Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
To be fair to him, at least he's taking the "Opposition" bit of his job seriously at last. Coherence is arguably less important at this stage of the electoral cycle than just challenging whether the Government's thought everything through. Because, um, often it hasn't.
The government certainly have not thought through the messaging or funded Covid isolation post Freedom Day. No one is a dick for pointing that out.
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
Does the UK do *massively* more testing than *anyone* else?
We squander lots of money on it , world beater at supposedly Test and Trace which is really just a Tory ponzi scheme for their chums
The daughter of a friend is a primary school teacher who unfortunately managed to catch Covid at the end of term from one of her pupils. Because she was a probationer she is not assured of continued employment at the same school so she got her dad to come into the school with her (before she was aware she was positive) and clear out all of the materials etc that she had built up over the year. So he was a contact. She phoned him up and he started self isolating although he had no symptoms. 5 days later he got a phone call from test and trace advising him to do that.
His daughter had done all the right things, giving her limited number of contacts to T&T straight away. 5 days seems to me an almost pointless amount of time. If he had been infected he would almost certainly have infected those that he was going to before they even contacted him. She, incidentally, in her early 20s, was really quite ill for over a week.
So I would suggest that Scots should be circumspect in criticising T&T in England. Its no better here, possibly worse.
Attacking the govt for opening up but actually was backed into a corner whereby he didn't condemn it. "More ventilation" - what the fuck does that mean?
It mean "open a window". Of course, the mismatch with insulate your house and do not allow external airflow for net zero reasons is one that is being swept under the carpet.
Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
To be fair to him, at least he's taking the "Opposition" bit of his job seriously at last. Coherence is arguably less important at this stage of the electoral cycle than just challenging whether the Government's thought everything through. Because, um, often it hasn't.
That is true but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. When, amazingly, Boris managed to pin him down to the essence of his objections (mandatory vs guidance face masks on public transport) he is yet again shown to be quibbling around the margins.
Show your (his) opposition in the HoC at the next vote.
Having said that, I hope England win, if only because it matters to so many people in this country.
Which country? That's the problem...
Johnson is making a mistake aligning himself so closely with England. He's PM of the UK and while his words might be transferable to other Home Nations, his gestures are not. He should therefore stick to words. https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1412701865872089095
Its very simple. Had Wales, or Scotland (stop sniggering) got through, and England knocked out, would we have had the same level of flag twattery? Bozza on a huge Saltaire on Downing Street? Bozza with a Wales shirt encouraging us to learn Land of my Fathers?
We all know the answer is no.
Nonsense. If Wales or Scotland had reached the semi-finals he would definitely have been photoed with their flag and tweeted congratulations.
I think I've spotted the fatal flaw in the government's approach: the idea that it's best to have this wave in summer, when transmission is reduced by people being outside.
Down here on the south coast the weather is awful. My wife has just got out her winter clothes. Few people are venturing out, and the beer gardens are empty. It's been like this for most of the "summer". Miserable: the opposite of last year.
*typing in my Majorcan garden*
Actually, last summer was pretty mediocre. Your memories are probably coloured by the extraordinarily dry, warm and sunny spell in spring, which continued into June. But then stopped.
This does look like quite a traditional shit British summer, however. I doubt if we will hit 30C again now
Except that June, despite the rain, was the fourth warmest on record.
good point if you think warm rain = good weather.
WRONG
June was also drier than average.
PB Weather Experts strike back...
"...south-east England was very wet with more than double the average rainfall for some locations..."
Attacking the govt for opening up but actually was backed into a corner whereby he didn't condemn it. "More ventilation" - what the fuck does that mean?
It mean "open a window". Of course, the mismatch with insulate your house and do not allow external airflow for net zero reasons is one that is being swept under the carpet.
That is true. But also, can you actually open windows in many especially new office blocks? Does Tescos have any windows? What about the tube or the trains. We're not in the era of the Railway Children - the only windows now are in the space between the carriages.
Beautiful. I am a Labour supporter and Scottish to boot but this doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I might put up our England bunting for the game tonight.
Although England are doing better than usual so far I was only thinking how few cars I've seen flying the flag. In previous tournaments every third or fourth car had one. I've only seen 2 in total so far this time. Same with houses, tiny fraction of the usual number. No idea if it's the same everywhere.
Lots of cars with England flags in SE London. Don't tend to get many houses with flags round here though.
Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
To be fair to him, at least he's taking the "Opposition" bit of his job seriously at last. Coherence is arguably less important at this stage of the electoral cycle than just challenging whether the Government's thought everything through. Because, um, often it hasn't.
That is true but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. When, amazingly, Boris managed to pin him down to the essence of his objections (mandatory vs guidance face masks on public transport) he is yet again shown to be quibbling around the margins.
Show your (his) opposition in the HoC at the next vote.
That sounds fine to me, since the general consensus here seems to be the Government actually has this one about right (I agree, for what it's worth - have to open up some time, and the risk seems at acceptable levels now).
So he challenges on the detail, the PM responds, and wins the argument. Parliamentary democracy working smoothly again. Who saw that coming?
If people are being ruthlessly political about this - as I suppose is only to be expected - then what they need to worry about is not death rates or long COVID, but hospitalisation rates.
The current rate of hospitalisation per positive test 2-3 weeks before is about 3%. The new health secretary says cases may top 100,000 a day. Neil Ferguson says twice that number. Given that - if all mitigation measures are abandoned - the only thing that will stop numbers increasing is herd immunity, both those numbers actually seem optimistic to me, because I don't think we'll get herd imunity without another 20%+ of the population being infected.
20% of the population is 10 million+.
So Javid's number would see us remaining (just) under the January peak in hospital admissions of around 4000 a day. Ferguson's number wouldn't.
On the current rate of increase we get to that peak in about a month from now. If that happens, what does the government do? Bearing in mind that it needs to do something 2-3 weels before that point, otherwise it's too late.
The hospitalisation rate is currently more like 1.5 - 2%.
Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
To be fair to him, at least he's taking the "Opposition" bit of his job seriously at last. Coherence is arguably less important at this stage of the electoral cycle than just challenging whether the Government's thought everything through. Because, um, often it hasn't.
That is true but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. When, amazingly, Boris managed to pin him down to the essence of his objections (mandatory vs guidance face masks on public transport) he is yet again shown to be quibbling around the margins.
Show your (his) opposition in the HoC at the next vote.
That sounds fine to me, since the general consensus here seems to be the Government actually has this one about right (I agree, for what it's worth - have to open up some time, and the risk seems at acceptable levels now).
So he challenges on the detail, the PM responds, and wins the argument. Parliamentary democracy working smoothly again. Who saw that coming?
haha yes and I suppose the fact that SKS presented "the detail" as "the most important, sweeping, huge, gross miscalculation" is also a good day for democracy. Just so long as he is happy to be called out on it.
Bulgaria 433 Russia 338 Serbia 320 Lithuania 319 North Macedonia 319 Czech Republic 300 Slovakia 270 Poland 264 Bosnia and Herzegovnia 245 Romania 236 Moldova 231 Hungary 228 Albania 206 Portugal 203 Kosovo 200 Italy 197 Slovenia 185 Britain 180 Croatia 176 Spain 170 Belgium 165 Montenegro 154 Latvia 134 Ukraine 133 Georgia 129 Kyrgyzstan 128 France 126 Estonia 124 Netherlands 117 Switzerland 108 Austria 105 Sweden 102 Germany 63 Malta 51 Luxembourg 50 Greece 38 Finland 18 Denmark -1
So the UK is about middle of the pack, despite being on of the densest nations on the planet. Which means in my opinion the UK has done better than you'd expect all else being equal. Certainly without cherry picking exceptions like Germany, it seems the UK has not done worse or led to a "very high" death rate.
Certainly there's no reason we couldn't have been towards the top of that list with a death rate roughly twice what we have got if we really had done "catastrophically" and without vaccines I imagine that would have been very plausible.
But we had more warning, and we are an island. We had advantages we did not exploit. We should be nearer the bottom of that table
We fucked up on the borders, on that we can all agree
Not just that. Look at the countries that have done worse than the UK. It's a long list, sure, but "better than Bulgaria and Bosnia" isn't saying much. If you take Western European countries as your comparator, the UK has done about 10% better than Italy and Portugal, slightly worse than Spain. And, with great affection for Spain, Spain is not well run.
The countries that we like to compare ourselves with- that we really ought to compare ourselves with- the likes of France, Germany, Benelux, Austria are all doing an awful lot better at keeping people alive.
The UK is not well run either, I think the last year and a half has made that extremely obvious. Anyone trying to say otherwise should have their head examined.
That’s the bloody point.
The comparison is with Benelux, France, and Germany.
Most countries have fucked this up somehow.
We seem to have fucked up more than we ought, and the blame rests with the government.
My takeaway from Philip's figures is that East Europe has had a nightmare. They also have poor vaccination rates. The UK has had one of the worst death rates of the rest.
Of the densely populated nations we've done better than Italy and Portugal, and comparable to Belgium and Spain who will finish at or around our figures.
Germany are the exception not the norm.
There is little correlation in those figures between population density and excess deaths. Denmark is the most egregious example. Netherlands also. You are cherry picking your figures.
Bullshit, there is an absolutely massive correlation between population density and excess deaths.
Even look at the UK's own data. The biggest single issue that explains Coronavirus excess deaths once you take into account age profile etc is population density.
Locations in the UK with lower levels of population density have had considerably lower death rates.
There is little correlation in the table that you supplied between population density and Covid deaths, which allow you to discount "low density" countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark from consideration. In fact every country in Western Europe is discounted from your consideration on grounds of population density, except the five ones with the worst death rates.
That's what I mean by cherry-picking your figures.
Of course low density nations like Denmark should not be contrasted with incredibly high density England.
The Netherlands are a high density but small country which is an interesting comparator, though Belgium next door while equally small have death rates comparable to the UKs.
And Spain and Portugal, which you allow to be considered, are low density, while UK, Italy and Belgium are high density. All the other countries which have varying degrees of population density, but which all coincidentally have lower death rates, are excluded from your comparison.
So what's your point about population density? (Rhetorical question)
The point is that for the UK to be having a better death toll than Portugal and a similar one to Spain despite our much higher population density shows how relatively well the pandemic here compared to there.
On thread: '40% of those infected get long covid" - is this not, er, utter bollocks? This stretches credibility miles and miles and miles beyond breaking point.
The Long Covid thing is frustrating. From everything we've seen this looks to be classic post-viral syndrome, something people have been suffering with, and which has been ignored or ridiculed by the medical establishment, since the beginning of time. You catch a virus your immune system is not used to, like glandular fever in your fresher's year, and it takes months or sometimes years to recover.
It was always dismissed and little research was put into it. Now because it's a political stick to beat people with and has a new fancy moniker, it's become trendy. What's the betting once the pandemic is over it will be quietly forgotten again and people will be left to suffer the disinterest and condescension of medics ("probably psychosomatic") any time they have prolonged symptoms after an infection.
The reservoir theory / low latency theories aren’t “dismissed”. There’s just very little we can do about them.
That tweet should be deleted from the header. It is outrageous. Completely distorts what Whitty said
You quote it in the article immediately beneath. He says there are TWO ways to minimise long COVID - keep cases down AND vaccinate & the government should push for BOTH of those.
It’s a statement of the bleeding obvious but not some massive division in the government vs scientists
Stop asking questions you plebs! Doff your cap and tug your forelock, there's a good chap.
Steven Reicher, social psychologist, may well be right that long Covid is about to become an even bigger issue than it is already. Long Covid includes symptoms such as chronic fatigue, poor memory, poor concentration, and insomnia, as well as chest pain, heart palpitations, and laboured breathing.
For some of these symptoms it seems hard to near-impossible to assess the relative contributions of
1) a previous SARSCoV2 infection - which may have been asymptomatic and completely unnoticed - and
2) the emotional stress of lockdown.
Chris Whitty is treated like some kind of god, but I have no idea why after he says he thinks we'll get "a significant amount" of long Covid, he says "particularly in the younger age [group] where the vaccination rates are currently much lower".
Does vaccination reduce the risk of long Covid then? Cite please.
"The chances of having long-term symptoms does not seem to be linked to how ill you are when you first get COVID-19."
So if what does not "seem" to be not true here [sic] actually is true then if vaccination does reduce the risk of long Covid it must achieve that effect by some other means than reducing the severity of standard Covid symptoms. We seem to be well into the territory of advanced speculation here. What does the "data" say? This is what journalists and MPs should be asking.
You may think that the NHS advice on long Covid obviously excludes asymptomatic cases of SARSCov2 infection, because it clearly says "Covid-19" and not "SARSCoV2", and "Covid-19" cannot exist with zero symptoms because it is precisely a collection of symptoms. But the same page also talks of a "COVID-19 infection", so that interpretation would be mistaken.
The context of long Covid is perhaps the best example of why the confusion between Covid and SARSCoV2 is so deplorable. This is not pedantry. What is a person supposed to do if they have never had Covid but they have started to suffer from chronic fatigue and terrible concentration? Should they have a drink at the pub on "Freedom Day" and hope the symptoms go away? Or should they form the view that it's probably long Covid and seek medical attention before they start to get chest pains and difficulties breathing?
Reicher's figure of 40% of those INFECTED getting long Covid is cause for concern, to put it mildly. That could soon be millions of people.
Final point: there may be good reasons for the whole "will we, won't we" thing, but it can feel like a case of Skinnerian "variable reward schedule" behavioural conditioning. A reversal before 19 July is likely to have some unpleasant mass-psychological effects.
The metaphor I use is long covid a moor fire. People do the isolating, feel better, get back to it, but it’s still burning inside them. Not just vascular but cardiovascular and other organs.
To protect the economy in long run we need to limit peak working age infections in short term.
It was estimated before the advent of the vaccine programme that between 30-40% of Brits had been infected by the virus. So 40% of 40% times the UK population is give or take 10 million people who are already suffering from long covid according to these stats. However we interpret the term. Do we have 10 million formerly healthy people cascading into the NHS system because of insufferable medical symptoms? Or even mild ones?
I don't want to do down long covid as a condition, I know one or two people who have been variously affected. But hard to avoid the conclusion that this is just the latest bullet being wildly fired by the lockdown fanatics, who have now lost the argument about excess death and ICUs collapsing, due to the success of the vaccine programme.
Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
Says the bloke who's repeatedly made the (good) point that he needs to break the habit of supporting the government.
Yes that is true. But as I also said just now, Boris, amazingly, managed to distil the essence of SKS' argument which was should face masks be mandatory on public transport. It was to hide that modest point that he started contradicting himself by saying we shouldn't open up now and we must stay locked down (was the clear implication) otherwise people will be forced to lock down.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
If people are being ruthlessly political about this - as I suppose is only to be expected - then what they need to worry about is not death rates or long COVID, but hospitalisation rates.
The current rate of hospitalisation per positive test 2-3 weeks before is about 3%. The new health secretary says cases may top 100,000 a day. Neil Ferguson says twice that number. Given that - if all mitigation measures are abandoned - the only thing that will stop numbers increasing is herd immunity, both those numbers actually seem optimistic to me, because I don't think we'll get herd imunity without another 20%+ of the population being infected.
20% of the population is 10 million+.
So Javid's number would see us remaining (just) under the January peak in hospital admissions of around 4000 a day. Ferguson's number wouldn't.
On the current rate of increase we get to that peak in about a month from now. If that happens, what does the government do? Bearing in mind that it needs to do something 2-3 weels before that point, otherwise it's too late.
The hospitalisation rate is currently more like 1.5 - 2%.
The rate is also falling. Which is not surprising, when you considered that the cases are growing fastest in the younger groups, which are less prone to hospitalisation, even without vaccination.
If people are being ruthlessly political about this - as I suppose is only to be expected - then what they need to worry about is not death rates or long COVID, but hospitalisation rates.
The current rate of hospitalisation per positive test 2-3 weeks before is about 3%. The new health secretary says cases may top 100,000 a day. Neil Ferguson says twice that number. Given that - if all mitigation measures are abandoned - the only thing that will stop numbers increasing is herd immunity, both those numbers actually seem optimistic to me, because I don't think we'll get herd imunity without another 20%+ of the population being infected.
20% of the population is 10 million+.
So Javid's number would see us remaining (just) under the January peak in hospital admissions of around 4000 a day. Ferguson's number wouldn't.
On the current rate of increase we get to that peak in about a month from now. If that happens, what does the government do? Bearing in mind that it needs to do something 2-3 weels before that point, otherwise it's too late.
The hospitalisation rate is currently more like 1.5 - 2%.
Indeed. If we do a week's lag between cases being reported and admissions then its 125,141 cases 8-14 days ago versus 2092 admissions in past 7 days - so 1.67%
Lagging three weeks between a Covid positive test being reported and an admission is a farcical delay to manipulate the data.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
Labour are all over the shop in trying too find a political "line". Painfully transparent.
Starmer has to build a rainbow coalition of angry people ranging from zerocovidians on the one hand to loony libertarians on the other with a few soothing words for antivaxxers into the bargain. How else to win power?
Sounds a bit like his plan at the last election, to unite Brexit voting northerners and cosmopolitan remainers. Seems a nice chap but somehow always seems to come across as speaking on behalf of nobody.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
I can clear this up. The government is dropping masks and keeping isolation. Starmer says both decisions are shit. That the other way around would probably make more sense. Keir Starmer is the Leader of the Opposition.
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Just had a meeting where someone explained lockdowns using the paradox of thrift. It was a very interesting concept and it probably applies. He thinks certain countries will be liable to fall into semi-permanent restrictions because they will be unwilling to use their "savings" at any point in time thinking that there will always be some better moment to spend them and over time everyone loses from that.
If people are being ruthlessly political about this - as I suppose is only to be expected - then what they need to worry about is not death rates or long COVID, but hospitalisation rates.
The current rate of hospitalisation per positive test 2-3 weeks before is about 3%. The new health secretary says cases may top 100,000 a day. Neil Ferguson says twice that number. Given that - if all mitigation measures are abandoned - the only thing that will stop numbers increasing is herd immunity, both those numbers actually seem optimistic to me, because I don't think we'll get herd imunity without another 20%+ of the population being infected.
20% of the population is 10 million+.
So Javid's number would see us remaining (just) under the January peak in hospital admissions of around 4000 a day. Ferguson's number wouldn't.
On the current rate of increase we get to that peak in about a month from now. If that happens, what does the government do? Bearing in mind that it needs to do something 2-3 weels before that point, otherwise it's too late.
The hospitalisation rate is currently more like 1.5 - 2%.
Indeed. If we do a week's lag between cases being reported and admissions then its 125,141 cases 8-14 days ago versus 2092 admissions in past 7 days - so 1.67%
Lagging three weeks between a Covid positive test being reported and an admission is a farcical delay to manipulate the data.
The question is simple, should the policy be to restrict infections as much as possible at this stage, or not be concerned about the number of infections. On the basis vaccines have severed link between infections and NHS unable to cope, does that leave no reason at all for limiting infections?
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
I can clear this up. The government is dropping masks and keeping isolation. Starmer says both decisions are shit. That the other way around would probably make more sense. Keir Starmer is the Leader of the Opposition.
I understand they are not keeping isolation. Boris alluded to it. But it's not been announced yet and it could be that BoJo didn't want to steal the thunder of another minister? Could be.
If people are being ruthlessly political about this - as I suppose is only to be expected - then what they need to worry about is not death rates or long COVID, but hospitalisation rates.
The current rate of hospitalisation per positive test 2-3 weeks before is about 3%. The new health secretary says cases may top 100,000 a day. Neil Ferguson says twice that number. Given that - if all mitigation measures are abandoned - the only thing that will stop numbers increasing is herd immunity, both those numbers actually seem optimistic to me, because I don't think we'll get herd imunity without another 20%+ of the population being infected.
20% of the population is 10 million+.
So Javid's number would see us remaining (just) under the January peak in hospital admissions of around 4000 a day. Ferguson's number wouldn't.
On the current rate of increase we get to that peak in about a month from now. If that happens, what does the government do? Bearing in mind that it needs to do something 2-3 weels before that point, otherwise it's too late.
The hospitalisation rate is currently more like 1.5 - 2%.
The rate is also falling. Which is not surprising, when you considered that the cases are growing fastest in the younger groups, which are less prone to hospitalisation, even without vaccination.
Plus of course every week that passes means more younger groups are vaccinated. Three weeks ago the vaccinations to the youngest age group wasn't being rolled out nationwide, now it is pretty much done. Three weeks ago the second jabs for those in their 40s was still being done, now the 30s are being done.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
Labour are all over the shop in trying too find a political "line". Painfully transparent.
Starmer has to build a rainbow coalition of angry people ranging from zerocovidians on the one hand to loony libertarians on the other with a few soothing words for antivaxxers into the bargain. How else to win power?
Sounds a bit like his plan at the last election, to unite Brexit voting northerners and cosmopolitan remainers. Seems a nice chap but somehow always seems to come across as speaking on behalf of nobody.
He's a real nowhere man Sitting in his nowhere land Making all his nowhere plans for nobody Doesn't have a point of view Knows not where he's going to...
Just had a meeting where someone explained lockdowns using the paradox of thrift. It was a very interesting concept and it probably applies. He thinks certain countries will be liable to fall into semi-permanent restrictions because they will be unwilling to use their "savings" at any point in time thinking that there will always be some better moment to spend them and over time everyone loses from that.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
But not - yet - in the terms he described. Unless you think otherwise wrt other countries?
Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
To be fair to him, at least he's taking the "Opposition" bit of his job seriously at last. Coherence is arguably less important at this stage of the electoral cycle than just challenging whether the Government's thought everything through. Because, um, often it hasn't.
At this stage Starmer should be on any media outlet that'll have him saying Johnson is an incompetent liar who is fucking everything up. The actual details of the charge are irrelevant; it's more about the vibe.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
Labour are all over the shop in trying too find a political "line". Painfully transparent.
Starmer has to build a rainbow coalition of angry people ranging from zerocovidians on the one hand to loony libertarians on the other with a few soothing words for antivaxxers into the bargain. How else to win power?
Sounds a bit like his plan at the last election, to unite Brexit voting northerners and cosmopolitan remainers. Seems a nice chap but somehow always seems to come across as speaking on behalf of nobody.
Its the same Labour has done for years when prioritising spending. We'll spend on A, and B, and C, and D . . . and Z.
When you prioritise everything, you prioritise nothing.
If people are being ruthlessly political about this - as I suppose is only to be expected - then what they need to worry about is not death rates or long COVID, but hospitalisation rates.
The current rate of hospitalisation per positive test 2-3 weeks before is about 3%. The new health secretary says cases may top 100,000 a day. Neil Ferguson says twice that number. Given that - if all mitigation measures are abandoned - the only thing that will stop numbers increasing is herd immunity, both those numbers actually seem optimistic to me, because I don't think we'll get herd imunity without another 20%+ of the population being infected.
20% of the population is 10 million+.
So Javid's number would see us remaining (just) under the January peak in hospital admissions of around 4000 a day. Ferguson's number wouldn't.
On the current rate of increase we get to that peak in about a month from now. If that happens, what does the government do? Bearing in mind that it needs to do something 2-3 weels before that point, otherwise it's too late.
The hospitalisation rate is currently more like 1.5 - 2%.
Indeed. If we do a week's lag between cases being reported and admissions then its 125,141 cases 8-14 days ago versus 2092 admissions in past 7 days - so 1.67%
Lagging three weeks between a Covid positive test being reported and an admission is a farcical delay to manipulate the data.
The question is simple, should the policy be to restrict infections as much as possible at this stage, or not be concerned about the number of infections. On the basis vaccines have severed link between infections and NHS unable to cope, does that leave no reason at all for limiting infections?
If were serious about restricting infections, then we would be reimposing a full lockdown. But, there is no justification for such a policy.
Indeed. I read this yesterday and bookmarked it as a thorough counter to zerocovidian tendencies among some of my friends and relations.
Triggle has been absolutely excellent throughout this pandemic – he is a seriously good healthcare journalist and analyst.
Sadly we still see far too little of him on BBC TV (he seems largely relegated to News 24) because the Six and Ten prefer alarming soundbites from those with their own agenda.
If people are being ruthlessly political about this - as I suppose is only to be expected - then what they need to worry about is not death rates or long COVID, but hospitalisation rates.
The current rate of hospitalisation per positive test 2-3 weeks before is about 3%. The new health secretary says cases may top 100,000 a day. Neil Ferguson says twice that number. Given that - if all mitigation measures are abandoned - the only thing that will stop numbers increasing is herd immunity, both those numbers actually seem optimistic to me, because I don't think we'll get herd imunity without another 20%+ of the population being infected.
20% of the population is 10 million+.
So Javid's number would see us remaining (just) under the January peak in hospital admissions of around 4000 a day. Ferguson's number wouldn't.
On the current rate of increase we get to that peak in about a month from now. If that happens, what does the government do? Bearing in mind that it needs to do something 2-3 weels before that point, otherwise it's too late.
The hospitalisation rate is currently more like 1.5 - 2%.
Indeed. If we do a week's lag between cases being reported and admissions then its 125,141 cases 8-14 days ago versus 2092 admissions in past 7 days - so 1.67%
Lagging three weeks between a Covid positive test being reported and an admission is a farcical delay to manipulate the data.
The question is simple, should the policy be to restrict infections as much as possible at this stage, or not be concerned about the number of infections. On the basis vaccines have severed link between infections and NHS unable to cope, does that leave no reason at all for limiting infections?
There is also the issue of what methods would be required to limit infections. The evidence with Delta is that even a return to the full lockdown would only slow it down. With the full cost of a lockdown....
Just had a meeting where someone explained lockdowns using the paradox of thrift. It was a very interesting concept and it probably applies. He thinks certain countries will be liable to fall into semi-permanent restrictions because they will be unwilling to use their "savings" at any point in time thinking that there will always be some better moment to spend them and over time everyone loses from that.
Indeed. I read this yesterday and bookmarked it as a thorough counter to zerocovidian tendencies among some of my friends and relations.
Triggle has been absolutely excellent throughout this pandemic – he is a seriously good healthcare journalist and analyst.
Sadly we still see far too little of him on BBC TV (he seems largely relegated to News 24) because the Six and Ten prefer alarming soundbites from those with their own agenda.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Wrong.
The next GE isn’t a vote on the war is won, it’s a vote on how did you manage the war.
Did you promise solid bomb shelters, and then blitzed cities did not have solid bomb shelters? In other words, nothing to do with the war, to do with your promises.
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
Does the UK do *massively* more testing than *anyone* else?
We squander lots of money on it , world beater at supposedly Test and Trace which is really just a Tory ponzi scheme for their chums
The daughter of a friend is a primary school teacher who unfortunately managed to catch Covid at the end of term from one of her pupils. Because she was a probationer she is not assured of continued employment at the same school so she got her dad to come into the school with her (before she was aware she was positive) and clear out all of the materials etc that she had built up over the year. So he was a contact. She phoned him up and he started self isolating although he had no symptoms. 5 days later he got a phone call from test and trace advising him to do that.
His daughter had done all the right things, giving her limited number of contacts to T&T straight away. 5 days seems to me an almost pointless amount of time. If he had been infected he would almost certainly have infected those that he was going to before they even contacted him. She, incidentally, in her early 20s, was really quite ill for over a week.
So I would suggest that Scots should be circumspect in criticising T&T in England. Its no better here, possibly worse.
‘Its no better here, possibly worse.’
Words to live by.
Never did Strathcathro lorry stop any harm: ""Ye may gang faur and fare waur".
The ONS has just released its latest antibody study results. They show that 90% of adults in England tested positive for the antibodies, as at week beginning 14th June (the figures will be higher now, of course). Wales is slightly higher, Scotland and NI a bit lower. Even in the 16-24 year old group, the figure is 60%, even though only 32% of that group had been jabbed at all and only 17% double-jabbed. We're immunising by infection in that group.
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
But not - yet - in the terms he described. Unless you think otherwise wrt other countries?
Other countries are very much a curate's egg. You can see ways in which they are less restrictive than us, and ways in which they are more restrictive. And, the test will come in a few weeks when case numbers (but hopefully not deaths or admissions) will be shooting up across the Continent.
Not impressed with SKS and haven't been for months if not since he took over. Oh and btw him in that England t-shirt was total cringe.
And I'm a disaffected ex-Cons activist who loathes Johnson and is looking for other political alternatives FFS.
Fair enough.
Nevertheless you should be exiled to Conservative Home for a fortnight for using cringe as an adjective, in the manner of some frappaccino-addled teenager.
Indeed. I read this yesterday and bookmarked it as a thorough counter to zerocovidian tendencies among some of my friends and relations.
Triggle has been absolutely excellent throughout this pandemic – he is a seriously good healthcare journalist and analyst.
Sadly we still see far too little of him on BBC TV (he seems largely relegated to News 24) because the Six and Ten prefer alarming soundbites from those with their own agenda.
It was actually tweeted by Laura Kunnesburg and seems a well balanced view
Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
To be fair to him, at least he's taking the "Opposition" bit of his job seriously at last. Coherence is arguably less important at this stage of the electoral cycle than just challenging whether the Government's thought everything through. Because, um, often it hasn't.
At this stage Starmer should be on any media outlet that'll have him saying Johnson is an incompetent liar who is fucking everything up. The actual details of the charge are irrelevant; it's more about the vibe.
Absolutely. But he has voted with the govt at every available opportunity.
It's like that "how many holes does a straw have?" For those who think the answer is two the question is when does one stop and the other start...If SKS votes with the govt then he by definition surely can't think that they were fucking things up then. Which means to say they are fucking up now as in big picture fucking up means he has to accept they weren't before. Which he can't do, politically.
Exclusive: The Ministry of Defence is close to finalising a move to take Sheffield Forgemasters, one of Britain’s oldest steelmakers, into public ownership. The company plays a key role in the supply chain of the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
I can clear this up. The government is dropping masks and keeping isolation. Starmer says both decisions are shit. That the other way around would probably make more sense. Keir Starmer is the Leader of the Opposition.
I understand they are not keeping isolation. Boris alluded to it. But it's not been announced yet and it could be that BoJo didn't want to steal the thunder of another minister? Could be.
Health Secretary announced the end of isolation yesterday. 16 August, 4 weeks after 19 July, so essentially its an unofficial "Stage 5".
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
I should perhaps have replaced 'Europe' with 'EU'. Had I done so the only number which is incorrect on YESTERDAY'S figures is France which had marginally more total cases than us.
The ONS has just released its latest antibody study results. They show that 90% of adults in England tested positive for the antibodies, as at week beginning 14th June (the figures will be higher now, of course). Wales is slightly higher, Scotland and NI a bit lower. Even in the 16-24 year old group, the figure is 60%, even though only 32% of that group had been jabbed at all and only 17% double-jabbed. We're immunising by infection in that group.
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
Reckless to open up but what about all the people who have to isolate?
WTAF? Utter dick.
To be fair to him, at least he's taking the "Opposition" bit of his job seriously at last. Coherence is arguably less important at this stage of the electoral cycle than just challenging whether the Government's thought everything through. Because, um, often it hasn't.
Yep. Is the thing. A point made well and many times by my good friend, El Capitano.
Not impressed with SKS and haven't been for months if not since he took over. Oh and btw him in that England t-shirt was total cringe.
And I'm a disaffected ex-Cons activist who loathes Johnson and is looking for other political alternatives FFS.
Fair enough.
Nevertheless you should be exiled to Conservative Home for a fortnight for using cringe as an adjective, in the manner of some frappaccino-addled teenager.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
I can clear this up. The government is dropping masks and keeping isolation. Starmer says both decisions are shit. That the other way around would probably make more sense. Keir Starmer is the Leader of the Opposition.
I understand they are not keeping isolation. Boris alluded to it. But it's not been announced yet and it could be that BoJo didn't want to steal the thunder of another minister? Could be.
Health Secretary announced the end of isolation yesterday. 16 August, 4 weeks after 19 July, so essentially its an unofficial "Stage 5".
Only for the double vaccinated, same as quarantine free travel to Amber list countries will only apply to the double vaccinated.
So whether we talk about Freedom Day being 19 July or 16 August in either case it is in reality only Freedom Day for the double jabbed
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
And yet, we'll still have to self-isolate if we come into contact with a covid case, which will be a virtual certainty. Gavin Williamson has announced the end of school bubbles, but everyone in school who comes into contact with a covid case will face another ten days house arrest. Which is exactly the same situation as now. Already we're getting noises rowing back on exactly how much freedom we'll get on 19th July and exactly how permanent it will be.
Forgive me, I'm still glowering with resentment about my daughter missing another ten days of her childhood, with not much apparent prospect in sight of it springing to life again afterwards. I can see that objectively, we are freer now than we were in February. And it's great news that Hancock and Cummings have gone. But my anxiety that this is as good as it gets and that it will probably get worse again outweighs my optimism that we will finally see freedom. They're gearing up for another last minute change of heart, aren't they?
Indeed. I read this yesterday and bookmarked it as a thorough counter to zerocovidian tendencies among some of my friends and relations.
Triggle has been absolutely excellent throughout this pandemic – he is a seriously good healthcare journalist and analyst.
Sadly we still see far too little of him on BBC TV (he seems largely relegated to News 24) because the Six and Ten prefer alarming soundbites from those with their own agenda.
It was actually tweeted by Laura Kunnesburg and seems a well balanced view
Fair enough – but more Triggle on telly at the expense of Laura K and her innumerate pals would be a shift we could all embrace wholeheartedly.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
Labour are all over the shop in trying too find a political "line". Painfully transparent.
Starmer has to build a rainbow coalition of angry people ranging from zerocovidians on the one hand to loony libertarians on the other with a few soothing words for antivaxxers into the bargain. How else to win power?
Er not really. He needs to keep as many as possible of those who voted Lab in 2019 and add onto this as many as possible of those who didn't. Such is the mission. It's a challenge but it's far from insurmountable.
Not impressed with SKS and haven't been for months if not since he took over. Oh and btw him in that England t-shirt was total cringe.
And I'm a disaffected ex-Cons activist who loathes Johnson and is looking for other political alternatives FFS.
Fair enough.
Nevertheless you should be exiled to Conservative Home for a fortnight for using cringe as an adjective, in the manner of some frappaccino-addled teenager.
Exclusive: The Ministry of Defence is close to finalising a move to take Sheffield Forgemasters, one of Britain’s oldest steelmakers, into public ownership. The company plays a key role in the supply chain of the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet.
Nationalisation and privatisation are tools; both can be useful in different situations.
Problems occur when the wrong tool is used for a job: because of an ideological purity, you nationalise or privatise something where it is not the best model. I much prefer governments that lack that ideological purity, and try to use the best tool for any particular job.
But there's another tool that many politicians forget: leave-the-f**k-alone.
Steven Reicher, social psychologist, may well be right that long Covid is about to become an even bigger issue than it is already. Long Covid includes symptoms such as chronic fatigue, poor memory, poor concentration, and insomnia, as well as chest pain, heart palpitations, and laboured breathing.
For some of these symptoms it seems hard to near-impossible to assess the relative contributions of
1) a previous SARSCoV2 infection - which may have been asymptomatic and completely unnoticed - and
2) the emotional stress of lockdown.
Chris Whitty is treated like some kind of god, but I have no idea why after he says he thinks we'll get "a significant amount" of long Covid, he says "particularly in the younger age [group] where the vaccination rates are currently much lower".
Does vaccination reduce the risk of long Covid then? Cite please.
"The chances of having long-term symptoms does not seem to be linked to how ill you are when you first get COVID-19."
So if what does not "seem" to be not true here [sic] actually is true then if vaccination does reduce the risk of long Covid it must achieve that effect by some other means than reducing the severity of standard Covid symptoms. We seem to be well into the territory of advanced speculation here. What does the "data" say? This is what journalists and MPs should be asking.
You may think that the NHS advice on long Covid obviously excludes asymptomatic cases of SARSCov2 infection, because it clearly says "Covid-19" and not "SARSCoV2", and "Covid-19" cannot exist with zero symptoms because it is precisely a collection of symptoms. But the same page also talks of a "COVID-19 infection", so that interpretation would be mistaken.
The context of long Covid is perhaps the best example of why the confusion between Covid and SARSCoV2 is so deplorable. This is not pedantry. What is a person supposed to do if they have never had Covid but they have started to suffer from chronic fatigue and terrible concentration? Should they have a drink at the pub on "Freedom Day" and hope the symptoms go away? Or should they form the view that it's probably long Covid and seek medical attention before they start to get chest pains and difficulties breathing?
Reicher's figure of 40% of those INFECTED getting long Covid is cause for concern, to put it mildly. That could soon be millions of people.
Final point: there may be good reasons for the whole "will we, won't we" thing, but it can feel like a case of Skinnerian "variable reward schedule" behavioural conditioning. A reversal before 19 July is likely to have some unpleasant mass-psychological effects.
The metaphor I use is long covid a moor fire. People do the isolating, feel better, get back to it, but it’s still burning inside them. Not just vascular but cardiovascular and other organs.
To protect the economy in long run we need to limit peak working age infections in short term.
It was estimated before the advent of the vaccine programme that between 30-40% of Brits had been infected by the virus. So 40% of 40% times the UK population is give or take 10 million people who are already suffering from long covid according to these stats. However we interpret the term. Do we have 10 million formerly healthy people cascading into the NHS system because of insufferable medical symptoms? Or even mild ones?
I don't want to do down long covid as a condition, I know one or two people who have been variously affected. But hard to avoid the conclusion that this is just the latest bullet being wildly fired by the lockdown fanatics, who have now lost the argument about excess death and ICUs collapsing, due to the success of the vaccine programme.
I largely agree it’s a bullet being fired by scientists. But to call them lockdown fanatics, is that not your brain being too binary? Freedom Day fanatics on one side, zerocovididiots on the other?
Vaccines have broken the link between infection and NHS unable to cope. Now putting the politics aside, is there no scientific argument for still limiting the number of infections at this stage. If the answer is no, there is current government policy. If the answer is yes, then what effectively achieves both that and further easing of restrictions.
The ONS has just released its latest antibody study results. They show that 90% of adults in England tested positive for the antibodies, as at week beginning 14th June (the figures will be higher now, of course). Wales is slightly higher, Scotland and NI a bit lower. Even in the 16-24 year old group, the figure is 60%, even though only 32% of that group had been jabbed at all and only 17% double-jabbed. We're immunising by infection in that group.
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
I should perhaps have replaced 'Europe' with 'EU'. Had I done so the only number which is incorrect on YESTERDAY'S figures is France which had marginally more total cases than us.
Embarrassing. Have you forgotten the UK isn't in the EU anymore?
If you were only considering EU, France has had more cumulative cases, and new deaths are much lower in the UK than several EU countries.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
Labour are all over the shop in trying too find a political "line". Painfully transparent.
Starmer has to build a rainbow coalition of angry people ranging from zerocovidians on the one hand to loony libertarians on the other with a few soothing words for antivaxxers into the bargain. How else to win power?
He needs to keep as many as possible of those who voted Lab in 2019 and add onto this as many as possible of those who didn't.
Who says PB isn't the home of incisive political analysis?
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
I should perhaps have replaced 'Europe' with 'EU'. Had I done so the only number which is incorrect on YESTERDAY'S figures is France which had marginally more total cases than us.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
And yet, we'll still have to self-isolate if we come into contact with a covid case, which will be a virtual certainty. Gavin Williamson has announced the end of school bubbles, but everyone in school who comes into contact with a covid case will face another ten days house arrest. Which is exactly the same situation as now. Already we're getting noises rowing back on exactly how much freedom we'll get on 19th July and exactly how permanent it will be.
Forgive me, I'm still glowering with resentment about my daughter missing another ten days of her childhood, with not much apparent prospect in sight of it springing to life again afterwards. I can see that objectively, we are freer now than we were in February. And it's great news that Hancock and Cummings have gone. But my anxiety that this is as good as it gets and that it will probably get worse again outweighs my optimism that we will finally see freedom. They're gearing up for another last minute change of heart, aren't they?
I understand your frustration, but I don't think there will be a U- Turn.
The ONS has just released its latest antibody study results. They show that 90% of adults in England tested positive for the antibodies, as at week beginning 14th June (the figures will be higher now, of course). Wales is slightly higher, Scotland and NI a bit lower. Even in the 16-24 year old group, the figure is 60%, even though only 32% of that group had been jabbed at all and only 17% double-jabbed. We're immunising by infection in that group.
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
I am having real trouble reconciling 100k infections a day with even our current rate of vaccination for exactly that reason. I think that will prove highly pessimistic. I will be surprised if we get to 50k.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
I can clear this up. The government is dropping masks and keeping isolation. Starmer says both decisions are shit. That the other way around would probably make more sense. Keir Starmer is the Leader of the Opposition.
I understand they are not keeping isolation. Boris alluded to it. But it's not been announced yet and it could be that BoJo didn't want to steal the thunder of another minister? Could be.
Health Secretary announced the end of isolation yesterday. 16 August, 4 weeks after 19 July, so essentially its an unofficial "Stage 5".
Ah yes that's right. I wonder why Boris wasn't more assertive over this, given that it was one of SKS' main charges...
Edit: I suppose because of @HYUFD's point that it is only for the double-jabbed.
Just had a meeting where someone explained lockdowns using the paradox of thrift. It was a very interesting concept and it probably applies. He thinks certain countries will be liable to fall into semi-permanent restrictions because they will be unwilling to use their "savings" at any point in time thinking that there will always be some better moment to spend them and over time everyone loses from that.
New Zealand?
New Zealand has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the developed world now, not only lower than England, Wales and Scotland, NI and Ireland but lower than Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Canada, the US, Israel, Australia and Japan and even lower than Brazil.
Ardern does not look as good as she did a few months ago on Covid
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
Does the UK do *massively* more testing than *anyone* else?
We squander lots of money on it , world beater at supposedly Test and Trace which is really just a Tory ponzi scheme for their chums
The daughter of a friend is a primary school teacher who unfortunately managed to catch Covid at the end of term from one of her pupils. Because she was a probationer she is not assured of continued employment at the same school so she got her dad to come into the school with her (before she was aware she was positive) and clear out all of the materials etc that she had built up over the year. So he was a contact. She phoned him up and he started self isolating although he had no symptoms. 5 days later he got a phone call from test and trace advising him to do that.
His daughter had done all the right things, giving her limited number of contacts to T&T straight away. 5 days seems to me an almost pointless amount of time. If he had been infected he would almost certainly have infected those that he was going to before they even contacted him. She, incidentally, in her early 20s, was really quite ill for over a week.
So I would suggest that Scots should be circumspect in criticising T&T in England. Its no better here, possibly worse.
‘Its no better here, possibly worse.’
Words to live by.
Never did Strathcathro lorry stop any harm: ""Ye may gang faur and fare waur".
Their steak pie was and still is I hope magnificent. Toilets 1* though.
I am not sure the government is dealing with perverse incentives here.
I for one would feel more confident to commute and travel about in London if masks were compulsory on the tube. The free for all make me more inclined to stay put. The tube is nasty at the best of times, but with CV19, nah no thanks.
A continuation of the incremental approach may have been wiser and helped the economy and society more.
Not impressed with SKS and haven't been for months if not since he took over. Oh and btw him in that England t-shirt was total cringe.
And I'm a disaffected ex-Cons activist who loathes Johnson and is looking for other political alternatives FFS.
Fair enough.
Nevertheless you should be exiled to Conservative Home for a fortnight for using cringe as an adjective, in the manner of some frappaccino-addled teenager.
A fortnight is getting off lightly I'm grateful.
A second offence will involve isolation with Piers Corbyn and Piers Morgan......
The ONS has just released its latest antibody study results. They show that 90% of adults in England tested positive for the antibodies, as at week beginning 14th June (the figures will be higher now, of course). Wales is slightly higher, Scotland and NI a bit lower. Even in the 16-24 year old group, the figure is 60%, even though only 32% of that group had been jabbed at all and only 17% double-jabbed. We're immunising by infection in that group.
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
Unless there are horrible drop offs in immunity and a balls up on booster vaccines, it's hard to see how this winter will be too scary from a covid-19 perspective. One assumes that most of the vaccine refuseniks will be self immunised by the end of the summer and the kids by Halloween.
Influenza has the capacity to be nasty though doesn't it. To what extent will the lessons learned on staying at home when ill, hand washing, persistent work from home etc... blunt what is likely to be a roll of the dice on the flu vaccine front?
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
I should perhaps have replaced 'Europe' with 'EU'. Had I done so the only number which is incorrect on YESTERDAY'S figures is France which had marginally more total cases than us.
Which would also have been laughably wrong. We’re not in the EU. Perhaps you missed that evolution, as you fumbled with your Blackberry under your tartan blanket, trying to tune into the Home Service
The ONS has just released its latest antibody study results. They show that 90% of adults in England tested positive for the antibodies, as at week beginning 14th June (the figures will be higher now, of course). Wales is slightly higher, Scotland and NI a bit lower. Even in the 16-24 year old group, the figure is 60%, even though only 32% of that group had been jabbed at all and only 17% double-jabbed. We're immunising by infection in that group.
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
I am having real trouble reconciling 100k infections a day with even our current rate of vaccination for exactly that reason. I think that will prove highly pessimistic. I will be surprised if we get to 50k.
If it really is THAT infectious, you could perhaps have a very high daily number for say 10 days as it rips through all the unvaxxed - but then a very steep decline as it can't find fresh victims.
Just had a meeting where someone explained lockdowns using the paradox of thrift. It was a very interesting concept and it probably applies. He thinks certain countries will be liable to fall into semi-permanent restrictions because they will be unwilling to use their "savings" at any point in time thinking that there will always be some better moment to spend them and over time everyone loses from that.
New Zealand?
New Zealand has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the developed world now, not only lower than England, Wales and Scotland, NI and Ireland but lower than Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Canada, Israel, Australia and Japan and even lower than Brazil.
Ardern does not look as good as she did a few months ago on Covid
The ONS has just released its latest antibody study results. They show that 90% of adults in England tested positive for the antibodies, as at week beginning 14th June (the figures will be higher now, of course). Wales is slightly higher, Scotland and NI a bit lower. Even in the 16-24 year old group, the figure is 60%, even though only 32% of that group had been jabbed at all and only 17% double-jabbed. We're immunising by infection in that group.
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
I am having real trouble reconciling 100k infections a day with even our current rate of vaccination for exactly that reason. I think that will prove highly pessimistic. I will be surprised if we get to 50k.
If it really is THAT infectious, you could perhaps have a very high daily number for say 10 days as it rips through all the unvaxxed - but then a very steep decline as it can't find fresh victims.
Although presumably vaxxed people can still test positive although the symptoms will or should be minimal for the vast majority.
Hence why hospitalisations remain the critical indicator.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
And yet, we'll still have to self-isolate if we come into contact with a covid case, which will be a virtual certainty. Gavin Williamson has announced the end of school bubbles, but everyone in school who comes into contact with a covid case will face another ten days house arrest. Which is exactly the same situation as now. Already we're getting noises rowing back on exactly how much freedom we'll get on 19th July and exactly how permanent it will be.
Forgive me, I'm still glowering with resentment about my daughter missing another ten days of her childhood, with not much apparent prospect in sight of it springing to life again afterwards. I can see that objectively, we are freer now than we were in February. And it's great news that Hancock and Cummings have gone. But my anxiety that this is as good as it gets and that it will probably get worse again outweighs my optimism that we will finally see freedom. They're gearing up for another last minute change of heart, aren't they?
Correct. In fact spot on cookie. Freedom Day + isolate if told you have had contact is not Freedom Day at all. The government supporters on here are not smart enough to realise this is not what business/schools/anything anywhere needs to be back to normal, it’s Freedom Day postponed by stealth.
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
I should perhaps have replaced 'Europe' with 'EU'. Had I done so the only number which is incorrect on YESTERDAY'S figures is France which had marginally more total cases than us.
Which would also have been laughably wrong. We’re not in the EU. Perhaps you missed that evolution, as you fumbled with your Blackberry under your tartan blanket, trying to tune into the Home Service
I think what Roger means is 'we did worse than Germany'. Because surely he can't be expecting that Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Czechia and so forth had more deaths than us in absolute terms. No-one who has even an ounce of maths in their body would expect that.
So, fair point Roger - the UK has had more covid than Germany.
I've not been following the pandemic in any sort of detail. Just listening to the news and government spokespeople. While our vaccine program was purring like a Ferrari Europe's were limping along like a Lada Riva with a puncture. Tory poster's on here have been crowing about our ingenuity and delighting in our good fortune at being-dare I say it-BRITISH!
1. FIRST in Europe for total number of cases. 2. FIRST in Europe for total number of deaths. 3. FIRST in Europe for total of NEW cases. 4. FIRST in Europe for total number of NEW deaths.
Roger, this is just total nonsense. 1. France and Russia have both had more cases 2. Russia has more deaths, on a per million analysis there are a host of countries ahead of us. 3. Russia has more new cases. And we do massively more testing than anyone else. 4. Total rubbish. In the last 7 days Italy, Germany and France (as well as Russia) have all had more deaths than us.
Why do you write this stuff?
Does the UK do *massively* more testing than *anyone* else?
I can't find national figures but Berlin (4.3% of population) has a capacity of 4.7 million antigen tests a week, and press reports are complaining that there has been a massive drop in tests carried out to just 700000 last week in Berlin - because people no longer need a current test to do things like eat inside a restaurant etc (because the incidence rate is so low). But back of the envelope calculation suggests that even this much reduced testing is much *more* testing than in the UK. But the myth of the UK doing massively more tests than anyone else refuses to die no matter how often debunked.
Myth?
Why don't you try getting some national per capita data and comparing them? Because the data is out there.
Or if you're struggling to find Germany in amongst the other countries its mixed in with then try this head to head comparison.
Who's spreading myths?
You, as I have explained many times.
How many antigen tests have been done in Germany? Can you answer that question?
A tiny fraction of the amount the UK is doing quite clearly given the data!
The UK is doing about 14x the tests per capita than Germany is.
Over a third of the UK's tests are antigen PCR tests.
So even if you exclude all British non-PCR test and count all German tests of any type at all, then the UK is still doing about 5x the tests per capita that Germany is.
You are just wrong,, show me a link (not world in data which is only counting PCR tests) with the total number of tests done in Germany.
Here is a news report claiming the week before last the average number of tests (not including PCR tests) per day done in Berlin was over 100000. Berlin is less than a twentieth of Germany's population. Given the article is complaining about test centres having to close in Berlin because of reduced demand, then 2 million antigen tests a day in Germany in recent weeks is probably an underestimate. So not only not a "tiny fraction", but I think actually more than in the UK
Beautiful. I am a Labour supporter and Scottish to boot but this doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I might put up our England bunting for the game tonight.
Although England are doing better than usual so far I was only thinking how few cars I've seen flying the flag. In previous tournaments every third or fourth car had one. I've only seen 2 in total so far this time. Same with houses, tiny fraction of the usual number. No idea if it's the same everywhere.
Lots of cars with England flags in SE London. Don't tend to get many houses with flags round here though.
Flag on house is a whole different order of things to flag on car.
Neither for me but what there is (for me) is an England shirt worn for every game with no post-modern irony whatsoever. I'm right behind this team. I would be anyway and it's made all the easier because of the vibe they emit. No egos, unshowy, organized and methodical, focused but not selfish or obsessed. Labour values, in other words. Not woke, mind, just bread and butter Labour values. The sort of team Keir Starmer would be sending out if he were in the dugout.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
I can clear this up. The government is dropping masks and keeping isolation. Starmer says both decisions are shit. That the other way around would probably make more sense. Keir Starmer is the Leader of the Opposition.
I understand they are not keeping isolation. Boris alluded to it. But it's not been announced yet and it could be that BoJo didn't want to steal the thunder of another minister? Could be.
Health Secretary announced the end of isolation yesterday. 16 August, 4 weeks after 19 July, so essentially its an unofficial "Stage 5".
Only for the double vaccinated, same as quarantine free travel to Amber list countries will only apply to the double vaccinated.
So whether we talk about Freedom Day being 19 July or 16 August in either case it is in reality only Freedom Day for the double jabbed
With a few very unlucky exceptions, it is Freedom Day for those who Covid used to take.
Steven Reicher, social psychologist, may well be right that long Covid is about to become an even bigger issue than it is already. Long Covid includes symptoms such as chronic fatigue, poor memory, poor concentration, and insomnia, as well as chest pain, heart palpitations, and laboured breathing.
For some of these symptoms it seems hard to near-impossible to assess the relative contributions of
1) a previous SARSCoV2 infection - which may have been asymptomatic and completely unnoticed - and
2) the emotional stress of lockdown.
Chris Whitty is treated like some kind of god, but I have no idea why after he says he thinks we'll get "a significant amount" of long Covid, he says "particularly in the younger age [group] where the vaccination rates are currently much lower".
Does vaccination reduce the risk of long Covid then? Cite please.
"The chances of having long-term symptoms does not seem to be linked to how ill you are when you first get COVID-19."
So if what does not "seem" to be not true here [sic] actually is true then if vaccination does reduce the risk of long Covid it must achieve that effect by some other means than reducing the severity of standard Covid symptoms. We seem to be well into the territory of advanced speculation here. What does the "data" say? This is what journalists and MPs should be asking.
You may think that the NHS advice on long Covid obviously excludes asymptomatic cases of SARSCov2 infection, because it clearly says "Covid-19" and not "SARSCoV2", and "Covid-19" cannot exist with zero symptoms because it is precisely a collection of symptoms. But the same page also talks of a "COVID-19 infection", so that interpretation would be mistaken.
The context of long Covid is perhaps the best example of why the confusion between Covid and SARSCoV2 is so deplorable. This is not pedantry. What is a person supposed to do if they have never had Covid but they have started to suffer from chronic fatigue and terrible concentration? Should they have a drink at the pub on "Freedom Day" and hope the symptoms go away? Or should they form the view that it's probably long Covid and seek medical attention before they start to get chest pains and difficulties breathing?
Reicher's figure of 40% of those INFECTED getting long Covid is cause for concern, to put it mildly. That could soon be millions of people.
Final point: there may be good reasons for the whole "will we, won't we" thing, but it can feel like a case of Skinnerian "variable reward schedule" behavioural conditioning. A reversal before 19 July is likely to have some unpleasant mass-psychological effects.
The metaphor I use is long covid a moor fire. People do the isolating, feel better, get back to it, but it’s still burning inside them. Not just vascular but cardiovascular and other organs.
To protect the economy in long run we need to limit peak working age infections in short term.
It was estimated before the advent of the vaccine programme that between 30-40% of Brits had been infected by the virus. So 40% of 40% times the UK population is give or take 10 million people who are already suffering from long covid according to these stats. However we interpret the term. Do we have 10 million formerly healthy people cascading into the NHS system because of insufferable medical symptoms? Or even mild ones?
I don't want to do down long covid as a condition, I know one or two people who have been variously affected. But hard to avoid the conclusion that this is just the latest bullet being wildly fired by the lockdown fanatics, who have now lost the argument about excess death and ICUs collapsing, due to the success of the vaccine programme.
I largely agree it’s a bullet being fired by scientists. But to call them lockdown fanatics, is that not your brain being too binary? Freedom Day fanatics on one side, zerocovididiots on the other?
Vaccines have broken the link between infection and NHS unable to cope. Now putting the politics aside, is there no scientific argument for still limiting the number of infections at this stage. If the answer is no, there is current government policy. If the answer is yes, then what effectively achieves both that and further easing of restrictions.
Perhaps yes. But I am reminded of when Obama was resisting a troop surge in Afghanistan and was criticised for it by the general. Don't remember which one. Obama replied that if all he was focused on achieving was defeating the Taliban, then he'd back the troop surge. But he had a far wider mandate that might be jeopardised by it.
I always try and remember that when those up the chain at work make what look like perplexing strategic decisions. They probably have more info than I do but they certainly have a wider mandate and set of stakeholders to consider.
I think the same is true here. Ask people who only have a mandate in public health (indeed one narrow area of public health!) what to do and they will always say it's better to be on the safe side. But there's a broader mandate to be followed than that. Interesting Witty, who oversees all pubic health considerations in his brief, now seems to believe his mandate is best fulfilled by ending mandatory restrictions.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
And yet, we'll still have to self-isolate if we come into contact with a covid case, which will be a virtual certainty. Gavin Williamson has announced the end of school bubbles, but everyone in school who comes into contact with a covid case will face another ten days house arrest. Which is exactly the same situation as now. Already we're getting noises rowing back on exactly how much freedom we'll get on 19th July and exactly how permanent it will be.
Forgive me, I'm still glowering with resentment about my daughter missing another ten days of her childhood, with not much apparent prospect in sight of it springing to life again afterwards. I can see that objectively, we are freer now than we were in February. And it's great news that Hancock and Cummings have gone. But my anxiety that this is as good as it gets and that it will probably get worse again outweighs my optimism that we will finally see freedom. They're gearing up for another last minute change of heart, aren't they?
Correct. In fact spot on cookie. Freedom Day + isolate if told you have had contact is not Freedom Day at all. The government supporters on here are not smart enough to realise this is not what business/schools/anything anywhere needs to be back to normal, it’s Freedom Day postponed by stealth.
I thought there would not be isolation for those who have been double jabbed unless you actually test positive for Covid.
Well you see, we have a world-beating vaccine programme
Exactly. But not to worry, the vaccine bounce will be long gone by the time of the GE.
I'd say the vaccine bounce is gone already. It didn't come because people like getting pins stuck in them, it came because it offered a route out of this mess. Now the route out of this mess hasn't happened, and the prospect of getting out of this mess either ahead of other countries or indeed at all appears to be receding, so does the credit the government get for vaccinating people. Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so. The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
Chief Executive of LHR this morning on the radio said "people were told that the vaccines would deliver freedom and all they can see is other countries ahead of us in allowing their vaccinated population to travel whereas we can't".
Vaccines have delivered a great deal of freedom, and will deliver more on 19th July.
And yet, we'll still have to self-isolate if we come into contact with a covid case, which will be a virtual certainty. Gavin Williamson has announced the end of school bubbles, but everyone in school who comes into contact with a covid case will face another ten days house arrest. Which is exactly the same situation as now. Already we're getting noises rowing back on exactly how much freedom we'll get on 19th July and exactly how permanent it will be.
Forgive me, I'm still glowering with resentment about my daughter missing another ten days of her childhood, with not much apparent prospect in sight of it springing to life again afterwards. I can see that objectively, we are freer now than we were in February. And it's great news that Hancock and Cummings have gone. But my anxiety that this is as good as it gets and that it will probably get worse again outweighs my optimism that we will finally see freedom. They're gearing up for another last minute change of heart, aren't they?
Correct. In fact spot on cookie. Freedom Day + isolate if told you have had contact is not Freedom Day at all. The government supporters on here are not smart enough to realise this is not what business/schools/anything anywhere needs to be back to normal, it’s Freedom Day postponed by stealth.
I thought there would not be isolation for those who have been double jabbed unless you actually test positive for Covid.
Not until mid-August at the earliest, is my understanding.
I'm confused. Starmer started by saying we were being reckless. Now he seems to share the concerns of businesses who don't want people to have to self-isolate.
I can clear this up. The government is dropping masks and keeping isolation. Starmer says both decisions are shit. That the other way around would probably make more sense. Keir Starmer is the Leader of the Opposition.
I understand they are not keeping isolation. Boris alluded to it. But it's not been announced yet and it could be that BoJo didn't want to steal the thunder of another minister? Could be.
Health Secretary announced the end of isolation yesterday. 16 August, 4 weeks after 19 July, so essentially its an unofficial "Stage 5".
Only for the double vaccinated, same as quarantine free travel to Amber list countries will only apply to the double vaccinated.
So whether we talk about Freedom Day being 19 July or 16 August in either case it is in reality only Freedom Day for the double jabbed
So what are we saying 16th August is? What’s occurring.
The world beating test and trace is dumped in a bin? Throughout autumn and winter, no more isolating if got Covid, no more isolating if had contact with Infected persons?
How does business get back to normal without test and trace dumped in a bin? What are you calling Freedom without Test and Trace dumped in the bin?
Just had a meeting where someone explained lockdowns using the paradox of thrift. It was a very interesting concept and it probably applies. He thinks certain countries will be liable to fall into semi-permanent restrictions because they will be unwilling to use their "savings" at any point in time thinking that there will always be some better moment to spend them and over time everyone loses from that.
New Zealand?
New Zealand has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the developed world now, not only lower than England, Wales and Scotland, NI and Ireland but lower than Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Canada, Israel, Australia and Japan and even lower than Brazil.
Ardern does not look as good as she did a few months ago on Covid
Indeed. Fair comment.
NZ (and Aus) utterly fucked up vaccines.
Imagine if they were only a month behind the UK in vaccine rollout (a perfectly feasible figure).
They would have been the perfect zero covid poster child: open clubs, packed stadiums and full unlocking just around the corner.
Instead they've got themselves at the back of the queue and it will be months and months before they are vaccinated.
Comments
Words to live by.
Show your (his) opposition in the HoC at the next vote.
Since when did cringe become acceptable to use as an adjective?
The adjective is cringeworthy.
We're the big powerful muscly government and they're pathetic little opposition pansies who can't get it up.
We've fucked up everything apart from vaccines so let's trivialize everything except vaccines.
So he challenges on the detail, the PM responds, and wins the argument. Parliamentary democracy working smoothly again. Who saw that coming?
https://www.twitter.com/MayorofGM/status/1412438403065520128
I don't want to do down long covid as a condition, I know one or two people who have been variously affected. But hard to avoid the conclusion that this is just the latest bullet being wildly fired by the lockdown fanatics, who have now lost the argument about excess death and ICUs collapsing, due to the success of the vaccine programme.
Two months ago vaccinations were going ahead at a goodly rate, the end appeared in sight and people were optimistic. Now, less so.
The 'end of covid' bounce might come, if the end of covid comes. Or it might not, if it doesn't.
BBC News - Why it's time to think differently about Covid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57678942
Lagging three weeks between a Covid positive test being reported and an admission is a farcical delay to manipulate the data.
https://twitter.com/MarkKleinmanSky/status/1412729314127323137?s=20
And I'm a disaffected ex-Cons activist who loathes Johnson and is looking for other political alternatives FFS.
Language evolves.
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to...
When you prioritise everything, you prioritise nothing.
Triggle has been absolutely excellent throughout this pandemic – he is a seriously good healthcare journalist and analyst.
Sadly we still see far too little of him on BBC TV (he seems largely relegated to News 24) because the Six and Ten prefer alarming soundbites from those with their own agenda.
New Zealand?
The next GE isn’t a vote on the war is won, it’s a vote on how did you manage the war.
Did you promise solid bomb shelters, and then blitzed cities did not have solid bomb shelters? In other words, nothing to do with the war, to do with your promises.
""Ye may gang faur and fare waur".
Now, testing positive for antibodies isn't a complete guarantee of good immunity, but it's a reasonable proxy. The plague is going to run out of victims before the most lurid predictions of case numbers can be reached, surely?
Summary here:
https://twitter.com/john_actuary/status/1412703549578960902
Fair enough.
Nevertheless you should be exiled to Conservative Home for a fortnight for using cringe as an adjective, in the manner of some frappaccino-addled teenager.
It's like that "how many holes does a straw have?" For those who think the answer is two the question is when does one stop and the other start...If SKS votes with the govt then he by definition surely can't think that they were fucking things up then. Which means to say they are fucking up now as in big picture fucking up means he has to accept they weren't before. Which he can't do, politically.
Bozza loves a bit of nationalisation.
Or regresses, in this case.
So whether we talk about Freedom Day being 19 July or 16 August in either case it is in reality only Freedom Day for the double jabbed
Forgive me, I'm still glowering with resentment about my daughter missing another ten days of her childhood, with not much apparent prospect in sight of it springing to life again afterwards. I can see that objectively, we are freer now than we were in February. And it's great news that Hancock and Cummings have gone. But my anxiety that this is as good as it gets and that it will probably get worse again outweighs my optimism that we will finally see freedom. They're gearing up for another last minute change of heart, aren't they?
Nationalisation and privatisation are tools; both can be useful in different situations.
Problems occur when the wrong tool is used for a job: because of an ideological purity, you nationalise or privatise something where it is not the best model. I much prefer governments that lack that ideological purity, and try to use the best tool for any particular job.
But there's another tool that many politicians forget: leave-the-f**k-alone.
Vaccines have broken the link between infection and NHS unable to cope. Now putting the politics aside, is there no scientific argument for still limiting the number of infections at this stage. If the answer is no, there is current government policy. If the answer is yes, then what effectively achieves both that and further easing of restrictions.
I mentioned this before. The following link in the document is especially interesting...
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1459/syoa/index.html
https://twitter.com/CarleyLBrown/status/1412531650353930241/photo/1
If you were only considering EU, France has had more cumulative cases, and new deaths are much lower in the UK than several EU countries.
Edit: I suppose because of @HYUFD's point that it is only for the double-jabbed.
Ardern does not look as good as she did a few months ago on Covid
Toilets 1* though.
I for one would feel more confident to commute and travel about in London if masks were compulsory on the tube. The free for all make me more inclined to stay put. The tube is nasty at the best of times, but with CV19, nah no thanks.
A continuation of the incremental approach may have been wiser and helped the economy and society more.
Influenza has the capacity to be nasty though doesn't it. To what extent will the lessons learned on staying at home when ill, hand washing, persistent work from home etc... blunt what is likely to be a roll of the dice on the flu vaccine front?
But requires pedants to stop it evolving in stupid ways.
Think of us as the predators who eat the herbivores who've evolved a tendency for short non-running legs.
Having said that, cringeworthy is also a horrible word, and I would prefer a better one existed for 'something which makes you cringe'.
Hence why hospitalisations remain the critical indicator.
Because surely he can't be expecting that Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Czechia and so forth had more deaths than us in absolute terms. No-one who has even an ounce of maths in their body would expect that.
So, fair point Roger - the UK has had more covid than Germany.
Might be a million or three fewer pupils around at the moment, but it’s the same ballpark as you are claiming for Germany.
Neither for me but what there is (for me) is an England shirt worn for every game with no post-modern irony whatsoever. I'm right behind this team. I would be anyway and it's made all the easier because of the vibe they emit. No egos, unshowy, organized and methodical, focused but not selfish or obsessed. Labour values, in other words. Not woke, mind, just bread and butter Labour values. The sort of team Keir Starmer would be sending out if he were in the dugout.
I always try and remember that when those up the chain at work make what look like perplexing strategic decisions. They probably have more info than I do but they certainly have a wider mandate and set of stakeholders to consider.
I think the same is true here. Ask people who only have a mandate in public health (indeed one narrow area of public health!) what to do and they will always say it's better to be on the safe side. But there's a broader mandate to be followed than that. Interesting Witty, who oversees all pubic health considerations in his brief, now seems to believe his mandate is best fulfilled by ending mandatory restrictions.
The world beating test and trace is dumped in a bin? Throughout autumn and winter, no more isolating if got Covid, no more isolating if had contact with Infected persons?
How does business get back to normal without test and trace dumped in a bin? What are you calling Freedom without Test and Trace dumped in the bin?
Imagine if they were only a month behind the UK in vaccine rollout (a perfectly feasible figure).
They would have been the perfect zero covid poster child: open clubs, packed stadiums and full unlocking just around the corner.
Instead they've got themselves at the back of the queue and it will be months and months before they are vaccinated.