In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
The percentages are of the Jan peak. The totals are the same on both lines in the NW. There are as many people in hospitals now as there were at the equivalent point in the second wave in September
It'll be infuriating if Galloway costs Labour this seat. And for what? To topple Starmer and get a hard left replacement? That will not be happening. Even if the 1st part works (which I doubt) the 2nd part won't. There's no hard left candidate with a ghost of a chance of becoming leader. Galloway surely knows this. He's only standing to get on the telly. Really sad state of affairs.
You mean? No! After all these years Galloway turns out to be a self-publicist? Swoons.
Also if this is about getting the r rate down, then shouldn't they actually increase measures, not simply not relax further? Yes, vaccines will be having an effect, but the goal is reduce r rate as fast as possible because it is rising at a worrying rate and that is more important than economic and social impacts, then why not go for the measure we know is very effective?
I think, politically, that would be a step too far. He can get away with this but no more.
Why? The public have supported tougher and tougher measures at every turn, most of us have done so for the majority of this period, what's different this time? A few more upset won't shake the majority view.
The difference between this exit wave (which was always a part of the model for Pete's sake) and the prior waves is what happens next.
Some dingbats are projecting as if there will be ongoing exponential growth from here, but there can't be, there aren't sufficient people left to infect. 80% of adults already have antibodies by now. The exit wave is just the virus burning out in the final areas and then that's it, over. Just as happened in Israel when they had much less immunity than we do now.
The in-hospital figures now are about 1% in many hospital trusts in the Northwest (supposedly the epicentre) compared to what they were in the past.
The reality is that in the first and second waves the heatmap of cases started in the young, then spread to the elderly groups who got hospitalised and died. That won't happen this time. The elderly groups are double-vaccinated already. That's the difference.
To lose your nerve and panic here is chickenshit bollocks that will lead to devastation in the economy. Businesses need the summer, more than we need to remain locked down.
If Boris loses his nerve now he is not fit to be Prime Minister and needs to go.
Wow even the scales are off your eyes now. Thing is, he has the backing of about 620 MPs. The media. And the people that vote. Only thing you can do is write to your MP and tell them to send their letter to the 1922. Or if they’re Labour, whatever is the equivalent given Starmer’s lack of opposition.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
If it was credible, Starmer would have made hay with it.
Wouldn't he?
He's too busy getting involved in the TERF wars and wibbling about Boris not taking the knee.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
It'll be infuriating if Galloway costs Labour this seat. And for what? To topple Starmer and get a hard left replacement? That will not be happening. Even if the 1st part works (which I doubt) the 2nd part won't. There's no hard left candidate with a ghost of a chance of becoming leader. Galloway surely knows this. He's only standing to get on the telly. Really sad state of affairs.
You mean? No! After all these years Galloway turns out to be a self-publicist? Swoons.
He does seem to have escalated though. He used to stand and win, or challenge, now he seems to stand everywhere or says he will, with as much credibility as Count Binface but with less creativity since at least Count Binface sings.
In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.
People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.
No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.
These lateral flow tests that we've all been doing and the government has spent billions on are rubbish, according to the US FDA. (I had already inuited that they are garbage and haven't done one in weeks, although our kids are still regularly torturing themselves doing them).
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
Are you really wishing this on our country
It's coming anyway if we end up locked down from August to next March. The sooner, the better. Like ripping off a plaster. Best done swiftly.
How have we gone from a newspaper report suggesting a four week delay to being in lockdown to next March
Because, as TSE correctly points out, the link between hospitalisations and cases has been smashed (senior NHS execs have said the same thing) and all the vulnerable half of the population will have been double-vaxxed by the 21st. Nearly all have been already, apart from the small minority of refusers about whom we cannot afford to care.
And yet, here we are, with an outbreak of collective wetting amongst the Government and its advisers about caseload.
Once Johnson caves to the pressure the direction of travel is obvious. One excuse after another. We'll be made to wait until all adults have been vaccinated. Then until they've been done twice. Then until all the secondary school kids have. Then there'll be a panic over the cold weather, and the flu. and waning immunity (real or alleged) amongst the old, and boosters, and probably more variants along the way.
The cases will keep growing. Regardless of the hospital situation (which evidence to date suggests won't be serious,) the panic will increase. Measures will be demanded to bring R back below one. SAGE will issue doomsday models insisting that we do it. The Government will cave, and once we're back in lockdown we'll be in it for the entire Winter, just as we were from January through to early April this year.
Let's put it another way: is it irrational to conclude that this is probably what's coming? If so, why? The success of the vaccines has done nothing to stop the panic, the prevarication, the delay. The Government kept making positive noises right up until about 48 hours ago, and now it turns out it has changed its mind. Of course it has. It lies. Johnson lies. He lies about everything. Why should anybody trust him NOT to lock us up for another seven, eight, nine months?
I have read the telegraph article and it does not convey anything that is recognisable in your comments
I can't because I don't pay them good money, but I would imagine that the Telegraph article conveys whatever excuses and justifications the Government has fed the Telegraph, i.e. a pack of lies.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
If it was credible, Starmer would have made hay with it.
Wouldn't he?
I think he would be too busy arguing about wallpaper or taking the knee..
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
The lines on the graphs are heading north. That’s the point. We are not yet at the peak. Yes, Bolton looks okay, but Bolton isn’t the whole NW
Who cares. If you get a serious case of covid at this point it’s your own bloody fault.
Not necessarily. The vaccines are not 100% effective.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
It'll be infuriating if Galloway costs Labour this seat. And for what? To topple Starmer and get a hard left replacement? That will not be happening. Even if the 1st part works (which I doubt) the 2nd part won't. There's no hard left candidate with a ghost of a chance of becoming leader. Galloway surely knows this. He's only standing to get on the telly. Really sad state of affairs.
You mean? No! After all these years Galloway turns out to be a self-publicist? Swoons.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
The difference between this exit wave (which was always a part of the model for Pete's sake) and the prior waves is what happens next.
Some dingbats are projecting as if there will be ongoing exponential growth from here, but there can't be, there aren't sufficient people left to infect. 80% of adults already have antibodies by now. The exit wave is just the virus burning out in the final areas and then that's it, over. Just as happened in Israel when they had much less immunity than we do now.
The in-hospital figures now are about 1% in many hospital trusts in the Northwest (supposedly the epicentre) compared to what they were in the past.
The reality is that in the first and second waves the heatmap of cases started in the young, then spread to the elderly groups who got hospitalised and died. That won't happen this time. The elderly groups are double-vaccinated already. That's the difference.
To lose your nerve and panic here is chickenshit bollocks that will lead to devastation in the economy. Businesses need the summer, more than we need to remain locked down.
If Boris loses his nerve now he is not fit to be Prime Minister and needs to go.
Wow even the scales are off your eyes now. Thing is, he has the backing of about 620 MPs. The media. And the people that vote. Only thing you can do is write to your MP and tell them to send their letter to the 1922. Or if they’re Labour, whatever is the equivalent given Starmer’s lack of opposition.
I am very tempted to write to my MP to register my disgust and urge them to send a letter to the 1922. Very, very tempted. Probably won't make a difference but I want them to know I'm angry.
Once again I see some PBers are sanguine about all this.
Funny old world.
Another month of WFH. What's not to like?
All the shops are open. You can eat out, have a drink. Visit friends and family. Take a holiday. It's hardly like being locked up in Durham Gaol.
You can do all this stuff for another few weeks. Until we end up with "Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives." Until next Easter.
That's the point. I could live with (obviously dislike) a delay of 4 weeks. But, I suspect, there will always be another reason for delay "one death from Covid is one death too many."
In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.
People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.
No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.
That makes no sense because why would anyone worry about cases or even hospitalisations rising if they don't think deaths will rise as well? The third wave would not in any way be as bad, or even near as bad, as the others if it had similar cases but far fewer deaths, that would be an insane suggestion.
Given case and hospitalisation rises I'd assume deaths will as well, but not anywhere near as much as in previous waves, and that being the case the harm of ongoing measures outweighs the harm from that.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
The lines on the graphs are heading north. That’s the point. We are not yet at the peak. Yes, Bolton looks okay, but Bolton isn’t the whole NW
Who cares. If you get a serious case of covid at this point it’s your own bloody fault.
Not necessarily. The vaccines are not 100% effective.
They are 100% effective at preventing hospital and death rounded to the nearest integer, and probably better. You and your fellow cowards would have us hiding in our homes for the rest of our lives. Well I’ve had enough. Fuck it. No more compliance with any rules of any kind from me anymore.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
If it was credible, Starmer would have made hay with it.
Wouldn't he?
He's too busy getting involved in the TERF wars and wibbling about Boris not taking the knee.
Lead on the front page of the Guardian attacking Boris over the knee
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
Trees don't grow to the sky. On present trends, we will get to 1.7m cases a day by mid-September. Is that what you think we should expect?
The difference between this exit wave (which was always a part of the model for Pete's sake) and the prior waves is what happens next.
Some dingbats are projecting as if there will be ongoing exponential growth from here, but there can't be, there aren't sufficient people left to infect. 80% of adults already have antibodies by now. The exit wave is just the virus burning out in the final areas and then that's it, over. Just as happened in Israel when they had much less immunity than we do now.
The in-hospital figures now are about 1% in many hospital trusts in the Northwest (supposedly the epicentre) compared to what they were in the past.
The reality is that in the first and second waves the heatmap of cases started in the young, then spread to the elderly groups who got hospitalised and died. That won't happen this time. The elderly groups are double-vaccinated already. That's the difference.
To lose your nerve and panic here is chickenshit bollocks that will lead to devastation in the economy. Businesses need the summer, more than we need to remain locked down.
If Boris loses his nerve now he is not fit to be Prime Minister and needs to go.
Wow even the scales are off your eyes now. Thing is, he has the backing of about 620 MPs. The media. And the people that vote. Only thing you can do is write to your MP and tell them to send their letter to the 1922. Or if they’re Labour, whatever is the equivalent given Starmer’s lack of opposition.
I am very tempted to write to my MP to register my disgust and urge them to send a letter to the 1922. Very, very tempted. Probably won't make a difference but I want them to know I'm angry.
This is unacceptable.
Please do it. If nothing else i can attest that it’s therapeutic.
In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.
People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.
No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.
How in the name of God can the hospitalisations get as bad as last time? The overwhelming majority of the vulnerable half of the population has been double-jabbed, providing high levels of protection against symptomatic illness and very high levels of protection against severe illness. Hospitalisation amongst younger age groups is comparatively uncommon, the bulk of the fortysomethings have also had at least one dose plus time for it to work, and where younger people are being admitted they are typically less seriously ill, require less care and stay for shorter periods.
We have heard as much from the Chief Exec of NHS Providers. We have seen as much in the hospitalisation stats from Bolton.
How are we going to end up back in January? It's literally incredible.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
Also if this is about getting the r rate down, then shouldn't they actually increase measures, not simply not relax further? Yes, vaccines will be having an effect, but the goal is reduce r rate as fast as possible because it is rising at a worrying rate and that is more important than economic and social impacts, then why not go for the measure we know is very effective?
I think, politically, that would be a step too far. He can get away with this but no more.
For now. But suppose we have three more weeks of cases rising quickly - we could be at >20,000 cases a day again. Even if the vaccines work to prevent this leading to a large number of hospital admissions, there will be a certain amount of increase. I can envisage a scenario where there is then support for tightening restrictions.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
If it was credible, Starmer would have made hay with it.
Wouldn't he?
He's too busy getting involved in the TERF wars and wibbling about Boris not taking the knee.
Lead on the front page of the Guardian attacking Boris over the knee
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
How is it misleading? Log plots are useful for this kind of data. The point it conveys is that the current curves are tracking the last wave quite closely, except for deaths of course.
The difference between this exit wave (which was always a part of the model for Pete's sake) and the prior waves is what happens next.
Some dingbats are projecting as if there will be ongoing exponential growth from here, but there can't be, there aren't sufficient people left to infect. 80% of adults already have antibodies by now. The exit wave is just the virus burning out in the final areas and then that's it, over. Just as happened in Israel when they had much less immunity than we do now.
The in-hospital figures now are about 1% in many hospital trusts in the Northwest (supposedly the epicentre) compared to what they were in the past.
The reality is that in the first and second waves the heatmap of cases started in the young, then spread to the elderly groups who got hospitalised and died. That won't happen this time. The elderly groups are double-vaccinated already. That's the difference.
To lose your nerve and panic here is chickenshit bollocks that will lead to devastation in the economy. Businesses need the summer, more than we need to remain locked down.
If Boris loses his nerve now he is not fit to be Prime Minister and needs to go.
Wow even the scales are off your eyes now. Thing is, he has the backing of about 620 MPs. The media. And the people that vote. Only thing you can do is write to your MP and tell them to send their letter to the 1922. Or if they’re Labour, whatever is the equivalent given Starmer’s lack of opposition.
I am very tempted to write to my MP to register my disgust and urge them to send a letter to the 1922. Very, very tempted. Probably won't make a difference but I want them to know I'm angry.
This is unacceptable.
I've seen my MP has nailed his colours to the mast a few days ago, it'll be interesting if he changes his tune.
Andrew Murrison: There can now be no question about the Government’s timeline for opening up. June 21 must stand.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
Are you really wishing this on our country
It's coming anyway if we end up locked down from August to next March. The sooner, the better. Like ripping off a plaster. Best done swiftly.
How have we gone from a newspaper report suggesting a four week delay to being in lockdown to next March
Because, as TSE correctly points out, the link between hospitalisations and cases has been smashed (senior NHS execs have said the same thing) and all the vulnerable half of the population will have been double-vaxxed by the 21st. Nearly all have been already, apart from the small minority of refusers about whom we cannot afford to care.
And yet, here we are, with an outbreak of collective wetting amongst the Government and its advisers about caseload.
Once Johnson caves to the pressure the direction of travel is obvious. One excuse after another. We'll be made to wait until all adults have been vaccinated. Then until they've been done twice. Then until all the secondary school kids have. Then there'll be a panic over the cold weather, and the flu. and waning immunity (real or alleged) amongst the old, and boosters, and probably more variants along the way.
The cases will keep growing. Regardless of the hospital situation (which evidence to date suggests won't be serious,) the panic will increase. Measures will be demanded to bring R back below one. SAGE will issue doomsday models insisting that we do it. The Government will cave, and once we're back in lockdown we'll be in it for the entire Winter, just as we were from January through to early April this year.
Let's put it another way: is it irrational to conclude that this is probably what's coming? If so, why? The success of the vaccines has done nothing to stop the panic, the prevarication, the delay. The Government kept making positive noises right up until about 48 hours ago, and now it turns out it has changed its mind. Of course it has. It lies. Johnson lies. He lies about everything. Why should anybody trust him NOT to lock us up for another seven, eight, nine months?
I have read the telegraph article and it does not convey anything that is recognisable in your comments
I can't because I don't pay them good money, but I would imagine that the Telegraph article conveys whatever excuses and justifications the Government has fed the Telegraph, i.e. a pack of lies.
I do not pay them money but it is on today's front pages and I magnified it and read it
Once again I see some PBers are sanguine about all this.
Funny old world.
Another month of WFH. What's not to like?
All the shops are open. You can eat out, have a drink. Visit friends and family. Take a holiday. It's hardly like being locked up in Durham Gaol.
You won’t be eating out or going for a drink if those places go bust, because they couldn’t turn a profit with the restrictions.
Feels like it could be the last straw for so many hospitality places.
As the guy from Essex pubs said earlier, all it needs now is a down turn in the weather and kabomb.
Doesn’t really matter though does. Because social recluses like Sandy have an excuse not to interact with people in real life for a bit longer and that’s all that should matter.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
On the latter you may think that, I may think that. The scientists who have pussiefied this government don't and they're calling the shots. They will keep throwing up new obstacles every time the final unlockdown approaches. Any dissenters will be branded as anti-NHS and putting the county at risk. We've become a country ruled by unelected scientists and politicians too stupid to stand up to them.
It's patently fucking obvious that there's no danger to the NHS the virus is running into a wall of vaccinated people among vulnerable groups and young people carry very low individual risk and are still being vaccinated.
The scientists are pursuing a zero COVID strategy which is impossible in the UK. Our economy just falls over and we haven't secured the border. The same wanker scientists that said we should keep the border open for ideological reasons for the last year have decided keeping domestic restrictions isn't a problem.
Honestly, if whitty and the rest of them also got hit by the presidential motorcade I'd probably celebrate. They're all wankers and they're ruining this country. Lockdown needs to end on the 21st. That's what they said to the nation. It's time to make them stick to it. We accepted lockdown on the basis that it would be gone by the 21st and vaccines would do the heavy lifting. Well the vaccines are doing heavy lifting. We've got places where cases are at 500/100k and no real rise in hospitalisations. The hospitalisation rate for vaccinated people is 0.2%, the implied efficacy of vaccines against Delta is between 98.5% and 99.5%.
4 weeks buys us nothing. And four weeks from now the same drum beat about extending lockdown will be ongoing and the government will buckle. It will continue until all of the c***s are removed from he levers of power.
I'm genuinely seething with rage. The government and the c*** scientists missold us on the third lockdown. And now they're moving the goalposts to cases after being told for a year that the only reason we have these awful NPIs is to protect the NHS. They're all contemptible.
These were the tests -
1. The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully 2. Evidence shows vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated 3. Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS 4. The assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new variants of concern.
1 to 3 are clear ticks. So I guess they'll be majoring on 4 when they pitch it.
Politics For All @PoliticsForAlI Police cars revolving lightRose | NEW: Labour says Freedom day is being delayed because Boris Johnson didn’t shut the borders
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
Your £1 against my £10.
I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
Nonsense. They put the surrounding countries on the red list! It was clearly because Johnson wanted to go to India.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico Replying to @andrew_lilico Let's be clear, by the way. Not opening on 21-June almost certainly means extending the crisis by 2+ extra months (& potentially longer). In one month's time we'll be near the peak created by Step 3. There's no earthly way they'll open at near that peak. It'll be 2 mths minimum.
We wont get to the next stage this year imho.
Sunak will need to send money to pubs or they are closing for good this time once the colder weather sets in.
In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
The percentages are of the Jan peak. The totals are the same on both lines in the NW. There are as many people in hospitals now as there were at the equivalent point in the second wave in September
Something's got to be wrong with the graphs. They say we are around 30% of the January peak in cases now, but the peak was ~70k cases per day, and we were doing less testing then.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Pb epidemiologists are doing a great job on the third wave so far.
Cases are not flat they are going down. Cases aren't increasing, they are flat. Cases are only increasing a bit. Case increases don't matter. Hospitalisations aren't flat they are going down. Hospitalisations aren't increasing, they are flat. Hospitalisations are only increasing a bit. etc.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
How is it misleading? Log plots are useful for this kind of data. The point it conveys is that the current curves are tracking the last wave quite closely, except for deaths of course.
It absolutely does not show that.
New admissions, total patients and deaths are all far, far, far flatter than last time. Because the virus has broken the link between cases and serious illness.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
Because the Warwick University imbeciles have plugged the numbers into their model and concluded that three billion percent of all nineteen year olds in the UK will have died of Covid by August Bank Holiday if we allow unlimited guest numbers at weddings?
It'll be infuriating if Galloway costs Labour this seat. And for what? To topple Starmer and get a hard left replacement? That will not be happening. Even if the 1st part works (which I doubt) the 2nd part won't. There's no hard left candidate with a ghost of a chance of becoming leader. Galloway surely knows this. He's only standing to get on the telly. Really sad state of affairs.
You mean? No! After all these years Galloway turns out to be a self-publicist? Swoons.
Well that's the sort of astute 'out of the box' punditry you get from me. At such a late hour too!
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
How is it misleading? Log plots are useful for this kind of data. The point it conveys is that the current curves are tracking the last wave quite closely, except for deaths of course.
No, log graphs aren't very good for something that is a proportion of another thing. I'd want to present that as a linear graph. The absolute numbers should be plotted to a log scale, agreed, but this isn't good data to be putting on a log scale because the original data (second wave cases, hospitalisations and deaths) is already exponential. This is measuring an exponential of an exponential, I'm not sure what it's trying to show.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
I think the fraction above 50 that have been vaccinated is quite a bit off 100%, unfortunately.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico Replying to @andrew_lilico Let's be clear, by the way. Not opening on 21-June almost certainly means extending the crisis by 2+ extra months (& potentially longer). In one month's time we'll be near the peak created by Step 3. There's no earthly way they'll open at near that peak. It'll be 2 mths minimum.
We wont get to the next stage this year imho.
Sunak will need to send money to pubs or they are closing for good this time once the colder weather sets in.
Pubs need the summer. Its reopen now or never.
Screw the zero covid idiots. This ends now, or his Premiership needs to end now.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico Replying to @andrew_lilico Let's be clear, by the way. Not opening on 21-June almost certainly means extending the crisis by 2+ extra months (& potentially longer). In one month's time we'll be near the peak created by Step 3. There's no earthly way they'll open at near that peak. It'll be 2 mths minimum.
We wont get to the next stage this year imho.
Sunak will need to send money to pubs or they are closing for good this time once the colder weather sets in.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
I think the fraction above 50 that have been vaccinated is quite a bit off 100%, unfortunately.
Because we've not gotten around to vaccinating them yet despite them wanting it?
Or because they've rejected it? In which case screw them, they made their choice.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
How is it misleading? Log plots are useful for this kind of data. The point it conveys is that the current curves are tracking the last wave quite closely, except for deaths of course.
It absolutely does not show that.
New admissions, total patients and deaths are all far, far, far flatter than last time. Because the virus has broken the link between cases and serious illness.
Actually, the gradient (which shows the growth rate) for the total and new admissions is virtually identical now. Hard to tell for those on a ventilator, but the sample is smaller so the curve is noisier. We could actually compute the derivative of each curve if you wanted to see the growth rate. I think we'd end up with very similar values for the two waves.
Also if this is about getting the r rate down, then shouldn't they actually increase measures, not simply not relax further? Yes, vaccines will be having an effect, but the goal is reduce r rate as fast as possible because it is rising at a worrying rate and that is more important than economic and social impacts, then why not go for the measure we know is very effective?
I think, politically, that would be a step too far. He can get away with this but no more.
For now. But suppose we have three more weeks of cases rising quickly - we could be at >20,000 cases a day again. Even if the vaccines work to prevent this leading to a large number of hospital admissions, there will be a certain amount of increase. I can envisage a scenario where there is then support for tightening restrictions.
And remember that we pulled the plug at fairly low levels in March and January. We can't be sure, because testing had fallen over, but I think the estimate for cases in the Spring 2020 wave is about 5 million total, peaking around 100k a day. And for all that the most vulnerable have been vaccinated, there is still enough of a reservoir of unvaccinated people (20 million or so, plus whatever fraction of the 10 million single jabbed you want to count, minus those who are immune by infection) to be a bit scary.
In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.
People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.
No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.
How in the name of God can the hospitalisations get as bad as last time? The overwhelming majority of the vulnerable half of the population has been double-jabbed, providing high levels of protection against symptomatic illness and very high levels of protection against severe illness. Hospitalisation amongst younger age groups is comparatively uncommon, the bulk of the fortysomethings have also had at least one dose plus time for it to work, and where younger people are being admitted they are typically less seriously ill, require less care and stay for shorter periods.
We have heard as much from the Chief Exec of NHS Providers. We have seen as much in the hospitalisation stats from Bolton.
How are we going to end up back in January? It's literally incredible.
It’s happening. Sure, Bolton’s looking good, but hospitalisations in the NW as a whole are starting to track exactly the numbers at the start of the second wave. There is not an insignificant level of vaccine escape with this new variant and over 2 million over 50s are not yet fully vaccinated - this 47 year old is not happy he’s only had one dose given it’s only 33% effective at one dose compared to two.
I don’t like this situation either. I just want to burn my mask and get a train into town. If we had kept Delta out we wouldn’t be in this piss poor situation. But hospitalisations are rising. Numbers on ventilators are rising. Both exponentially. You can’t just shrug your shoulders at that. Blame Johnson for sure, not for this decision, but for the one he failed to take in March or early April. It’s on him.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
I think the fraction above 50 that have been vaccinated is quite a bit off 100%, unfortunately.
Because we've not gotten around to vaccinating them yet despite them wanting it?
Or because they've rejected it? In which case screw them, they made their choice.
I'm just saying your claim that "virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs" is wrong.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
Also if this is about getting the r rate down, then shouldn't they actually increase measures, not simply not relax further? Yes, vaccines will be having an effect, but the goal is reduce r rate as fast as possible because it is rising at a worrying rate and that is more important than economic and social impacts, then why not go for the measure we know is very effective?
I think, politically, that would be a step too far. He can get away with this but no more.
For now. But suppose we have three more weeks of cases rising quickly - we could be at >20,000 cases a day again. Even if the vaccines work to prevent this leading to a large number of hospital admissions, there will be a certain amount of increase. I can envisage a scenario where there is then support for tightening restrictions.
See lilico's tweet I posted.
Two months at least beyond 21st now he reckons due to the third wave that was happening anyway for step 3. A wave that was accepted by ministers and SAGE as the price for some relaxations.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
Nonsense. They put the surrounding countries on the red list! It was clearly because Johnson wanted to go to India.
I find that hard to believe
I loathe this government's errors as much as anyone. I have been lustily crying CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS for more than a year
But can they really have kept the Indian border open and risked the entire economy of the nation, in the face of an obviously dangerous new variant from India, just to maintain the chance of a trade deal photo-op for Boris?
Really??
On the other hand, I am bereft of other explanations. TSE has plausibly argued that they closed the frontier with Pakistan and Bangla, even as they kept flights to Indian going, so it wasn't some "fear of being called racist"
I take it there is no suggestion of tightening restrictions? Just keeping the ones we have? In which case businesses turning a profit should be able to continue to do so. What we don't know is how many actually are right now.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
Why should it be on a linear scale? It's ideal if you want to compare growth rates, as the gradient of the line would be the same regardless of the absolute number in each wave. Normalizing it to the previous peak allows for an easier comparison of the absolute number.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
I am basing my pessimism off of looking at the absolute numbers not that chart.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
How is it misleading? Log plots are useful for this kind of data. The point it conveys is that the current curves are tracking the last wave quite closely, except for deaths of course.
It absolutely does not show that.
New admissions, total patients and deaths are all far, far, far flatter than last time. Because the virus has broken the link between cases and serious illness.
Actually, the gradient (which shows the growth rate) for the total and new admissions is virtually identical now. Hard to tell for those on a ventilator, but the sample is smaller so the curve is noisier. We could actually compute the derivative of each curve if you wanted to see the growth rate. I think we'd end up with very similar values for the two waves.
No, not really. For total patients it started higher and has taken longer to reach the same point. Much lower gradient.
Besides you can't escalate forever. Its currently burning out in the young - but last time it went from the young to the old, remember all the heatmaps? And that's where the cases came from.
That can't happen this time due to the vaccine. Its over, the vulnerable have been vaccinated - and if they've not, they need to live with the consequences of their decisions.
If places like Miss Cyclefree Jr's don't reopen without social distancing now they'll lose the summer and will have had five consecutive winters. That's death. That's death for many people's livelihoods, far more valuable than death of a few antivaxxers that number less than flu deaths.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
Nonsense. They put the surrounding countries on the red list! It was clearly because Johnson wanted to go to India.
I find that hard to believe
I loathe this government's errors as much as anyone. I have been lustily crying CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS for more than a year
But can they really have kept the Indian border open and risked the entire economy of the nation, in the face of an obviously dangerous new variant from India, just to maintain the chance of a trade deal photo-op for Boris?
Really??
On the other hand, I am bereft of other explanations. TSE has plausibly argued that they closed the frontier with Pakistan and Bangla, even as they kept flights to Indian going, so it wasn't some "fear of being called racist"
Then, what was it?
Maybe it's just that the people who run the country are not as intelligent as we assume they are.
In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.
People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.
No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.
How in the name of God can the hospitalisations get as bad as last time? The overwhelming majority of the vulnerable half of the population has been double-jabbed, providing high levels of protection against symptomatic illness and very high levels of protection against severe illness. Hospitalisation amongst younger age groups is comparatively uncommon, the bulk of the fortysomethings have also had at least one dose plus time for it to work, and where younger people are being admitted they are typically less seriously ill, require less care and stay for shorter periods.
We have heard as much from the Chief Exec of NHS Providers. We have seen as much in the hospitalisation stats from Bolton.
How are we going to end up back in January? It's literally incredible.
It’s happening. Sure, Bolton’s looking good, but hospitalisations in the NW as a whole are starting to track exactly the numbers at the start of the second wave. There is not an insignificant level of vaccine escape with this new variant and over 2 million over 50s are not yet fully vaccinated - this 47 year old is not happy he’s only had one dose given it’s only 33% effective at one dose compared to two.
I don’t like this situation either. I just want to burn my mask and get a train into town. If we had kept Delta out we wouldn’t be in this piss poor situation. But hospitalisations are rising. Numbers on ventilators are rising. Both exponentially. You can’t just shrug your shoulders at that. Blame Johnson for sure, not for this decision, but for the one he failed to take in March or early April. It’s on him.
On your first point, it absolutely isn't true. The growth rate of hospitalisations in NW region is well below the same stage in wave 2 and the growth rate for hospital numbers is even less than that.
On your other point about your personal situation, no one is going to force you to go out on June 21st. You can stay at home and wear masks all the time if you want until your second dose. Don't force your fear onto the rest of us who have only had one dose but are happy to take that minute risk.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
Your £1 against my £10.
I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
What do you mean 99% effective? Against the Indian variant? Are you sure?
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
Nonsense. They put the surrounding countries on the red list! It was clearly because Johnson wanted to go to India.
I find that hard to believe
I loathe this government's errors as much as anyone. I have been lustily crying CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS for more than a year
But can they really have kept the Indian border open and risked the entire economy of the nation, in the face of an obviously dangerous new variant from India, just to maintain the chance of a trade deal photo-op for Boris?
Really??
On the other hand, I am bereft of other explanations. TSE has plausibly argued that they closed the frontier with Pakistan and Bangla, even as they kept flights to Indian going, so it wasn't some "fear of being called racist"
Then, what was it?
Maybe it's just that the people who run the country are not as intelligent as we assume they are.
But this isn't just unintelligent. It is catastrophically, thunderously stupid. It is IQ of 47 stuff. It is retarded. It is enough. The government should fall
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
I think you are misreading it. 100% is the highest figure reached in January this year. Plotting it on a linear scale wouldn't change anything about how they looked in relation to each other.
The only reason they have chosen percentage over raw numbers is it means they don't have to have a number range for each chart.
Pb epidemiologists are doing a great job on the third wave so far.
Cases are not flat they are going down. Cases aren't increasing, they are flat. Cases are only increasing a bit. Case increases don't matter. Hospitalisations aren't flat they are going down. Hospitalisations aren't increasing, they are flat. Hospitalisations are only increasing a bit. etc.
In the end we cannot abolish death
Well, there was that canard about it being illegal to die on the parliamentary estate.
No, not really. For total patients it started higher and has taken longer to reach the same point. Much lower gradient.
Besides you can't escalate forever. Its currently burning out in the young - but last time it went from the young to the old, remember all the heatmaps? And that's where the cases came from.
That can't happen this time due to the vaccine. Its over, the vulnerable have been vaccinated - and if they've not, they need to live with the consequences of their decisions.
If places like Miss Cyclefree Jr's don't reopen without social distancing now they'll lose the summer and will have had five consecutive winters. That's death. That's death for many people's livelihoods, far more valuable than death of a few antivaxxers that number less than flu deaths.
But the growth rate now is what is important, and it's growing at almost exactly the same rate as before.
I do agree with you that there will be fewer and fewer hosts. The question is are we at that point already, in which case this should rapidly turn over, or is there still a few more weeks to go until a critical mass is reached.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
I think the fraction above 50 that have been vaccinated is quite a bit off 100%, unfortunately.
We're at over 90% for the first dose for all the subgroups over 50 in England, and over 95% for groups over 55.
Second doses are a little further behind but still substantial, especially in pensioners where they exceed 90% in all subgroups.
Take this, the slow spread of Delta from the initial foci (most of England has barely been affected thus far,) and the low total hospital inpatient figures from Bolton, Bedford and Blackburn, and it's hard to see where the catastrophe is meant to come from this time. And remember, for every day that passes another half-a-million patients, in round terms, get a vaccine dose and another half-a-million reach the end of their two or three week period after receiving theirs.
Of course, none of this matters, because no level of vaccination is sufficient for the lockdown ultras.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
Nonsense. They put the surrounding countries on the red list! It was clearly because Johnson wanted to go to India.
I find that hard to believe
I loathe this government's errors as much as anyone. I have been lustily crying CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS for more than a year
But can they really have kept the Indian border open and risked the entire economy of the nation, in the face of an obviously dangerous new variant from India, just to maintain the chance of a trade deal photo-op for Boris?
Really??
On the other hand, I am bereft of other explanations. TSE has plausibly argued that they closed the frontier with Pakistan and Bangla, even as they kept flights to Indian going, so it wasn't some "fear of being called racist"
Then, what was it?
Maybe it's just that the people who run the country are not as intelligent as we assume they are.
But this isn't just unintelligent. It is catastrophically, thunderously stupid. It is IQ of 47 stuff. It is retarded. It is enough. The government should fall
There's a line, with Coulson and Rhodes ahead of it.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
Why should it be on a linear scale? It's ideal if you want to compare growth rates, as the gradient of the line would be the same regardless of the absolute number in each wave. Normalizing it to the previous peak allows for an easier comparison of the absolute number.
Because both series are exponential. That is already built into the data. You don't need to plot the resulting proportion on a log scale. I have no issue with it being a proportion, though.
Really. Some journalist needs to pin down Boris and they need to fucking ask him to explain the dire stupidity of our border policies for the last 16 months
This has to be asked and it has to be answered. How have we allowed them to waffle for so long? Why did Portugal suddenly go amber when India - which was orders of magnitude more dangerous to anyone with a nervous system - was left open for weeks?
WHY????
Dominic Cummings said it was totally fucking stupid and he was right
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
Why should it be on a linear scale? It's ideal if you want to compare growth rates, as the gradient of the line would be the same regardless of the absolute number in each wave. Normalizing it to the previous peak allows for an easier comparison of the absolute number.
Because both series are exponential. That is already built into the data. You don't need to plot the resulting proportion on a log scale. I have no issue with it being a proportion, though.
You do if you want to show growth as a straight line rather than an exponential curve. It's easier to see what is happening at the start, otherwise it gets drowned out by the enormous peak.
I think we can safely say that summer in terms of festivals nightclubs and just general pub crawling fun is now cancelled. Pensioners may not be bothered young people certainly will be
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
Nonsense. They put the surrounding countries on the red list! It was clearly because Johnson wanted to go to India.
I find that hard to believe
I loathe this government's errors as much as anyone. I have been lustily crying CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS for more than a year
But can they really have kept the Indian border open and risked the entire economy of the nation, in the face of an obviously dangerous new variant from India, just to maintain the chance of a trade deal photo-op for Boris?
Really??
On the other hand, I am bereft of other explanations. TSE has plausibly argued that they closed the frontier with Pakistan and Bangla, even as they kept flights to Indian going, so it wasn't some "fear of being called racist"
Then, what was it?
I assume that the Prime Minister didn't think he was risking anything. That loveable sunny optimism.
After all, the NHS didn't fall over in April 2020 or January 2021. And then the vaccines came to definitively save his bacon.
And the lesson I suspect BoJo took from that was not "phew- better be more careful next time" but "PHWOOOOAR!". Or something.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
Trend lines all say different.
"Trend lines"
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
I think the fraction above 50 that have been vaccinated is quite a bit off 100%, unfortunately.
We're at over 90% for the first dose for all the subgroups over 50 in England, and over 95% for groups over 55.
Second doses are a little further behind but still substantial, especially in pensioners where they exceed 90% in all subgroups.
Take this, the slow spread of Delta from the initial foci (most of England has barely been affected thus far,) and the low total hospital inpatient figures from Bolton, Bedford and Blackburn, and it's hard to see where the catastrophe is meant to come from this time. And remember, for every day that passes another half-a-million patients, in round terms, get a vaccine dose and another half-a-million reach the end of their two or three week period after receiving theirs.
Of course, none of this matters, because no level of vaccination is sufficient for the lockdown ultras.
Believe me, if the lockdown ultras had their way, we would not be at Stage 3 at the moment. Follow the usual suspects on Twitter if you don’t believe me.
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
If it was credible, Starmer would have made hay with it.
Wouldn't he?
He's too busy getting involved in the TERF wars and wibbling about Boris not taking the knee.
Lead on the front page of the Guardian attacking Boris over the knee
Starmer has absolutely no political antenna
John Humphreys has a different take...not sure he would have articulated when working at the BBC.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
I am basing my pessimism off of looking at the absolute numbers not that chart.
The raw numbers don't seem to show anything like the rate of increase they did last September:
For the past month, the British people have been softened up like butter under a rolling pin for bad news about June 21.
Cautious Cabinet “doves” have been so successful that the only surprise Boris Johnson could spring next week would be to announce Covid curbs will be lifted after all.
As we now know, that is not going to happen, and the debate is already moving on to whether the delay will last for four weeks - taking us to July 19 - or even longer.
I take it there is no suggestion of tightening restrictions? Just keeping the ones we have? In which case businesses turning a profit should be able to continue to do so. What we don't know is how many actually are right now.
One thing that's worth remembering is that people do not respond only to formal legal restrictions. They make choices themselves. So if Johnson scares the bejesus out of the country by delaying June 21st due to the Delta variant, then it's possible that places that are making a profit now will stop making a profit.
I think we can safely say that summer in terms of festivals nightclubs and just general pub crawling fun is now cancelled. Pensioners may not be bothered young people certainly will be
I can’t take more of this war, to be honest with you.
I had my second Astra Jab yesterday. Tonight I took my aching arm and raging temperature off to the T20 cricket.
T20 cricket tonight is like a pre Covid world where a pandemic doesn’t exist, it’s drunkenness, high spirits, crowds sing side by side.
For the war weary spirit to live like that one night, and live in a world of restrictions on weddings, on shopping, on pub crawls, on church chorus, on house party’s the next is a weird mix.
Really. Some journalist needs to pin down Boris and they need to fucking ask him to explain the dire stupidity of our border policies for the last 16 months
This has to be asked and it has to be answered. How have we allowed them to waffle for so long? Why did Portugal suddenly go amber when India - which was orders of magnitude more dangerous to anyone with a nervous system - was left open for weeks?
WHY????
Dominic Cummings said it was totally fucking stupid and he was right
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
How is it misleading? Log plots are useful for this kind of data. The point it conveys is that the current curves are tracking the last wave quite closely, except for deaths of course.
It absolutely does not show that.
New admissions, total patients and deaths are all far, far, far flatter than last time. Because the virus has broken the link between cases and serious illness.
Actually, the gradient (which shows the growth rate) for the total and new admissions is virtually identical now. Hard to tell for those on a ventilator, but the sample is smaller so the curve is noisier. We could actually compute the derivative of each curve if you wanted to see the growth rate. I think we'd end up with very similar values for the two waves.
The character of the epidemic has changed with widespread antibodies in the population. It has gone from a geometric series to an arithmetic series, or by analogy from compound interest to simple interest. Each flare up peters out instead of spreading like wildfire.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
Your £1 against my £10.
I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.
Dude, you made sworn vows that Boris would NEVER delay unlockdown. It was your THING. Your USP. You nailed your colours to it. Absolute guarantee!
And it turns out you were wholly and totally wrong. I fear this rather devalues everything else you ever say
I take it there is no suggestion of tightening restrictions? Just keeping the ones we have? In which case businesses turning a profit should be able to continue to do so. What we don't know is how many actually are right now.
I would say we'll know by the Autumn when they go bust, but since we're likely to be back in lockdown by the Autumn then many or most of those that were scraping by under the restrictions will also go bust, so we'll likely never know the answer.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
I am basing my pessimism off of looking at the absolute numbers not that chart.
The raw numbers don't seem to show anything like the rate of increase they did last September:
We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
The government has had a lax policy on international travel throughout, but it has been driven by scientific advice. The idea that this had anything to do with desperation for trade deals isn't credible.
Nonsense. They put the surrounding countries on the red list! It was clearly because Johnson wanted to go to India.
I find that hard to believe
I loathe this government's errors as much as anyone. I have been lustily crying CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS for more than a year
But can they really have kept the Indian border open and risked the entire economy of the nation, in the face of an obviously dangerous new variant from India, just to maintain the chance of a trade deal photo-op for Boris?
Really??
On the other hand, I am bereft of other explanations. TSE has plausibly argued that they closed the frontier with Pakistan and Bangla, even as they kept flights to Indian going, so it wasn't some "fear of being called racist"
Then, what was it?
Maybe it's just that the people who run the country are not as intelligent as we assume they are.
I fear, in my case, that would be well nigh impossible.
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
I am basing my pessimism off of looking at the absolute numbers not that chart.
The raw numbers don't seem to show anything like the rate of increase they did last September:
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
FPT Oh really? 🤔
There was over 4k in hospital in the Northwest in the peak, there's currently 271.
There were hundreds in hospital in Warrington in the peak, there's currently 3. Not 300, 3. Liverpool University Hospitals had over 500 in the peak, there's currently 9. Wirral University Teaching Hospital had nearly 300 in the peak, there's currently 3.
Single digits in hospital Trusts when it was hundreds in hospital most of the pandemic is not awful.
I think the trajectories are more important than the instantaneous values. You cannot deny that they are on the rise. All except deaths, thankfully.
I couldn't give the hairy crack of a rats arse that they're on the rise from virtually zero. Warrington's gone from 1 to 3 - big whoop! Big frigging deal!
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
I think you're misinterpreting the plot. It's the %age of the previous peak, not %age growth from a smaller base.
Yes and its a completely misleading chart as its on log scale.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
How is it misleading? Log plots are useful for this kind of data. The point it conveys is that the current curves are tracking the last wave quite closely, except for deaths of course.
It absolutely does not show that.
New admissions, total patients and deaths are all far, far, far flatter than last time. Because the virus has broken the link between cases and serious illness.
Actually, the gradient (which shows the growth rate) for the total and new admissions is virtually identical now. Hard to tell for those on a ventilator, but the sample is smaller so the curve is noisier. We could actually compute the derivative of each curve if you wanted to see the growth rate. I think we'd end up with very similar values for the two waves.
The character of the epidemic has changed with widespread antibodies in the population. It has gone from a geometric series to an arithmetic series, or by analogy from compound interest to simple interest. Each flare up peters out instead of spreading like wildfire.
We are definitely focusing on a region, and not the country as a whole. It would be interesting to look at neighbouring regions to see if a similar uptick is seen. If not, that does suggest a critical mass of protection has been reached. I'd hate to make the choice of what to do on June 19th. I'd be tempted to say f*** it, and continue as planned.
For the past month, the British people have been softened up like butter under a rolling pin for bad news about June 21.
Cautious Cabinet “doves” have been so successful that the only surprise Boris Johnson could spring next week would be to announce Covid curbs will be lifted after all.
As we now know, that is not going to happen, and the debate is already moving on to whether the delay will last for four weeks - taking us to July 19 - or even longer.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
Your £1 against my £10.
I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.
Dude, you made sworn vows that Boris would NEVER delay unlockdown. It was your THING. Your USP. You nailed your colours to it. Absolute guarantee!
And it turns out you were wholly and totally wrong. I fear this rather devalues everything else you ever say
Correct leon kinabalu has his head in the sand and is just rationalizing now
It’s a difficult decision to make but hospitalisations and, significantly, ventilation beds in the NW are looking ominous. Hopefully things won’t be as bad this time round but a tough decision to make.
I said earlier today that the key figures wasn't cases, hospital occupancy or even admissions.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
That scale is extremely misleading, worthy of that Hames fellow from last year. It shows the current wave as a proportion of the previous wave, on a logarithmic scale. It should be on a linear scale becuase both series (wave 2 and wave 3) are exponential.
I think you are misreading it. 100% is the highest figure reached in January this year. Plotting it on a linear scale wouldn't change anything about how they looked in relation to each other.
The only reason they have chosen percentage over raw numbers is it means they don't have to have a number range for each chart.
I don't have a problem with it being a proportion, but an exponential figure being a proportion of another exponential figure already has that in built, the scale should then be linear.
Really. Some journalist needs to pin down Boris and they need to fucking ask him to explain the dire stupidity of our border policies for the last 16 months
This has to be asked and it has to be answered. How have we allowed them to waffle for so long? Why did Portugal suddenly go amber when India - which was orders of magnitude more dangerous to anyone with a nervous system - was left open for weeks?
WHY????
Dominic Cummings said it was totally fucking stupid and he was right
Have you considered that Boris Johnson is shit at his job?
I take it there is no suggestion of tightening restrictions? Just keeping the ones we have? In which case businesses turning a profit should be able to continue to do so. What we don't know is how many actually are right now.
Losing money, I think, just not so quickly as before. A good summer is needed. Psychologically too, not just financially.
It's like our NHS recovery plan. Each week we are below capacity because of social distancing our waiting list grows, just a bit slower than it did. We are told that nothing changes for us on June 21st, and the recovery money runs out in September. It is very demoralising.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
Your £1 against my £10.
I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.
It is obvious that his instincts are very strongly against lockdown, and that if he is forced into lockdown extensions it will be out of necessity. This site is collectively singing from a hymn sheet which says "Are we nearly there, daddy?" and then "But daddy, you PROMISED we were nearly there" and refuses to recognize the exigencies of life. The Tory Party did not invent the virus and has next to no control over how it behaves. Especially not once lockdown has been removed from its toolkit by pb fiat.
Really. Some journalist needs to pin down Boris and they need to fucking ask him to explain the dire stupidity of our border policies for the last 16 months
This has to be asked and it has to be answered. How have we allowed them to waffle for so long? Why did Portugal suddenly go amber when India - which was orders of magnitude more dangerous to anyone with a nervous system - was left open for weeks?
WHY????
Dominic Cummings said it was totally fucking stupid and he was right
No you can’t say, it’s the Indian variant but it’s the other side of the world, how does it put us on the red list and not Australia.
We live in a Global Village, so raging about border policies is wrong as insisting on vaccinating your countries 12 year olds first before sharing some of your vaccine with sub Saharan Africa.
Global Britain will never again be an island. Get over it.
Comments
After all these years Galloway turns out to be a self-publicist?
Swoons.
Its not going to go from 3 to 300 because the vulnerable have been double-vaccinated already!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/11/us-health-agency-gives-innova-lateral-flow-covid-tests-scathing-review
Your £1 against my £10.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/11/everton-in-advanced-talks-with-nuno-over-replacing-ancelotti-as-manager
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/06/09/everton-consider-shock-move-former-liverpool-manager-rafa-benitez/
This is unacceptable.
Given case and hospitalisation rises I'd assume deaths will as well, but not anywhere near as much as in previous waves, and that being the case the harm of ongoing measures outweighs the harm from that.
Starmer has absolutely no political antenna
We have heard as much from the Chief Exec of NHS Providers. We have seen as much in the hospitalisation stats from Bolton.
How are we going to end up back in January? It's literally incredible.
So in hospital figures aren't half-way up the chart as it appears, they're at ~5% of the peak - and the chart is much flatter this time and isn't growing as fast too.
Deaths are ~2% of the peak and flatter and not growing.
Because the vulnerable have been protected by the vaccine.
As the guy from Essex pubs said earlier, all it needs now is a down turn in the weather and kabomb.
Andrew Murrison: There can now be no question about the Government’s timeline for opening up. June 21 must stand.
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/06/andrew-murrison-there-can-now-be-no-question-about-the-governments-timeline-for-opening-up-june-21-must-stand.html
1. The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully
2. Evidence shows vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated
3. Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS
4. The assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new variants of concern.
1 to 3 are clear ticks. So I guess they'll be majoring on 4 when they pitch it.
@PoliticsForAlI
Police cars revolving lightRose | NEW: Labour says Freedom day is being delayed because Boris Johnson didn’t shut the borders
Riddle me this, how is it going to trend forever upwards when 80% of the adult population have antibodies already and virtually 100% of JCVI Groups 1-9 have had two jabs from a 99% effective vaccine?
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
@andrew_lilico
Replying to
@andrew_lilico
Let's be clear, by the way. Not opening on 21-June almost certainly means extending the crisis by 2+ extra months (& potentially longer). In one month's time we'll be near the peak created by Step 3. There's no earthly way they'll open at near that peak. It'll be 2 mths minimum.
We wont get to the next stage this year imho.
Sunak will need to send money to pubs or they are closing for good this time once the colder weather sets in.
I said it was mechanical ventilation numbers.
And that I was fairly relaxed.
However I didn't realise the NW mechanical ventilation numbers were rising so fast. Still about half the speed of autumn so not pant shitting just yet but unequivocally cause for concern.
Boris should resign obviously.
New admissions, total patients and deaths are all far, far, far flatter than last time. Because the virus has broken the link between cases and serious illness.
Screw the zero covid idiots. This ends now, or his Premiership needs to end now.
We'll probably be back in lockdown before then.
Or because they've rejected it? In which case screw them, they made their choice.
I don’t like this situation either. I just want to burn my mask and get a train into town. If we had kept Delta out we wouldn’t be in this piss poor situation. But hospitalisations are rising. Numbers on ventilators are rising. Both exponentially. You can’t just shrug your shoulders at that. Blame Johnson for sure, not for this decision, but for the one he failed to take in March or early April. It’s on him.
Two months at least beyond 21st now he reckons due to the third wave that was happening anyway for step 3. A wave that was accepted by ministers and SAGE as the price for some relaxations.
I loathe this government's errors as much as anyone. I have been lustily crying CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS for more than a year
But can they really have kept the Indian border open and risked the entire economy of the nation, in the face of an obviously dangerous new variant from India, just to maintain the chance of a trade deal photo-op for Boris?
Really??
On the other hand, I am bereft of other explanations. TSE has plausibly argued that they closed the frontier with Pakistan and Bangla, even as they kept flights to Indian going, so it wasn't some "fear of being called racist"
Then, what was it?
In which case businesses turning a profit should be able to continue to do so.
What we don't know is how many actually are right now.
Besides you can't escalate forever. Its currently burning out in the young - but last time it went from the young to the old, remember all the heatmaps? And that's where the cases came from.
That can't happen this time due to the vaccine. Its over, the vulnerable have been vaccinated - and if they've not, they need to live with the consequences of their decisions.
If places like Miss Cyclefree Jr's don't reopen without social distancing now they'll lose the summer and will have had five consecutive winters. That's death. That's death for many people's livelihoods, far more valuable than death of a few antivaxxers that number less than flu deaths.
On your other point about your personal situation, no one is going to force you to go out on June 21st. You can stay at home and wear masks all the time if you want until your second dose. Don't force your fear onto the rest of us who have only had one dose but are happy to take that minute risk.
The only reason they have chosen percentage over raw numbers is it means they don't have to have a number range for each chart.
I do agree with you that there will be fewer and fewer hosts. The question is are we at that point already, in which case this should rapidly turn over, or is there still a few more weeks to go until a critical mass is reached.
Second doses are a little further behind but still substantial, especially in pensioners where they exceed 90% in all subgroups.
Take this, the slow spread of Delta from the initial foci (most of England has barely been affected thus far,) and the low total hospital inpatient figures from Bolton, Bedford and Blackburn, and it's hard to see where the catastrophe is meant to come from this time. And remember, for every day that passes another half-a-million patients, in round terms, get a vaccine dose and another half-a-million reach the end of their two or three week period after receiving theirs.
Of course, none of this matters, because no level of vaccination is sufficient for the lockdown ultras.
This has to be asked and it has to be answered. How have we allowed them to waffle for so long? Why did Portugal suddenly go amber when India - which was orders of magnitude more dangerous to anyone with a nervous system - was left open for weeks?
WHY????
Dominic Cummings said it was totally fucking stupid and he was right
That loveable sunny optimism.
After all, the NHS didn't fall over in April 2020 or January 2021. And then the vaccines came to definitively save his bacon.
And the lesson I suspect BoJo took from that was not "phew- better be more careful next time" but "PHWOOOOAR!". Or something.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9677997/I-wont-foot-soldier-woke-war.html
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
Cautious Cabinet “doves” have been so successful that the only surprise Boris Johnson could spring next week would be to announce Covid curbs will be lifted after all.
As we now know, that is not going to happen, and the debate is already moving on to whether the delay will last for four weeks - taking us to July 19 - or even longer.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/11/freedom-day-delay-inevitable-many-weeks-can-take/
I had my second Astra Jab yesterday. Tonight I took my aching arm and raging temperature off to the T20 cricket.
T20 cricket tonight is like a pre Covid world where a pandemic doesn’t exist, it’s drunkenness, high spirits, crowds sing side by side.
For the war weary spirit to live like that one night, and live in a world of restrictions on weddings, on shopping, on pub crawls, on church chorus, on house party’s the next is a weird mix.
And it turns out you were wholly and totally wrong. I fear this rather devalues everything else you ever say
As I said, not trouser shitting.
But the danger is that the Northwest becomes the rest of the country.
It's like our NHS recovery plan. Each week we are below capacity because of social distancing our waiting list grows, just a bit slower than it did. We are told that nothing changes for us on June 21st, and the recovery money runs out in September. It is very demoralising.
We live in a Global Village, so raging about border policies is wrong as insisting on vaccinating your countries 12 year olds first before sharing some of your vaccine with sub Saharan Africa.
Global Britain will never again be an island. Get over it.