
Given the limited or entirely absent state of genomic sequencing surveillance of the virus in most of Europe, they wouldn't know for sure whether the new variants were on the rampage or not.
Their case curve looks ominously like the beginnings of a FOURTH wave. Hopefully, it will fizzle.
But as you say they’ve just done precisely the wrong thing. Unlockdown.
Great achievement, but can we get it up to a million jabs a day with younger people?
Once we start vaccinating the young, fit and healthy, we can have them queue up outside. So I see no reason why 1 million / day should be beyond us. Plenty of liquid on its way!
Drive thrus.....especially with one shot vaccine. Get jabbed as you roll through for your Starbucks or McDonalds.
Fair play. I keep forgetting that the J&J jab is one shot.
I'll have a trenta vanilla sweet cream cold brew with two pumps of vanilla, three pumps of caramel syrup, two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup, two pumps of hazelnut, two pumps of toffee nut syrup, two pumps of mocha, two pumps of white mocha, two pumps of pumpkin sauce, three pumps of maple pecan syrup, and five shots of espresso......and a jab...please.
Have you ever tried a Canadiano? Which is same as an Americano but with maple syrup.
Thus my standard order: "One decaf Canadiano please - but hold the maple syrup."
As I don't take sugar in my coffee the one thing I could never enjoy from Canada is the "double double".
Coffee double cream, double sugar. As a standard menu item at Tim Hortons.
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Amazing that an entity with a population of 440m has a total of Covid deaths higher than a state with a population of 68m, took me a while to get my head round that.
Amazing that an entity of 440m people has spent barely a seventh of the the one with 68m people on securing the necessary supplies to vaccinate its population so quickly. And less on supporting Covax too.
I'm pretty sure it's one seventh on a per capita basis. Ie we've spent about the same in absolute terms, but obviously we have a much smaller population.
It is. The amounts invested upfront in vaccine development are roughly the same for the UK and the EU. Obviously purchasing the actual vaccinations will be broadly pro-rata to population, with any variation being down to supplier pricing.
Great achievement, but can we get it up to a million jabs a day with younger people?
Once we start vaccinating the young, fit and healthy, we can have them queue up outside. So I see no reason why 1 million / day should be beyond us. Plenty of liquid on its way!
Drive thrus.....especially with one shot vaccine. Get jabbed as you roll through for your Starbucks or McDonalds.
Fair play. I keep forgetting that the J&J jab is one shot.
I'll have a trenta vanilla sweet cream cold brew with two pumps of vanilla, three pumps of caramel syrup, two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup, two pumps of hazelnut, two pumps of toffee nut syrup, two pumps of mocha, two pumps of white mocha, two pumps of pumpkin sauce, three pumps of maple pecan syrup, and five shots of espresso......and a jab...please.
Have you ever tried a Canadiano? Which is same as an Americano but with maple syrup.
Thus my standard order: "One decaf Canadiano please - but hold the maple syrup."
Does it make you talk a bit funny afterwards?
Hum, hard to tell, because yours truly ALWAYS talks funny. BUT it does give me a strange urge to take up curling.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Great achievement, but can we get it up to a million jabs a day with younger people?
Once we start vaccinating the young, fit and healthy, we can have them queue up outside. So I see no reason why 1 million / day should be beyond us. Plenty of liquid on its way!
Drive thrus.....especially with one shot vaccine. Get jabbed as you roll through for your Starbucks or McDonalds.
Fair play. I keep forgetting that the J&J jab is one shot.
I'll have a trenta vanilla sweet cream cold brew with two pumps of vanilla, three pumps of caramel syrup, two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup, two pumps of hazelnut, two pumps of toffee nut syrup, two pumps of mocha, two pumps of white mocha, two pumps of pumpkin sauce, three pumps of maple pecan syrup, and five shots of espresso......and a jab...please.
Have you ever tried a Canadiano? Which is same as an Americano but with maple syrup.
Thus my standard order: "One decaf Canadiano please - but hold the maple syrup."
As I don't take sugar in my coffee the one thing I could never enjoy from Canada is the "double double".
Coffee double cream, double sugar. As a standard menu item at Tim Hortons.
That sounds horrific. Black coffee with no sugar at the office, an oat milk cortado and no sugar in a cafe.
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
Bring it on. Should be huge demand for premium flint sex toys
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Yes. If they reach the UK they HAVE to be instantly arrested and quarantined. This is not a minor matter any more. Priti Patel will have to show her mettle
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
Indeed. I know we've discussed it before but that's part of why I expect there to be a Roaring Twenties after this. There is a lot of pent up demand and so long as we don't do something stupid like tax rises of the gold standard then just having people get back to normal should see stunning growth in coming years.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Do you think we will allow ourselves to sink/rise as far as mandatory vaccination of all illegal immigrants?
The hospitalisation data looks very solid today, a huge drop in the rate and the number in hospital. England is now well below the first wave peak on both measures now. I'll need too look at the specific data for over 85s but I expect it will be be on target.
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
Indeed. I know we've discussed it before but that's part of why I expect there to be a Roaring Twenties after this. There is a lot of pent up demand and so long as we don't do something stupid like tax rises of the gold standard then just having people get back to normal should see stunning growth in coming years.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Do you think we will allow ourselves to sink/rise as far as mandatory vaccination of all illegal immigrants?
Are you suggesting we should impose our white imperialist science on people?
Early news on the Catalonian elections suggest turnout down around 12% so far from last time.
Glancng at the interactive map suggests higher percentages voting is some of the rural areas with fewer in Barcelona for example. If that proves to be the case it could augur well for the pro-independence parties. However, it could also be that there will be a later surge in the big urban centres.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Do you think we will allow ourselves to sink/rise as far as mandatory vaccination of all illegal immigrants?
Are you suggesting we should impose our white imperialist science on people?
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
Indeed. I know we've discussed it before but that's part of why I expect there to be a Roaring Twenties after this. There is a lot of pent up demand and so long as we don't do something stupid like tax rises of the gold standard then just having people get back to normal should see stunning growth in coming years.
There’s a chap called Nicholas Christakis who is good on this. He sees the immediate medical emergency lasting 2 years, ie until the end of 2021, then an intermediate period of profound psychological and sociological change as the world suffers essentially from a period of PTSD, then the party starts for the Paris Olympics and the next presidential election in 2024.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Ironical that it is the French fuelling the anti-Muslim rhetoric at the moment.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Do you think we will allow ourselves to sink/rise as far as mandatory vaccination of all illegal immigrants?
Are you suggesting we should impose our white imperialist science on people?
What about if we get the vaccines from India?
Indians in the UK are apparently white people* now (see Guardian). I presume this applies to India as well.
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
Bring it on. Should be huge demand for premium flint sex toys
We have the rest of this year to get through first. I think globally the plague peaked in the first week of January (I don’t think anyone can ignore the consistent drop since then - famous last words perhaps) but its tail will probably take as long to dissipate as it took to get there - 10 to 12 months.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Do you think we will allow ourselves to sink/rise as far as mandatory vaccination of all illegal immigrants?
Are you suggesting we should impose our white imperialist science on people?
What about if we get the vaccines from India?
Indians in the UK are apparently white people* now (see Guardian). I presume this applies to India as well.
Can anyone remember when a rugby team in an international won a scrum against the put in? They now invariably insert the ball at 45 degrees. I really don't see the point of the scrum anymore, other than to give the backs a bit of a breather.
Reported cases in Scotland this week almost the same as last week: 6024 vs 6107.
I think that means the reopening of early school years Monday week will be postponed.
Two theories to choose from, not necessarily exclusive: - The virus has mostly died out among people who can and do stay home, but is circulating among those who can't or won't. - The mere mention of some lockdown easing together with the vaccine success has resulted in reduced lockdown compliance.
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
I wonder what will happen to illegal immigration this summer. Last summer we had dozens, sometimes hundreds, crossing the channel in boats every day. Now we’ve closed the borders there is no way we can tolerate that. It makes a mockery of all our quarantine efforts. But how do we stop it?
We probably can't, not altogether anyway. Asking the French nicely and giving them lots of money to spend on extra patrols should help a bit; the rest of the boat people who do make it to sea will just have to be fished out of their dinghies and incarcerated in secure quarantine facilities.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Do you think we will allow ourselves to sink/rise as far as mandatory vaccination of all illegal immigrants?
There seems to be great reluctance to push mandatory jabs on anybody. I think that would only change if enough people dodged them to threaten another wave in the Autumn, but take up amongst the vulnerable groups has been so high that this seems unlikely.
However, I would expect that they (or all the adults, anyway) will be offered it once we get to the point at which we're working through the tail end of our own queue. I'm quite sure I read that a plan has been formulated to allow no questions asked vaccinations to be offered to illegal immigrants already in the country, which would be very sensible indeed if correct.
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
Indeed. I know we've discussed it before but that's part of why I expect there to be a Roaring Twenties after this. There is a lot of pent up demand and so long as we don't do something stupid like tax rises of the gold standard then just having people get back to normal should see stunning growth in coming years.
There’s a chap called Nicholas Christakis who is good on this. He sees the immediate medical emergency lasting 2 years, ie until the end of 2021, then an intermediate period of profound psychological and sociological change as the world suffers essentially from a period of PTSD, then the party starts for the Paris Olympics and the next presidential election in 2024.
Interesting thought. Puts us on a timescale for next General Election too.
I'd move it a bit further forwards thanks to the vaccine. Medical emergency will just over a year in this country ending this spring.
The party will become for some in the summer but not all by any means. The more who party though, if the medical emergence is behind us, the more others can recover.
The worst thing we could do is choke it off now with tax rises.
Reported cases in Scotland this week almost the same as last week: 6024 vs 6107.
I think that means the reopening of early school years Monday week will be postponed.
Two theories to choose from, not necessarily exclusive: - The virus has mostly died out among people who can and do stay home, but is circulating among those who can't or won't. - The mere mention of some lockdown easing together with the vaccine success has resulted in reduced lockdown compliance.
Could be a growth in Kent COVID making the existing restrictions less effective at keeping the R below 1.
The poor Czechs are a particular example of a country that did well early on in the pandemic, but which is now having a horror show. Matters haven't been helped by the latest news: the Czech parliament has recently refused to extend the country's current state of emergency which means that, as things stand, most of its lockdown measures expire tonight.
Given the limited or entirely absent state of genomic sequencing surveillance of the virus in most of Europe, they wouldn't know for sure whether the new variants were on the rampage or not.
Their case curve looks ominously like the beginnings of a FOURTH wave. Hopefully, it will fizzle.
But as you say they’ve just done precisely the wrong thing. Unlockdown.
It is reported that the Czechs have managed to agree to extend their state of emergency, following much pleading from regional governors. Lockdown continues for now.
There's so much of this virus that has nuanced elements.
On the one hand, seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 seems pretty limited at best, with the outbreaks north and south of the equator and during spring, summer, autumn, and winter being largely based on mobility data (official and de facto restrictions/lockdowns) rather than the season - but on the other hand, one would expect some benefit to weather that encourages people being outside and/or with windows open. It could be wishful thinking, of course, but I'd be a bit surprised if there was none.
Even if it's not very visible when R0 is high, we would expect the benefits to be considerably stronger when vaccines push transmission down such that the R without restrictions would be a lot lower.
On the cross-reactive coronaviruses - after some excitement in autumn when activity was seen (albeit the scientists involved strongly warned that inhibition of transmission and effective boosts to herd immunity were so unlikely as to be implausible), further study has shown no real discernable benefit. T-cells get a bit excited, but then don't actually do anything useful - they have low avidity for the virus (there's some weak evidence that it can make things worse - almost as if they assume they've recognised it, decided it's not a big deal, and buggered off again). Still, it would just have been a bonus if it had come off, and now we have something (vaccines) that DOES give real immunity.
Herd immunity-wise - they've found that antibody levels decline slower than expected, which is good for avoidance of re-infection or even transmission of the virus by the infected-and-recovered; bad for assumptions of higher levels of infection-and-recovery.
But while the levels of herd immunity will be lower than we'd have hoped from infection, restrictions act to multiply the effect of whatever herd immunity there is. If there's 25% immunity, that means R is pushed down to three quarters of what it would be without it. So restrictions that would otherwise push R down to 1.2 (September growth levels) would actually put it down to 0.9 (comfortably declining). I wouldn't be surprised if this was what had made the difference with controlling the B.1.1.7 variant (about four-thirds more infections, coupled with about 25% immunity leads to a wash - restrictions that would have controlled the original variant can now control the new one)
But this falls into the same trap as the original COVID actuaries report which just assumed that the vaccine programme stops at 25% of the population, in reality around 1% of the adult population are being added to the "newly immunised" everyday further decreasing the potential reservoir of non-immune hosts that can end up on hospital.
Tbh, it doesn't matter if the R hits 4 or 5 in the summer as long as it doesn't result in hospitalisations/death so I don't think having a high infection rate should be an impediment to reopening the economy fully.
This needs saying more often. We need to give Zero Fucks if some people contract mild covid. This is why the mad Zero Covidians should be ignored.
Has anyone advocated post vaccination zero Covid?
Ultimately even if people are getting Covid, if the hospital's aren't filling up let alone the morgues then nobody will care besides cranks.
I think recent lockdowns in Aus and NZ will dent the Zero Coviders. With everything they have in place they cannot prevent outbreaks. Vaccination is the only game in town if you want to avoid achieving population level immunity via more lethal methods.
The Auz/NZ lockdowns are plasters. They're like jamming your fingers into a hole in a ship to stop water coming in - better than the alternative but not a fix.
An actual fix is needed. That's the vaccines. Their plaster buys time for the vaccines to arrive, the vaccines end the problem.
I'd take a guess at the Kent variant becoming dominant which makes existing measures less effective, you can see this in all of the places that didn't originally have big outbreaks of it.
There are a couple of comments I'd add to this piece:
1. You would expect older societies to do worse than younger ones. Simply lots of old people, means lots of people who can potentially die.
2. You need to look on a "deaths per 100k", or even an excess deaths metric. Otherwise you're just measuring different population sizes.
On vaccine availability, I'd note that the US (for example) is moving to a strategy of pretty much exclusive use of Pfizer and Modern. That means there are a lot of existing production of Novavax, AZ and J&J that will be available to the highest bidder. For that reason, I'd be very surprised if the EU had only received 300m doses by end June.
I think the EU will be probably 10-12 weeks behind the UK in getting rid of CV19. A serious deficit, to be sure, and I very much doubt they'll learn any lessons from it. But also not that long in the general scale of things.
There are a couple of comments I'd add to this piece:
1. You would expect older societies to do worse than younger ones. Simply lots of old people, means lots of people who can potentially die.
2. You need to look on a "deaths per 100k", or even an excess deaths metric. Otherwise you're just measuring different population sizes.
On vaccine availability, I'd note that the US (for example) is moving to a strategy of pretty much exclusive use of Pfizer and Modern. That means there are a lot of existing production of Novavax, AZ and J&J that will be available to the highest bidder. For that reason, I'd be very surprised if the EU had only received 300m doses by end June.
I think the EU will be probably 10-12 weeks behind the UK in getting rid of CV19. A serious deficit, to be sure, and I very much doubt they'll learn any lessons from it. But also not that long in the general scale of things.
I also wouldn't be surprised if - given there are no EU orders for Novavax - some richer EU states make direct purchases.
“And then, when the pestilence abated, all who survived gave themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns, and laymen and women all enjoyed themselves, and none worried about spending and gambling. And everyone thought himself rich because he had escaped and regained the world, and no one knew how to allow himself to do nothing.” - Agnolo di Tura, 1848
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
Indeed. I know we've discussed it before but that's part of why I expect there to be a Roaring Twenties after this. There is a lot of pent up demand and so long as we don't do something stupid like tax rises of the gold standard then just having people get back to normal should see stunning growth in coming years.
There’s a chap called Nicholas Christakis who is good on this. He sees the immediate medical emergency lasting 2 years, ie until the end of 2021, then an intermediate period of profound psychological and sociological change as the world suffers essentially from a period of PTSD, then the party starts for the Paris Olympics and the next presidential election in 2024.
Interesting thought. Puts us on a timescale for next General Election too.
I'd move it a bit further forwards thanks to the vaccine. Medical emergency will just over a year in this country ending this spring.
The party will become for some in the summer but not all by any means. The more who party though, if the medical emergence is behind us, the more others can recover.
The worst thing we could do is choke it off now with tax rises.
There's been talk of another raid on pensions, freezing income tax bands, bringing CGT rates in line with income tax, and possibly a couple of pence on corporation tax. Income tax, NI and VAT rates will almost certainly be left as is (there are manifesto commitment to consider and they'd also be very unpopular,) so one would've thought that any direct impacts on consumer spending should be limited to luxury purchases by the wealthy.
There's probably more danger in the medium term from excessive indebtedness than high taxation. When the well-off start spraying all those Covid savings around the squeezed middle aren't going to want to be left out of the party, and there's still plenty of cheap credit available.
I'd take a guess at the Kent variant becoming dominant which makes existing measures less effective, you can see this in all of the places that didn't originally have big outbreaks of it.
There are a couple of comments I'd add to this piece:
1. You would expect older societies to do worse than younger ones. Simply lots of old people, means lots of people who can potentially die.
2. You need to look on a "deaths per 100k", or even an excess deaths metric. Otherwise you're just measuring different population sizes.
On vaccine availability, I'd note that the US (for example) is moving to a strategy of pretty much exclusive use of Pfizer and Modern. That means there are a lot of existing production of Novavax, AZ and J&J that will be available to the highest bidder. For that reason, I'd be very surprised if the EU had only received 300m doses by end June.
I think the EU will be probably 10-12 weeks behind the UK in getting rid of CV19. A serious deficit, to be sure, and I very much doubt they'll learn any lessons from it. But also not that long in the general scale of things.
I think 10-12 weeks is optimistic, we've got big supply increases coming in April that aren't coming for the EU, I'd guess at something closer to 6-8 months to get to herd immunity that we'll be achieving by the end of April.
I'd take a guess at the Kent variant becoming dominant which makes existing measures less effective, you can see this in all of the places that didn't originally have big outbreaks of it.
Does look something like that. Hopefully it’s not the SA variant...
There are a couple of comments I'd add to this piece:
1. You would expect older societies to do worse than younger ones. Simply lots of old people, means lots of people who can potentially die.
2. You need to look on a "deaths per 100k", or even an excess deaths metric. Otherwise you're just measuring different population sizes.
On vaccine availability, I'd note that the US (for example) is moving to a strategy of pretty much exclusive use of Pfizer and Modern. That means there are a lot of existing production of Novavax, AZ and J&J that will be available to the highest bidder. For that reason, I'd be very surprised if the EU had only received 300m doses by end June.
I think the EU will be probably 10-12 weeks behind the UK in getting rid of CV19. A serious deficit, to be sure, and I very much doubt they'll learn any lessons from it. But also not that long in the general scale of things.
Feels like an eternity if you are in a vulnerable group.
I think the EU will be probably 10-12 weeks behind the UK in getting rid of CV19. A serious deficit, to be sure, and I very much doubt they'll learn any lessons from it. But also not that long in the general scale of things.
Will they necessarily be that quick? It's not simply a matter of getting sufficient quantities of vaccines delivered, do all of the states necessarily have adequate infrastructure in place to deliver a whole population vaccination campaign at speed?
We have been told more than once that the relatively centralized and integrated nature of the NHS is ideally suited to this sort of task, but our model of healthcare is not typical.
EDIT: and that's without getting into the subject of hesitancy, which is known to be a serious problem in France but is also quite significant in Germany, for example.
I'd take a guess at the Kent variant becoming dominant which makes existing measures less effective, you can see this in all of the places that didn't originally have big outbreaks of it.
Does look something like that. Hopefully it’s not the SA variant...
Comments
Ugh.
We now have figures for those children who, disgruntled at the grades they were given in the summer, sat GCSEs in November.
And despite the hullabaloo about teacher grades being too soft, roughly double the percentage of resits got a grade 9.
https://www.tes.com/news/gcses-2020-bumper-top-grades-november-resits
Of course, this comes with the caveat that it would be the highest achievers that would want to improve their grades.
But at the same time, the overall pass rate was lower than in the summer. Which suggests that it wasn’t just high flyers sitting the exams.
Which leads to one conclusion.
I have been right all along and the new GCSEs are completely meaningless bullshit.
Great thread header. Thank you. Is that your first full blog since the heady days of the much missed Wardman Wire?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56060962
An actual fix is needed. That's the vaccines. Their plaster buys time for the vaccines to arrive, the vaccines end the problem.
Even in the relatively exciting Wales Scotland game, most of the tries came from kicks.
The measures will last three days and require residents to stay at home.
Ms Ardern said the country was going "hard and early" after the cases were identified.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56059960
You could have saved so much typing.....
I don't know if data will be in by then for the trials in children, but it would be good to get "all over-6" done by midsummer, if possible.
Their systems were chaotic and the surge in business over the lockdown didn't actually do them much good. In addition, their poor behaviour towards delivery people meant that tons of them got better gigs elsewhere.... no shortage of jobs in delivery these days.
The EU has done what the EU has done. As has the UK. They've done their best and they should be roundly congratulated on that. All of them. Even Gavin Williamson.
So, not a butcher's bill, but more a recognition that many have died, and a huge thank-you to those that have helped us battle through it.
Edited, can't spell 'the'
Edited, or 'comparison'
Mr. Seal, very easy to make typos.
Homophones can be especially bad because they can look ridiculous (I once wrote 'caught' when I wanted to write 'got').
https://twitter.com/covid19_cesko/status/1360923822216609794?s=21
Germany has closed borders, earning EU ire
https://twitter.com/andyvermaut/status/1360951944169156611?s=21
Rumors that the UK and SA variants are rife...
I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I was wrong, although given the sheer narrowness of A-levels I don’t think they would work as qualifications on their own.
(There's also a question about whether prior infection truly gives neutralizing immunity, as opposed to reducing subsequent infection to asymptomatic, but it's not a major concern for now.)
Seasonality is a strange thing. Contrary to what you hear in the news, not all viruses are at their busiest in the winter. Although found all year round, rhinovirus is (from memory) more frequent in autumn and spring (slightly less frequent in winter, much less in summer). I believe adenovirus peaks in late winter and spring; enterovirus in the summer. One can form hypotheses for the causes, but not everything can be driven by humans staying indoors in the winter. I think it will remain to be seen what the COVID season settles into.
--AS
Warning - NSFW or indeed people with heart conditions, because they are so damn funny.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewziegler/autocorrect-fails-of-the-decade
Thus my standard order: "One decaf Canadiano please - but hold the maple syrup."
I hate this constant national league tables of deaths, hospitalizations and infections, as they are all lagging indicators which measure outcomes. We should be focusing more on the leading indicators (mask wearing, social distancing, hand and respiratory hygiene, expansion of healthcare capacity, development of better treatments and, yes, rates of vaccination) but still not as some nationalistic bragging rights exercise, but as a means of better informing our future decisions and learning how to focus efforts.
And, yes, we should look at the lagging indicators to see if our efforts in improving our leading indicators are changing the trends in outcomes (i.e. to validate the leading indicator metrics we have chosen), and to see if we can learn how other countries' focus on the leading indicators is impacting their outcomes. But never as a measure of how well we or they did.
Also, second doses are being scheduled a bit earlier than 12 weeks. Most people (at least that I know of) are being given dates 10-11 weeks after the first. I would love to believe that they will get all the over 50s' first doses done before the end of March, but I no longer think that will happen.
--AS
It goes without saying (though it seems to warrant endless repetition) the EU got it wrong on vaccines and the UK did much better. I still don't agree on withholding the second Pfizer vaccination and questions of longer term efficacy of a single vaccination remain unanswered.
That said, we have done much better than the EU though we've spent the money and covered the table as far as different vaccines and dosage numbers are concerned.
Lockdown restrictions have provided half the solution - opening up society and the economy to a largely vaccinated adult population is the second half. As Hancock says, it may well be we can "learn to live" with Covid as vaccines improve and some of the measures aimed at improving public health (more hand washing, hand sanitiser and the fogging of public transport carriages) look sensible going forward. To this observer, improving public health and reducing days lost through sickness looks a no-brainer.
The immediate issue is the extent to which a lagging Europe impedes UK recovery - clearly, tourism is an issue and while we are clearly all looking forward to our staycations this year. I suspect some may still yearn for the Amalfi Coast and the Costa Del Sol and the European cruising season will still be affected if parts of Europe are well vaccinated and parts aren't.
I've niggling concerns over the number of people who live "under the radar" - migrants and others who don't engage much with the authorities - they work and live within their ethnic group, it's all in the black economy etc - the homeless and others beyond the normal reach. To what extent and in what ways is the vaccine to reach them?
I realise for some walking back into a pub to have a drink with friends is the ultimate goal - for me, I look forward to enjoying a sit down full English in the local cafe, going racing and having a haircut. Mrs Stodge is wonderful in so many ways but her world is not hairdressing.
"People of Czech Republic bid farewell to coronavirus by holding a dinner party
Nearly a month after the Czech Republic eased lockdown limitations for its citizens, a large number of people assembled on Prague's iconic Charles Bridge, for a symbolic “farewell party" to celebrate their renewed freedom."
11 AUGUST 2020
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/czech-republic-bid-farewell-to-coronavirus
Given the limited or entirely absent state of genomic sequencing surveillance of the virus in most of Europe, they wouldn't know for sure whether the new variants were on the rampage or not.
But as you say they’ve just done precisely the wrong thing. Unlockdown.
Do we think that they did anything particularly well, or that they were just very lucky at the start?
While we're here. 3 day lockdown. Any one want to have a crack at that?
But then calamitously they relaxed way too soon and had a big party and a normal summer
Coffee double cream, double sugar. As a standard menu item at Tim Hortons.
Have to say I’m looking forward to that bit.
As much as a lot of people like to pretend that we have an extreme right-wing Government in the UK, that's transparently false. Ministers obviously don't want a constant trickle of potentially Plague-bearing undocumented migrants arriving in the country, but they're not going to abandon them to drown.
Ealry news on the Catalonian elections suggest turnout donw around 12% so far from last time.
*For the purposes of Diversity Top Trumps
I think that means the reopening of early school years Monday week will be postponed.
Two theories to choose from, not necessarily exclusive:
- The virus has mostly died out among people who can and do stay home, but is circulating among those who can't or won't.
- The mere mention of some lockdown easing together with the vaccine success has resulted in reduced lockdown compliance.
However, I would expect that they (or all the adults, anyway) will be offered it once we get to the point at which we're working through the tail end of our own queue. I'm quite sure I read that a plan has been formulated to allow no questions asked vaccinations to be offered to illegal immigrants already in the country, which would be very sensible indeed if correct.
I'd move it a bit further forwards thanks to the vaccine. Medical emergency will just over a year in this country ending this spring.
The party will become for some in the summer but not all by any means. The more who party though, if the medical emergence is behind us, the more others can recover.
The worst thing we could do is choke it off now with tax rises.
from case data
from hospitalisations
1. You would expect older societies to do worse than younger ones. Simply lots of old people, means lots of people who can potentially die.
2. You need to look on a "deaths per 100k", or even an excess deaths metric. Otherwise you're just measuring different population sizes.
On vaccine availability, I'd note that the US (for example) is moving to a strategy of pretty much exclusive use of Pfizer and Modern. That means there are a lot of existing production of Novavax, AZ and J&J that will be available to the highest bidder. For that reason, I'd be very surprised if the EU had only received 300m doses by end June.
I think the EU will be probably 10-12 weeks behind the UK in getting rid of CV19. A serious deficit, to be sure, and I very much doubt they'll learn any lessons from it. But also not that long in the general scale of things.
There's probably more danger in the medium term from excessive indebtedness than high taxation. When the well-off start spraying all those Covid savings around the squeezed middle aren't going to want to be left out of the party, and there's still plenty of cheap credit available.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19087893.covid-jason-leitch-warns-kent-variant-scotlands-big-problem/
On the other hand, I think it had been reported to make up half of cases at the end of December already, and everyone else has much the same measures.
We have been told more than once that the relatively centralized and integrated nature of the NHS is ideally suited to this sort of task, but our model of healthcare is not typical.
EDIT: and that's without getting into the subject of hesitancy, which is known to be a serious problem in France but is also quite significant in Germany, for example.