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Johnson will find it hard taking the plaudits for the vaccination success and continuing with a stri
Johnson will find it hard taking the plaudits for the vaccination success and continuing with a strict lockdown – politicalbetting.com
A big development overnight in the fight against COVID has been the news that the death rate amongst the over 80s has dropped a massive 62% in a month. This group, of course, was first in line for the jab and this figure really underlines the success of the government’s big gamble last summer to ensure rapid early supplies of vaccines.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/contact-tracing-alone-has-little-impact-on-curbing-covid-spread-report-finds
Numbers please? Because that is not what I am hearing.
There is one over-arching aim in Government - never again will there be Covid lockdowns. We will come out of lockdown when it is clear there will never be a need for more. Now, that might be quick, once the confirmation is in that a) the vaccines are as good as is hoped and b) the numbers for deliveries of those vaccines to give the jab to everyone are secured.
But if it needs an extra month to be completely sure, then the Government will take the extra pain to be able to say to the UK "Covid has been banished as an impediment to getting on with your life within this country* ". That is the political win within reach.
*Foreign travel for work or holibobs will be the very last thing to get the green light - and that could be quite some time. The UK has the genome testing capacity to know how safe it really is outside our borders. Again, the way the virus has retreated in just the past five weeks around the globe means the scope for mutations is already reducing markedly. If it continues - wonderful. But the win will not be lightly lost.
The smart money is on booking your holiday in 2021 in Northumberland. Or Scotland. Or Devon. That spend will be a one-off boost to a nation whose residents spent £62.3 billion on visits overseas in 2019, compared to overseas residents spending £28.4 billion on visits to the UK in 2019. Some of that overseas money will still come here, if it is from people with (non-forged) vaccine certificates. We will be opening earlier than most - restaurants, pubs, museums, galleries, the stuff to make a memorable holiday here. An obvious choice to come here (if you can find the accommodation). I have it on very good authority that the Governor of the Bank of England is very chipper about our prospects for coming out of Covid in a most robust fashion. Things are looking up. Prepare for a much, much better year. But only when it is beaten to the point where it isn't wrecking our lives ever again.
https://twitter.com/efindell/status/1361885241221152771
Contact tracing doesn’t work for such widespread infections - it’s a struggle even with early outbreaks of something like Ebola. And it especially doesn’t work with a virus where individuals are infectious days before they display symptoms (and at least a third don’t show symptoms at all)
The resources that have been poured into what was always going to be a marginally effective program could have been far better spent. Someone with more knowledge that Harding running the program would have realised that far sooner.
(Hint: closed borders.....)
It will take time for people to get their confidence back and that time will have an economic cost.
I think that was particularly so with the original variant. The more aggressive variants such as Kent, where much more limited exposure was necessary, were more problematic.
For my part, when it's possible to go visiting aged parents again, I shall be thinking about how much of the disease is left in circulation and how long I'm likely to have to keep waiting for a jab. If the virus prevalence is low and it becomes obvious that I'm going to be waiting until God knows when (whilst they do all the first doses for teachers, police and umpteen other special pleaders, and all the second doses for the old,) then I shall chance travelling cross-country on mucky trains: I know I'm at comparatively low risk, I have to go out to work (so it's not as if I have the option of cowering at home even if I wanted to,) and frankly I can't tolerate being incarcerated and not seeing loved ones, who aren't getting any younger, interminably. OTOH if I've a reasonable expectation of getting lanced imminently then I'll sit tight and wait.
We don’t have their ability to track citizens, didn’t really get the system going until infection was widespread, and for months were days slower in processing tests.
Edit to add: I guess it's possible that the Pfizer-BioNTech contract carved Taiwan out for BioNTech, but that doesn't seem very likely.
From the original refusal to share the pandemic warning in Dec19 to this. It’s unacceptable using public health as a tool of political dominance.
Taiwan should be at the top of the list for Covax.
Although they do have their own large scale trial of a phase 2 vaccine (Vaxxity) ongoing.
And much of the benefit from testing was overestimated, as it compared with a baseline where no one with symptoms self isolated (which is clearly false).
We’d have achieved better results if we’d done almost no testing at all,and paid anyone with symptoms £2000 a week to self-isolate.
ROC respectfully disagrees.
But if a commercial organisation has a choice between a deal with pRC&ROC and a deal with just ROC, then most...
It really needs some thorough scientific investigation.
(I read their earnings call, but that's the extent of my knowledge.)
After that vote, McConnell ripped Trump in a speech from the Senate floor, and the two have been estranged in recent months after working closely together during the former President's four years in office.
"Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again," Trump said in the statement. "He will never do what needs to be done, or what is right for our Country. Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First. We want brilliant, strong, thoughtful, and compassionate leadership."
Bit like Brexit...
The studies on pre exposure to common coronaviruses seen key to me. That, and the much noted factors of UV killing the virus in the air and Vitamin D boosting immunity.
Inflation up in January, probably as a result of Covid restrictions.
It is actually up 0.1% from 0.6 to 0.7. Maybe a headline of breaking news: inflation edges back towards target but still well short, might have been more appropriate.
There’s more going on than climate, though climate is probably important.
And Good Morning all. Is it a relief to have no cricket to grumble about or are we looking forward to the pink ball game?
That's about the same impact as the estimated impact of closing schools by comparison surely?
Most likely there has been a related but less dangerous coronavirus in the past that has induced some immunity. Particularly in urban areas there is lots of obesity, heart disease and badly controlled diabetes in India.
He was probably rambling
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-02-16/covid-why-are-italians-refusing-the-oxfordastrazeneca-coronavirus-vaccine
I am very happy for him that he has finally found his niche as a high-tech door-to-door salesman. But I don't want to see or hear him.
With the vaccine rollout the situation has now radically changed, yet the goalposts are now being shifted compared to the assurances that were given when MPs voted for lockdown. The idea that this is all down to the need to protect against new variants makes no sense unless the UK is to maintain a NZ style prohibition on travel to and from abroad until Covid has been eliminated worldwide, which means forever and a day.
In my personal circumstances, what I find particularly onerous is the continued complete prohibition on any form of socially distanced outdoor sport in England. Golf and outdoor tennis are safer than forms of exercise currently allowed, since unlike jogging you don't repeatedly come into close proximity with anyone. Golf has continued in Scotland throughout lockdown, yet is clearly going to be banned here until some weeks after schools go back. Utterly ridiculous. The failure to make any early, small, risk-free changes means that the misery of Covid restrictions is far more intense than it need be. It should not be just about getting schools back before anything else changes.
If Johnson misjudges the situation, as looks very likely, I hope he pays the political price.
Just as they say there is no genocide in Xinjiang and that Tibet and Hong Kong are happy with their governments.
Is it appropriate to damage an organisation that is reducing R by as much as school closures are?
According to NHS bosses has NHS capacity been under control at any time in the past 40 years?
@MarqueeMark good post but do you see now how easy it would be for the government to "follow the science" and keep us locked down until further notice (I exaggerate, but only slightly).
If that is really the thinking in Johnson's government, then given that scientists on SAGE are already speaking to the media "in a personal capacity" to say that we will need restrictions for months and months (even into 2022) to avoid a new surge then you can see why the Hartley-Brewerers of the world are saying we'll never be allowed out again.
A scientist was telling the media the other day there would be a huge surge in July if we did any unlocking iirc.
We can't go on like this. Our MPs must resist a silent move to a zero-covid suppression policy.
What the fuck does that mean? Who will audit that?
At the hospital where my wife works the situation is returning to what it was like last summer. Shifts are being cancelled, wards are empty and bank (overtime) work is being stopped.
As you say, this doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Lots of errors were made by track and trace - the shambles over the app springs to mind - but to criticise them for not solving a problem that was basically insoluble (fully controlling an infectious disease that is also contagious and shows no symptoms until up to 72 hours after you become infectious was always going to be impossible without vaccines, and it does seem to have kept matters from getting worse) seems both unfair and ridiculous.
Moreover, it’s likely to be counterproductive. The boy who cried wolf applies to the media, who have a truly shocking pandemic.
https://twitter.com/SamSaysFashion/status/1361890032714358786
Note Mike writes, in the second paragraph, that the great vaccine effect makes things "much harder" for Johnson.
The fact that this doesn`t read "much easier" (as it should) is testament to that the default position of "lockdown over liberties" and testament to the government`s default aim of "must avoid criticism" over growing some balls and taking us out of this nightmare as quickly as possible within NHS capacity.
We shouldn`t be constrained for a day longer than is necessary and that is legal.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jlTggc0uBA8
It was rather amusing at the time, but as you say that’s generally how TV interviews work, with several minutes of conversation usually being edited down to a soundbite. That one was actually pretty harsh on EM, who just wanted a carefully crafted message to get across.
What I'm curious about is how far behaviour will change permanently. Most people seem to expect office workers to operate at least 50% from whom, forever. On the last thread someone said that he hated masks and so did most people, and I said I thought most just saw them as a mild nuisance. Might they become commonplace in public interaction, as in urban Japan? Will events where half the point is the crowd (football matches, dance clubs) change in future? Regardless of what we'd like individually, whyat do we actually expect?
I do think some relaxations are needed, despite all this though.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jlTggc0uBA8
https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/1361954398000275457
I wasn’t willing to do that 😇
No Government is actually going to go and say there were wrong as people would then look at the UK and say - but we are 6 months behind because of your previous announcements.
I can't imagine being particularly comfortable in a large press of people at sporting events such as football or cricket for some time yet. The young at nightclubs etc will get over it fastest I suspect.
Work is a tricky one. I didn't come to Edinburgh at all in January but found (a) my productivity was very poor and deteriorating and (b) I was becoming depressed (the two being linked of course). In the last couple of weeks I have had several court hearings by webex and have used this as an excuse to come through again for a better connection and quieter facilities than I have at home. In theory I could work at home completely. In reality I just couldn't. We are social animals and screens don't cut it (I of course recognise the irony of making this point on a blogging site).