Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Before another bout of hysteria breaks out on here, the question I would ask is does what the Govt decides re 21 June actually matter to 90%+ of people?
The point is that the vast majority of businesses have already reopened and the vast majority of activities are already taking place again.
Sure there are a few things like nightclubs and people getting married wanting a big party but these only affect a small proportion of the population and they generally aren't essential activities.
I don't personally know anybody who is bothered whether 21 June is delayed or not.
Which is why I suspect there won't be any riots or even any movement in the opinion polls if 21 June is delayed - but there will be all kinds of hysteria on here.
Up to a point that's true. Leaving aside foreign holidays, where there's the complicating factor of what's going on in other countries to be considered, the remaining restrictions only ban outright large family occasions and a small number of venues like nightclubs, i.e. most people will indeed be unaffected. Not that this is much comfort to businesses and workers in the wedding and nightlife businesses, but hey-ho, let's just chuck 'em on the bonfire for the sake of "safety," shall we?
None of this doesn't mean that our lives aren't severely mucked about with nonetheless. Limits on all gatherings. Social distancing everywhere. These wretched fucking masks, custom made to leave you gasping for air in a hot building or bus or train in this weather. The hand sanitiser at every doorway. The constant nannying/bullying to comply with rules, all of which are inconvenient and many of which are downright silly.
But above all, the real concern is that this will never end. If the deal was that we were made to wait two weeks, or three weeks, or until the start of the school holidays, but that the promise was that the rules would be binned at the end of that period, then the imminent prospect of can kicking would not be so hard to take. Rather, it's the strong suspicion that there will just be an endless string of excuses for why public health fascism has to drag on and on and on. Not all adults have been vaccinated. Not all adults have been double vaccinated. What about the kids? What about the schools reopening? What about the cold, damp weather come the Autumn? What about the booster shots? What about the flu? On and on and on and on and on and on and on. Always one more excuse.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life being picked on and harassed and bossed about and told to "Stay safe," FFS. This, to me, doesn't seem like an especially controversial stance. After all, who really enjoys living like this, apart from the people who get a hardon from inflicting this misery on others?
Ultimately, the question is whether measures now are proportionate to the threat.
If the answer is no, then such intrusive measures must be discarded without delay, given there is significant harm from them.
The presumption is no measures. It's measures that need very good justification, and if there's doubt over it, you go with none or less.
I'd say that the current position is the exact reverse of this. It would seem that we are stuck with the measures until it is conclusively proven that it is safe, from the point of view of disease suppression, to do without them (other healthcare harms appear to take a back seat; the needs of the economy and civil liberties are treated as an irrelevance.)
In order to keep the rules going, all that the catastrophist scientists therefore have to do is custom pick their favoured piece of evidence, augment it with made-up computer models and other wholly theoretical possibilities such as total vaccine escape by a future variant, and then scream repeatedly that all of this implies a mountain of corpses if they don't get their way.
The zero covidians and antivaxxers are each others useful idiots this pandemic.
Before another bout of hysteria breaks out on here, the question I would ask is does what the Govt decides re 21 June actually matter to 90%+ of people?
The point is that the vast majority of businesses have already reopened and the vast majority of activities are already taking place again.
Sure there are a few things like nightclubs and people getting married wanting a big party but these only affect a small proportion of the population and they generally aren't essential activities.
I don't personally know anybody who is bothered whether 21 June is delayed or not.
Which is why I suspect there won't be any riots or even any movement in the opinion polls if 21 June is delayed - but there will be all kinds of hysteria on here.
Up to a point that's true. Leaving aside foreign holidays, where there's the complicating factor of what's going on in other countries to be considered, the remaining restrictions only ban outright large family occasions and a small number of venues like nightclubs, i.e. most people will indeed be unaffected. Not that this is much comfort to businesses and workers in the wedding and nightlife businesses, but hey-ho, let's just chuck 'em on the bonfire for the sake of "safety," shall we?
None of this doesn't mean that our lives aren't severely mucked about with nonetheless. Limits on all gatherings. Social distancing everywhere. These wretched fucking masks, custom made to leave you gasping for air in a hot building or bus or train in this weather. The hand sanitiser at every doorway. The constant nannying/bullying to comply with rules, all of which are inconvenient and many of which are downright silly.
But above all, the real concern is that this will never end. If the deal was that we were made to wait two weeks, or three weeks, or until the start of the school holidays, but that the promise was that the rules would be binned at the end of that period, then the imminent prospect of can kicking would not be so hard to take. Rather, it's the strong suspicion that there will just be an endless string of excuses for why public health fascism has to drag on and on and on. Not all adults have been vaccinated. Not all adults have been double vaccinated. What about the kids? What about the schools reopening? What about the cold, damp weather come the Autumn? What about the booster shots? What about the flu? On and on and on and on and on and on and on. Always one more excuse.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life being picked on and harassed and bossed about and told to "Stay safe," FFS. This, to me, doesn't seem like an especially controversial stance. After all, who really enjoys living like this, apart from the people who get a hardon from inflicting this misery on others?
Thanks - I think that's an entirely reasonable post.
As for the whole thing going on for ever, I don't think it will, irrespective of what happens on 21 June. Because the number vaccinated within another few weeks will be such that there just won't be anything to debate.
In the meantime, I understand your frustration. But I maintain my original point - if the whole thing lasts 65 weeks or 68 weeks or 71 weeks really is pretty trivial in the overall scheme of things.
I'm sure my circle of friends may not be typical - but as I said before I genuinely don't know a single person remotely bothered about 21 June.
I read PB every day and my sense is that the people most vociferous about this whole issue are those whose passion about the subject comes from what they see as a point of principle, rather than from the practicalities.
And it's not surprising to see many such people on a political forum.
We already have people saying we need to wait until kids are vaccinated, by which time there will be trials of the next age group of kids under 12 creating another batch of potential vaccinations to wait for, along with boosters (for everyone? another 6 months?), and the dangers of seasonal NHS capacity in the winter.
We are diverging significantly on policy from the rest of the western world taking a far more cautious approach. If we stop re-opening because of a potential risk rather than a clear and present risk, it is hard to see how we will escape any time soon, as potential risks are easy to find.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Good luck with that. I gave up on the idea of travelling anywhere in light of all this stuff.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Are you vaccinated out of interest ? Downloading the NHS app to show your status - it can also show -ve tests I think might be helpful.
Sounds very annoying for anyone who might have to go somewhere on business like it sounds you do.
Reading through the comments at lunchtime the PB Covid experts were saying 'theres no collective threat from covid. Ease the restrictions now!'
Reading it again now the experts are saying "shit the R number of the delta variant is 6. get the jabs done now at any cost!'
There's a little bit of that going on. Personally, I don't care what the R number of Delta is meant to be. It's irrelevant. The very high levels of immunisation already achieved, the likely level of coverage by the time the programme is finished (only 6% of adults are refuseniks, according to the most recent ONS figures,) the observations from Bolton and Bedford, and the plain fact that Delta has been with us for at least two months without causing a tsunami wave of death already, all suggest that this variant is not the danger that the catastrophist wing of the scientific establishment are trying to portray it as.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Before another bout of hysteria breaks out on here, the question I would ask is does what the Govt decides re 21 June actually matter to 90%+ of people?
The point is that the vast majority of businesses have already reopened and the vast majority of activities are already taking place again.
Sure there are a few things like nightclubs and people getting married wanting a big party but these only affect a small proportion of the population and they generally aren't essential activities.
I don't personally know anybody who is bothered whether 21 June is delayed or not.
Which is why I suspect there won't be any riots or even any movement in the opinion polls if 21 June is delayed - but there will be all kinds of hysteria on here.
Gotta dash but re @contrarian I'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
We don't have any choice. We are in a plague. It's like fighting a terrible world war, and we were losing, until the vaccines arrived
High-minded refusals of the vax programme are like conscientious objection in that same terrible war. If everyone does it, we are all fucked
Stop the selfish posing, get jabbed, enough. Otherwise we won't help you if you fall ill. You die alone
I'm sure he would have no problem with that.
Conscientious objectors? No problem with that, either; it's why the rest of them are fighting the war.
Why on earth would I do anything a government that I abhor like no other has recommended. Anything I do not have to do?
Hopefully because you think for yourself enough not to be entirely self-defined as the negative of the Govt you say you hate!
I think that the biggest problem for the current Opposition is that they have become self-defined as "not the evil Tories".
When they have something to say for themselves, rather than Angela Hoof-in-Mouth tweeting "Boris is a lying sleazy Tory because " (repeat 28 times) turns out to be a totally untrue claim repeated from some Twitter-twat or trolling journo - then I might give them a hearing.
Perhaps they do have something to say for themselves, but it is drowned out by the shrieking.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
Well, talking about antibodies and efficacy, here's a crude calculation that upset people before.
So, we have 80.3% of the adults with antibodies. That leaves 15 million or so below 18. Assume that 15% of them have had the bug (for the sake of the number. That gives you 65% of the total population with antibodies.
Down the left side we have possible R numbers for COVID, without any protection. The second row from the top is the efficacy of those antiibodies in preventing spread.
Assuming that we can just multiply the numbers together is probably crude, but an interesting guesstimate.
If I am reading your table correctly, and the Delta variant has an R0 of about 4, and our population is 65% protected, then the variant should be spreading about as fast as the original SARS-CoV-2 virus (Wuhan strain) before any vaccination or naturally acquired immunity (but, of course, in a much less vulnerable population). Is that right?
Wasn't original COVID 3.5 or so?
Mrs ZOE says Indian variant is 6.
Original COVID was 2.6
Mr ZOE says 4 in his video i.e. Indian variant is 50% more.
R6 is frankly terrifying. it suggests the Indian variant will rip through every unvaccinated or partly vaccinated country, in the end. America, Europe, Asia, Africa
The one thing that is very very odd about this variant is that it, thus far anyway, does not seem to be taking off in the same way in any other of the places it has been found like India and parts of the States.
Yes, this mystifies me. My guess is that (thanks to Boris' superb stupidity in keeping the border open) the Indian variant was more widely seeded here than elsewhere, so we are just further down the line, and we will soon see a surge in other countries with limited vaccination or great vax hesitancy
Also, it IS making sad progress in countries like Malaysia (which has a very large Indian population). They are in the middle of a savage new exponential wave
Indeed but we are not the only country in Europe with a significant Indian diaspora and I really have seen no evidence that they were quicker than us in stopping flights.
People completely underestimate the importance of luck in this whole Covid thing.
We probably just had a couple of areas with high Indian populations get seeded with quite a lot of cases. If Bedford was seeded with 20 people from India, and Berlin with 2, then we're going to see it rip through Bedford a lot quicker than it might through Berlin.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Looking at the rapid rise in cases... I'm wondering if govt might have to reintroduce some restrictions for a period. We just need to buy a bit more time until the vaccinations have kicked in.
For what purpose? To stop case numbers rising? We could stop case numbers rising by reducing testing with the same effect. What matters is hospitals and, as Chris Hobson pointed out, the profile and nature of people attending hospitals.
To reduce hospitalizations. I think they will grow over the next few weeks. If they don't - then I guess we are fine.
Growing is fine, so long as the number of people in hospital grows at only a modest rate.
10% week over week is an irrelevancy: it means it takes three months to quadruple the number of people in hospital and by that point everyone is double jabbed anyway.
Even 20% is quite manageable.
But you don't want to be at 30 or 40% a week.
Well said - and the virus is rapidly running out of people to infect. We're already at 80% of adults with antibodies and millions more vaccinated per week. The virus is going to burn out and hit a herd immunity wall very rapidly.
That's how it feels to me too, although this virus does keep surprising us. This is surely like that final jump scare scene in all good horror movies when the evil thing you thought was dead comes back for one final lunge before getting the wooden stake in the heart.
A curve like India has seen, on a per capita basis but with the benefits of vaccination, would see us with a month or two of exponential growth, flattening then sharp decline and possibly a max daily count of 30-40k but limited rises in deaths and the NHS never close to overwhelmed.
The Indian variant reminds of the V2 campaign near the end of World War 2.
Just as we thought we had Hitler beaten, he launched this super-weapon.
If he'd had this technology 2-3 years earlier, he might easily have won the war, especially if you add nukes. However it came too late, the Allies were overrunning occupied Europe and Hitler ran out of time, slaves. space, materials
The allies are the vaccines, overwhelming the virus, even as it shows this sting in the tail. We hope
2-3 years maybe. But on the whole - not really.
V2 was an astonishingly inefficient way of killing people.
The programme was a load on the German economy roughly equivalent to the Manhattan project on the allied ones. IMO an excellent example of the successful allied policy of not assassinating Hitler because Germany would be more damaged were he to stay alive.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Good luck with that. I gave up on the idea of travelling anywhere in light of all this stuff.
I hear from someone in a position to know that the whole tests regime was designed to nudge people to do exactly that.
Looking at the rapid rise in cases... I'm wondering if govt might have to reintroduce some restrictions for a period. We just need to buy a bit more time until the vaccinations have kicked in.
For what purpose? To stop case numbers rising? We could stop case numbers rising by reducing testing with the same effect. What matters is hospitals and, as Chris Hobson pointed out, the profile and nature of people attending hospitals.
To reduce hospitalizations. I think they will grow over the next few weeks. If they don't - then I guess we are fine.
Growing is fine, so long as the number of people in hospital grows at only a modest rate.
10% week over week is an irrelevancy: it means it takes three months to quadruple the number of people in hospital and by that point everyone is double jabbed anyway.
Even 20% is quite manageable.
But you don't want to be at 30 or 40% a week.
Well said - and the virus is rapidly running out of people to infect. We're already at 80% of adults with antibodies and millions more vaccinated per week. The virus is going to burn out and hit a herd immunity wall very rapidly.
That's how it feels to me too, although this virus does keep surprising us. This is surely like that final jump scare scene in all good horror movies when the evil thing you thought was dead comes back for one final lunge before getting the wooden stake in the heart.
A curve like India has seen, on a per capita basis but with the benefits of vaccination, would see us with a month or two of exponential growth, flattening then sharp decline and possibly a max daily count of 30-40k but limited rises in deaths and the NHS never close to overwhelmed.
The Indian variant reminds of the V2 campaign near the end of World War 2.
Just as we thought we had Hitler beaten, he launched this super-weapon.
If he'd had this technology 2-3 years earlier, he might easily have won the war, especially if you add nukes. However it came too late, the Allies were overrunning occupied Europe and Hitler ran out of time, slaves. space, materials
The allies are the vaccines, overwhelming the virus, even as it shows this sting in the tail. We hope
2-3 years maybe. But on the whole - not really.
V2 was an astonishingly inefficient way of killing people.
The programme was a load on the German economy roughly equivalent to the Manhattan project on the allied ones. IMO an excellent example of the successful allied policy of not assassinating Hitler because Germany would be more damaged were he to stay alive.
Yes - the V2 was an extremely successful way of destroying German resources faster than Allied resources.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Are you vaccinated out of interest ? Downloading the NHS app to show your status - it can also show -ve tests I think might be helpful.
Sounds very annoying for anyone who might have to go somewhere on business like it sounds you do.
Whether you are vaccinated is irrelevant under the rules. Both from Portugal and UK perspectives.
I agree that people should be allowed to not have the vaccine. I know a few, one who is pregnant, another who was a big Jeremy Corbyn supporter. They all have their own reasons and should definetely not be forced in to taking the vaccine. The vaccines were obviously rushed through much faster than would have normally been the case. There are known side effects that have led to people dying and we have no idea what the long term side effects might be. Relatives of the dead have been wheeled out on TV in a state of grief and derangement telling people on the basis of no authority whatsoever that people should not be deterred from having the vacinne by what has happened to their loved one. It would be very easy to conclude from this that we are in a state of mass psychosis, and this seems to be borne out by the general discussion going on. It may be a rational move to just step back from the situation and try and opt out of what is going on, which is what these anti vaxxers (and contrarian) might be thinking they are doing.
Personally I took the vaccine, but have no idea whether or not it was the right thing to do. I'm just hoping for the best. I'm pretty overweight, so maybe I am more at risk from Covid than other people.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Are you vaccinated out of interest ? Downloading the NHS app to show your status - it can also show -ve tests I think might be helpful.
Sounds very annoying for anyone who might have to go somewhere on business like it sounds you do.
Double jabbed several weeks ago. I'm pretty happy to travel. Not business but very sad (not for me) circumstances where I am providing support.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Re: " I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! "
I don't think this is correct. It is a requirement to book the Day 2 and Day 8 (and Day 5 if you plan to escape quarantine early) before you return to the UK not before you depart from UK. And the UK Passenger Location Form cannot be completed outside of 48 hours of your date of return. All you need is a negative test result (PCR) within 72 hours of the time of your UK flight and a Portugal Passenger Locator Form (to satisfy Portuguese rules).
Before another bout of hysteria breaks out on here, the question I would ask is does what the Govt decides re 21 June actually matter to 90%+ of people?
The point is that the vast majority of businesses have already reopened and the vast majority of activities are already taking place again.
Sure there are a few things like nightclubs and people getting married wanting a big party but these only affect a small proportion of the population and they generally aren't essential activities.
I don't personally know anybody who is bothered whether 21 June is delayed or not.
Which is why I suspect there won't be any riots or even any movement in the opinion polls if 21 June is delayed - but there will be all kinds of hysteria on here.
Before another bout of hysteria breaks out on here, the question I would ask is does what the Govt decides re 21 June actually matter to 90%+ of people?
The point is that the vast majority of businesses have already reopened and the vast majority of activities are already taking place again.
Sure there are a few things like nightclubs and people getting married wanting a big party but these only affect a small proportion of the population and they generally aren't essential activities.
I don't personally know anybody who is bothered whether 21 June is delayed or not.
Which is why I suspect there won't be any riots or even any movement in the opinion polls if 21 June is delayed - but there will be all kinds of hysteria on here.
Up to a point that's true. Leaving aside foreign holidays, where there's the complicating factor of what's going on in other countries to be considered, the remaining restrictions only ban outright large family occasions and a small number of venues like nightclubs, i.e. most people will indeed be unaffected. Not that this is much comfort to businesses and workers in the wedding and nightlife businesses, but hey-ho, let's just chuck 'em on the bonfire for the sake of "safety," shall we?
None of this doesn't mean that our lives aren't severely mucked about with nonetheless. Limits on all gatherings. Social distancing everywhere. These wretched fucking masks, custom made to leave you gasping for air in a hot building or bus or train in this weather. The hand sanitiser at every doorway. The constant nannying/bullying to comply with rules, all of which are inconvenient and many of which are downright silly.
But above all, the real concern is that this will never end. If the deal was that we were made to wait two weeks, or three weeks, or until the start of the school holidays, but that the promise was that the rules would be binned at the end of that period, then the imminent prospect of can kicking would not be so hard to take. Rather, it's the strong suspicion that there will just be an endless string of excuses for why public health fascism has to drag on and on and on. Not all adults have been vaccinated. Not all adults have been double vaccinated. What about the kids? What about the schools reopening? What about the cold, damp weather come the Autumn? What about the booster shots? What about the flu? On and on and on and on and on and on and on. Always one more excuse.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life being picked on and harassed and bossed about and told to "Stay safe," FFS. This, to me, doesn't seem like an especially controversial stance. After all, who really enjoys living like this, apart from the people who get a hardon from inflicting this misery on others?
Ultimately, the question is whether measures now are proportionate to the threat.
If the answer is no, then such intrusive measures must be discarded without delay, given there is significant harm from them.
The presumption is no measures. It's measures that need very good justification, and if there's doubt over it, you go with none or less.
I'd say that the current position is the exact reverse of this. It would seem that we are stuck with the measures until it is conclusively proven that it is safe, from the point of view of disease suppression, to do without them (other healthcare harms appear to take a back seat; the needs of the economy and civil liberties are treated as an irrelevance.)
In order to keep the rules going, all that the catastrophist scientists therefore have to do is custom pick their favoured piece of evidence, augment it with made-up computer models and other wholly theoretical possibilities such as total vaccine escape by a future variant, and then scream repeatedly that all of this implies a mountain of corpses if they don't get their way.
My position was a 'should be' presumption is no measures, unless justified, not thta that is what the situation is.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Good luck with that. I gave up on the idea of travelling anywhere in light of all this stuff.
Thank you. Yep pretty frustrating to be told you must do (a) if you want to travel so the testers set up procedures for (a) and you can't get past those fields on the online forms as a consequence and then the Govt tells you that you must not do (a) in certain circumstances. For most people this isn't going to apply though.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Good luck with that. I gave up on the idea of travelling anywhere in light of all this stuff.
I hear from someone in a position to know that the whole tests regime was designed to nudge people to do exactly that.
Fingerprints of Hancock and Patel all over it.
Might not be such a bad move. Go somewhere if you really need to (like kjh), otherwise Hartlepool Marina Travelodge has a lot of room.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to do that.
If your criterion for keeping restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
9/ Sefcovic suggested the UK was at a crossroads: it could work constructively with the EU to find solutions, avoid any more unilateral actions, or it could continue on a confrontational path, at which point the EU wd have no choice but to consider arbitration / cross retaliation...
10/ Frost shot back that during the entire Brexit process the EU had made threats against the UK and that the UK had not given in to them, and wouldn’t start now
He has done this on other topics before - he just enjoys poking everyone and getting a response - by being ... contrary.....
Just stop feeding the troll
To be honest, I quite like it.
I think it's a good thing, a healthy thing, for arguments to be tested from every angle - even if they're a bit nuts.
This site is very good for arguments you hadn’t thought of, and correcting factual errors, in a mostly polite manner. People knowledgeable in pretty much any subject too.
He has done this on other topics before - he just enjoys poking everyone and getting a response - by being ... contrary.....
Just stop feeding the troll
To be honest, I quite like it.
I think it's a good thing, a healthy thing, for arguments to be tested from every angle - even if they're a bit nuts.
John Stuart Mill was right in 'on liberty'. Perhaps if we went back to free speech - which no longer exists in my view - then we would have a better understanding of many issues. It is what the woke are terrified of.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
Looking at the rapid rise in cases... I'm wondering if govt might have to reintroduce some restrictions for a period. We just need to buy a bit more time until the vaccinations have kicked in.
For what purpose? To stop case numbers rising? We could stop case numbers rising by reducing testing with the same effect. What matters is hospitals and, as Chris Hobson pointed out, the profile and nature of people attending hospitals.
To reduce hospitalizations. I think they will grow over the next few weeks. If they don't - then I guess we are fine.
Growing is fine, so long as the number of people in hospital grows at only a modest rate.
10% week over week is an irrelevancy: it means it takes three months to quadruple the number of people in hospital and by that point everyone is double jabbed anyway.
Even 20% is quite manageable.
But you don't want to be at 30 or 40% a week.
Well said - and the virus is rapidly running out of people to infect. We're already at 80% of adults with antibodies and millions more vaccinated per week. The virus is going to burn out and hit a herd immunity wall very rapidly.
That's how it feels to me too, although this virus does keep surprising us. This is surely like that final jump scare scene in all good horror movies when the evil thing you thought was dead comes back for one final lunge before getting the wooden stake in the heart.
A curve like India has seen, on a per capita basis but with the benefits of vaccination, would see us with a month or two of exponential growth, flattening then sharp decline and possibly a max daily count of 30-40k but limited rises in deaths and the NHS never close to overwhelmed.
The Indian variant reminds of the V2 campaign near the end of World War 2.
Just as we thought we had Hitler beaten, he launched this super-weapon.
If he'd had this technology 2-3 years earlier, he might easily have won the war, especially if you add nukes. However it came too late, the Allies were overrunning occupied Europe and Hitler ran out of time, slaves. space, materials
The allies are the vaccines, overwhelming the virus, even as it shows this sting in the tail. We hope
2-3 years maybe. But on the whole - not really.
V2 was an astonishingly inefficient way of killing people.
The programme was a load on the German economy roughly equivalent to the Manhattan project on the allied ones. IMO an excellent example of the successful allied policy of not assassinating Hitler because Germany would be more damaged were he to stay alive.
Firstly as a weapon of terrorising, it was pretty effective?
Secondly, what an amazing counterfactual, allied assassination of Hitler late 43 into 44? What would have happened?
If the generals had taken over they may have sued for peace?
If the cabinet remained in charge, Gerbils? And business as usual?
9/ Sefcovic suggested the UK was at a crossroads: it could work constructively with the EU to find solutions, avoid any more unilateral actions, or it could continue on a confrontational path, at which point the EU wd have no choice but to consider arbitration / cross retaliation...
10/ Frost shot back that during the entire Brexit process the EU had made threats against the UK and that the UK had not given in to them, and wouldn’t start now
Frost is posing a bit, but he's not wrong about the threats part - at the least the EU leaders and negotiators have been perfectly content to ratchet up the language and accusations, and leak insults into the press, whilst still trying to claim moral high ground.
That doesn't mean May or Boris or their governments have been above board the whole time, they haven't, but we all know comments from leaders and negotiators on any side is a bunch of old wank, and are worth precisely nothing as all it is is posturing and insults whilst claiming one's shit doesn't stink.
Not sure if that counts as a mixed metaphor, as I've lost my edge.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
I took the vaccine - didn't even think twice - because the risks involved seemed tiny to me whereas the risks from Covid were greater than tiny.
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
That’s as absurd as someone arguing that a cancer-sufferer who has gone through chemotherapy was obviously not considering the effects of being poisoned by the chemo and therefore are hypocrites if they want to avoid being poisoned after the cancer has cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally. And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
I took the vaccine - didn't even think twice - because the risks involved seemed tiny to me whereas the risks from Covid were greater than tiny.
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
I took the vaccine - didn't even think twice - because the risks involved seemed tiny to me whereas the risks from Covid were greater than tiny.
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Is that reasonable?
Not at all.
You think I should insist that they are vaccinated? I'm genuinely unsure. This is not an MMR jab situation.
Seattle Times ($) Editorial - A high-profile COVID-19 cautionary tale: Golfer Jon Rahm
Professional golfer Jon Rahm nearly fell to his knees on Saturday after learning that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw from the Memorial Tournament in Ohio. In that moment of anguish, did he give any thought to everyone else affected by his decision not to vaccinate weeks ago?
Rahm had just finished the third round (of four) at the PGA event when officials delivered the bad news next to the 18th green. He held a six-stroke lead, and in golf, that’s nearly insurmountable. Had he won, the first-place prize was $1.67 million. Second place was worth $1 million.
But don’t cry for Rahm, a Spaniard who is No. 3 in the world rankings. He’s won nearly $4 million already this season. His family, which now lives in Arizona, won’t go hungry. He also has lucrative sponsorships, though presumably not from Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson and Johnson.
Rahm could have gotten a vaccine shot in Arizona in March, and the tour has provided access. He could have been fully vaccinated by the Memorial Tournament. If he had been, he wouldn’t have been in the contact-tracing protocol, and given the documented effectiveness of the vaccines, he probably wouldn’t have contracted the virus.
But he wasn’t. Instead, he exposed other golfers and caddies to the virus. Some of them also have chosen not to be vaccinated. He also potentially exposed uncounted tournament staff, officials, journalists and fans. No major sporting event occurs without dozens, even hundreds of people working just off camera. Many of those people are at greater risk of bad COVID-19 outcomes than a 26-year-old athlete.
Whether to vaccinate is a personal choice, as vaccine-reluctant Americans are quick to remind everyone. But that choice has consequences. If one chooses not to vaccinate, one must own the deleterious outcomes. Rahm lost a lot of money, but his real impact might only unfold over weeks.
He has given the PGA Tour new cause to think about its vaccine protocols, and it should put a vaccine mandate for players and caddies on the table. Fans might reconsider whether sporting events have truly become safe enough to attend. And if someone exposed to Rahm winds up sick, in the hospital or worse, it could weigh heavily on his conscience.
Ironically, the Memorial Tournament was the first PGA Tour event to feature a vaccine pop-up tent. It was set up in coordination with OhioHealth and offered any fan a free one-shot vaccine. Few people took advantage of it.
It might feel like America is moving into a post-pandemic reality, but COVID-19 is pernicious and still out there. As lockdowns and mask-mandates ease, risk remains, especially for anyone who makes the personal — and foolish — choice not to vaccinate.
It was not just Rahm who lost money. The big bookies paid Rahm backers as if he'd won but Betfair in-running players who'd backed Rahm as low as 1.1 did their conkers.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Sympathies - I know you said it was for a sad personal reason, so all the more frustrating. Good luck for no further hassle.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
That’s as absurd as someone arguing that a cancer-sufferer who has gone through chemotherapy was obviously not considering the effects of being poisoned by the chemo and therefore are hypocrites if they want to avoid being poisoned after the cancer has cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally. And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
Hmm a bit dramatic is the CFR of cancer higher or lower than that of Covid.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Re: " I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! "
I don't think this is correct. It is a requirement to book the Day 2 and Day 8 (and Day 5 if you plan to escape quarantine early) before you return to the UK not before you depart from UK. And the UK Passenger Location Form cannot be completed outside of 48 hours of your date of return. All you need is a negative test result (PCR) within 72 hours of the time of your UK flight and a Portugal Passenger Locator Form (to satisfy Portuguese rules).
Yep that is absolutely true.
But if you read the Govt information page it is quite clear that you MUST have both booked and paid for a 2&8 day test before you leave the UK and you have to be able to prove this (so we were not willing to take the risk) which contradicts what you have said and what the F&C Office told me. All the testers (bar one fortunately) required your return details (which neither of us have) which would be consistent with what you have said. The UK Passenger Location Form I understand requires this also (Again consistent). But to be on the safe side we have both booked those tests even though we don't know when we will return and are crossing our fingers that it will still be valid when I get to book my flight home and fill in the Passenger Location Form. Neither of us were willing to take the risk of not being able to board the flight so each splashed the £80.
Calls to the testing companies was also not fruitful.
I agree that people should be allowed to not have the vaccine. I know a few, one who is pregnant, another who was a big Jeremy Corbyn supporter. They all have their own reasons and should definetely not be forced in to taking the vaccine. The vaccines were obviously rushed through much faster than would have normally been the case. There are known side effects that have led to people dying and we have no idea what the long term side effects might be. Relatives of the dead have been wheeled out on TV in a state of grief and derangement telling people on the basis of no authority whatsoever that people should not be deterred from having the vacinne by what has happened to their loved one. It would be very easy to conclude from this that we are in a state of mass psychosis, and this seems to be borne out by the general discussion going on. It may be a rational move to just step back from the situation and try and opt out of what is going on, which is what these anti vaxxers (and contrarian) might be thinking they are doing.
Personally I took the vaccine, but have no idea whether or not it was the right thing to do. I'm just hoping for the best. I'm pretty overweight, so maybe I am more at risk from Covid than other people.
Oh definitely no one should be forced to take the vaccine, just as no one should be forced not to smoke, drink excessively or be a perfect BMI.
But equally the vast majority of us that have had the vaccine shouldn't be kept in lockdown for perpetuity to protect this that won't get the vax from getting the virus...
Well, talking about antibodies and efficacy, here's a crude calculation that upset people before.
So, we have 80.3% of the adults with antibodies. That leaves 15 million or so below 18. Assume that 15% of them have had the bug (for the sake of the number. That gives you 65% of the total population with antibodies.
Down the left side we have possible R numbers for COVID, without any protection. The second row from the top is the efficacy of those antiibodies in preventing spread.
Assuming that we can just multiply the numbers together is probably crude, but an interesting guesstimate.
If I am reading your table correctly, and the Delta variant has an R0 of about 4, and our population is 65% protected, then the variant should be spreading about as fast as the original SARS-CoV-2 virus (Wuhan strain) before any vaccination or naturally acquired immunity (but, of course, in a much less vulnerable population). Is that right?
Wasn't original COVID 3.5 or so?
Mrs ZOE says Indian variant is 6.
Original COVID was 2.6
Mr ZOE says 4 in his video i.e. Indian variant is 50% more.
I thought Indian variant was 40% more than Kent which was 70% more than Wuhan, or so.
I presume this is a purely a function of the length of the asymptomatic period?
Before another bout of hysteria breaks out on here, the question I would ask is does what the Govt decides re 21 June actually matter to 90%+ of people?
The point is that the vast majority of businesses have already reopened and the vast majority of activities are already taking place again.
Sure there are a few things like nightclubs and people getting married wanting a big party but these only affect a small proportion of the population and they generally aren't essential activities.
I don't personally know anybody who is bothered whether 21 June is delayed or not.
Which is why I suspect there won't be any riots or even any movement in the opinion polls if 21 June is delayed - but there will be all kinds of hysteria on here.
Being able to work in the office is a big one...
You already can if you’re employer allows it. Colleagues of mine have been in the office on the basis that they don’t have space to work from home.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
That’s as absurd as someone arguing that a cancer-sufferer who has gone through chemotherapy was obviously not considering the effects of being poisoned by the chemo and therefore are hypocrites if they want to avoid being poisoned after the cancer has cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally. And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
Hmm a bit dramatic is the CFR of cancer higher or lower than that of Covid.
It’s the principle, isn’t it? So either the stance is valid regardless, or it is variable depending on the harm incurred.
If the former, what has the cancer IFR got to do with it? If the latter, then it is indeed not an absolute and other people who hold similar views on freedom are simply disagreeing with you as to the relative levels of harm.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
I took the vaccine - didn't even think twice - because the risks involved seemed tiny to me whereas the risks from Covid were greater than tiny.
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Is that reasonable?
Not at all.
You think I should insist that they are vaccinated? I'm genuinely unsure. This is not an MMR jab situation.
(edit: just seen your edit!)
Ha yes! Soz jumped in too soon. No it must be a very difficult decision.
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
I have to say that it feels like the U.K. has decent leverage here.
(1) Tony Connelly is excellent and genuinely neutral (2) Usual state of affairs is that the EU beats its chest the loudest just before it makes a concession
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
That’s as absurd as someone arguing that a cancer-sufferer who has gone through chemotherapy was obviously not considering the effects of being poisoned by the chemo and therefore are hypocrites if they want to avoid being poisoned after the cancer has cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally. And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
No lockdown is an extreme solution to a non-extreme problem.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
I took the vaccine - didn't even think twice - because the risks involved seemed tiny to me whereas the risks from Covid were greater than tiny.
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Is that reasonable?
I think so. My eldest at 21 was bed ridden for 48 hours off both jabs. They are a carer for my mother. Not sure they'd have been that bad had they caught it naturally. My youngest, at 17, is going through an outbreak at their Sixth Form. Many of his friends have had it. None have been flattened for 2 days. He has come to the conclusion it wouldn't be worth it. As you say it is risk/reward.
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
Not sure what that has got to do with black lives matter mate
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
Since it is nearly impossible to eliminate, presumably he is only interested in focusing on those who can be saved. Bit calvinist for my liking.
I have to say that it feels like the U.K. has decent leverage here.
(1) Tony Connelly is excellent and genuinely neutral (2) Usual state of affairs is that the EU beats its chest the loudest just before it makes a concession
It was a good read and a total contrast to what radio 2 news said at the same time. Trade war looms !!
9/ Sefcovic suggested the UK was at a crossroads: it could work constructively with the EU to find solutions, avoid any more unilateral actions, or it could continue on a confrontational path, at which point the EU wd have no choice but to consider arbitration / cross retaliation...
10/ Frost shot back that during the entire Brexit process the EU had made threats against the UK and that the UK had not given in to them, and wouldn’t start now
Frost is posing a bit, but he's not wrong about the threats part - at the least the EU leaders and negotiators have been perfectly content to ratchet up the language and accusations, and leak insults into the press, whilst still trying to claim moral high ground.
That doesn't mean May or Boris or their governments have been above board the whole time, they haven't, but we all know comments from leaders and negotiators on any side is a bunch of old wank, and are worth precisely nothing as all it is is posturing and insults whilst claiming one's shit doesn't stink.
Not sure if that counts as a mixed metaphor, as I've lost my edge.
I think the EU are full of shit, and wouldn't say boo to a goose.
Well, talking about antibodies and efficacy, here's a crude calculation that upset people before.
So, we have 80.3% of the adults with antibodies. That leaves 15 million or so below 18. Assume that 15% of them have had the bug (for the sake of the number. That gives you 65% of the total population with antibodies.
Down the left side we have possible R numbers for COVID, without any protection. The second row from the top is the efficacy of those antiibodies in preventing spread.
Assuming that we can just multiply the numbers together is probably crude, but an interesting guesstimate.
If I am reading your table correctly, and the Delta variant has an R0 of about 4, and our population is 65% protected, then the variant should be spreading about as fast as the original SARS-CoV-2 virus (Wuhan strain) before any vaccination or naturally acquired immunity (but, of course, in a much less vulnerable population). Is that right?
Wasn't original COVID 3.5 or so?
Mrs ZOE says Indian variant is 6.
Original COVID was 2.6
Mr ZOE says 4 in his video i.e. Indian variant is 50% more.
I thought Indian variant was 40% more than Kent which was 70% more than Wuhan, or so.
I presume this is a purely a function of the length of the asymptomatic period?
Actually that impacts the effectiveness of non-medical measures at infection control, but not R0. Tons of other factors go into R0. For example - infectious dose, duration of infectiousness, viral loads, portal of exit, mode of transmission, aerosol vs droplet, survivability of the pathogen during passage between hosts (e.g. susceptibility to UV, desiccation), portal of entry, location of binding sites in host, strength of viral/receptor binding, effectiveness of virus at cell entry).
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
That’s as absurd as someone arguing that a cancer-sufferer who has gone through chemotherapy was obviously not considering the effects of being poisoned by the chemo and therefore are hypocrites if they want to avoid being poisoned after the cancer has cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally. And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
Hmm a bit dramatic is the CFR of cancer higher or lower than that of Covid.
It’s the principle, isn’t it? So either the stance is valid regardless, or it is variable depending on the harm incurred.
If the former, what has the cancer IFR got to do with it? If the latter, then it is indeed not an absolute and other people who hold similar views on freedom are simply disagreeing with you as to the relative levels of harm.
Oh god sorry I got lost in your analogy. You'll just have to simplify your argument.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
That’s as absurd as someone arguing that a cancer-sufferer who has gone through chemotherapy was obviously not considering the effects of being poisoned by the chemo and therefore are hypocrites if they want to avoid being poisoned after the cancer has cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally. And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
No lockdown is an extreme solution to a non-extreme problem.
99.50% of infected people survive covid.
Firstly: Wrong, there are entire countries where more than 0.5% of their whole populations have died of covid (and these are countries with younger populations than us).
Secondly: We’ve been going on all the damn time about hospitalisations being the key issue. And we came incredibly close to overwhelming the NHS in winter with about 40,000 hospitalised at one time. Given that 450,000+ have been hospitalised with it to date, it’s a brave stance that just letting all that happen quickly (plus the more than double again from those yet unaffected) would have gone off without any issues.
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Re: " I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! "
I don't think this is correct. It is a requirement to book the Day 2 and Day 8 (and Day 5 if you plan to escape quarantine early) before you return to the UK not before you depart from UK. And the UK Passenger Location Form cannot be completed outside of 48 hours of your date of return. All you need is a negative test result (PCR) within 72 hours of the time of your UK flight and a Portugal Passenger Locator Form (to satisfy Portuguese rules).
Yep that is absolutely true.
But if you read the Govt information page it is quite clear that you MUST have both booked and paid for a 2&8 day test before you leave the UK and you have to be able to prove this (so we were not willing to take the risk) which contradicts what you have said and what the F&C Office told me. All the testers (bar one fortunately) required your return details (which neither of us have) which would be consistent with what you have said. The UK Passenger Location Form I understand requires this also (Again consistent). But to be on the safe side we have both booked those tests even though we don't know when we will return and are crossing our fingers that it will still be valid when I get to book my flight home and fill in the Passenger Location Form. Neither of us were willing to take the risk of not being able to board the flight so each splashed the £80.
Calls to the testing companies was also not fruitful.
Is it this that you refer to?
"You must book your tests before you travel and leave enough time for them to be delivered to your address in England."
If so, where it says "before you travel" it is referring to your return flight not your outbound. It is saying that you must be able to show evidence that you have arranged and paid for (are are therefore really going to take them!) Day 2 and Day 8 tests for when you are back in England. If arranged while you are abroad then it is saying that you should allow sufficient time for them to be delivered to your UK address in time for Day 2.
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Good luck with that. I gave up on the idea of travelling anywhere in light of all this stuff.
Its going to be an emotional summer at the main airports when folk realise the amount of admin/tests for a week on the Costa del Sol having booked a holiday in haste...
This is more encouraging over the medium term from Zoe...
That adds up to 11,908 in total, but only 5,765 on the Gov dashboard. I assume they are making estimates of total cases, Asymptomatic and not tested/reported?
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
Not sure what that has got to do with black lives matter mate
Black Lives Matter, or is it Black Lives mAttEr, I dunno, is a Marxist organisation which aims to defund the police, deconstruct the family and destroy any self-respect white people have by instilling an intrinsic guilt about racism, which can never be erased. If you deny your racism you are a racist, if you admit you are racist, get down on your knees
Fuck it. It is loathsome. White people conquered the world, and invented modernity. I will never be ashamed of this, as a white person, because I didn't do it; in the end I will take pride in it, as a race, if necessary
Because that is the end of this hideous divisiveness: White Pride. Maybe that is what they want
This is more encouraging over the medium term from Zoe...
That adds up to 11,908 in total, but only 5,765 on the Gov dashboard. I assume they are making estimates of total cases, Asymptomatic and not tested/reported?
Broadly. Their method is independent of the Government. Think of it being more like YouGov - their estimated are based on a combination of self reported symptoms and users reporting tests. Useless on a local level (a bit like subsamples) but a decent leading indicator nationally. They are generally a day or two ahead of the Govt dashboard.
This toxic shit is endless. Two seconds of googling
"This presentation will focus on Whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has– a malignant, parasitic-like, condition. The condition is malignant because it spreads/metastasizes, targeting an ever-widening sphere of objects. It is parasitic in that it is contagious, passed on by other infected people."
"It is hoped that those who are able to see the tragedy of Whiteness will reject it. This means not only personal work to reduce individual bias, but becoming a true White ally. "
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
Not sure what that has got to do with black lives matter mate
Black Lives Matter, or is it Black Lives mAttEr, I dunno, is a Marxist organisation which aims to defund the police, deconstruct the family and destroy any self-respect white people have by instilling an intrinsic guilt about racism, which can never be erased. If you deny your racism you are a racist, if you admit you are racist, get down on your knees
Fuck it. It is loathsome. White people conquered the world, and invented modernity. I will never be ashamed of this, as a white person, because I didn't do it; in the end I will take pride in it, as a race, if necessary
Because that is the end of this hideous divisiveness: White Pride. Maybe that is what they want
Just for people's information I found out I had to go to Portugal after it went Amber. A bizarre situation to be going out as everyone else is flooding back and all completely out of the blue.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
Good luck with that. I gave up on the idea of travelling anywhere in light of all this stuff.
I hear from someone in a position to know that the whole tests regime was designed to nudge people to do exactly that.
Fingerprints of Hancock and Patel all over it.
Might not be such a bad move. Go somewhere if you really need to (like kjh), otherwise Hartlepool Marina Travelodge has a lot of room.
If you don't care about little things like freedom, honesty, accountability and so on, then I agree.
We have given the government huge, and in my opinion totally excessive and unnecessary, emergency powers and this is a clear example of them abusing them. If they want to stop people travelling they should clearly state why and justify it to Parliament.
This is more encouraging over the medium term from Zoe...
A two dose curve would be interesting to see.
Given there are about twice as many vaccinated persons as non-vaccinated, from that it looks to me as if vaccination offers about 90% reduction in infection rates vs the unvaccinated.
I have to say that it feels like the U.K. has decent leverage here.
Interesting, the news on radio 2 said the complete opposite and talked of a trade war. Glad there is optimism about.
Read Tony. Yes, the EU are threatening their worst.
But, the U.K. is playing a weak hand v well. A combination of non-co-operation, obfuscation, disingenuous appeals to common-sense etc.
In a way it’s like Boris. The UK’s position is deceitful bullshit but it’s not clear what EU can do without looking like pedantic ball-breakers.
They can't do anything, the threat to take it to the ECJ is laughable as the ECJ has no mechanism to enforce any judgement on the UK government. They'd need to take it to the arbitration panel who would tell the EU, rightly, to get fucked until they implement the promised trusted trader scheme. It's why they haven't done anything in respect to tariffs because it's an open and shut case at any arbitrator in favour of the UK. The EU is at fault here for not even attempting to implement the trusted trader scheme which will remove 99% of customs issues. Until they do the UK government is more than entitled to keep the current status quo going wrt NI and the EU will just have to live with it.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
I took the vaccine - didn't even think twice - because the risks involved seemed tiny to me whereas the risks from Covid were greater than tiny.
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Is that reasonable?
My thirteen year old daughter has been double-vaxxed with Pfizer.
Why?
Because international travel is going to be next to impossible for those who aren't vaccinated
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
That’s as absurd as someone arguing that a cancer-sufferer who has gone through chemotherapy was obviously not considering the effects of being poisoned by the chemo and therefore are hypocrites if they want to avoid being poisoned after the cancer has cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally. And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
No lockdown is an extreme solution to a non-extreme problem.
99.50% of infected people survive covid.
Firstly: Wrong, there are entire countries where more than 0.5% of their whole populations have died of covid (and these are countries with younger populations than us).
Secondly: We’ve been going on all the damn time about hospitalisations being the key issue. And we came incredibly close to overwhelming the NHS in winter with about 40,000 hospitalised at one time. Given that 450,000+ have been hospitalised with it to date, it’s a brave stance that just letting all that happen quickly (plus the more than double again from those yet unaffected) would have gone off without any issues.
And, in any case, you appear to be basing your argument on your perceived severity of the issue. Which is, again, the point that it all depends on ones assessment of the relative impact of measures or no measures. Accusing someone of hypocrisy over the core principle when the difference is solely on assessment of the impact or lack of it is therefore inconsistent.
The principle is obviously not absolute. There will implicitly be a point where you and Topping would agree with the measures, otherwise you wouldn’t be basing the argument on your perceived severity of the pandemic.
Yes - the V2 was an extremely successful way of destroying German resources faster than Allied resources.
There's some wonderful stuff about V2s in Francis Spufford's Backroom Boys. Including the V2 campaign against Lowestoft (that nobody had noticed because they were so inaccurate), and a V2 going off near a pub where Arthur C Clarke and other members of the British Interplanetary Society were meeting. The assembled boffins got to their feet and cheered. Hooray for boffins.
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
Not sure what that has got to do with black lives matter mate
Black Lives Matter, or is it Black Lives mAttEr, I dunno, is a Marxist organisation which aims to defund the police, deconstruct the family and destroy any self-respect white people have by instilling an intrinsic guilt about racism, which can never be erased. If you deny your racism you are a racist, if you admit you are racist, get down on your knees
Fuck it. It is loathsome. White people conquered the world, and invented modernity. I will never be ashamed of this, as a white person, because I didn't do it; in the end I will take pride in it, as a race, if necessary
Because that is the end of this hideous divisiveness: White Pride. Maybe that is what they want
Well, I was with you until the end of the first paragraph.
I think some of the fanatics behind this want racial strife in the same way the old lot wanted class strife, because they thought it'd bring about The Revolution.
As I said this morning. All legal requirements such as social distancing and masks axed and replaced with guidance and recommendations based on one's vaccine status. It will appeal to Boris's instincts and the guidance just becomes irrelevant over the next 50-60 days as the vaccine scheme covers the last 8-9m people.
I have to say that it feels like the U.K. has decent leverage here.
(1) Tony Connelly is excellent and genuinely neutral (2) Usual state of affairs is that the EU beats its chest the loudest just before it makes a concession
It was a good read and a total contrast to what radio 2 news said at the same time. Trade war looms !!
It won't.
Brexit is over now, and no-one wants to reopen it or regress.
I expect concessions and fudges through much gritted teeth, and life will go on.
Gotta dash but re @contrarianI'm sure 87% of people criticising him and his perfectly consistent views which haven't changed much over the course of the pandemic are just doing so because they are scared that he is speaking much truth. Which to a very large extent he is.
But no people mock him for not wanting to put something into his body that the government says he should. Ponder that. Not wanting to inject something that was developed less than a year ago. That that is worthy of mockery no matter the good or bad reasons for doing so is extraordinary.
I don't agree with everything he says but I agree with a helluva lot of it. I have posted much about the freedom vs safety element and the imo egregious transgressions of the govt against our liberties but people on here (and in the UK it seems) are happy to swallow them all because they think they are being kept safe.
This may be so - but at what cost?
Utter nonsense on stilts. Phil Thompson, Anabobazina and MaxPB are arguing vociferously against further lockdown and they've all been vaccinated. Everyone I know pretty much except a few youngster shave had the vaccine and you know what, they're all fine. All of them. I know a couple of handfuls of people who've had Covid and some of them have become long coviders. It's just crackers to not bother with the vaccine.
They are arguing against further lockdown now. When it's too late. When we have already given the government permission, applauded them even, as they took liberty after liberty.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Its not too late.
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
That is true but who here doesn't look towards the upcoming flu season with some degree of trepidation?
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
Again, I think that's why they'll hold on to mask mandates for dear life. Get us to the Autumn and they can use flu as an excuse to keep them (on the basis that Winter flu + Winter Covid = the collapse of Our Beloved NHS, of course.)
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to let go.
If your criterion for restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
Yes. Either the vaccines work in which case set us free or they don't in which case it's going to be like this for some time.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
I took the vaccine - didn't even think twice - because the risks involved seemed tiny to me whereas the risks from Covid were greater than tiny.
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Is that reasonable?
My thirteen year old daughter has been double-vaxxed with Pfizer.
Why?
Because international travel is going to be next to impossible for those who aren't vaccinated
As soon as everyone’s been offered a vaccine, it’s going to be:
Vaccinated = Test on arrival, free after -ve result. Not vaccinated = Mandatory 10 day quarantine, three tests.
As I said this morning. All legal requirements such as social distancing and masks axed and replaced with guidance and recommendations based on one's vaccine status. It will appeal to Boris's instincts and the guidance just becomes irrelevant over the next 50-60 days as the vaccine scheme covers the last 8-9m people.
Somebody asked upthread whether it would make any difference.
For schools, still operating under nearly insupportable restrictions, the answer is ‘fuck yes.’
If we can walk around classrooms again without the risk of being shouted at by some jumped up junkie from OFSTED our lives will be much easier and pleasanter.
And the quality of teaching will improve markedly.
If we keep these increasingly ludicrous restrictions in place until July, there’s a real risk they will still be in place in September and at that moment every teacher who can afford it will walk out and the education system will collapse.
Comments
Yes, the EU are threatening their worst.
But, the U.K. is playing a weak hand v well. A combination of non-co-operation, obfuscation, disingenuous appeals to common-sense etc.
In a way it’s like Boris.
The UK’s position is deceitful bullshit but it’s not clear what EU can do without looking like pedantic ball-breakers.
I have had very little sympathy with the plight of the holiday makers moaning. They knew the risk.
But I have to tell you the Government info and procedures are a shambles.
I need 4 tests. One before I go which I took today and is clear. One before I return and 2 on my return during the 10 days isolation. All this is ok and very efficient.
There are two forms to fill in re passenger location. One for Portugal and One for the UK. The Portugal one is fine. The UK one isn't. You go in convoluted circles. You have to book and pay for your tests for your return before you go, but neither myself nor the person I am going with have return tickets as we don't know when we will be coming back; we may not even need the tests. The person I am going with may be there for months; me probably a week, so not so much an issue for me. So I asked the Foreign Office for advice. I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! Complete contradiction in Govt info. As a consequence most tests would not let me book without my flight details back! I finally found one that would let me. I just booked it (£80) so that I wouldn't be stopped from travelling out and I am going to deal with any issues regarding returning when they occur. Fingers crossed the UK Passenger Location Form goes through when I plan to return and I have valid info to complete it. It can not be unusual for people to travel without return tickets.
We are diverging significantly on policy from the rest of the western world taking a far more cautious approach. If we stop re-opening because of a potential risk rather than a clear and present risk, it is hard to see how we will escape any time soon, as potential risks are easy to find.
Sounds very annoying for anyone who might have to go somewhere on business like it sounds you do.
Just that previously people were thinking of the safety not the liberty element. Now they have deigned to think of liberty it's too late.
Conscientious objectors? No problem with that, either; it's why the rest of them are fighting the war.
German exports to UK
Jan. 2021 vs Jan. 2020 - Down -29%
Feb. 2021 vs Feb. 2020 - Down -12.2%
Jan. 2021 vs Jan. 2020 - Down -13.2%
exports to:
-29.0% Flag of United Kingdom
Hopefully because you think for yourself enough not to be entirely self-defined as the negative of the Govt you say you hate!
I think that the biggest problem for the current Opposition is that they have become self-defined as "not the evil Tories".
When they have something to say for themselves, rather than Angela Hoof-in-Mouth tweeting "Boris is a lying sleazy Tory because " (repeat 28 times) turns out to be a totally untrue claim repeated from some Twitter-twat or trolling journo - then I might give them a hearing.
Perhaps they do have something to say for themselves, but it is drowned out by the shrieking.
As before the rise in cases and admissions is in the younger less/unvaccinated groups
If all legal restrictions are lifted on 21/6, as I advocate, then that's it over and done with.
We probably just had a couple of areas with high Indian populations get seeded with quite a lot of cases. If Bedford was seeded with 20 people from India, and Berlin with 2, then we're going to see it rip through Bedford a lot quicker than it might through Berlin.
They have given themselves the power over our freedom and can wield it whenever they see fit.
V2 was an astonishingly inefficient way of killing people.
The programme was a load on the German economy roughly equivalent to the Manhattan project on the allied ones. IMO an excellent example of the successful allied policy of not assassinating Hitler because Germany would be more damaged were he to stay alive.
Fingerprints of Hancock and Patel all over it.
Personally I took the vaccine, but have no idea whether or not it was the right thing to do. I'm just hoping for the best. I'm pretty overweight, so maybe I am more at risk from Covid than other people.
Re: " I was told if I didn't have a return flight I must not book my tests before I go, yet it is a requirement of travel to do so! "
I don't think this is correct. It is a requirement to book the Day 2 and Day 8 (and Day 5 if you plan to escape quarantine early) before you return to the UK not before you depart from UK. And the UK Passenger Location Form cannot be completed outside of 48 hours of your date of return. All you need is a negative test result (PCR) within 72 hours of the time of your UK flight and a Portugal Passenger Locator Form (to satisfy Portuguese rules).
I think it's a good thing, a healthy thing, for arguments to be tested from every angle - even if they're a bit nuts.
The problem is obviously that, unlike during the War, when the Draconian rules and the interference in people's lives were even worse, there seems to be a supreme reluctance to let go when the rules are patently no longer necessary. Having people sitting in a restaurant being made to strap a piece of cloth over their faces when they need to go for a piss is the approximate equivalent of keeping air raid patrols and blackout curtains going in 1947, on the off-chance that a squadron of Dornier bombers hidden in a secret Nazi holdout base up a fjord somewhere in Greenland might sweep down one night and pound Lerwick to rubble.
There is simply no need to keep imposing blanket restrictions on social contact on the population at this stage of the game. When nearly 80% of the adult population has had at least one jab, over half (implying practically all of the most vulnerable, who have previously accounted for 99% of all the deaths) have had two, and the ONS figures suggest that 80% of adults already had Covid antibodies three weeks ago, it's time to let go. Otherwise, the suspicion has to be that there will *never* be a time in the future at which the authorities are prepared to do that.
If your criterion for keeping restrictions is that they have to continue because the vaccines are not 100% effective - i.e. that 80%, or 90%, or even 95% protection is insufficient - then you are, of course, setting an impossibly high bar and effectively writing the entire vaccination programme off as useless.
10/ Frost shot back that during the entire Brexit process the EU had made threats against the UK and that the UK had not given in to them, and wouldn’t start now
https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1402671480287248389?s=20
Perhaps if we went back to free speech - which no longer exists in my view - then we would have a better understanding of many issues. It is what the woke are terrified of.
Because after the 18-yr olds it's going to be 11-18 yr olds. And then ..
Secondly, what an amazing counterfactual, allied assassination of Hitler late 43 into 44? What would have happened?
If the generals had taken over they may have sued for peace?
If the cabinet remained in charge, Gerbils? And business as usual?
That doesn't mean May or Boris or their governments have been above board the whole time, they haven't, but we all know comments from leaders and negotiators on any side is a bunch of old wank, and are worth precisely nothing as all it is is posturing and insults whilst claiming one's shit doesn't stink.
Not sure if that counts as a mixed metaphor, as I've lost my edge.
I suspect the truth lies somewhere between the two....
However, what to do if the government starts recommending vaccinations for the 12-18 year olds?
My daughters are 15 and 17. I don't think I will be at all comfortable telling them to get vaccinated when the risk/reward equation for them is very different. I think my position will be to say "make your own minds up when you feel that you have sufficient information and don't feel pressured by anyone, perhaps wait until you are 18".
Is that reasonable?
For the avoidance of doubt: in this analogy, lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy - an extreme solution to an extreme problem, used to avoid near-term death but harmful and strongly undesired normally.
And in that case, arguing that you accepted this during the circumstance when the harm it avoided outweighed the harm it caused means that you are hypocrites for accepting it then and not now... doesn’t really impress.
(edit: just seen your edit!)
But if you read the Govt information page it is quite clear that you MUST have both booked and paid for a 2&8 day test before you leave the UK and you have to be able to prove this (so we were not willing to take the risk) which contradicts what you have said and what the F&C Office told me. All the testers (bar one fortunately) required your return details (which neither of us have) which would be consistent with what you have said. The UK Passenger Location Form I understand requires this also (Again consistent). But to be on the safe side we have both booked those tests even though we don't know when we will return and are crossing our fingers that it will still be valid when I get to book my flight home and fill in the Passenger Location Form. Neither of us were willing to take the risk of not being able to board the flight so each splashed the £80.
Calls to the testing companies was also not fruitful.
But equally the vast majority of us that have had the vaccine shouldn't be kept in lockdown for perpetuity to protect this that won't get the vax from getting the virus...
So either the stance is valid regardless, or it is variable depending on the harm incurred.
If the former, what has the cancer IFR got to do with it?
If the latter, then it is indeed not an absolute and other people who hold similar views on freedom are simply disagreeing with you as to the relative levels of harm.
https://www.cmps.edu/on-having-whiteness
"On Having Whiteness
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
(2) Usual state of affairs is that the EU beats its chest the loudest just before it makes a concession
99.50% of infected people survive covid.
My youngest, at 17, is going through an outbreak at their Sixth Form. Many of his friends have had it. None have been flattened for 2 days. He has come to the conclusion it wouldn't be worth it.
As you say it is risk/reward.
I misconstrued your post earlier about brides.
Apologies.
Border pedantry is all they've got.
https://twitter.com/_SaveOurStatues/status/1402604161414406144?s=20
One cabinet minister said officials were “trying to find a solution that pleases the PM’s instincts” to reopen society.
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1402687324870352903?s=20
Secondly: We’ve been going on all the damn time about hospitalisations being the key issue. And we came incredibly close to overwhelming the NHS in winter with about 40,000 hospitalised at one time. Given that 450,000+ have been hospitalised with it to date, it’s a brave stance that just letting all that happen quickly (plus the more than double again from those yet unaffected) would have gone off without any issues.
"You must book your tests before you travel and leave enough time for them to be delivered to your address in England."
If so, where it says "before you travel" it is referring to your return flight not your outbound. It is saying that you must be able to show evidence that you have arranged and paid for (are are therefore really going to take them!) Day 2 and Day 8 tests for when you are back in England. If arranged while you are abroad then it is saying that you should allow sufficient time for them to be delivered to your UK address in time for Day 2.
Fuck it. It is loathsome. White people conquered the world, and invented modernity. I will never be ashamed of this, as a white person, because I didn't do it; in the end I will take pride in it, as a race, if necessary
Because that is the end of this hideous divisiveness: White Pride. Maybe that is what they want
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1402558391923392513?s=20
"This presentation will focus on Whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has– a malignant, parasitic-like, condition. The condition is malignant because it spreads/metastasizes, targeting an ever-widening sphere of objects. It is parasitic in that it is contagious, passed on by other infected people."
https://nypsi.org/events/on-having-whiteness/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/culturally-speaking/202006/what-is-whiteness
"It is hoped that those who are able to see the tragedy of Whiteness will reject it. This means not only personal work to reduce individual bias, but becoming a true White ally. "
We have given the government huge, and in my opinion totally excessive and unnecessary, emergency powers and this is a clear example of them abusing them. If they want to stop people travelling they should clearly state why and justify it to Parliament.
Given there are about twice as many vaccinated persons as non-vaccinated, from that it looks to me as if vaccination offers about 90% reduction in infection rates vs the unvaccinated.
Why?
Because international travel is going to be next to impossible for those who aren't vaccinated
That sounds worryingly like the "tiers" could be coming back...
Which is, again, the point that it all depends on ones assessment of the relative impact of measures or no measures. Accusing someone of hypocrisy over the core principle when the difference is solely on assessment of the impact or lack of it is therefore inconsistent.
The principle is obviously not absolute. There will implicitly be a point where you and Topping would agree with the measures, otherwise you wouldn’t be basing the argument on your perceived severity of the pandemic.
Hooray for boffins.
What's your objection?
I think some of the fanatics behind this want racial strife in the same way the old lot wanted class strife, because they thought it'd bring about The Revolution.
The only slight snag is that you don’t do disease control on paper.
Nobel laureate David Baltimore says he overstated case, and the origins of the virus are still unknown
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/leading-biologist-dampens-his-smoking-gun-covid-lab-leak-theory
Brexit is over now, and no-one wants to reopen it or regress.
I expect concessions and fudges through much gritted teeth, and life will go on.
Vaccinated = Test on arrival, free after -ve result.
Not vaccinated = Mandatory 10 day quarantine, three tests.
For schools, still operating under nearly insupportable restrictions, the answer is ‘fuck yes.’
If we can walk around classrooms again without the risk of being shouted at by some jumped up junkie from OFSTED our lives will be much easier and pleasanter.
And the quality of teaching will improve markedly.
If we keep these increasingly ludicrous restrictions in place until July, there’s a real risk they will still be in place in September and at that moment every teacher who can afford it will walk out and the education system will collapse.