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The UK’s still odds-on favourite for Biden’s first international visit – but could he stopover in Du
The UK’s still odds-on favourite for Biden’s first international visit – but could he stopover in Dublin along the way? – politicalbetting.com
Above is the chart on the Smarkets market over where Joe Biden’s first international visit as president will be.
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I really don't get the idea that you would go there first, it just adds a risk for zero benefit.
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
I mean this is Obama's former Deputy National Security Adviser and someone Biden listened to a lot for his foreign policy staffing.
https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/1315290197421039616
Biden will have a solid working relationship with the UK but without the affection for and family ties he has with Ireland.
https://twitter.com/JoeMurphyLondon/status/1364172805697376258
Quite right too, care home residents will unfortunately be amongst those who are least likely to respond to vaccination by virtue of having weaker immune systems. All staff must be vaccinated.
Meanwhile the real world moves on and leaves you behind. Biden called Boris first, the two have been working together for months now on surely the 3 "big C" international issues: Covid, Climate and China.
The idea he's going to dump that for some tabloid trash from years ago is pathetic. Biden is not pathetic.
- an EU that has cozied up to China
- an EU that has cozied up to Russia
- an EU that has put a hard border across the island of Ireland, however "mistakenly"
- a UK that has applied to join the CP-TPP to broaden its world trade base
- a UK that has taken a firm stand against China in IT and security
- a UK that has taken the vaccine rollout very seriously in battling Covid
Where do you think the Biden administration thinks its friends currently reside?
Boris Johnson says he is 'fervently Sinophile,' seeks to improve China-UK economic ties.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-22/UK-PM-Boris-Johnson-says-he-is-fervently-Sinophile--Y5Kvctu9Ik/index.html
The Secret Service aren't going to let Biden go anywhere that isn't at the top of the vaccination charts, ignoring the microstates, that realistically leaves the UK and Israel, and Biden isn't going to Israel first whilst Netanyahu is PM, so that realistically leaves the UK.
https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/1359540517617426433
England had a lot of cases in December and early January, leading to lots of deaths in January and early February. The hugeness of the spike is a distinctly English phenomenon.
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=e92000001&areas=s92000003&areas=w92000004&areas=n92000002&areas=deu&areas=irl&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=ussd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths
OK, some of that is bad luck of having Kent Covid develop in... Kent, I guess. But it was first identified in late September. It was obvious towards the end of the November lockdown that something bad was going on (cases in the SE were failing to fall in the way they should have done and were elsewhere). And yet London started December in Tier 2, and Christmas was on until a few days before Christmas, and far too many schools remained open for far too long, and then there was the Twixtmas gap before we went back into lockdown. I think that was distinctively English.
With hindsight, that was all calamitous. Question is- was it calamitous with reasonable foresight? Personally, I think it was. You're in a pandemic. You've had recent experience of exponential growth and the value of applying restrictions quickly so you can get a handle on what's going on. To faff the way England did between early December and early January was bad government.
I accept that mileages vary on this.
The VC-25 easily has the legs for ADW-STN but a tactical tech stop in Shannon could happen.
https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico/status/1364172713389158402
However Priti Patel and others should do it on TV as we need to demonstrate it's safe to minorities who are refusing it.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
Maybe they spend too much time modelling and not enough time with actual humans?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1200/countrybyvar/index.html
"It also sharpens the intriguing question of whether the president's dual colonial inheritance – of Kenyan and Irish ancestry – is helping reshape America's supposedly "special relationship" with Britain.
That phrase, "special relationship", was coined by Winston Churchill, whose bronze bust, sculpted by Sir Jacob Epstein, was prominently displayed in the Oval Office. When Obama moved in, the statuette was politely returned to the British embassy as surplus to decorative requirements."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2009/mar/04/obama-irish-brown-special
https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1364179410560176129?s=20
Very few beer gardens are going to open on the earliest possible date because it is hard to do so profitably during a month when in large parts of the country the weather is often poor and unreliable, which makes planning and ordering stock difficult. Remember also that if you have a tent with sides in the garden it cannot be used as it is classed as "inside space". If it open at the sides then who is going to want to sit in there in the evening open to the elements in April in many parts of the country?
What would be more useful is allowing takeaway alcohol sales for, gasp, pubs which have been prohibited from doing so, even though off licences and supermarkets have been allowed to.
Also important in the general rejoicing is to know what is to happen to the support offered to hospitality because currently it is to stop well before venues are allowed to open properly.
More than a week's notice is needed for opening. Breweries have already said that they will need 2-3 weeks notice to start operations so don't be surprised to find many places not opening until the end of May/ early June. From mid-February until then is a way to go without income and with support significantly less than fixed costs.
But at least there is a plan and the recognition that zero-Covid is unachievable is a welcome dose of realism.
"Scotland's prosecution service has raised "grave concerns" over the Scottish Parliament's decision to publish documents from Alex Salmond.
"The papers name people Mr Salmond alleges were part of a "malicious" attempt to remove him from public life."
Salmond due to give evidence tomorrow...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56167956
So that would apply to any USAF plane but not a commercial one?
Everything he touches turns to gold.
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1364156370157723649?s=20
Personally I'm very relieved that the advice I give as a result of the hugely complex models I don't fully understand, can't kill anyone. I think I might also become extremely risk-averse if the possibility ever arose that it might.
He's gone full Woke (probably he doesn't really understand it at heart, but knows it's important to the next generation in the Dem base - so he does it) is attached to Ireland, and is obviously an enthusiastic internationalist, but he also backed Britain unequivocally in the Falklands War, and he likes trains and is proud of it.
I think that means he'll back those who support his foreign policy objectives. I don't think he'll do bitterness and vengeance because you don't survive that long in building a career through bipartisanship in Congress with that approach.
He's also known Bibi for decades, and has supported Israel for the same, and he finally called him a week ago so I think that "snub" was probably overblown, although there was clearly a gentle message there.
https://twitter.com/scotgov/status/1364183230933577729?s=20
So at a minimum the government should legislate to:
1. Require employers to change contracts of employment to require their employees to be vaccinated, or otherwise resign, in any specifically defined workplace environment where Covid outbreaks are likely to lead to relatively high levels of deaths and hospital admissions (e.g. care homes, hospitals.)
2. In any contract of employment in all settings, end the risk to employers to stop changes to contracts to require vaccination potentially opening up claims of breach of contract/constructive dismissal by refusniks.
3. Place a duty on all employers to conduct an assessment of the risk of transmission within or between their workforce, and to require vaccination of employees as a condition of employment unless that assessment showed that risks could be adequately minimised by control measures, and to explicitly place a liability on employers for damages arising any Covid outbreak that could be shown to have arisen from failure of such documented control measures.
4. Extend the above to agency staff as well as directly employed staff.
Result: Pretty well all employers move to require vaccination to avoid breaking the law or the risk of being sued.
The deep flaw in the Zero-Covidians' thinking is that if Zero Covid is the right policy, then so is Zero Influenza and Zero Pneumonia. Hell, why stop there? Zero Common Cold also sounds brilliant.
They need to be held to account on this, rather than the media wheeling them out uncritically.
To call Scotland a "banana republic" is to malign a perfectly innocent and nutritious fruit.
Nicola keeps challenging Salmond to produce the evidence. And there's some who say she doesn't have a sense of humour.
Indeed. The key question for Jacienda is: "When are you going to open your borders?" Because, as soon as she does, the Zero Covid strategy collapses. I suppose NZ could keep its borders closed forever, although then nobody would ever visit it and its own citizens would be endlessly marooned abroad.
Paste.
Tweak.
And yes, Zero Pneumonia is a good policy.
You also - if you are going to force people to have a medicine - need to have no fault compensation paid for by the state for anyone harmed by this, as is the case for other vaccinations I believe.
Something has to get us. Hopefully at the end of a long and productive life and death in our sleep. But it does look like some are chasing immortality.
It does question the extent of devolution. I think that the UK government should, in exceptional circumstances, be able to declare a national emergency and for the specific aim of dealing with that emergency temporarily take back powers that would otherwise be devolved.
In order for a policy to be good it has to be achievable. If it isn't achievable, its not SMART.
On the standard deviation point... other small countries seem to have large excess mortality bumps (Scotland, Portugal, Austria, Ireland etc.)?
And would there really be much variability around population mean once you get into the millions in population terms? I sort of assumed the whole point of choosing Z scores was to make it comparable across countries!
Zero Influenza?
Technically, you are not forcing people to have a vaccination, but rather forcing people of working age to make a choice between having a vaccination or significantly restricting their employment options.
On the last point all three approved vaccines have been added to the vaccine damage programme for the reasons you outline, happily there haven't been any serious enough reactions to it to warrant it's use.
Influenza (and any other virus with a lower R than SARS-CoV-2, such as rotavirus or norovirus) would cause far fewer deaths than normal.
Road accidents will be well down, as well as workplace accidents likely to be significantly down.
Causes of increased deaths from lockdown (such as delayed cancer diagnoses) will be largely (albeit not exclusively) lagged by months or even years.
I'd be totally unsurprised if covid deaths came out as higher than excess deaths everywhere - when they are finally counted properly and reliably.
It must scorch Johnson's droopy old balls that he has to make do with an Ascot call sign the same as if Crab Air were flying a pallet of baked beans.
But I agree with the rest of your comments.
Have I missed a twister or turnip?
https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1364129529774669824
This time in the Guardian:
"we should establish “green zones” – areas where the virus has been judged to be under control, where there is no danger of infection and thus no need for restrictions."
"The overarching aim should be maintaining minimal cases of Covid-19 (a level of about 10 new cases per 100,000 people a week, for example, might be judged low enough)."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/21/uk-lockdown-health-livelihoods-2021-sage-committee