Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 28m I hope GB News does well. We need more media diversity. But the technical problems aren’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem is to use people who aren’t professional broadcasters to try to anchor professional broadcast output.
That would be fine is they were experts...but instead too many of the hires are neither professional broadcasters nor have any real expertise beyond their lived experience (to coin a woke term, that lets you get away with speaking bollocks).
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
It is worth noting that all of this has been put together in 4 weeks....a month ago there was no studio etc it was an empty shell.
Yes the channel has been in the planning for age, but the actual technical side was only finished a week or two ago. No idea how much that has been effected by covid.
“I support Boris and his government on this because Of course public health has to come first, not business.” That is on message. Start rehearsing it now.
The rate of infections is shooting up too quickly. Whitty will say. Number of people in hospital might just be too high. Boris will say. There clearly is not enough people vaccinated. Valance will admit. (You can’t close the borders to that extent, so don’t mention that you are just silly, the media will be answered)
“ I have to level with you. Yes vaccinations do stop some people getting really ill, but Absolutely No one knows just to what extent. That’s where some claim they know, but they are fake news, don’t really know, just bent and biased to wanting to live with Covid without restrictions now lots of jabs have happened or they were all way through anyway, that’s how silly they are, the just let it rip brigade. The strong decisions of my government have saved about a million lives.”
Here’s a good media question, but we have crap media so it won’t be asked.
“If the current KPI sets the precedent for unlocking, how long does one last heave go on for?”
“I’m glad you asked me that. That depends on the 3rd wave on the the numbers. 3rd wave about half way through now? So not long. But that doesn’t stop let’slivewithcovididiots creating and pushing false narratives. we can all invent derogative names for one another - just some of us are sticking to facts and reality not inventing conspiracy theories, or throwing toys out pram like immature characters. Everyone who is that extreme a libertarian is an immature character, scientists probably on cusp of proving that.”
Captain hindsight is allowed a word.
“There is a pattern here. The main problem Boris MP’s seems to missing is 4th wave after the unlocking doing similar thing putting their prime minister in a difficult spot, if public health has to come first is the mantra. That is why the Prime minister can only be saved in the vote by the good sense of the Labour Party.”
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
Based on the pixallation of the images, it doesn't look like they're using brand new equipment!
Looks like they've ordered off eBay equipment from a studio 15 years ago.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
Ah - good old Ivermectin. I assume that we are not using is part of a massive conspiracy? Clearly Sage, the government, the NHS and all would like more people to die. Or maybe this is not the panacea you think it is? Can you point me to the studies that show its use would get the fatality rate to 0.000%? Do you not think that a myriad of different strategies have been tried to cure/save people with covid? If Ivermectin was so good, we'd know.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
It is worth noting that all of this has been put together in 4 weeks....a month ago there was no studio etc ,it was an empty shell.
Prior to going live did they not think of testing the equipment? Making sure that images were proper HD quality expected off any TV station nowadays?
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
Yes I'm very sanguine if they're minor cases that don't end up in ICU or deaths. Quite rightly too.
People get ill, that's what the NHS is there for. So long as the NHS is able to cope with the illness then get on with life as normal.
Abolishing illness is not what the state is for, the NHS is there to treat illness not prevent it from ever occurring.
"It’s like having the nerdy, spotty teenager who lives almost entirely in his bedroom decide that everyone else in the family should live like that too. Normally, this would be met with derision and a firm command to get washed, downstairs and showing some manners to Auntie Pamela who’s come for tea."
This level of argument is about on a par with yelling "Get a Life!" at someone you disagree with.
If you don't understand the science, have a go at ridiculing scientists ...
You are actually right for once. The suggestion that those in principle in favour of caution are motivated by fear, laziness, lack of a life etc is infantile. The free spirits who advance it, per contrariam, usually turn out to have little idea of an unshackled life well lived beyond going to Ther Pub. I think scientists on the whole know more about science then I do and are guided by the greatest good rather than by zero covidiocy or similar nonsense, and I'm about to fly back to Scotland to sail a yacht to St Kilda, so on most views I have more to lose from lockdowns than the pub goers.
Three things:
(1) Scientists are advisors i.e. they advise, they don't decide. The Government has a wider remit than just listening to the scientists. So, scientists' input should be one factor but not the only one. The point @Cyclefree is making rightly is that the Government has allowed a narrative to develop where the only opinion that matters is that of the scientists. That should never be the case.
(2) As they are advisors, they also should be advising in private and not using the media to try and advance their own agendas. No advisory role I had would allow me to start blatantly pushing my own view in the public eye in order to influence the final outcome. It would diminish immediately the value of the advisor and my view of them.
(3) If you think scientists do not have an agenda and are purely driven by the science, then that is wishful thinking. They are driven by their own views, prejudices etc. A lot of them subscribe to the view that this is an opportunity to change things "for the better" and, being scientists, tend to attach a fairly low (and that is being generous) importance to how humans want to live these lives.
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
It is worth noting that all of this has been put together in 4 weeks....a month ago there was no studio etc ,it was an empty shell.
Prior to going live did they not think of testing the equipment? Making sure that images were proper HD quality expected off any TV station nowadays?
I am saying it all seems to be have done very quickly and I wonder how much COVID restrctions hinders things. We know telly programs are taking ages to make because of this. That ITV Sunday night detective show, something and Hobbs, only managed to make half the number of planned episodes for the latest season because of this.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
I'll ask again.
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
From the HMG covid data site:
7 days cases to 22/5 = 16668; 7 days cases to 15/2 = 14757; 13% increase. 7 days cases to 23/5 = 17054; 7 days cases to 16/2 = 14441; 18% increase.
So it was around the 22/23 May that the rate of increase in cases passed through 15%. Since then it's been rising to the range 50-70% increase week on week by 10/6 (latest data).
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
But then people like Whitty, Vallance, SAGE and Independent SAGE wouldn't be relevant any more. And costs for the whole COVID industry except vaccine makers would be stranded.
Did you think of all the children of the hand sanitiser people? Who is going to feed and clothe them when nobody's panicking any more? Well, did you?
Mr. Urquhart, that does remind me of someone writing that a Critical Drinker review mocking Batwoman got more views than the episode itself.
Great YouTube channel that. That is an example of how have a different take on movie reviews to the norm and is very popular.
Ecpnomic Explained, Coldfusion or Wendover Productions are examples of informative channels that the mainstream media would do well to think about e.g. BBC, delays to availability of products, its Brexit and COVID innit....the channels, actually there is more to it, let me explain...
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
I'll ask again.
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
It is worth noting that all of this has been put together in 4 weeks....a month ago there was no studio etc ,it was an empty shell.
Prior to going live did they not think of testing the equipment? Making sure that images were proper HD quality expected off any TV station nowadays?
I am saying it all seems to be have done very quickly and I wonder how much COVID restrctions hinders things. We know telly programs are taking ages to make because of this. That ITV Sunday night detective show, something and Hobbs, only managed to make half the number of planned episodes for the latest season because of this.
It's not difficult to set up an HD quality studio nowadays - my office setup is good enough and all I have is a decent webcam and some lighting.
The fact GBNews haven't got that is rather inexcusable in this day and age.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Interesting fact about commute times (apologies if this is well known): commute times have remained static for well over 100 years, at an average of about 40 minutes. When new infrastructure or technologies allow us to reduce our commute times, we respond by getting jobs further away. There is a slightly higher average in the south east but this can be explained solely by a concentration of higher-paying jobs (which makes it worth people's while to stretch beyond the 40-odd minutes).
This is v interesting and explains why one of the key things you need to do to encourage economic growth is metro mass transit systems.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
I think Jonathan’s comments above show exactly who is supporting ongoing restrictions.
It is not, actually, those on furlough or the youngest.
It is people for whom the current set-up works very well thank-you, forgetting that the whole affair is being bank-rolled by HM Treasury aka your children’s taxes.
IMO there needs to be a special Covid tax on all those businesses and people who have been able to continue working through the last 16 months. Just them. A proportion of the savings they have accumulated through working from home and not being able to go out can be used to support those who have been stopped from or severely restricted in earning a living.
Oh, the cries of pain we'll hear from the comfortably off. Well, tough shit. About time they bore some of the economic pain others have felt and will continue to feel for some time to come.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
How about a simple example: Pubs.
The hospitality industry have had an absolutely rotten time for the past 18 months. Right now with the summer and the Euros should be one of the most profitable times of the year, which would help them recover. Instead its table service only.
If England make the Semi Finals or the Finals then it should be packed pubs with the staff serving as quickly as they can at the bar. Great atmosphere for the fans, great business for an industry that desperately, desperately needs the cash in the tills.
Instead its a case of lets postpone so that people who have refused the vaccine are less exposed - since almost all hospitalisations are coming from people who refused the vaccine. Pathetic.
If the medical crisis really is all that (and is it?) and we need to delay then Dishy needs to put his tiny hands in his pockets and bail out the likes of Cyclefree Jr and say NOW they are doing so.
What is truly breathtaking is that they are kneecapping various sectors - again - and leaving them with no financial support - again. Yes they may have an 11th hour change of heart, but its too late by then. Much too late. Do businesses unable to cover their costs or pay their suppliers or need yet more leeway by the banks say "we don't have the £ now but don't worry the government will bail us out at the last minute".
You can't pay your bills with jam tomorrow. That they haven't fucking learned this yet after repeated examples demonstrates that they truly are clowns.
No amount of government support is ever going to replace what is lost here.
A packed pub in the summer with the Euros could potentially be generating say double its normal trade. If instead due to table service etc they're maybe going to generate its normal trade. What's lost is the opportunity for profits there, with a seasonal business making profits in good times to take the business through the lean times.
Furlough etc aren't especially relevant if the business is trading with staff required for table service etc - what's required is customers not the state.
Table service is not normal trade. Roughly 50% of her business comes from drinkers coming in, standing at the bar and seeing who is in and they can chat to. Being unable to move round the place and mingle puts off lots of customers.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
I'll ask again.
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
Or is it just hot-broth-and-lemon-jiff part deux?
The other drug we should be using which inexplicably has failed to get approval so far is snakeoilin, which cuts the fatality rate to -20% apparently.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
I'll ask again.
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
Or is it just hot-broth-and-lemon-jiff part deux?
Its Hydroxychloroquine part deux.
There was a really, really shitty preliminary semi-anecdotal data that suggested that Hydroxychloroquine *might* have an effect, IIRC. Which was rapidly shot down by more detailed work.
"It’s like having the nerdy, spotty teenager who lives almost entirely in his bedroom decide that everyone else in the family should live like that too. Normally, this would be met with derision and a firm command to get washed, downstairs and showing some manners to Auntie Pamela who’s come for tea."
This level of argument is about on a par with yelling "Get a Life!" at someone you disagree with.
If you don't understand the science, have a go at ridiculing scientists ...
You are actually right for once. The suggestion that those in principle in favour of caution are motivated by fear, laziness, lack of a life etc is infantile. The free spirits who advance it, per contrariam, usually turn out to have little idea of an unshackled life well lived beyond going to Ther Pub. I think scientists on the whole know more about science then I do and are guided by the greatest good rather than by zero covidiocy or similar nonsense, and I'm about to fly back to Scotland to sail a yacht to St Kilda, so on most views I have more to lose from lockdowns than the pub goers.
Three things:
(1) Scientists are advisors i.e. they advise, they don't decide. The Government has a wider remit than just listening to the scientists. So, scientists' input should be one factor but not the only one. The point @Cyclefree is making rightly is that the Government has allowed a narrative to develop where the only opinion that matters is that of the scientists. That should never be the case.
(2) As they are advisors, they also should be advising in private and not using the media to try and advance their own agendas. No advisory role I had would allow me to start blatantly pushing my own view in the public eye in order to influence the final outcome. It would diminish immediately the value of the advisor and my view of them.
(3) If you think scientists do not have an agenda and are purely driven by the science, then that is wishful thinking. They are driven by their own views, prejudices etc. A lot of them subscribe to the view that this is an opportunity to change things "for the better" and, being scientists, tend to attach a fairly low (and that is being generous) importance to how humans want to live these lives.
Your (3) is largely fantasy. Would you behave like that if you were a scientist being paid to give objective scientific advice? I wouldn't, so that's two of us for starters. Of course there are *some* scientists who might behave like that, but the bulk of the wishful thinking here is: I really want lockdown to be over therefore the science must be in favour of the lockdown being over, and if a scientist says otherwise he must be lying.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
I'll ask again.
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
Or is it just hot-broth-and-lemon-jiff part deux?
The other drug we should be using which inexplicably has failed to get approval so far is snakeoilin, which cuts the fatality rate to -20% apparently.
What about Chlorine Triflouride? I can guarantee it destroys 100% of COVID viral particles. I can guarantee it will eliminate COVID as a cause of death, as well.
I think Jonathan’s comments above show exactly who is supporting ongoing restrictions.
It is not, actually, those on furlough or the youngest.
It is people for whom the current set-up works very well thank-you, forgetting that the whole affair is being bank-rolled by HM Treasury aka your children’s taxes.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
How about a simple example: Pubs.
The hospitality industry have had an absolutely rotten time for the past 18 months. Right now with the summer and the Euros should be one of the most profitable times of the year, which would help them recover. Instead its table service only.
If England make the Semi Finals or the Finals then it should be packed pubs with the staff serving as quickly as they can at the bar. Great atmosphere for the fans, great business for an industry that desperately, desperately needs the cash in the tills.
Instead its a case of lets postpone so that people who have refused the vaccine are less exposed - since almost all hospitalisations are coming from people who refused the vaccine. Pathetic.
If the medical crisis really is all that (and is it?) and we need to delay then Dishy needs to put his tiny hands in his pockets and bail out the likes of Cyclefree Jr and say NOW they are doing so.
What is truly breathtaking is that they are kneecapping various sectors - again - and leaving them with no financial support - again. Yes they may have an 11th hour change of heart, but its too late by then. Much too late. Do businesses unable to cover their costs or pay their suppliers or need yet more leeway by the banks say "we don't have the £ now but don't worry the government will bail us out at the last minute".
You can't pay your bills with jam tomorrow. That they haven't fucking learned this yet after repeated examples demonstrates that they truly are clowns.
No amount of government support is ever going to replace what is lost here.
A packed pub in the summer with the Euros could potentially be generating say double its normal trade. If instead due to table service etc they're maybe going to generate its normal trade. What's lost is the opportunity for profits there, with a seasonal business making profits in good times to take the business through the lean times.
Furlough etc aren't especially relevant if the business is trading with staff required for table service etc - what's required is customers not the state.
Table service is not normal trade. Roughly 50% of her business comes from drinkers coming in, standing at the bar and seeing who is in and they can chat to. Being unable to move round the place and mingle puts off lots of customers.
That was my point I was making. Half the trade is lost.
If her trade figures this week are "average" compared to pre-pandemic then that's not good enough when in a summer heatwave with Euros* on trade should be about double normal. So if trade is only average then half of trade that should be gained right now is lost and that won't be made up in a few months time when the heat and the Euros have gone.
* Assuming she shows sport, if she doesn't then negate that but still summer should mean above average trade.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
"Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines. " Again with the ivermectin obsession (is this the new hydroxychloroquine? If we had evidence it worked, we'd be using it (as with dexamethasone. There's no secret conspiracy to keep these going.
The problem is the number of people rolling up in hospitals with covid. That problem looks to be limited and, with the vax programme, will top out earlier and a lot lower than before.
We don't need the nutters and conspiracy theorists any more.
Looks like Press Conference 18.00, HoC Statement 21.00:
On ministerial statements, prior notice to the Speaker is required but neither the Speaker's permission nor the leave of the House is required. The government have informed the Speaker of their intention to make at statement at 9pm.
UQs are entirely in the gift of the Speaker, but which minister will answer a UQ is up to the government. Speaker can’t compel a specific minister to answer.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
I'll ask again.
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
Or is it just hot-broth-and-lemon-jiff part deux?
The other drug we should be using which inexplicably has failed to get approval so far is snakeoilin, which cuts the fatality rate to -20% apparently.
What about Chlorine Triflouride? I can guarantee it destroys 100% of COVID viral particles. I can guarantee it will eliminate COVID as a cause of death, as well.
“ The US government has spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant, after a French company that part owns and helps operate it warned of an "imminent radiological threat," according to US officials and documents reviewed by CNN.”
I think if @Keir_Starmer opposed the Government on the main issue of the day, standing up for freedom and young people in the process, I might die of surprise.
Quote Tweet Kate Ferguson @kateferguson4 · 1h Sir Keir Starmer refuses to say if he will back the PM and vote for an extension of lockdown. But the overwhelming expectation is that he will - means the army of Tory rebels won’t stand a chance of defeating the government #LBC"
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Interesting fact about commute times (apologies if this is well known): commute times have remained static for well over 100 years, at an average of about 40 minutes. When new infrastructure or technologies allow us to reduce our commute times, we respond by getting jobs further away. There is a slightly higher average in the south east but this can be explained solely by a concentration of higher-paying jobs (which makes it worth people's while to stretch beyond the 40-odd minutes).
This is v interesting and explains why one of the key things you need to do to encourage economic growth is metro mass transit systems.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Agree entirely. There are a few subtleties though - metro mass transit systems don't necessarily have to run on rails. What they do need to do is be rapid, with predictable journey times (more predictable than driving, anyway). This therefore means they have to either be separated from general traffic or have some effective way of getting priority over it.
Leeds does, if I recall, have some stretches of busway which do this to some extent - I don't know how effectively.
We also have to consider where we want to serve with our mass transit - the working class communities with low car ownership or the middle class communities where the skilled labour is (and the greatest market for mass transit). Not an easy decision.
"It’s like having the nerdy, spotty teenager who lives almost entirely in his bedroom decide that everyone else in the family should live like that too. Normally, this would be met with derision and a firm command to get washed, downstairs and showing some manners to Auntie Pamela who’s come for tea."
This level of argument is about on a par with yelling "Get a Life!" at someone you disagree with.
If you don't understand the science, have a go at ridiculing scientists ...
You are actually right for once. The suggestion that those in principle in favour of caution are motivated by fear, laziness, lack of a life etc is infantile. The free spirits who advance it, per contrariam, usually turn out to have little idea of an unshackled life well lived beyond going to Ther Pub. I think scientists on the whole know more about science then I do and are guided by the greatest good rather than by zero covidiocy or similar nonsense, and I'm about to fly back to Scotland to sail a yacht to St Kilda, so on most views I have more to lose from lockdowns than the pub goers.
Three things:
(1) Scientists are advisors i.e. they advise, they don't decide. The Government has a wider remit than just listening to the scientists. So, scientists' input should be one factor but not the only one. The point @Cyclefree is making rightly is that the Government has allowed a narrative to develop where the only opinion that matters is that of the scientists. That should never be the case.
(2) As they are advisors, they also should be advising in private and not using the media to try and advance their own agendas. No advisory role I had would allow me to start blatantly pushing my own view in the public eye in order to influence the final outcome. It would diminish immediately the value of the advisor and my view of them.
(3) If you think scientists do not have an agenda and are purely driven by the science, then that is wishful thinking. They are driven by their own views, prejudices etc. A lot of them subscribe to the view that this is an opportunity to change things "for the better" and, being scientists, tend to attach a fairly low (and that is being generous) importance to how humans want to live these lives.
Your (3) is largely fantasy. Would you behave like that if you were a scientist being paid to give objective scientific advice? I wouldn't, so that's two of us for starters. Of course there are *some* scientists who might behave like that, but the bulk of the wishful thinking here is: I really want lockdown to be over therefore the science must be in favour of the lockdown being over, and if a scientist says otherwise he must be lying.
Do you mean (2) or (3) or are you saying scientists are not driven by their own agendas? Look at Dr Fauci. It is increasingly obvious his concern was not just the science but a variety of other factors including, by the looks of things, his need for publicity. The problem with your argument is that you are saying we should all listen to the scientists because they are the pure truth tellers who must be believed. My argument is thinking they are so is actually the fantasy.
If you want an example, look at many of the scientists in the US who said last year we must clamp down because of Covid but then said it was fine to have mass demonstrations full of people shouting because systemic racism was a greater public health threat than Covid. They allowed their personal / political views to override accepted science.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
Cases seem to really take off around 31st may
and 5th of June for the hospitalisations.
Wow! That cases by age graph really shows how it is the younger age groups who are most affected.
Feeling glad all our nephews and niecesin their 20s and 30s (16 of them in total) have been very keen to get vaccinaited and have now had their first jab.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
Yes; that's the ideal. We're likely to saturate at around 7x daily admissions for hospital occupancy rate and tick down from that slowly. The fact that we're only just completing the transition from 11x to 7x has bought us at least an extra week, I'd guess. All of which helps.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
Nobody ever learns anything from others. It's completely nuts the way we have seen things play out with COVID-19 where you can look at one country and almost put a cross on a calendar for it blowing up in neighbouring countries X days/weeks later. I hope I'm wrong but with the vast majority of people unvaccinated the Delta variant has every opportunity to do a collosal amount of damage around the world over the next half of 2021.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
Based on the pixallation of the images, it doesn't look like they're using brand new equipment!
Looks like they've ordered off eBay equipment from a studio 15 years ago.
That’s probably down to something as simple as the settings on the compression hardware. If it looks like that in the studio, it will be interference in a cable, which doesn’t need much to screw up a digital signal. Some poor camera tech will be swapping the cables out, one by one!
I think GB News have focussed on the presenters, editors, shows and angles to take but perhaps glossed over the "backroom staff" that are crucial to getting a slick professional news operation up and running. The ratio is probably 3:1 or 4:1 or more and you must have them.
Say what you like about Sky, BBC and ITV but they get the technical stuff right and we usually take it for granted.
They certainly have had a few gremlins. It’ll likely be what we’d expect in the coming days, as the staff get to grips with all the equipment.
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
Based on the pixallation of the images, it doesn't look like they're using brand new equipment!
Looks like they've ordered off eBay equipment from a studio 15 years ago.
That’s probably down to something as simple as the settings on the compression hardware. If it looks like that in the studio, it will be interference in a cable, which doesn’t need much to screw up a digital signal. Some poor camera tech will be swapping the cables out, one by one!
Its really something they should have tested before giving such an awful first impression.
The economy badly needs to build momentum/confidence to prepare for summer and bring back furloughed staff (still about 15% of employees, I think).
Many businesses are just holding on by the skin of their teeth. Many have given up already.
There is also a moral argument to be made about whether it is appropriate to maintain ongoing restrictions on our civil liberties for a moment longer than necessary.
Unlock, unlock, unlock.
Do we really want to go back to the pre-covid world? It was rubbish in many ways.
No, but I wish to get on to the post covid one, rather than remaining in limbo.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
Cases seem to really take off around 31st may
and 5th of June for the hospitalisations.
Wow! That cases by age graph really shows how it is the younger age groups who are most affected.
Feeling glad all our nephews and niecesin their 20s and 30s (16 of them in total) have been very keen to get vaccinaited and have now had their first jab.
I post them every day. Maybe that's why they are a surprise :-)
The hospital admissions are taking off - in the younger, unvaccinated groups. Which is why, overall, the numbers are much less dramatic. So you get a total admissions curve like this
I think Jonathan’s comments above show exactly who is supporting ongoing restrictions.
It is not, actually, those on furlough or the youngest.
It is people for whom the current set-up works very well thank-you, forgetting that the whole affair is being bank-rolled by HM Treasury aka your children’s taxes.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
How about a simple example: Pubs.
The hospitality industry have had an absolutely rotten time for the past 18 months. Right now with the summer and the Euros should be one of the most profitable times of the year, which would help them recover. Instead its table service only.
If England make the Semi Finals or the Finals then it should be packed pubs with the staff serving as quickly as they can at the bar. Great atmosphere for the fans, great business for an industry that desperately, desperately needs the cash in the tills.
Instead its a case of lets postpone so that people who have refused the vaccine are less exposed - since almost all hospitalisations are coming from people who refused the vaccine. Pathetic.
If the medical crisis really is all that (and is it?) and we need to delay then Dishy needs to put his tiny hands in his pockets and bail out the likes of Cyclefree Jr and say NOW they are doing so.
What is truly breathtaking is that they are kneecapping various sectors - again - and leaving them with no financial support - again. Yes they may have an 11th hour change of heart, but its too late by then. Much too late. Do businesses unable to cover their costs or pay their suppliers or need yet more leeway by the banks say "we don't have the £ now but don't worry the government will bail us out at the last minute".
You can't pay your bills with jam tomorrow. That they haven't fucking learned this yet after repeated examples demonstrates that they truly are clowns.
No amount of government support is ever going to replace what is lost here.
A packed pub in the summer with the Euros could potentially be generating say double its normal trade. If instead due to table service etc they're maybe going to generate its normal trade. What's lost is the opportunity for profits there, with a seasonal business making profits in good times to take the business through the lean times.
Furlough etc aren't especially relevant if the business is trading with staff required for table service etc - what's required is customers not the state.
Table service is not normal trade. Roughly 50% of her business comes from drinkers coming in, standing at the bar and seeing who is in and they can chat to. Being unable to move round the place and mingle puts off lots of customers.
That was my point I was making. Half the trade is lost.
If her trade figures this week are "average" compared to pre-pandemic then that's not good enough when in a summer heatwave with Euros* on trade should be about double normal. So if trade is only average then half of trade that should be gained right now is lost and that won't be made up in a few months time when the heat and the Euros have gone.
* Assuming she shows sport, if she doesn't then negate that but still summer should mean above average trade.
Yes - sorry if I misunderstood you. We are in agreement.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
Yes. The story of the pandemic is that affluent middle-class guys sit safely at home looking out on their gardens while working-class geezers deliver stuff to their door.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Interesting fact about commute times (apologies if this is well known): commute times have remained static for well over 100 years, at an average of about 40 minutes. When new infrastructure or technologies allow us to reduce our commute times, we respond by getting jobs further away. There is a slightly higher average in the south east but this can be explained solely by a concentration of higher-paying jobs (which makes it worth people's while to stretch beyond the 40-odd minutes).
This is v interesting and explains why one of the key things you need to do to encourage economic growth is metro mass transit systems.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Agree entirely. There are a few subtleties though - metro mass transit systems don't necessarily have to run on rails. What they do need to do is be rapid, with predictable journey times (more predictable than driving, anyway). This therefore means they have to either be separated from general traffic or have some effective way of getting priority over it.
Leeds does, if I recall, have some stretches of busway which do this to some extent - I don't know how effectively.
We also have to consider where we want to serve with our mass transit - the working class communities with low car ownership or the middle class communities where the skilled labour is (and the greatest market for mass transit). Not an easy decision.
Mass transit systems don't sound like a good idea at the moment, especially with people who think the pre-covid world was rubbish.
Nick Respectfully they go down and down for you so far
LOL
GB News really missed out not hiring Nick Ferrari. He isn't quite Andrew Neil, but he is a cut above many and will rip most dullard politicians to threads.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
For an OAP whose grandchildren live a considerable distance away and who is prepared to socially function on Zoom, life isn't too bad, either. The surperrakek will deliver, as will the specialist wine merchant and one doesn't have the hassle of driving anywhere.
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
I'll ask again.
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
Or is it just hot-broth-and-lemon-jiff part deux?
The other drug we should be using which inexplicably has failed to get approval so far is snakeoilin, which cuts the fatality rate to -20% apparently.
What about Chlorine Triflouride? I can guarantee it destroys 100% of COVID viral particles. I can guarantee it will eliminate COVID as a cause of death, as well.
Sodium hypochlorite should do the job too.
Chlorine Triflouride is more fun
then there are the Pentaflourides.... mmmmmmm... {giggles in mad scientist}
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
Cases seem to really take off around 31st may
and 5th of June for the hospitalisations.
Wow! That cases by age graph really shows how it is the younger age groups who are most affected.
Feeling glad all our nephews and niecesin their 20s and 30s (16 of them in total) have been very keen to get vaccinaited and have now had their first jab.
I post them every day. Maybe that's why they are a surprise :-)
The hospital admissions are taking off - in the younger, unvaccinated groups. Which is why, overall, the numbers are much less dramatic. So you get a total admissions curve like this
and the number is hospital looks like this
=
Fair point. I had not seen that one before due to less frequent PB activity on my part and, presumably, timing.
I think Jonathan’s comments above show exactly who is supporting ongoing restrictions.
It is not, actually, those on furlough or the youngest.
It is people for whom the current set-up works very well thank-you, forgetting that the whole affair is being bank-rolled by HM Treasury aka your children’s taxes.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
How about a simple example: Pubs.
The hospitality industry have had an absolutely rotten time for the past 18 months. Right now with the summer and the Euros should be one of the most profitable times of the year, which would help them recover. Instead its table service only.
If England make the Semi Finals or the Finals then it should be packed pubs with the staff serving as quickly as they can at the bar. Great atmosphere for the fans, great business for an industry that desperately, desperately needs the cash in the tills.
Instead its a case of lets postpone so that people who have refused the vaccine are less exposed - since almost all hospitalisations are coming from people who refused the vaccine. Pathetic.
If the medical crisis really is all that (and is it?) and we need to delay then Dishy needs to put his tiny hands in his pockets and bail out the likes of Cyclefree Jr and say NOW they are doing so.
What is truly breathtaking is that they are kneecapping various sectors - again - and leaving them with no financial support - again. Yes they may have an 11th hour change of heart, but its too late by then. Much too late. Do businesses unable to cover their costs or pay their suppliers or need yet more leeway by the banks say "we don't have the £ now but don't worry the government will bail us out at the last minute".
You can't pay your bills with jam tomorrow. That they haven't fucking learned this yet after repeated examples demonstrates that they truly are clowns.
No amount of government support is ever going to replace what is lost here.
A packed pub in the summer with the Euros could potentially be generating say double its normal trade. If instead due to table service etc they're maybe going to generate its normal trade. What's lost is the opportunity for profits there, with a seasonal business making profits in good times to take the business through the lean times.
Furlough etc aren't especially relevant if the business is trading with staff required for table service etc - what's required is customers not the state.
Table service is not normal trade. Roughly 50% of her business comes from drinkers coming in, standing at the bar and seeing who is in and they can chat to. Being unable to move round the place and mingle puts off lots of customers.
That was my point I was making. Half the trade is lost.
If her trade figures this week are "average" compared to pre-pandemic then that's not good enough when in a summer heatwave with Euros* on trade should be about double normal. So if trade is only average then half of trade that should be gained right now is lost and that won't be made up in a few months time when the heat and the Euros have gone.
* Assuming she shows sport, if she doesn't then negate that but still summer should mean above average trade.
Yes - sorry if I misunderstood you. We are in agreement.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
How about a simple example: Pubs.
The hospitality industry have had an absolutely rotten time for the past 18 months. Right now with the summer and the Euros should be one of the most profitable times of the year, which would help them recover. Instead its table service only.
If England make the Semi Finals or the Finals then it should be packed pubs with the staff serving as quickly as they can at the bar. Great atmosphere for the fans, great business for an industry that desperately, desperately needs the cash in the tills.
Instead its a case of lets postpone so that people who have refused the vaccine are less exposed - since almost all hospitalisations are coming from people who refused the vaccine. Pathetic.
If the medical crisis really is all that (and is it?) and we need to delay then Dishy needs to put his tiny hands in his pockets and bail out the likes of Cyclefree Jr and say NOW they are doing so.
What is truly breathtaking is that they are kneecapping various sectors - again - and leaving them with no financial support - again. Yes they may have an 11th hour change of heart, but its too late by then. Much too late. Do businesses unable to cover their costs or pay their suppliers or need yet more leeway by the banks say "we don't have the £ now but don't worry the government will bail us out at the last minute".
You can't pay your bills with jam tomorrow. That they haven't fucking learned this yet after repeated examples demonstrates that they truly are clowns.
No amount of government support is ever going to replace what is lost here.
A packed pub in the summer with the Euros could potentially be generating say double its normal trade. If instead due to table service etc they're maybe going to generate its normal trade. What's lost is the opportunity for profits there, with a seasonal business making profits in good times to take the business through the lean times.
Furlough etc aren't especially relevant if the business is trading with staff required for table service etc - what's required is customers not the state.
I would describe any business strategy that is banking on a quick return to 2019 behaviours as brave. The clever business will lean into, capture and capitalise on some of the good changes and look to solve some of the new problems that have emerged.
Sorry to pick on you, but this is grotesque.
It reads like the IMF’s prescription to Greece.
Or our own post Brexit prescription for farmers and fishermen.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
Yes. The story of the pandemic is that affluent middle-class guys sit safely at home looking out on their gardens while working-class geezers deliver stuff to their door.
If you have no garden the past 12 months will have been particularly shit. If I didn't have a garage that i turn3d into an exercise pain cave, i think winter would have been absolutely wank for me...instead i could pop to the garage and crank out 50km on the bike, which was better than travelling to the gym.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
For an OAP whose grandchildren live a considerable distance away and who is prepared to socially function on Zoom, life isn't too bad, either. The surperrakek will deliver, as will the specialist wine merchant and one doesn't have the hassle of driving anywhere.
"Social functioning on Zoom" is a contradiction in terms in the view of many people.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
Cases seem to really take off around 31st may
and 5th of June for the hospitalisations.
Wow! That cases by age graph really shows how it is the younger age groups who are most affected.
Feeling glad all our nephews and niecesin their 20s and 30s (16 of them in total) have been very keen to get vaccinaited and have now had their first jab.
I post them every day. Maybe that's why they are a surprise :-)
The hospital admissions are taking off - in the younger, unvaccinated groups. Which is why, overall, the numbers are much less dramatic. So you get a total admissions curve like this
and the number is hospital looks like this
=
Fair point. I had not seen that one before due to less frequent PB activity on my part and, presumably, timing.
I don't know if this has been talked about this morning.
The Mail reports today that Furlough is definitely being wound down from July 01. Johnson & Co would surely find it immensely difficult to keep the lockdown show on the road if that is the case?
Was that Sunak's price for falling in with a 1-month delay? ie the end of furlough?
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
For an OAP whose grandchildren live a considerable distance away and who is prepared to socially function on Zoom, life isn't too bad, either. The surperrakek will deliver, as will the specialist wine merchant and one doesn't have the hassle of driving anywhere.
"Social functioning on Zoom" is a contradiction in terms in the view of many people.
Granted, and I prefer face to face. But it's considerably better than not 'seeing' people at all. Our WEA is planning to run a face-to-face 'in hall' course this Autumn. While I've gone along with it (aka was outvoted) I wonder whether the difficulties involved will outweigh the advantages.
Nick Respectfully they go down and down for you so far
LOL
GB News really missed out not hiring Nick Ferrari. He isn't quite Andrew Neil, but he is a cut above many and will rip most dullard politicians to threads.
Maybe he didn't fancy signing up to crew the Titanic?
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
Yes. The story of the pandemic is that affluent middle-class guys sit safely at home looking out on their gardens while working-class geezers deliver stuff to their door.
If you have no garden the past 12 months will have been particularly shit. If I didn't have a garage that i turn3d into an exercise pain cave, i think winter would have been absolutely wank for me...instead i could pop to the garage and crank out 50km on the bike, which was better than travelling to the gym.
In-laws haven't a garden, but have driven daily to one of a number of nearby parks for a walk.
Sonia Appleby’s employment tribunal against the Tavistock and Portman Trust begins today. Ms Appleby is the Trust’s Safeguarding Lead for Children. Details of her claim emerged after Newsnight reported staff at GIDS claimed they’d been discouraged from seeking her advice.
I don't know if this has been talked about this morning.
The Mail reports today that Furlough is definitely being wound down from July 01. Johnson & Co would surely find it immensely difficult to keep the lockdown show on the road if that is the case?
Was that Sunak's price for falling in with a 1-month delay? ie the end of furlough?
Depending on how you look at it, between 2/3rds and 3/4s of people have already left furlough, so I think it depends what you mean by "winding down".
The government bizarrely and pointlessly undermined the success of its own world-beating vaccine programme by saying that in the spring that it was lockdown that kept deaths down, not vaccinations. Given that, I'm surprised that uptake has remained as high as it has.
I seem to be the only person on here who doesn't think quarantine would have done much if any good. It's a massive denial of civil liberties for people, 99% uselessly since most people aren't infected, and it's not entirely effective, even in Australia, where it's imposed globally. Here, there's a lot of evidence that people simply fly through third countries, there would be a big rush just before it is imposed which would get you lots of new cases, and the crowded airport arrival halls where people have to stay longer are perfect for spreading diseases. And it would only buy you a little time anyway as the virus would arrive through other sources.
Vaccines are the answer at this stage. Neither lockdowns nor quarantine matter compared to that.
Indian quarantine would have brought time for the vaccination program to push ahead. We're behind now because of the large number of delta variant seedings that took place.
Yes. Without the repeated and widespread seedings of Delta, we'd be 4-7 weeks further back in the spread. Which would mean there would not have been any talk of delaying June 21st (we'd be looking at completing the vax programme before it could spike even without extra urgency)
Yes, I think this is the key failing.
I think how the next 3-4 weeks play out is crucial. I expect to see Delta stalling/plateauing with only modest increases in hospitalisations, and I think that will make lifting of restrictions by the end of July irresistible.
I think SAGE needs to be rebooted too. There are just too many academics and professors in it - not enough cognitive or sectoral diversity - and there should be a recognition this will lead to too much conservative group-think. Also, they keep claiming they publish their minutes - but all I can find is technical briefing papers.
I want the path that led them to reach their conclusions to be a matter of public record, including the dissenters - if there are any:
I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc.
Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines.
We're all going to die ... at some point. But fewer people are dying in 2021 than in a 'normal' year. Isn't that enough?
Ah - good old Ivermectin. I assume that we are not using is part of a massive conspiracy? Clearly Sage, the government, the NHS and all would like more people to die. Or maybe this is not the panacea you think it is? Can you point me to the studies that show its use would get the fatality rate to 0.000%? Do you not think that a myriad of different strategies have been tried to cure/save people with covid? If Ivermectin was so good, we'd know.
I've posted this review article a couple of times, but might as well do so again. As with the other 'miracle' drugs which weren't, no large scale randomised trials (like the one we did for dexamathasome) have been conducted, but there are currently scores of small and statistically underpowered ones ongoing.
Btw, it's not true to say that systemic ivermectin is safer than vaccines. At dosages likely to show strong antiviral effects, it can have quite severe side effects.
I don't know if this has been talked about this morning.
The Mail reports today that Furlough is definitely being wound down from July 01. Johnson & Co would surely find it immensely difficult to keep the lockdown show on the road if that is the case?
Was that Sunak's price for falling in with a 1-month delay? ie the end of furlough?
Depending on how you look at it, between 2/3rds and 3/4s of people have already left furlough, so I think it depends what you mean by "winding down".
My reading is its a ratchett? from July 01 government pays 70 per cent in stead of 80, for example.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
Yes. The story of the pandemic is that affluent middle-class guys sit safely at home looking out on their gardens while working-class geezers deliver stuff to their door.
If you have no garden the past 12 months will have been particularly shit. If I didn't have a garage that i turn3d into an exercise pain cave, i think winter would have been absolutely wank for me...instead i could pop to the garage and crank out 50km on the bike, which was better than travelling to the gym.
In-laws haven't a garden, but have driven daily to one of a number of nearby parks for a walk.
What even when it was freezing and the rain was coming down sideways?
The papers seem remarkably light on the details of Johnson's delay. Meanwhile there are some very, very unhappy tory backbenchers out there and Starmer is not saying he will support the government.
Is Johnson locked in a room somewhere shaking like a leaf?
"It’s like having the nerdy, spotty teenager who lives almost entirely in his bedroom decide that everyone else in the family should live like that too. Normally, this would be met with derision and a firm command to get washed, downstairs and showing some manners to Auntie Pamela who’s come for tea."
This level of argument is about on a par with yelling "Get a Life!" at someone you disagree with.
If you don't understand the science, have a go at ridiculing scientists ...
You are actually right for once. The suggestion that those in principle in favour of caution are motivated by fear, laziness, lack of a life etc is infantile. The free spirits who advance it, per contrariam, usually turn out to have little idea of an unshackled life well lived beyond going to Ther Pub. I think scientists on the whole know more about science then I do and are guided by the greatest good rather than by zero covidiocy or similar nonsense, and I'm about to fly back to Scotland to sail a yacht to St Kilda, so on most views I have more to lose from lockdowns than the pub goers.
Three things:
(1) Scientists are advisors i.e. they advise, they don't decide. The Government has a wider remit than just listening to the scientists. So, scientists' input should be one factor but not the only one. The point @Cyclefree is making rightly is that the Government has allowed a narrative to develop where the only opinion that matters is that of the scientists. That should never be the case.
(2) As they are advisors, they also should be advising in private and not using the media to try and advance their own agendas. No advisory role I had would allow me to start blatantly pushing my own view in the public eye in order to influence the final outcome. It would diminish immediately the value of the advisor and my view of them.
(3) If you think scientists do not have an agenda and are purely driven by the science, then that is wishful thinking. They are driven by their own views, prejudices etc. A lot of them subscribe to the view that this is an opportunity to change things "for the better" and, being scientists, tend to attach a fairly low (and that is being generous) importance to how humans want to live these lives.
Your (3) is largely fantasy. Would you behave like that if you were a scientist being paid to give objective scientific advice? I wouldn't, so that's two of us for starters. Of course there are *some* scientists who might behave like that, but the bulk of the wishful thinking here is: I really want lockdown to be over therefore the science must be in favour of the lockdown being over, and if a scientist says otherwise he must be lying.
It's also absurd to imagine that scientists all have the same agenda, when they're no different from the rest of us in holding a very broad range of views. The only thing that makes them different is a belief in the primary importance of the scientific method.
“It is incomprehensible that one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world is one that is most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support.”
It's not incomprehensible at all. The answer is that the UK has the delta variant, Europe and the US don't have it in quite the same numbers *yet*.
When they realize they have it in big numbers-> they will have to reintroduce restrictions too.
The papers seem remarkably light on the details of Johnson's delay. Meanwhile there are some very, very unhappy tory backbenchers out there and Starmer is not saying he will support the government.
Is Johnson locked in a room somewhere shaking like a leaf?
I'd be surprised if Starmer opposed Boris on not opening up further. You never know though.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
Yes. The story of the pandemic is that affluent middle-class guys sit safely at home looking out on their gardens while working-class geezers deliver stuff to their door.
If you have no garden the past 12 months will have been particularly shit. If I didn't have a garage that i turn3d into an exercise pain cave, i think winter would have been absolutely wank for me...instead i could pop to the garage and crank out 50km on the bike, which was better than travelling to the gym.
In-laws haven't a garden, but have driven daily to one of a number of nearby parks for a walk.
What even when it was freezing and the rain was coming down sideways?
Since they live in Lancashire that's regarded as average summer weather!
But, to be fair, 'daily' probably overstated it a bit.
“It is incomprehensible that one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world is one that is most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support.”
It's not incomprehensible at all. The answer is that the UK has the delta variant, Europe and the US don't have it in quite the same numbers *yet*.
When they realize they have it in big numbers-> they will have to reintroduce restrictions too.
Red states won't. Ironically they're the least vaccinated.
The papers seem remarkably light on the details of Johnson's delay. Meanwhile there are some very, very unhappy tory backbenchers out there and Starmer is not saying he will support the government.
Is Johnson locked in a room somewhere shaking like a leaf?
I'd be surprised if Starmer opposed Boris on lockdown. You never know though.
Starmer might demand furlough goes on as part of the package...?? Now that might be interesting as I am guessing that ending furlough was Sunak's price for falling in with this.
I wonder if it is dawning on Johnson at the 11th hour that he may have made an epic miscalculation.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Interesting fact about commute times (apologies if this is well known): commute times have remained static for well over 100 years, at an average of about 40 minutes. When new infrastructure or technologies allow us to reduce our commute times, we respond by getting jobs further away. There is a slightly higher average in the south east but this can be explained solely by a concentration of higher-paying jobs (which makes it worth people's while to stretch beyond the 40-odd minutes).
This is v interesting and explains why one of the key things you need to do to encourage economic growth is metro mass transit systems.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Agree entirely. There are a few subtleties though - metro mass transit systems don't necessarily have to run on rails. What they do need to do is be rapid, with predictable journey times (more predictable than driving, anyway). This therefore means they have to either be separated from general traffic or have some effective way of getting priority over it.
Leeds does, if I recall, have some stretches of busway which do this to some extent - I don't know how effectively.
We also have to consider where we want to serve with our mass transit - the working class communities with low car ownership or the middle class communities where the skilled labour is (and the greatest market for mass transit). Not an easy decision.
Mass transit systems don't sound like a good idea at the moment, especially with people who think the pre-covid world was rubbish.
'At the moment' being the operative phrase.
My expectation is that demand for urban rapid transit in cities outside London will be higher in 2025 than it was in 2015. Trips per job will decrease (my central estimate is by about 20% - bear in mind that roughly 50% of city centre jobs cannot be done from home) but absolute numbers of city centre jobs will increase*; also non-work trips will increase. (This pattern is very good news for public transport, whose central problem is peakiness in demand, meaning crushes at peak times and an unprofitable carrying of empty air at other times). Cars - even connected autonomous vehicles - simply can't carry people in high enough volumes to meet demand in cities.
Declaration of interest: my job basically depends on there being a future for public transport. There is a risk therefore that the above is informed by wishful thinking! But I have worked through the scenarios and my 'central' scenarios sees growth.
*I have specified 'outside London' because I am less confident making this claim for London than I am for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc.
“It is incomprehensible that one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world is one that is most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support.”
It's not incomprehensible at all. The answer is that the UK has the delta variant, Europe and the US don't have it in quite the same numbers *yet*.
When they realize they have it in big numbers-> they will have to reintroduce restrictions too.
Red states won't. Ironically they're the least vaccinated.
Honestly Mr Pulpstar some people will believe anything.
“It is incomprehensible that one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world is one that is most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support.”
It's not incomprehensible at all. The answer is that the UK has the delta variant, Europe and the US don't have it in quite the same numbers *yet*.
When they realize they have it in big numbers-> they will have to reintroduce restrictions too.
Red states won't. Ironically they're the least vaccinated.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
Yes. The story of the pandemic is that affluent middle-class guys sit safely at home looking out on their gardens while working-class geezers deliver stuff to their door.
If you have no garden the past 12 months will have been particularly shit. If I didn't have a garage that i turn3d into an exercise pain cave, i think winter would have been absolutely wank for me...instead i could pop to the garage and crank out 50km on the bike, which was better than travelling to the gym.
In-laws haven't a garden, but have driven daily to one of a number of nearby parks for a walk.
What even when it was freezing and the rain was coming down sideways?
So you are saying that on an average British summer day, you stay inside?
I think Jonathan’s comments above show exactly who is supporting ongoing restrictions.
It is not, actually, those on furlough or the youngest.
It is people for whom the current set-up works very well thank-you, forgetting that the whole affair is being bank-rolled by HM Treasury aka your children’s taxes.
I haven't opined on this because I genuinely don't know. There are very difficult trade-offs involved, a lot of uncertainty and a lot at stake, and I think we should try to trust the people making the decisions and do what we are told so that whatever strategy is chosen is as effective as possible. I think in general the government has struck the right balance in lifting restrictions, but has tended to be too slow, sometimes criminally so, in putting restrictions in place.
He’s done both. Very mostly, yes, too slow to lock down. But often, indeed, too slow to react.
His overriding issue is complacency, and that complacency looks set to cost us another month of restrictions.
And you think other countries are going to escape a wave of the Indian variant?
I don't know. I really hope they do.
But with accelerated lockdowns with only one dose done for many, and EC resolved to force borders to be as open as possible for unvaccinated people - it's a significant risk. And potential limiting barriers are being taken away.
Nick Respectfully they go down and down for you so far
LOL
GB News really missed out not hiring Nick Ferrari. He isn't quite Andrew Neil, but he is a cut above many and will rip most dullard politicians to threads.
Maybe he didn't fancy signing up to crew the Titanic?
Nick Ferrari currently gets 1.5 million listeners a week on LBC. Why on Earth would he move to a TV station that can only dream of those figures?
I think Jonathan’s comments above show exactly who is supporting ongoing restrictions.
It is not, actually, those on furlough or the youngest.
It is people for whom the current set-up works very well thank-you, forgetting that the whole affair is being bank-rolled by HM Treasury aka your children’s taxes.
I haven't opined on this because I genuinely don't know. There are very difficult trade-offs involved, a lot of uncertainty and a lot at stake, and I think we should try to trust the people making the decisions and do what we are told so that whatever strategy is chosen is as effective as possible. I think in general the government has struck the right balance in lifting restrictions, but has tended to be too slow, sometimes criminally so, in putting restrictions in place.
He’s done both. Very mostly, yes, too slow to lock down. But often, indeed, too slow to react.
His overriding issue is complacency, and that complacency looks set to cost us another month of restrictions.
And you think other countries are going to escape a wave of the Indian variant?
I don't know. I really hope they do.
But with accelerated lockdowns with only one dose done for many, and EC resolved to force borders to be as open as possible for unvaccinated people - it's a significant risk. And potential limiting barriers are being taken away.
Is it a factor that other Western Countries do not have a health lobby with the scale and power of the NHS in Britain?
That it is easier for the government in France or Florida to just get them to shut up and get on with it?
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Interesting fact about commute times (apologies if this is well known): commute times have remained static for well over 100 years, at an average of about 40 minutes. When new infrastructure or technologies allow us to reduce our commute times, we respond by getting jobs further away. There is a slightly higher average in the south east but this can be explained solely by a concentration of higher-paying jobs (which makes it worth people's while to stretch beyond the 40-odd minutes).
This is v interesting and explains why one of the key things you need to do to encourage economic growth is metro mass transit systems.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Agree entirely. There are a few subtleties though - metro mass transit systems don't necessarily have to run on rails. What they do need to do is be rapid, with predictable journey times (more predictable than driving, anyway). This therefore means they have to either be separated from general traffic or have some effective way of getting priority over it.
Leeds does, if I recall, have some stretches of busway which do this to some extent - I don't know how effectively.
We also have to consider where we want to serve with our mass transit - the working class communities with low car ownership or the middle class communities where the skilled labour is (and the greatest market for mass transit). Not an easy decision.
Mass transit systems don't sound like a good idea at the moment, especially with people who think the pre-covid world was rubbish.
'At the moment' being the operative phrase.
My expectation is that demand for urban rapid transit in cities outside London will be higher in 2025 than it was in 2015. Trips per job will decrease (my central estimate is by about 20% - bear in mind that roughly 50% of city centre jobs cannot be done from home) but absolute numbers of city centre jobs will increase*; also non-work trips will increase. (This pattern is very good news for public transport, whose central problem is peakiness in demand, meaning crushes at peak times and an unprofitable carrying of empty air at other times). Cars - even connected autonomous vehicles - simply can't carry people in high enough volumes to meet demand in cities.
Declaration of interest: my job basically depends on there being a future for public transport. There is a risk therefore that the above is informed by wishful thinking! But I have worked through the scenarios and my 'central' scenarios sees growth.
*I have specified 'outside London' because I am less confident making this claim for London than I am for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc.
I think that, outside London, you may well be right.
Real levelling up, as it were. Essentially the other major cities in the UK will grow relative to London. Part of that will require a massive catchup in public transport to get to a fraction of what London has.
The interesting one in all this, is the possibility of total automation of tunnelling, which leads to some rather interesting effects. Combined with future generations of power and signalling delivery, there is the possibility of some major reductions in cost.
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Interesting fact about commute times (apologies if this is well known): commute times have remained static for well over 100 years, at an average of about 40 minutes. When new infrastructure or technologies allow us to reduce our commute times, we respond by getting jobs further away. There is a slightly higher average in the south east but this can be explained solely by a concentration of higher-paying jobs (which makes it worth people's while to stretch beyond the 40-odd minutes).
This is v interesting and explains why one of the key things you need to do to encourage economic growth is metro mass transit systems.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Agree entirely. There are a few subtleties though - metro mass transit systems don't necessarily have to run on rails. What they do need to do is be rapid, with predictable journey times (more predictable than driving, anyway). This therefore means they have to either be separated from general traffic or have some effective way of getting priority over it.
Leeds does, if I recall, have some stretches of busway which do this to some extent - I don't know how effectively.
We also have to consider where we want to serve with our mass transit - the working class communities with low car ownership or the middle class communities where the skilled labour is (and the greatest market for mass transit). Not an easy decision.
Mass transit systems don't sound like a good idea at the moment, especially with people who think the pre-covid world was rubbish.
'At the moment' being the operative phrase.
My expectation is that demand for urban rapid transit in cities outside London will be higher in 2025 than it was in 2015. Trips per job will decrease (my central estimate is by about 20% - bear in mind that roughly 50% of city centre jobs cannot be done from home) but absolute numbers of city centre jobs will increase*; also non-work trips will increase. (This pattern is very good news for public transport, whose central problem is peakiness in demand, meaning crushes at peak times and an unprofitable carrying of empty air at other times). Cars - even connected autonomous vehicles - simply can't carry people in high enough volumes to meet demand in cities.
Declaration of interest: my job basically depends on there being a future for public transport. There is a risk therefore that the above is informed by wishful thinking! But I have worked through the scenarios and my 'central' scenarios sees growth.
*I have specified 'outside London' because I am less confident making this claim for London than I am for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc.
HMRC announced last Friday that their Newcastle offices were going to move from Longbenton into central Newcastle (actual site to be determined from a shortlist of 2).
The papers seem remarkably light on the details of Johnson's delay. Meanwhile there are some very, very unhappy tory backbenchers out there and Starmer is not saying he will support the government.
Is Johnson locked in a room somewhere shaking like a leaf?
I'd be surprised if Starmer opposed Boris on not opening up further. You never know though.
The obvious line is the one Nick Symonds-Thomas has been essaying.
We're forced to continue restrictions now because the government ignored our warnings then.
It will need to be super snappy to make it stick, though.
Can we at least agree that if Johnson really uses the phrase "one last heave" in the context of a 4 week delay then it must be no more than that, come what may.
Either be big enough to stand in front of the country and say "we can't get out of this yet and we don't know when we can", or put a fixed date on it and stick to it.
Trying to tell the country one thing but do the other is the primary root of his issues on this.
Indeed! Given the vaccine miracle it's hospitalizations and deaths that are the key measurement not infections.
If the vaccine means there's 100,000 people with a summer cold in a few weeks then so what? That's no reason to keep the lockdown going...
HMG have screwed up royally on several occasions during Covid and should be held to account for it (they probably won't though).
However, on this delay, I think they are right.
Cases are clearly accelerating exponentially again. The question is whether the vaccination programme will stop hospitalisations and deaths following suit. Chances are it will but it's just a bit too early to say because as we all know hospitalisations and deaths lag cases by a few weeks. (Hospitalisations are up 15% in the past 7 days so there is clearly a risk that the vaccinations are not proving effective enough.)
In the next few weeks we will see more clearly the extent to which the surge in cases feeds through to a surge in deaths. I hope and believe it won't but I think the delay is the right choice at this point.
15% in 7 days is puny.
At that rate it would take six months to get back to the winter peak, but the reality is of course that in that time it will burn out of the unvaccinated young people its spreading between and the vaccine rollout would be continuing too.
Three weeks ago cases were increasing at 15%; now they are increasing at 50% per week.
Can you show your maths for that? I see cases 3 wees ago rising much faster than that, but in-hospital figures after lag aren't rising anything like as much.
Cases by specimen date -
Admissions
Looking at 4 weeks of hospitalisations for under 55s up until the 6th of June and the 4 weeks of cases from seven days earlier than that, they do seem to rise similarly:
(7-day totals of each taken in order to smooth out the inevitable weekday fluctuations).
It does seem to be growing a bit slower in the hospital admissions for the under 55s than in cases; I suspect because over the period of that graph, we're grinding down the ages on vaxxing.
In-hospital figures are growing slower because the under-55s stay in for less time than the older ones and the proportion of these has been growing (looks like about 7 days versus 11 days); this buys us time while the shift goes on, but it does saturate when it becomes overwhelmingly dominant at the under-55s; we don't keep ticking down to 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, etc.
In-hospital is what matters more than admissions, since as you say they get discharged faster. If patients are being discharged as fast as they arrive then in-hospital numbers don't rise rapidly, whereas if they're in hospital for a fortnight then they clog up the hospitals fast.
You're very sanguine about people being admitted to hospital. In my experience, people don't end up in hospital unless they're pretty ill, and if they present at A&E with mild symptoms they're sent packing pretty quickly before they count as an admission.
And others are very sanguine about other people losing their jobs, missing out on their education and chance to build new friendships and relationships, and the cost of furlough falling on the young.
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
That is a very good point. There are many people for whom Covid actually is great - and they tend to be middle to upper middle class professionals with well paid jobs, a set up that allows them to work from home, a nice house etc. It is very interesting that the one part of life where things have gone back to normal i.e. kids being at school is also the one area that these people were directly impacted by lockdown restrictions.
Yes. The story of the pandemic is that affluent middle-class guys sit safely at home looking out on their gardens while working-class geezers deliver stuff to their door.
If you have no garden the past 12 months will have been particularly shit. If I didn't have a garage that i turn3d into an exercise pain cave, i think winter would have been absolutely wank for me...instead i could pop to the garage and crank out 50km on the bike, which was better than travelling to the gym.
In-laws haven't a garden, but have driven daily to one of a number of nearby parks for a walk.
What even when it was freezing and the rain was coming down sideways?
So you are saying that on an average British summer day, you stay inside?
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Got it in one mate. That why you love lockdown...it just benefits selfish you
Still not sure what freedoms Freedom day offers beyond the ‘freedom’ to resume a long commute, to take off a mask I’m not remotely bothered about wearing or to be crammed closer to some dudes sweaty pits.
I think it's right to say that a minority of people commute on trains to work, (or did before the pandemic). This sounds like a very London and south-east centric view of life. Most people drive to work and it takes less than 30 or 45 minutes IIRC.
Interesting fact about commute times (apologies if this is well known): commute times have remained static for well over 100 years, at an average of about 40 minutes. When new infrastructure or technologies allow us to reduce our commute times, we respond by getting jobs further away. There is a slightly higher average in the south east but this can be explained solely by a concentration of higher-paying jobs (which makes it worth people's while to stretch beyond the 40-odd minutes).
This is v interesting and explains why one of the key things you need to do to encourage economic growth is metro mass transit systems.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Agree entirely. There are a few subtleties though - metro mass transit systems don't necessarily have to run on rails. What they do need to do is be rapid, with predictable journey times (more predictable than driving, anyway). This therefore means they have to either be separated from general traffic or have some effective way of getting priority over it.
Leeds does, if I recall, have some stretches of busway which do this to some extent - I don't know how effectively.
We also have to consider where we want to serve with our mass transit - the working class communities with low car ownership or the middle class communities where the skilled labour is (and the greatest market for mass transit). Not an easy decision.
Mass transit systems don't sound like a good idea at the moment, especially with people who think the pre-covid world was rubbish.
'At the moment' being the operative phrase.
My expectation is that demand for urban rapid transit in cities outside London will be higher in 2025 than it was in 2015. Trips per job will decrease (my central estimate is by about 20% - bear in mind that roughly 50% of city centre jobs cannot be done from home) but absolute numbers of city centre jobs will increase*; also non-work trips will increase. (This pattern is very good news for public transport, whose central problem is peakiness in demand, meaning crushes at peak times and an unprofitable carrying of empty air at other times). Cars - even connected autonomous vehicles - simply can't carry people in high enough volumes to meet demand in cities.
Declaration of interest: my job basically depends on there being a future for public transport. There is a risk therefore that the above is informed by wishful thinking! But I have worked through the scenarios and my 'central' scenarios sees growth.
*I have specified 'outside London' because I am less confident making this claim for London than I am for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc.
I think that, outside London, you may well be right.
Real levelling up, as it were. Essentially the other major cities in the UK will grow relative to London. Part of that will require a massive catchup in public transport to get to a fraction of what London has.
The interesting one in all this, is the possibility of total automation of tunnelling, which leads to some rather interesting effects. Combined with future generations of power and signalling delivery, there is the possibility of some major reductions in cost.
Alternatively have a road network that works.
Milton Keynes is a strange town with its roundabouts but it works, has fast moving roads and has a strong economy as a result.
Rather than cramming more and more people into city high rises and trying to get them moving about in mass transit boxes, getting more new towns like Milton Keynes with roads that work would deal well with both the economy and housing.
Comments
There’s beeen quite the change in the equipment itself in recent years, so what’s in a brand new studio is probably not what everyone is used to operating.
Yes the channel has been in the planning for age, but the actual technical side was only finished a week or two ago. No idea how much that has been effected by covid.
The rate of infections is shooting up too quickly. Whitty will say.
Number of people in hospital might just be too high. Boris will say.
There clearly is not enough people vaccinated. Valance will admit.
(You can’t close the borders to that extent, so don’t mention that you are just silly, the media will be answered)
“ I have to level with you. Yes vaccinations do stop some people getting really ill, but Absolutely No one knows just to what extent. That’s where some claim they know, but they are fake news, don’t really know, just bent and biased to wanting to live with Covid without restrictions now lots of jabs have happened or they were all way through anyway, that’s how silly they are, the just let it rip brigade. The strong decisions of my government have saved about a million lives.”
Here’s a good media question, but we have crap media so it won’t be asked.
“If the current KPI sets the precedent for unlocking, how long does one last heave go on for?”
“I’m glad you asked me that. That depends on the 3rd wave on the the numbers. 3rd wave about half way through now? So not long. But that doesn’t stop let’slivewithcovididiots creating and pushing false narratives. we can all invent derogative names for one another - just some of us are sticking to facts and reality not inventing conspiracy theories, or throwing toys out pram like immature characters. Everyone who is that extreme a libertarian is an immature character, scientists probably on cusp of proving that.”
Captain hindsight is allowed a word.
“There is a pattern here. The main problem Boris MP’s seems to missing is 4th wave after the unlocking doing similar thing putting their prime minister in a difficult spot, if public health has to come first is the mantra. That is why the Prime minister can only be saved in the vote by the good sense of the Labour Party.”
Looks like they've ordered off eBay equipment from a studio 15 years ago.
and 5th of June for the hospitalisations.
People get ill, that's what the NHS is there for. So long as the NHS is able to cope with the illness then get on with life as normal.
Abolishing illness is not what the state is for, the NHS is there to treat illness not prevent it from ever occurring.
(1) Scientists are advisors i.e. they advise, they don't decide. The Government has a wider remit than just listening to the scientists. So, scientists' input should be one factor but not the only one. The point @Cyclefree is making rightly is that the Government has allowed a narrative to develop where the only opinion that matters is that of the scientists. That should never be the case.
(2) As they are advisors, they also should be advising in private and not using the media to try and advance their own agendas. No advisory role I had would allow me to start blatantly pushing my own view in the public eye in order to influence the final outcome. It would diminish immediately the value of the advisor and my view of them.
(3) If you think scientists do not have an agenda and are purely driven by the science, then that is wishful thinking. They are driven by their own views, prejudices etc. A lot of them subscribe to the view that this is an opportunity to change things "for the better" and, being scientists, tend to attach a fairly low (and that is being generous) importance to how humans want to live these lives.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
Do you have a link to clinical trial - even a preliminary one - that showed any positive effect for the drug you advocate.
Or is it just hot-broth-and-lemon-jiff part deux?
Back in March 2020 if the government had proposed lockdown when the NHS was not being overwhelmed they would have been laughed at. Now many enjoy lockdown life, do well financially from it and dont really seem to care about the impact it has on others.
From the HMG covid data site:
7 days cases to 22/5 = 16668; 7 days cases to 15/2 = 14757; 13% increase.
7 days cases to 23/5 = 17054; 7 days cases to 16/2 = 14441; 18% increase.
So it was around the 22/23 May that the rate of increase in cases passed through 15%. Since then it's been rising to the range 50-70% increase week on week by 10/6 (latest data).
Did you think of all the children of the hand sanitiser people? Who is going to feed and clothe them when nobody's panicking any more? Well, did you?
Ecpnomic Explained, Coldfusion or Wendover Productions are examples of informative channels that the mainstream media would do well to think about e.g. BBC, delays to availability of products, its Brexit and COVID innit....the channels, actually there is more to it, let me explain...
The fact GBNews haven't got that is rather inexcusable in this day and age.
Thereby, employers are able to access a larger pool of skilled labour (and in turn, employees are able to access a larger concentration of jobs).
It’s something we’ve been astonishingly poor at this in this country because we have tended to rely on failed market solutions, and we also grudge subsidising commuters (since such systems seldom pay for themselves). Sadly in doing so we cut off out nose to save our face.
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Oh, the cries of pain we'll hear from the comfortably off. Well, tough shit. About time they bore some of the economic pain others have felt and will continue to feel for some time to come. Table service is not normal trade. Roughly 50% of her business comes from drinkers coming in, standing at the bar and seeing who is in and they can chat to. Being unable to move round the place and mingle puts off lots of customers.
As far as I can tell, there is *less* for this.
With the success of our 🇪🇺 vaccination campaign and this new EU certificate, we can all look forward to the summer.
To travelling safely.
And we are bringing back the spirit of an open Europe.
Our Union is delivering.
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1404377824258146312?s=20
If her trade figures this week are "average" compared to pre-pandemic then that's not good enough when in a summer heatwave with Euros* on trade should be about double normal. So if trade is only average then half of trade that should be gained right now is lost and that won't be made up in a few months time when the heat and the Euros have gone.
* Assuming she shows sport, if she doesn't then negate that but still summer should mean above average trade.
"I understand ~4x as many people are dying from flu as from COVID. COVID's over. If we forgot about it, largely stopped testing, etc, life would go back to normal as in most of the USA, Sweden, etc. ": Who told you that? https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports really doesn't back that up.
"Also if Ivermectin et al were approved for COVID, the fatality rate would decline to near 0.000%, below flu I think. Safer and cheaper than the vaccines. " Again with the ivermectin obsession (is this the new hydroxychloroquine? If we had evidence it worked, we'd be using it (as with dexamethasone. There's no secret conspiracy to keep these going.
The problem is the number of people rolling up in hospitals with covid. That problem looks to be limited and, with the vax programme, will top out earlier and a lot lower than before.
We don't need the nutters and conspiracy theorists any more.
On ministerial statements, prior notice to the Speaker is required but neither the Speaker's permission nor the leave of the House is required. The government have informed the Speaker of their intention to make at statement at 9pm.
UQs are entirely in the gift of the Speaker, but which minister will answer a UQ is up to the government. Speaker can’t compel a specific minister to answer.
https://twitter.com/PARLYapp/status/1404377389019303947?s=20
@SteveBakerHW
I think if @Keir_Starmer opposed the Government on the main issue of the day, standing up for freedom and young people in the process, I might die of surprise.
Quote Tweet
Kate Ferguson
@kateferguson4
· 1h
Sir Keir Starmer refuses to say if he will back the PM and vote for an extension of lockdown. But the overwhelming expectation is that he will - means the army of Tory rebels won’t stand a chance of defeating the government #LBC"
https://twitter.com/SteveBakerHW/status/1404354394733297665
Leeds does, if I recall, have some stretches of busway which do this to some extent - I don't know how effectively.
We also have to consider where we want to serve with our mass transit - the working class communities with low car ownership or the middle class communities where the skilled labour is (and the greatest market for mass transit). Not an easy decision.
If you want an example, look at many of the scientists in the US who said last year we must clamp down because of Covid but then said it was fine to have mass demonstrations full of people shouting because systemic racism was a greater public health threat than Covid. They allowed their personal / political views to override accepted science.
Feeling glad all our nephews and niecesin their 20s and 30s (16 of them in total) have been very keen to get vaccinaited and have now had their first jab.
79 days between vaccinations (Current gap)
31,425,682 fully vaccinated (204195 seconds / day) 47.0 share of fully vaxxed
56 day gap 33,752,885 fully vaccinated (495095 seconds/day) 50.5 share of fully vaxxed
By 20th July
79 days between vaccinations (Current gap)
34,595,304 fully vaccinated (129816 seconds/day) 51.8 share
56 day gap 38,378,564 fully vaccinated (232066 seconds/day). 57.5 share
Based on this lot I'd damn well hope everyone is having their appointments brought forward.
We're likely to saturate at around 7x daily admissions for hospital occupancy rate and tick down from that slowly. The fact that we're only just completing the transition from 11x to 7x has bought us at least an extra week, I'd guess. All of which helps.
Aaron has Belgium in the sweepstake
The hospital admissions are taking off - in the younger, unvaccinated groups. Which is why, overall, the numbers are much less dramatic. So you get a total admissions curve like this
and the number is hospital looks like this
=
SKS "Well Nick these polls go up and down"
NF "Respectfully they go down and down for you so far"
LOL
then there are the Pentaflourides.... mmmmmmm... {giggles in mad scientist}
But I've seen it now, thanks!
At 9pmStatement - Covid-19 update (@MattHancock/ @JonAshworth)
https://twitter.com/labourwhips/status/1404372417498292224?s=20
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedUK/status/1404355427521998848?s=20
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/E6DC/production/_118900195_continue_path2-nc.png
The Mail reports today that Furlough is definitely being wound down from July 01. Johnson & Co would surely find it immensely difficult to keep the lockdown show on the road if that is the case?
Was that Sunak's price for falling in with a 1-month delay? ie the end of furlough?
Our WEA is planning to run a face-to-face 'in hall' course this Autumn. While I've gone along with it (aka was outvoted) I wonder whether the difficulties involved will outweigh the advantages.
Sonia Appleby’s employment tribunal against the Tavistock and Portman Trust begins today. Ms Appleby is the Trust’s Safeguarding Lead for Children. Details of her claim emerged after Newsnight reported staff at GIDS claimed they’d been discouraged from seeking her advice.
https://twitter.com/hannahsbee/status/1404336944906186755?s=20
As with the other 'miracle' drugs which weren't, no large scale randomised trials (like the one we did for dexamathasome) have been conducted, but there are currently scores of small and statistically underpowered ones ongoing.
Thus far, nothing very impressive.
Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.21.21257595v2
Btw, it's not true to say that systemic ivermectin is safer than vaccines. At dosages likely to show strong antiviral effects, it can have quite severe side effects.
Is Johnson locked in a room somewhere shaking like a leaf?
The only thing that makes them different is a belief in the primary importance of the scientific method.
It's not incomprehensible at all. The answer is that the UK has the delta variant, Europe and the US don't have it in quite the same numbers *yet*.
When they realize they have it in big numbers-> they will have to reintroduce restrictions too.
But, to be fair, 'daily' probably overstated it a bit.
I wonder if it is dawning on Johnson at the 11th hour that he may have made an epic miscalculation.
My expectation is that demand for urban rapid transit in cities outside London will be higher in 2025 than it was in 2015.
Trips per job will decrease (my central estimate is by about 20% - bear in mind that roughly 50% of city centre jobs cannot be done from home) but absolute numbers of city centre jobs will increase*; also non-work trips will increase. (This pattern is very good news for public transport, whose central problem is peakiness in demand, meaning crushes at peak times and an unprofitable carrying of empty air at other times).
Cars - even connected autonomous vehicles - simply can't carry people in high enough volumes to meet demand in cities.
Declaration of interest: my job basically depends on there being a future for public transport. There is a risk therefore that the above is informed by wishful thinking! But I have worked through the scenarios and my 'central' scenarios sees growth.
*I have specified 'outside London' because I am less confident making this claim for London than I am for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc.
But with accelerated lockdowns with only one dose done for many, and EC resolved to force borders to be as open as possible for unvaccinated people - it's a significant risk. And potential limiting barriers are being taken away.
That it is easier for the government in France or Florida to just get them to shut up and get on with it?
Real levelling up, as it were. Essentially the other major cities in the UK will grow relative to London. Part of that will require a massive catchup in public transport to get to a fraction of what London has.
The interesting one in all this, is the possibility of total automation of tunnelling, which leads to some rather interesting effects. Combined with future generations of power and signalling delivery, there is the possibility of some major reductions in cost.
We're forced to continue restrictions now because the government ignored our warnings then.
It will need to be super snappy to make it stick, though.
Either be big enough to stand in front of the country and say "we can't get out of this yet and we don't know when we can", or put a fixed date on it and stick to it.
Trying to tell the country one thing but do the other is the primary root of his issues on this.
FFS is Johnson in play here......?????
Milton Keynes is a strange town with its roundabouts but it works, has fast moving roads and has a strong economy as a result.
Rather than cramming more and more people into city high rises and trying to get them moving about in mass transit boxes, getting more new towns like Milton Keynes with roads that work would deal well with both the economy and housing.