The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Scottish Labour learned the hard way, the price of associating with toxic Tories
If Scottish Labour has any sense it will ignore the irrelevant Tories and go after the SNP, that's the way back.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
It's never going to be totally safe, Malc.
It never was totally safe. We were repeately warned. We've been modelling an influenza pandemic for years. HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, all emerged within the lifetimes of most posting on this site. A pandemic like this was a matter of when, not if, as some repeatedly pointed out. But we just ignored the possibility.
And this one, thus far, hasn't even been as bad as the 1918-20 pandemic. The next one might.
Astrazeneca do seem to have a problem with their stakeholder management...
Indeed.
I can see the attraction of being able to say 79% which most people will round in their minds to 80%, over 64-74%, which some will round to 60%. BUT .... Why do that for 5% difference off the top line versus a clean and unqualified blessing from the US FDA, which would far outweigh gains of acceptance of AZN in its main target audience of the developing world than the 5%?
Did I read that Labour abstained on the Sturgeon vote? SLAB obviously taking its lead from Starmer.
Don't think so, Starmer was shooting his mouth off about how Sturgeon should resign even if she had unknowingly broken the ministerial code just a few days ago. Sarwar has wisely decided that with the SCons being the petty, vindictive small people consumed with hatred of the EssEnnPee in the room, he might as well gain some credibility by showing a hint of pragmatic principle (or more cynically that he realised that the whole 'get Nippy' thing had turned into a clown car crash). I'm sticking with my prediction of SLab ousting the SCons as second party in May.
Though a gloomy performance by the deputy leader of Scottish Labour on Ch4 News last night. She was asked why she was asking for Nicola's resignation before the judgement? She just mumbled about some irrelevant detail on page 457. It would never look good for political leaders-particularly female ones- to line up behind a known woman botherer. It's difficult to believe Ruth Davidson was once talked about as a potential Tory PM. She's a clown. I'd describe it as a rout by Nicola. Can she ever have looked more powerful?
The paeans to the glory of Jackie Baillie and Murdo Fraser from English Tories have certainly dried up very quickly. Sarwar can back away from the excesses of the committee while still criticising the (very evident) screw up of the SG investigation process. Davidson et al bunged it all on the black of Sturgeon being forced to resign without a back up plan or credit with the house - a long walk home without a taxi fare or enough for a poke of chips for those master strategists.
Astrazeneca do seem to have a problem with their stakeholder management...
Maybe AZ have decided they've had enough of this whole vaccine (produced at cost) lark and are quite happy to only go where they're wanted!
I think Astrazeneca are unlucky in the sense that they are getting a lot more heat by being in the first vaccines out of the block. J&J are suffering some of the same issues but no-one is as dependent on that vaccine because it's number 4 or 5. I suppose it shows just how textbook Pfizer has been.
The great thing, though, is that the vaccines themselves from all of these companies are excellent. Including that of Moderna, which is a really dodgy company, totally unlike Astrazeneca
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Hmm. And yet Labour and the Tories cooperate in local government. Vide Aberdeen, and the refusal of SLAB to actually sack their councillors. With Mr Sarwar showing signs of rowing back even on that fairly pusillanimous position.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
It's never going to be totally safe, Malc.
It never was totally safe. We were repeately warned. We've been modelling an influenza pandemic for years. HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, all emerged within the lifetimes of most posting on this site. A pandemic like this was a matter of when, not if, as some repeatedly pointed out. But we just ignored the possibility.
And this one, thus far, hasn't even been as bad as the 1918-20 pandemic. The next one might.
I dont think we did not ignore the possibility just not accept the possibility - hence the OTT lockdown
A rather patronising header. It all depends what the objective of the protest is. According to your analysis the 1,000,000 plus who demonstated against the Iraq invasion should have been one of the most successful ever. In fact it achieved nothing. Historically the more havoc the protesters wreak the more successful the action. Protest works when the authorities are goaded into violent counter measures.
And yet the dozens and hundreds of identitkit 'protests' with the same people, same banners, same revolutionary zeal, achieve nothing as well no matter that they seek to 'goad' the authorities. You also seem very confident that protestors weaking havoc will lead to success, when a counter reaction seems at least as likely if not more so.
Do you think someone taking a crap in front of a police officer and smashing up a police sation has made it more likely that the police will be held accountable for their actions or the government to rein in its authoritarian plans? Or will some of the people who were against the plans find it harder to sway more to their side?
I think the point about lack of success of many, nay, most peaceful protests is true, but perennial protestors who do the same shouting slogans and petty criminal damage at every protest they can latch onto don't help the causes they purport to care about. They only care about themselves, about venting their anger or pushing other aims.
You are doing what cyclefree was doing. Giving her views on the behaviour of the demonstrators. I'm sure most people find burning police vans and taking a crap on a policeman's shoes undesirable but that's not what her header was about. It was about the effectiveness of the action.
I don't see the disconnect. The behaviour of demonstrators can have a direct impact on the effectiveness of the action (though not always).
Indeed, that seems to have been your point as well when saying that 'Historically, the more havoc the protestors wreak the more successful the action' ie poor behaviour is effective as action.
So I really have no idea what point is supposed to be being made.
My point was that wreaking havoc is not as effective as you claim it is, since low level havoc happens at most of these things.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
I think this has been a chastening experience for AZ wrt vaccines. A lot to learn for them.
Disappointing that this was essentially an unforced error, and has contributed a bit more to the antivax narrative. It’s a good vaccine; they shouldn’t have done this.
Seems a bit unlikely. I can't think of too many things that would explain a 7pt swing in one month. More likely two outliers at opposite ends of the spectrum.
It is comparing its April 2020 poll (Cons at 46 Labour at 29) to today
Oh right - misread it! What's the point of that!!!
Technically correct if it was their last poll, but a bit misleading nonetheless because of the large time gap.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
God knows what happens if case numbers start creeping up in early autumn and the scientists start getting panicky about whether existing vaccinations will protect against serious illness....
On topic - good analysis. A fundamental problem is how to avoid a demo getting people with a different agenda. By far the best demo I ever saw was a huge and utterly silent march by Tamils over the situation in Sri Lanka, which motivated me to read up on the situation and support a motion in Parliament expressing sympathy. But It would have looked weird if a bunch of white anarchists had turned up and tried to misuse the event. It's a lot harder in something like a student demo, in which even your regular supporters will range from the quietly concerned to the noisily angry to the violent, and you just KNOW the media will focus entirely on the violent ones.
I'm not sure what the answer is. As Cyclefree observes, lots of peaceful demos by Catholics in Northern Ireland got precisely nowhere. Perhaps one needs gradual escalation - a silent march, then a shouty march, then civil disobedience?
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Scottish Labour learned the hard way, the price of associating with toxic Tories
Careful, you might get a rejigging of that old PB Tory favourite 'things really went wrong for the LDs when they didn't trumpet the positives of their coalition with the Tories'.
Came across a cardboard message on my evening walk stating 'F*ck Big Pharma. Profit Before People They Are. Wake up. !!!' (They did include the full stops and everything).
Not sure Piers Corbyn needs to be canvassing in the West Country, but never mind.
On topic. I'd say that to maximize its chances of achieving change a protest movement here in Britain needs to cause serious disruption to the status quo over a prolonged period, yet at the same time not forfeit popular sympathy and bolster support for the authorities by tipping into gratuitous violence. XR were doing ok, imo, pre pandemic.
XR wenr from being viewed as cheerful scamps articulating a valid concern to being viewed as extremist lunatics and troublemakers. I wouldn't be surprised if people are actually less sympathetic to the environmental cause as a result.
Not sure about that. I was once trapped for ages on a London bus bursting for a pee by one of their "events" and boy did I hate them for that. But my feeling is they have succeeded in pushing their issue up the agenda.
On topic - good analysis. A fundamental problem is how to avoid a demo getting people with a different agenda. By far the best demo I ever saw was a huge and utterly silent march by Tamils over the situation in Sri Lanka, which motivated me to read up on the situation and support a motion in Parliament expressing sympathy. But It would have looked weird if a bunch of white anarchists had turned up and tried to misuse the event. It's a lot harder in something like a student demo, in which even your regular supporters will range from the quietly concerned to the noisily angry to the violent, and you just KNOW the media will focus entirely on the violent ones.
I'm not sure what the answer is. As Cyclefree observes, lots of peaceful demos by Catholics in Northern Ireland got precisely nowhere. Perhaps one needs gradual escalation - a silent march, then a shouty march, then civil disobedience?
It's why I have some sympathy for that Lab MP. Things only change when the govt is forced to change eg the poll tax riots.
Hmm. I wonder if all this talk of vaccine standoffs and trade wars is reflecting as badly on Boris's Brexit as it is on the EU. He promised us a golden age but it's looking decidedly naff at present. As with Sunny Jim all those years ago, perhaps a beaming personality starts to grate when the cold wind blows.
I think both this and the previous poll (with a 17-point Tory lead) will prove to be outliers. But the swing since last time is quite remarkable.
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Scottish Labour learned the hard way, the price of associating with toxic Tories
Careful, you might get a rejigging of that old PB Tory favourite 'things really went wrong for the LDs when they didn't trumpet the positives of their coalition with the Tories'.
Which is the opposite of the truth. Clegg should have been far more hard nosed and treated the whole thing as a business arrangement.
On topic. I'd say that to maximize its chances of achieving change a protest movement here in Britain needs to cause serious disruption to the status quo over a prolonged period, yet at the same time not forfeit popular sympathy and bolster support for the authorities by tipping into gratuitous violence. XR were doing ok, imo, pre pandemic.
XR wenr from being viewed as cheerful scamps articulating a valid concern to being viewed as extremist lunatics and troublemakers. I wouldn't be surprised if people are actually less sympathetic to the environmental cause as a result.
Not sure about that. I was once trapped for ages on a London bus bursting for a pee by one of their "events" and boy did I hate them for that. But my feeling is they have succeeded in pushing their issue up the agenda.
Yep. You were on a bus. No wait, a "London bus".
You really do need to retire for today. There's always tomorrow.
What does a "stockpile of 4-5m a month" mean? Is that a stockpile produced over the last six months? Or a "stockpile" of future, not yet produced, supplies?
Hmm. I wonder if all this talk of vaccine standoffs and trade wars is reflecting as badly on Boris's Brexit as it is on the EU. He promised us a golden age but it's looking decidedly naff at present. As with Sunny Jim all those years ago, perhaps a beaming personality starts to grate when the cold wind blows.
I think both this and the previous poll (with a 17-point Tory lead) will prove to be outliers. But the swing since last time is quite remarkable.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
It's never going to be totally safe, Malc.
It never was totally safe. We were repeately warned. We've been modelling an influenza pandemic for years. HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, all emerged within the lifetimes of most posting on this site. A pandemic like this was a matter of when, not if, as some repeatedly pointed out. But we just ignored the possibility.
And this one, thus far, hasn't even been as bad as the 1918-20 pandemic. The next one might.
I dont think we did not ignore the possibility just not accept the possibility - hence the OTT lockdown
I honestly think historians are going to be kinder about the global pandemic response than we are right now. Of course there were mis-steps, and of course those few countries with developed pandemic response plans who were wrong footed because they were trying to navigate Washington DC with a map of Chicago.
BUT. The speed of identifying and sequencing the virus, and designing the vaccine was stunning. The speed of identifying the viral proteins and how each contributed to morbidity and mortality was, IMO, even more stunning.
In future pandemics, responses will be faster and better. But I think this one will be rightly seen as the first time the response was global and based on modern science, rather than groping in the dark for an attenuated virus that could by coopted for a vaccine. I.e. it is the first time we have been able to use science to design our way out of a pandemic, rather than discover our way out.
And that is a gobsmacking advance in humankind's ability to protect itself.
Completely off topic. It's a strange world these days when a £750m business can call itself a "startup". Or alternatively a "startup" business can raise initial finance of £750m! (Re:Prince Harry)
Astrazeneca do seem to have a problem with their stakeholder management...
Maybe AZ have decided they've had enough of this whole vaccine (produced at cost) lark and are quite happy to only go where they're wanted!
I think Astrazeneca are unlucky in the sense that they are getting a lot more heat by being in the first vaccines out of the block. J&J are suffering some of the same issues but no-one is as dependent on that vaccine because it's number 4 or 5. I suppose it shows just how textbook Pfizer has been.
The great thing, though, is that the vaccines themselves from all of these companies are excellent. Including that of Moderna, which is a really dodgy company, totally unlike Astrazeneca
I think you are overthinking this; it is an EU rotating perma-tantrum.
Back in January they were throwing sniffy "this is not acceptable" comments at Pfizer.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
After a poor night's sleep I was feeling rough this morning, but have improved through the day. A slight ache in the vaccination site when I raise my arm or press it, and a mild headache are the only remaining after effects.
Meanwhile a colleague who was jabbed on Friday was laid low for three days and was only able to return to work today.
Is it true that the EU have only thus far paid AZ for vaccines actually delivered? Whereas the UK paid for all their vaccines up front? It's no wonder the UK can insist on priority if that is the case.
Even though it would be actually in AZ financial interest to divert some to the EU.
Complaining about delayed supply of vaccines under a "best endeavours" contract, where payment is only actually on delivery (and therefore actively anticipates the possibility of delays) is really taking the biscuit.
Might help us to understand why kiddie cases have been on the rise since the schools went back, whilst adult cases continue to decline. Not just the massive school testing program, youngsters passing it round in the petri dishes and taking it back home again aren't infecting Mum & Dad in huge numbers. More positive news.
Astrazeneca do seem to have a problem with their stakeholder management...
Maybe AZ have decided they've had enough of this whole vaccine (produced at cost) lark and are quite happy to only go where they're wanted!
I think Astrazeneca are unlucky in the sense that they are getting a lot more heat by being in the first vaccines out of the block. J&J are suffering some of the same issues but no-one is as dependent on that vaccine because it's number 4 or 5. I suppose it shows just how textbook Pfizer has been.
The great thing, though, is that the vaccines themselves from all of these companies are excellent. Including that of Moderna, which is a really dodgy company, totally unlike Astrazeneca
I think you are overthinking this; it is an EU rotating perma-tantrum.
Back in January they were throwing sniffy "this is not acceptable" comments at Pfizer.
What does a "stockpile of 4-5m a month" mean? Is that a stockpile produced over the last six months? Or a "stockpile" of future, not yet produced, supplies?
It does say 'stocked up' so implies already produced.
What does a "stockpile of 4-5m a month" mean? Is that a stockpile produced over the last six months? Or a "stockpile" of future, not yet produced, supplies?
I just registered to read the whole thing. It says that the Halix site produced viral vectors for Oxford early on and was then contracted to produce the vaccine substance on December 8th. It's somewhat contradictory because it then says they have been producing the equivalent of 4-5m doses per month since September which is where the estimate of 30m comes from.
After a poor night's sleep I was feeling rough this morning, but have improved through the day. A slight ache in the vaccination site when I raise my arm or press it, and a mild headache are the only remaining after effects.
Meanwhile a colleague who was jabbed on Friday was laid low for three days and was only able to return to work today.
Glad you are improving. It can be pretty rough. I was knocked sideways for a night and a bit.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
It's never going to be totally safe, Malc.
It never was totally safe. We were repeately warned. We've been modelling an influenza pandemic for years. HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, all emerged within the lifetimes of most posting on this site. A pandemic like this was a matter of when, not if, as some repeatedly pointed out. But we just ignored the possibility.
And this one, thus far, hasn't even been as bad as the 1918-20 pandemic. The next one might.
Yes use of "totally" was a bit thick to say the least. I did mean as safe as we can be but failed miserably translating that as "totally". I will go sit in the corner for 30 mins with my pointy hat on.
Anyway, sorry, wrote this for PT. Too late. Stick it here instead. No harm.
We've seen a strong turnout by the liberty gang on PB today and it got me thinking. I’m partial to a bit of the old freedom myself so why am I not a fully paid-up member? Why do I think that although the government has been taking liberties they have not (by and large) been taking liberties?
And the answer is, because apart from on care homes (where the ‘no visits’ policy was imo inhumane) and on household mixing (did we really need micro-managing legislation for this?), I can’t see where the government has been overly gratuitous or heavy-handed. And even on the mixing, the rules were in any case not assiduously policed. I have never felt I couldn’t meet whoever I wanted to. As to the rest. WFH? Surely commonsense. Closing businesses? Had to be done to formalize the financial support. It wouldn’t have been fair to leave shops and hospitality trading with no customers. Masks and social distancing? The bread and butter of virus mitigation.
The big picture is that measures were needed to stop the NHS collapsing and the societal chaos which would have ensued. They were not excessive because the NHS did for a brief time collapse (or as near as makes no difference) in both the first wave and the second, in April last year and January this year. So the response was necessary, QED. Only covid denialists would dispute this. And our PB libertines have only the one covid denialist. The rest aren’t, although one or two have flirted with it. So what’s the beef apart from tonal trivia like “people aren’t moaning about it enough”? Where are we saying freedoms have been seriously curtailed without a clear justification?
Unless there are credible answers to this, I’m going to harbour a suspicion that what we’re seeing is essentially virtue-signalling. A way of saying, “I like freedom more than the average bear”.
Plus soon it’ll be over. The roadmap is going to be met. April 12th is just round the corner and that’s the big one for me. Shops and outdoor pubs and indoor leisure. Can’t wait. Or rather my point is I can. I can wait and I’m really looking forward to it. Then full domestic freedom by the start of summer and foreign holidays by the end of it. Brill.
I just do not feel much of a need for Steve Baker to protect me from tyranny and I don’t totally understand why others do. I'd like to understand but atm I can't.
I'm not sure whether you consider me a PB Libertine (like the branding BTW) but I kinda started this this morning by agreeing with Dan Hodges' tweet that it's a matter of tone. The government cannot and should not be trumpeting its (undeniable) vaccine success while simultaneously reverting to daily earnest "words of caution" that make looking forward to 12 April / 17 May / 21 June feel like the vapid, frivolous act of a cockeyed, optimistic greenhorn.
Fully agree. And @kinabalu, you can't say it wasn't enforced: there were dozens and dozens of stories of the police not only enforcing the rules(old lady in Gloucestershire having a cup of tea-gate) but alsi enforcing rules which didn't exist (having a coffee counts as a picnic). But even if they hadn't, 'just ignore the rules' doesn't work, because we are, by and large, a law-abiding bunch. I couldn't see my parents not because they were afraid of being caught but because they follow rules. My kids couldn't play with their friends not because their friends' parents thought there was any risk but because they follow the rules. The stories about the rule breakers obscure just how rule-fillowing the Britush tend to be, even if we think the rules are stupid . I take your point about the impact on businesses had it all been advisory though. Tge ibkt reason it's fallen to Steve baker to make thesr points is that no one else will.
Law v Guidance on household mixing is a good point. I think the government got too involved there. Too much law and too micro. But on the whole, liberties stripped away without justification? Not seeing it - and have yet to hear a convincing alternative path that would have both allowed a lot more freedom AND averted a catastrophic pandemic outcome. An outcome worse than the one we have on almost every level.
Is it true that the EU have only thus far paid AZ for vaccines actually delivered? Whereas the UK paid for all their vaccines up front? It's no wonder the UK can insist on priority if that is the case.
Even though it would be actually in AZ financial interest to divert some to the EU.
Complaining about delayed supply of vaccines under a "best endeavours" contract, where payment is only actually on delivery (and therefore actively anticipates the possibility of delays) is really taking the biscuit.
The EU, due to its size, gets the best of both worlds. Pays a low price per dose but gets a high delivery priority - or just seizes what it wants.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
You what? Making wild, false statements at the same time as promoting your or others' legal actions designed to achieve the same aim as those wild, false statements, and no one would conclude you actually meant it?
From what little I know it is a very high bar to meet to prove defamation, but I hope to gods this lady crosses that bar.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
Astrazeneca do seem to have a problem with their stakeholder management...
Maybe AZ have decided they've had enough of this whole vaccine (produced at cost) lark and are quite happy to only go where they're wanted!
I think Astrazeneca are unlucky in the sense that they are getting a lot more heat by being in the first vaccines out of the block. J&J are suffering some of the same issues but no-one is as dependent on that vaccine because it's number 4 or 5. I suppose it shows just how textbook Pfizer has been.
The great thing, though, is that the vaccines themselves from all of these companies are excellent. Including that of Moderna, which is a really dodgy company, totally unlike Astrazeneca
I think you are overthinking this; it is an EU rotating perma-tantrum.
Back in January they were throwing sniffy "this is not acceptable" comments at Pfizer.
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Maybe Labour have realised that they’re not going to overtake the SNP in the short term, and that their immediate goal should be to aim for second place and to become the official opposition. Or it could be that they realise that the Tories under Davidson and DRoss are worse than the SNP.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
After a poor night's sleep I was feeling rough this morning, but have improved through the day. A slight ache in the vaccination site when I raise my arm or press it, and a mild headache are the only remaining after effects.
Meanwhile a colleague who was jabbed on Friday was laid low for three days and was only able to return to work today.
Glad you are improving. It can be pretty rough. I was knocked sideways for a night and a bit.
I'm hoping the 2nd dose isn't so difficult.
Usually it isn’t, apparently. I had a 24 hour reaction (first shot), with no sleep that night, but otherwise fine.
Thank you for the thread, @cyclefree. There's very little about it with which one can disagree. The political dimension is crucial - if the Government of the day comes to understand opposing the protest will cost it votes, seats and especially power, it will find a way to be accommodating.
The argument often cited, even if a million or more march through London, is 67 million aren't marching. The active minority doesn't represent the passive majority (the Government always claims it does). Polling can be hugely beneficial - a poll which indicates widespread public support for your position will resonate within Government (a post-protest poll showing the Government party down five points is another indicator you will get a hearing).
I'd also add to the list - set easy to understand goals which are simple and can be easily articulated. If you are protesting, with luck the media will be there and you will have an opportunity to explain the point of the protest, Find someone telegenic (it helps) and articulate and get them to explain the point of the protest (with an apology to those inconvenienced caveated with an "it's a shame the Government forced us to take this peaceful action").
Curtesy, clarity and confidence - all vital for media performance.
The proposed UK travel ban is a bit iffy. It exempts people with second homes which they need to visit for the purposes of rent, sale and maintenance (*waves at Stanley Johnson*)
It ALSO exempts people who are considering buying property abroad and want to view it. I've been thinking of buying a little something in Portugal or Greece for a while.
So I shall bring forward my vague plans and book a viewing in June and bingo, I'm off to the Med.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
This is the same defence, in a different context, that Fox News used to get itself off the hook in a legal case against Tucker Carlsen. There seems to be a fundamental problem with the US legal system (particularly in areas of libel/slander) these days that the barriers for culpability are so high that people really can get away with saying almost anything. Because the system is underpinned by the assumption that the overwhelming majority of people are rational/reasonable, and that cranks will only ever attract a minority following.
But it appears to look at the whole thing back to front. The test should not be whether a reasonable person should detect that the whole thing is bullsh*t. The test should be whether the people hearing the claims actually thought they were bullsh*t or not, regardless of whether it was reasonable to do so. And the evidence on this is overwhelming - given that Dominion can realistically point to the damage done to their business as a result. If nobody believed it there would be no damage. If there's damage they believed it. QED.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
I think we can all agree on the need for some decent weather. A repeat of last Spring would be just what the doctor ordered, but I don't think we're going to get it. About the best that can be said of the long range forecasts around here is that at least they appear to be predominantly dry. Over on the western side of the island I'm not so sure you'll be even that lucky. Best case scenario for that first pub visit, warm coat; worst case scenario, warm coat and brolly I fear...
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Unfortunately for her defence, there is strong evidence that around half of the US electorate is disposed to believe such unreasonable statements. So a reasonable person might still judge the defamation as consequential.
The proposed UK travel ban is a bit iffy. It exempts people with second homes which they need to visit for the purposes of rent, sale and maintenance (*waves at Stanley Johnson*)
It ALSO exempts people who are considering buying property abroad and want to view it. I've been thinking of buying a little something in Portugal or Greece for a while.
So I shall bring forward my vague plans and book a viewing in June and bingo, I'm off to the Med.
Surely anyone could do this?
Also is it enough to just own a second home, or do you actually need to prove that it needs visiting?
The proposed UK travel ban is a bit iffy. It exempts people with second homes which they need to visit for the purposes of rent, sale and maintenance (*waves at Stanley Johnson*)
It ALSO exempts people who are considering buying property abroad and want to view it. I've been thinking of buying a little something in Portugal or Greece for a while.
So I shall bring forward my vague plans and book a viewing in June and bingo, I'm off to the Med.
Surely anyone could do this?
Also is it enough to just own a second home, or do you actually need to prove that it needs visiting?
yes it is fkign ridiculous - If you are going to have a travel ban (and I dont think we should) then you cannot say the risk of a second home being not maintained is more than bringing back covid-19 variants. Weak pathetic government as usual
The proposed UK travel ban is a bit iffy. It exempts people with second homes which they need to visit for the purposes of rent, sale and maintenance (*waves at Stanley Johnson*)
It ALSO exempts people who are considering buying property abroad and want to view it. I've been thinking of buying a little something in Portugal or Greece for a while.
So I shall bring forward my vague plans and book a viewing in June and bingo, I'm off to the Med.
Surely anyone could do this?
Yes, it's deeply stupid, but like so many Government policies it's designed with the interests of the core vote (i.e. rich old people) in mind, rather than those of wider society.
We were talking at work today about what would happen if another Plague rolled along that decimated the young and largely spared the old. The agreed view was that the young would be allowed to die off, and that wasn't entirely black humour either.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
You what? Making wild, false statements at the same time as promoting your or others' legal actions designed to achieve the same aim as those wild, false statements, and no one would conclude you actually meant it?
From what little I know it is a very high bar to meet to prove defamation, but I hope to gods this lady crosses that bar.
I saw a tweet but my timeline refreshed before I could copy it which said, and I paraphrase
'She undoubtedly committed perjury and other action disbarable actions, because the court filings she made to overturn the election there's a section where you say everything you file is true and fair. Otherwise the courts you brought these actions in will view you as a vexatious litigant.'
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
I think we can all agree on the need for some decent weather. A repeat of last Spring would be just what the doctor ordered, but I don't think we're going to get it. About the best that can be said of the long range forecasts around here is that at least they appear to be predominantly dry. Over on the western side of the island I'm not so sure you'll be even that lucky. Best case scenario for that first pub visit, warm coat; worst case scenario, warm coat and brolly I fear...
Next week in London looks quite warm and sunny - up to 18C, plenty of sunshine
That will feel like real Beer Garden weather. Bring it on. The parks will be heaving. I went up Primrose Hill just now - a lovely clear spring evening, but chilly - and it was rammed.
He actually believed Sidney Powell's guff, if his Covid-19 posts weren't a warning sign, he's not a reasonable person, but someone who believes any old crap.
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Maybe Labour have realised that they’re not going to overtake the SNP in the short term, and that their immediate goal should be to aim for second place and to become the official opposition. Or it could be that they realise that the Tories under Davidson and DRoss are worse than the SNP.
If we're really lucky then the SNP will achieve their primary objective and these arguments can be rendered moot. You get your independence and the shitty Labour Party gets its Zimmer frame kicked away on both sides of the border.
They blew up Britain and they inflicted Corbyn on us. They deserve to burn.
I have to say, and I'm no fan of this Government, I really don't see any evidence or concern about the current roadmap.
Moving the originally proposed 3-week windows to 5-week windows may frustrate some (and I understand that) but it increases the prospect this is a one-way street. There are, to my eyes, clear signs the public wants to run while the Government is more interested in a meander or stroll at best. A colleague reported a notable increase in road traffic yesterday with car parks busier than for several weeks.
I begin to wonder whether the Government is secretly hoping for a phased collapse of lockdown in the coming weeks. Once shops re-open next month, it won't take much to see the likes of pubs and restaurants decide the law can be flouted (will they seriously be fined?) and once that happens, Two Jets will decide the people are speaking and can be rewarded so May 17th will be the end of most restrictions.
The proposed UK travel ban is a bit iffy. It exempts people with second homes which they need to visit for the purposes of rent, sale and maintenance (*waves at Stanley Johnson*)
It ALSO exempts people who are considering buying property abroad and want to view it. I've been thinking of buying a little something in Portugal or Greece for a while.
So I shall bring forward my vague plans and book a viewing in June and bingo, I'm off to the Med.
Surely anyone could do this?
The bad news is foreign holidays have almost entirely stopped, the good news is we have most of the country wanting to take part in the next series of A Place In The Sun.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Yep, the kicker is she didn't make these statements on any sort of campaign trail (Well she did) but... she presented the arguments in court. So her defense relies on perjury. Which is a novel idea.
Politico.com - Fauci: AstraZeneca needs to 'straighten out' vaccine data AstraZeneca said on Tuesday morning that its results were based on an interim analysis of data before Feb. 17, more than a month ago.
Federal health officials are casting doubts about AstraZeneca’s vaccine data just hours after the company announced that its shot is safe and effective, leading the drugmaker to promise updated data within two days.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a rare statement late Monday that its Data and Safety Monitoring Board, the independent panel overseeing coronavirus vaccine trials, that it was concerned AstraZeneca had included “outdated information” in an announcement touting its shot’s 79 percent effectiveness against the virus.
The DSMB “wrote a rather harsh note” to AstraZeneca with NIAID Director — and Biden medical adviser — Anthony Fauci copied in, he told POLITICO. “The issue that the DSMB had is straightforward and very simple: The DSMB had data that they know the company had. When they saw the press release, they said, ‘wait a minute — the data in the press release do not reflect the most recent data that we know you have,'" he said.
Fauci also discussed the issue during an appearance Tuesday morning on "Good Morning America." The data board felt the data released by AstraZeneca "might, in fact, be misleading a bit, and wanted them to straighten it out," he said.
AstraZeneca said on Tuesday morning that its results were based on an interim analysis of data before Feb. 17, more than a month ago. But the company defended its decision to release those findings, saying that it reviewed a “preliminary assessment” of the final results and found them consistent with the earlier data. . . . .
Also, behind the paywall
NYT - U.S. Health Officials Question AstraZeneca Vaccine Trial Results According to federal officials, an independent panel of medical experts said the promising results announced by the company on Monday may have relied on “outdated information.”
I have to say, and I'm no fan of this Government, I really don't see any evidence or concern about the current roadmap.
Moving the originally proposed 3-week windows to 5-week windows may frustrate some (and I understand that) but it increases the prospect this is a one-way street. There are, to my eyes, clear signs the public wants to run while the Government is more interested in a meander or stroll at best. A colleague reported a notable increase in road traffic yesterday with car parks busier than for several weeks.
I begin to wonder whether the Government is secretly hoping for a phased collapse of lockdown in the coming weeks. Once shops re-open next month, it won't take much to see the likes of pubs and restaurants decide the law can be flouted (will they seriously be fined?) and once that happens, Two Jets will decide the people are speaking and can be rewarded so May 17th will be the end of most restrictions.
People have been predicting a lockdown collapse for nine or ten months. Hasn’t happened yet. People follow rules more than we anticipate in this country.
Credit to whoever it was on PB who read the whole thing, and to Jon Worth for pulling the plug on a questionable sounding story. Last thing we all need at the moment is more bushfires.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
I think we can all agree on the need for some decent weather. A repeat of last Spring would be just what the doctor ordered, but I don't think we're going to get it. About the best that can be said of the long range forecasts around here is that at least they appear to be predominantly dry. Over on the western side of the island I'm not so sure you'll be even that lucky. Best case scenario for that first pub visit, warm coat; worst case scenario, warm coat and brolly I fear...
Next week in London looks quite warm and sunny - up to 18C, plenty of sunshine
That will feel like real Beer Garden weather. Bring it on. The parks will be heaving. I went up Primrose Hill just now - a lovely clear spring evening, but chilly - and it was rammed.
When it gets warm?
There appears to be a three day window round the end of the month up here (and we're not that far north of London) where it's meant to be reasonably warm. Before and after, 10, 11, 12 degrees.
But yes, so long as it doesn't rain there'll be more and more people outside. Because we're all sick and tired of the lockdown, and the lower the case rate and the death rate both go, the fewer people will be left who are still too frightened to go outdoors.
Once the pubs open back up then, unless this coincides with howling gales and torrential downpours, they should do a brisk trade.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
I have to say, and I'm no fan of this Government, I really don't see any evidence or concern about the current roadmap.
Moving the originally proposed 3-week windows to 5-week windows may frustrate some (and I understand that) but it increases the prospect this is a one-way street. There are, to my eyes, clear signs the public wants to run while the Government is more interested in a meander or stroll at best. A colleague reported a notable increase in road traffic yesterday with car parks busier than for several weeks.
I begin to wonder whether the Government is secretly hoping for a phased collapse of lockdown in the coming weeks. Once shops re-open next month, it won't take much to see the likes of pubs and restaurants decide the law can be flouted (will they seriously be fined?) and once that happens, Two Jets will decide the people are speaking and can be rewarded so May 17th will be the end of most restrictions.
That would be a phased way out by 'consent' without a complex set of rules..
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
I think we can all agree on the need for some decent weather. A repeat of last Spring would be just what the doctor ordered, but I don't think we're going to get it. About the best that can be said of the long range forecasts around here is that at least they appear to be predominantly dry. Over on the western side of the island I'm not so sure you'll be even that lucky. Best case scenario for that first pub visit, warm coat; worst case scenario, warm coat and brolly I fear...
Next week in London looks quite warm and sunny - up to 18C, plenty of sunshine
That will feel like real Beer Garden weather. Bring it on. The parks will be heaving. I went up Primrose Hill just now - a lovely clear spring evening, but chilly - and it was rammed.
When it gets warm?
There appears to be a three day window round the end of the month up here (and we're not that far north of London) where it's meant to be reasonably warm. Before and after, 10, 11, 12 degrees.
But yes, so long as it doesn't rain there'll be more and more people outside. Because we're all sick and tired of the lockdown, and the lower the case rate and the death rate both go, the fewer people will be left who are still too frightened to go outdoors.
Once the pubs open back up then, unless this coincides with howling gales and torrential downpours, they should do a brisk trade.
I went to Asda today and it was heaving with few trollies available and near full car park.
Same with B & Q now their garden centre is open
Lots of vaccinated pensioners everywhere but also just lots of people acting as if covid is over
I have to say, and I'm no fan of this Government, I really don't see any evidence or concern about the current roadmap.
Moving the originally proposed 3-week windows to 5-week windows may frustrate some (and I understand that) but it increases the prospect this is a one-way street. There are, to my eyes, clear signs the public wants to run while the Government is more interested in a meander or stroll at best. A colleague reported a notable increase in road traffic yesterday with car parks busier than for several weeks.
I begin to wonder whether the Government is secretly hoping for a phased collapse of lockdown in the coming weeks. Once shops re-open next month, it won't take much to see the likes of pubs and restaurants decide the law can be flouted (will they seriously be fined?) and once that happens, Two Jets will decide the people are speaking and can be rewarded so May 17th will be the end of most restrictions.
My primary issue with it that it looks identical to what the unlocking roadmap would have looked like had we got to this point without vaccines. So the only thing the vaccines are doing is supposedly making it "irreversible", and such a thing cannot possibly be guaranteed without a crystal ball. And as others have said watch the scientists try to reverse that as we get towards the autumn anyway.
At some point you have to say if the vaccines really are as good as we think they are that once you've vaccinated a certain proportion of people (plus 3 weeks for immunity to build) that you can unlock pretty much overnight, regardless of pretty much anything else.
I don't know what that proportion is for sure but we cannot be far away from it in this country if we have over half the adult population jabbed once already.
But in roadmap terms, we're still a long way from doing much meaningful unlocking.
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
I think we can all agree on the need for some decent weather. A repeat of last Spring would be just what the doctor ordered, but I don't think we're going to get it. About the best that can be said of the long range forecasts around here is that at least they appear to be predominantly dry. Over on the western side of the island I'm not so sure you'll be even that lucky. Best case scenario for that first pub visit, warm coat; worst case scenario, warm coat and brolly I fear...
Judging by Chris Whitty's comments today. all we can expect from today's press conference is another giant dollop of gloom.
I hope you are bracing yourselves.
- "England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty says the rates of people falling ill with coronavirus is continuing to fall, and although it is "going down more slowly" this was expected, as children return to school.
He says the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has come down "rapidly".
Deaths registered after 28 days of a positive coronavirus test result have started to fall "much more rapidly", he adds."
- "New surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people".
Your definition of "gloom" and mine do seem to vary.
No here you are right Andy. Hands up. It was much more upbeat that I was expecting. They even talked about the enormous challenges ahead in terms of mental health issues and cancer backlogs.
Trouble is, you could argue that their measures in part, exacerbated those problems. I think they even sort of acknowledged that.
I think that much of the criticism that comes your way on this site comes from the fact that everyone knows these measures have such effects. Its the balancing of them against the effect of not locking down that is the problem. You will doubtless point to Florida or Sweden but views differe.
There was a distinct "light at the end of the tunnel" feeling about tonight's press conference I thought.
I just hope that we are nearly there and don't start drifting backwards on the unlocking plan. The fact that we're now more than a fortnight on from the schools reopening and there hasn't been a disaster - the case rate per 100k per week is now marginally lower than it was on March 8th - gives cause for a degree of optimism.
What difference will a couple of weeks or a month make. Key is to make sure it is totally safe and not have to go through it again.
I hear you; however, this plan is already very cautious. The schools in England were all let back at once (and I'll admit that I thought that a bad idea, and would rather they had left the secondaries until after Easter,) but it's effectively done no harm at all. Meanwhile, the bulk of JCVI Phase One is already complete, most of the rest will be done in another two or three weeks, and the death rate is dropping not so much like a stone as like a lead anvil. Meanwhile, lockdown continues to cause a lot of cumulative damage.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
Yes agree, I will be very cautious for sure given my wife has been shielding. I reckon it will be a fair spell till we are anywhere near what new normal will be. I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
Decent weather? This is England you know.
Even worse for me it is Scotland and west coast at that.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Yep, the kicker is she didn't make these statements on any sort of campaign trail (Well she did) but... she presented the arguments in court. So her defense relies on perjury. Which is a novel idea.
I assumed she would be trying to make a distinction between crazy things said on TV and less crazy things claimed in court, and that somehow the two were unconnected, but from memory she was not anywhere near as careful as other Trump surrogates.
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Maybe Labour have realised that they’re not going to overtake the SNP in the short term, and that their immediate goal should be to aim for second place and to become the official opposition. Or it could be that they realise that the Tories under Davidson and DRoss are worse than the SNP.
If we're really lucky then the SNP will achieve their primary objective and these arguments can be rendered moot. You get your independence and the shitty Labour Party gets its Zimmer frame kicked away on both sides of the border.
They blew up Britain and they inflicted Corbyn on us. They deserve to burn.
Britain would be permanently blown up if Scotland left
The NRA, after the latest mass shooting is quoting the second amendment, that enshrines the right to bear arms in order to ensure a well ordered militia. Right on NRA. So in order to have a gun the American government should call all gun owners up each year, for say two weeks, in other words their holidays, to serve in a well ordered militia. Their two weeks could have leisure element, for example by offering the opportunity to them to exercise their rights in, say, Afghanistan, Iraq or Yemen.
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Maybe Labour have realised that they’re not going to overtake the SNP in the short term, and that their immediate goal should be to aim for second place and to become the official opposition. Or it could be that they realise that the Tories under Davidson and DRoss are worse than the SNP.
If we're really lucky then the SNP will achieve their primary objective and these arguments can be rendered moot. You get your independence and the shitty Labour Party gets its Zimmer frame kicked away on both sides of the border.
They blew up Britain and they inflicted Corbyn on us. They deserve to burn.
Unfortunately all the dross from Labour are now in the SNP and they have made it even worse than labour was, going to be a poor 5 years if the current mob get a big majority, current leadership have corrupted the party totally. They don't want independence, they want to keep milking the system they have, all the gravy and Westminster to blame.
The problem is that Scottish Labour still like to think they are fighting the Tories. Its truly bizarre displacement activity. It doesn't matter how many times the SNP smash them to the 4 winds, take all their seats, take all their Councils, replace all their chums and placemen in the broader state, they still want to go on about fighting the Tories.
I have had leaflets in Dundee West, even at the last election, saying vote Labour to stop the Tories. The SNP majority in that seat is now over 12k. Labour have been annihilated and yet will still not engage with their true foe. Abstaining today when SKS has already called for Sturgeon to go is simply typical. Its pathological and, frankly, insane.
Maybe Labour have realised that they’re not going to overtake the SNP in the short term, and that their immediate goal should be to aim for second place and to become the official opposition. Or it could be that they realise that the Tories under Davidson and DRoss are worse than the SNP.
If we're really lucky then the SNP will achieve their primary objective and these arguments can be rendered moot. You get your independence and the shitty Labour Party gets its Zimmer frame kicked away on both sides of the border.
They blew up Britain and they inflicted Corbyn on us. They deserve to burn.
Unfortunately all the dross from Labour are now in the SNP and they have made it even worse than labour was, going to be a poor 5 years if the current mob get a big majority, current leadership have corrupted the party totally. They don't want independence, they want to keep milking the system they have, all the gravy and Westminster to blame.
I find that perspective fascinating. So you reckon the SNP under Sturgeon will keep plodding along?
Comments
And this one, thus far, hasn't even been as bad as the 1918-20 pandemic. The next one might.
I can see the attraction of being able to say 79% which most people will round in their minds to 80%, over 64-74%, which some will round to 60%. BUT .... Why do that for 5% difference off the top line versus a clean and unqualified blessing from the US FDA, which would far outweigh gains of acceptance of AZN in its main target audience of the developing world than the 5%?
Davidson et al bunged it all on the black of Sturgeon being forced to resign without a back up plan or credit with the house - a long walk home without a taxi fare or enough for a poke of chips for those master strategists.
The great thing, though, is that the vaccines themselves from all of these companies are excellent. Including that of Moderna, which is a really dodgy company, totally unlike Astrazeneca
Indeed, that seems to have been your point as well when saying that 'Historically, the more havoc the protestors wreak the more successful the action' ie poor behaviour is effective as action.
So I really have no idea what point is supposed to be being made.
My point was that wreaking havoc is not as effective as you claim it is, since low level havoc happens at most of these things.
I do an awesome Libiamo ne’ lieti calici from Verdi's La Traviata.
Therefore, whilst I understand the rationale behind all these five week gaps, I think the Government is going to need a very convincing explanation indeed for holding off any longer than that from hereon in. I can see why they might take fright at letting millions jet off on sunshine holidays, but you wonder where else a tsunami wave of cases that is going to overwhelm the NHS - which, we must try to remind ourselves, is meant to have been the sole rationale for lockdowns in the first place - is going to come from? The April 12th step consists, broadly speaking, of shops other than supermarkets, sitting at a table with a drink outdoors, and hyper-sanitised hair salons with the staff in gloves, masks and face shields; by the time we get to the actual big unlock on May 17th, almost everyone in cohorts 1-4 will have had their second jab, the over 45s will probably have had their first, and cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be pretty well on the floor.
We should be careful coming out of this present spell of imprisonment, for sure, but we mustn't be so frightened that we keep ourselves needlessly sealed away for the rest of the year. There will never come a point at which the virus is eradicated, and consequently there'll always be someone saying that it's too soon to throw open the jailhouse doors. Once it ceases to be sensible to listen to that someone then we should start ignoring them.
It’s a good vaccine; they shouldn’t have done this.
I'm not sure what the answer is. As Cyclefree observes, lots of peaceful demos by Catholics in Northern Ireland got precisely nowhere. Perhaps one needs gradual escalation - a silent march, then a shouty march, then civil disobedience?
My singing voice was used to torture all those prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Not sure Piers Corbyn needs to be canvassing in the West Country, but never mind.
https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/1374424828086644743
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1366788717118169090
You really do need to retire for today. There's always tomorrow.
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/19181017.large-emergency-service-presence-body-man-found-inside-house/
BUT. The speed of identifying and sequencing the virus, and designing the vaccine was stunning. The speed of identifying the viral proteins and how each contributed to morbidity and mortality was, IMO, even more stunning.
In future pandemics, responses will be faster and better. But I think this one will be rightly seen as the first time the response was global and based on modern science, rather than groping in the dark for an attenuated virus that could by coopted for a vaccine. I.e. it is the first time we have been able to use science to design our way out of a pandemic, rather than discover our way out.
And that is a gobsmacking advance in humankind's ability to protect itself.
Back in January they were throwing sniffy "this is not acceptable" comments at Pfizer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55666399
Several EU countries are receiving significantly fewer doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine than expected, after the US firm slowed shipments.
Six nations called the situation "unacceptable" and warned it "decreases the credibility of the vaccination process".
Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia urged the EU to apply pressure on Pfizer-BioNTech.
Pfizer said the reduced deliveries were a temporary issue.
After a poor night's sleep I was feeling rough this morning, but have improved through the day. A slight ache in the vaccination site when I raise my arm or press it, and a mild headache are the only remaining after effects.
Meanwhile a colleague who was jabbed on Friday was laid low for three days and was only able to return to work today.
Even though it would be actually in AZ financial interest to divert some to the EU.
Complaining about delayed supply of vaccines under a "best endeavours" contract, where payment is only actually on delivery (and therefore actively anticipates the possibility of delays) is really taking the biscuit.
I'm hoping the 2nd dose isn't so difficult.
A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint by the large US-based voting machine company Dominion, lawyers for Sidney Powell argued that elaborate conspiracies she laid out on television and radio last November while simultaneously suing to overturn election results in four states constituted legally protected first amendment speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/23/sidney-powell-trump-election-fraud-claims?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
From what little I know it is a very high bar to meet to prove defamation, but I hope to gods this lady crosses that bar.
I do fancy a pint in a pub but it will need to be an outside one so can only hope for some decent weather.
The root is what it always was ... last spring their appointed personnel decided that vaccines could be bought like sausages.
I had a 24 hour reaction (first shot), with no sleep that night, but otherwise fine.
Thank you for the thread, @cyclefree. There's very little about it with which one can disagree. The political dimension is crucial - if the Government of the day comes to understand opposing the protest will cost it votes, seats and especially power, it will find a way to be accommodating.
The argument often cited, even if a million or more march through London, is 67 million aren't marching. The active minority doesn't represent the passive majority (the Government always claims it does). Polling can be hugely beneficial - a poll which indicates widespread public support for your position will resonate within Government (a post-protest poll showing the Government party down five points is another indicator you will get a hearing).
I'd also add to the list - set easy to understand goals which are simple and can be easily articulated. If you are protesting, with luck the media will be there and you will have an opportunity to explain the point of the protest, Find someone telegenic (it helps) and articulate and get them to explain the point of the protest (with an apology to those inconvenienced caveated with an "it's a shame the Government forced us to take this peaceful action").
Curtesy, clarity and confidence - all vital for media performance.
It ALSO exempts people who are considering buying property abroad and want to view it. I've been thinking of buying a little something in Portugal or Greece for a while.
So I shall bring forward my vague plans and book a viewing in June and bingo, I'm off to the Med.
Surely anyone could do this?
But it appears to look at the whole thing back to front. The test should not be whether a reasonable person should detect that the whole thing is bullsh*t. The test should be whether the people hearing the claims actually thought they were bullsh*t or not, regardless of whether it was reasonable to do so. And the evidence on this is overwhelming - given that Dominion can realistically point to the damage done to their business as a result. If nobody believed it there would be no damage. If there's damage they believed it. QED.
So a reasonable person might still judge the defamation as consequential.
"AstraZeneca: the hidden stock of 30 million vaccines in Italy
The more the weeks go by, the more the "AstraZeneca scandal" grows. According to our information, around 30 million doses are stored in Italy"
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/astrazeneca-le-stock-cache-des-30-millions-de-vaccins-en-italie_2147386.html&prev=search&pto=aue
We were talking at work today about what would happen if another Plague rolled along that decimated the young and largely spared the old. The agreed view was that the young would be allowed to die off, and that wasn't entirely black humour either.
'She undoubtedly committed perjury and other action disbarable actions, because the court filings she made to overturn the election there's a section where you say everything you file is true and fair. Otherwise the courts you brought these actions in will view you as a vexatious litigant.'
That will feel like real Beer Garden weather. Bring it on. The parks will be heaving. I went up Primrose Hill just now - a lovely clear spring evening, but chilly - and it was rammed.
When it gets warm?
He actually believed Sidney Powell's guff, if his Covid-19 posts weren't a warning sign, he's not a reasonable person, but someone who believes any old crap.
They blew up Britain and they inflicted Corbyn on us. They deserve to burn.
Moving the originally proposed 3-week windows to 5-week windows may frustrate some (and I understand that) but it increases the prospect this is a one-way street. There are, to my eyes, clear signs the public wants to run while the Government is more interested in a meander or stroll at best. A colleague reported a notable increase in road traffic yesterday with car parks busier than for several weeks.
I begin to wonder whether the Government is secretly hoping for a phased collapse of lockdown in the coming weeks. Once shops re-open next month, it won't take much to see the likes of pubs and restaurants decide the law can be flouted (will they seriously be fined?) and once that happens, Two Jets will decide the people are speaking and can be rewarded so May 17th will be the end of most restrictions.
I rather like the 6 route, although I've rarely used it.
So her defense relies on perjury. Which is a novel idea.
AstraZeneca said on Tuesday morning that its results were based on an interim analysis of data before Feb. 17, more than a month ago.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/23/fauci-astrazeneca-vaccine-data-477618
Federal health officials are casting doubts about AstraZeneca’s vaccine data just hours after the company announced that its shot is safe and effective, leading the drugmaker to promise updated data within two days.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a rare statement late Monday that its Data and Safety Monitoring Board, the independent panel overseeing coronavirus vaccine trials, that it was concerned AstraZeneca had included “outdated information” in an announcement touting its shot’s 79 percent effectiveness against the virus.
The DSMB “wrote a rather harsh note” to AstraZeneca with NIAID Director — and Biden medical adviser — Anthony Fauci copied in, he told POLITICO. “The issue that the DSMB had is straightforward and very simple: The DSMB had data that they know the company had. When they saw the press release, they said, ‘wait a minute — the data in the press release do not reflect the most recent data that we know you have,'" he said.
Fauci also discussed the issue during an appearance Tuesday morning on "Good Morning America." The data board felt the data released by AstraZeneca "might, in fact, be misleading a bit, and wanted them to straighten it out," he said.
AstraZeneca said on Tuesday morning that its results were based on an interim analysis of data before Feb. 17, more than a month ago. But the company defended its decision to release those findings, saying that it reviewed a “preliminary assessment” of the final results and found them consistent with the earlier data. . . . .
Also, behind the paywall
NYT - U.S. Health Officials Question AstraZeneca Vaccine Trial Results
According to federal officials, an independent panel of medical experts said the promising results announced by the company on Monday may have relied on “outdated information.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/business/astrazeneca-vaccine-questions.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage
https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/1374444408020463629
But yes, so long as it doesn't rain there'll be more and more people outside. Because we're all sick and tired of the lockdown, and the lower the case rate and the death rate both go, the fewer people will be left who are still too frightened to go outdoors.
Once the pubs open back up then, unless this coincides with howling gales and torrential downpours, they should do a brisk trade.
Same with B & Q now their garden centre is open
Lots of vaccinated pensioners everywhere but also just lots of people acting as if covid is over
At some point you have to say if the vaccines really are as good as we think they are that once you've vaccinated a certain proportion of people (plus 3 weeks for immunity to build) that you can unlock pretty much overnight, regardless of pretty much anything else.
I don't know what that proportion is for sure but we cannot be far away from it in this country if we have over half the adult population jabbed once already.
But in roadmap terms, we're still a long way from doing much meaningful unlocking.