Grrr - Insurers now have to ensure existing customers get same quote as new customers. What happened to searching the market or challenging your existing supplier when they send out your renewal. I have never paid the renewal quote, yet don't often have to move.
Just subsidizing the lazy. Same thing with energy prices. We just need rules to prevent rip offs and exploitation of the vulnerable. The rest of us should be subject to the marketplace.
Surely you mean the lazy were subsidising you before and now they aren't
Ah yes, the lazy, like my 85-year-old great aunt who was being charged £800 by Direct Line for her home insurance. She moved to Churchill (same underwriter) and it was £140.
The financial ombudsman upheld her complaint and DL refunded her for 6 years - not the 20 or so she'd been overcharged, but £3,500 is better than nothing - but sure, lazy.
You obviously missed my comment about the vulnerable then?
I have campaigned on a number of issues where large organisations have exploited people. To name a few: Moving people to rip off energy rates at the end of contracts, exploitation of 0870/0844/0843 telephone numbers, Banks creating new saving accounts with little notice to an identical product and then slashing the current product to a pitiful rate. All have been stopped.
But each one is piecemeal and some have anti competitive consequences and often take years.
In most cases it is a case of if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck and so a generic law should be created and we should get rid of all the add hoc stuff.
I am glad your Aunt got sorted as should be the case.
I heard people complaining when the maximum price for energy got raised and thought just get off your arse then and find a better price. We shouldn't be telling people what price they sell stuff at (PROVIDED WE PROTECT THE VUNLERABLE).
I posted this last night from todays Guardian front page as I expect it will surprise many
New data from Public Health England(PHE) released yesterday found that the transfer of patients with covid from hospital to care homes resulted in 286 deaths, 96 outbreaks in care homes were related to this problem - about 1.6% of all care home outbreaks
And this confirms Jenny Harries comments today that the release of patients to care homes was a much smaller issue than the introduction of covid into care homes by staff and visitors
I would also suggest this article by Ed Conway of Sky should be read by everyone who listened to, or has an interest in Cummings appearance at the select committee, as I believe this is very prescient and is more than likely to be the conclusion of any enquiry unto the handling of covid 19
I would be fascinated to see that PHE data. What we know is that the number of excess Covid deaths in care homes was more than 19k, not 286. Covid outbreaks in homes directly after the release of residents from hospital is both well known and mapped.
There does seem to be a concerted effort to sweep the death toll under the vaccinations rug. That we have a fantastic vaccination record was not predicated on the wholesale slaughter of so many by so few. We could have not acted with such irresponsible stupidity AND developed the vaccine programme.
To be fair the figures surprised me, but Jenny Harries said in the press conference yesterday that the discharge of patients into care homes accounted for a very small percentage of deaths
I would be interested in your observations on Ed Conways rather lengthy piece
Jenny Harries seems to relish her role as Johnson's human shield, and has done so throughout the pandemic. She has been a loyal lieutenant when the likes of Vallence, Whitty and JVT have drifted wildly from the script.
So are you saying she is lying?
I am saying she is a loyal interpreter.
To be fair do you think the figures release by PHE to the Guardian are correct or not, and if not do you have your source
This is important as there is a public perception that tens of thousands died from patents being released to care homes when the number quoted is 286
This is not about politics but genuine fact checking
Well I remember when you got excited over these numbers and went quiet when this happened.
10 March 2020: Harries resists calls to cancel large events, saying she was "following the science" and downplay the severity of the virus by saying most will just feel "a bit rough".
10 March 2020: Harries admits that the Government's strategy will allow "significant numbers" to die.
She focuses on handwashing, not ventilation, misinforming the public about how the virus spreads.
12 March 2020: Harries says wearing masks "not a good idea" and says that "people can adversely put themselves at more risk" by wearing masks.
20 March 2020: Harries says that the country has a "perfectly adequate supply of PPE"
25 March 2020: Harries is dismissive of the approaches taken by the likes of Singapore (370 times fewer deaths per capita then UK) and South Korea (57 times fewer) when giving evidence before Parliament.
6 March 2020: Harries says that testing is "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward"
5 May 2020: Harries tells the Commons Health Select Committee that shortages were the reason for stopping testing. This completely contradicts her earlier claims that it was no longer the strategy and foreshadowing that testing would be stopped (5 March)
The piece published in the Guardian is the central point in all this, not Jenny Harries though she did make the point in yesterday's press conference
The question is are you disputing PHE figures of 286 transfer deaths in care homes or not
Have PHE published the data? Have you seen the data? Can you provide a link?
I have quoted from the front page of the Guardian but also Tim Bales tweet quoted just now reaffirms the story
The best summary I've seen so far is page 10 of the report
Interesting, my father's view is that the major finding of the future inquiry will be is that at the start of the pandemic we didn't understand the nature of the asymptomatic infections with Covid-19, I wonder if the same applies to care homes?
Does this report take into account asymptomatic infections?
How could it? They weren't bring tested.
I'm not sure this holds up but it will form part of the buckets of whitewash I expect the inquiry use.
As I understand it, the report is using COVID deaths and working backwards to see where the victim was and where other people in the same care home were.
Indeed. If 65% of care homes hadn't had any residents in hospital in the prior period you can rule them out effectively as being caused by the hospital.
Sadly not. Certainly the local experience here is that care homes with any spare capacity were being told to accept patients even if they had not previously been resident in those homes. In many cases this was without any medical history at all. Many private care homes simply refused.
But then post-discharge they would have become a resident, so would now be showing up in the figures as a resident that had been in hospital.
Again it depends on the definition.
As we see with the misleading 1.6% claim, changing how you define something is a great way of hiding reality.
Was someone who was put temporarily into a care home that was not their normal place of residence classed as a 'resident'? Perhaps if they stayed for a certain amount of time but then if they died they may never appear as a resident.
Given the thoroughly dishonest way PHE have presented data - such as equating those with covid with those actually tested for covid to reduce the apparent numbers - then I am afraid nothing they say can be taken on trust.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
I posted this last night from todays Guardian front page as I expect it will surprise many
New data from Public Health England(PHE) released yesterday found that the transfer of patients with covid from hospital to care homes resulted in 286 deaths, 96 outbreaks in care homes were related to this problem - about 1.6% of all care home outbreaks
And this confirms Jenny Harries comments today that the release of patients to care homes was a much smaller issue than the introduction of covid into care homes by staff and visitors
I would also suggest this article by Ed Conway of Sky should be read by everyone who listened to, or has an interest in Cummings appearance at the select committee, as I believe this is very prescient and is more than likely to be the conclusion of any enquiry unto the handling of covid 19
I would be fascinated to see that PHE data. What we know is that the number of excess Covid deaths in care homes was more than 19k, not 286. Covid outbreaks in homes directly after the release of residents from hospital is both well known and mapped.
There does seem to be a concerted effort to sweep the death toll under the vaccinations rug. That we have a fantastic vaccination record was not predicated on the wholesale slaughter of so many by so few. We could have not acted with such irresponsible stupidity AND developed the vaccine programme.
To be fair the figures surprised me, but Jenny Harries said in the press conference yesterday that the discharge of patients into care homes accounted for a very small percentage of deaths
I would be interested in your observations on Ed Conways rather lengthy piece
Jenny Harries seems to relish her role as Johnson's human shield, and has done so throughout the pandemic. She has been a loyal lieutenant when the likes of Vallence, Whitty and JVT have drifted wildly from the script.
So are you saying she is lying?
I am saying she is a loyal interpreter.
To be fair do you think the figures release by PHE to the Guardian are correct or not, and if not do you have your source
This is important as there is a public perception that tens of thousands died from patents being released to care homes when the number quoted is 286
This is not about politics but genuine fact checking
Well I remember when you got excited over these numbers and went quiet when this happened.
10 March 2020: Harries resists calls to cancel large events, saying she was "following the science" and downplay the severity of the virus by saying most will just feel "a bit rough".
10 March 2020: Harries admits that the Government's strategy will allow "significant numbers" to die.
She focuses on handwashing, not ventilation, misinforming the public about how the virus spreads.
12 March 2020: Harries says wearing masks "not a good idea" and says that "people can adversely put themselves at more risk" by wearing masks.
20 March 2020: Harries says that the country has a "perfectly adequate supply of PPE"
25 March 2020: Harries is dismissive of the approaches taken by the likes of Singapore (370 times fewer deaths per capita then UK) and South Korea (57 times fewer) when giving evidence before Parliament.
6 March 2020: Harries says that testing is "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward"
5 May 2020: Harries tells the Commons Health Select Committee that shortages were the reason for stopping testing. This completely contradicts her earlier claims that it was no longer the strategy and foreshadowing that testing would be stopped (5 March)
The piece published in the Guardian is the central point in all this, not Jenny Harries though she did make the point in yesterday's press conference
The question is are you disputing PHE figures of 286 transfer deaths in care homes or not
Have PHE published the data? Have you seen the data? Can you provide a link?
I have quoted from the front page of the Guardian but also Tim Bales tweet quoted just now reaffirms the story
The best summary I've seen so far is page 10 of the report
Interesting, my father's view is that the major finding of the future inquiry will be is that at the start of the pandemic we didn't understand the nature of the asymptomatic infections with Covid-19, I wonder if the same applies to care homes?
Does this report take into account asymptomatic infections?
How could it? They weren't bring tested.
I'm not sure this holds up but it will form part of the buckets of whitewash I expect the inquiry use.
As I understand it, the report is using COVID deaths and working backwards to see where the victim was and where other people in the same care home were.
Indeed. If 65% of care homes hadn't had any residents in hospital in the prior period you can rule them out effectively as being caused by the hospital.
Sadly not. Certainly the local experience here is that care homes with any spare capacity were being told to accept patients even if they had not previously been resident in those homes. In many cases this was without any medical history at all. Many private care homes simply refused.
But then post-discharge they would have become a resident, so would now be showing up in the figures as a resident that had been in hospital.
Again it depends on the definition.
As we see with the misleading 1.6% claim, changing how you define something is a great way of hiding reality.
Was someone who was put temporarily into a care home that was not their normal place of residence classed as a 'resident'? Perhaps if they stayed for a certain amount of time but then if they died they may never appear as a resident.
Given the thoroughly dishonest way PHE have presented data - such as equating those with covid with those actually tested for covid to reduce the apparent numbers - then I am afraid nothing they say can be taken on trust.
I would assume that anyone who stays in a care home, even if just for one night, would need to be logged onto their systems. For safeguarding if not for anything else.
If that hasn't happened then there's a whole can of worms right there.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
In Brussels there was shock and anger. In Switzerland, quiet celebration and relief — but, for some, doubts about what exactly comes next.
On Wednesday, Bern announced it was formally withdrawing from negotiations to codify future relations with the EU into a single overarching “framework agreement” — a back-and-forth exchange that has dominated an increasingly fraught relationship with Brussels since 2014.
“You’d never sign a contract like that in business,” said Philip Erzinger, the head of a Kompass Europe, an anti-framework agreement campaign group. “It was one sided. It required us to take on EU law without any mechanism for saying No. It would have been a direct interference in our system of direct democracy and cantons in Switzerland.”
Yet again EU bullying fails to overcome democracy and national sovereignty.
We should certainly help the brave Swiss as much as possible.
The problem with the EU which has become clear since 2016 is they seem to have created a 21st century version of the Monroe doctrine. They clearly see the entire European continent (except Russia) as their sphere of influence and expect all countries within it to follow their values and principles.
Unfortunately, when their values and principles collide with the will of voters in places such as the UK and Switzerland this leads to venom from the Commission and they begin to see strong, respected democracies as a larger threat than regimes such as China.
I don't think it's exactly a Monroe Doctrine. The EU is now more assertive in prioritizing member state interests over those of non-members. Member states are driving this change. It does have implications for the offer the EU makes to non members and whether that is sufficiently attractive to those non members.
There's no political appetite in Switzerland to go beyond the existing bilateral agreements with the EU, which the EU now thinks to be a mistake. The trajectory now, I think, is that the EU will gradually hack away at the bilaterals. This will damage Switzerland as the biggest beneficiary of the Single Market. The Swiss mostly realise this but there's no will to prevent it. I think also it comes up against the Swiss notion of national identity, which is defined by not being Germany, France and Italy. That aloofness served Switzerland well during the conflicts of the twentieth century. It's more problematic in a connected age.
I posted this last night from todays Guardian front page as I expect it will surprise many
New data from Public Health England(PHE) released yesterday found that the transfer of patients with covid from hospital to care homes resulted in 286 deaths, 96 outbreaks in care homes were related to this problem - about 1.6% of all care home outbreaks
And this confirms Jenny Harries comments today that the release of patients to care homes was a much smaller issue than the introduction of covid into care homes by staff and visitors
I would also suggest this article by Ed Conway of Sky should be read by everyone who listened to, or has an interest in Cummings appearance at the select committee, as I believe this is very prescient and is more than likely to be the conclusion of any enquiry unto the handling of covid 19
I would be fascinated to see that PHE data. What we know is that the number of excess Covid deaths in care homes was more than 19k, not 286. Covid outbreaks in homes directly after the release of residents from hospital is both well known and mapped.
There does seem to be a concerted effort to sweep the death toll under the vaccinations rug. That we have a fantastic vaccination record was not predicated on the wholesale slaughter of so many by so few. We could have not acted with such irresponsible stupidity AND developed the vaccine programme.
To be fair the figures surprised me, but Jenny Harries said in the press conference yesterday that the discharge of patients into care homes accounted for a very small percentage of deaths
I would be interested in your observations on Ed Conways rather lengthy piece
Jenny Harries seems to relish her role as Johnson's human shield, and has done so throughout the pandemic. She has been a loyal lieutenant when the likes of Vallence, Whitty and JVT have drifted wildly from the script.
So are you saying she is lying?
I am saying she is a loyal interpreter.
To be fair do you think the figures release by PHE to the Guardian are correct or not, and if not do you have your source
This is important as there is a public perception that tens of thousands died from patents being released to care homes when the number quoted is 286
This is not about politics but genuine fact checking
Well I remember when you got excited over these numbers and went quiet when this happened.
10 March 2020: Harries resists calls to cancel large events, saying she was "following the science" and downplay the severity of the virus by saying most will just feel "a bit rough".
10 March 2020: Harries admits that the Government's strategy will allow "significant numbers" to die.
She focuses on handwashing, not ventilation, misinforming the public about how the virus spreads.
12 March 2020: Harries says wearing masks "not a good idea" and says that "people can adversely put themselves at more risk" by wearing masks.
20 March 2020: Harries says that the country has a "perfectly adequate supply of PPE"
25 March 2020: Harries is dismissive of the approaches taken by the likes of Singapore (370 times fewer deaths per capita then UK) and South Korea (57 times fewer) when giving evidence before Parliament.
6 March 2020: Harries says that testing is "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward"
5 May 2020: Harries tells the Commons Health Select Committee that shortages were the reason for stopping testing. This completely contradicts her earlier claims that it was no longer the strategy and foreshadowing that testing would be stopped (5 March)
The piece published in the Guardian is the central point in all this, not Jenny Harries though she did make the point in yesterday's press conference
The question is are you disputing PHE figures of 286 transfer deaths in care homes or not
Have PHE published the data? Have you seen the data? Can you provide a link?
I have quoted from the front page of the Guardian but also Tim Bales tweet quoted just now reaffirms the story
The best summary I've seen so far is page 10 of the report
Interesting, my father's view is that the major finding of the future inquiry will be is that at the start of the pandemic we didn't understand the nature of the asymptomatic infections with Covid-19, I wonder if the same applies to care homes?
Does this report take into account asymptomatic infections?
How could it? They weren't bring tested.
I'm not sure this holds up but it will form part of the buckets of whitewash I expect the inquiry use.
As I understand it, the report is using COVID deaths and working backwards to see where the victim was and where other people in the same care home were.
Indeed. If 65% of care homes hadn't had any residents in hospital in the prior period you can rule them out effectively as being caused by the hospital.
Sadly not. Certainly the local experience here is that care homes with any spare capacity were being told to accept patients even if they had not previously been resident in those homes. In many cases this was without any medical history at all. Many private care homes simply refused.
Come now Richard. It doesn't matter that the practice both existed and was widely reported at the time. The stats have now been produced to prove history to have been in error. Indeed the prevalence of both Covid transmission from and deaths arising from hospital patients means that care homes should have been transferring residents through hospital and back out again to protect them.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
I will also be very interested to see what the care home industry and their insurers have to say about it.
I posted this last night from todays Guardian front page as I expect it will surprise many
New data from Public Health England(PHE) released yesterday found that the transfer of patients with covid from hospital to care homes resulted in 286 deaths, 96 outbreaks in care homes were related to this problem - about 1.6% of all care home outbreaks
And this confirms Jenny Harries comments today that the release of patients to care homes was a much smaller issue than the introduction of covid into care homes by staff and visitors
I would also suggest this article by Ed Conway of Sky should be read by everyone who listened to, or has an interest in Cummings appearance at the select committee, as I believe this is very prescient and is more than likely to be the conclusion of any enquiry unto the handling of covid 19
I would be fascinated to see that PHE data. What we know is that the number of excess Covid deaths in care homes was more than 19k, not 286. Covid outbreaks in homes directly after the release of residents from hospital is both well known and mapped.
There does seem to be a concerted effort to sweep the death toll under the vaccinations rug. That we have a fantastic vaccination record was not predicated on the wholesale slaughter of so many by so few. We could have not acted with such irresponsible stupidity AND developed the vaccine programme.
To be fair the figures surprised me, but Jenny Harries said in the press conference yesterday that the discharge of patients into care homes accounted for a very small percentage of deaths
I would be interested in your observations on Ed Conways rather lengthy piece
Jenny Harries seems to relish her role as Johnson's human shield, and has done so throughout the pandemic. She has been a loyal lieutenant when the likes of Vallence, Whitty and JVT have drifted wildly from the script.
So are you saying she is lying?
I am saying she is a loyal interpreter.
To be fair do you think the figures release by PHE to the Guardian are correct or not, and if not do you have your source
This is important as there is a public perception that tens of thousands died from patents being released to care homes when the number quoted is 286
This is not about politics but genuine fact checking
Well I remember when you got excited over these numbers and went quiet when this happened.
10 March 2020: Harries resists calls to cancel large events, saying she was "following the science" and downplay the severity of the virus by saying most will just feel "a bit rough".
10 March 2020: Harries admits that the Government's strategy will allow "significant numbers" to die.
She focuses on handwashing, not ventilation, misinforming the public about how the virus spreads.
12 March 2020: Harries says wearing masks "not a good idea" and says that "people can adversely put themselves at more risk" by wearing masks.
20 March 2020: Harries says that the country has a "perfectly adequate supply of PPE"
25 March 2020: Harries is dismissive of the approaches taken by the likes of Singapore (370 times fewer deaths per capita then UK) and South Korea (57 times fewer) when giving evidence before Parliament.
6 March 2020: Harries says that testing is "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward"
5 May 2020: Harries tells the Commons Health Select Committee that shortages were the reason for stopping testing. This completely contradicts her earlier claims that it was no longer the strategy and foreshadowing that testing would be stopped (5 March)
The piece published in the Guardian is the central point in all this, not Jenny Harries though she did make the point in yesterday's press conference
The question is are you disputing PHE figures of 286 transfer deaths in care homes or not
Have PHE published the data? Have you seen the data? Can you provide a link?
I have quoted from the front page of the Guardian but also Tim Bales tweet quoted just now reaffirms the story
The best summary I've seen so far is page 10 of the report
Interesting, my father's view is that the major finding of the future inquiry will be is that at the start of the pandemic we didn't understand the nature of the asymptomatic infections with Covid-19, I wonder if the same applies to care homes?
Does this report take into account asymptomatic infections?
How could it? They weren't bring tested.
I'm not sure this holds up but it will form part of the buckets of whitewash I expect the inquiry use.
As I understand it, the report is using COVID deaths and working backwards to see where the victim was and where other people in the same care home were.
Indeed. If 65% of care homes hadn't had any residents in hospital in the prior period you can rule them out effectively as being caused by the hospital.
Sadly not. Certainly the local experience here is that care homes with any spare capacity were being told to accept patients even if they had not previously been resident in those homes. In many cases this was without any medical history at all. Many private care homes simply refused.
But then post-discharge they would have become a resident, so would now be showing up in the figures as a resident that had been in hospital.
Why was the government policy so keen to get people out of hospital into the care homes? This was still going on when there was testing available. The logical answer is very scared of hospital capacity, overstretch, which is fair enough. Is it not?
The reason why it became “ring of steel” lies is the lack of imagination in thinking of out of the box alternatives. Out the hospitals for care, but not into the tinder box care homes.
I don’t want to pre judge the main finding of years of public enquiry, but that will be the main finding - lack of creativity in thinking in planning before hand, and whilst it was going on.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
How do you reach that conclusion?
The stated conclusion was that non-hospital sources of infection (staff, visitors and residents going outside the case homes) was the primary source of infection.
Grrr - Insurers now have to ensure existing customers get same quote as new customers. What happened to searching the market or challenging your existing supplier when they send out your renewal. I have never paid the renewal quote, yet don't often have to move.
Just subsidizing the lazy. Same thing with energy prices. We just need rules to prevent rip offs and exploitation of the vulnerable. The rest of us should be subject to the marketplace.
Surely you mean the lazy were subsidising you before and now they aren't
Yes it does. Not sure what your point is.
I am in favour of free markets with proper protection of the vulnerable. I don't want the state controlling what prices I sell stuff at. Loss leaders is normal commercial practice. It leads to a more efficient market if there is competition.
When a group being subsidised complain about their subsidy being withdrawn it is fair enough to question their motives.....is it really because of a more efficient market or cost to them?
Not sure what the new rules are but I would think capping the benefit to those who move/cost to those who are loyal at around 10% would be a fair solution and better than either the current situation where the cost to being loyal can be many times that, or a market where there is little incentive to ever shop around.
Re your 1st sentence that is so true in so many instances. It is one of the things that irritates me a lot when a change is made and the losers are up in arms even if the change is actually for the better. I remember it distinctly when water meters came in.
However that never applies to me. As I said that really does irritate me, so it would make me one hell of a hypocrite. No I object to the Govt (or whatever) interfering in the marketplace where I believe it does more harm than good.
As per my last post I believe the protection it brings is piecemeal (a new rule for each case), the new rule takes years to bring in (the saving a'/c rip off and 0844 rip offs took years to get resolved) and invariably they interfere with peoples lives.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The NFT part is complete nonsense and entirely superflous. What they've actually sold is full commercial rights to exploit the video to produce derivative stuff like mugs and t-shirts etc
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
Visiting friends and family - given by the people I know who were doing exactly that.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
How do you reach that conclusion?
The stated conclusion was that non-hospital sources of infection (staff, visitors and residents going outside the case homes) was the primary source of infection.
Indeed. Pox acquired from hospitals and brought into a sealed care home environment didn't spread or kill with anything like veracity of any external non-hospital acquired pox.
Speaking of the EU being annoying, a U.K.-Swiss-Israel science/tech alliance sounds much more potent than a EU-led scheme.
110% agreement with this. The government should start pursuing that option. The EU is clearly unable to reconcile itself to brexit, even after the deal. We should adjust our plans to that reality.
I posted this last night from todays Guardian front page as I expect it will surprise many
New data from Public Health England(PHE) released yesterday found that the transfer of patients with covid from hospital to care homes resulted in 286 deaths, 96 outbreaks in care homes were related to this problem - about 1.6% of all care home outbreaks
And this confirms Jenny Harries comments today that the release of patients to care homes was a much smaller issue than the introduction of covid into care homes by staff and visitors
I would also suggest this article by Ed Conway of Sky should be read by everyone who listened to, or has an interest in Cummings appearance at the select committee, as I believe this is very prescient and is more than likely to be the conclusion of any enquiry unto the handling of covid 19
I would be fascinated to see that PHE data. What we know is that the number of excess Covid deaths in care homes was more than 19k, not 286. Covid outbreaks in homes directly after the release of residents from hospital is both well known and mapped.
There does seem to be a concerted effort to sweep the death toll under the vaccinations rug. That we have a fantastic vaccination record was not predicated on the wholesale slaughter of so many by so few. We could have not acted with such irresponsible stupidity AND developed the vaccine programme.
To be fair the figures surprised me, but Jenny Harries said in the press conference yesterday that the discharge of patients into care homes accounted for a very small percentage of deaths
I would be interested in your observations on Ed Conways rather lengthy piece
Jenny Harries seems to relish her role as Johnson's human shield, and has done so throughout the pandemic. She has been a loyal lieutenant when the likes of Vallence, Whitty and JVT have drifted wildly from the script.
So are you saying she is lying?
I am saying she is a loyal interpreter.
To be fair do you think the figures release by PHE to the Guardian are correct or not, and if not do you have your source
This is important as there is a public perception that tens of thousands died from patents being released to care homes when the number quoted is 286
This is not about politics but genuine fact checking
Well I remember when you got excited over these numbers and went quiet when this happened.
10 March 2020: Harries resists calls to cancel large events, saying she was "following the science" and downplay the severity of the virus by saying most will just feel "a bit rough".
10 March 2020: Harries admits that the Government's strategy will allow "significant numbers" to die.
She focuses on handwashing, not ventilation, misinforming the public about how the virus spreads.
12 March 2020: Harries says wearing masks "not a good idea" and says that "people can adversely put themselves at more risk" by wearing masks.
20 March 2020: Harries says that the country has a "perfectly adequate supply of PPE"
25 March 2020: Harries is dismissive of the approaches taken by the likes of Singapore (370 times fewer deaths per capita then UK) and South Korea (57 times fewer) when giving evidence before Parliament.
6 March 2020: Harries says that testing is "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward"
5 May 2020: Harries tells the Commons Health Select Committee that shortages were the reason for stopping testing. This completely contradicts her earlier claims that it was no longer the strategy and foreshadowing that testing would be stopped (5 March)
The piece published in the Guardian is the central point in all this, not Jenny Harries though she did make the point in yesterday's press conference
The question is are you disputing PHE figures of 286 transfer deaths in care homes or not
Have PHE published the data? Have you seen the data? Can you provide a link?
I have quoted from the front page of the Guardian but also Tim Bales tweet quoted just now reaffirms the story
65% of outbreaks were in homes with no recent hospital records? That rules them out straight away!
Pretty comprehensive. As I said, if the virus is in the community then the staff will get it. The only way to protect care homes was to ensure there's no virus in the community, so the staff don't get it.
"Risk stratification" was bullshit whoever spouted it.
It depends how the staff got infected, those 65% could be (the proportion is speculative as there was no functional case tracing at that time) indirect cases, if they caught it from another workplace. Cross site staff seems to be the cause of my Mother in Laws care home outbreaks.
And this raises an interesting general point about how far you should/can follow lines of infection and conseqent deaths.
One cock-up in test and trace, missing one person early on, might give you an infection chain that wasn't stopped that includes tens, even hundreds of deaths. Likewise, potentially, for one hospital discharge of an infected person. But how far do you go?
How ineffective is Test and Trace now?
In theory it should function much better when relatively small numbers of cases, than in an endemic situation, but it all seems to be very quiet on that point.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
An outrageous slur on the system! Stats never lie, can never be manipulated through selective use of data or discarding of data or non-recording of data, no siree.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The report does look at the that. In the flow chart - see below and on page 10 - they work backwards from COVID deaths in care homes, with being part of an outbreak being part of the flow.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
There were a huge number of exceptions and many would have been there since before the restrictions came in.
Forgive me if i am somewhat sceptical about the AZ vaccine . Has the government gone too far down the road of backing it to now back away from it? If (as it seems very likely) a BBC young presenter can die from it isn't it worth thinking how many BBC presenters are there (not huge numbers) and conclude that the risk of dying from it is not "less than 1 in a 100,000) but greater? I think we trust the government too much , Iraq lies , wartime secrets (perhaps necessary at the time of course) show the government does lie when it thinks it needs to - Is it doing it here? Also think of the scandals like the Post Office convictions ? We trust authority too much
Anyway I will be literally playing Russian roulette next week when i get my second jab of AZ. Odds may be better than 5 in 6 but not sure they are 99999 in 100000
So if someone dies who has a rare profession, the odds are higher still? Completely flawed logic.
Had the PM succumbed to covid, since there's only one Prime Minister that would have established a death rate of 100% ???
I think a statistics refresh might be in order here!
Secondly, in my youth I sometimes used to frequent or pass through Hyde Market. There was, categorically, no shortage of old ladies, despite some hundred of their number being missing. And though 215 murders is a comprehendible number, spreading that over decades and a mid sized town meant the demographics were hardly touched.
That last is interesting on stats. It was an anecdotal noticing of an anomalous-looking number of deaths that raised suspicion about Shipman - but on differently focused datasets:
In March 1998, Dr Linda Reynolds of the Brooke Surgery in Hyde expressed concerns to John Pollard, the coroner for the South Manchester District, about the high death rate among Shipman's patients. In particular, she was concerned about the large number of cremation forms for elderly women that he had needed countersigned. Police were unable to find sufficient evidence to bring charges and closed the investigation on 17 April.[17] The Shipman Inquiry later blamed the Greater Manchester Police for assigning inexperienced officers to the case. After the investigation was closed, Shipman killed three more people.[18] In August, taxi driver John Shaw told the police that he suspected Shipman of murdering 21 patients.[19] Shaw became suspicious as many of the elderly customers he took to the hospital, who seemed to be in good health, died in Shipman's care. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman
Yep, you can get useful stats for something that's quite common with a very small sample. Deaths among Shipman's elderly patients were relatively common.
We see this in polling, where a sample of a low number of thousands can give useful information on the position of the main parties (i.e. Conservative clearly ahead of Labour, even allowing for MOE). Far less useful for the small parties where the MOE is large relative to the estimate and it's hard to tell, for example, whether there are still any Liberal Democrats in England.
(Joking on the LDs, but can you tell who is more popular between LD and Green? Not really on a single poll, although a picture emerges across multiple polls with large combined sample size).
I do expect the BBC death to have an effect, at least locally, on enthusiasm for the AZN vaccine. I don't know anyone affected by AZN blood clots, but I'd likely be more wary if I did (even knowing it made no sense). A relatively large number of people who listened to her show now know (of) someone (who may have been) affected by the AZN blood clot issue. It will colour perceptions of the risks.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
There were a huge number of exceptions and many would have been there since before the restrictions came in.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The report does look at the that. In the flow chart - see below and on page 10 - they work backwards from COVID deaths in care homes, with being part of an outbreak being part of the flow.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
The weakness is that the chain of "Patient discharged to care home - gives Covid to Agency worker - agency worker goes to a different care home and gives it to people there" is outside the scope of the report.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The report does look at the that. In the flow chart - see below and on page 10 - they work backwards from COVID deaths in care homes, with being part of an outbreak being part of the flow.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
The weakness is that the chain of "Patient discharged to care home - gives Covid to Agency worker - agency worker goes to a different care home and gives it to people there" is outside the scope of the report.
That is a sensible criticism. So we need data on where agency workers picked up the virus.
EDIT - though it would be somewhat surprising for a patient to be discharged to a home, infect a care worker(s) and not infect other residents, surely?
I would be worth looking at a comparison of care homes which didn't receive anyone from hospital vs those that did. What would the outbreak curves look like?
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The report does look at the that. In the flow chart - see below and on page 10 - they work backwards from COVID deaths in care homes, with being part of an outbreak being part of the flow.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
The weakness is that the chain of "Patient discharged to care home - gives Covid to Agency worker - agency worker goes to a different care home and gives it to people there" is outside the scope of the report.
That is a sensible criticism. So we need data on where agency workers picked up the virus.
I would be worth looking at a comparison of care homes which didn't receive anyone from hospital vs those that did. What would the outbreak curves look like?
All of this is a reason to have the Covid enquiry now rather than kick it into next year.
I suspect the June 21 date is one just of timing. If it moves to say July 15, it doesn't change anything except for people who have made arrangements for the intermediate period on the assumption that the relaxation would come in on the earlier date.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
Lots of us have family in India, it's not a valid reason to go there. Anyone who believed the "India has beaten COVID" stuff coming out of there in December of last year was kidding themselves. She went on a holiday. Nothing more than that.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
My view is that she chose to go abroad during a pandemic and so can live with the consequences of her choices. People make their own bed.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
My view is that she chose to go abroad during a pandemic and so can live with the consequences of her choices. People make their own bed.
Yes, I thought that would be your level of compassion.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
My view is that she chose to go abroad during a pandemic and so can live with the consequences of her choices. People make their own bed.
Yes, I thought that would be your level of compassion.
An uncle of mine got stuck there after the red list. It's his own idiotic fault for going by using the overseas property loophole. Everyone who went to India early this year knew that there was a high chance of India being red listed as soon as that system was introduced. You have to be a complete numpty to go and that includes my uncle.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
My view is that she chose to go abroad during a pandemic and so can live with the consequences of her choices. People make their own bed.
Yes, I thought that would be your level of compassion.
Yes it is. Her choice, nobody else's.
What's yours? The people she could have brought the virus back to infect if she hadn't stayed in quarantine - where's your compassion for them.
In Brussels there was shock and anger. In Switzerland, quiet celebration and relief — but, for some, doubts about what exactly comes next.
On Wednesday, Bern announced it was formally withdrawing from negotiations to codify future relations with the EU into a single overarching “framework agreement” — a back-and-forth exchange that has dominated an increasingly fraught relationship with Brussels since 2014.
“You’d never sign a contract like that in business,” said Philip Erzinger, the head of a Kompass Europe, an anti-framework agreement campaign group. “It was one sided. It required us to take on EU law without any mechanism for saying No. It would have been a direct interference in our system of direct democracy and cantons in Switzerland.”
Yet again EU bullying fails to overcome democracy and national sovereignty.
We should certainly help the brave Swiss as much as possible.
The problem with the EU which has become clear since 2016 is they seem to have created a 21st century version of the Monroe doctrine. They clearly see the entire European continent (except Russia) as their sphere of influence and expect all countries within it to follow their values and principles.
Unfortunately, when their values and principles collide with the will of voters in places such as the UK and Switzerland this leads to venom from the Commission and they begin to see strong, respected democracies as a larger threat than regimes such as China.
One problem they do have is not confronting the illiberal and undemocratic behaviour of some of the countries within the EU - Hungary and Poland, for instance.
Still we can hardly talk - the PM is meeting with Orban today. Will he criticise his anti-semitism? Or is anti-semitism only bad when it is spread by Labour supporters?
In Brussels there was shock and anger. In Switzerland, quiet celebration and relief — but, for some, doubts about what exactly comes next.
On Wednesday, Bern announced it was formally withdrawing from negotiations to codify future relations with the EU into a single overarching “framework agreement” — a back-and-forth exchange that has dominated an increasingly fraught relationship with Brussels since 2014.
“You’d never sign a contract like that in business,” said Philip Erzinger, the head of a Kompass Europe, an anti-framework agreement campaign group. “It was one sided. It required us to take on EU law without any mechanism for saying No. It would have been a direct interference in our system of direct democracy and cantons in Switzerland.”
Yet again EU bullying fails to overcome democracy and national sovereignty.
We should certainly help the brave Swiss as much as possible.
The problem with the EU which has become clear since 2016 is they seem to have created a 21st century version of the Monroe doctrine. They clearly see the entire European continent (except Russia) as their sphere of influence and expect all countries within it to follow their values and principles.
Unfortunately, when their values and principles collide with the will of voters in places such as the UK and Switzerland this leads to venom from the Commission and they begin to see strong, respected democracies as a larger threat than regimes such as China.
One problem they do have is not confronting the illiberal and undemocratic behaviour of some of the countries within the EU - Hungary and Poland, for instance.
Still we can hardly talk - the PM is meeting with Orban today. Will he criticise his anti-semitism? Or is anti-semitism only bad when it is spread by Labour supporters?
Hungary should be driven from the EU. Poland should be on special measures.
Realpolitik is fine but ultimately corrodes the principles the ensure EU citizen consent.
I think it’s ok for Johnson to meet Orban (or Putin, or Xi), although I’m not sure what the particular point is.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
Do you think we should have more sympathy for those separated from the loved ones by thousands of miles rather than a few hundred miles?
Very interesting. I have often thought it might be interesting to lift the lid on many of the Chinese "businessmen" (yes I guess most will be men). I might be doing them a disservice, but I expect many have simply got where they got by being members of The Party. They are told to manage a particular manufacturing business, given some illegally acquired IP, and then told "off you go". Do well and you become a billionaire and keep quiet. Do badly and you get shot. Do well and then get too gig for your boots, get shot.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
Seeing friends and family indoors wasn't permitted a couple of months back domestically iirc.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
Do you think we should have more sympathy for those separated from the loved ones by thousands of miles rather than a few hundred miles?
Equal sympathy really.
She was quite happy to quarantine, indeed had it built into her original leave dates, doesn't complain and is just glad to have the nightmare over.
I think it was her 3 months working on covid ICU that made her so keen to check on her parents.
My concern is that the promised increase in vaccinations has not really come. We have had a small uplift but nothing more. Germany now seems to be delivering 1m vaccinations a day. I am not sure why we are not.
We really only have a few days left for vaccines that are going to be effective by 21st June. We have missed an opportunity here to go from a pretty safe 75% to a very safe 80%+. That said, I still think we should proceed with the 21st unless there is a material increase in hospitalisations over the next 14 days. In the last week these have increased by 20%. If that continues at that rate for the next fortnight we have a problem and the government faces some difficult choices.
The 20% rise is driven by Scotland and delayed reporting. Given we're talking about an England decision, the relevant data is -
and there is no cause for concern - flat line of under 100 hospital admissions per day and no rise in total beds occupied still at nugatory levels.
There has been a small uptick in admissions...
There is an uptick in test positivity locally. Quite a strong surge vaccination programme using Pfizer amongst the affected districts of Leicester in the over 30's.
We should be stronger on surge vaccination to get our way out of this. 10% of the vaccine supply could surge vaccinate areas covering 1 million people a week.
I'd advocate a 2-3 week cycle in which
- All over 18s to get their first jab - Every hitting 6 weeks from 1st vaccination in the surge period gets v their second jab - House to house and assisted walk up book in at front of clinic as necessary - The sort of voluntary restrictions we have already seen.
Firrst cycle ending 4th June and covering Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford. Kirklees, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Bury, Leicester (just over 2m in that lot over 2 weeks)
The surge vaccination is to vaccinate the way out of local restrictions quickly.
Then on 4th June you will surely have a ready set of next locations for this.
The plan IS probably something like this, but communication of it is really, really weak. We need central government articulating a plan beyond sit tight and don't go anywhere. Testing is just testing. Sit tight and we'll do everything in our power to suppress these local waves quickly by this and this and this in these areas, would be more like it.
I'm 50, 8 weeks on from 1st vaccination, 3 weeks from 2nd vaccination, not a dicky bird on calling me back in, no indication whatsoever that I'm likely to be called in sooner (going to dial 119. today, as you have to cancel and only then take pot luck that you can rebook sooner online) . Maybe a little straw on the wind for my wife, 5 weeks vaccinated and working on an industrial site near Dewsbury, in that Fox's Biscuits have now been surge vaccinated.
Looking at the graphs it appears to me the difference is case seeding rather than anything to do with particular differences in terms of vaccines.
Remember even if you're at herd immunity and have a transmission of 0.8 that means that 1 case newly introduced to the system will result in 5 new total. We're simply seeing this play out with arrivals from India I think.
The solution is the same as it ever was - keep calm and carry on jabbing. Leicester needs to get a shift on mind.
One question on this - what % of the 'arrivals from India' were people returning home to the UK? I ahve not seen that number.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
Considering holidays were supposed to be illegal, what were they returning from?
It depends when they went. One of our Keralan nurses returned this week to work. It was the first time in a year that she had been to see her ageing parents, and India was neither a travel ban area nor particularly of concern when she went 2 months ago. Not a pleasant trip, and a very expensive one with her in Gatwick hotel room with two pre-schoolers for 10 days at vast expense, compounded by her being on undesired unpaid leave for much of the time.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
Do you think we should have more sympathy for those separated from the loved ones by thousands of miles rather than a few hundred miles?
Equal sympathy really.
She was quite happy to quarantine, indeed had it built into her original leave dates, doesn't complain and is just glad to have the nightmare over.
I think it was her 3 months working on covid ICU that made her so keen to check on her parents.
Interesting, because I'd have thought working on the front line might have made someone less keen to visit their family.
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at that other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
It seems sad to me that Jews feel they have to stay indoors or avoid an area because they cannot feel safe when others are exercising their rights to protest.
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
To be fair, it appears to be the Luton Jewish community who is advising people to stay away.
I wonder what the breaking point will be, when the younger and more... enthusiastic members of the Jewish community turn up at such a demo. Some of them are bitterly angry and think that their communities pacifism and conciliation (in the UK) is leading to them being the ones doing the accommodating.
Some of them are thinking in terms of "Well a bit of violence and some threats gets some people listened to. Perhaps...."
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The report does look at the that. In the flow chart - see below and on page 10 - they work backwards from COVID deaths in care homes, with being part of an outbreak being part of the flow.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
The weakness is that the chain of "Patient discharged to care home - gives Covid to Agency worker - agency worker goes to a different care home and gives it to people there" is outside the scope of the report.
That is a sensible criticism. So we need data on where agency workers picked up the virus.
EDIT - though it would be somewhat surprising for a patient to be discharged to a home, infect a care worker(s) and not infect other residents, surely?
I would be worth looking at a comparison of care homes which didn't receive anyone from hospital vs those that did. What would the outbreak curves look like?
They can do both - it's just that the wider spreading event won't be attributed to them, only the immediate care home effect.
Yes. Am I supposed to be upset that people wish to protest?
I think that is a Star of David with LUS inside it (Luton Something Synagogue?) and the message is that the area will be unsafe for Jews.
Yep, saw that. Does that mean the Muslim Council should abandon their protest?
No, just that the police shouldn't be telling people with certain characteristics to avoid areas due to potential racists.
Imagine the police advising Asians or whoever to avoid an area with an EDL demo or something.
Strictly speaking, the police are not advising, they are informing. It is the Council who are advising in this instance.
Distinction without a difference. Why should the police inform any specific people about a particular demo?
Sounds smart to me. Community relations.
People reading more into this have some weird political point they want to make, which can basically be reduced to “Muslims are bad and the police are letting them”.
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
Yes, that's very well-put.. And as someone who is Jewish but has become increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinians in the light of evolving Israeli policy towards them, I feel slightly affronted by the idea that I might demonstrate about it and someone else might feel fearful as a result. There are plenty of demos where nothing untoward occurs. But I appreciate that whoever put up the notice feels there's a risk, and that fear needs to be addressed.
I'd like to feel there was a dialogue with the protest organisers about making sure it's peaceful and directed at Israeli policy and Palestinian solidarity rather than any kind of anti-semitism. And any breaches of that should be prosecuted.
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
To be fair, it appears to be the Luton Jewish community who is advising people to stay away.
I wonder what the breaking point will be, when the younger and more... enthusiastic members of the Jewish community turn up at such a demo. Some of them are bitterly angry and think that their communities pacifism and conciliation (in the UK) is leading to them being the ones doing the accommodating.
Some of them are thinking in terms of "Well a bit of violence and some threats gets some people listened to. Perhaps...."
Why is the Luton Jewish community doing that, I wonder? Is it perhaps because at previous demos there were instances of grotesque anti-semitism and threats of violence and rape?
And might it be better to stop those rather than expect the possible victims to hide away.
Grrr - Insurers now have to ensure existing customers get same quote as new customers. What happened to searching the market or challenging your existing supplier when they send out your renewal. I have never paid the renewal quote, yet don't often have to move.
Just subsidizing the lazy. Same thing with energy prices. We just need rules to prevent rip offs and exploitation of the vulnerable. The rest of us should be subject to the marketplace.
My favourite is a company called IMSHealth which has an effective monopoly over certain scrips data.
They were convicted of abusing their monopoly position to price gouge.
And then used the fact that they were subject to anti-trust oversight as an argument as to why they couldn’t cut prices…
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The report does look at the that. In the flow chart - see below and on page 10 - they work backwards from COVID deaths in care homes, with being part of an outbreak being part of the flow.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
The weakness is that the chain of "Patient discharged to care home - gives Covid to Agency worker - agency worker goes to a different care home and gives it to people there" is outside the scope of the report.
That is a sensible criticism. So we need data on where agency workers picked up the virus.
EDIT - though it would be somewhat surprising for a patient to be discharged to a home, infect a care worker(s) and not infect other residents, surely?
I would be worth looking at a comparison of care homes which didn't receive anyone from hospital vs those that did. What would the outbreak curves look like?
They can do both - it's just that the wider spreading event won't be attributed to them, only the immediate care home effect.
If I read the report correctly, 2+ infections/deaths of residents then makes an outbreak, which puts the care home in the "outbreak" collection. So infecting the worker on his/her own & infecting other residents would be included.
So the more likely scenario is that an outbreak (2 or more infections) from a returning hospital patient seeds an outbreak at another care home(s) via a worker, who works at both.
Having now read the PHE report, the claim that hospital releases lead to only 286 deaths is a spectacular piece of spin. It would appear that hospital-acquired Covid is both not particularly contagious or deadly.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
Traceable identified releases from hospital lead to 286 deaths.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
The report does look at the that. In the flow chart - see below and on page 10 - they work backwards from COVID deaths in care homes, with being part of an outbreak being part of the flow.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
The weakness is that the chain of "Patient discharged to care home - gives Covid to Agency worker - agency worker goes to a different care home and gives it to people there" is outside the scope of the report.
That is a sensible criticism. So we need data on where agency workers picked up the virus.
EDIT - though it would be somewhat surprising for a patient to be discharged to a home, infect a care worker(s) and not infect other residents, surely?
I would be worth looking at a comparison of care homes which didn't receive anyone from hospital vs those that did. What would the outbreak curves look like?
You can imagine that - if there was a push to discharge if at all possible - some of those discharged would be fairly unwell and maybe in bed (or at least in room) at the care home, so pass it to the carer, but not (directly) to the other residents.
Of course, you'd expect the carer to pass it on to other residents in the same home, but I guess it depends on working patterns - lag to infectiousness, so there's potential to catch it, not spread it in index home, spread it after a few days in another home, realise ill and isolate and never spread it back to the index home.
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
To be fair, it appears to be the Luton Jewish community who is advising people to stay away.
I wonder what the breaking point will be, when the younger and more... enthusiastic members of the Jewish community turn up at such a demo. Some of them are bitterly angry and think that their communities pacifism and conciliation (in the UK) is leading to them being the ones doing the accommodating.
Some of them are thinking in terms of "Well a bit of violence and some threats gets some people listened to. Perhaps...."
Why is the Luton Jewish community doing that, I wonder? Is it perhaps because at previous demos there were instances of grotesque anti-semitism and threats of violence and rape?
And might it be better to stop those rather than expect the possible victims to hide away.
Taking your logic to its absurd end, you would ban all protest in favour of Palestine.
Yes. Am I supposed to be upset that people wish to protest?
I think that is a Star of David with LUS inside it (Luton Something Synagogue?) and the message is that the area will be unsafe for Jews.
Yep, saw that. Does that mean the Muslim Council should abandon their protest?
No, just that the police shouldn't be telling people with certain characteristics to avoid areas due to potential racists.
Imagine the police advising Asians or whoever to avoid an area with an EDL demo or something.
Strictly speaking, the police are not advising, they are informing. It is the Council who are advising in this instance.
Distinction without a difference. Why should the police inform any specific people about a particular demo?
Same reason the police inform my employer when the hard left want to protest in the centre of Manchester. So we can make appropriate preparations.
Apparently some on the hard left hate bankers.
As an aside one of the coppers told us when the EDL and DFA want to protest in Piccadilly Gardens.
Apparently they hate people who look like me.
By "us", do you mean Asians? If so, that's as disgraceful as what's going on in Luton.
Telling businesses about demos in the area I'm happier with. They may want to take precautions. They shouldn't have to mind, and criminal damage should be prosecuted by the police.
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
To be fair, it appears to be the Luton Jewish community who is advising people to stay away.
I wonder what the breaking point will be, when the younger and more... enthusiastic members of the Jewish community turn up at such a demo. Some of them are bitterly angry and think that their communities pacifism and conciliation (in the UK) is leading to them being the ones doing the accommodating.
Some of them are thinking in terms of "Well a bit of violence and some threats gets some people listened to. Perhaps...."
Why is the Luton Jewish community doing that, I wonder? Is it perhaps because at previous demos there were instances of grotesque anti-semitism and threats of violence and rape?
And might it be better to stop those rather than expect the possible victims to hide away.
Taking your logic to its absurd end, you would ban all protest in favour of Palestine.
I don't think Cyclefree is saying that, it is that such behaviour must be duly punished where it breaks the law. Unfortunately, when it comes to demonstrations by certain segments of the community, the Police seem to lack the willingness to carry out the appropriate response. Hence, in a number of cases, those elements feel emboldened to continue their behaviour.
Grrr - Insurers now have to ensure existing customers get same quote as new customers. What happened to searching the market or challenging your existing supplier when they send out your renewal. I have never paid the renewal quote, yet don't often have to move.
Just subsidizing the lazy. Same thing with energy prices. We just need rules to prevent rip offs and exploitation of the vulnerable. The rest of us should be subject to the marketplace.
My favourite is a company called IMSHealth which has an effective monopoly over certain scrips data.
They were convicted of abusing their monopoly position to price gouge.
And then used the fact that they were subject to anti-trust oversight as an argument as to why they couldn’t cut prices…
*That's* the kind of shithead I like. Smart thinking there.
Yes. Am I supposed to be upset that people wish to protest?
I think that is a Star of David with LUS inside it (Luton Something Synagogue?) and the message is that the area will be unsafe for Jews.
Yep, saw that. Does that mean the Muslim Council should abandon their protest?
No, just that the police shouldn't be telling people with certain characteristics to avoid areas due to potential racists.
Imagine the police advising Asians or whoever to avoid an area with an EDL demo or something.
Strictly speaking, the police are not advising, they are informing. It is the Council who are advising in this instance.
Distinction without a difference. Why should the police inform any specific people about a particular demo?
Sounds smart to me. Community relations.
People reading more into this have some weird political point they want to make, which can basically be reduced to “Muslims are bad and the police are letting them”.
It was barely a couple of weeks ago that we had people protesting for Palestine threatening violence and rape on the streets of London in areas where Jewish people lived.
Sure - we can have peaceful demos if the possible targets hide away at home. Just as women would be much less likely to be attacked if they stayed at home and never went out. Surprised you think that's the sort of society we should have.
I'd prefer one where people can protest peacefully and anyone can go and watch or walk about any part of their home town without being told to stay away because they might be the target of abuse or attack.
In Brussels there was shock and anger. In Switzerland, quiet celebration and relief — but, for some, doubts about what exactly comes next.
On Wednesday, Bern announced it was formally withdrawing from negotiations to codify future relations with the EU into a single overarching “framework agreement” — a back-and-forth exchange that has dominated an increasingly fraught relationship with Brussels since 2014.
“You’d never sign a contract like that in business,” said Philip Erzinger, the head of a Kompass Europe, an anti-framework agreement campaign group. “It was one sided. It required us to take on EU law without any mechanism for saying No. It would have been a direct interference in our system of direct democracy and cantons in Switzerland.”
Yet again EU bullying fails to overcome democracy and national sovereignty.
We should certainly help the brave Swiss as much as possible.
The problem with the EU which has become clear since 2016 is they seem to have created a 21st century version of the Monroe doctrine. They clearly see the entire European continent (except Russia) as their sphere of influence and expect all countries within it to follow their values and principles.
Unfortunately, when their values and principles collide with the will of voters in places such as the UK and Switzerland this leads to venom from the Commission and they begin to see strong, respected democracies as a larger threat than regimes such as China.
I don't think it's exactly a Monroe Doctrine. The EU is now more assertive in prioritizing member state interests over those of non-members. Member states are driving this change. It does have implications for the offer the EU makes to non members and whether that is sufficiently attractive to those non members.
There's no political appetite in Switzerland to go beyond the existing bilateral agreements with the EU, which the EU now thinks to be a mistake. The trajectory now, I think, is that the EU will gradually hack away at the bilaterals. This will damage Switzerland as the biggest beneficiary of the Single Market. The Swiss mostly realise this but there's no will to prevent it. I think also it comes up against the Swiss notion of national identity, which is defined by not being Germany, France and Italy. That aloofness served Switzerland well during the conflicts of the twentieth century. It's more problematic in a connected age.
That's a fair summary. I'd add there's discussion in Switzerland (led by industry) of a referendum to test whether the Government's belief that the EU offer is unacceptable is actually the case. The vote was extremely close last time.
Grrr - Insurers now have to ensure existing customers get same quote as new customers. What happened to searching the market or challenging your existing supplier when they send out your renewal. I have never paid the renewal quote, yet don't often have to move.
Just subsidizing the lazy. Same thing with energy prices. We just need rules to prevent rip offs and exploitation of the vulnerable. The rest of us should be subject to the marketplace.
My favourite is a company called IMSHealth which has an effective monopoly over certain scrips data.
They were convicted of abusing their monopoly position to price gouge.
And then used the fact that they were subject to anti-trust oversight as an argument as to why they couldn’t cut prices…
My favourite example of that is HMRC introducing DOTAS notification codes to combat Tax fraud schemes.
Shortly followed by the schemes using the phrase HMRC approved while proudly stating their DOTAS code...
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
To be fair, it appears to be the Luton Jewish community who is advising people to stay away.
I wonder what the breaking point will be, when the younger and more... enthusiastic members of the Jewish community turn up at such a demo. Some of them are bitterly angry and think that their communities pacifism and conciliation (in the UK) is leading to them being the ones doing the accommodating.
Some of them are thinking in terms of "Well a bit of violence and some threats gets some people listened to. Perhaps...."
Why is the Luton Jewish community doing that, I wonder? Is it perhaps because at previous demos there were instances of grotesque anti-semitism and threats of violence and rape?
And might it be better to stop those rather than expect the possible victims to hide away.
Taking your logic to its absurd end, you would ban all protest in favour of Palestine.
I don't think Cyclefree is saying that, it is that such behaviour must be duly punished where it breaks the law. Unfortunately, when it comes to demonstrations by certain segments of the community, the Police seem to lack the willingness to carry out the appropriate response. Hence, in a number of cases, those elements feel emboldened to continue their behaviour.
Until the point where someone decides that the Battle of Cable Street Part Deux is the way to roll.
Comments
I have campaigned on a number of issues where large organisations have exploited people. To name a few: Moving people to rip off energy rates at the end of contracts, exploitation of 0870/0844/0843 telephone numbers, Banks creating new saving accounts with little notice to an identical product and then slashing the current product to a pitiful rate. All have been stopped.
But each one is piecemeal and some have anti competitive consequences and often take years.
In most cases it is a case of if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck and so a generic law should be created and we should get rid of all the add hoc stuff.
I am glad your Aunt got sorted as should be the case.
I heard people complaining when the maximum price for energy got raised and thought just get off your arse then and find a better price. We shouldn't be telling people what price they sell stuff at (PROVIDED WE PROTECT THE VUNLERABLE).
As we see with the misleading 1.6% claim, changing how you define something is a great way of hiding reality.
Was someone who was put temporarily into a care home that was not their normal place of residence classed as a 'resident'? Perhaps if they stayed for a certain amount of time but then if they died they may never appear as a resident.
Given the thoroughly dishonest way PHE have presented data - such as equating those with covid with those actually tested for covid to reduce the apparent numbers - then I am afraid nothing they say can be taken on trust.
My assumption would be somewhere between most and nearly all.
If that hasn't happened then there's a whole can of worms right there.
The index patients seeding pox into care homes from hospitals killed almost no-one. The index patients seeding pox into care homes from not hospitals killed 15k
Methinks some fabulous statistical shenanigans has been applied to reach the pre-set conclusion.
There's no political appetite in Switzerland to go beyond the existing bilateral agreements with the EU, which the EU now thinks to be a mistake. The trajectory now, I think, is that the EU will gradually hack away at the bilaterals. This will damage Switzerland as the biggest beneficiary of the Single Market. The Swiss mostly realise this but there's no will to prevent it. I think also it comes up against the Swiss notion of national identity, which is defined by not being Germany, France and Italy. That aloofness served Switzerland well during the conflicts of the twentieth century. It's more problematic in a connected age.
The reason why it became “ring of steel” lies is the lack of imagination in thinking of out of the box alternatives. Out the hospitals for care, but not into the tinder box care homes.
I don’t want to pre judge the main finding of years of public enquiry, but that will be the main finding - lack of creativity in thinking in planning before hand, and whilst it was going on.
https://twitter.com/bbcradiolincs/status/1398200164511268864?s=21
The stated conclusion was that non-hospital sources of infection (staff, visitors and residents going outside the case homes) was the primary source of infection.
However that never applies to me. As I said that really does irritate me, so it would make me one hell of a hypocrite. No I object to the Govt (or whatever) interfering in the marketplace where I believe it does more harm than good.
As per my last post I believe the protection it brings is piecemeal (a new rule for each case), the new rule takes years to bring in (the saving a'/c rip off and 0844 rip offs took years to get resolved) and invariably they interfere with peoples lives.
The other 15,000 just don't have the paper trail as the all important question has (intentionally) not been asked.
How many people in care homes showed Covid symptoms (and subsequently died) 7-14 days after another resident was released from hospital ?
In theory it should function much better when relatively small numbers of cases, than in an endemic situation, but it all seems to be very quiet on that point.
The sensible thing to do is to look at that flow and see what the weak spots are.
[And then the People's Front for the Consistent Use of S and Z (PFCUSZ) will be out in force.]
Shame that "The Publick" wasn't in there, really.
As THIS IS A BETTING SITE - what price every background is brought together at this peaceful demo?
We see this in polling, where a sample of a low number of thousands can give useful information on the position of the main parties (i.e. Conservative clearly ahead of Labour, even allowing for MOE). Far less useful for the small parties where the MOE is large relative to the estimate and it's hard to tell, for example, whether there are still any Liberal Democrats in England.
(Joking on the LDs, but can you tell who is more popular between LD and Green? Not really on a single poll, although a picture emerges across multiple polls with large combined sample size).
I do expect the BBC death to have an effect, at least locally, on enthusiasm for the AZN vaccine. I don't know anyone affected by AZN blood clots, but I'd likely be more wary if I did (even knowing it made no sense). A relatively large number of people who listened to her show now know (of) someone (who may have been) affected by the AZN blood clot issue. It will colour perceptions of the risks.
I suppose the Tory view would be that she is now incentivised to do a lot of overtime.
EDIT - though it would be somewhat surprising for a patient to be discharged to a home, infect a care worker(s) and not infect other residents, surely?
I would be worth looking at a comparison of care homes which didn't receive anyone from hospital vs those that did. What would the outbreak curves look like?
It's a very different situation from last winter.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/12/how-did-enoch-powell-a-man-with-no-shame-come-to-haunt-our-times
What's yours? The people she could have brought the virus back to infect if she hadn't stayed in quarantine - where's your compassion for them.
Still we can hardly talk - the PM is meeting with Orban today. Will he criticise his anti-semitism? Or is anti-semitism only bad when it is spread by Labour supporters?
Poland should be on special measures.
Realpolitik is fine but ultimately corrodes the principles the ensure EU citizen consent.
I think it’s ok for Johnson to meet Orban (or Putin, or Xi), although I’m not sure what the particular point is.
How many on here used the NHS Covid-19 app?
How many have you been asked to self isolate in the last 3 months?
Does that mean the Muslim Council should abandon their protest?
Imagine the police advising Asians or whoever to avoid an area with an EDL demo or something.
She was quite happy to quarantine, indeed had it built into her original leave dates, doesn't complain and is just glad to have the nightmare over.
I think it was her 3 months working on covid ICU that made her so keen to check on her parents.
Friends came down with it, Got pinged on the app.
There is nothing wrong with people having a protest. But why should Jews be told to stay away from the area? Is the police's concern that they will come under attack - as has happened at that other similar protests? If so, it is not they who should be targeted with restrictions but those whom the police think are a threat.
Anyone can protest freely within the law. And anyone else should be free to go anywhere in their home town not be made to feel that they have to avoid somewhere out of fear. If there is a reason for that fear the police should be stopping those who create that fear.
It seems sad to me that Jews feel they have to stay indoors or avoid an area because they cannot feel safe when others are exercising their rights to protest.
But this weekend I’m experiencing proper freedom.
So was curious to see if I get told to self isolate afterwards by the app.
Didn't ping even when wife tested positive.
I wonder what the breaking point will be, when the younger and more... enthusiastic members of the Jewish community turn up at such a demo. Some of them are bitterly angry and think that their communities pacifism and conciliation (in the UK) is leading to them being the ones doing the accommodating.
Some of them are thinking in terms of "Well a bit of violence and some threats gets some people listened to. Perhaps...."
Community relations.
People reading more into this have some weird political point they want to make, which can basically be reduced to “Muslims are bad and the police are letting them”.
To be honest I probably wont bother.
I'd like to feel there was a dialogue with the protest organisers about making sure it's peaceful and directed at Israeli policy and Palestinian solidarity rather than any kind of anti-semitism. And any breaches of that should be prosecuted.
And might it be better to stop those rather than expect the possible victims to hide away.
They were convicted of abusing their monopoly position to price gouge.
And then used the fact that they were subject to anti-trust oversight as an argument as to why they couldn’t cut prices…
So the more likely scenario is that an outbreak (2 or more infections) from a returning hospital patient seeds an outbreak at another care home(s) via a worker, who works at both.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-57280115
Is it the right to simply walk down a street?
Or your right to get in peoples faces and make them feel uncomfortable and unsafe.
And on this the British government is always going to struggle, partitioning part of another country and claiming it as their own?
Apparently some on the hard left hate bankers.
As an aside one of the coppers told us when the EDL and FLA want to protest in Piccadilly Gardens.
Apparently they hate people who look like me.
Of course, you'd expect the carer to pass it on to other residents in the same home, but I guess it depends on working patterns - lag to infectiousness, so there's potential to catch it, not spread it in index home, spread it after a few days in another home, realise ill and isolate and never spread it back to the index home.
Telling businesses about demos in the area I'm happier with. They may want to take precautions. They shouldn't have to mind, and criminal damage should be prosecuted by the police.
Uncomfortable, sure.
Perhaps the Luton Jewish Council should indeed be made uncomfortable about the Israeli state’s treatment of Palestinians. Perhaps all of us should.
Sure - we can have peaceful demos if the possible targets hide away at home. Just as women would be much less likely to be attacked if they stayed at home and never went out. Surprised you think that's the sort of society we should have.
I'd prefer one where people can protest peacefully and anyone can go and watch or walk about any part of their home town without being told to stay away because they might be the target of abuse or attack.
But each to their own, eh!
Ever since my 2nd jab I've had this strange and powerful urge to put a woolly jumper on and launch some world changing software from my garage.
Shortly followed by the schemes using the phrase HMRC approved while proudly stating their DOTAS code...
Let's see how far this goes: should we go to Chinese restaurants in Soho and berate their owners and workers for what is happening to the Uighurs?