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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
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.
People don't generally die from the Common Code (why was it even necessary to say that?) And yes, Zero Pneumonia is a good policy.
No it isn't, its a stupid soundbite since it isn't achievable. If we were to lockdown until we sustainably achieved Zero Pneumonia it would be devastating not a good policy.
In order for a policy to be good it has to be achievable. If it isn't achievable, its not SMART.
Calling the medical experts...
It is my understanding that quite a number of people die of the flue each year, despite the vaccines. Also that Long Flu is thing.
9,000 a year from flu said Whitty last night iirc. And a lot more he added in a bad year.
And yet we carry on with our lives and our economy and have for centuries. No one has proposed shutting down life for flu.
Well, until now presumably...
The Gov't manages flu with a vaccination program for over 50s and also lots of under 50s through occupational offers. It'll be the same with Covid just with a potentially wider group to be vaccinated.
In the winter of 1999/2000 there were 50000 excess deaths due to flu, and no one batted an eyelid
But no excess deaths due to smallpox, yet no-one pilloried the Zero Smallpox advocates.
That took decades, centuries. Edward Jenner vaccinated that poor kid in 1796 and, nearly 200 years laer, it was eradicated. 200 years of social distancing?
Made me chuckle....while ranting about why isn't Starmer standing up, why aren't the normal people standing up to this corrupt evil government, they show a clip of what I presume he wants it to be for "us" to be getting together and demanding change...by showing a clip of wokerity people no appaulding, rather doing the jazz hands, the sort of people who have a badge with their pronouns on like It, Z and They...I can't see Stoke man having much in common with those type of people and there in lies the problem for the Corbynista rip it all up and start again.
There's something of the Gryff Rees Jones about his mannerisms, perhaps.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Can anyone explain UK born +251k during a pandemic?
That doesn't make any intuitive sense to me. Not all of the country is like London, up here hospitality is typically staffed by UK born not migrant staff.
I suspect that a good number of those have been employed by test and trace and other government initiatives to deal with the pandemic but even so it is remarkable. In Edinburgh a significant percentage of those working in restaurants, cafes and bars are EU nationals so their departure will create employment opportunities for Scots in due course but not yet as all such establishments were shut for most of that quarter.
Its almost as if those "stupid" people from low skill backgrounds who were "deceived" into believing that they were facing unfair competition for employment from freedom of movement were not as stupid after all and just possibly acted in their own self interest.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
- 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?
The thesis that Biden will waste his time feuding with the UK relies on the rather demeaning assumption that he is even more of a petulant man-child than his predecessor. I don't think he is at all, so I suspect the papers will be full of quotes about the 'surprisingly warm' nature of his first face-to-face meeting with Boris when it happens.
I think Biden is complex.
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)....
I suspect he might understand it rather better than you .
But I agree with the rest of your comments.
Nope, he doesn't not at all.
But you've been captured wholesale by this "movement" so your supine comment doesn't surprise me.
"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)."
"One way of doing this would be repurposing unused spaces to create “Nightingale” schools where children are able to learn in a safe and socially distant way, reducing crowding in existing classrooms, and calling on former teachers who have left the profession to help. In addition, we could use blended learning, combining classroom and at-home education to reduce the amount of social mixing in schools. This would require ensuring that everyone has internet connectivity and laptops or tablets."
Sounds like something out of Black Mirror.
I'm starting to wonder whether these people are actually insane, or whether they just take professional arse-covering to an extreme degree. Nobody who has school-age children could possibly write the above paragraph and believe in it.
If vaccines were years away, then I would suggest we get to work on that sort of idea now. And to think outside the box while doing it - function rooms at pubs, banqueting halls, hell, even night clubs and bingo halls.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Can anyone explain UK born +251k during a pandemic?
That doesn't make any intuitive sense to me. Not all of the country is like London, up here hospitality is typically staffed by UK born not migrant staff.
The obvious answer is that the immigrants left London in the spring last year, so by the late summer, as the bars and restaurants reopened, they found U.K. staff to fill them.
There will also have been a load of new jobs created in things like delivery and security during the pandemic, in many cases grabbing unemployed Brits before they hit the dole.
There’s a great PhD thesis in a thorough analysis of those figures across sectors.
Interesting thought. There could also be an age-related factor as teenagers etc become adults, or uni students graduate and enter the job market.
I'd be curious to see these figures in percentage terms. Whether we have more or fewer by percentage of UK born etc employed now? Obviously the official jobless total percentage has been rising, so that can't be all explained by people going overseas.
Would it be possible for a situation to arise where the Court could be in Contempt of Parliament and the Parliament in Contempt of Court, on the same matter?
If so what happens?
I'm not sure it is possible to be in contempt of Hoyrood. It's possible but I am aware of no provision for it.
Holyrood is in contempt of the Scottish people.
Who appoints the bosses of the Crown Office?
The Scottish government but, having been appointed, they are supposed to be independent. That really hasn't been questioned in the past.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
*big generalisation from small number of studies alert* Reducing person to person contact works. Mandating the reduction of person to person contact doesn't seem to, so much. Possibly because people adjust the behaviours accordingly anyway? (cf cycle helmets don't result in fewer injured cyclists - cyclists feel safer in helmets and take more risks - so fewer head injuries are balanced out by more crashes - possibly)?
Similarly, wearing masks appears to work, but mandating the wearing of masks does not appear to do so, so much.
Region of Residence 1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 155,084 5,344 160,428 East Of England 19,777 828 20,605 London 26,625 853 27,478 Midlands 31,537 749 32,286 North East And Yorkshire 16,598 409 17,007 North West 18,493 117 18,610 South East 25,572 1,208 26,780 South West 15,399 1,175 16,574
With respect to the daily panic - we have tea and biscuits. Please form an orderly queue.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Or could be that the benefits cap is now removed if you earn more than £605 per month.
Made me chuckle....while ranting about why isn't Starmer standing up, why aren't the normal people standing up to this corrupt evil government, they show a clip of what I presume he wants it to be for "us" to be getting together and demanding change...by showing a clip of wokerity people no appaulding, rather doing the jazz hands, the sort of people who have a badge with their pronouns on like It, Z and They...I can't see Stoke man having much in common with those type of people and there in lies the problem for the Corbynista rip it all up and start again.
Stoke man will not vote for SKS either IMHO.
In my never been to Stoke and hence don't have a scooby doo analysis I can see Stoke man voting for SKS.
SM might not be too politically engaged so sees someone sensible; looking like a grown-up politician should look like; making reasonable if not earth-shattering soundbites on the bits of the news that he hears; doesn't want to tear down capitalism (which contributed to what wealth Stoke has had) and start again, judging by those soundbites; the constant "told you sos" and "I wouldn't have done it like thats" which might even reflect the conversations of Stoke Man himself.
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.
People don't generally die from the Common Code (why was it even necessary to say that?) And yes, Zero Pneumonia is a good policy.
No it isn't, its a stupid soundbite since it isn't achievable. If we were to lockdown until we sustainably achieved Zero Pneumonia it would be devastating not a good policy.
In order for a policy to be good it has to be achievable. If it isn't achievable, its not SMART.
Calling the medical experts...
It is my understanding that quite a number of people die of the flue each year, despite the vaccines. Also that Long Flu is thing.
9,000 a year from flu said Whitty last night iirc. And a lot more he added in a bad year.
And yet we carry on with our lives and our economy and have for centuries. No one has proposed shutting down life for flu.
Well, until now presumably...
The Gov't manages flu with a vaccination program for over 50s and also lots of under 50s through occupational offers. It'll be the same with Covid just with a potentially wider group to be vaccinated.
In the winter of 1999/2000 there were 50000 excess deaths due to flu, and no one batted an eyelid
But no excess deaths due to smallpox, yet no-one pilloried the Zero Smallpox advocates.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Would it be possible for a situation to arise where the Court could be in Contempt of Parliament and the Parliament in Contempt of Court, on the same matter?
If so what happens?
I'm not sure it is possible to be in contempt of Hoyrood. It's possible but I am aware of no provision for it.
Holyrood is in contempt of the Scottish people.
Who appoints the bosses of the Crown Office?
The Scottish government but, having been appointed, they are supposed to be independent. That really hasn't been questioned in the past.
Independence, judicial or otherwise is an interesting fiction.
It is so very simple to appoint people who are completely independent, but have the right beliefs.
Which is why the premise of the series Judge John Deed always made me laugh - a crusading judge would simply be given cases that the system want to be... crusaded?
Made me chuckle....while ranting about why isn't Starmer standing up, why aren't the normal people standing up to this corrupt evil government, they show a clip of what I presume he wants it to be for "us" to be getting together and demanding change...by showing a clip of wokerity people no appaulding, rather doing the jazz hands, the sort of people who have a badge with their pronouns on like It, Z and They...I can't see Stoke man having much in common with those type of people and there in lies the problem for the Corbynista rip it all up and start again.
There's something of the Gryff Rees Jones about his mannerisms, perhaps.
A voice crying in the dessert.
The thing is that both the Conservatives and Labour are trying to deliver what Monbiot argues for there as soon as reasonably practicable, which is in the 2040-2050 box.
I have little time for the argument we are doing "nothing" just because mainstream politicians refuse to accept the fantasy we can do it all by 2025.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Can anyone explain UK born +251k during a pandemic?
That doesn't make any intuitive sense to me. Not all of the country is like London, up here hospitality is typically staffed by UK born not migrant staff.
The obvious answer is that the immigrants left London in the spring last year, so by the late summer, as the bars and restaurants reopened, they found U.K. staff to fill them.
There will also have been a load of new jobs created in things like delivery and security during the pandemic, in many cases grabbing unemployed Brits before they hit the dole.
There’s a great PhD thesis in a thorough analysis of those figures across sectors.
Interesting thought. There could also be an age-related factor as teenagers etc become adults, or uni students graduate and enter the job market.
I'd be curious to see these figures in percentage terms. Whether we have more or fewer by percentage of UK born etc employed now? Obviously the official jobless total percentage has been rising, so that can't be all explained by people going overseas.
These numbers are from Q4, when pubs were open and there were also a lot of seasonal Christmas jobs around. The unemployment rises have been in Jan and Feb - I think.
There could also be a load of double counting, as people have had two or more consecutive jobs in the quarter, reflecting temporary work, the November closures and people working two jobs.
There will also be some graduate scheme white-collar employment in the autumn, which might account for a fair bit of the total.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Can anyone explain UK born +251k during a pandemic?
That doesn't make any intuitive sense to me. Not all of the country is like London, up here hospitality is typically staffed by UK born not migrant staff.
The obvious answer is that the immigrants left London in the spring last year, so by the late summer, as the bars and restaurants reopened, they found U.K. staff to fill them.
There will also have been a load of new jobs created in things like delivery and security during the pandemic, in many cases grabbing unemployed Brits before they hit the dole.
There’s a great PhD thesis in a thorough analysis of those figures across sectors.
I think people on benefits have cottoned on to the fact they can be so much better off working as not only are benefits not withdrawn or reduced they are increased, as the benefits cap is withdrawn.
If what i have been told is even half true the benefits system is a joke.
A family with 9 kids who do not work get £1666.67 per month
Same family if one person earns more than £605 per month in employment gets circa £3k a month benefits plus their salary.
I find it hard to believe but given that i know a family in this situation, (they have 2 horses FFS and spend £200 a week on these. Rent on house fully paid BTW
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
As someone who believes that cockup always is a better explanation than conspiracy in 99.99% of circumstances I have to say The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service are testing my beliefs and experience to destruction.
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.
People don't generally die from the Common Code (why was it even necessary to say that?) And yes, Zero Pneumonia is a good policy.
No it isn't, its a stupid soundbite since it isn't achievable. If we were to lockdown until we sustainably achieved Zero Pneumonia it would be devastating not a good policy.
In order for a policy to be good it has to be achievable. If it isn't achievable, its not SMART.
Calling the medical experts...
It is my understanding that quite a number of people die of the flue each year, despite the vaccines. Also that Long Flu is thing.
9,000 a year from flu said Whitty last night iirc. And a lot more he added in a bad year.
And yet we carry on with our lives and our economy and have for centuries. No one has proposed shutting down life for flu.
Well, until now presumably...
The Gov't manages flu with a vaccination program for over 50s and also lots of under 50s through occupational offers. It'll be the same with Covid just with a potentially wider group to be vaccinated.
In the winter of 1999/2000 there were 50000 excess deaths due to flu, and no one batted an eyelid
But no excess deaths due to smallpox, yet no-one pilloried the Zero Smallpox advocates.
Zero smallpox was feasible.
Indeed. Although it still took 184 years.
Zero COVID *might* be possible after x decades of vaccinating everyone and looking for it all over the globe.
Would it be possible for a situation to arise where the Court could be in Contempt of Parliament and the Parliament in Contempt of Court, on the same matter?
If so what happens?
I'm not sure it is possible to be in contempt of Hoyrood. It's possible but I am aware of no provision for it.
Holyrood is in contempt of the Scottish people.
Who appoints the bosses of the Crown Office?
The Scottish government but, having been appointed, they are supposed to be independent. That really hasn't been questioned in the past.
Because they’ve been independent in the past?
How the hell can they be removed, is a more pertinent question, if the Scottish government don’t want them to be?
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
I'm not sure that Farr's observation can count as a "law".
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
I think they'll be fine, they'll get something equivalent to the Yellow Lanyard.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Can anyone explain UK born +251k during a pandemic?
That doesn't make any intuitive sense to me. Not all of the country is like London, up here hospitality is typically staffed by UK born not migrant staff.
The obvious answer is that the immigrants left London in the spring last year, so by the late summer, as the bars and restaurants reopened, they found U.K. staff to fill them.
There will also have been a load of new jobs created in things like delivery and security during the pandemic, in many cases grabbing unemployed Brits before they hit the dole.
There’s a great PhD thesis in a thorough analysis of those figures across sectors.
Interesting thought. There could also be an age-related factor as teenagers etc become adults, or uni students graduate and enter the job market.
I'd be curious to see these figures in percentage terms. Whether we have more or fewer by percentage of UK born etc employed now? Obviously the official jobless total percentage has been rising, so that can't be all explained by people going overseas.
These numbers are from Q4, when pubs were open and there were also a lot of seasonal Christmas jobs around. The unemployment rises have been in Jan and Feb - I think.
There could also be a load of double counting, as people have had two or more consecutive jobs in the quarter, reflecting temporary work, the November closures and people working two jobs.
There will also be some graduate scheme white-collar employment in the autumn, which might account for a fair bit of the total.
Definitely a research project in there!
The January numbers actually don't look bad, the claimant count has started to fall which usually indicates growth in jobs. I wouldn't be surprised if 5.1% is the peak rate of unemployment despite some of the disaster porn artists predicting 10% or higher. Furlough has made unemployment less likely and the reopening from June will support most of those people returning to their existing jobs without too much trouble.
Anecdotally I can see jobs growth in my field, we've taken on 6 new hires since the turn of the year and I've heard similar stories from other friends in the city. Mostly it seems to be EU based institutions beefing up their presence here in case they can't do the work from their HQ in Paris/Frankfurt.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
He probably thinks that umbrellas *cause* rain, because it rains when people carry them. After all, has anyone done a double-blind randomized trial of whether umbrellas keep you dry?
Personally, I think it's a conspiracy by evil scientists who want to force everyone to carry umbrellas, because they enjoy exercising that sort of power.
--AS
Never mind umbrellas - is there any proof that rain itself exists and is responsible for soaking people who stand out in it? Those alleged 'droplets' we see reported on the biased MSM are just illusions created by Patrick Vallance's mum in partnership with Bill Gates so that they can control us forever and make money for Big Brolly.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
The electoral threat to you is that its becoming ever more obvious current tory MPs are either closet Blairites or opportunist careerists.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Doesn't explain the non-EU born change though.
Presumably that is a consequence of the dropping of 10% of GDP. No doubt many Brits lost their jobs too for the same reason but somehow they have managed to offset that by a quarter of a million. I am delighted but more than a bit surprised.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
I think they'll be fine, they'll get something equivalent to the Yellow Lanyard.
Good job those haven't been brought into disrepute.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
Made me chuckle....while ranting about why isn't Starmer standing up, why aren't the normal people standing up to this corrupt evil government, they show a clip of what I presume he wants it to be for "us" to be getting together and demanding change...by showing a clip of wokerity people no appaulding, rather doing the jazz hands, the sort of people who have a badge with their pronouns on like It, Z and They...I can't see Stoke man having much in common with those type of people and there in lies the problem for the Corbynista rip it all up and start again.
Stoke man will not vote for SKS either IMHO.
In my never been to Stoke and hence don't have a scooby doo analysis I can see Stoke man voting for SKS.
SM might not be too politically engaged so sees someone sensible; looking like a grown-up politician should look like; making reasonable if not earth-shattering soundbites on the bits of the news that he hears; doesn't want to tear down capitalism (which contributed to what wealth Stoke has had) and start again, judging by those soundbites; the constant "told you sos" and "I wouldn't have done it like thats" which might even reflect the conversations of Stoke Man himself.
Stoke man wants to rip up "the rotten system" that kept them in relative poverty.
Starting with BREXIT.
Boris offered that in GE2019
Come 2024 when they are even worse off they will vote Farage or an equivalent politician promising to be on their side
I think by that time looking like a grown-up politician, (particularly a boring one offering nothing new) will be insufficient.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
I'm not sure that Farr's observation can count as a "law".
The question remains, nevertheless, whatever it is.
@BluestBlue said that @contrarian doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic. And hence I just wondered how or if Farr could be relevant to the discussion.
If his observation of pandemics does not include any inhibiting factors (eg lockdowns) then although small children can see that keeping people apart will reduce transmission, it also means that lockdowns are/were to some extent incidental to the pandemic's journey.
You yourself have consistently noted the attributes in SA and Kent, for example.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
Don't they get a medical pass in their vaccine passport app. That gives them anonymity as well so they don't necessarily need to declare they haven't had a vaccine as there may be some stigma attached to it. Tbh, there's probably only 50-60k adults who are ineligible with current vaccines and that number will go down too as more vaccines are approved and more trials are completed among those people currently deemed ineligible.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
I think they'll be fine, they'll get something equivalent to the Yellow Lanyard.
Good job those haven't been brought into disrepute.
Made me chuckle....while ranting about why isn't Starmer standing up, why aren't the normal people standing up to this corrupt evil government, they show a clip of what I presume he wants it to be for "us" to be getting together and demanding change...by showing a clip of wokerity people no appaulding, rather doing the jazz hands, the sort of people who have a badge with their pronouns on like It, Z and They...I can't see Stoke man having much in common with those type of people and there in lies the problem for the Corbynista rip it all up and start again.
Stoke man will not vote for SKS either IMHO.
In my never been to Stoke and hence don't have a scooby doo analysis I can see Stoke man voting for SKS.
SM might not be too politically engaged so sees someone sensible; looking like a grown-up politician should look like; making reasonable if not earth-shattering soundbites on the bits of the news that he hears; doesn't want to tear down capitalism (which contributed to what wealth Stoke has had) and start again, judging by those soundbites; the constant "told you sos" and "I wouldn't have done it like thats" which might even reflect the conversations of Stoke Man himself.
Stoke man wants to rip up "the rotten system" that kept them in relative poverty.
Starting with BREXIT.
Boris offered that in GE2019
Come 2024 when they are even worse off they will vote Farage or an equivalent politician promising to be on their side
I think by that time looking like a grown-up politician, (particularly a boring one offering nothing new) will be insufficient.
Will be interesting to see.
Yes. I'm not sure Brexit will be a factor by then and, if they are still angry at their relative poverty, will need someone to blame. That is usually the incumbent government.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
I'm pretty sure that asking people for their vaccine certificate in pubs and clubs will have a pretty high decay rate.
Helps explain why unemployment hasn't become an issue during the last year.
Its almost as if freedom of movement and competition for work from the EU had been restricting the opportunities of British people to get jobs in our economy. Obviously that can't be true, I have read the opposite so many times on here.
Doesn't explain the non-EU born change though.
Non-EU students in part time jobs, working holiday visas for younger people, people who need tier 2 sponsorship finding it tough to find new sponsors.
All of these will add up to a pretty substantial number, especially the first one where the work is going to be in pretty expendable types of job.
Those with deeply held religious views are a difficult one too.
I mean, what do you do with Jehovah's Witnesses*? Hold them down and make them take it? Social pressure won't work as they live in a fairly exclusive community. Amish might be another in the USA
In reality if you compelled or make it impossible to live daily life without it you'd probably get a human rights action. So there may be some we have to "accept" not having the vaccine that aren't strictly speaking for medical reasons too, but with a very high religious conviction test.
(*I only use them as example as they may make a concession on this one, and I think they have a derogation on some vaccines already)
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
I'm pretty sure that asking people for their vaccine certificate in pubs and clubs will have a pretty high decay rate.
Until people start losing their licences when they stop.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
I think they'll be fine, they'll get something equivalent to the Yellow Lanyard.
Good job those haven't been brought into disrepute.
It'll be in a government app.
What if you don't have a smartphone? Many will be elderly.
I'd have thought an exemption card or letter would be better for presentation at, for example, airport security or immigration control.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
The app can cover that too though, when they login to it with their NHS number it essentially gives them a free pass. It can act identically to those who have been vaccinated that way because I don't think it's a good idea for those with medical exemptions to be given a different system that singles them out.
After a simply gloriously sunny day yesterday, rain and wind here today. A reminder that spring weather is unreliable and often far too cold to be outside for any prolonged period, especially in the evening, and in most of the country.
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.
Very few restaurants, if any, will find it viable to open up to serve people outside in April in the UK. It's virtually pointless, we are not in the South of France or the Algarve (unfortunately)
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
I'm not sure that Farr's observation can count as a "law".
The question remains, nevertheless, whatever it is.
@BluestBlue said that @contrarian doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic. And hence I just wondered how or if Farr could be relevant to the discussion.
If his observation of pandemics does not include any inhibiting factors (eg lockdowns) then although small children can see that keeping people apart will reduce transmission, it also means that lockdowns are/were to some extent incidental to the pandemic's journey.
You yourself have consistently noted the attributes in SA and Kent, for example.
All I have claimed is that the idea lockdown acts like some sort of thermostat on COVID, that you can turn up or turn down at will to control the disease is false, based on the US evidence. Why? many different versions of lockdown, same chuffin' result.
The main controlling factors are, surely, seasonality and vaccination. Otherwise the relationship is complex.
Those with deeply held religious views are a difficult one too.
I mean, what do you do with Jehovah's Witnesses*? Hold them down and make them take it? Social pressure won't work as they live in a fairly exclusive community. Amish might be another in the USA
In reality if you compelled or make it impossible to live daily life without it you'd probably get a human rights action. So there may be some we have to "accept" not having the vaccine that aren't strictly speaking for medical reasons too, but with a very high religious conviction test.
(*I only use them as example as they may make a concession on this one, and I think they have a derogation on some vaccines already)
I read that they will and are taking the vaccine because it isn't made of blood.
Would it be possible for a situation to arise where the Court could be in Contempt of Parliament and the Parliament in Contempt of Court, on the same matter?
If so what happens?
I'm not sure it is possible to be in contempt of Hoyrood. It's possible but I am aware of no provision for it.
Holyrood is in contempt of the Scottish people.
Who appoints the bosses of the Crown Office?
The Scottish government but, having been appointed, they are supposed to be independent. That really hasn't been questioned in the past.
Because they’ve been independent in the past?
How the hell can they be removed, is a more pertinent question, if the Scottish government don’t want them to be?
James Wolffe, is the Lord Advocate and a government minister. His wife is also a distinguished judge. He serves at the pleasure of the First Minister. I know him slightly. He was Dean of Faculty before this appointment. He has always struck me as someone who was punctilious and careful in his dealings with a highly honed sense of right and wrong. Sometimes that verged on the impractical or otherworldly. I am really quite bewildered.
Those with deeply held religious views are a difficult one too.
I mean, what do you do with Jehovah's Witnesses*? Hold them down and make them take it? Social pressure won't work as they live in a fairly exclusive community. Amish might be another in the USA
In reality if you compelled or make it impossible to live daily life without it you'd probably get a human rights action. So there may be some we have to "accept" not having the vaccine that aren't strictly speaking for medical reasons too, but with a very high religious conviction test.
(*I only use them as example as they may make a concession on this one, and I think they have a derogation on some vaccines already)
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
The app can cover that too though, when they login to it with their NHS number it essentially gives them a free pass. It can act identically to those who have been vaccinated that way because I don't think it's a good idea for those with medical exemptions to be given a different system that singles them out.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
I think they'll be fine, they'll get something equivalent to the Yellow Lanyard.
Good job those haven't been brought into disrepute.
It'll be in a government app.
What if you don't have a smartphone? Many will be elderly.
I'd have thought an exemption card or letter would be better for presentation at, for example, airport security or immigration control.
For foreign travel I'm expecting it to be on a database that the airline/cruise ships can access, you just need to know your name and DOB.
But at the start it'll be like your Hep B and Yellow Fever certificates.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
I'm pretty sure that asking people for their vaccine certificate in pubs and clubs will have a pretty high decay rate.
Until people start losing their licences when they stop.
Raiding pubs to see peoples' vaccine passports when hospitalisations are "back to normal"? Can't see it.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
I'm not sure that Farr's observation can count as a "law".
The question remains, nevertheless, whatever it is.
@BluestBlue said that @contrarian doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic. And hence I just wondered how or if Farr could be relevant to the discussion.
If his observation of pandemics does not include any inhibiting factors (eg lockdowns) then although small children can see that keeping people apart will reduce transmission, it also means that lockdowns are/were to some extent incidental to the pandemic's journey.
You yourself have consistently noted the attributes in SA and Kent, for example.
Fair point. We come back to the old "flattening the curve" thing.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
I'm not sure that Farr's observation can count as a "law".
The question remains, nevertheless, whatever it is.
@BluestBlue said that @contrarian doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic. And hence I just wondered how or if Farr could be relevant to the discussion.
If his observation of pandemics does not include any inhibiting factors (eg lockdowns) then although small children can see that keeping people apart will reduce transmission, it also means that lockdowns are/were to some extent incidental to the pandemic's journey.
You yourself have consistently noted the attributes in SA and Kent, for example.
All I have claimed is that the idea lockdown acts like some sort of thermostat on COVID, that you can turn up or turn down at will to control the disease is false, based on the US evidence. Why? many different versions of lockdown, same chuffin' result.
The main controlling factors are, surely, seasonality and vaccination. Otherwise the relationship is complex.
I would still be interested to know, from one of our resident viral epidemiologists, what modifications to peoples' behaviour Farr's law/observation/SWAG incorporates.
Made me chuckle....while ranting about why isn't Starmer standing up, why aren't the normal people standing up to this corrupt evil government, they show a clip of what I presume he wants it to be for "us" to be getting together and demanding change...by showing a clip of wokerity people no appaulding, rather doing the jazz hands, the sort of people who have a badge with their pronouns on like It, Z and They...I can't see Stoke man having much in common with those type of people and there in lies the problem for the Corbynista rip it all up and start again.
Stoke man will not vote for SKS either IMHO.
In my never been to Stoke and hence don't have a scooby doo analysis I can see Stoke man voting for SKS.
SM might not be too politically engaged so sees someone sensible; looking like a grown-up politician should look like; making reasonable if not earth-shattering soundbites on the bits of the news that he hears; doesn't want to tear down capitalism (which contributed to what wealth Stoke has had) and start again, judging by those soundbites; the constant "told you sos" and "I wouldn't have done it like thats" which might even reflect the conversations of Stoke Man himself.
Stoke man wants to rip up "the rotten system" that kept them in relative poverty.
Starting with BREXIT.
Boris offered that in GE2019
Come 2024 when they are even worse off they will vote Farage or an equivalent politician promising to be on their side
I think by that time looking like a grown-up politician, (particularly a boring one offering nothing new) will be insufficient.
Will be interesting to see.
I've been saying similar for ages. People voted for Brexit then for the Tories to deliver Brexit because they had been promised the moon on a stick solution to their shitty lives. When the promised moon is never produced, they either never vote again, or they vote for the person who promises to remove the blockage stopping delivery of their moon.
Farage and the people running Farage aren't stupid, they can see this coming a mile off. Hence the Nigel spending so much time on a dinghy trying to sink forriners. The established parties could head this off if they at least tried to deliver.
The problem is they won't. The Tories couldn't give a Rat Fuck about Stoke man as long as he doffs his cap and votes Tory. They'll feed him the people to blame who isn't them, and get away with as much as they can whilst doing as little as they can. Labour do give a fuck but don't understand Stoke man who is obviously racist / stupid / a class traitor. Hard to win the support of people you don't understand. So they'll vote for Farage's New Brownshirt Party.
Would it be possible for a situation to arise where the Court could be in Contempt of Parliament and the Parliament in Contempt of Court, on the same matter?
If so what happens?
I'm not sure it is possible to be in contempt of Hoyrood. It's possible but I am aware of no provision for it.
Holyrood is in contempt of the Scottish people.
Who appoints the bosses of the Crown Office?
The Scottish government but, having been appointed, they are supposed to be independent. That really hasn't been questioned in the past.
Independence, judicial or otherwise is an interesting fiction.
It is so very simple to appoint people who are completely independent, but have the right beliefs.
Which is why the premise of the series Judge John Deed always made me laugh - a crusading judge would simply be given cases that the system want to be... crusaded?
Things could get a bit messy if there's a route for the Scottish Government to interfere.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
The app can cover that too though, when they login to it with their NHS number it essentially gives them a free pass. It can act identically to those who have been vaccinated that way because I don't think it's a good idea for those with medical exemptions to be given a different system that singles them out.
How do apps work for non-residents?
Why would it be any different? As long as they have an NHS number then we should have their medical records. Tourists would need to have one that is compatible and has data sharing with whatever the UK system is using. It needs a lot of international co-operation and data sharing.
As someone who believes that cockup always is a better explanation than conspiracy in 99.99% of circumstances I have to say The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service are testing my beliefs and experience to destruction.
But boy, that 0.01% is a cracker when it gets out!
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
I'm pretty sure that asking people for their vaccine certificate in pubs and clubs will have a pretty high decay rate.
Until people start losing their licences when they stop.
Raiding pubs to see peoples' vaccine passports when hospitalisations are "back to normal"? Can't see it.
After a simply gloriously sunny day yesterday, rain and wind here today. A reminder that spring weather is unreliable and often far too cold to be outside for any prolonged period, especially in the evening, and in most of the country.
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.
Very few restaurants, if any, will find it viable to open up to serve people outside in April in the UK. It's virtually pointless, we are not in the South of France or the Algarve (unfortunately)
Agreed. My fear is that the fact that it is theoretically possible will be used as an excuse to stop giving support too early. I hope I am wrong.
The Scotsman reports "It followed the Crown Office writing to the SPCB on Monday night expressing “grave concerns” around the legality of the submission and the potential for jigsaw identification of complainers in Mr Salmond’s criminal trial."
I have read the unredacted version. The accusation is just absurd. The complainers are barely mentioned. Their complaints are not mentioned at all. It is about whether Sturgeon breached the code by lying to Parliament about various meetings and assurances given to Salmond himself.
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
I'm not sure that Farr's observation can count as a "law".
The question remains, nevertheless, whatever it is.
@BluestBlue said that @contrarian doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic. And hence I just wondered how or if Farr could be relevant to the discussion.
If his observation of pandemics does not include any inhibiting factors (eg lockdowns) then although small children can see that keeping people apart will reduce transmission, it also means that lockdowns are/were to some extent incidental to the pandemic's journey.
You yourself have consistently noted the attributes in SA and Kent, for example.
All I have claimed is that the idea lockdown acts like some sort of thermostat on COVID, that you can turn up or turn down at will to control the disease is false, based on the US evidence. Why? many different versions of lockdown, same chuffin' result.
The main controlling factors are, surely, seasonality and vaccination. Otherwise the relationship is complex.
Which season in particular?
The key variable is simply mobility. The more people are moving around, the more likely an infection is, and the higher R will be. And vice versa. If sufficient people reduce mobility, it will fall; if not, it will rise.
When enough people get scared, mobility decreases on its own (as @rcs1000 keeps pointing out). This, however, due to lag, is always far later than the people in question would have liked in retrospect, and is unevenly distributed (there are always some who'll refuse to reduce mobility voluntarily, but they can freeload on the effects from others taking the hit on reduction). And, of course, if there is less need to interact, or a culture is culturally more distant, or if people are willing to follow common sense (rather than, for example, go all "but what about scotch eggs?!?"), there's less need for imposition of mobility restriction externally.
Masks help to an extent, as well.
Lockdowns are needed when the above fail. Unfortunately, we've failed to come up with any way in the UK's particular culture and setup (and tendency to scotchegg things) that works short of announcing a lockdown.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
I'm pretty sure that asking people for their vaccine certificate in pubs and clubs will have a pretty high decay rate.
Until people start losing their licences when they stop.
Raiding pubs to see peoples' vaccine passports when hospitalisations are "back to normal"? Can't see it.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
I'm pretty sure that asking people for their vaccine certificate in pubs and clubs will have a pretty high decay rate.
Until people start losing their licences when they stop.
Raiding pubs to see peoples' vaccine passports when hospitalisations are "back to normal"? Can't see it.
Default in Derbyshire...
Having worked on the door of bars and clubs I can foresee a world of pain on Friday and Saturday nights for all such establishments.
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.
Agree. More generally, we are in a national emergency that has blighted lives of everyone for over a year. The vaccine is the only hope of a route back to normality. The workplace is probably the most significant vector of transmission of all.
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.
All broadly sensible but you are going to need to make an exception for women of child-bearing age, many of whom work in care homes and hospitals. AIUI the vaccine is not recommended for those trying to get pregnant. So making it a condition of employment that such women must have one is not on.
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.
There will inevitably be those who don't get vaccinated for reasons both rational and irrational. But I'm not sure how much this matters so long as the % population protected either by prior infection or vaccine is sufficient to squash community transmission? The primary objective of the vaccine rollout is macro not micro.
It is mainly a macro concern yes, but specifically a micro concern within health and social care settings due to the fact patients/residents may well have weaker immune systems even vaccinated. Which is why I expect it to be made mandatory in time for health and social care workers.
I do see a case for that but I'm not sure how much of a slam dunk it is in the event the virus is squashed due to aggregate immunity. You'd have to weight the benefit of the reduced risk of transmission to the vulnerable versus the cost of losing staff in a sector that finds recruitment difficult.
Antivaxxers are going to become social pariahs and they know it.
Yes, I think my concern is that those who can't take it for medical reasons get caught up in it.
They just need a card/certificate issued via their GP in an extremely difficult to forge form. Show that in all the circumstances the vaxxed have to show their certificate.
But medical reason only - not through choice.
The app can cover that too though, when they login to it with their NHS number it essentially gives them a free pass. It can act identically to those who have been vaccinated that way because I don't think it's a good idea for those with medical exemptions to be given a different system that singles them out.
How do apps work for non-residents?
Why would it be any different? As long as they have an NHS number then we should have their medical records. Tourists would need to have one that is compatible and has data sharing with whatever the UK system is using. It needs a lot of international co-operation and data sharing.
Trying to convince a technologist that app-based systems will work for vaccinations, is like trying to convince the same technologist that electronic voting systems are better than paper and pencils.
Who would pay to develop the app, who would manage it, what information would it require and who would have access to the data, including medical data? How would one challenge mistakes, would there be a customer support centre staffed by humans?
My wife doesn’t have an NHS a number, I’ve not needed mine for 20 years so God knows what it is or where I’d find it. We will both have been vaccinated abroad. My Mum has my old iphone with no data plan etc...
If everyone gets vaccinated on time, all of the above will useful for about six weeks. Why bother?
"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)."
If you listen to the fanbois on here, scientists don't want lockdown to go on a minute longer than necessary. Not a minute.
Yeah right.....
Absolutely right.
Did you here Whitty last night explaining why cases likely would go up again in the future and R would go above one, but that its not concerning with the vaccine and we need to live with it?
Almost as if SAGE are not your SPECTRE madmen who want to control the world and lock us down forever afterall.
Wow what a concession. Thanks Chris!
Whitty is only onside because Johnson agreed to a timetable that saved his reputation. Florida and other US states have broken the link between lockdown and covid. There is no thermostat for turning the diseaseup or down beyond seasonality and vaccination. Demonstrably.
Our emergence from lockdown is to maintain the notion that lockdown is such a thermostat as Whitless and Unabalanced have maintained all along .
At a massive cost to Britain.
But of course. Why on Earth would anyone expect that lockdown - a strategy of reducing person-to-person contact - would have any effect at all on a disease spread by person-to-person contact?
Well, I'm convinced - it must all have been a secret plot to save Chris Whitty's reputation instead.
That might work in your brain, but unfortunately it does not work in practice. Not in the way you think. Demonstrably. California locked down hard. Florida didn't. Same sort of climate. Result? not much difference. The link is not there in the 'turn down the covid, dear' way you think it is.
And I can see why you do not want to admit the truth, because of the implications of the truth are pretty big.
It will be very interesting indeed when all the global data gets crunched and we get a more precise idea of why exactly some areas did better or worse with the same or different measures. There'll be a vast array of factors to consider: restrictions, compliance, demographics, politics, geography, culture, economics, health systems, reporting standards, you name it. But that research hasn't been done yet - just juxtaposing the numbers from Florida and California is barely step 1 of the above process - and until it has, it's reasonable to assume from the preponderance of data available now that lockdowns reduce transmission in the same way that condoms help prevent pregnancies and umbrellas keep you from getting wet in the rain.
I am sure you will clutch at any straw in your desperation to cover up the biggest peacetime policy error by any government since appeasement.
Its still the biggest policy error since appeasment. And I intend to make the fake tories that propounded it wear it like an albatross.
I'm sure a fantasist who doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic will pose a huge electoral threat.
Does Farr's Law incorporate measures such as lockdown?
I'm not sure that Farr's observation can count as a "law".
The question remains, nevertheless, whatever it is.
@BluestBlue said that @contrarian doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic. And hence I just wondered how or if Farr could be relevant to the discussion.
If his observation of pandemics does not include any inhibiting factors (eg lockdowns) then although small children can see that keeping people apart will reduce transmission, it also means that lockdowns are/were to some extent incidental to the pandemic's journey.
You yourself have consistently noted the attributes in SA and Kent, for example.
All I have claimed is that the idea lockdown acts like some sort of thermostat on COVID, that you can turn up or turn down at will to control the disease is false, based on the US evidence. Why? many different versions of lockdown, same chuffin' result.
The main controlling factors are, surely, seasonality and vaccination. Otherwise the relationship is complex.
Which season in particular?
The key variable is simply mobility. The more people are moving around, the more likely an infection is, and the higher R will be. And vice versa. If sufficient people reduce mobility, it will fall; if not, it will rise.
When enough people get scared, mobility decreases on its own (as @rcs1000 keeps pointing out). This, however, due to lag, is always far later than the people in question would have liked in retrospect, and is unevenly distributed (there are always some who'll refuse to reduce mobility voluntarily, but they can freeload on the effects from others taking the hit on reduction). And, of course, if there is less need to interact, or a culture is culturally more distant, or if people are willing to follow common sense (rather than, for example, go all "but what about scotch eggs?!?"), there's less need for imposition of mobility restriction externally.
Masks help to an extent, as well.
Lockdowns are needed when the above fail. Unfortunately, we've failed to come up with any way in the UK's particular culture and setup (and tendency to scotchegg things) that works short of announcing a lockdown.
But why won't they get away with it? They have the legal establishment onside. They have the cultural establishment onside. The voters vote for them regardless. What's to stop them getting away with it?
Made me chuckle....while ranting about why isn't Starmer standing up, why aren't the normal people standing up to this corrupt evil government, they show a clip of what I presume he wants it to be for "us" to be getting together and demanding change...by showing a clip of wokerity people no appaulding, rather doing the jazz hands, the sort of people who have a badge with their pronouns on like It, Z and They...I can't see Stoke man having much in common with those type of people and there in lies the problem for the Corbynista rip it all up and start again.
That still at first glance looks like a gritty new detective drama "Tonight, on BBC1, Monibot & Starmer, one's a mild mannered centrist, the other a firebrand radical. Together they get results".
Comments
A voice crying in the dessert.
Its almost as if those "stupid" people from low skill backgrounds who were "deceived" into believing that they were facing unfair competition for employment from freedom of movement were not as stupid after all and just possibly acted in their own self interest.
But you've been captured wholesale by this "movement" so your supine comment doesn't surprise me.
But they're not.
So we don't need to.
I'd be curious to see these figures in percentage terms. Whether we have more or fewer by percentage of UK born etc employed now? Obviously the official jobless total percentage has been rising, so that can't be all explained by people going overseas.
*big generalisation from small number of studies alert*
Reducing person to person contact works.
Mandating the reduction of person to person contact doesn't seem to, so much. Possibly because people adjust the behaviours accordingly anyway? (cf cycle helmets don't result in fewer injured cyclists - cyclists feel safer in helmets and take more risks - so fewer head injuries are balanced out by more crashes - possibly)?
Similarly, wearing masks appears to work, but mandating the wearing of masks does not appear to do so, so much.
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1364212158859460610
Region of Residence 1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date
Total 155,084 5,344 160,428
East Of England 19,777 828 20,605
London 26,625 853 27,478
Midlands 31,537 749 32,286
North East And Yorkshire 16,598 409 17,007
North West 18,493 117 18,610
South East 25,572 1,208 26,780
South West 15,399 1,175 16,574
With respect to the daily panic - we have tea and biscuits. Please form an orderly queue.
SM might not be too politically engaged so sees someone sensible; looking like a grown-up politician should look like; making reasonable if not earth-shattering soundbites on the bits of the news that he hears; doesn't want to tear down capitalism (which contributed to what wealth Stoke has had) and start again, judging by those soundbites; the constant "told you sos" and "I wouldn't have done it like thats" which might even reflect the conversations of Stoke Man himself.
Most of my springtime supping is done in the garden!
It is so very simple to appoint people who are completely independent, but have the right beliefs.
Which is why the premise of the series Judge John Deed always made me laugh - a crusading judge would simply be given cases that the system want to be... crusaded?
I have little time for the argument we are doing "nothing" just because mainstream politicians refuse to accept the fantasy we can do it all by 2025.
There could also be a load of double counting, as people have had two or more consecutive jobs in the quarter, reflecting temporary work, the November closures and people working two jobs.
There will also be some graduate scheme white-collar employment in the autumn, which might account for a fair bit of the total.
Definitely a research project in there!
If what i have been told is even half true the benefits system is a joke.
A family with 9 kids who do not work get £1666.67 per month
Same family if one person earns more than £605 per month in employment gets circa £3k a month benefits plus their salary.
I find it hard to believe but given that i know a family in this situation, (they have 2 horses FFS and spend £200 a week on these. Rent on house fully paid BTW
What a fiasco
*Might*
How the hell can they be removed, is a more pertinent question, if the Scottish government don’t want them to be?
https://twitter.com/thedailymash/status/1364164663210954752
Still, I expect things will ramp up quickly. We'll see.
Let's just be pleased this lull is with ~37% of adults vaccinated.
Anecdotally I can see jobs growth in my field, we've taken on 6 new hires since the turn of the year and I've heard similar stories from other friends in the city. Mostly it seems to be EU based institutions beefing up their presence here in case they can't do the work from their HQ in Paris/Frankfurt.
Stop the Dropdemic! Truth Now!
But medical reason only - not through choice.
Starting with BREXIT.
Boris offered that in GE2019
Come 2024 when they are even worse off they will vote Farage or an equivalent politician promising to be on their side
I think by that time looking like a grown-up politician, (particularly a boring one offering nothing new) will be insufficient.
Will be interesting to see.
The question remains, nevertheless, whatever it is.
@BluestBlue said that @contrarian doesn't understand the most basic principles of science or logic. And hence I just wondered how or if Farr could be relevant to the discussion.
If his observation of pandemics does not include any inhibiting factors (eg lockdowns) then although small children can see that keeping people apart will reduce transmission, it also means that lockdowns are/were to some extent incidental to the pandemic's journey.
You yourself have consistently noted the attributes in SA and Kent, for example.
https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1364209766705344516?s=20
It was undoubtedly the source of 95% of the drunks in that picture.
The pity is that the picture didn't capture the Fish & Chip shop just there, it is called Manchester Plaice.
But yes we shall see.
Manchester is a great city.
It will make a good image for unlockdown.
All of these will add up to a pretty substantial number, especially the first one where the work is going to be in pretty expendable types of job.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1364213612273930241?s=20
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1364213622629675011?s=20
I mean, what do you do with Jehovah's Witnesses*? Hold them down and make them take it? Social pressure won't work as they live in a fairly exclusive community. Amish might be another in the USA
In reality if you compelled or make it impossible to live daily life without it you'd probably get a human rights action. So there may be some we have to "accept" not having the vaccine that aren't strictly speaking for medical reasons too, but with a very high religious conviction test.
(*I only use them as example as they may make a concession on this one, and I think they have a derogation on some vaccines already)
I'd have thought an exemption card or letter would be better for presentation at, for example, airport security or immigration control.
The main controlling factors are, surely, seasonality and vaccination. Otherwise the relationship is complex.
https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1364211052460834821?s=20
https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1364209955377721344?s=20
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1364122084486631424?s=19
But at the start it'll be like your Hep B and Yellow Fever certificates.
Farage and the people running Farage aren't stupid, they can see this coming a mile off. Hence the Nigel spending so much time on a dinghy trying to sink forriners. The established parties could head this off if they at least tried to deliver.
The problem is they won't. The Tories couldn't give a Rat Fuck about Stoke man as long as he doffs his cap and votes Tory. They'll feed him the people to blame who isn't them, and get away with as much as they can whilst doing as little as they can. Labour do give a fuck but don't understand Stoke man who is obviously racist / stupid / a class traitor. Hard to win the support of people you don't understand. So they'll vote for Farage's New Brownshirt Party.
"It followed the Crown Office writing to the SPCB on Monday night expressing “grave concerns” around the legality of the submission and the potential for jigsaw identification of complainers in Mr Salmond’s criminal trial."
I have read the unredacted version. The accusation is just absurd. The complainers are barely mentioned. Their complaints are not mentioned at all. It is about whether Sturgeon breached the code by lying to Parliament about various meetings and assurances given to Salmond himself.
The key variable is simply mobility.
The more people are moving around, the more likely an infection is, and the higher R will be. And vice versa.
If sufficient people reduce mobility, it will fall; if not, it will rise.
When enough people get scared, mobility decreases on its own (as @rcs1000 keeps pointing out). This, however, due to lag, is always far later than the people in question would have liked in retrospect, and is unevenly distributed (there are always some who'll refuse to reduce mobility voluntarily, but they can freeload on the effects from others taking the hit on reduction).
And, of course, if there is less need to interact, or a culture is culturally more distant, or if people are willing to follow common sense (rather than, for example, go all "but what about scotch eggs?!?"), there's less need for imposition of mobility restriction externally.
Masks help to an extent, as well.
Lockdowns are needed when the above fail. Unfortunately, we've failed to come up with any way in the UK's particular culture and setup (and tendency to scotchegg things) that works short of announcing a lockdown.
Who would pay to develop the app, who would manage it, what information would it require and who would have access to the data, including medical data? How would one challenge mistakes, would there be a customer support centre staffed by humans?
My wife doesn’t have an NHS a number, I’ve not needed mine for 20 years so God knows what it is or where I’d find it. We will both have been vaccinated abroad. My Mum has my old iphone with no data plan etc...
If everyone gets vaccinated on time, all of the above will useful for about six weeks. Why bother?
The d/n format being much better for the UK TV audience, it starts at 9am GMT.
We already have a fantastic product in the t20 blast and this is going to damage that.
Northern Superchargers sounds like a bloody class of train.