Boris will announce a reduction to Level 4 tomorrow.
But no room for complacency. London numbers were poor today for first time in 40 days.
Contrarian will be along shortly to inform us "How VERY convenient...."
More and more people are reflecting what @contrarian has been saying for months.
He may or may not have been right in terms of death minimisation but he has always been bang on in terms of the unprecedented restriction of our freedoms and the danger of the scientists overreaching in this respect.
Who ever said we weren't seeing unprecedented restriction of our freedoms? And his claim is not about scientists, it's primarily about politicians wanting to keep us in lockdown forever and it is just uninterestingly wrong.
Correct. The guy has produced nothing but paranoia and banalities on this topic. He adds zero value. He's a troll.
Of so little value you feel obligated to post about it.
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
Yup the moving of goal posts is unacceptable. We were sold this lockdown on the basis of vulnerable people being rapidly immunised against symptoms with vaccines and that has and is continuing to happen. By the 8th there will be 15.6m mainly older and vulnerable people that have got near total immunity to hospitalisation and death. We can't live like this any longer.
If @Andy_Cooke has got his numbers right then about half of ICU patients are under 60, one quarter under 50 and one eighth under 40. The vaccination programme has gone very well so far, but there are substantial numbers of over 70s in some pockets of the country that still haven't been jabbed, and most people who've been immunised during February haven't had their three weeks yet.
We were actually sold lockdown on the principle that the hospitals should not become overwhelmed. That remains possible. It is too soon to let rip.
Now, I have harboured dark thoughts recently about exactly how cautious the Government is going to be, and the possibility of ministers being captured by the zero Covid zealots, and whether they might choose to stall and stall and stall. However, looking at the matter dispassionately, we MUST be fairly near to the end of this. That's not to say that 100% of the restrictions are going to evaporate by, say, July. We're probably going to be lumbered with masks, if nothing else, for quite some time, and I wouldn't be booking foreign holidays for 2021. But the worst is behind us and the end of the really debilitating restrictions - the evil ban on meeting members of your own family, along with most of the business closures - is in sight. We just need to sit tight for another 2-3 months whilst it all gradually unwinds in stages, with more and more people getting their shots in parallel.
Being in my 40s, I'm cautiously optimistic that my mum, stepdad and shielding husband will all have had both shots by May and that I'll also have had my first, and that the stay at home instruction will be dead and buried by that point. I'm pencilling in a visit to go and see them in June on that basis, and by that point I think we'll have pretty much everything unlocked except perhaps nightclubs, even if it takes a bit longer than that to bin social distancing. The only way that gets put back any further is if the unshuttering of the schools does prove to be too ambitious and things go a bit pear-shaped which, fingers-crossed, they won't.
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
In one go?
Or remove restrictions according to a timetable as hospitalisations continue to decline?
Because the worst of all world is one where we get rid of all the restrictions in one go, people party like it's Christmas, and then we have to go through this again.
I doubt we're ever going to go through this again. Quite simply the edge has been taken off the pandemic already with the vaccine.
The only thing that's really concerning is how full hospitals already are, but that's legacy now. Once they empty I doubt they'll refill again - so the best factor for steps on leaving lockdown perhaps should be hospital case numbers.
I hate to say it but going by what @Foxy says about ICUs, it will be a while yet before they start emptying and that's where the real pinch point is.
Added to which, we need to have a fair amount of slack in the system to give everyone involved there a chance to recuperate themselves. They've been going flat out for a year.
Do we have good numbers on what the age point is for *hospitalisations* dropping off in a big way? I've mentioned that the PHE data is grouped by 18-64 which means we can't see where it is....
I've seen a some data suggesting that under 45 is a pretty fair dividing point.
So if we aim for 40+ vaccinated (at least to first vaccination) what does that give us?
The admissions analysis spreadsheet at the bottom of this page separates 55-64 from 18-54. Not terribly up-to-date unfortunately.
The right thing to do is to announce the steps for leaving lockdown, and the triggers - so, tier 4 to tier 3 when daily hospitalisations fall below a certain level, etc. (I'd make one exception: schools would back from Easter.)
Personally, I would make it regional, but it may be simpler to have national triggers.
I'm working on the assumption that it'll work very like that: a timetable for the vaccination programme, but not very much at all for coming out of the lockdown, except for the first step that we know is coming on March 8th.
Much speculation, of course, that March 8th will include all of the schools at once, but if most or all of the secondary kids got put off until after the Easter holidays then that would be understandable. Everyone else is going to have to wait.
Just so long as they aren't so deliberately vague that they can keep shifting the goalposts if they feel a little nervous, or else this could take way longer than it needs to.
I would do primary schools now, but wait on secondary. Simply, it's a hell of a lot easier for teenagers to learn over zoom (if they have to) than seven year olds.
Teenagers are suffering horribly. They NEED the socialisation (and education) as much or more than the toddlers and infants. Send them back ASAP. They have endured a year of utter shit which most adults cannot imagine
I prefer waiting until post Easter for secondary schools. Or the R will be up to 8.
Looks like the R is going up anyway. 😠
But still below 1.0. It's about 0.84. Cases are still falling. Last 7 days have averaged 11062 cases. Previous seven days averaged 13200.
From cases
From hospitalisations
How do you calculate R?
I calculate R as the ratio of the current seven day average over the seven day average of seven days ago as shown in my post. R is 0.84.
I'm using data as day reported. Are you doing it by specimen date? There are pros and cons for each approach but it might explain the small difference between our stats.
I use the formula that MaxPB came up with.
In the original Excel form (I translated it to Java) -
Java...java..... isn't that an instant ban hammer offence on PB....only python is allowed.
FYI...for us geeks out there that use a lot of python / numpy, JAX absolutely rocks for fast prototyping on the GPU.
Python? I mean, it's okay if you want to pretend that you are in the Early Learning Centre...
--AS
I was a hardcore C++ / CUDA man, but then had to start using Python in order to take advantage of the ML frameworks. But more recently started using JAX and it is the dogs if you want to quickly prototype some mathematical model.
I never had too much trouble prototyping in CUDA. But I'm a plain C man, none of this object oriented business.
Nowadays I find it easier to direct a grad student to do the programming. And to find time on the GPU cluster. I still graph the results myself though, I have a nice touch for design...
--AS
CUDA always makes me smile - I once had a C1060 running at 95%+ utilisation and the the I6 in the host at 80%, doing actual work on the problem at hand....
Boris will announce a reduction to Level 4 tomorrow.
But no room for complacency. London numbers were poor today for first time in 40 days.
Contrarian will be along shortly to inform us "How VERY convenient...."
More and more people are reflecting what @contrarian has been saying for months.
He may or may not have been right in terms of death minimisation but he has always been bang on in terms of the unprecedented restriction of our freedoms and the danger of the scientists overreaching in this respect.
Who ever said we weren't seeing unprecedented restriction of our freedoms? And his claim is not about scientists, it's primarily about politicians wanting to keep us in lockdown forever and it is just uninterestingly wrong.
Correct. The guy has produced nothing but paranoia and banalities on this topic. He adds zero value. He's a troll.
Of so little value you feel obligated to post about it.
Pest control. It's worth a bit of effort now and again.
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
In one go?
Or remove restrictions according to a timetable as hospitalisations continue to decline?
Because the worst of all world is one where we get rid of all the restrictions in one go, people party like it's Christmas, and then we have to go through this again.
I doubt we're ever going to go through this again. Quite simply the edge has been taken off the pandemic already with the vaccine.
The only thing that's really concerning is how full hospitals already are, but that's legacy now. Once they empty I doubt they'll refill again - so the best factor for steps on leaving lockdown perhaps should be hospital case numbers.
I hate to say it but going by what @Foxy says about ICUs, it will be a while yet before they start emptying and that's where the real pinch point is.
Added to which, we need to have a fair amount of slack in the system to give everyone involved there a chance to recuperate themselves. They've been going flat out for a year.
Do we have good numbers on what the age point is for *hospitalisations* dropping off in a big way? I've mentioned that the PHE data is grouped by 18-64 which means we can't see where it is....
I've seen a some data suggesting that under 45 is a pretty fair dividing point.
So if we aim for 40+ vaccinated (at least to first vaccination) what does that give us?
The admissions analysis spreadsheet at the bottom of this page separates 55-64 from 18-54. Not terribly up-to-date unfortunately.
Huh? Do you mean we will be moving to that from “Stay Home” from April?
Yes. 19 April. We won't be going to 'Crack on it down the pub without worries' for a long time.
I was not for a moment thinking otherwise. But sounds about par for the course.
Funny to think eight weeks ago (or thereabouts) the primary topic of conversation on here was the possibility of the transition period ending without a deal.
Boris will announce a reduction to Level 4 tomorrow.
But no room for complacency. London numbers were poor today for first time in 40 days.
Contrarian will be along shortly to inform us "How VERY convenient...."
More and more people are reflecting what @contrarian has been saying for months.
He may or may not have been right in terms of death minimisation but he has always been bang on in terms of the unprecedented restriction of our freedoms and the danger of the scientists overreaching in this respect.
Who ever said we weren't seeing unprecedented restriction of our freedoms? And his claim is not about scientists, it's primarily about politicians wanting to keep us in lockdown forever and it is just uninterestingly wrong.
Correct. The guy has produced nothing but paranoia and banalities on this topic. He adds zero value. He's a troll.
Of so little value you feel obligated to post about it.
Pest control. It's worth a bit of effort now and again.
I wonder if the Net Satisfaction vs Gross positives dilemma causes party leaders advisors to mislead them. Starmer’s acolytes are telling him YouGov show him to be both a stronger leader than Boris, and more likeable, yet more people said Boris was strong and more said he was likeable
NS means people never having heard of him or having no opinion either way is translated as him being more popular.
I really think the mark of how popular someone is, is how many people like them. The don’t know/don’t cares are a smokescreen
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
Yup the moving of goal posts is unacceptable. We were sold this lockdown on the basis of vulnerable people being rapidly immunised against symptoms with vaccines and that has and is continuing to happen. By the 8th there will be 15.6m mainly older and vulnerable people that have got near total immunity to hospitalisation and death. We can't live like this any longer.
If @Andy_Cooke has got his numbers right then about half of ICU patients are under 60, one quarter under 50 and one eighth under 40. The vaccination programme has gone very well so far, but there are substantial numbers of over 70s in some pockets of the country that still haven't been jabbed, and most people who've been immunised during February haven't had their three weeks yet.
We were actually sold lockdown on the principle that the hospitals should not become overwhelmed. That remains possible. It is too soon to let rip.
Now, I have harboured dark thoughts recently about exactly how cautious the Government is going to be, and the possibility of ministers being captured by the zero Covid zealots, and whether they might choose to stall and stall and stall. However, looking at the matter dispassionately, we MUST be fairly near to the end of this. That's not to say that 100% of the restrictions are going to evaporate by, say, July. We're probably going to be lumbered with masks, if nothing else, for quite some time, and I wouldn't be booking foreign holidays for 2021. But the worst is behind us and the end of the really debilitating restrictions - the evil ban on meeting members of your own family, along with most of the business closures - is in sight. We just need to sit tight for another 2-3 months whilst it all gradually unwinds in stages, with more and more people getting their shots in parallel.
Being in my 40s, I'm cautiously optimistic that my mum, stepdad and shielding husband will all have had both shots by May and that I'll also have had my first, and that the stay at home instruction will be dead and buried by that point. I'm pencilling in a visit to go and see them in June on that basis, and by that point I think we'll have pretty much everything unlocked except perhaps nightclubs, even if it takes a bit longer than that to bin social distancing. The only way that gets put back any further is if the unshuttering of the schools does prove to be too ambitious and things go a bit pear-shaped which, fingers-crossed, they won't.
Spot on. Is this the new you?
No, it's the same old me having one of my better days.
Please bear in mind that a lot of us aren't coping very well with all of this, and we're being worn down by it to differing extents and at differing rates. I think I'm probably feeling a bit better now the immediate family have had their first jabs, there's evidence coming through of the efficacy of the vaccines, and the relentlessly dismal weather has finally improved, at least for now. If there's another major setback - for example, if they throw all the schools open and then repent of it and shut everything back down again, or if the progress from lockdown really does happen at a ridiculously slow pace, or if obviously hard-to-impossible to reach targets are set for us to meet before we're able to escape from all of this, then my mood is likely to crash again. But I am trying not to assume the worst the whole of the time.
Very late to this but I think it is interesting and fair accurate
- You are being unfair by labelling personality/positioning as “the Trump strategy” although he did follow it. Having charisma and being perceived as “on my side” by the voters is a classic winning strategy for all politicians
- Performance is a horrible strategy for an opposition. Essentially, as someone on here called it, it’s a Micawber strategy - something will turn up. Defensive and negative - it only wins if the government screws up
- “Positioning” for a minor party like the LibDems is weak. It works for a regional party like the SNP, but the LibDems just aren’t differentiated from Labour in their SDP mode. They may win some seats based on arch-Rejoiners but it won’t win an election or achieve anything
Conclusion: unless Boris screws up the Tories won the exit election if those strategies remain the same
The 'positioning' concept as invented by Al Ries and Jack Trout in their seminal book 'Positioning: the battle for your mind', actually means the opposite of finding a 'happy medium' by being 'a bit more this, a bit less that' - it means finding a clear and highly differentiated competitive position, in order to occupy a piece of the prospect's mind. The way Volvo owns 'safe' and BMW owns 'German'.
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
In one go?
Or remove restrictions according to a timetable as hospitalisations continue to decline?
Because the worst of all world is one where we get rid of all the restrictions in one go, people party like it's Christmas, and then we have to go through this again.
I doubt we're ever going to go through this again. Quite simply the edge has been taken off the pandemic already with the vaccine.
The only thing that's really concerning is how full hospitals already are, but that's legacy now. Once they empty I doubt they'll refill again - so the best factor for steps on leaving lockdown perhaps should be hospital case numbers.
I hate to say it but going by what @Foxy says about ICUs, it will be a while yet before they start emptying and that's where the real pinch point is.
Added to which, we need to have a fair amount of slack in the system to give everyone involved there a chance to recuperate themselves. They've been going flat out for a year.
Do we have good numbers on what the age point is for *hospitalisations* dropping off in a big way? I've mentioned that the PHE data is grouped by 18-64 which means we can't see where it is....
I've seen a some data suggesting that under 45 is a pretty fair dividing point.
So if we aim for 40+ vaccinated (at least to first vaccination) what does that give us?
The admissions analysis spreadsheet at the bottom of this page separates 55-64 from 18-54. Not terribly up-to-date unfortunately.
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
In one go?
Or remove restrictions according to a timetable as hospitalisations continue to decline?
Because the worst of all world is one where we get rid of all the restrictions in one go, people party like it's Christmas, and then we have to go through this again.
I doubt we're ever going to go through this again. Quite simply the edge has been taken off the pandemic already with the vaccine.
The only thing that's really concerning is how full hospitals already are, but that's legacy now. Once they empty I doubt they'll refill again - so the best factor for steps on leaving lockdown perhaps should be hospital case numbers.
I hate to say it but going by what @Foxy says about ICUs, it will be a while yet before they start emptying and that's where the real pinch point is.
Added to which, we need to have a fair amount of slack in the system to give everyone involved there a chance to recuperate themselves. They've been going flat out for a year.
Do we have good numbers on what the age point is for *hospitalisations* dropping off in a big way? I've mentioned that the PHE data is grouped by 18-64 which means we can't see where it is....
I've seen a some data suggesting that under 45 is a pretty fair dividing point.
So if we aim for 40+ vaccinated (at least to first vaccination) what does that give us?
The admissions analysis spreadsheet at the bottom of this page separates 55-64 from 18-54. Not terribly up-to-date unfortunately.
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
Yup the moving of goal posts is unacceptable. We were sold this lockdown on the basis of vulnerable people being rapidly immunised against symptoms with vaccines and that has and is continuing to happen. By the 8th there will be 15.6m mainly older and vulnerable people that have got near total immunity to hospitalisation and death. We can't live like this any longer.
If @Andy_Cooke has got his numbers right then about half of ICU patients are under 60, one quarter under 50 and one eighth under 40. The vaccination programme has gone very well so far, but there are substantial numbers of over 70s in some pockets of the country that still haven't been jabbed, and most people who've been immunised during February haven't had their three weeks yet.
We were actually sold lockdown on the principle that the hospitals should not become overwhelmed. That remains possible. It is too soon to let rip.
Now, I have harboured dark thoughts recently about exactly how cautious the Government is going to be, and the possibility of ministers being captured by the zero Covid zealots, and whether they might choose to stall and stall and stall. However, looking at the matter dispassionately, we MUST be fairly near to the end of this. That's not to say that 100% of the restrictions are going to evaporate by, say, July. We're probably going to be lumbered with masks, if nothing else, for quite some time, and I wouldn't be booking foreign holidays for 2021. But the worst is behind us and the end of the really debilitating restrictions - the evil ban on meeting members of your own family, along with most of the business closures - is in sight. We just need to sit tight for another 2-3 months whilst it all gradually unwinds in stages, with more and more people getting their shots in parallel.
Being in my 40s, I'm cautiously optimistic that my mum, stepdad and shielding husband will all have had both shots by May and that I'll also have had my first, and that the stay at home instruction will be dead and buried by that point. I'm pencilling in a visit to go and see them in June on that basis, and by that point I think we'll have pretty much everything unlocked except perhaps nightclubs, even if it takes a bit longer than that to bin social distancing. The only way that gets put back any further is if the unshuttering of the schools does prove to be too ambitious and things go a bit pear-shaped which, fingers-crossed, they won't.
Spot on. Is this the new you?
No, it's the same old me having one of my better days.
Please bear in mind that a lot of us aren't coping very well with all of this, and we're being worn down by it to differing extents and at differing rates. I think I'm probably feeling a bit better now the immediate family have had their first jabs, there's evidence coming through of the efficacy of the vaccines, and the relentlessly dismal weather has finally improved, at least for now. If there's another major setback - for example, if they throw all the schools open and then repent of it and shut everything back down again, or if the progress from lockdown really does happen at a ridiculously slow pace, or if obviously hard-to-impossible to reach targets are set for us to meet before we're able to escape from all of this, then my mood is likely to crash again. But I am trying not to assume the worst the whole of the time.
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
Yup the moving of goal posts is unacceptable. We were sold this lockdown on the basis of vulnerable people being rapidly immunised against symptoms with vaccines and that has and is continuing to happen. By the 8th there will be 15.6m mainly older and vulnerable people that have got near total immunity to hospitalisation and death. We can't live like this any longer.
I will wait and see what Boris says at 7pm tomorrow night. But SAGE have every interest in being ultra-conservative, and the "wait until 1,000 cases a day or less" measure seems horseshit to me.
I'd prefer a compound score of economic impact, mental health impact, deaths and hospitalisations, and social human assessments - factorised up - and that used to make the decisions.
Crunch the numbers, tot it up, and decide.
Good post. Do you think Chris will agree to that?
Nah, lockdowns mean no one ever dies of anything now. They'll call anyone who opposes it's continuation a murderer or something to that effect. I'm genuinely more worried about this than I've been in a long time. It's like they want to to keep us safe from everything, but that's not living.
I agree.
Life has risks. Charles Walker is very eloquent on this. Thank god for the Tory backbenchers. I expect there to be serious numbers of letters to Sir GB quite shortly.
The right thing to do is to announce the steps for leaving lockdown, and the triggers - so, tier 4 to tier 3 when daily hospitalisations fall below a certain level, etc. (I'd make one exception: schools would back from Easter.)
Personally, I would make it regional, but it may be simpler to have national triggers.
I'm working on the assumption that it'll work very like that: a timetable for the vaccination programme, but not very much at all for coming out of the lockdown, except for the first step that we know is coming on March 8th.
Much speculation, of course, that March 8th will include all of the schools at once, but if most or all of the secondary kids got put off until after the Easter holidays then that would be understandable. Everyone else is going to have to wait.
Just so long as they aren't so deliberately vague that they can keep shifting the goalposts if they feel a little nervous, or else this could take way longer than it needs to.
I would do primary schools now, but wait on secondary. Simply, it's a hell of a lot easier for teenagers to learn over zoom (if they have to) than seven year olds.
Teenagers are suffering horribly. They NEED the socialisation (and education) as much or more than the toddlers and infants. Send them back ASAP. They have endured a year of utter shit which most adults cannot imagine
I prefer waiting until post Easter for secondary schools. Or the R will be up to 8.
Looks like the R is going up anyway. 😠
But still below 1.0. It's about 0.84. Cases are still falling. Last 7 days have averaged 11062 cases. Previous seven days averaged 13200.
From cases
From hospitalisations
How do you calculate R?
I calculate R as the ratio of the current seven day average over the seven day average of seven days ago as shown in my post. R is 0.84.
I'm using data as day reported. Are you doing it by specimen date? There are pros and cons for each approach but it might explain the small difference between our stats.
I use the formula that MaxPB came up with.
In the original Excel form (I translated it to Java) -
OK. Mine is much simpler than that! SUM(A1:A7)/SUM(A8:A14).
But the main difference is between reported and specimen dates. By using specimen dates yours is more accurate but more lagged.
I think week-to-week is a decent approximation for R, with the added benefit that it cancels out the weekly testing/reporting rhythms.
But it does rely on the assumption that passing on the virus takes an average of 7 days. If that average is less than that, R is actually closer to 1 than the week-to-week, if it's more, R is further away from 1.
For example, if the week-to-week was 2x, and average passing on time was 2 weeks, R would be 4.
I agree. I am assuming that passing on the virus takes an average of seven days. If it's not, then R is different in the way you describe.
I realise I'm second guessing teams of scientists (and Malmsbury) but I just can't resist updating the daily numbers. It's part of my routine.
I'm second guessing a bunch of people second guessing some scientists who are second guessing a virus.
I'm not sure what I am contributing apart from confusion - but hey, it passes the time.
The polling is very clear, people want a slow and steady path out of lockdown; mainly because they never ever want to experience the absolute fucking catastrophe that was the arse end of 2020 ever, ever again.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
Five people are feared to have died and hundreds more including many children made ill after eating chicken imported from Poland that was contaminated with salmonella in the past year
I wonder if the Net Satisfaction vs Gross positives dilemma causes party leaders advisors to mislead them. Starmer’s acolytes are telling him YouGov show him to be both a stronger leader than Boris, and more likeable, yet more people said Boris was strong and more said he was likeable
NS means people never having heard of him or having no opinion either way is translated as him being more popular.
I really think the mark of how popular someone is, is how many people like them. The don’t know/don’t cares are a smokescreen
For instance, latest YG has Starmer net +8 ‘likeable’ & Boris +5
The trouble is 45 like Boris and only 36 Sir Keir. Sir Keir wins on NS because don’t knows are thought to split 50/50. I guess the question is ‘should don’t knows be split 50/50?’ If yes, that put pays to ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’
Five people are feared to have died and hundreds more including many children made ill after eating chicken imported from Poland that was contaminated with salmonella in the past year
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
Got to admit I have been meeting a mate or two for a run or walk several times a week and both sets of grandparents come round ours all the time.
I think we should be vaccinating more quickly, the categories are too restrictive. Allow anyone over 50 to use the NHS service in my opinion. That would fill centres to 1/2 million+ capacity every day I think. Also I'm not sure how much the 12 week target needs to be stuck to - with younger adults in particular a booster shot probably up to 6 months later would likely give the same long lasting effect. To be clear, I think our vaccine rollout is 2nd probably only to Israel's and perhaps UAE but always room for improvement...
Five people are feared to have died and hundreds more including many children made ill after eating chicken imported from Poland that was contaminated with salmonella in the past year
It's all about the 4 tests: - vaccinations - effectiveness of vaccinations - infection rates - variants
Sky - just released.
“Infection rates” is a bit more nuanced - “Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.”. So not a concrete figure.
Is it well-known that with Betfair Exchange, if you start making serious amounts of money, they take 60% of the profits and leave the punter with just 40%? Apparently this only affects a tiny number of people who are clever enough to make big profits on the site.
I think we should be vaccinating more quickly, the categories are too restrictive. Allow anyone over 50 to use the NHS service in my opinion. That would fill centres to 1/2 million+ capacity every day I think. Also I'm not sure how much the 12 week target needs to be stuck to - with younger adults in particular a booster shot probably up to 6 months later would likely give the same long lasting effect.
When the supplies are available, I'm sure they'll do everything they can to get them into arms as quickly as possible. Vaccinations in Wales and Scotland in the last week wouldn't have halved without restricted supplies.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
Don't care how "imperfect" the Covid stats are anymore.
End the lockdown.
Yup the moving of goal posts is unacceptable. We were sold this lockdown on the basis of vulnerable people being rapidly immunised against symptoms with vaccines and that has and is continuing to happen. By the 8th there will be 15.6m mainly older and vulnerable people that have got near total immunity to hospitalisation and death. We can't live like this any longer.
I will wait and see what Boris says at 7pm tomorrow night. But SAGE have every interest in being ultra-conservative, and the "wait until 1,000 cases a day or less" measure seems horseshit to me.
I'd prefer a compound score of economic impact, mental health impact, deaths and hospitalisations, and social human assessments - factorised up - and that used to make the decisions.
Crunch the numbers, tot it up, and decide.
Good post. Do you think Chris will agree to that?
Nah, lockdowns mean no one ever dies of anything now. They'll call anyone who opposes it's continuation a murderer or something to that effect. I'm genuinely more worried about this than I've been in a long time. It's like they want to to keep us safe from everything, but that's not living.
You are having the same dark thoughts that I've been harbouring recently, and might even relapse into if things go sufficiently wrong if it turns out that they've over-reached with opening all the schools at once. However, you have to imagine that lockdown won't drag on interminably, firstly because we can't afford it, secondly because people will eventually go bonkers and rebel if better vaccine coverage doesn't go hand-in-hand with more freedoms, and thirdly because the opinion of non-mad scientists like Whitty will prevail over that of the fringe figures. We need to get to the point at which we can learn to live with this evil disease and accept a certain rate of fatalities from it - the CMO has said as much - and the next few months is about getting to that point.
Barring some radical and very nasty new mutation appearing and getting loose, which seems unlikely based on what we have been told about how slowly coronaviruses change, we have already seen the worst of the death toll. A massacre like that seen in January ain't happening again. But we're still in the save the hospitals from collapse phase. That's going to take longer - but we are getting there.
Again, assuming that the schools don't screw everything up, then we are almost certainly on the run-in to the end of the last lockdown. At first it's going to feel agonisingly slow and a bit shit, because outdoor activities will come back first and they're going to be at the mercy of the weather, but if the target for the over 50s to get their shots is to be advanced to mid-April and it's met like the previous one was, then by early May a lot of businesses should be open or about to do so, the social restrictions will be getting looser and the country will begin to feel less like an open prison at long bloody last.
At that rate, by June we'll be in a similar position with respect to the over 40s as well, the bulk of the adult population will then have a decent level of protection, and most of this bullshit ought to be over. The residual numbers of people still to be vaccinated and their low age profile should mean that it becomes much harder for the disease to get passed around at all, let alone for the numbers falling seriously ill with it to grow so large that we end up having yet another hospital panic.
With hardly any old, middle aged or other clinically vulnerable people left undefended for the virus to effectively attack, heavy restrictions will no longer be justified to protect the hospitals, and they will go.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I mean, the Govt. (with Parliamentary rubber stamping at the moment) literally decide what is criminal or not.
Meeting people outdoors for a coffee didn't need to be criminalised.
The last week has unfortunately in my view rather scuppered things:
We had been seeing very, very good falls in cases and in the last week it has almost ground to a halt. Looking at this chart it looks as if things are going to start going upwards again. We will know for certain within a week.
I think that people have seen all the good news recently and have started relaxing themselves and doing things that they weren't a month ago. Everyone just doing one unessential trip adds up to a massive impact.
The other unknown still is whether cases is still the key measure given we have now vaccinated 25% of the population, the most vulnerable 25%. We have already seen in the case numbers that the oldest age groups have decreased the most. At what point does hospital admissions and deaths become more important?
Until a week ago I think Boris was all set to open schools but now it is a more more difficult decision. If it were mere I would say that we would have liked to have opened schools but the fall in cases has stopped in the last week. We will monitor for one more week and make a decision. Everyone has to do their part by really cutting out the unnecessary trips.
Where did that graph come from @Alistair? It looks to have a lot flatter tail than the one on the official government site:
PS Very sorry to hear about your university friend.
The chart was from an Excel sheet I maintain myself. That chart is just the plain 7 day rolling number. I just zoomed in on it a bit. This chart shows the % change in the 7 day rolling number compared with a week previously. This indicates that until recently we were seeing 25% to 30% falls in cases week on week. In the last week this has shrunk massively.
A different Alistair had the University friend who had died, unfortunately. My condolences to him. There seem to be quite a few of us Alistairs around. I've been visiting the site regularly since about 2006 but only generally post sporadically.
Thanks. And apols to both of you for the confusion.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I was thinking something similar as we went out yesterday for our highly illegal stop on a park bench to eat lunch outing.
When the law is transparently stupid, and when the benefits of breaking it outweigh the likelihood and consequences of being caught, it may be happily disregarded.
PC Plod wasn't going to chase us up the hill branding a fixed penalty notice and we were sat a hundred yards from anyone up a windswept hillside. We were doing no harm so we ignored the silly rules. Indeed, our lives are now so restricted that extending a middle finger in the general direction of the silly rules felt rather satisfying.
This big announcement has basically been revealed in full to the media. I wonder what the speaker will make of it?
It's a game. Everyone pretends that statements will always be made first to the Commons when we know they won't, the Speaker, whoever it is, will righteously criticise it, the government will at best make a mealy mouthed apology (can't defend against leaks, Mr Speaker, then it will happen again next time.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I was thinking something similar as we went out yesterday for our highly illegal stop on a park bench to eat lunch outing.
When the law is transparently stupid, and when the benefits of breaking it outweigh the likelihood and consequences of being caught, it may be happily disregarded.
PC Plod wasn't going to chase us up the hill branding a fixed penalty notice and we were sat a hundred yards from anyone up a windswept hillside. We were doing no harm so we ignored the silly rules. Indeed, our lives are now so restricted that extending a middle finger in the general direction of the silly rules felt rather satisfying.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I mean, the Govt. (with Parliamentary rubber stamping at the moment) literally decide what is criminal or not.
Meeting people outdoors for a coffee didn't need to be criminalised.
Shrugs when its the right thing to do I have broken laws that would carry a 10 year plus sentence. My point you look and if the law is wrong you ignore it and take the consequence
This big announcement has basically been revealed in full to the media. I wonder what the speaker will make of it?
It's a game. Everyone pretends that statements will always be made first to the Commons when we know they won't, the Speaker, whoever it is, will righteously criticise it, the government will at best make a mealy mouthed apology (can't defend against leaks, Mr Speaker, then it will happen again next time.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
Tbh lots of these rules on meeting people outside have never really applied to me and particularly my other half's friends. We're down a shared DIY livery yard every day where life has gone on as normal through the pandemic. (When the few cases of Covid there have cropped up friends have done horses for those afflicted, as we did for some of ours) I can see both the Gov't and those opposed points though. The vaccine refuseniks I have a massive problem with though.
The right thing to do is to announce the steps for leaving lockdown, and the triggers - so, tier 4 to tier 3 when daily hospitalisations fall below a certain level, etc. (I'd make one exception: schools would back from Easter.)
Personally, I would make it regional, but it may be simpler to have national triggers.
I'm working on the assumption that it'll work very like that: a timetable for the vaccination programme, but not very much at all for coming out of the lockdown, except for the first step that we know is coming on March 8th.
Much speculation, of course, that March 8th will include all of the schools at once, but if most or all of the secondary kids got put off until after the Easter holidays then that would be understandable. Everyone else is going to have to wait.
Just so long as they aren't so deliberately vague that they can keep shifting the goalposts if they feel a little nervous, or else this could take way longer than it needs to.
I would do primary schools now, but wait on secondary. Simply, it's a hell of a lot easier for teenagers to learn over zoom (if they have to) than seven year olds.
Teenagers are suffering horribly. They NEED the socialisation (and education) as much or more than the toddlers and infants. Send them back ASAP. They have endured a year of utter shit which most adults cannot imagine
I prefer waiting until post Easter for secondary schools. Or the R will be up to 8.
Looks like the R is going up anyway. 😠
But still below 1.0. It's about 0.84. Cases are still falling. Last 7 days have averaged 11062 cases. Previous seven days averaged 13200.
From cases
From hospitalisations
How do you calculate R?
I calculate R as the ratio of the current seven day average over the seven day average of seven days ago as shown in my post. R is 0.84.
I'm using data as day reported. Are you doing it by specimen date? There are pros and cons for each approach but it might explain the small difference between our stats.
I use the formula that MaxPB came up with.
In the original Excel form (I translated it to Java) -
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I was thinking something similar as we went out yesterday for our highly illegal stop on a park bench to eat lunch outing.
When the law is transparently stupid, and when the benefits of breaking it outweigh the likelihood and consequences of being caught, it may be happily disregarded.
PC Plod wasn't going to chase us up the hill branding a fixed penalty notice and we were sat a hundred yards from anyone up a windswept hillside. We were doing no harm so we ignored the silly rules. Indeed, our lives are now so restricted that extending a middle finger in the general direction of the silly rules felt rather satisfying.
Thing is, absent a few stupid oversteps, it's only ever really been the egregious breaches I imagine they cared about. The rules, laws or guidance, were to catch the flagrantly stupid, and as long as people broadly kept to the spirit of the rest, well, the government could never enforce anything further. This is an instance where it really has been more about the deterrent effect, in demonstrating how seriously people needed to treat things even if one can hardly expect people to have followed every single rule that has been annouced from time to time.
8 March - schools back (confirmed) 29 March - limited outside meetings (confirmed) 19 April, three weeks later - non essential retail, virtually nailed on 10 May, pubs as described 31 May (Stage 5) - some further relaxations eg sporting events.
Outdoor pubs isn't going to happen on 19 April -not viable
Note - the Register gives you a few free articles before imposing paywall. This one is pretty good, from perspective of Iowa where the precinct caucuses have been a significant (albeit quadrennial) cottage industry every since Jimmy Carter's surprise victory in early 1976.
Further note DNC policy is to replace caucuses with primaries for presidential delegate selection, because primaries are more accessible and representative.
At same time, both Iowa and New Hampshire have been hard-pressed to defend their "first in the nation" events (Iowa precinct caucuses followed by New Hampshire presidential primary) especially as these small, rural, overwhelmingly White states are NOT very representative of the increasingly diverse Democratic Party.
In particular, Nevada is attempting - via state legislation- to move ahead and seize the 'first in the nation" position for itself, specifically by replacing precinct caucuses used through 2020 with a January presidential primary.
This big announcement has basically been revealed in full to the media. I wonder what the speaker will make of it?
It's a game. Everyone pretends that statements will always be made first to the Commons when we know they won't, the Speaker, whoever it is, will righteously criticise it, the government will at best make a mealy mouthed apology (can't defend against leaks, Mr Speaker, then it will happen again next time.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
So I can go on holiday abroad from Easter, right? We're meeting with six friends outdoors in Magaluf....
How many question on summer holidays do you think we will get tomorrow at the press conference? I'm going with 50% of them.
Excellent, I’m hoping for some probing questions about domestic holidays in particular. It’s absolutely right that journalists ask them and keep the government under pressure, and try to tease as much mood music as possible from them. The public is desperate for hope.
The right thing to do is to announce the steps for leaving lockdown, and the triggers - so, tier 4 to tier 3 when daily hospitalisations fall below a certain level, etc. (I'd make one exception: schools would back from Easter.)
Personally, I would make it regional, but it may be simpler to have national triggers.
I'm working on the assumption that it'll work very like that: a timetable for the vaccination programme, but not very much at all for coming out of the lockdown, except for the first step that we know is coming on March 8th.
Much speculation, of course, that March 8th will include all of the schools at once, but if most or all of the secondary kids got put off until after the Easter holidays then that would be understandable. Everyone else is going to have to wait.
Just so long as they aren't so deliberately vague that they can keep shifting the goalposts if they feel a little nervous, or else this could take way longer than it needs to.
I would do primary schools now, but wait on secondary. Simply, it's a hell of a lot easier for teenagers to learn over zoom (if they have to) than seven year olds.
Teenagers are suffering horribly. They NEED the socialisation (and education) as much or more than the toddlers and infants. Send them back ASAP. They have endured a year of utter shit which most adults cannot imagine
I prefer waiting until post Easter for secondary schools. Or the R will be up to 8.
Looks like the R is going up anyway. 😠
But still below 1.0. It's about 0.84. Cases are still falling. Last 7 days have averaged 11062 cases. Previous seven days averaged 13200.
From cases
From hospitalisations
How do you calculate R?
I calculate R as the ratio of the current seven day average over the seven day average of seven days ago as shown in my post. R is 0.84.
I'm using data as day reported. Are you doing it by specimen date? There are pros and cons for each approach but it might explain the small difference between our stats.
I use the formula that MaxPB came up with.
In the original Excel form (I translated it to Java) -
Java...java..... isn't that an instant ban hammer offence on PB....only python is allowed.
FYI...for us geeks out there that use a lot of python / numpy, JAX absolutely rocks for fast prototyping on the GPU.
Python? I mean, it's okay if you want to pretend that you are in the Early Learning Centre...
--AS
Python is beautiful, an incredibly well designed language that enables people to write code that is easy(-ish) to read.
It also enables quants to move from writing 10ks of lines of broken, untested C++ to writing 10ks of lines of broken, untested Python. While allowing them to believe that things have improved.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I don't think the criminal justice system thinks it is up to the individual to decide what they think is lawful or not. Government guidance doesn't always get it right either, but it's not exactly a choose your own law situation.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
So I can go on holiday abroad from Easter, right? We're meeting with six friends outdoors in Magaluf....
How many question on summer holidays do you think we will get tomorrow at the press conference? I'm going with 50% of them.
Excellent, I’m hoping for some probing questions about domestic holidays in particular. It’s absolutely right that journalists ask them and keep the government under pressure, and try to tease as much mood music as possible from them. The public is desperate for hope.
Now is indeed a reasonable time to ask, as there is new information about plans which will need clarification, and detail to be teased out. That's quite different to a situation of longstanding no change where the answer was no different than the last 20 times it was asked, and meant the government faced less pressure than it otherwise would have on other issues. I think you know that.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I was thinking something similar as we went out yesterday for our highly illegal stop on a park bench to eat lunch outing.
When the law is transparently stupid, and when the benefits of breaking it outweigh the likelihood and consequences of being caught, it may be happily disregarded.
PC Plod wasn't going to chase us up the hill branding a fixed penalty notice and we were sat a hundred yards from anyone up a windswept hillside. We were doing no harm so we ignored the silly rules. Indeed, our lives are now so restricted that extending a middle finger in the general direction of the silly rules felt rather satisfying.
Good for you. And I totally agree.
Just hope you weren't in Derbyshire.....
Hertfordshire, where AFAIK enforcement has been proportionate throughout.
Though that said, we are only just over the border from Cambs, where the plods got into hot water for heavy handed enforcement during the first lockdown, including harassing Addenbrookes' Hospital staff travelling to and from work. Derbyshire wasn't alone in its zealotry.
8 March - schools back (confirmed) 29 March - limited outside meetings (confirmed) 19 April, three weeks later - non essential retail, virtually nailed on 10 May, pubs as described 31 May (Stage 5) - some further relaxations eg sporting events.
Outdoor pubs isn't going to happen on 19 April -not viable
As discussed earlier today, make it voluntary. Loads of pubs on the countryside edge of London near me have huge beer gardens and do a roaring trade serving to walkers and cyclists etc to tables outside only. Those pubs that want to open should be allowed to do so.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I was thinking something similar as we went out yesterday for our highly illegal stop on a park bench to eat lunch outing.
When the law is transparently stupid, and when the benefits of breaking it outweigh the likelihood and consequences of being caught, it may be happily disregarded.
PC Plod wasn't going to chase us up the hill branding a fixed penalty notice and we were sat a hundred yards from anyone up a windswept hillside. We were doing no harm so we ignored the silly rules. Indeed, our lives are now so restricted that extending a middle finger in the general direction of the silly rules felt rather satisfying.
Good for you. And I totally agree.
Just hope you weren't in Derbyshire.....
Hertfordshire, where AFAIK enforcement has been proportionate throughout.
Though that said, we are only just over the border from Cambs, where the plods got into hot water for heavy handed enforcement during the first lockdown, including harassing Addenbrookes' Hospital staff travelling to and from work. Derbyshire wasn't alone in its zealotry.
Dorset too has been very light enforcement. As it should be.
Don't uninstall Zoom or be buying any new budgie smugglers just yet....
Government sources said there would be some aspects of lockdown – such as home working and international travel – where there was not expected to be any set time for rules to change. “Much of that is still dependent on factors outside our control,” one source said.
I presume it will still be work from home, don't travel anywhere you don't need to for the next couple of months?
Work from home unless you can't is absolubtely cost free for the Government. Next week I will have to access a load of paper files for our auditors (Who are working remotely themselves), so I'll need to be in the office for that.
This big announcement has basically been revealed in full to the media. I wonder what the speaker will make of it?
It's a game. Everyone pretends that statements will always be made first to the Commons when we know they won't, the Speaker, whoever it is, will righteously criticise it, the government will at best make a mealy mouthed apology (can't defend against leaks, Mr Speaker, then it will happen again next time.
Leaks have always happened and always will.
I think the Commons' importance should be recognised and it treated with respect, so some effort should be made to ensure announcements and policies are properly made and interrogated there, but there isn't a politician in this country who genuinely believes nothing will be put out into the press beforehand. The Speaker's feeling will be genuine, but at this point is just a part of the theatre of Westminster, nothing more.
8 March - schools back (confirmed) 29 March - limited outside meetings (confirmed) 19 April, three weeks later - non essential retail, virtually nailed on 10 May, pubs as described 31 May (Stage 5) - some further relaxations eg sporting events.
Outdoor pubs isn't going to happen on 19 April -not viable
As discussed earlier today, make it voluntary. Loads of pubs on the countryside edge of London near me have huge beer gardens and do a roaring trade serving to walkers and cyclists etc to tables outside only. Those pubs that want to open should be allowed to do so.
Looks like outdoor pubs might be on for 19 April after all
I presume it will still be work from home, don't travel anywhere you don't need to for the next couple of months?
Work from home unless you can't is absolubtely cost free for the Government. Next week I will have to access a load of paper files for our auditors (Who are working remotely themselves), so I'll need to be in the office for that.
I have friends who are initially baffled by my need to work from my shop.
The disconnect between privileged professionals and the people who keep their deliveries being dispatched would be fascinating, if it wasn't also rather disconcerting,,,,
I presume it will still be work from home, don't travel anywhere you don't need to for the next couple of months?
That would be my expectation: lockdown plus schools and an extremely stingy menu of outdoor activities. I don't think we're going to get very much else until the over 50s vax target is in the bag and both hospital admissions and the total numbers of patients are very much lower than they are now - although I wouldn't want to put a number on that and it's possible we won't get one from the Government either, which is a shame. If they are too vague and don't offer any metrics at all, then it will make people suspect that they intend to stall and keep us locked down for as long as humanly possible, which is the kind of negative headspace I'm trying to escape from and a lot of people are still in. Some identifiable milestones that we need to reach would give us something to work towards, something to hope for, and help to hold ministers' feet to the fire.
8 March - schools back (confirmed) 29 March - limited outside meetings (confirmed) 19 April, three weeks later - non essential retail, virtually nailed on 10 May, pubs as described 31 May (Stage 5) - some further relaxations eg sporting events.
Outdoor pubs isn't going to happen on 19 April -not viable
As discussed earlier today, make it voluntary. Loads of pubs on the countryside edge of London near me have huge beer gardens and do a roaring trade serving to walkers and cyclists etc to tables outside only. Those pubs that want to open should be allowed to do so.
Looks like outdoor pubs might be on for 19 April after all
Listen to Boris not me!
I’d hope Easter weekend. Would make more sense than waiting until mid-April!
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I was thinking something similar as we went out yesterday for our highly illegal stop on a park bench to eat lunch outing.
When the law is transparently stupid, and when the benefits of breaking it outweigh the likelihood and consequences of being caught, it may be happily disregarded.
PC Plod wasn't going to chase us up the hill branding a fixed penalty notice and we were sat a hundred yards from anyone up a windswept hillside. We were doing no harm so we ignored the silly rules. Indeed, our lives are now so restricted that extending a middle finger in the general direction of the silly rules felt rather satisfying.
Good for you. And I totally agree.
Just hope you weren't in Derbyshire.....
Hertfordshire, where AFAIK enforcement has been proportionate throughout.
Though that said, we are only just over the border from Cambs, where the plods got into hot water for heavy handed enforcement during the first lockdown, including harassing Addenbrookes' Hospital staff travelling to and from work. Derbyshire wasn't alone in its zealotry.
With overly broad or poorly written rules and laws and zealous approaches I feel like its 50/50 on forces/organisations stoically implementing the stupidity because dem's the rules or deliberately doing so to demonstrate just how stupid those rules as written might be.
While most, when encountering a stupid rule, do their best to work to its intent even if as written they should be doing more.
8th March: All schools to reopen and children can play sport One person can visit a care home resident One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March: Rule of six for outdoor meetings Two households can meet outdoors All organised sport
TOOOOOO CONFUSING.....
I've been having occasional one to one social meetings outdoors since the start of Jan. Every bench I see has people a few ft apart with a coffee. And good on them. They're outside and in a free society it should never have been criminalised.
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
One wonders whether you place too much importance on what the government tell you is criminal...personally I prefer to decide for myself
I don't think the criminal justice system thinks it is up to the individual to decide what they think is lawful or not. Government guidance doesn't always get it right either, but it's not exactly a choose your own law situation.
I didnt claim it did, however as individuals we should judge for ourselves when rules need keeping or not. Sometimes obeying the rules causes more harm than breaking them
I presume it will still be work from home, don't travel anywhere you don't need to for the next couple of months?
That would be my expectation: lockdown plus schools and an extremely stingy menu of outdoor activities. I don't think we're going to get very much else until the over 50s vax target is in the bag and both hospital admissions and the total numbers of patients are very much lower than they are now - although I wouldn't want to put a number on that and it's possible we won't get one from the Government either, which is a shame. If they are too vague and don't offer any metrics at all, then it will make people suspect that they intend to stall and keep us locked down for as long as humanly possible, which is the kind of negative headspace I'm trying to escape from and a lot of people are still in. Some identifiable milestones that we need to reach would give us something to work towards, something to hope for, and help to hold ministers' feet to the fire.
I think you are right there. The trouble is, they would then possibly set the numbers ludicrously low to avoid being seen as reckless. So maybe vague milestones are the least worst option?!
I presume it will still be work from home, don't travel anywhere you don't need to for the next couple of months?
That would be my expectation: lockdown plus schools and an extremely stingy menu of outdoor activities. I don't think we're going to get very much else until the over 50s vax target is in the bag and both hospital admissions and the total numbers of patients are very much lower than they are now - although I wouldn't want to put a number on that and it's possible we won't get one from the Government either, which is a shame. If they are too vague and don't offer any metrics at all, then it will make people suspect that they intend to stall and keep us locked down for as long as humanly possible, which is the kind of negative headspace I'm trying to escape from and a lot of people are still in. Some identifiable milestones that we need to reach would give us something to work towards, something to hope for, and help to hold ministers' feet to the fire.
I think you are right there. The trouble is, they would then possibly set the numbers ludicrously low to avoid being seen as reckless. So maybe vague milestones are the least worst option?!
I think we may see some numbers in the Plan - set against the criteria - eg hospitalisations
I wonder if the Net Satisfaction vs Gross positives dilemma causes party leaders advisors to mislead them. Starmer’s acolytes are telling him YouGov show him to be both a stronger leader than Boris, and more likeable, yet more people said Boris was strong and more said he was likeable
NS means people never having heard of him or having no opinion either way is translated as him being more popular.
I really think the mark of how popular someone is, is how many people like them. The don’t know/don’t cares are a smokescreen
For instance, latest YG has Starmer net +8 ‘likeable’ & Boris +5
The trouble is 45 like Boris and only 36 Sir Keir. Sir Keir wins on NS because don’t knows are thought to split 50/50. I guess the question is ‘should don’t knows be split 50/50?’ If yes, that put pays to ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’
In real elections, roughly a third of people don’t vote. So it’s probably better to assume almost all the don’t knows in leader ratings questions won’t, rather than hope half of them will vote for your man. That’s why it’s best to look at the gross positives, in my opinion.
This big announcement has basically been revealed in full to the media. I wonder what the speaker will make of it?
It's a game. Everyone pretends that statements will always be made first to the Commons when we know they won't, the Speaker, whoever it is, will righteously criticise it, the government will at best make a mealy mouthed apology (can't defend against leaks, Mr Speaker, then it will happen again next time.
I presume it will still be work from home, don't travel anywhere you don't need to for the next couple of months?
That would be my expectation: lockdown plus schools and an extremely stingy menu of outdoor activities. I don't think we're going to get very much else until the over 50s vax target is in the bag and both hospital admissions and the total numbers of patients are very much lower than they are now - although I wouldn't want to put a number on that and it's possible we won't get one from the Government either, which is a shame. If they are too vague and don't offer any metrics at all, then it will make people suspect that they intend to stall and keep us locked down for as long as humanly possible, which is the kind of negative headspace I'm trying to escape from and a lot of people are still in. Some identifiable milestones that we need to reach would give us something to work towards, something to hope for, and help to hold ministers' feet to the fire.
I think you are right there. The trouble is, they would then possibly set the numbers ludicrously low to avoid being seen as reckless. So maybe vague milestones are the least worst option?!
I think we may see some numbers in the Plan - set against the criteria - eg hospitalisations
As Dixie has just implied, it would be bonkers if they were excluded. They are a key metric surely!
Comments
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/
Funny to think eight weeks ago (or thereabouts) the primary topic of conversation on here was the possibility of the transition period ending without a deal.
NS means people never having heard of him or having no opinion either way is translated as him being more popular.
I really think the mark of how popular someone is, is how many people like them. The don’t know/don’t cares are a smokescreen
Please bear in mind that a lot of us aren't coping very well with all of this, and we're being worn down by it to differing extents and at differing rates. I think I'm probably feeling a bit better now the immediate family have had their first jabs, there's evidence coming through of the efficacy of the vaccines, and the relentlessly dismal weather has finally improved, at least for now. If there's another major setback - for example, if they throw all the schools open and then repent of it and shut everything back down again, or if the progress from lockdown really does happen at a ridiculously slow pace, or if obviously hard-to-impossible to reach targets are set for us to meet before we're able to escape from all of this, then my mood is likely to crash again. But I am trying not to assume the worst the whole of the time.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/slides-and-datasets-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conference-3-february-2021
Available as a spreadsheet as well.
Quite high infection levels among children there by the way.
Life has risks. Charles Walker is very eloquent on this. Thank god for the Tory backbenchers. I expect there to be serious numbers of letters to Sir GB quite shortly.
8th March:
All schools to reopen and children can play sport
One person can visit a care home resident
One-to-one social meetings outdoors
29th March:
Rule of six for outdoor meetings
Two households can meet outdoors
All organised sport
I'm not sure what I am contributing apart from confusion - but hey, it passes the time.
- vaccinations
- effectiveness of vaccinations
- infection rates
- variants
Sky - just released.
I called that previously
Just as I will be having lunch with my parents for Mum's 70th. She is the first person in her family to reach that age. Its a real milestone. She will have been jabbed 4 weeks earlier, as will Dad.
Society has to accept a certain degree of risk. Other wise what is the point?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9284585/Five-people-feared-died-eating-contaminated-chicken-imported-Poland.html
The trouble is 45 like Boris and only 36 Sir Keir. Sir Keir wins on NS because don’t knows are thought to split 50/50. I guess the question is ‘should don’t knows be split 50/50?’ If yes, that put pays to ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’
Edited for spelling.
Also I'm not sure how much the 12 week target needs to be stuck to - with younger adults in particular a booster shot probably up to 6 months later would likely give the same long lasting effect.
To be clear, I think our vaccine rollout is 2nd probably only to Israel's and perhaps UAE but always room for improvement...
Is it well-known that with Betfair Exchange, if you start making serious amounts of money, they take 60% of the profits and leave the punter with just 40%? Apparently this only affects a tiny number of people who are clever enough to make big profits on the site.
https://hinto.win/blog/betfair-premium-charge
Barring some radical and very nasty new mutation appearing and getting loose, which seems unlikely based on what we have been told about how slowly coronaviruses change, we have already seen the worst of the death toll. A massacre like that seen in January ain't happening again. But we're still in the save the hospitals from collapse phase. That's going to take longer - but we are getting there.
Again, assuming that the schools don't screw everything up, then we are almost certainly on the run-in to the end of the last lockdown. At first it's going to feel agonisingly slow and a bit shit, because outdoor activities will come back first and they're going to be at the mercy of the weather, but if the target for the over 50s to get their shots is to be advanced to mid-April and it's met like the previous one was, then by early May a lot of businesses should be open or about to do so, the social restrictions will be getting looser and the country will begin to feel less like an open prison at long bloody last.
At that rate, by June we'll be in a similar position with respect to the over 40s as well, the bulk of the adult population will then have a decent level of protection, and most of this bullshit ought to be over. The residual numbers of people still to be vaccinated and their low age profile should mean that it becomes much harder for the disease to get passed around at all, let alone for the numbers falling seriously ill with it to grow so large that we end up having yet another hospital panic.
With hardly any old, middle aged or other clinically vulnerable people left undefended for the virus to effectively attack, heavy restrictions will no longer be justified to protect the hospitals, and they will go.
Night all.
You heard it here first.
50+ letters to Sir GB incoming, I suspect.
Meeting people outdoors for a coffee didn't need to be criminalised.
When the law is transparently stupid, and when the benefits of breaking it outweigh the likelihood and consequences of being caught, it may be happily disregarded.
PC Plod wasn't going to chase us up the hill branding a fixed penalty notice and we were sat a hundred yards from anyone up a windswept hillside. We were doing no harm so we ignored the silly rules. Indeed, our lives are now so restricted that extending a middle finger in the general direction of the silly rules felt rather satisfying.
Just hope you weren't in Derbyshire.....
It’s ludicrous to keep them shut enforcably if they have capacity outdoors in beer gardens.
I can see both the Gov't and those opposed points though. The vaccine refuseniks I have a massive problem with though.
And rightly so.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9284625/First-step-roadmap-lockdown-revealed.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14119243/uk-lockdown-roadmap-boris-johnson-freedom-plan/
8 March - schools back (confirmed)
29 March - limited outside meetings (confirmed)
19 April, three weeks later - non essential retail, virtually nailed on
10 May, pubs as described
31 May (Stage 5) - some further relaxations eg sporting events.
Outdoor pubs isn't going to happen on 19 April -not viable
> What will President Joe Biden, a three-time caucus loser, do?
> Hangover from DNC-Iowa 2020 battle
> Republicans link arms with Democrats
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2021/02/03/iowa-caucus-2020-debate-joe-biden-dnc-first-state-republicans/4314747001/
Note - the Register gives you a few free articles before imposing paywall. This one is pretty good, from perspective of Iowa where the precinct caucuses have been a significant (albeit quadrennial) cottage industry every since Jimmy Carter's surprise victory in early 1976.
Further note DNC policy is to replace caucuses with primaries for presidential delegate selection, because primaries are more accessible and representative.
At same time, both Iowa and New Hampshire have been hard-pressed to defend their "first in the nation" events (Iowa precinct caucuses followed by New Hampshire presidential primary) especially as these small, rural, overwhelmingly White states are NOT very representative of the increasingly diverse Democratic Party.
In particular, Nevada is attempting - via state legislation- to move ahead and seize the 'first in the nation" position for itself, specifically by replacing precinct caucuses used through 2020 with a January presidential primary.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-02/nevada-jockeys-to-be-first-on-presidential-primary-calendar
Not so great in Manchester, I imagine...
* I mean as in driving a couple of hours to catch up with somebody, rather than popping down the road to use the park or get a coffee.
Though that said, we are only just over the border from Cambs, where the plods got into hot water for heavy handed enforcement during the first lockdown, including harassing Addenbrookes' Hospital staff travelling to and from work. Derbyshire wasn't alone in its zealotry.
Government sources said there would be some aspects of lockdown – such as home working and international travel – where there was not expected to be any set time for rules to change. “Much of that is still dependent on factors outside our control,” one source said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/21/johnsons-route-out-of-covid-lockdown-loved-ones-and-schools-first
Listen to Boris not me!
The disconnect between privileged professionals and the people who keep their deliveries being dispatched would be fascinating, if it wasn't also rather disconcerting,,,,
While most, when encountering a stupid rule, do their best to work to its intent even if as written they should be doing more.