As part of my dream that involves getting a Jag Mk2 and converting it to electric the current purchase price of a 5kWh battery is about £1000.
You ain't going very far on a 5kWh battery. Having said that, it's still probably further than the original Jag would have gone without spinning a rod bearing.
There is a whole cottage industry doing electroclassics now. They aren't cheap though. This MGB costs 90 grand...
I know the thought probably makes you do a bit of sick in your mouth, but I've been reduced to watching Goblin Works on the tv. They converted a Fiat 500 (a proper one) to electric, can't quite remember the costs but I think they sold it for around £45k-ish with a 20% profit built in.
I've been suffering from a mild depression for the first time in my life in recent weeks.
How do I know it's a depression?
Well, I don't know. I'm not an expert. But my symptoms match what I understand are common ones online.
I'm tired in the morning. I'm tired during the day. I'm tired in the evening. I don't sleep well at night.
I am listless during the day. I stare and drift. I can't focus. I struggle to read books or even newspaper articles - they are too big and long and take too much effort - I go off Netflix and Amazon series almost immediately. I don't want to leave the house. I feel better when I leave the house. I don't want to talk to people outside the house. I feel better if I do see a smile outside the house.
I'm aggressive and frustrated. I want to start fights. On social media and even with my wife. I immediately regret it when I do and feel victimised when they strike back, as they do. A lingering comment can stay with me for weeks. Which puts me off talking to people at all.
The only way I get work done is through immense self-discipline and short bursts of productivity at times when I have no choice, and I absolutely must. I just about do it. I put on a "game face" on for meetings - but I've even dodged a few of those. My tolerance for work colleagues I don't quite click with or who annoy me is virtually zero. And I don't care.
So this lockdown is really really shit. Everyone I've spoken to feels the same. I don't know how many feel how I feel, but I suspect it's undercounted.
It would make all the difference to see close friends and family, and go into work once a week in London (couldn't give tuppence for all the rest really) and get away on holiday with my family, where we can play and eat and have fun. Because that's living. And this is no life.
I'm pushing the boundaries of these rules as far as I can (and some) and feel I have no alternative if I am to maintain some basic level of sanity. Sorry.
I'm sorry to hear that mate and I agree with basically all of what you're saying.
This lockdown has been the worst and if it hadn't been for our house move I think it would have been a lot worse because I'd have had nothing outside of work to set my mind to. Now that it's done both my wife and I are definitely struggling. We're not people who can simply sit in front of the TV and stay there for hours on end and we have pretty active social lives in normal times.
I really miss just being able to message a mate and head to the pub or brewery bar on a Saturday afternoon. I miss being able to meet my wife at 11pm somewhere in the square mile on Thursday or Friday after work drinks and then head for a late dinner and stay out even later for drinks.
The idea that some NHS bod thinks that we need to keep social distancing indefinitely is completely depressing. I'm grateful that MPs like Steve Baker exist to ensure that boot of normal life is kept on the PM's neck and rule by scientist isn't really on the cards.
Its a bit rich that people whose argument you have spent the last year pouring scorn on are suddenly being relied on to get you out of a dreadful situation.
Email your own MP. Email your councillors.
Cut some mouthy anti-lockdown sceptic organisation a small cheque.
You will feel better. Trust me.
I haven't poured any scorn on people who say lockdown isn't a good long term solution. In fact I've been doing the opposite. Being against it as a long term solution doesn't mean it isn't effective at bringing cases down in the short term. In fact I've constantly been saying that without a longer term system in place lockdowns are basically not a really useful way of dealing with this and just pile misery onto people.
Ultimately, I take issue with people who say lockdown doesn't work, it obviously does one only needs to look at our current data to see that. In fact with vaccines we finally have a way out of this shit of lockdown, not lockdown then more lockdown. You can go back across all of my posts and I've been very consistent in this view, lockdown is a mechanism for reducing cases in the short term while other systems should be put in place (border controls, isolation, quarantine) to ensure cases don't explode again after unlocking. They aren't an end state as some people want them to be.
If anything I'd have more in common with Steve Baker than Matt Hancock with the added proviso that we need proper border controls and a fully open internal economy with no social distancing. I couldn't give a fuck if people can't travel in and out for the next 6-8 months.
And that is wholly legitimate.
But you see the issue. Your "I couldn't give a fuck if people can't travel in and out for the next 6-8 months" is someone else's "I couldn't give a fuck if bars and restaurants and clubs are closed for the next 6-8 months".
ie it is important that at every step of the way the government's actions are questioned. Not just when they either align with, or cross our own boundaries.
That is what eg @contrarian has done and I hope I have tried to explain my reasoning for my views. Which are yes of course lockdowns work (as we all have said - no clients, no problems). But they are a huge impingement on our freedoms, they should be questioned at every stage, and they have become, sadly, a policy tool which is now out of the box and, if you listen to Chris Hopson of the NHS on the matter, will not be put back for some time to come.
I have no issue with anyone questioning policies, in fact I'd hope that people are free to do so. As I said the only issue I have is denial that lockdowns work in getting cases and therefore hospitalisations down. They obviously do and saying they don't as some seem to want to say just strikes me as deliberately ignoring evidence. My criticism of them (and yours I think) is that while I accept that lockdowns work in reducing cases, they can't be used as a solution to this because once lockdown is gone cases shot back up and you just end up in lockdown again.
Completely agree that the public policy types aren't going to want to let go of the measures they have and once again I find myself (I'm sure you do too) siding with Steve Baker (a wonderful experience for you, I'm sure) and blocking this dystopian future where NHS bods mouth of to the media that "we could have prevented these 20,000 flu deaths with a lockdown" in 2025 is absolutely a priority.
As I said, the scientists and public health people think they know what's best for us and now have the tools to impose it. We must absolutely take those away from them at the soonest possible opportunity and put them back in their box. We can't have rule by SAGE and scientists briefing the media independently suggesting that we can conquer death by having lockdowns.
For flu I would suggest that higher vaccine takeup of flu vaccine would be more beneficial than a lockdown. Raising that comes way before lockdown imo.
Before this year, even in the most vulnerable UK group flu vaccine takeup was only 70%, and far lower amongst other groups. Even this year that 70% was only up to 80%.
Many other groups are more like 50-60%.
And we are by some way the highest flu vaccine takeup in Europe.
There's a decent chance that, due to Covid experience, the flu vaccines will be a lot more effective in a few years.
A question for the data crunchers here - if the vaccine reduces transmission then will it reduce R below 1 by itself even without other restrictions? Barring mutations.
Yes. Crudely, a 70% effective vaccine should reduce R by 70%. So we could open things up to about where R would be 4 without vaccines, and keep it below 1.
With a 90% effective vaccine, we could open up to where R would otherwise be 10.
Also have to multiply that by the proportion having the vaccine, of course (which lowers effect). But the basic point stands.
On the other side, you would get a greater reduction if vaccine also reduces infectiousness of disease in those who do still get it - say an infected vaccinated person meets 10 vaccinated people who they would otherwise have infected, 80% of whom don't get it. But if the infected vaccinated person is less infectious (say half as infectious) then they might only infect 5/10 unvaccinated people or 5/10 x 2/10 = 1/10 vaccinated people.
I'm still not 100% on this, perhaps you know.
In addition to reducing your chance of getting sick IF you are infected, do the professionals think the vaccine also reduces your chance of getting infected at all?
Err definitely, sort of. I think.... If you're exposed to a million viral particles via an errant sneeze and your body kills them off in half a day with the blueprints learnt from the vaccine, and all you notice is an ever so slight tingle in your throat. Well you'll have had the virus, but you'll never know you will. And you won't have passed it on to anyone else.
I've been suffering from a mild depression for the first time in my life in recent weeks.
How do I know it's a depression?
Well, I don't know. I'm not an expert. But my symptoms match what I understand are common ones online.
I'm tired in the morning. I'm tired during the day. I'm tired in the evening. I don't sleep well at night.
I am listless during the day. I stare and drift. I can't focus. I struggle to read books or even newspaper articles - they are too big and long and take too much effort - I go off Netflix and Amazon series almost immediately. I don't want to leave the house. I feel better when I leave the house. I don't want to talk to people outside the house. I feel better if I do see a smile outside the house.
I'm aggressive and frustrated. I want to start fights. On social media and even with my wife. I immediately regret it when I do and feel victimised when they strike back, as they do. A lingering comment can stay with me for weeks. Which puts me off talking to people at all.
The only way I get work done is through immense self-discipline and short bursts of productivity at times when I have no choice, and I absolutely must. I just about do it. I put on a "game face" on for meetings - but I've even dodged a few of those. My tolerance for work colleagues I don't quite click with or who annoy me is virtually zero. And I don't care.
So this lockdown is really really shit. Everyone I've spoken to feels the same. I don't know how many feel how I feel, but I suspect it's undercounted.
It would make all the difference to see close friends and family, and go into work once a week in London (couldn't give tuppence for all the rest really) and get away on holiday with my family, where we can play and eat and have fun. Because that's living. And this is no life.
I'm pushing the boundaries of these rules as far as I can (and some) and feel I have no alternative if I am to maintain some basic level of sanity. Sorry.
I'm sorry to hear that mate and I agree with basically all of what you're saying.
This lockdown has been the worst and if it hadn't been for our house move I think it would have been a lot worse because I'd have had nothing outside of work to set my mind to. Now that it's done both my wife and I are definitely struggling. We're not people who can simply sit in front of the TV and stay there for hours on end and we have pretty active social lives in normal times.
I really miss just being able to message a mate and head to the pub or brewery bar on a Saturday afternoon. I miss being able to meet my wife at 11pm somewhere in the square mile on Thursday or Friday after work drinks and then head for a late dinner and stay out even later for drinks.
The idea that some NHS bod thinks that we need to keep social distancing indefinitely is completely depressing. I'm grateful that MPs like Steve Baker exist to ensure that boot of normal life is kept on the PM's neck and rule by scientist isn't really on the cards.
Its a bit rich that people whose argument you have spent the last year pouring scorn on are suddenly being relied on to get you out of a dreadful situation.
Email your own MP. Email your councillors.
Cut some mouthy anti-lockdown sceptic organisation a small cheque.
You will feel better. Trust me.
I haven't poured any scorn on people who say lockdown isn't a good long term solution. In fact I've been doing the opposite. Being against it as a long term solution doesn't mean it isn't effective at bringing cases down in the short term. In fact I've constantly been saying that without a longer term system in place lockdowns are basically not a really useful way of dealing with this and just pile misery onto people.
Ultimately, I take issue with people who say lockdown doesn't work, it obviously does one only needs to look at our current data to see that. In fact with vaccines we finally have a way out of this shit of lockdown, not lockdown then more lockdown. You can go back across all of my posts and I've been very consistent in this view, lockdown is a mechanism for reducing cases in the short term while other systems should be put in place (border controls, isolation, quarantine) to ensure cases don't explode again after unlocking. They aren't an end state as some people want them to be.
If anything I'd have more in common with Steve Baker than Matt Hancock with the added proviso that we need proper border controls and a fully open internal economy with no social distancing. I couldn't give a fuck if people can't travel in and out for the next 6-8 months.
And that is wholly legitimate.
But you see the issue. Your "I couldn't give a fuck if people can't travel in and out for the next 6-8 months" is someone else's "I couldn't give a fuck if bars and restaurants and clubs are closed for the next 6-8 months".
ie it is important that at every step of the way the government's actions are questioned. Not just when they either align with, or cross our own boundaries.
That is what eg @contrarian has done and I hope I have tried to explain my reasoning for my views. Which are yes of course lockdowns work (as we all have said - no clients, no problems). But they are a huge impingement on our freedoms, they should be questioned at every stage, and they have become, sadly, a policy tool which is now out of the box and, if you listen to Chris Hopson of the NHS on the matter, will not be put back for some time to come.
I have no issue with anyone questioning policies, in fact I'd hope that people are free to do so. As I said the only issue I have is denial that lockdowns work in getting cases and therefore hospitalisations down. They obviously do and saying they don't as some seem to want to say just strikes me as deliberately ignoring evidence. My criticism of them (and yours I think) is that while I accept that lockdowns work in reducing cases, they can't be used as a solution to this because once lockdown is gone cases shot back up and you just end up in lockdown again.
Completely agree that the public policy types aren't going to want to let go of the measures they have and once again I find myself (I'm sure you do too) siding with Steve Baker (a wonderful experience for you, I'm sure) and blocking this dystopian future where NHS bods mouth of to the media that "we could have prevented these 20,000 flu deaths with a lockdown" in 2025 is absolutely a priority.
As I said, the scientists and public health people think they know what's best for us and now have the tools to impose it. We must absolutely take those away from them at the soonest possible opportunity and put them back in their box. We can't have rule by SAGE and scientists briefing the media independently suggesting that we can conquer death by having lockdowns.
For flu I would suggest that higher vaccine takeup of flu vaccine would be more beneficial than a lockdown. Raising that comes way before lockdown imo.
Before this year, even in the most vulnerable UK group flu vaccine takeup was only 70%, and far lower amongst other groups. Even this year that 70% was only up to 80%.
Many other groups are more like 50-60%.
And we are by some way the highest flu vaccine takeup in Europe.
There's a decent chance that, due to Covid experience, the flu vaccines will be a lot more effective in a few years.
A question for the data crunchers here - if the vaccine reduces transmission then will it reduce R below 1 by itself even without other restrictions? Barring mutations.
Yes. Crudely, a 70% effective vaccine should reduce R by 70%. So we could open things up to about where R would be 4 without vaccines, and keep it below 1.
With a 90% effective vaccine, we could open up to where R would otherwise be 10.
Also have to multiply that by the proportion having the vaccine, of course (which lowers effect). But the basic point stands.
On the other side, you would get a greater reduction if vaccine also reduces infectiousness of disease in those who do still get it - say an infected vaccinated person meets 10 vaccinated people who they would otherwise have infected, 80% of whom don't get it. But if the infected vaccinated person is less infectious (say half as infectious) then they might only infect 5/10 unvaccinated people or 5/10 x 2/10 = 1/10 vaccinated people.
I'm still not 100% on this, perhaps you know.
In addition to reducing your chance of getting sick IF you are infected, do the professionals think the vaccine also reduces your chance of getting infected at all?
"Infection" is not quite as easily defined as you might think. The term used is "sterilising immunity" if you essentially don't get infected at all (virus still reaches you, but gets wiped out quickly).
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I think you're missing out the Texas Governor there.
If the power goes out all over Texas, they are going to be looking to blame Washington first, regardless of whether that is fair....
Despite Texas not being connected to the Federal grid?
The US right seems to find a way to "blame the libs" regardless.
In reality, Texas is what happens when you give the power industry absolutely everything they want with no thought as to the consequences if things go wrong.
Texas refused to winterize their power infrastructure at all. The turbines for the nuclear power stations are right out in the open (you can see them on Google maps!) so unsurprisingly they’re shutting down in the extreme cold. Not only that, many Texan power plants don’t have cold start capability in house - they can’t start up without grid power. Cold start infrastructure has been privatised & is subject to an auction between power plants. If the entire state grid goes down, demand is going to skyrocket but there will not be the capacity to deliver it because private companies have (understandably) not invested sufficiently in portable unused generating capacity.
The whole thing is a complete shitshow. The reason Texan politicians are so desperate to blame liberals/greens/anyone except themselves is that all this is their own fault & they can’t do anything about it - attempting to push the blame elsewhere is all they’ve got left.
Good to be reminded that there’s more to football than millionaires breaking lockdown and has-beens spouting inanities for money on the telly. Perhaps Lou can get a spot in Marcus’s first cabinet..
Good lockdown game, which current and ex football folk would you want in a government (and which definitely not anywhere near government!).
Well, I say good, options are a bit sparse atm.
Didn't the Nevilles open their hotel for free for NHS workers? Maybe there are more than we think? The idiots get all the publicity cos spouting bollocks on TV is the least harmful activity they can get up to?
A question for the data crunchers here - if the vaccine reduces transmission then will it reduce R below 1 by itself even without other restrictions? Barring mutations.
Yes. Crudely, a 70% effective vaccine should reduce R by 70%. So we could open things up to about where R would be 4 without vaccines, and keep it below 1.
With a 90% effective vaccine, we could open up to where R would otherwise be 10.
Also have to multiply that by the proportion having the vaccine, of course (which lowers effect). But the basic point stands.
On the other side, you would get a greater reduction if vaccine also reduces infectiousness of disease in those who do still get it - say an infected vaccinated person meets 10 vaccinated people who they would otherwise have infected, 80% of whom don't get it. But if the infected vaccinated person is less infectious (say half as infectious) then they might only infect 5/10 unvaccinated people or 5/10 x 2/10 = 1/10 vaccinated people.
I'm still not 100% on this, perhaps you know.
In addition to reducing your chance of getting sick IF you are infected, do the professionals think the vaccine also reduces your chance of getting infected at all?
Err definitely, sort of. I think.... If you're exposed to a million viral particles via an errant sneeze and your body kills them off in half a day with the blueprints learnt from the vaccine, and all you notice is an ever so slight tingle in your throat. Well you'll have had the virus, but you'll never know you will. And you won't have passed it on to anyone else.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
many Texan power plants don’t have cold start capability in house - they can’t start up without grid power. Cold start infrastructure has been privatised & is subject to an auction between power plants.
That is sort of true here also.
Torness could not start up without consuming the entire output of Longannet
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
I think you're missing out the Texas Governor there.
If the power goes out all over Texas, they are going to be looking to blame Washington first, regardless of whether that is fair....
Despite Texas not being connected to the Federal grid?
The US right seems to find a way to "blame the libs" regardless.
In reality, Texas is what happens when you give the power industry absolutely everything they want with no thought as to the consequences if things go wrong.
Texas refused to winterize their power infrastructure at all. The turbines for the nuclear power stations are right out in the open (you can see them on Google maps!) so unsurprisingly they’re shutting down in the extreme cold. Not only that, many Texan power plants don’t have cold start capability in house - they can’t start up without grid power. Cold start infrastructure has been privatised & is subject to an auction between power plants. If the entire state grid goes down, demand is going to skyrocket but there will not be the capacity to deliver it because private companies have (understandably) not invested sufficiently in portable unused generating capacity.
The whole thing is a complete shitshow. The reason Texan politicians are so desperate to blame liberals/greens/anyone except themselves is that all this is their own fault & they can’t do anything about it - attempting to push the blame elsewhere is all they’ve got left.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
Firstly the UK doesn't have highest deaths per million.
True Gibralter does
UK is highest deaths per Million of any Nation with a Population over 12m though
I would wait until seeing actual excess death figures before repeating that if I were you.
In the UK it seems we included everyone who tested for Covid as a Covid test (even if killed by a bus) while elsewhere I've seen plenty of cases where Covid is the cause of death but wasn't even vaguely mentioned as the published reason.
Good to be reminded that there’s more to football than millionaires breaking lockdown and has-beens spouting inanities for money on the telly. Perhaps Lou can get a spot in Marcus’s first cabinet..
Good lockdown game, which current and ex football folk would you want in a government (and which definitely not anywhere near government!).
Well, I say good, options are a bit sparse atm.
I'd like Keegan in there. The confidence to work without a contract yet not ego driven - "I'm just a bit short at this level" - and a great communicator. Honest too. An honest bloke.
Who wouldn't I want? Harry Redknapp. I don't trust that man.
I think you're missing out the Texas Governor there.
If the power goes out all over Texas, they are going to be looking to blame Washington first, regardless of whether that is fair....
Despite Texas not being connected to the Federal grid?
The US right seems to find a way to "blame the libs" regardless.
In reality, Texas is what happens when you give the power industry absolutely everything they want with no thought as to the consequences if things go wrong.
Texas refused to winterize their power infrastructure at all. The turbines for the nuclear power stations are right out in the open (you can see them on Google maps!) so unsurprisingly they’re shutting down in the extreme cold. Not only that, many Texan power plants don’t have cold start capability in house - they can’t start up without grid power. Cold start infrastructure has been privatised & is subject to an auction between power plants. If the entire state grid goes down, demand is going to skyrocket but there will not be the capacity to deliver it because private companies have (understandably) not invested sufficiently in portable unused generating capacity.
The whole thing is a complete shitshow. The reason Texan politicians are so desperate to blame liberals/greens/anyone except themselves is that all this is their own fault & they can’t do anything about it - attempting to push the blame elsewhere is all they’ve got left.
So the actual complaint is that the liberals / greens / someone (anyone) else let them do it.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
I think you're missing out the Texas Governor there.
If the power goes out all over Texas, they are going to be looking to blame Washington first, regardless of whether that is fair....
Despite Texas not being connected to the Federal grid?
The US right seems to find a way to "blame the libs" regardless.
In reality, Texas is what happens when you give the power industry absolutely everything they want with no thought as to the consequences if things go wrong.
Texas refused to winterize their power infrastructure at all. The turbines for the nuclear power stations are right out in the open (you can see them on Google maps!) so unsurprisingly they’re shutting down in the extreme cold. Not only that, many Texan power plants don’t have cold start capability in house - they can’t start up without grid power. Cold start infrastructure has been privatised & is subject to an auction between power plants. If the entire state grid goes down, demand is going to skyrocket but there will not be the capacity to deliver it because private companies have (understandably) not invested sufficiently in portable unused generating capacity.
The whole thing is a complete shitshow. The reason Texan politicians are so desperate to blame liberals/greens/anyone except themselves is that all this is their own fault & they can’t do anything about it - attempting to push the blame elsewhere is all they’ve got left.
It's largely going to work though.
Trump has managed to convince a large majority of Republican voters that he isn't a lame loser, but the victim of massive electoral fraud.
Piece of cake to blame Greenies for the failure of the Texas power industry and politicians.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
Because an unlocking will result in cases going up. What vaccines do is break the link between case numbers and hospitals.
The aim of the vaccine programme is to keep people from getting seriously ill from COVID and needing hospital care. Some scientists and public health people are now trying to move the goal posts to make the aim of it to keeping cases down. It's a completely transparent attempt to keep everyone locked up for longer so they can conquer death. Does it matter if 50m people per year get COVID if all they experience is a very mild cold (or nothing at all)? Case numbers aren't the major factor in this and the government must resist allowing for them to become part of the decision making process.
A question for the data crunchers here - if the vaccine reduces transmission then will it reduce R below 1 by itself even without other restrictions? Barring mutations.
Yes. Crudely, a 70% effective vaccine should reduce R by 70%. So we could open things up to about where R would be 4 without vaccines, and keep it below 1.
With a 90% effective vaccine, we could open up to where R would otherwise be 10.
Also have to multiply that by the proportion having the vaccine, of course (which lowers effect). But the basic point stands.
On the other side, you would get a greater reduction if vaccine also reduces infectiousness of disease in those who do still get it - say an infected vaccinated person meets 10 vaccinated people who they would otherwise have infected, 80% of whom don't get it. But if the infected vaccinated person is less infectious (say half as infectious) then they might only infect 5/10 unvaccinated people or 5/10 x 2/10 = 1/10 vaccinated people.
I'm still not 100% on this, perhaps you know.
In addition to reducing your chance of getting sick IF you are infected, do the professionals think the vaccine also reduces your chance of getting infected at all?
Err definitely, sort of. I think.... If you're exposed to a million viral particles via an errant sneeze and your body kills them off in half a day with the blueprints learnt from the vaccine, and all you notice is an ever so slight tingle in your throat. Well you'll have had the virus, but you'll never know you will. And you won't have passed it on to anyone else.
After all this time, we’re still stuck in mixing up the virus SARS-Cov2 versus the illness Covid-19.
Stop fixating so much on looking for the virus, with mail ordered millions of tests and daily case rates. Worry about the illness, as measured by hospitalisations.
Now sure, up to now the one has largely followed the other. But the vaccines change all that. That’s the whole purpose of them.
If you don’t get sick enough to show symptoms, and don’t transmit a virus capable of causing symptoms on the other person, it’s a philosophical question what you are even “positive” with.
To CasinoRoyale, I can assure you you’re not alone in having had some very dark days recently. Be thankful at least that you’re self aware enough to recognise it. Write to your MP. You’ll feel better for it. Your GP will only treat the symptoms. We need as a populace to get the cause dealt with.
A question for the data crunchers here - if the vaccine reduces transmission then will it reduce R below 1 by itself even without other restrictions? Barring mutations.
Yes. Crudely, a 70% effective vaccine should reduce R by 70%. So we could open things up to about where R would be 4 without vaccines, and keep it below 1.
With a 90% effective vaccine, we could open up to where R would otherwise be 10.
Also have to multiply that by the proportion having the vaccine, of course (which lowers effect). But the basic point stands.
On the other side, you would get a greater reduction if vaccine also reduces infectiousness of disease in those who do still get it - say an infected vaccinated person meets 10 vaccinated people who they would otherwise have infected, 80% of whom don't get it. But if the infected vaccinated person is less infectious (say half as infectious) then they might only infect 5/10 unvaccinated people or 5/10 x 2/10 = 1/10 vaccinated people.
I'm still not 100% on this, perhaps you know.
In addition to reducing your chance of getting sick IF you are infected, do the professionals think the vaccine also reduces your chance of getting infected at all?
Err definitely, sort of. I think.... If you're exposed to a million viral particles via an errant sneeze and your body kills them off in half a day with the blueprints learnt from the vaccine, and all you notice is an ever so slight tingle in your throat. Well you'll have had the virus, but you'll never know you will. And you won't have passed it on to anyone else.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
You defending the 1K cases bar for serious unwinding of lockdown?
And if you watch *very carefully* you can see Mitch McConnell pressing the button and then asking how soon the equipment can be moved to Trump Tower in New York.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
Firstly the UK doesn't have highest deaths per million.
True Gibralter does
UK is highest deaths per Million of any Nation with a Population over 12m though
I would wait until seeing actual excess death figures before repeating that if I were you.
In the UK it seems we included everyone who tested for Covid as a Covid test (even if killed by a bus) while elsewhere I've seen plenty of cases where Covid is the cause of death but wasn't even vaguely mentioned as the published reason.
It's a preposterous and absurd lie.
The UK is counting deaths, other countries aren't. The UK is the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths, most other nations have dramatically more excess deaths than Covid deaths.
Russia has more excess deaths per million recorded by the end of November than the UK has recorded to mid January. Russia is not having a good winter either.
Sam Coates on Sky News moaning the UK government vaccination targets are underwhelming...the scientist he was interviewing look of disbelief was something to behold...it was literally WTF, before giving Coates both barrels about what a dickhead his comments were, explaining just what an incredible achievement it is to do 15 million vaccinations in a few weeks.
As part of my dream that involves getting a Jag Mk2 and converting it to electric the current purchase price of a 5kWh battery is about £1000.
You ain't going very far on a 5kWh battery. Having said that, it's still probably further than the original Jag would have gone without spinning a rod bearing.
There is a whole cottage industry doing electroclassics now. They aren't cheap though. This MGB costs 90 grand...
Interestingly, custom electrification of existing cars is where Elon got involved with Tesla. He was trying to get a 911 electrified, IIRC.
Of roads not taken - for the terrible remake of The Italian Job, some Minis were converted to electric. For tunnel driving... apparently someone tried suggesting to the manufacturers that a small volume special might be an idea.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
You defending the 1K cases bar for serious unwinding of lockdown?
Best of luck with that, my old china.
No I'm not. The opposite, I'm saying I expect us to reach 1000 before too long even with unlocking occuring.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
Because an unlocking will result in cases going up. What vaccines do is break the link between case numbers and hospitals.
The aim of the vaccine programme is to keep people from getting seriously ill from COVID and needing hospital care. Some scientists and public health people are now trying to move the goal posts to make the aim of it to keeping cases down. It's a completely transparent attempt to keep everyone locked up for longer so they can conquer death. Does it matter if 50m people per year get COVID if all they experience is a very mild cold (or nothing at all)? Case numbers aren't the major factor in this and the government must resist allowing for them to become part of the decision making process.
Short version - the vaccines, potentially, turn COVID19 into just another kind of flu.
We don't obsess (very much) about numbers of flu cases....
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I think your general point goes in the right direction, but a hospitalisation per case rate of 0.01% is just wishful thinking. Half of hospitalisations are among under 70s, most of whom haven't been vaccinated yet, and two Pfizer doses reduce serious cases by 92% not 99.99% according to that recent Israel study.
I think the criterium should be expected hospitalizations, based on daily case rate (as that provides the least laggy data) and recent hospitalizations per case. That way, more cases are tolerated as the hospitalizations per case rate comes down.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
You defending the 1K cases bar for serious unwinding of lockdown?
Best of luck with that, my old china.
No I'm not. The opposite, I'm saying I expect us to reach 1000 before too long even with unlocking occuring.
I don't see how that's possible, even among the vaccinated there is ~85% immunity from symptoms. So for the 15m who are immunised we could expect 15% to develop mild symptoms and ~30-40% to be infected.
I'd actually suggest that with the amount of testing going on we're going to struggle to get below 5-7k cases per day for the rest of the year because of mild and asymptomatic spread among the immunised.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
Because an unlocking will result in cases going up. What vaccines do is break the link between case numbers and hospitals.
The aim of the vaccine programme is to keep people from getting seriously ill from COVID and needing hospital care. Some scientists and public health people are now trying to move the goal posts to make the aim of it to keeping cases down. It's a completely transparent attempt to keep everyone locked up for longer so they can conquer death. Does it matter if 50m people per year get COVID if all they experience is a very mild cold (or nothing at all)? Case numbers aren't the major factor in this and the government must resist allowing for them to become part of the decision making process.
If vaccines are reducing transmission, especially amongst superspreaders like NHS staff then I don't think it's inevitable numbers will go back up like they have in the past.
Besides there's a difference between what they're going up from. Currently it's going up if we unlocked today from tens of thousands of cases per day. Soon it will be thousands of cases per day.
Before long I do think we'll naturally be very low thousands to hundreds per day. Even unlocked.
I've been suffering from a mild depression for the first time in my life in recent weeks.
How do I know it's a depression?
Well, I don't know. I'm not an expert. But my symptoms match what I understand are common ones online.
I'm tired in the morning. I'm tired during the day. I'm tired in the evening. I don't sleep well at night.
I am listless during the day. I stare and drift. I can't focus. I struggle to read books or even newspaper articles - they are too big and long and take too much effort - I go off Netflix and Amazon series almost immediately. I don't want to leave the house. I feel better when I leave the house. I don't want to talk to people outside the house. I feel better if I do see a smile outside the house.
I'm aggressive and frustrated. I want to start fights. On social media and even with my wife. I immediately regret it when I do and feel victimised when they strike back, as they do. A lingering comment can stay with me for weeks. Which puts me off talking to people at all.
The only way I get work done is through immense self-discipline and short bursts of productivity at times when I have no choice, and I absolutely must. I just about do it. I put on a "game face" on for meetings - but I've even dodged a few of those. My tolerance for work colleagues I don't quite click with or who annoy me is virtually zero. And I don't care.
So this lockdown is really really shit. Everyone I've spoken to feels the same. I don't know how many feel how I feel, but I suspect it's undercounted.
It would make all the difference to see close friends and family, and go into work once a week in London (couldn't give tuppence for all the rest really) and get away on holiday with my family, where we can play and eat and have fun. Because that's living. And this is no life.
I'm pushing the boundaries of these rules as far as I can (and some) and feel I have no alternative if I am to maintain some basic level of sanity. Sorry.
This will no doubt have already been said, but much sympathy for a brave post. Hits close to home for myself, particularly the 5th and 6th paragraphs.
Again, why the f##k is Sam Coates doing the long interview with the vaccine task force member, he just asks so many idiotic questions and far too focused on the politics aspects such as big dom, eu and bingham, when the scientist makes it clear early on that they work fairly independently from UK government and absolutely nothing to do with EU.
Why the hell again can they not use a scientific / medical correspondent to do the interview.
Sam Coates on Sky News moaning the UK government vaccination targets are underwhelming...the scientist he was interviewing look of disbelief was something to behold...it was literally WTF, before giving Coates both barrels about what a dickhead his comments were, explaining just what an incredible achievement it is to do 15 million vaccinations in a few weeks.
Good. Ideally he would say
"I'm wasting my time here because you are too dumb to understand the issues"
- then walk out. Make it must-watch TV on You-tube. Then explain WHY you walked out, to any channel that will have you.
The standard of journalism in this epidemic has been risible.
In news that is totally unsurprising to me I see the famed "deplatforming" of Germaine Greet cited in the supporting docs for government culture war paper never actually happened
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
Because an unlocking will result in cases going up. What vaccines do is break the link between case numbers and hospitals.
The aim of the vaccine programme is to keep people from getting seriously ill from COVID and needing hospital care. Some scientists and public health people are now trying to move the goal posts to make the aim of it to keeping cases down. It's a completely transparent attempt to keep everyone locked up for longer so they can conquer death. Does it matter if 50m people per year get COVID if all they experience is a very mild cold (or nothing at all)? Case numbers aren't the major factor in this and the government must resist allowing for them to become part of the decision making process.
If vaccines are reducing transmission, especially amongst superspreaders like NHS staff then I don't think it's inevitable numbers will go back up like they have in the past.
Besides there's a difference between what they're going up from. Currently it's going up if we unlocked today from tens of thousands of cases per day. Soon it will be thousands of cases per day.
Before long I do think we'll naturally be very low thousands to hundreds per day. Even unlocked.
But we don't know that they are. Even the study only showed a 67% reduction in cases on a very small sample with a huge 95% CI range.
We shouldn't allow the goal posts to be moved and I'm emailing my new MP to that effect. We all need to keep the pressure on Tory MPs to not give in on this and allow rule by SAGE.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
You defending the 1K cases bar for serious unwinding of lockdown?
Best of luck with that, my old china.
No I'm not. The opposite, I'm saying I expect us to reach 1000 before too long even with unlocking occuring.
I don't see how that's possible, even among the vaccinated there is ~85% immunity from symptoms. So for the 15m who are immunised we could expect 15% to develop mild symptoms and ~30-40% to be infected.
I'd actually suggest that with the amount of testing going on we're going to struggle to get below 5-7k cases per day for the rest of the year because of mild and asymptomatic spread among the immunised.
Absolutely. Its a manifesto for eternal lockdown that utterly torpedoes the Politicalbetting shibboleth that nobody calling the shots wants lockdown to last a minute longer than necessary.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
1,121 cases reported in Scotland today. First one over 1,000 since Feb 4, and up from 803 last Wednesday. Let's see what it looks like by specimen date, but it's not a good sign.
I've been suffering from a mild depression for the first time in my life in recent weeks.
How do I know it's a depression?
Well, I don't know. I'm not an expert. But my symptoms match what I understand are common ones online.
I'm tired in the morning. I'm tired during the day. I'm tired in the evening. I don't sleep well at night.
I am listless during the day. I stare and drift. I can't focus. I struggle to read books or even newspaper articles - they are too big and long and take too much effort - I go off Netflix and Amazon series almost immediately. I don't want to leave the house. I feel better when I leave the house. I don't want to talk to people outside the house. I feel better if I do see a smile outside the house.
I'm aggressive and frustrated. I want to start fights. On social media and even with my wife. I immediately regret it when I do and feel victimised when they strike back, as they do. A lingering comment can stay with me for weeks. Which puts me off talking to people at all.
The only way I get work done is through immense self-discipline and short bursts of productivity at times when I have no choice, and I absolutely must. I just about do it. I put on a "game face" on for meetings - but I've even dodged a few of those. My tolerance for work colleagues I don't quite click with or who annoy me is virtually zero. And I don't care.
So this lockdown is really really shit. Everyone I've spoken to feels the same. I don't know how many feel how I feel, but I suspect it's undercounted.
It would make all the difference to see close friends and family, and go into work once a week in London (couldn't give tuppence for all the rest really) and get away on holiday with my family, where we can play and eat and have fun. Because that's living. And this is no life.
I'm pushing the boundaries of these rules as far as I can (and some) and feel I have no alternative if I am to maintain some basic level of sanity. Sorry.
This will no doubt have already been said, but much sympathy for a brave post. Hits close to home for myself, particularly the 5th and 6th paragraphs.
I admire CR honesty and for everyone experiencing mental health issues either themselves or in our case a member of our family we need to be much kinder and understanding with each other
1,121 cases reported in Scotland today. First one over 1,000 since Feb 4, and up from 803 last Wednesday. Let's see what it looks like by specimen date, but it's not a good sign.
No - it's all going to start going backwards again I'm afraid.
The UK variant of coronavirus is spreading fast in Germany and is expected to become the dominant strain, the country’s health minister said this morning.
German scientists don’t sequence every positive test result but, in those which were analysed, Jens Spahn said more than a fifth were caused by the variant identified in Kent and the rate appeared to be doubling every week.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
Sam Coates on Sky News moaning the UK government vaccination targets are underwhelming...the scientist he was interviewing look of disbelief was something to behold...it was literally WTF, before giving Coates both barrels about what a dickhead his comments were, explaining just what an incredible achievement it is to do 15 million vaccinations in a few weeks.
Achieve something great and the public and press won't go 'let's keep this up', they'll ask 'how can we top that?' Politicians don't generally hold back such thoughts in fairness.
1,121 cases reported in Scotland today. First one over 1,000 since Feb 4, and up from 803 last Wednesday. Let's see what it looks like by specimen date, but it's not a good sign.
Not just Scotland....
On Wednesday Poland reported 8,694 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours - the highest number since 14 January. The number of new infections was 68% higher than the previous day.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
You defending the 1K cases bar for serious unwinding of lockdown?
Best of luck with that, my old china.
No I'm not. The opposite, I'm saying I expect us to reach 1000 before too long even with unlocking occuring.
I don't see how that's possible, even among the vaccinated there is ~85% immunity from symptoms. So for the 15m who are immunised we could expect 15% to develop mild symptoms and ~30-40% to be infected.
I'd actually suggest that with the amount of testing going on we're going to struggle to get below 5-7k cases per day for the rest of the year because of mild and asymptomatic spread among the immunised.
Isn't it currently at ~10k and coming down by 30% per week (and accelerating).
At that rate it will be below 5k within a fortnight surely? I see absolutely no reason for it to still be above 5k by the eight of March. I'd be surprised if it's above 2k by the end of March.
I don't see how it will be above 1k by end of April unless the fall is completely arrested.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
1,121 cases reported in Scotland today. First one over 1,000 since Feb 4, and up from 803 last Wednesday. Let's see what it looks like by specimen date, but it's not a good sign.
No - it's all going to start going backwards again I'm afraid.
Let's see if this results in more people in hospital before we start declaring defeat.
"It would help if Starmer could ditch the hopeless Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor. She is not exactly the new Gordon Brown (not so much a Big Clunking Fist, as GB was known in his pomp, as a Tiny Bashful Paw), the last opposition spokesman to seize control of the debate."
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
I know people who have done one of the others - Imperial? That has a whole load of questions about symptoms and activities in addition to the test.
Re ONS, my point was that their numbers won't go up due to more testing as they're consistently randomly sampling. The relevance of their numbers to the need for lockdown may decrease.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
To what end? What do they gain?
I mean, they are as locked down as everyone else, if not more so.
Good to be reminded that there’s more to football than millionaires breaking lockdown and has-beens spouting inanities for money on the telly. Perhaps Lou can get a spot in Marcus’s first cabinet..
Good lockdown game, which current and ex football folk would you want in a government (and which definitely not anywhere near government!).
Well, I say good, options are a bit sparse atm.
I'd like Keegan in there. The confidence to work without a contract yet not ego driven - "I'm just a bit short at this level" - and a great communicator. Honest too. An honest bloke.
Who wouldn't I want? Harry Redknapp. I don't trust that man.
Always liked Pat Nevin as a thoughtful observer, and I guess Sir Alex would have to be there as someone who didn't let being massively successful and stinking rich get in the way of remaining a life long Labour man. As Dixiedean pointed out earlier the Nevilles show encouraging signs of having a conscience.
Kenny Dalglish was one of my faves back in the day, but he seems utterly enigmatic on matters political/social. Probably a good thing.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
Total rubbish. Just conspiracy theory nonsense.
When even Maxpb is emailing his MP to tell them he does not want rule by SAGE, you know you are in the wrong, you naive gullible little puppy boy.
Sam Coates on Sky News moaning the UK government vaccination targets are underwhelming...the scientist he was interviewing look of disbelief was something to behold...it was literally WTF, before giving Coates both barrels about what a dickhead his comments were, explaining just what an incredible achievement it is to do 15 million vaccinations in a few weeks.
Achieve something great and the public and press won't go 'let's keep this up', they'll ask 'how can we top that?' Politicians don't generally hold back such thoughts in fairness.
It was such a frustrating interview in that 25 mins and Coates spent at least half asking about why not faster, what about the EU situation, what about Big Dom, what about how often Boris phoned them, what about Kate Bingham, she was a bit controversial wasn't she.
Does anybody give a flying f##k if Big Dom was involved in this or not, how much contact they had directly with Boris, if they talked to the EU much.
What we want to know is how did the task force achieve this, what good lessons can be drawn out from it for other aspects of public / private partnerships and most importantly what is the future, how are we going to deal with mutations etc.
Makes me want to go full Rolling Stones and chuck the telly out the window, when it should have been a really insightful interview with a member of the taskforce.
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
So people, scientists, medics, and the like, go to college, medical school, with a view to curing people, and suddenly find that once they have power to make people miserable that's all they want to do? They just enjoy controlling people's lives, nothing else? They don't enjoy all the things that we enjoy? They have no children who want to play with their friends, see their families? They never take holidays or want to again? They don't like doing anything else except exercising power? Is that what you are saying? That power to keep people is the only think that motivates medics and scientists? That they enjoy prolonging misery?
Because that is the logical outcome of what you are suggesting.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
Total rubbish. Just conspiracy theory nonsense.
Scientists and health officials love it when people die in large numbers, it gives them a real kick.
I do get the basic point of power (albeit in this case merely advisory power) being corrupting, but let's get real here - so many people, at so many levels, would need to be complete sociopaths for contrarian to be right about their motivations to damage the country so much for no reason other than power. That's just not plausible.
Being overly cautious or gung ho, if that is the worry, is much more likely to be motivated by fear than malice.
Arguing against that approach as disproportionate is far more effective than suggesting Chris Whitty is a literal meglomaniac. And focusing on the latter undermines people arguing about the former.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
To what end? What do they gain?
I mean, they are as locked down as everyone else, if not more so.
Where's the fun in that?
History is positively crammed with people have committed mass murder and a host of other evils to get and maintain power and control. Its almost like many human beings crave it.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I think your general point goes in the right direction, but a hospitalisation per case rate of 0.01% is just wishful thinking. Half of hospitalisations are among under 70s, most of whom haven't been vaccinated yet, and two Pfizer doses reduce serious cases by 92% not 99.99% according to that recent Israel study.
I think the criterium should be expected hospitalizations, based on daily case rate (as that provides the least laggy data) and recent hospitalizations per case. That way, more cases are tolerated as the hospitalizations per case rate comes down.
Interesting you used "under 70s" as the watershed.
London (CNN): A majority of Britons are not satisfied with the post-Brexit trade agreement that Boris Johnson secured with the European Union, according to a survey that provides the first detailed insight into the nation's attitude towards the deal since it took effect.
The report, published by the British Foreign Policy Group, an independent think tank advocating for a stronger UK global presence, shows that under a quarter of those surveyed believe the Prime Minister's deal is "the best framework for our relationship with the EU moving forward."
The question of what it should be replaced with, however, reveals that nearly five years since the UK decided to leave the European Union, the nation is still bitterly divided on what role Britain should have in Europe.
While 27% of respondents wanted a much closer relationship with a view to rejoining and 22% want a closer relationship but to remain outside the bloc, 12% want to move further away from Europe. Of the 24% of respondents who approved of the deal, they did so with an important caveat that it was the best deal for the "foreseeable future". Some 15% of respondents said they didn't know.
In news that is totally unsurprising to me I see the famed "deplatforming" of Germaine Greet cited in the supporting docs for government culture war paper never actually happened
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
To what end? What do they gain?
I mean, they are as locked down as everyone else, if not more so.
Where's the fun in that?
History is positively crammed with people have committed mass murder and a host of other evils to get and maintain power and control. Its almost like many human beings crave it.
They had other hobbies as well. But you are suggesting these people have no lives outside their lust for power.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
So people, scientists, medics, and the like, go to college, medical school, with a view to curing people, and suddenly find that once they have power to make people miserable that's all they want to do? They just enjoy controlling people's lives, nothing else? They don't enjoy all the things that we enjoy? They have no children who want to play with their friends, see their families? They never take holidays or want to again? They don't like doing anything else except exercising power? Is that what you are saying? That power to keep people is the only think that motivates medics and scientists? That they enjoy prolonging misery?
Because that is the logical outcome of what you are suggesting.
FFS Doug Harold Shipman was a doctor. And a well respected one at that. Mengele was a doctor. Being a scientist does not confer any kind of morality whatsoever. Einstein gave the go ahead to hiroshima.
Ditto the other professions. When the final solution was decided at the Wannsee many in the room were qualified lawyers.
In the right circumstances power can and does corrupt anybody.
Good to be reminded that there’s more to football than millionaires breaking lockdown and has-beens spouting inanities for money on the telly. Perhaps Lou can get a spot in Marcus’s first cabinet..
Good lockdown game, which current and ex football folk would you want in a government (and which definitely not anywhere near government!).
Well, I say good, options are a bit sparse atm.
I'd like Keegan in there. The confidence to work without a contract yet not ego driven - "I'm just a bit short at this level" - and a great communicator. Honest too. An honest bloke.
Who wouldn't I want? Harry Redknapp. I don't trust that man.
Always liked Pat Nevin as a thoughtful observer, and I guess Sir Alex would have to be there as someone who didn't let being massively successful and stinking rich get in the way of remaining a life long Labour man. As Dixiedean pointed out earlier the Nevilles show encouraging signs of having a conscience.
Kenny Dalglish was one of my faves back in the day, but he seems utterly enigmatic on matters political/social. Probably a good thing.
If we can widen it a bit, Nuno Esperito Santo would be appointed Portuguese ambassador. Just donated £250,000 to tackle food poverty in Wolverhampton. Good bloke.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
Firstly the UK doesn't have highest deaths per million.
True Gibralter does
UK is highest deaths per Million of any Nation with a Population over 12m though
I would wait until seeing actual excess death figures before repeating that if I were you.
In the UK it seems we included everyone who tested for Covid as a Covid test (even if killed by a bus) while elsewhere I've seen plenty of cases where Covid is the cause of death but wasn't even vaguely mentioned as the published reason.
It's a preposterous and absurd lie.
The UK is counting deaths, other countries aren't. The UK is the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths, most other nations have dramatically more excess deaths than Covid deaths.
Russia has more excess deaths per million recorded by the end of November than the UK has recorded to mid January. Russia is not having a good winter either.
On the subject of perposterous and absurd lies (or more charitably just making shit up): The UK is not "the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths". You only have to go as far as France to find another example, and there are several others.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I think your general point goes in the right direction, but a hospitalisation per case rate of 0.01% is just wishful thinking. Half of hospitalisations are among under 70s, most of whom haven't been vaccinated yet, and two Pfizer doses reduce serious cases by 92% not 99.99% according to that recent Israel study.
I think the criterium should be expected hospitalizations, based on daily case rate (as that provides the least laggy data) and recent hospitalizations per case. That way, more cases are tolerated as the hospitalizations per case rate comes down.
Interesting you used "under 70s" as the watershed.
Because two can play at that game.
Only 11% of hospitalisations are under 40.
Under 70s aren't vaccinated yet though.
It's going to be months yet before all over 40s are.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
I’m pretty sure the cabinet, led by the Chancellor who is trying to prepare a budget with a £30bn a month deficit, want the country back to something approaching normal as soon as possible.
Oh god....I thought he had been far too good on the PR front recently. Incoming BBC / Guardian reports women's domestic abuse charities are outraged at such an insensitive comment, we urge Boris to apologise immediately.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
Yep, 'true-but-irrelevant' positives could be an issue with the mainstream testing (or at least, comparing numbers now to numbers last summer for example). Shouldn't be for the ONS surveillance studies though.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
Yeah and this is why it's so alarming to have scientists and other public health people try to link lockdown easing to case numbers. It feels completely dishonest and I don't blame the Chancellor for blowing up at them recently if this is the reason.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
Finally you realise. Finally.
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
Why would they do that?
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
Total rubbish. Just conspiracy theory nonsense.
When even Maxpb is emailing his MP to tell them he does not want rule by SAGE, you know you are in the wrong, you naive gullible little puppy boy.
Habitual disbelief in the probable in favour of the improbable is itself a form of naivety.
"In the Commons there’s now even a growing group of Tory MPs who are pressing hard for change"
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.
Very good post @MarqueeMark but can you clarify a couple of things?
I understood that when we come out it will be back into the tier system - is that how you understand it?
Secondly, you appear to be suggesting that foreign travellers will be permitted to travel into the country but UK citizens will be barred from travelling out.
Yes, tiers when we reopen - but again, only reducing. So unlikely to be many seeing tier 1 or 2 immediately.
On foreign travel, the ban will stay as the last Covid measure to go. Even then, when lifted, the message will continue to be exercise caution: if you lose your money, there'll be no compensation from the Government. If we are first out of lockdowns, that still means you risk spending 14 days in quarantine when you arrive at a place that is still way behind us.
So this year, give Scotland a try instead. You'll love it.
Er...no, we don’t need to give Hyufd ideas about trying Scotland, thanks.
Are saying he won't tank me?
How does one get to Scotland anyway? I`m fucked if I`m driving ten hours there and ten hours back. Train and then car hire I guess?
If you are brave enough to face airports....fly. Barely an hour to Glasgow or Inverness.
Maybe don't book until jab + 3 weeks. To be safe.
Jab update: arm feels like it has been kicked by a horse, but nothing else to report back.
Curious. My mum and dad both had Oxford AZN and didn`t feel a thing during or afterwards. Did you have the Oxford?
Pfizer. On the bumph they give you at the time, it says more than 1 in 10 get some reaction.
I know two other people that had a painful arm with Pfizer for around 2 days.
My mother had AZ and two weeks on has had no side effects other than feeling sleepy the next day (and that might have been more to do with leaving the house for the first time in months lol)
Vaccine anecdote. Colleague who had Covid last feb/march (positive for antibodies in June), had AZ last week. Next day sore arm and aching all over, just like when he had Covid. Just one day of it though. Supports the idea that those who have had it (a) are still probably showing good protection a year later and (b) might only need one jab, not two.
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
So people, scientists, medics, and the like, go to college, medical school, with a view to curing people, and suddenly find that once they have power to make people miserable that's all they want to do? They just enjoy controlling people's lives, nothing else? They don't enjoy all the things that we enjoy? They have no children who want to play with their friends, see their families? They never take holidays or want to again? They don't like doing anything else except exercising power? Is that what you are saying? That power to keep people is the only think that motivates medics and scientists? That they enjoy prolonging misery?
Because that is the logical outcome of what you are suggesting.
I am fed up with it all. I want to see Fox Jr again. I rather fancy a music festival this summer too.
I don't know a doctor or nurse who doesn't want to see an end to this. Working Covid wards is pretty bloody miserable, but also quite monotonous as recovery is so slow. The same faces every day, some a little better, others a little worse.
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
So people, scientists, medics, and the like, go to college, medical school, with a view to curing people, and suddenly find that once they have power to make people miserable that's all they want to do? They just enjoy controlling people's lives, nothing else? They don't enjoy all the things that we enjoy? They have no children who want to play with their friends, see their families? They never take holidays or want to again? They don't like doing anything else except exercising power? Is that what you are saying? That power to keep people is the only think that motivates medics and scientists? That they enjoy prolonging misery?
Because that is the logical outcome of what you are suggesting.
FFS Doug Harold Shipman was a doctor. And a well respected one at that. Mengele was a doctor. Being a scientist does not confer any kind of morality whatsoever. Einstein gave the go ahead to hiroshima.
Ditto the other professions. When the final solution was decided at the Wannsee many in the room were qualified lawyers.
In the right circumstances power can and does corrupt anybody.
Power is one of a number of human desires. No one in history has given up everything they held dear in the pursuit of power. Not one of the above you quote. It's nothing to do with morality - it's psychology. Some people desire power. Very few, in fact none, desire power to the exclusion of all other basic needs such as human contact.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
That false positive rate is not 0.5%.
The ONS estimate puts the absolute upper bound of false positives to be 0.08%
That is assuming every single positive from its test sample of ~200k were positive.
Literally zero acutal positive cases, every single one a false positive.
For 800,000 daily tests then 0.08% still equals 640 potentially doesn't it?
Correct but 0.08% is not the actual false positive rate. It is the absolute ceiling on false positives.
Tbh, it's not false positives that are the problem. It's asymptomatic and mild cases among people who have been vaccinated. There is almost guaranteed to be more tha 1k per day in that category with the amount of testing we're doing. That's why it feels like a really dishonest moving of the goal posts.
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
I don't see why it's inevitable to be 1k?
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
You defending the 1K cases bar for serious unwinding of lockdown?
Best of luck with that, my old china.
No I'm not. The opposite, I'm saying I expect us to reach 1000 before too long even with unlocking occuring.
I don't see how that's possible, even among the vaccinated there is ~85% immunity from symptoms. So for the 15m who are immunised we could expect 15% to develop mild symptoms and ~30-40% to be infected.
I'd actually suggest that with the amount of testing going on we're going to struggle to get below 5-7k cases per day for the rest of the year because of mild and asymptomatic spread among the immunised.
Isn't it currently at ~10k and coming down by 30% per week (and accelerating).
At that rate it will be below 5k within a fortnight surely? I see absolutely no reason for it to still be above 5k by the eight of March. I'd be surprised if it's above 2k by the end of March.
I don't see how it will be above 1k by end of April unless the fall is completely arrested.
According to PB today, cases are now rising again. Very depressing news (not that I think it should be the key metric – it shouldn't – but people are obsessed with case numbers over hospitalisations).
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
So people, scientists, medics, and the like, go to college, medical school, with a view to curing people, and suddenly find that once they have power to make people miserable that's all they want to do? They just enjoy controlling people's lives, nothing else? They don't enjoy all the things that we enjoy? They have no children who want to play with their friends, see their families? They never take holidays or want to again? They don't like doing anything else except exercising power? Is that what you are saying? That power to keep people is the only think that motivates medics and scientists? That they enjoy prolonging misery?
Because that is the logical outcome of what you are suggesting.
FFS Doug Harold Shipman was a doctor. And a well respected one at that. Mengele was a doctor. Being a scientist does not confer any kind of morality whatsoever. Einstein gave the go ahead to hiroshima.
Ditto the other professions. When the final solution was decided at the Wannsee many in the room were qualified lawyers.
In the right circumstances power can and does corrupt anybody.
I wouldn't go that far, I just think the policy tool of lockdown is something the public health people won't want to give up easily which is why they are moving the goal posts from hospitals to cases.
A question for the data crunchers here - if the vaccine reduces transmission then will it reduce R below 1 by itself even without other restrictions? Barring mutations.
I am not sure this question really means anything. The R is, by definition, the average number of people an infected person will infect. If a vaccine reduces transmission it will reduce R. Will it reduce it so much that it is below 1 even without any other restrictions? Hopefully but not known.
And the "barring mutations" point is a pretty big proviso which isn't really valid - there will definitely be mutations which will definitely affect the effectiveness of vaccines. That's fine as the vaccines themselves develop and this will simply become business as usual. But you can't just assume away something that's going to happen.
If the case numbers are minimal in this country and the border is reasonably secured then why would we have devastating mutations?
Firstly, your question was "without other restrictions" and a very secure quarantine system with little movement in and out of the UK is hardly that.
Secondly, mutations can and do arise without cross-border movement. Leaving aside the issue that where a variant originated isn't necessarily where it originated, it's fairly clear variants have originated in the UK as well as in other countries. What preventing movement does is, in theory, prevent us from importing a mutation that arose elsewhere.
Thirdly "reasonably secured" isn't "perfectly secured". Ships and planes have crews. Quarantine is sometimes broken. The virus can survive on surfaces. Even New Zealand has had cases getting in. So you'll delay mutations originating elsewhere getting into the UK and may limit prevalence, which is quite useful, but that will be far from perfect.
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
Firstly the UK doesn't have highest deaths per million.
True Gibralter does
UK is highest deaths per Million of any Nation with a Population over 12m though
I would wait until seeing actual excess death figures before repeating that if I were you.
In the UK it seems we included everyone who tested for Covid as a Covid test (even if killed by a bus) while elsewhere I've seen plenty of cases where Covid is the cause of death but wasn't even vaguely mentioned as the published reason.
It's a preposterous and absurd lie.
The UK is counting deaths, other countries aren't. The UK is the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths, most other nations have dramatically more excess deaths than Covid deaths.
Russia has more excess deaths per million recorded by the end of November than the UK has recorded to mid January. Russia is not having a good winter either.
On the subject of perposterous and absurd lies (or more charitably just making shit up): The UK is not "the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths". You only have to go as far as France to find another example, and there are several others.
So you have to go down to 18th on the list before finding another country that has more deaths recorded than excess?
Two variants have merged into heavily mutated coronavirus
The UK and California variants of coronavirus appear to have combined into a heavily mutated hybrid, sparking concern that we may be entering a new phase of the covid-19 pandemic
FFS how many more times. They like the vast unaccountable power Johnson has handed them to control the lives of the people of Britain. They do not want it to end.
So people, scientists, medics, and the like, go to college, medical school, with a view to curing people, and suddenly find that once they have power to make people miserable that's all they want to do? They just enjoy controlling people's lives, nothing else? They don't enjoy all the things that we enjoy? They have no children who want to play with their friends, see their families? They never take holidays or want to again? They don't like doing anything else except exercising power? Is that what you are saying? That power to keep people is the only think that motivates medics and scientists? That they enjoy prolonging misery?
Because that is the logical outcome of what you are suggesting.
FFS Doug Harold Shipman was a doctor. And a well respected one at that. Mengele was a doctor. Being a scientist does not confer any kind of morality whatsoever. Einstein gave the go ahead to hiroshima.
Ditto the other professions. When the final solution was decided at the Wannsee many in the room were qualified lawyers.
In the right circumstances power can and does corrupt anybody.
Excellent. So we can assume that all doctor & lawyers are genocidialists.
It's going to put a bit of dent in the NHS when we lock them all up though....
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.
Just catching up on threads. Firstly, excellent piece by Mike – there have been some brilliant leaders by the Smithsons (Jr and Sr) in recent days. Also enjoyed the linked column by Dr John Lees in the Mail.
I couldn't agree more with @Stocky here – the government needs to grow a pair. The first and most important step is drumming into the Mad Scientists that it is HOSPITALISATIONS that should be the key metric not CASES (h/t @theProle FPT).
Do we even need to know the number of daily positive cases anymore? Isn`t this just stoking up fear?
No. Watching the daily positive cases coming down is one of the only things that gives me optimism and hope.
Deaths and hospitalisations are what actually matter.
Well not quite. Until a vast majority of our population is vaccinated higher cases still leads to higher hospitalisations and higher deaths. They are all linked.
The less (fewer) cases, the less chance I have of catching COVID.
But the issue is that the scientists are moving the goalposts. Rishi was right, we were sold this lockdown as a way to protect the NHS from collapse. Now we're being told it's a way to get cases down. How long until that becomes getting cases to zero before we're allowed out of it?
No. The line must be kept at ensuring the NHS doesn't collapse, we're on the way to achieving that in a lasting way by ensuring all people at risk of ending up on hospital from this will be immunised by the end of April (in reality probably the end of March) and all adults by August (more likely June). The idea that once this is achieved we should stay in lockdown because cases are high is simply unacceptable and the scientists are moving the goalposts. We can't have rule by SAGE, no one voted for them.
We won't have rule by SAGE any more than we had rule by Cummings. The PM/ministers will listen to advisers, but they make the call and they are held to account for it.
The scientists (in the virology/public health/epidemiology areas) will advise on what's best for their area of expertise. The virologists and epidemiologists might well push for crushing cases to reduce chances of further damaging mutations (although, realistically, they are more likely to come from countries with few vaccinations and largely beyond our control other than border closing). The public health scientists should take a wider view on e.g. mental health, getting other health services back to full capacity. There should also be economists advising, who will likely push to open as much as possible as soon as possible.
Having said that, I agree that getting everyone* vaccinated (plus two-three weeks) should be a pretty clear end point. After that, things are as good as they're going to get, unless the NHS is on point of collapse there's no holding on a bit longer for things to get better, as they won't (they should be pretty good by then). The only justification for going longer would be a new vaccine-dodging strain that puts a lot of people in hospital or kills them (i.e. the already used vaccines don't prevent even severe illness) and a new vaccine for that very close. In that scenario, restrictions would still be to prevent NHS collapse, but we should not get into that situation.
* or indeed just the vulnerable for at least most restrictions
As we are constantly being told, the public is hugely in favour of continued lockdown. So why on earth wouldn't Boris continue to say "we are following the science" and maintain the lockdown until we have a "robust and effective strategy to identify new variants"?
= continued popularity = continued governing = trebles all round.
Current polling maybe. Try polling on a scenario in which we're in July, deaths are in double figures or lower. People hate lockdown, but at present they think it's justified. They won't think that when it isn't.
Also, I was unfair on the epidemiologists/virologists above. They didn't call for a lockdown very early in the pandemic, which is what you would do if only bothered about cases and damn everything else - didn't SAGE recommend it about two weeks or so before it actually happened? There's not a lot of evidence that even SAGE are lockdown-happy.
We shall see.
But it is entirely possible that Chris Whitty, Chris Hopson et al will agitate against opening up "just in case". And they will do so standing alongside the Prime Minister broadcasting live to the country at 5pm in front of the Union Jack.
Plenty of people will imo take what they say as "the science" and to be followed.
Yup, and there's always going to be a "just in case" reason for these types, it could be mutations, it could be the unvaccinated BAME people being put at risk, it could be too many cases or the NHS not being able to cope with new non-COVID issues. It's like you said, they've been handed this all powerful policy tool to conquer death and for public health types that's their primary concern.
Isn't it just about impossible to get positive tests at less than 1000 a day? My understanding (and I can't remember where from) is that false positivity rate is around 0.5%. If Covid doesn't exist, but we are doing 300,000 tests a day, we'll still be getting 1,500 positives a day. And of those 1,500, you will always get a handful then dying in the next 28 days. Therefore, deaths will never be zero. If anyone can disabuse me of this I'd be very grateful - otherwise I can't see a route out of lockdown ever.
Last summer the day with fewest cases was 12th July: 370. There were 94,700 tests on that day. So the positivity rate was 0.39%
I think it's very unlikely that they were all false positives, given that the local lockdown in Leicester happened at the end of June - there was clearly still some community transmission of Covid in the UK, as well as cases imported from abroad that were then tested positive here.
The false positive rate is very unlikely to be above 0.1%
And, we won't be using 1,000 cases as a threshold anyway.
Firstly the UK doesn't have highest deaths per million.
True Gibralter does
UK is highest deaths per Million of any Nation with a Population over 12m though
I would wait until seeing actual excess death figures before repeating that if I were you.
In the UK it seems we included everyone who tested for Covid as a Covid test (even if killed by a bus) while elsewhere I've seen plenty of cases where Covid is the cause of death but wasn't even vaguely mentioned as the published reason.
It's a preposterous and absurd lie.
The UK is counting deaths, other countries aren't. The UK is the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths, most other nations have dramatically more excess deaths than Covid deaths.
Russia has more excess deaths per million recorded by the end of November than the UK has recorded to mid January. Russia is not having a good winter either.
On the subject of perposterous and absurd lies (or more charitably just making shit up): The UK is not "the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths". You only have to go as far as France to find another example, and there are several others.
So you have to go down to 18th on the list before finding another country that has more deaths recorded than excess?
Comments
If you're exposed to a million viral particles via an errant sneeze and your body kills them off in half a day with the blueprints learnt from the vaccine, and all you notice is an ever so slight tingle in your throat. Well you'll have had the virus, but you'll never know you will. And you won't have passed it on to anyone else.
https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1361411325814054912
GlobalLittle Britain...https://twitter.com/adampayne26/status/1362008854704357377
It's a problem to have 10k per day getting infected when 1k of those end up in hospital, it's not a problem to have 10x as many per day getting infected when only 10 of them end up in hospital. The people who are proposing moving to cases know this as well but they really do seem fixated on keeping people locked up forever. It's up to the politicians to be brave and open up against that advice because lockdown forever isn't a solution to any problem.
In reality, Texas is what happens when you give the power industry absolutely everything they want with no thought as to the consequences if things go wrong.
Texas refused to winterize their power infrastructure at all. The turbines for the nuclear power stations are right out in the open (you can see them on Google maps!) so unsurprisingly they’re shutting down in the extreme cold. Not only that, many Texan power plants don’t have cold start capability in house - they can’t start up without grid power. Cold start infrastructure has been privatised & is subject to an auction between power plants. If the entire state grid goes down, demand is going to skyrocket but there will not be the capacity to deliver it because private companies have (understandably) not invested sufficiently in portable unused generating capacity.
The whole thing is a complete shitshow. The reason Texan politicians are so desperate to blame liberals/greens/anyone except themselves is that all this is their own fault & they can’t do anything about it - attempting to push the blame elsewhere is all they’ve got left.
The idiots get all the publicity cos spouting bollocks on TV is the least harmful activity they can get up to?
Edit. Yes he did. Staff on full pay too.
https://www.squaremeal.co.uk/event-party-venues/news/gary-neville-hotel-rooms-free-nhs-workers_9727
UK is highest deaths per Million of any Nation with a Population over 12m though
Torness could not start up without consuming the entire output of Longannet
Last May to August we got numbers down to the hundreds per day. With vaccines suppressing R, plus natural immunity, I'd expect us to be back to that level relatively soon even without dragging out restrictions absurdly.
In the UK it seems we included everyone who tested for Covid as a Covid test (even if killed by a bus) while elsewhere I've seen plenty of cases where Covid is the cause of death but wasn't even vaguely mentioned as the published reason.
Who wouldn't I want? Harry Redknapp. I don't trust that man.
They can't even play pan European football properly, even with all their resources.
Trump has managed to convince a large majority of Republican voters that he isn't a lame loser, but the victim of massive electoral fraud.
Piece of cake to blame Greenies for the failure of the Texas power industry and politicians.
The aim of the vaccine programme is to keep people from getting seriously ill from COVID and needing hospital care. Some scientists and public health people are now trying to move the goal posts to make the aim of it to keeping cases down. It's a completely transparent attempt to keep everyone locked up for longer so they can conquer death. Does it matter if 50m people per year get COVID if all they experience is a very mild cold (or nothing at all)? Case numbers aren't the major factor in this and the government must resist allowing for them to become part of the decision making process.
Stop fixating so much on looking for the virus, with mail ordered millions of tests and daily case rates. Worry about the illness, as measured by hospitalisations.
Now sure, up to now the one has largely followed the other. But the vaccines change all that. That’s the whole purpose of them.
If you don’t get sick enough to show symptoms, and don’t transmit a virus capable of causing symptoms on the other person, it’s a philosophical question what you are even “positive” with.
To CasinoRoyale, I can assure you you’re not alone in having had some very dark days recently. Be thankful at least that you’re self aware enough to recognise it. Write to your MP. You’ll feel better for it. Your GP will only treat the symptoms. We need as a populace to get the cause dealt with.
Best of luck with that, my old china.
'Irrelevant' of course depending on the context - they're relevant to telling whether someone is infected, but not - hopefully, any more - so relevant as a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths and the need to lock down.
https://twitter.com/kidstatic/status/1361914818307981314
https://twitter.com/kidstatic/status/1361916584143572993
The UK is counting deaths, other countries aren't. The UK is the only nation to have more Covid deaths than excess deaths, most other nations have dramatically more excess deaths than Covid deaths.
Russia has more excess deaths per million recorded by the end of November than the UK has recorded to mid January. Russia is not having a good winter either.
Of roads not taken - for the terrible remake of The Italian Job, some Minis were converted to electric. For tunnel driving... apparently someone tried suggesting to the manufacturers that a small volume special might be an idea.
Surely the ONS study will suffer from it too unless they're asking people to list any symptoms they have when filling in the survey. If they are then it actually could be a treasure trove of data for the whole world.
We don't obsess (very much) about numbers of flu cases....
There are people out there, powerful people, who will link the easing of lockdown to anything whatever that keeps us in lockdown.
I think the criterium should be expected hospitalizations, based on daily case rate (as that provides the least laggy data) and recent hospitalizations per case. That way, more cases are tolerated as the hospitalizations per case rate comes down.
I'd actually suggest that with the amount of testing going on we're going to struggle to get below 5-7k cases per day for the rest of the year because of mild and asymptomatic spread among the immunised.
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1362014547117301764
Or perhaps not.
He has since resigned.
Besides there's a difference between what they're going up from. Currently it's going up if we unlocked today from tens of thousands of cases per day. Soon it will be thousands of cases per day.
Before long I do think we'll naturally be very low thousands to hundreds per day. Even unlocked.
Why the hell again can they not use a scientific / medical correspondent to do the interview.
"I'm wasting my time here because you are too dumb to understand the issues"
- then walk out. Make it must-watch TV on You-tube. Then explain WHY you walked out, to any channel that will have you.
The standard of journalism in this epidemic has been risible.
https://twitter.com/RWynJones/status/1361683772186497024?s=19
We shouldn't allow the goal posts to be moved and I'm emailing my new MP to that effect. We all need to keep the pressure on Tory MPs to not give in on this and allow rule by SAGE.
That notion is dying a death as we speak.
German scientists don’t sequence every positive test result but, in those which were analysed, Jens Spahn said more than a fifth were caused by the variant identified in Kent and the rate appeared to be doubling every week.
On Wednesday Poland reported 8,694 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours - the highest number since 14 January. The number of new infections was 68% higher than the previous day.
Greece as well.
At that rate it will be below 5k within a fortnight surely? I see absolutely no reason for it to still be above 5k by the eight of March. I'd be surprised if it's above 2k by the end of March.
I don't see how it will be above 1k by end of April unless the fall is completely arrested.
"It would help if Starmer could ditch the hopeless Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor. She is not exactly the new Gordon Brown (not so much a Big Clunking Fist, as GB was known in his pomp, as a Tiny Bashful Paw), the last opposition spokesman to seize control of the debate."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/02/17/keir-starmer-could-economic-radical-bold-enough/
Re ONS, my point was that their numbers won't go up due to more testing as they're consistently randomly sampling. The relevance of their numbers to the need for lockdown may decrease.
I mean, they are as locked down as everyone else, if not more so.
Where's the fun in that?
Kenny Dalglish was one of my faves back in the day, but he seems utterly enigmatic on matters political/social. Probably a good thing.
Does anybody give a flying f##k if Big Dom was involved in this or not, how much contact they had directly with Boris, if they talked to the EU much.
What we want to know is how did the task force achieve this, what good lessons can be drawn out from it for other aspects of public / private partnerships and most importantly what is the future, how are we going to deal with mutations etc.
Makes me want to go full Rolling Stones and chuck the telly out the window, when it should have been a really insightful interview with a member of the taskforce.
Because that is the logical outcome of what you are suggesting.
I do get the basic point of power (albeit in this case merely advisory power) being corrupting, but let's get real here - so many people, at so many levels, would need to be complete sociopaths for contrarian to be right about their motivations to damage the country so much for no reason other than power. That's just not plausible.
Being overly cautious or gung ho, if that is the worry, is much more likely to be motivated by fear than malice.
Arguing against that approach as disproportionate is far more effective than suggesting Chris Whitty is a literal meglomaniac. And focusing on the latter undermines people arguing about the former.
https://twitter.com/RoigFranzia/status/1361834031139221507?s=19
Because two can play at that game.
Only 11% of hospitalisations are under 40.
The report, published by the British Foreign Policy Group, an independent think tank advocating for a stronger UK global presence, shows that under a quarter of those surveyed believe the Prime Minister's deal is "the best framework for our relationship with the EU moving forward."
The question of what it should be replaced with, however, reveals that nearly five years since the UK decided to leave the European Union, the nation is still bitterly divided on what role Britain should have in Europe.
While 27% of respondents wanted a much closer relationship with a view to rejoining and 22% want a closer relationship but to remain outside the bloc, 12% want to move further away from Europe. Of the 24% of respondents who approved of the deal, they did so with an important caveat that it was the best deal for the "foreseeable future". Some 15% of respondents said they didn't know.
Rangers manager Steven Gerrard says he has been "let down" by five players who have breached Covid regulations.
Gerrard confirmed Bongani Zungu, Nathan Patterson, Calvin Bassey, Dapo Mebude and Brian Kinnear are self-isolating.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56098667
Seriously well done.
Ditto the other professions. When the final solution was decided at the Wannsee many in the room were qualified lawyers.
In the right circumstances power can and does corrupt anybody.
The government seems determined not to gain any further promotions at present, too.
It's going to be months yet before all over 40s are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH0RtqcxTlk
Quite a common one in fact.
I don't know a doctor or nurse who doesn't want to see an end to this. Working Covid wards is pretty bloody miserable, but also quite monotonous as recovery is so slow. The same faces every day, some a little better, others a little worse.
Secondly, mutations can and do arise without cross-border movement. Leaving aside the issue that where a variant originated isn't necessarily where it originated, it's fairly clear variants have originated in the UK as well as in other countries. What preventing movement does is, in theory, prevent us from importing a mutation that arose elsewhere.
Thirdly "reasonably secured" isn't "perfectly secured". Ships and planes have crews. Quarantine is sometimes broken. The virus can survive on surfaces. Even New Zealand has had cases getting in. So you'll delay mutations originating elsewhere getting into the UK and may limit prevalence, which is quite useful, but that will be far from perfect.
Kind of proves my point. Exceptions not the rule.
The UK and California variants of coronavirus appear to have combined into a heavily mutated hybrid, sparking concern that we may be entering a new phase of the covid-19 pandemic
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2268014-exclusive-two-variants-have-merged-into-heavily-mutated-coronavirus/
It's going to put a bit of dent in the NHS when we lock them all up though....