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If Not Now, When? – politicalbetting.com

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  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917

    Alistair said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I thought it was going to be about "freedom day"....

    Same data but on a log axis - now you can see that hospital admissions are now growing at almost the same rate as cases.
    Roughly doubling every 11 days.
    V unsettling. Especially given cases have further to rise. So what next?
    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1414658909239918595/photo/1


    Ummm

    I'm not sure that's unsettling at all. Admissions seem to lag cases by a very short period, and cases are flattening off right now.

    Unless you think that admissions will continue to rise, uncoupled from flattening (or declining) case numbers. Which would be an odd attitude.
    The government are forecasting an explosion in cases. 100k new cases a day says Javid. Which means worrying numbers in hospital does it not.
    Good for them.

    Case growth is slowing, ZOE reports an absolute decline in the number of unvaccinated people with Covid, more and more people are double-vaccinated, and schools are about to go on holiday. (If nothing else, the last will dramatically lower the number of people *testing* positive for CV19.)

    It may be that cases reach 100,000 per day, but my money is against it.
    Numbers have been stuck on 30-35K for the last 6 days. It would be good if this proves to be the peak.
    And in the 6 days before that they were stuck in the range 24-28K
    And in the 23rd to the 27th they were stuck in the range 14-18K
    And from the 9th to the 15th they were stuck in the range 7500-8000
    And at the end of may they were stuck in the range of 3100-4100 and had definitely peaked.
    I don't think we are at the peak, but the rate of growth is slowing. Also in Scotland, cases are declining. i expect that to happen in England too when the the schools close and s the footy is now over. Going to the pub to watch the Olympics is not quite as popular...
    Looking at reported cases in England (so removing Scotland from the equation) against day of the week:



    The step up usually comes between Tuesday and Thursday. Then it flattens from Thursday to Friday to Saturday to Sunday (and occasionally Monday).

    The acid test will be Wednesday. If there's no big uptick today or tomorrow, it'll be very encouraging. If not, we're still in the cycle (even if it's less of a proportionate jump than before)
    Yup...

    The day to day regional changes are already looking lower, before the usual 3-5 day cut off...

    image
    We're not neccesarily at the peak, we've been here before this wave.
  • Options
    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,055
    Nigelb said:
    South Africa and Cuba aren’t in a good way either.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,364
    TOPPING said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    My understanding, and this is based largely on what I learned at my speed awareness course so perhaps it is all lies perpetuated by the road safety industry, is that at 20mph you will almost never kill the person you hit, at 40mph you will almost always kill them, and at 30mph it's a throw of the dice. So anywhere you have a decent chance of a kid running out in front of you, 20 seems reasonable.
    As for parents' responsibility, you can teach your kids about road safety till you're blue in the face, but the way kids' brains work, they can easily walk into the road without looking, run after a ball or whatever, unless you're physically holding onto them. And at the end of the day, I think a kid has more right to walk down their street without living in fear than some random person has to drive down their street at potentially life-threatening speeds. This is what I mean by a change of mindset, drivers need to understand that they do not sit at the top of a hierarchy of people using the space. I say all of this as a driver, but also a parent, a resident and (occasional) cyclist.
    We didn't do the control experiment (ie have them be hit by a car at 20mph and then 40mph) but when a mate of mine was hit by a car doing 30mph the medics said that at 40mph they would have been dead.
    There is, sadly, a very extensive literature of scientific studies for vehicle speed vs pedestrian injuries and deaths.

    That speed kills, quite literally, in such circumstance is scientifically proven.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,965
    TOPPING said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    My understanding, and this is based largely on what I learned at my speed awareness course so perhaps it is all lies perpetuated by the road safety industry, is that at 20mph you will almost never kill the person you hit, at 40mph you will almost always kill them, and at 30mph it's a throw of the dice. So anywhere you have a decent chance of a kid running out in front of you, 20 seems reasonable.
    As for parents' responsibility, you can teach your kids about road safety till you're blue in the face, but the way kids' brains work, they can easily walk into the road without looking, run after a ball or whatever, unless you're physically holding onto them. And at the end of the day, I think a kid has more right to walk down their street without living in fear than some random person has to drive down their street at potentially life-threatening speeds. This is what I mean by a change of mindset, drivers need to understand that they do not sit at the top of a hierarchy of people using the space. I say all of this as a driver, but also a parent, a resident and (occasional) cyclist.
    We didn't do the control experiment (ie have them be hit by a car at 20mph and then 40mph) but when a mate of mine was hit by a car doing 30mph the medics said that at 40mph they would have been dead.
    One of the thing the course highlights is how much a very small difference in speed results in very, very different results.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,204
    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    Becoming increasingly clear it wasn't "just a few idiots" on Sunday. There was a major loss of control by Wembley and the police. The stadium will have its own questions to answer. But again, what is happening to public order policing in London. The Met just can't get it right.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,364
    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I thought it was going to be about "freedom day"....

    Same data but on a log axis - now you can see that hospital admissions are now growing at almost the same rate as cases.
    Roughly doubling every 11 days.
    V unsettling. Especially given cases have further to rise. So what next?
    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1414658909239918595/photo/1


    Ummm

    I'm not sure that's unsettling at all. Admissions seem to lag cases by a very short period, and cases are flattening off right now.

    Unless you think that admissions will continue to rise, uncoupled from flattening (or declining) case numbers. Which would be an odd attitude.
    The government are forecasting an explosion in cases. 100k new cases a day says Javid. Which means worrying numbers in hospital does it not.
    Good for them.

    Case growth is slowing, ZOE reports an absolute decline in the number of unvaccinated people with Covid, more and more people are double-vaccinated, and schools are about to go on holiday. (If nothing else, the last will dramatically lower the number of people *testing* positive for CV19.)

    It may be that cases reach 100,000 per day, but my money is against it.
    Numbers have been stuck on 30-35K for the last 6 days. It would be good if this proves to be the peak.
    And in the 6 days before that they were stuck in the range 24-28K
    And in the 23rd to the 27th they were stuck in the range 14-18K
    And from the 9th to the 15th they were stuck in the range 7500-8000
    And at the end of may they were stuck in the range of 3100-4100 and had definitely peaked.
    I don't think we are at the peak, but the rate of growth is slowing. Also in Scotland, cases are declining. i expect that to happen in England too when the the schools close and s the footy is now over. Going to the pub to watch the Olympics is not quite as popular...
    Looking at reported cases in England (so removing Scotland from the equation) against day of the week:



    The step up usually comes between Tuesday and Thursday. Then it flattens from Thursday to Friday to Saturday to Sunday (and occasionally Monday).

    The acid test will be Wednesday. If there's no big uptick today or tomorrow, it'll be very encouraging. If not, we're still in the cycle (even if it's less of a proportionate jump than before)
    Yup...

    The day to day regional changes are already looking lower, before the usual 3-5 day cut off...

    image
    We're not neccesarily at the peak, we've been here before this wave.
    Yes, indeed. Which is why I am not forecasting the end of anything. Just numbers of interest.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Stocky said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    Assuming you are double-vaccinated + 14 days why on earth would you be bothered whether there are antivaxxers present or not? We must stop this divisiveness.
    Anti-vaxers are blocking those freedoms for the 3.8m severely critically vulnerable, those who have no choice unlike the anti-vaxers.

    Who's freedom matters more those who have done all they can to do the right thing and through no fault of their own are still vulnerable, despite being vaccinated, or those who don't give a shit about the rest of society ?
    In Philip_Thompson's world the only person and thing that matters is Philip_Thompson's slight dislike and inconvenience of wearing a mask.
    No. I'm quite capable of speaking for myself.

    In my world individual responsibility means getting vaccinated.

    If you want more than a vaccine, get an FFP3 mask.

    I'm double vaccinated. I've done my bit.
    So you agree with what I said - as you've said nothing that goes against my point....
    No it absolutely does go against your point.

    In my world I am responsible for my own actions, you are responsible for your actions.

    That doesn't mean that you don't matter, it just means you're responsible for taking care of yourself, I can't do it for you.

    I think contrarian and Dura_Ace and other antivaxxers lives do matter, but I can't take their jab for them. They need to go get their own jab, nobody else can do it for them.
    My point was that you don't care for anyone but yourself - which you continue to prove...

    Simple question - Next Tuesday, you are on a train, the person sat opposite you has a sunflower lanyard. Do you wear a mask while sitting opposite her?
    No I do care for others I just can't take actions for them, that they need to take themselves.

    Next Tuesday I won't be on a train. I drive.

    Next Tuesday your hypothetical person wearing a sunflower lanyard, are they wearing an FFP3 mask? Are they double vaccinated? Both of those questions affect them much more than whether I wear a mask or not.
    So your solution for the person who is wearing a lanyard because they cannot wear a mask is for them to wear an even worse (for breathing purposes) mask..

    No, my solution for the person who is wearing a lanyard because they cannot wear a mask (or more likely simply do not want to) is for them to be vaccinated. Or for them to wear a mask if they are bothered by Covid.

    Its not for me to wear a mask on their behalf.

    You are seriously suggesting I should keep wearing a mask to protect those who aren't wearing masks? 🤔

    If you're bothered by Covid get vaccinated. Get an FFP3 mask if you're extra bothered. Shield if you need to. My wearing a mask is gesture theatre not an alternative to getting vaccinated or getting an FFP3 mask.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,965
    edited July 2021
    Completely offtopic but there is a great podcast that @TheScreamingEagles will love regarding Tether - the cryptocoin that keeps that entire world liquid. https://overcast.fm/+aAHsVOpDc

  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,204
    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    TOPPING said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    My understanding, and this is based largely on what I learned at my speed awareness course so perhaps it is all lies perpetuated by the road safety industry, is that at 20mph you will almost never kill the person you hit, at 40mph you will almost always kill them, and at 30mph it's a throw of the dice. So anywhere you have a decent chance of a kid running out in front of you, 20 seems reasonable.
    As for parents' responsibility, you can teach your kids about road safety till you're blue in the face, but the way kids' brains work, they can easily walk into the road without looking, run after a ball or whatever, unless you're physically holding onto them. And at the end of the day, I think a kid has more right to walk down their street without living in fear than some random person has to drive down their street at potentially life-threatening speeds. This is what I mean by a change of mindset, drivers need to understand that they do not sit at the top of a hierarchy of people using the space. I say all of this as a driver, but also a parent, a resident and (occasional) cyclist.
    We didn't do the control experiment (ie have them be hit by a car at 20mph and then 40mph) but when a mate of mine was hit by a car doing 30mph the medics said that at 40mph they would have been dead.
    Anyone doing 40 in a pedestrian zone is a pillock that will kill people if there's an accident.

    Its far safer to do 80 on a motorway than it is to do 40 in a pedestrian area.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,986
    kle4 said:

    Nigelb said:
    Reports on Afghanistan and the Taliban advance often seem to focus on the failings on the government side, but why have they been so stubbornly successful? Are they just very well organised? Are they really popular among the people? Because the former can be countered a lot more than if the latter.
    So far the Taliban have only taken rural areas not urban areas or Kabul.

    However even if they did it is not a major problem for us as long as they do not allow Al Qaeda back in, if they do then we would have to reintervene again.
  • Options

    Stocky said:

    Pulpstar said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    No thanks.
    Don’t want to live in some kind of paperwork state.
    Silly objection. You already show a ticket to get in to a show or on to a train. A paperwork state is one where you can be arbitrarily asked in the street to prove who you are.

    In 10 years time the state will know who and where you are at all times anyway via cctv and facial recognition. Paperwork is very last millennium.
    Let’s imagine I was immune compromised due to my HIV status, and for other reasons I am not vaxxed.

    (This is not true, it’s for the sake of argument).

    What status precisely am I supposed to show Bob Jobsworth the Train Inspector?
    I believe the domestic (Can't be international as different countries might like to know if you're actually vaccinated or not) vaccine QR code is pari passu for those who can't be vaccinated and the vaccinated.
    I’m afraid I still find it an unnecessary infringement on my rights to go about my business as a citizen.

    The health emergency would have to be much worse to justify even this “minor” imposition.
    3.8m people have been told not to mix with un-vaxxed.

    What is your advise to them in terms of them re-gaining freedoms again ?
    Vaccinated people can still pass on Covid. Who has told 3.8m people not to mix - specifically - with the unvaxed?
    The chance of a fully vaccinated person passing covid to another fully vaccinated is estimated at 1 in 200,000....
    per what? How does it compare with unvax-unvax, vax-unvax, and unvax-vax? It's otherwise a meaningless number.

    --AS
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,104

    DougSeal said:

    Roger said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    What is this anti white discrimination of which you speak?
    Positive discrimination for ethnic applicants. Not everyone thinks this is the way to address balance issues.
    It proved to be a roaring success in the Chicago Fire Dept. Not.

    They literally set a different passing grade for promotion for different ethnicities.

    There were absolutely no instances of lying about ethnic background or antagonism or even violence. Absolutely not. No sir....
    I have suddenly realised that it may be useful to flaunt my BAME credentials.

    I am 1/8 Indian, which would would have been “enough” under various abhorrent laws formerly deployed in the southern US.
    More than enough under those horrific laws - “one drop” was enough. In Virginia there was a “Racial Integrity Act 1924” that made exemption for the descendants of Pocahontas

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924#The_Pocahontas_exception
    Alabama only voted to remove its miscegenation statute in 2000, by 60:40.

    I am a great admirer of Southern music, food, charm, and chutzpah and saddened it is stained with this shite.
    I love Southern music (anyone who hasn't already should check out the Allman Bros Band's Brothers and Sisters, to my mind a pinnacle of the genre). But Southern food, I am a sceptic. The food at Dollywood was the worst I have ever seen - and I am someone who grew up in Scotland so am something of a connoisseur of bad food.
  • Options
    Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,976
    Mr. Sandpit, interesting to learn of the updates for Mercedes.

    And yeah, the sprint race isn't something I'm a fan of, ahead of time, at least. We shall see if I forget to amend my usual approach of pre-qualifying, pre-race, and post-race to include pre-sprint race.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited July 2021

    Stocky said:

    Pulpstar said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    No thanks.
    Don’t want to live in some kind of paperwork state.
    Silly objection. You already show a ticket to get in to a show or on to a train. A paperwork state is one where you can be arbitrarily asked in the street to prove who you are.

    In 10 years time the state will know who and where you are at all times anyway via cctv and facial recognition. Paperwork is very last millennium.
    Let’s imagine I was immune compromised due to my HIV status, and for other reasons I am not vaxxed.

    (This is not true, it’s for the sake of argument).

    What status precisely am I supposed to show Bob Jobsworth the Train Inspector?
    I believe the domestic (Can't be international as different countries might like to know if you're actually vaccinated or not) vaccine QR code is pari passu for those who can't be vaccinated and the vaccinated.
    I’m afraid I still find it an unnecessary infringement on my rights to go about my business as a citizen.

    The health emergency would have to be much worse to justify even this “minor” imposition.
    3.8m people have been told not to mix with un-vaxxed.

    What is your advise to them in terms of them re-gaining freedoms again ?
    Vaccinated people can still pass on Covid. Who has told 3.8m people not to mix - specifically - with the unvaxed?
    The chance of a fully vaccinated person passing covid to another fully vaccinated is estimated at 1 in 200,000....
    per what? How does it compare with unvax-unvax, vax-unvax, and unvax-vax? It's otherwise a meaningless number.

    --AS
    I believe it relates to if two vaccinated people meet up together and one has covid.

    PHE have put out these stats and been quoted at press conference in the past, i don't know what factors they took into consideration.

    But the percieved wisdom from PHE has been that onward infection is very very low.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,965

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Stocky said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    Assuming you are double-vaccinated + 14 days why on earth would you be bothered whether there are antivaxxers present or not? We must stop this divisiveness.
    Anti-vaxers are blocking those freedoms for the 3.8m severely critically vulnerable, those who have no choice unlike the anti-vaxers.

    Who's freedom matters more those who have done all they can to do the right thing and through no fault of their own are still vulnerable, despite being vaccinated, or those who don't give a shit about the rest of society ?
    In Philip_Thompson's world the only person and thing that matters is Philip_Thompson's slight dislike and inconvenience of wearing a mask.
    No. I'm quite capable of speaking for myself.

    In my world individual responsibility means getting vaccinated.

    If you want more than a vaccine, get an FFP3 mask.

    I'm double vaccinated. I've done my bit.
    So you agree with what I said - as you've said nothing that goes against my point....
    No it absolutely does go against your point.

    In my world I am responsible for my own actions, you are responsible for your actions.

    That doesn't mean that you don't matter, it just means you're responsible for taking care of yourself, I can't do it for you.

    I think contrarian and Dura_Ace and other antivaxxers lives do matter, but I can't take their jab for them. They need to go get their own jab, nobody else can do it for them.
    My point was that you don't care for anyone but yourself - which you continue to prove...

    Simple question - Next Tuesday, you are on a train, the person sat opposite you has a sunflower lanyard. Do you wear a mask while sitting opposite her?
    No I do care for others I just can't take actions for them, that they need to take themselves.

    Next Tuesday I won't be on a train. I drive.

    Next Tuesday your hypothetical person wearing a sunflower lanyard, are they wearing an FFP3 mask? Are they double vaccinated? Both of those questions affect them much more than whether I wear a mask or not.
    So your solution for the person who is wearing a lanyard because they cannot wear a mask is for them to wear an even worse (for breathing purposes) mask..

    No, my solution for the person who is wearing a lanyard because they cannot wear a mask (or more likely simply do not want to) is for them to be vaccinated. Or for them to wear a mask if they are bothered by Covid.

    Its not for me to wear a mask on their behalf.

    You are seriously suggesting I should keep wearing a mask to protect those who aren't wearing masks? 🤔

    If you're bothered by Covid get vaccinated. Get an FFP3 mask if you're extra bothered. Shield if you need to. My wearing a mask is gesture theatre not an alternative to getting vaccinated or getting an FFP3 mask.
    So your actual answer is keeping shielding if you aren't vaccinated because I'm alright Jack.

  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,189
    edited July 2021
    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,847

    DougSeal said:

    Roger said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    What is this anti white discrimination of which you speak?
    Positive discrimination for ethnic applicants. Not everyone thinks this is the way to address balance issues.
    It proved to be a roaring success in the Chicago Fire Dept. Not.

    They literally set a different passing grade for promotion for different ethnicities.

    There were absolutely no instances of lying about ethnic background or antagonism or even violence. Absolutely not. No sir....
    I have suddenly realised that it may be useful to flaunt my BAME credentials.

    I am 1/8 Indian, which would would have been “enough” under various abhorrent laws formerly deployed in the southern US.
    More than enough under those horrific laws - “one drop” was enough. In Virginia there was a “Racial Integrity Act 1924” that made exemption for the descendants of Pocahontas

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924#The_Pocahontas_exception
    Alabama only voted to remove its miscegenation statute in 2000, by 60:40.

    I am a great admirer of Southern music, food, charm, and chutzpah and saddened it is stained with this shite.
    I love Southern music (anyone who hasn't already should check out the Allman Bros Band's Brothers and Sisters, to my mind a pinnacle of the genre). But Southern food, I am a sceptic. The food at Dollywood was the worst I have ever seen - and I am someone who grew up in Scotland so am something of a connoisseur of bad food.
    Was thinking of New Orleans for food, which admittedly is a very specific Southern-ness.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    I don't think we deserve a world cup any time soon. The lack of any sort of respect toward the authorities, drinking culture and specifically the mass funnel effect that Wembley way has are a very very dangerous combination. The idea of asking for a world cup and earlier kick off times (Which it looks like we need for forseeable big England matches) because your fans can't control themselves is ludicrous.
  • Options

    Stocky said:

    Pulpstar said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    No thanks.
    Don’t want to live in some kind of paperwork state.
    Silly objection. You already show a ticket to get in to a show or on to a train. A paperwork state is one where you can be arbitrarily asked in the street to prove who you are.

    In 10 years time the state will know who and where you are at all times anyway via cctv and facial recognition. Paperwork is very last millennium.
    Let’s imagine I was immune compromised due to my HIV status, and for other reasons I am not vaxxed.

    (This is not true, it’s for the sake of argument).

    What status precisely am I supposed to show Bob Jobsworth the Train Inspector?
    I believe the domestic (Can't be international as different countries might like to know if you're actually vaccinated or not) vaccine QR code is pari passu for those who can't be vaccinated and the vaccinated.
    I’m afraid I still find it an unnecessary infringement on my rights to go about my business as a citizen.

    The health emergency would have to be much worse to justify even this “minor” imposition.
    3.8m people have been told not to mix with un-vaxxed.

    What is your advise to them in terms of them re-gaining freedoms again ?
    Vaccinated people can still pass on Covid. Who has told 3.8m people not to mix - specifically - with the unvaxed?
    The chance of a fully vaccinated person passing covid to another fully vaccinated is estimated at 1 in 200,000....
    per what? How does it compare with unvax-unvax, vax-unvax, and unvax-vax? It's otherwise a meaningless number.

    --AS
    I believe it relates to if two vaccinated people meet up together.

    PHE have put out these stats and been quoted at press conference in the past.
    I don't have time now, but I'll look for a source later. I think it's a pretty useless number.

    The reason we aren't seeing herd immunity yet, despite high vaccination rates and some reduction in household mixing, is because evidently vaccination doesn't prevent spread very much (maybe halves it). That's disappointing, and the reason we'll see further deaths in the summer wave.

    --AS
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Stocky said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    Assuming you are double-vaccinated + 14 days why on earth would you be bothered whether there are antivaxxers present or not? We must stop this divisiveness.
    Anti-vaxers are blocking those freedoms for the 3.8m severely critically vulnerable, those who have no choice unlike the anti-vaxers.

    Who's freedom matters more those who have done all they can to do the right thing and through no fault of their own are still vulnerable, despite being vaccinated, or those who don't give a shit about the rest of society ?
    In Philip_Thompson's world the only person and thing that matters is Philip_Thompson's slight dislike and inconvenience of wearing a mask.
    No. I'm quite capable of speaking for myself.

    In my world individual responsibility means getting vaccinated.

    If you want more than a vaccine, get an FFP3 mask.

    I'm double vaccinated. I've done my bit.
    So you agree with what I said - as you've said nothing that goes against my point....
    No it absolutely does go against your point.

    In my world I am responsible for my own actions, you are responsible for your actions.

    That doesn't mean that you don't matter, it just means you're responsible for taking care of yourself, I can't do it for you.

    I think contrarian and Dura_Ace and other antivaxxers lives do matter, but I can't take their jab for them. They need to go get their own jab, nobody else can do it for them.
    My point was that you don't care for anyone but yourself - which you continue to prove...

    Simple question - Next Tuesday, you are on a train, the person sat opposite you has a sunflower lanyard. Do you wear a mask while sitting opposite her?
    No I do care for others I just can't take actions for them, that they need to take themselves.

    Next Tuesday I won't be on a train. I drive.

    Next Tuesday your hypothetical person wearing a sunflower lanyard, are they wearing an FFP3 mask? Are they double vaccinated? Both of those questions affect them much more than whether I wear a mask or not.
    So your solution for the person who is wearing a lanyard because they cannot wear a mask is for them to wear an even worse (for breathing purposes) mask..

    No, my solution for the person who is wearing a lanyard because they cannot wear a mask (or more likely simply do not want to) is for them to be vaccinated. Or for them to wear a mask if they are bothered by Covid.

    Its not for me to wear a mask on their behalf.

    You are seriously suggesting I should keep wearing a mask to protect those who aren't wearing masks? 🤔

    If you're bothered by Covid get vaccinated. Get an FFP3 mask if you're extra bothered. Shield if you need to. My wearing a mask is gesture theatre not an alternative to getting vaccinated or getting an FFP3 mask.
    So your actual answer is keeping shielding if you aren't vaccinated because I'm alright Jack.

    No.

    My actual answer is if you are unvaccinated then get vaccinated.

    If you are in the extremely tiny minority of adults that can't get vaccinated then shield because cases in the community are very high right now and this needs to burn out.

    My wearing a mask or not doesn't change either statement. It's moot.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited July 2021

    Stocky said:

    Pulpstar said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    No thanks.
    Don’t want to live in some kind of paperwork state.
    Silly objection. You already show a ticket to get in to a show or on to a train. A paperwork state is one where you can be arbitrarily asked in the street to prove who you are.

    In 10 years time the state will know who and where you are at all times anyway via cctv and facial recognition. Paperwork is very last millennium.
    Let’s imagine I was immune compromised due to my HIV status, and for other reasons I am not vaxxed.

    (This is not true, it’s for the sake of argument).

    What status precisely am I supposed to show Bob Jobsworth the Train Inspector?
    I believe the domestic (Can't be international as different countries might like to know if you're actually vaccinated or not) vaccine QR code is pari passu for those who can't be vaccinated and the vaccinated.
    I’m afraid I still find it an unnecessary infringement on my rights to go about my business as a citizen.

    The health emergency would have to be much worse to justify even this “minor” imposition.
    3.8m people have been told not to mix with un-vaxxed.

    What is your advise to them in terms of them re-gaining freedoms again ?
    Vaccinated people can still pass on Covid. Who has told 3.8m people not to mix - specifically - with the unvaxed?
    The chance of a fully vaccinated person passing covid to another fully vaccinated is estimated at 1 in 200,000....
    per what? How does it compare with unvax-unvax, vax-unvax, and unvax-vax? It's otherwise a meaningless number.

    --AS
    I believe it relates to if two vaccinated people meet up together.

    PHE have put out these stats and been quoted at press conference in the past.
    I don't have time now, but I'll look for a source later. I think it's a pretty useless number.

    The reason we aren't seeing herd immunity yet, despite high vaccination rates and some reduction in household mixing, is because evidently vaccination doesn't prevent spread very much (maybe halves it). That's disappointing, and the reason we'll see further deaths in the summer wave.

    --AS
    Well that is what I hypothesed down thread that perhaps SAGE / PHE are starting to see data which indicates that all the initial estimates related to vaccines are at the lower end or lower.
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,176
    Pulpstar said:

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    I don't think we deserve a world cup any time soon. The lack of any sort of respect toward the authorities, drinking culture and specifically the mass funnel effect that Wembley way has are a very very dangerous combination. The idea of asking for a world cup and earlier kick off times (Which it looks like we need for forseeable big England matches) because your fans can't control themselves is ludicrous.
    I don't want the world cup here. There are still too many idiots around football and as a nation we need to grow up around drinking and laddish (to be polite) culture. Plus if its in England the pressure of the home tournament will be huge. I'd rather its almost anywhere else (not Qatar though).
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,994

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    We had a UEFA hosted WC in 2018 so surely Morocco or the Uruguay-Argentina bids are better choices.
  • Options
    NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758

    TOPPING said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    My understanding, and this is based largely on what I learned at my speed awareness course so perhaps it is all lies perpetuated by the road safety industry, is that at 20mph you will almost never kill the person you hit, at 40mph you will almost always kill them, and at 30mph it's a throw of the dice. So anywhere you have a decent chance of a kid running out in front of you, 20 seems reasonable.
    As for parents' responsibility, you can teach your kids about road safety till you're blue in the face, but the way kids' brains work, they can easily walk into the road without looking, run after a ball or whatever, unless you're physically holding onto them. And at the end of the day, I think a kid has more right to walk down their street without living in fear than some random person has to drive down their street at potentially life-threatening speeds. This is what I mean by a change of mindset, drivers need to understand that they do not sit at the top of a hierarchy of people using the space. I say all of this as a driver, but also a parent, a resident and (occasional) cyclist.
    We didn't do the control experiment (ie have them be hit by a car at 20mph and then 40mph) but when a mate of mine was hit by a car doing 30mph the medics said that at 40mph they would have been dead.
    Anyone doing 40 in a pedestrian zone is a pillock that will kill people if there's an accident.

    Its far safer to do 80 on a motorway than it is to do 40 in a pedestrian area.
    Kinetic energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity. Double the speed 4 times the impact.
  • Options
    CookieCookie Posts: 11,423
    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
  • Options
    NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758
    Impact at 30 mph is 2.25 times greater than at 20 mph.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,965
    Dura_Ace said:

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    We had a UEFA hosted WC in 2018 so surely Morocco or the Uruguay-Argentina bids are better choices.
    The 2026 USA bid means we won't be heading to Argentina.

    Equally Morocco has a different set of issues.

    So it will be Europe in 2030 - of which the options are the Uk and Ireland or Spain + Portugal.
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,104

    DougSeal said:

    Roger said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    What is this anti white discrimination of which you speak?
    Positive discrimination for ethnic applicants. Not everyone thinks this is the way to address balance issues.
    It proved to be a roaring success in the Chicago Fire Dept. Not.

    They literally set a different passing grade for promotion for different ethnicities.

    There were absolutely no instances of lying about ethnic background or antagonism or even violence. Absolutely not. No sir....
    I have suddenly realised that it may be useful to flaunt my BAME credentials.

    I am 1/8 Indian, which would would have been “enough” under various abhorrent laws formerly deployed in the southern US.
    More than enough under those horrific laws - “one drop” was enough. In Virginia there was a “Racial Integrity Act 1924” that made exemption for the descendants of Pocahontas

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924#The_Pocahontas_exception
    Alabama only voted to remove its miscegenation statute in 2000, by 60:40.

    I am a great admirer of Southern music, food, charm, and chutzpah and saddened it is stained with this shite.
    I love Southern music (anyone who hasn't already should check out the Allman Bros Band's Brothers and Sisters, to my mind a pinnacle of the genre). But Southern food, I am a sceptic. The food at Dollywood was the worst I have ever seen - and I am someone who grew up in Scotland so am something of a connoisseur of bad food.
    Was thinking of New Orleans for food, which admittedly is a very specific Southern-ness.
    Yes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, an area settled by the French has better food than that settled by Scots... Food in New Orleans is great.
    Another great Southern album is the Black Crowes' second album.
    It's hard to separate out the South's tragic history of racial oppression from its musical heritage of course, because the cross-pollination between European and African music is where that rich seam of musical brilliance comes from. Probably all the music I like ultimately comes from that source.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited July 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I thought it was going to be about "freedom day"....

    Same data but on a log axis - now you can see that hospital admissions are now growing at almost the same rate as cases.
    Roughly doubling every 11 days.
    V unsettling. Especially given cases have further to rise. So what next?
    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1414658909239918595/photo/1


    Ummm

    I'm not sure that's unsettling at all. Admissions seem to lag cases by a very short period, and cases are flattening off right now.

    Unless you think that admissions will continue to rise, uncoupled from flattening (or declining) case numbers. Which would be an odd attitude.
    The government are forecasting an explosion in cases. 100k new cases a day says Javid. Which means worrying numbers in hospital does it not.
    Good for them.

    Case growth is slowing, ZOE reports an absolute decline in the number of unvaccinated people with Covid, more and more people are double-vaccinated, and schools are about to go on holiday. (If nothing else, the last will dramatically lower the number of people *testing* positive for CV19.)

    It may be that cases reach 100,000 per day, but my money is against it.
    Numbers have been stuck on 30-35K for the last 6 days. It would be good if this proves to be the peak.
    And in the 6 days before that they were stuck in the range 24-28K
    And in the 23rd to the 27th they were stuck in the range 14-18K
    And from the 9th to the 15th they were stuck in the range 7500-8000
    And at the end of may they were stuck in the range of 3100-4100 and had definitely peaked.
    I don't think we are at the peak, but the rate of growth is slowing. Also in Scotland, cases are declining. i expect that to happen in England too when the the schools close and s the footy is now over. Going to the pub to watch the Olympics is not quite as popular...
    Looking at reported cases in England (so removing Scotland from the equation) against day of the week:



    The step up usually comes between Tuesday and Thursday. Then it flattens from Thursday to Friday to Saturday to Sunday (and occasionally Monday).

    The acid test will be Wednesday. If there's no big uptick today or tomorrow, it'll be very encouraging. If not, we're still in the cycle (even if it's less of a proportionate jump than before)
    Yup...

    The day to day regional changes are already looking lower, before the usual 3-5 day cut off...

    image
    We're not neccesarily at the peak, we've been here before this wave.
    The flatten off and rise is pretty much perfectly timed with the start of the Euros.

    As drearily predictable as the "unexpected" surge in requests for test when Scottish and English schools went back after the summer holidays last year.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    TOPPING said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    My understanding, and this is based largely on what I learned at my speed awareness course so perhaps it is all lies perpetuated by the road safety industry, is that at 20mph you will almost never kill the person you hit, at 40mph you will almost always kill them, and at 30mph it's a throw of the dice. So anywhere you have a decent chance of a kid running out in front of you, 20 seems reasonable.
    As for parents' responsibility, you can teach your kids about road safety till you're blue in the face, but the way kids' brains work, they can easily walk into the road without looking, run after a ball or whatever, unless you're physically holding onto them. And at the end of the day, I think a kid has more right to walk down their street without living in fear than some random person has to drive down their street at potentially life-threatening speeds. This is what I mean by a change of mindset, drivers need to understand that they do not sit at the top of a hierarchy of people using the space. I say all of this as a driver, but also a parent, a resident and (occasional) cyclist.
    We didn't do the control experiment (ie have them be hit by a car at 20mph and then 40mph) but when a mate of mine was hit by a car doing 30mph the medics said that at 40mph they would have been dead.
    Anyone doing 40 in a pedestrian zone is a pillock that will kill people if there's an accident.

    Its far safer to do 80 on a motorway than it is to do 40 in a pedestrian area.
    Kinetic energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity. Double the speed 4 times the impact.
    Absolutely.

    But a car doing 40 in a pedestrian area is almost infinitely more likely to hit a child on the road than a car doing 80 on a motorway.

    A car doing 80 in a motorway, if it has an accident, isn't likely to be against a pedestrian.

    There's a reason motorways have very low fatality rates
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917
    We're probably going to be the only country in the world where you won't be able to be vaccinated at 17 and then moving into your care home work at 18 probably have it as a requirement of your employment :D
  • Options
    OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,974
    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    This, Sir, is a valuable piece of evidence. We see deaths in the period slowly rising over the years; a bit of a rise in 2015, again in 2017, then a bit more in 2019 and then of course the bigger rise last year. It might be interesting, if we could to see deaths as a percentage of population, if we knew what the population actually was.
    I suggest we will see a smaller than usual number of deaths in the next couple of years.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,189
    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
  • Options
    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,612
    If anyone was thinking of popping over to the Channel Islands and hasn't decided which:

    There are currently 1,413 active cases of coronavirus in the Channel Islands:
    1,399 - in Jersey.
    14 - in the Bailiwick of Guernsey.


    https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-03-12/live-updates-number-of-coronavirus-cases-in-the-channel-islands
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285

    Stocky said:

    Pulpstar said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    No thanks.
    Don’t want to live in some kind of paperwork state.
    Silly objection. You already show a ticket to get in to a show or on to a train. A paperwork state is one where you can be arbitrarily asked in the street to prove who you are.

    In 10 years time the state will know who and where you are at all times anyway via cctv and facial recognition. Paperwork is very last millennium.
    Let’s imagine I was immune compromised due to my HIV status, and for other reasons I am not vaxxed.

    (This is not true, it’s for the sake of argument).

    What status precisely am I supposed to show Bob Jobsworth the Train Inspector?
    I believe the domestic (Can't be international as different countries might like to know if you're actually vaccinated or not) vaccine QR code is pari passu for those who can't be vaccinated and the vaccinated.
    I’m afraid I still find it an unnecessary infringement on my rights to go about my business as a citizen.

    The health emergency would have to be much worse to justify even this “minor” imposition.
    3.8m people have been told not to mix with un-vaxxed.

    What is your advise to them in terms of them re-gaining freedoms again ?
    Vaccinated people can still pass on Covid. Who has told 3.8m people not to mix - specifically - with the unvaxed?
    The chance of a fully vaccinated person passing covid to another fully vaccinated is estimated at 1 in 200,000....
    per what? How does it compare with unvax-unvax, vax-unvax, and unvax-vax? It's otherwise a meaningless number.

    --AS
    I believe it relates to if two vaccinated people meet up together.

    PHE have put out these stats and been quoted at press conference in the past.
    I don't have time now, but I'll look for a source later. I think it's a pretty useless number.

    The reason we aren't seeing herd immunity yet, despite high vaccination rates and some reduction in household mixing, is because evidently vaccination doesn't prevent spread very much (maybe halves it). That's disappointing, and the reason we'll see further deaths in the summer wave.

    --AS
    My recollection is that one dose was claimed to be enough to reduce it by 50% onward to anybody, was reported a couple of months ago.

    BUT ..i am wondering if all these analysis was mostly when Kent variant was the dominant strain.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    kle4 said:

    Nigelb said:
    Reports on Afghanistan and the Taliban advance often seem to focus on the failings on the government side, but why have they been so stubbornly successful? Are they just very well organised? Are they really popular among the people? Because the former can be countered a lot more than if the latter.
    Afghanistan is a series of valleys with terrible transportation links between them. It is impossible to do any kind of force projection without the backing of massive airforce logistics. It is not a country, it is hundreds of tiny fiefdoms.
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,199

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    I don't think it would stop HMG or the FA wasting money on a doomed bid. Remains to be seen whether the Irish government will be as wasteful, but their track record isn't great either.
  • Options
    FF43FF43 Posts: 15,710
    edited July 2021
    This is the key point about Covid policy when you are no longer attempting to keep R less than 1. You are by default allowing Covid to infect as many people as it can and hoping that not too much damage will happen to those it reaches.

    Many people now seem OK with R greater than 1 in countries with relatively high vaccination % (at least implicitly, given they aren’t advocating for the strong measures required to guarantee R less than 1). Given R greater than 1, much of Europe faces large epidemics likely to end with accumulation of immunity in next few months - much of it from infections. Reopening would accelerate this, but won't be difference between epidemic & no epidemic (unlike, say, reintroducing measures to get R less than 1)

    Thread: https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1414525137559465984
  • Options
    NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758

    TOPPING said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    My understanding, and this is based largely on what I learned at my speed awareness course so perhaps it is all lies perpetuated by the road safety industry, is that at 20mph you will almost never kill the person you hit, at 40mph you will almost always kill them, and at 30mph it's a throw of the dice. So anywhere you have a decent chance of a kid running out in front of you, 20 seems reasonable.
    As for parents' responsibility, you can teach your kids about road safety till you're blue in the face, but the way kids' brains work, they can easily walk into the road without looking, run after a ball or whatever, unless you're physically holding onto them. And at the end of the day, I think a kid has more right to walk down their street without living in fear than some random person has to drive down their street at potentially life-threatening speeds. This is what I mean by a change of mindset, drivers need to understand that they do not sit at the top of a hierarchy of people using the space. I say all of this as a driver, but also a parent, a resident and (occasional) cyclist.
    We didn't do the control experiment (ie have them be hit by a car at 20mph and then 40mph) but when a mate of mine was hit by a car doing 30mph the medics said that at 40mph they would have been dead.
    Anyone doing 40 in a pedestrian zone is a pillock that will kill people if there's an accident.

    Its far safer to do 80 on a motorway than it is to do 40 in a pedestrian area.
    Kinetic energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity. Double the speed 4 times the impact.
    Absolutely.

    But a car doing 40 in a pedestrian area is almost infinitely more likely to hit a child on the road than a car doing 80 on a motorway.

    A car doing 80 in a motorway, if it has an accident, isn't likely to be against a pedestrian.

    There's a reason motorways have very low fatality rates
    Agreed. The key thing is keeping to speed limits in urban areas and minor roads.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I thought it was going to be about "freedom day"....

    Same data but on a log axis - now you can see that hospital admissions are now growing at almost the same rate as cases.
    Roughly doubling every 11 days.
    V unsettling. Especially given cases have further to rise. So what next?
    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1414658909239918595/photo/1


    Ummm

    I'm not sure that's unsettling at all. Admissions seem to lag cases by a very short period, and cases are flattening off right now.

    Unless you think that admissions will continue to rise, uncoupled from flattening (or declining) case numbers. Which would be an odd attitude.
    The government are forecasting an explosion in cases. 100k new cases a day says Javid. Which means worrying numbers in hospital does it not.
    Good for them.

    Case growth is slowing, ZOE reports an absolute decline in the number of unvaccinated people with Covid, more and more people are double-vaccinated, and schools are about to go on holiday. (If nothing else, the last will dramatically lower the number of people *testing* positive for CV19.)

    It may be that cases reach 100,000 per day, but my money is against it.
    Numbers have been stuck on 30-35K for the last 6 days. It would be good if this proves to be the peak.
    And in the 6 days before that they were stuck in the range 24-28K
    And in the 23rd to the 27th they were stuck in the range 14-18K
    And from the 9th to the 15th they were stuck in the range 7500-8000
    And at the end of may they were stuck in the range of 3100-4100 and had definitely peaked.
    I don't think we are at the peak, but the rate of growth is slowing. Also in Scotland, cases are declining. i expect that to happen in England too when the the schools close and s the footy is now over. Going to the pub to watch the Olympics is not quite as popular...
    Looking at reported cases in England (so removing Scotland from the equation) against day of the week:



    The step up usually comes between Tuesday and Thursday. Then it flattens from Thursday to Friday to Saturday to Sunday (and occasionally Monday).

    The acid test will be Wednesday. If there's no big uptick today or tomorrow, it'll be very encouraging. If not, we're still in the cycle (even if it's less of a proportionate jump than before)
    Yup...

    The day to day regional changes are already looking lower, before the usual 3-5 day cut off...

    image
    We're not neccesarily at the peak, we've been here before this wave.
    The flatten off and rise is pretty much perfectly timed with the start of the Euros.

    As drearily predictable as the "unexpected" surge in requests for test when Scottish and English schools went back after the summer holidays last year.
    Why drearily?

    It's great that we had the Euros and vaccinations had already gone out before then.

    What would you rather as an alternative? Scrap the Euros? Hide behind the sofa forever even post vaccinations?
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,189

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,986
    48% of Labour members now say electability more important for them, 44% say principles.

    57% of Starmer voters say electability is most important, 82% of Long Bailey voters say principles is most important
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1414876403980546065?s=20
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited July 2021
    Re world cup 2030.... widespread and overt hooliganism, racism / anti-LGBT and dangerous environment for fans wasn't an impedement to a number of countries hosting the world cup, Euros or Olympics.

    Howveer, there has in the past year been a number of significant breakdown of public order in London with police seemingly poorly prepared.
  • Options
    Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,744
    Pulpstar said:

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    I don't think we deserve a world cup any time soon. The lack of any sort of respect toward the authorities, drinking culture and specifically the mass funnel effect that Wembley way has are a very very dangerous combination. The idea of asking for a world cup and earlier kick off times (Which it looks like we need for forseeable big England matches) because your fans can't control themselves is ludicrous.
    I thought the only way to host the World Cup was to bribe the decision-makers. I'm not sure public safety (or the safety of construction crew) has ever been a consideration.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,847

    DougSeal said:

    Roger said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    What is this anti white discrimination of which you speak?
    Positive discrimination for ethnic applicants. Not everyone thinks this is the way to address balance issues.
    It proved to be a roaring success in the Chicago Fire Dept. Not.

    They literally set a different passing grade for promotion for different ethnicities.

    There were absolutely no instances of lying about ethnic background or antagonism or even violence. Absolutely not. No sir....
    I have suddenly realised that it may be useful to flaunt my BAME credentials.

    I am 1/8 Indian, which would would have been “enough” under various abhorrent laws formerly deployed in the southern US.
    More than enough under those horrific laws - “one drop” was enough. In Virginia there was a “Racial Integrity Act 1924” that made exemption for the descendants of Pocahontas

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924#The_Pocahontas_exception
    Alabama only voted to remove its miscegenation statute in 2000, by 60:40.

    I am a great admirer of Southern music, food, charm, and chutzpah and saddened it is stained with this shite.
    I love Southern music (anyone who hasn't already should check out the Allman Bros Band's Brothers and Sisters, to my mind a pinnacle of the genre). But Southern food, I am a sceptic. The food at Dollywood was the worst I have ever seen - and I am someone who grew up in Scotland so am something of a connoisseur of bad food.
    Was thinking of New Orleans for food, which admittedly is a very specific Southern-ness.
    Yes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, an area settled by the French has better food than that settled by Scots... Food in New Orleans is great.
    Another great Southern album is the Black Crowes' second album.
    It's hard to separate out the South's tragic history of racial oppression from its musical heritage of course, because the cross-pollination between European and African music is where that rich seam of musical brilliance comes from. Probably all the music I like ultimately comes from that source.
    Yes, absolutely.

    Ragtime, jazz, “hillbilly”, and rock n’ roll.
    All invented in the South, usually from some kind of cross-cultural fusion.

    I’m a big fan of “Galveston” by Glen Campbell. Wonderful Scottish name!
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,994
    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    We had a UEFA hosted WC in 2018 so surely Morocco or the Uruguay-Argentina bids are better choices.
    The 2026 USA bid means we won't be heading to Argentina.
    Different federations though. CONMEBOL vs CONCACAF. This apparently matters to FIFA.

    Morocco would be great but unlikely I think.
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,735
    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    Counterintuitively, there is evidence that introduction of 20mph zones increases the number of accidents. As you would expect, the tone of this varies from source to source. The Daily Mail and Express are fairly unequivocal, as is 'Car Throttle', which doesn't sound a disinterested source. The Guardian is more non-commital, merely quoting a DfT report that says there is no evidence that 20mph zones reduced accidents. Other speed reduction advocacy groups, as you would expect, claim the opposite. The picture is at best muddy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6166915/UK-councils-wasting-money-20mph-speed-limit-zones-cause-accidents-road-deaths.html

    Why should a reduction in speeds increase accidents? Law of unintended consequences. Basically, traffic is a complex system and simple inputs do not necessarily have simple outputs. People will make different route choices and drive with different amounts of care in different circumstances.
    Cyclists in rush hour are often cycling around 20mph so are regularly overtaking cars on the inside (and sometimes you get overtaken on both inside and outside at the same time by different cyclists). Unless the street layout and furniture is very well designed with cyclists in mind I am not surprised at all that the 20mph zones increase accidents.
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,176
    FF43 said:

    This is the key point about Covid policy when you are no longer attempting to keep R less than 1. You are by default allowing Covid to infect as many people as it can and hoping that not too much damage will happen to those it reaches.

    Many people now seem OK with R greater than 1 in countries with relatively high vaccination % (at least implicitly, given they aren’t advocating for the strong measures required to guarantee R less than 1). Given R greater than 1, much of Europe faces large epidemics likely to end with accumulation of immunity in next few months - much of it from infections. Reopening would accelerate this, but won't be difference between epidemic & no epidemic (unlike, say, reintroducing measures to get R less than 1)

    Thread: https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1414525137559465984

    I think with delta one issue is it would be very hard to push R below 1 without much more stringent lockdown. Now we have protected the vast majority of the vulnerable, letting the young get covid immunity via infection, while not without risk, is reasonable. Remember that every infection and recovery will help to restrict who can be infected, helping to push the overall R down. At some point we will see cases falling. Government modelling (stop laughing at the back Jenkins) thinks the inflection will be in mid August, I think it might be a little sooner as the schools shut and footy has finished.
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    MattWMattW Posts: 18,501
    alex_ said:

    eek said:

    Burnham wriggling on R4 - if mask wearing is so important why not mandate it on Manchester trams? Passes the buck to the government.

    Because I he mandates it the issue moves down to conductors and other front line workers to deal with.and without any threat of a fine / police backup it's pointless.

    The issue is that you can't explain that in an interview as people will repeat the 5 seconds they want and remove the nuance.
    This. We know there are a decent number of self-entitled people out there who will aggressively say "fuck you" to anyone suggesting they need to wear a mask once the legal requirement is dropped.

    With respect, telling someone that they have no right to make you wear a mask is not 'aggressive' per se. It's the law. So back off slapping that adverb please.

    Secondly, refusing to wear a mask is not 'self-entitled'. That's incredibly patronising and supercilious of you. Some people cannot wear masks for medical reasons. Others don't wish to any longer because it is damaging to their mental health. I'm one of those. So stop hectoring others.

    I bet you don't stick to the 30 mph speed limit at all times in built up areas?

    This is turning into a dystopian Black Mirror episode where utter hypocrites feel it's their (self-entitled?!) right to lecture others.

    The difference between the 30 mph - benefit for society - example and mask wearing is that one is illegal and the other isn't, or won't be very soon.
    30mph? Those were the days!
    30mph?

    Most limits in built-up areas should be 20mph, arterial and connecting roads aside.

    Stop pandering to Mr Toad.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,961
    I must be (nearly) unique on PB in thinking that the 19 July changes will turn out fine.

    Those that are scared to go out without a mask will probably buy a powerful workman's dust mask. Fifteen quid on Ebay.

    Those of us that are double-jabbed and fairly sanguine about covid will get on with their lives. We might wear masks on crowded buses and tubes.

    Much of the ludicrous covid theatre, like being perfectly able to talk to a barmaid over the bar, but not have her pull you a pint, will be removed.

    The absurd one-way systems and aggressive, oppressive signage will slowly disappear.

    Youngsters who are at minimal risk from covid will go clubbing and to festivals.

    Glorious Goodwood will have a full crowd.

    Many people will socialise outdoors and enjoy what looks like a tremendous spell of warm weather coming up.

    Life will go on.

    Good.

    It is overdue.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,364

    Pulpstar said:

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    I don't think we deserve a world cup any time soon. The lack of any sort of respect toward the authorities, drinking culture and specifically the mass funnel effect that Wembley way has are a very very dangerous combination. The idea of asking for a world cup and earlier kick off times (Which it looks like we need for forseeable big England matches) because your fans can't control themselves is ludicrous.
    I thought the only way to host the World Cup was to bribe the decision-makers. I'm not sure public safety (or the safety of construction crew) has ever been a consideration.
    Since the FA decided that being a UN wanted war-criminal didn't break the "fit and proper" test for club ownership.... Surely that makes them a perfect moral fit?
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,965
    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    We had a UEFA hosted WC in 2018 so surely Morocco or the Uruguay-Argentina bids are better choices.
    The 2026 USA bid means we won't be heading to Argentina.
    Different federations though. CONMEBOL vs CONCACAF. This apparently matters to FIFA.

    Morocco would be great but unlikely I think.
    Yep - but the timezones don't work for the countries that pay the big tv fees - and money talks.
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,176

    I must be (nearly) unique on PB in thinking that the 19 July changes will turn out fine.

    Those that are scared to go out without a mask will probably buy a powerful workman's dust mask. Fifteen quid on Ebay.

    Those of us that are double-jabbed and fairly sanguine about covid will get on with their lives. We might wear masks on crowded buses and tubes.

    Much of the ludicrous covid theatre, like being perfectly able to talk to a barmaid over the bar, but not have her pull you a pint, will be removed.

    The absurd one-way systems and aggressive, oppressive signage will slowly disappear.

    Youngsters who are at minimal risk from covid will go clubbing and to festivals.

    Glorious Goodwood will have a full crowd.

    Many people will socialise outdoors and enjoy what looks like a tremendous spell of warm weather coming up.

    Life will go on.

    Good.

    It is overdue.

    You are not alone. I agree with you. I strongly suspect that most people are already living pretty much without restrictions, save perhaps for masks in shops and on the trains/buses (for those few that use them).
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,189

    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    Counterintuitively, there is evidence that introduction of 20mph zones increases the number of accidents. As you would expect, the tone of this varies from source to source. The Daily Mail and Express are fairly unequivocal, as is 'Car Throttle', which doesn't sound a disinterested source. The Guardian is more non-commital, merely quoting a DfT report that says there is no evidence that 20mph zones reduced accidents. Other speed reduction advocacy groups, as you would expect, claim the opposite. The picture is at best muddy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6166915/UK-councils-wasting-money-20mph-speed-limit-zones-cause-accidents-road-deaths.html

    Why should a reduction in speeds increase accidents? Law of unintended consequences. Basically, traffic is a complex system and simple inputs do not necessarily have simple outputs. People will make different route choices and drive with different amounts of care in different circumstances.
    Cyclists in rush hour are often cycling around 20mph so are regularly overtaking cars on the inside (and sometimes you get overtaken on both inside and outside at the same time by different cyclists). Unless the street layout and furniture is very well designed with cyclists in mind I am not surprised at all that the 20mph zones increase accidents.
    I've always thought we need our speed limits to be:

    25mph
    35mph
    50mph

    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,501
    edited July 2021

    rcs1000 said:

    The (paywalled) FT reports:-

    Greensill Capital paid Cameron salary of more than $1m a year
    Former prime minister said to have made in excess of $40,000 a day from collapsed finance firm


    Nice work if you can get it.

    Wtf?

    I know how much "advisors" in the City get paid, with banks and funds taking advantage of their Rolodex, their draw at conferences, and yes, their occasional insights.

    It's not $1m/year.

    Plus massive quantities of share options.

    Cameron was a fool.
    David Cameron was contracted for 25 days so $1M is $40,000 a day. And he was reported as having up to $60 million in options for the listing that never happened. So yes, in cash terms, not a lot, but a nice windfall if things had worked out.

    Setting this in the real world, rather than La-La-London, $40,000 is no far off the median income in the UK.

    So I do not think "Not a Lot" really applies.

    Though for squatting down and defecating on your own reputation as a former PM it may be expensive in other ways.
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,199
    edited July 2021

    Pulpstar said:

    I guess dreams of us running World Cup in 2030 will stay dreams after Sunday?

    I don't think we deserve a world cup any time soon. The lack of any sort of respect toward the authorities, drinking culture and specifically the mass funnel effect that Wembley way has are a very very dangerous combination. The idea of asking for a world cup and earlier kick off times (Which it looks like we need for forseeable big England matches) because your fans can't control themselves is ludicrous.
    I thought the only way to host the World Cup was to bribe the decision-makers. I'm not sure public safety (or the safety of construction crew) has ever been a consideration.
    Many UEFA VIPs - those who vote on these things, or people who will talk to those who vote on these things - will have been at Wembley. Given the stories going around think it very likely that they're more likely to support Spain/Portugal than UK/Ireland.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,994
    tlg86 said:



    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).

    What the fuck are you driving? An Austin A40?
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,735
    @kinabalu - well done on winning our bet re the end of legal restrictions

    @mods - the donate button that used to be around seems to be missing? How I do pay up (the bet was to site funds).
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,678
    edited July 2021
    TOPPING said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    The clinically vulnerable. Anti-vaxxers.

    Best that the two groups stay apart to protect the former.

    So which group has been told to modify their behaviour?

    Yep, the selfish get to carry on with impunity.

    What are you proposing?
    Compulsory anti-vaccination?

    The reality is that we have very high vax rates in this country - a tremendous asset which we should now leverage to unlock, unlock, unlock.

    I am ok with mandatory masks on public transport if it makes people feel safer, but pretty much everything else should go.
    Follow France's lead: If you are not jabbed, you are excluded from public activities - transport, eating, drinking, entertainment. The the vulnerable can attend these venues knowing that there are no anti-vaxxers in attendance.
    No thanks.
    Don’t want to live in some kind of paperwork state.
    Silly objection. You already show a ticket to get in to a show or on to a train. A paperwork state is one where you can be arbitrarily asked in the street to prove who you are.

    In 10 years time the state will know who and where you are at all times anyway via cctv and facial recognition. Paperwork is very last millennium.
    Let’s imagine I was immune compromised due to my HIV status, and for other reasons I am not vaxxed.

    (This is not true, it’s for the sake of argument).

    What status precisely am I supposed to show Bob Jobsworth the Train Inspector?
    I believe the domestic (Can't be international as different countries might like to know if you're actually vaccinated or not) vaccine QR code is pari passu for those who can't be vaccinated and the vaccinated.
    I’m afraid I still find it an unnecessary infringement on my rights to go about my business as a citizen.

    The health emergency would have to be much worse to justify even this “minor” imposition.
    3.8m people have been told not to mix with un-vaxxed.

    What is your advise to them in terms of them re-gaining freedoms again ?
    What 3.8m?
    The 3.8m who cannot be vaccinated..

    image
    This figure doesn’t make sense to me.
    Vax rates are 95% or higher in some cohorts.

    Let’s assume 5% of adult population cannot be vaxxed, that’s only 2.5m people.
    The SCV have been vaccinated.

    My wife is one of the 3.8m SCV, she is double jabbed, she has been told not to mix with the un-vaxxed.

    Those anti-vaxxers get their freedoms back.

    My SCV wife does not, despite taking both the jabs etc.
    I presume this is because jabbing is not 100% effective?

    I know someone - also double jabbed - who undergoing chemo for lukaemia. I presume she is in the same position.

    I feel like, if you are extremely vulnerable, you are vulnerable regardless. We need to look at covid now as equivalent to a bad winter flu. What do the extremely vulnerable do in those circs?
    My wife takes the guidance of the health services, gets the annual flu jab etc (as do I to even though I would not qualify normally).

    Problem is this is not the flu and many people are putting 3.8m people at risk and valuing their freedoms above those people like my wife.

    In this case that means she loses her freedom's whilst those anti-vaxxers get their freedom's back.

    one does the right thing for society, the other doesn't.
    It is a real concern. But not only one way. Let's take @Cocky_cockney. Articulated very clearly this morning reasons for him (?) not wearing a mask. Those who are clinically vulnerable are seeking to impose distress and anxiety on people like him.

    Is there a hierarchy of needs? No idea.
    I've been very surprised at the emotion caused by mask wearing, simply because I've often and necessarily worn it for my work (of various kinds) as well as DIY and felt perfectly happy (if sometimes sweaty)..

    There must be some credible benchline data for the percentage of people who genuinely can't wear masks even if they get the sack etc. [edit] and before covgid made it all so emotional (and possibly added to the stress aspect). I've never encountered it as an issue before, so it must be quite small. IMpression is it's much smaller than the covid mask refusers.

  • Options
    Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,744
    Pulpstar said:
    Mixing Sinovac with Sputnik would seem to be perfectly harmless.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917
    Dura_Ace said:

    tlg86 said:



    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).

    What the fuck are you driving? An Austin A40?
    I'm in fifth at 30 with my Peugeot.
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917
    Lol I see the knee has been taken at Gammon Boomer News.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,189

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
  • Options
    StockyStocky Posts: 9,718

    I must be (nearly) unique on PB in thinking that the 19 July changes will turn out fine.

    Those that are scared to go out without a mask will probably buy a powerful workman's dust mask. Fifteen quid on Ebay.

    Those of us that are double-jabbed and fairly sanguine about covid will get on with their lives. We might wear masks on crowded buses and tubes.

    Much of the ludicrous covid theatre, like being perfectly able to talk to a barmaid over the bar, but not have her pull you a pint, will be removed.

    The absurd one-way systems and aggressive, oppressive signage will slowly disappear.

    Youngsters who are at minimal risk from covid will go clubbing and to festivals.

    Glorious Goodwood will have a full crowd.

    Many people will socialise outdoors and enjoy what looks like a tremendous spell of warm weather coming up.

    Life will go on.

    Good.

    It is overdue.

    You are not alone. I agree with you. I strongly suspect that most people are already living pretty much without restrictions, save perhaps for masks in shops and on the trains/buses (for those few that use them).
    Hope you are right, but are you two being overly optimistic? I think that pubs and supermarkets and many other places (private and public sector) will look identical on 20 July compared to 19 July and signage will continue to instruct people to do things that it will no longer be legal to have to do. What then?

  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,176

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
    Just wanted to post this. Its from the England data on the corona dashboard. Its shows the ages of those who have died, and it heavily skewed by age (naturally). Over 50 % are over 80, but many thousands who have died have been considerably younger than 80.

  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Stocky said:

    I must be (nearly) unique on PB in thinking that the 19 July changes will turn out fine.

    Those that are scared to go out without a mask will probably buy a powerful workman's dust mask. Fifteen quid on Ebay.

    Those of us that are double-jabbed and fairly sanguine about covid will get on with their lives. We might wear masks on crowded buses and tubes.

    Much of the ludicrous covid theatre, like being perfectly able to talk to a barmaid over the bar, but not have her pull you a pint, will be removed.

    The absurd one-way systems and aggressive, oppressive signage will slowly disappear.

    Youngsters who are at minimal risk from covid will go clubbing and to festivals.

    Glorious Goodwood will have a full crowd.

    Many people will socialise outdoors and enjoy what looks like a tremendous spell of warm weather coming up.

    Life will go on.

    Good.

    It is overdue.

    You are not alone. I agree with you. I strongly suspect that most people are already living pretty much without restrictions, save perhaps for masks in shops and on the trains/buses (for those few that use them).
    Hope you are right, but are you two being overly optimistic? I think that pubs and supermarkets and many other places (private and public sector) will look identical on 20 July compared to 19 July and signage will continue to instruct people to do things that it will no longer be legal to have to do. What then?

    If a private venue wants to do that, that's their choice.

    If the customers are happy with it, then the company may continue. If the customers are unhappy, they won't.

    Free choice and free market. No need for coercion or diktats.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917
    Stocky said:

    I must be (nearly) unique on PB in thinking that the 19 July changes will turn out fine.

    Those that are scared to go out without a mask will probably buy a powerful workman's dust mask. Fifteen quid on Ebay.

    Those of us that are double-jabbed and fairly sanguine about covid will get on with their lives. We might wear masks on crowded buses and tubes.

    Much of the ludicrous covid theatre, like being perfectly able to talk to a barmaid over the bar, but not have her pull you a pint, will be removed.

    The absurd one-way systems and aggressive, oppressive signage will slowly disappear.

    Youngsters who are at minimal risk from covid will go clubbing and to festivals.

    Glorious Goodwood will have a full crowd.

    Many people will socialise outdoors and enjoy what looks like a tremendous spell of warm weather coming up.

    Life will go on.

    Good.

    It is overdue.

    You are not alone. I agree with you. I strongly suspect that most people are already living pretty much without restrictions, save perhaps for masks in shops and on the trains/buses (for those few that use them).
    Hope you are right, but are you two being overly optimistic? I think that pubs and supermarkets and many other places (private and public sector) will look identical on 20 July compared to 19 July and signage will continue to instruct people to do things that it will no longer be legal to have to do. What then?

    My guess is pints will be served behind the bar in most pubs. Might be wrong though. Restaurant type pubs might carry on doing table service, could well depend on the clientele and what they prefer.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,961
    Stocky said:

    I must be (nearly) unique on PB in thinking that the 19 July changes will turn out fine.

    Those that are scared to go out without a mask will probably buy a powerful workman's dust mask. Fifteen quid on Ebay.

    Those of us that are double-jabbed and fairly sanguine about covid will get on with their lives. We might wear masks on crowded buses and tubes.

    Much of the ludicrous covid theatre, like being perfectly able to talk to a barmaid over the bar, but not have her pull you a pint, will be removed.

    The absurd one-way systems and aggressive, oppressive signage will slowly disappear.

    Youngsters who are at minimal risk from covid will go clubbing and to festivals.

    Glorious Goodwood will have a full crowd.

    Many people will socialise outdoors and enjoy what looks like a tremendous spell of warm weather coming up.

    Life will go on.

    Good.

    It is overdue.

    You are not alone. I agree with you. I strongly suspect that most people are already living pretty much without restrictions, save perhaps for masks in shops and on the trains/buses (for those few that use them).
    Hope you are right, but are you two being overly optimistic? I think that pubs and supermarkets and many other places (private and public sector) will look identical on 20 July compared to 19 July and signage will continue to instruct people to do things that it will no longer be legal to have to do. What then?

    Some nasty big chain pubs maybe, but all the nice pubs around me have already removed their signage. There will be nothing left by 19 July.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
    Just wanted to post this. Its from the England data on the corona dashboard. Its shows the ages of those who have died, and it heavily skewed by age (naturally). Over 50 % are over 80, but many thousands who have died have been considerably younger than 80.

    Old people are more likely to die, and you're remarkably safe at 10 years old iirc. The graph of % increase by age is more interesting and perhaps useful...
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
    Just wanted to post this. Its from the England data on the corona dashboard. Its shows the ages of those who have died, and it heavily skewed by age (naturally). Over 50 % are over 80, but many thousands who have died have been considerably younger than 80.

    Of course.

    But that's more than 60k over 80s dead now than would be normally the case.

    That means that there will be more than 60k fewer over 80s next winter vulnerable to the flu. As they're sadly already dead.
  • Options
    RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,192
    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    Counterintuitively, there is evidence that introduction of 20mph zones increases the number of accidents. As you would expect, the tone of this varies from source to source. The Daily Mail and Express are fairly unequivocal, as is 'Car Throttle', which doesn't sound a disinterested source. The Guardian is more non-commital, merely quoting a DfT report that says there is no evidence that 20mph zones reduced accidents. Other speed reduction advocacy groups, as you would expect, claim the opposite. The picture is at best muddy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6166915/UK-councils-wasting-money-20mph-speed-limit-zones-cause-accidents-road-deaths.html

    Why should a reduction in speeds increase accidents? Law of unintended consequences. Basically, traffic is a complex system and simple inputs do not necessarily have simple outputs. People will make different route choices and drive with different amounts of care in different circumstances.
    Cyclists in rush hour are often cycling around 20mph so are regularly overtaking cars on the inside (and sometimes you get overtaken on both inside and outside at the same time by different cyclists). Unless the street layout and furniture is very well designed with cyclists in mind I am not surprised at all that the 20mph zones increase accidents.
    I've always thought we need our speed limits to be:

    25mph
    35mph
    50mph

    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).
    Some cars really struggle to drive smoothly at 30mph. Happily we no longer own a car with a gearbox so such struggles are behind us.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Dura_Ace said:

    tlg86 said:



    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).

    What the fuck are you driving? An Austin A40?
    Would you be triggered if I said I drove a 2007 Nissan Micra.

    Pretty much the most perfectly boring car in the world. Ideal for me.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,189

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
    Just wanted to post this. Its from the England data on the corona dashboard. Its shows the ages of those who have died, and it heavily skewed by age (naturally). Over 50 % are over 80, but many thousands who have died have been considerably younger than 80.

    Of course.

    But that's more than 60k over 80s dead now than would be normally the case.

    That means that there will be more than 60k fewer over 80s next winter vulnerable to the flu. As they're sadly already dead.
    But you are assuming that many (most?) of them were going to be the ones that would have died in the 2021-22 winter. That's a big assumption.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,501
    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    tlg86 said:



    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).

    What the fuck are you driving? An Austin A40?
    I'm in fifth at 30 with my Peugeot.
    Interesting stuff.

    I tend to drive around town on the cruise control, which works down to 30 kph.

    Very smoooooooth.
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,176

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    Counterintuitively, there is evidence that introduction of 20mph zones increases the number of accidents. As you would expect, the tone of this varies from source to source. The Daily Mail and Express are fairly unequivocal, as is 'Car Throttle', which doesn't sound a disinterested source. The Guardian is more non-commital, merely quoting a DfT report that says there is no evidence that 20mph zones reduced accidents. Other speed reduction advocacy groups, as you would expect, claim the opposite. The picture is at best muddy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6166915/UK-councils-wasting-money-20mph-speed-limit-zones-cause-accidents-road-deaths.html

    Why should a reduction in speeds increase accidents? Law of unintended consequences. Basically, traffic is a complex system and simple inputs do not necessarily have simple outputs. People will make different route choices and drive with different amounts of care in different circumstances.
    Cyclists in rush hour are often cycling around 20mph so are regularly overtaking cars on the inside (and sometimes you get overtaken on both inside and outside at the same time by different cyclists). Unless the street layout and furniture is very well designed with cyclists in mind I am not surprised at all that the 20mph zones increase accidents.
    I've always thought we need our speed limits to be:

    25mph
    35mph
    50mph

    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).
    Some cars really struggle to drive smoothly at 30mph. Happily we no longer own a car with a gearbox so such struggles are behind us.
    I have a 'self-charging hybrid' Toyota. Really its a petrol car, but it is electric drive and thus very smooth at all speeds.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,961
    People still drive manuals?

    God knows why.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,541
    edited July 2021
    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    Counterintuitively, there is evidence that introduction of 20mph zones increases the number of accidents. As you would expect, the tone of this varies from source to source. The Daily Mail and Express are fairly unequivocal, as is 'Car Throttle', which doesn't sound a disinterested source. The Guardian is more non-commital, merely quoting a DfT report that says there is no evidence that 20mph zones reduced accidents. Other speed reduction advocacy groups, as you would expect, claim the opposite. The picture is at best muddy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6166915/UK-councils-wasting-money-20mph-speed-limit-zones-cause-accidents-road-deaths.html

    Why should a reduction in speeds increase accidents? Law of unintended consequences. Basically, traffic is a complex system and simple inputs do not necessarily have simple outputs. People will make different route choices and drive with different amounts of care in different circumstances.
    Cyclists in rush hour are often cycling around 20mph so are regularly overtaking cars on the inside (and sometimes you get overtaken on both inside and outside at the same time by different cyclists). Unless the street layout and furniture is very well designed with cyclists in mind I am not surprised at all that the 20mph zones increase accidents.
    I've always thought we need our speed limits to be:

    25mph
    35mph
    50mph

    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).
    They have a 25mph urban speed limit in parts of California. It feels more sensible than 20, and is easier to keep within.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,678
    Alistair said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    tlg86 said:



    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).

    What the fuck are you driving? An Austin A40?
    Would you be triggered if I said I drove a 2007 Nissan Micra.

    Pretty much the most perfectly boring car in the world. Ideal for me.
    I was tempted to ask if it was a Kettenkrad.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,541
    edited July 2021
    Dura_Ace said:

    tlg86 said:



    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).

    What the fuck are you driving? An Austin A40?
    I think he means the lowest speed you can comfortably maintain in that gear ?
    Which would presumably be rather lower in an A40.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,678

    Stocky said:

    I must be (nearly) unique on PB in thinking that the 19 July changes will turn out fine.

    Those that are scared to go out without a mask will probably buy a powerful workman's dust mask. Fifteen quid on Ebay.

    Those of us that are double-jabbed and fairly sanguine about covid will get on with their lives. We might wear masks on crowded buses and tubes.

    Much of the ludicrous covid theatre, like being perfectly able to talk to a barmaid over the bar, but not have her pull you a pint, will be removed.

    The absurd one-way systems and aggressive, oppressive signage will slowly disappear.

    Youngsters who are at minimal risk from covid will go clubbing and to festivals.

    Glorious Goodwood will have a full crowd.

    Many people will socialise outdoors and enjoy what looks like a tremendous spell of warm weather coming up.

    Life will go on.

    Good.

    It is overdue.

    You are not alone. I agree with you. I strongly suspect that most people are already living pretty much without restrictions, save perhaps for masks in shops and on the trains/buses (for those few that use them).
    Hope you are right, but are you two being overly optimistic? I think that pubs and supermarkets and many other places (private and public sector) will look identical on 20 July compared to 19 July and signage will continue to instruct people to do things that it will no longer be legal to have to do. What then?

    If a private venue wants to do that, that's their choice.

    If the customers are happy with it, then the company may continue. If the customers are unhappy, they won't.

    Free choice and free market. No need for coercion or diktats.
    Hmm. Arsenic in wallpaper, alum in bread ... the good old days of laissez-faire.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
    Just wanted to post this. Its from the England data on the corona dashboard. Its shows the ages of those who have died, and it heavily skewed by age (naturally). Over 50 % are over 80, but many thousands who have died have been considerably younger than 80.

    Of course.

    But that's more than 60k over 80s dead now than would be normally the case.

    That means that there will be more than 60k fewer over 80s next winter vulnerable to the flu. As they're sadly already dead.
    But you are assuming that many (most?) of them were going to be the ones that would have died in the 2021-22 winter. That's a big assumption.
    Not really. If even only a sixth of those excess deaths are those who would have died in 2021-22 then that would mean 20,000 fewer deaths next winter.
  • Options
    MaffewMaffew Posts: 235
    So my work (big law firm) has informed us about what's happening following the 19th.

    From the 19th we're given back our old desks and anyone can come in any time they want (at the moment a little over half the desks are out of order due to social distancing and most people that come in are spread all over the place at random desks. You need permission to come in, but it's a rubber stamp). There'll be no expectation/requirement for people to come in though.

    Then from mid-September people will be expected to come in part time. The exact number of days hasn't been decided, but it's clear people (other than e.g. facilities staff) won't be expected to be in full time.

    It seems pretty reasonable to me. Open up for those that want it from the 19th and then expect people to come in once everyone will have had the chance to be double-vaccinated. No crap about people having to come back full time, but equally an acknowledgment that there are team benefits to face to face contact (at least in our industry).
  • Options
    ridaligoridaligo Posts: 174

    People still drive manuals?

    God knows why.

    It's because we enjoy the driving experience and driving a manual is more engaging than driving an automatic.

    If you view the car simply as a means to get from A to B and you don't get any pleasure from driving itself, then I can imagine that having to change gears according to the situation on the road is something of an inconvenience.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,917
    Am I the only person that finds flowers, specifically flowers being by the side of the Rashford mural a bit odd ?
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,189

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
    Just wanted to post this. Its from the England data on the corona dashboard. Its shows the ages of those who have died, and it heavily skewed by age (naturally). Over 50 % are over 80, but many thousands who have died have been considerably younger than 80.

    Of course.

    But that's more than 60k over 80s dead now than would be normally the case.

    That means that there will be more than 60k fewer over 80s next winter vulnerable to the flu. As they're sadly already dead.
    But you are assuming that many (most?) of them were going to be the ones that would have died in the 2021-22 winter. That's a big assumption.
    Not really. If even only a sixth of those excess deaths are those who would have died in 2021-22 then that would mean 20,000 fewer deaths next winter.
    A sixth would be a lot, in my opinion.
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,199
    Nigelb said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    Counterintuitively, there is evidence that introduction of 20mph zones increases the number of accidents. As you would expect, the tone of this varies from source to source. The Daily Mail and Express are fairly unequivocal, as is 'Car Throttle', which doesn't sound a disinterested source. The Guardian is more non-commital, merely quoting a DfT report that says there is no evidence that 20mph zones reduced accidents. Other speed reduction advocacy groups, as you would expect, claim the opposite. The picture is at best muddy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6166915/UK-councils-wasting-money-20mph-speed-limit-zones-cause-accidents-road-deaths.html

    Why should a reduction in speeds increase accidents? Law of unintended consequences. Basically, traffic is a complex system and simple inputs do not necessarily have simple outputs. People will make different route choices and drive with different amounts of care in different circumstances.
    Cyclists in rush hour are often cycling around 20mph so are regularly overtaking cars on the inside (and sometimes you get overtaken on both inside and outside at the same time by different cyclists). Unless the street layout and furniture is very well designed with cyclists in mind I am not surprised at all that the 20mph zones increase accidents.
    I've always thought we need our speed limits to be:

    25mph
    35mph
    50mph

    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).
    They have a 25mph urban speed limit in parts of California. It feels more sensible than 20, and is easier to keep within.
    It's going to be moot soon when internal combustion engines are history, but wouldn't it make more sense to encourage manufacturers to adjust the gearing to fit the speed limits than the other way round?
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,283
    Yeah I can't see Tescos et al removing their masks signs any time soon.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,871

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scottish Lib Dems.
    If not Cole-Hamilton, then who?

    Ms Swinton? If someone is willing to stand aside for her. But that would involve a by election as IIRC the LDs have no List MSPs (which would mean an automatic shoo-in). And Mr Rennie seems too young to retire from Holyrood.

    So I rather think perhaps Mr McArthur.
    Didn’t Swinton piss on her chips with the worst election campaign strategy of modern times?

    Or has she been forgiven? I’m all for second chances.
    Well, Mr Carmichael also rather micturated on his bere bannock with that unfortunate judgement in the court case.
    I don’t know much about Scottish politics, and about the Scottish Lib Dems practically nothing.

    If you were advising them, what would you suggest? (I assume you are an opponent, but not a tribalist).
    Give up the ghost , 4 duffers they are down to and have no impact on anything.
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    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,678
    Pulpstar said:

    Am I the only person that finds flowers, specifically flowers being by the side of the Rashford mural a bit odd ?

    It's certainly an ambiguous message, even if the donors don't realise that.

    Like a London gangster sending a wreath to someone he's threatening.
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    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    The latest ONS weekly death stats are out (https://tinyurl.com/4u4mjfyt). I've been tracking these figures the last year and I think we might be starting to get a clue as to how much life (i.e. years) has been lost on average due to COVID. The last seven weeks have seen COVID deaths hover around 100 a week. So let's assume these are all deaths with COVID rather than from COVID. Furthermore, let's also assume that deaths aren't being affected by changes to behaviour (i.e. flu doesn't tend to be a big issue at this time of the year).

    Here are the total number of deaths for Weeks 20 to 26 (roughly 15-21 May to 26 June - 2 July, with one bank holiday tucked in the middle so no need to worry about that):

    2010: 62,026
    2011: 61,665
    2012: 63,978
    2013: 63,554
    2014: 63,708
    2015: 66,715
    2016: 65,453
    2017: 66,754
    2018: 65,685
    2019: 67,370
    2020: 75,688
    2021: 64,427

    As you can see, the trend for deaths was going up pre-COVID. The 64,427 deaths in the last seven weeks is nearly 2,000 deaths below the five year average for 2015-2019. This is not the biggest of samples, but I think it's reasonable to assume that we are starting to see the wake from the 138,000 COVID deaths recorded in this dataset.

    If we assume that the missing deaths continue at around 2,000 every seven weeks, it would take around 9 and a half years to get through them. Obviously, some very unlucky people will have lost a lot more than 9.5 years of life. But equally, it is incredibly unlikely that the distribution of these missing deaths will be almost flat. Chances are it will peak around the average with a long-ish tail in the positive direction.

    It has been suggested that the average life lost to COVID is around 10 years. I think that it may be closer to three years. This isn't to suggest that COVID hasn't been and isn't still awful. It is and it is right that action was taken to protect the NHS. But it's interesting to consider nonetheless.

    We'll have to watch the numbers over the coming months to see if this changes. The winter may prove challenging because in the year to 14 May 2021, non-COVID deaths were 46,000 below the five year average. Obviously some of that will be due to people dying from/with COVID instead, but a fair amount will be due to less flu going around. That's a lot of low hanging fruit for the grim reaper to pick off this winter (assuming we're back to normal, of course).

    But surely a lot of that reduction in flu will be because many of those flu victims the reaper had earmarked for winter 2020/21 he actually claimed 6-9 months earlier from covid? If that were the case, winter 2021/22 shouldn't look any worse than normal.
    Well, we just don't know what the split is in terms of already dead/avoid flu is, but just to demonstrate the difference between now and the winter, here are the number of deaths in the seven weeks up to the end of February:

    2010: 76,397
    2011: 74,570
    2012: 74,078
    2013: 79,116
    2014: 74,312
    2015: 93,232
    2016: 78,159
    2017: 88,394
    2018: 93,409
    2019: 82,285
    2020: 83,287
    2021: 70,031 (excluding COVID deaths)

    The 2021 figure was 17,000 below the five year average. Some of that will be the wake of COVID. But most will be due to the low hanging fruit avoiding flu etc.
    Surely the low hanging fruit had already been felled by Covid. Can't be felled twice.
    That would assume that the low hanging fruit was more likely to have been exposed to COVID. That's possibly part of the equation, but I doubt it skews the data all that much.

    The reality is that we wouldn't have gone from -17,000 in the seven weeks to the end of Feb to -2,000 in the seven weeks to the start of July if most of the -17,000 was due to people being dead from COVID.
    Completely disagreed.

    Yes the low hanging fruit were more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to COVID, Malmesbury's data confirmed that in February.

    In July flu is relatively rarely a factor in death unlike February so that those who'd die normally from flu were already dead from COVID won't be as big a factor in July as it was in February.
    I really hope you're right, because that would suggest the average life lost due to COVID is even shorter. But I suspect the winter deaths will be up a lot in 2021-22 (excluding COVID, of course).
    ~120k excess deaths have occurred. Primarily in over 80s vulnerable to the flu.

    They can't die twice.
    Just wanted to post this. Its from the England data on the corona dashboard. Its shows the ages of those who have died, and it heavily skewed by age (naturally). Over 50 % are over 80, but many thousands who have died have been considerably younger than 80.

    Of course.

    But that's more than 60k over 80s dead now than would be normally the case.

    That means that there will be more than 60k fewer over 80s next winter vulnerable to the flu. As they're sadly already dead.
    But you are assuming that many (most?) of them were going to be the ones that would have died in the 2021-22 winter. That's a big assumption.
    Not really. If even only a sixth of those excess deaths are those who would have died in 2021-22 then that would mean 20,000 fewer deaths next winter.
    A sixth would be a lot, in my opinion.
    Why? The virus particularly targets the vulnerable who have complications, just like the flu.

    What proportion would you estimate?
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    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    In one column masks reduce the transmission of covid.

    On the other column, they steam up your glasses, you get a bit hot, some feel a bit constrained and you look silly.

    No brainier.

    Absolutely. Post-vaccines the latter is more important.

    If you're an anti-vaxxer relying upon others wearing masks, perhaps buy an FFP3 mask instead?
    Covid seems to be spreading pretty fast despite vaccines.
    Just been whattsapped by our management.

    My hospital has gone to OPEL level 4. 90 people in ED, 40 awaiting beds and some waiting 4 hours in ambulances last night unable to offload. Ambulances being diverted now (though nearest places are 30+ miles away).

    Looks like the shit hitting the fan again. Happy Freedom Day.
    I spent 12 hours on a trolley in Blue Majors on Sunday waiting for an MRI. Can't fault the staff in anyway, absolutely all of them looked knackered but were superb. Apart from the lack of vegan food!
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    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,199
    ridaligo said:

    People still drive manuals?

    God knows why.

    It's because we enjoy the driving experience and driving a manual is more engaging than driving an automatic.

    If you view the car simply as a means to get from A to B and you don't get any pleasure from driving itself, then I can imagine that having to change gears according to the situation on the road is something of an inconvenience.
    There's also less that can go wrong with manual transmission than automatic, which is a factor if you can only afford older cars.

    My wife once did a fantastic job of nursing our car most of the way to our destination after the clutch failed. You wouldn't be able to do that with an automatic.
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    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,994
    Alistair said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    tlg86 said:



    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).

    What the fuck are you driving? An Austin A40?
    Would you be triggered if I said I drove a 2007 Nissan Micra.

    Pretty much the most perfectly boring car in the world. Ideal for me.
    Sometimes when I look at my workshop full of partially dismantled Porsches and see the DHL guy staggering up the drive with yet another vast shipment of German unobtanium parts I wish I had a 2007 Micra.

    You can put an SR20 engine from a Silvia/240SX into a Micra. Something to think about.
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    eekeek Posts: 24,965
    edited July 2021

    Nigelb said:

    tlg86 said:

    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. L, aye. The police will kneel for BLM. And ignore a mob of thugs who intimidated a teacher into hiding. And their leader is keener on anti-white discrimination than rooting out the bad eggs in her own force.

    I should be the sort of person who's right behind the police. But what happened in Rotherham and many other places, and the examples mentioned above, don't exactly encourage that.

    In my mind, the middle-class distrust of the police started with speed cameras.
    There is something in that. I am currently due a 3 hour "education" course at substantial financial cost for the heinous crime of driving at 35mph on a major trunk road that now has a 30mph limit.

    In a city I have known all my life it is now deemed criminal to drive at more than 20mph in large parts of it. Traffic is no different to how it has been for the last decades but I could now lose my license for being caught driving at 25mph a few times. It's a money making exercise, pure and simple and will be enforced to keep the coffers filled - get burgled on the other hand and you may as well safe your breath calling the police.
    Reducing the speed limit to 20mph makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why so many people campaign for lower speed limits where they live (while simultaneously bemoaning speed limits elsewhere, naturally).
    So are we now saying after 30 years that 30mph is unsafe for cyclists and children? If a cyclist ior a child is killed at 20mph do we then drop it to 10mph? A

    t what point does the responsibility rest with parents to ensure children don't run out into the road or cyclists follow the same rules of the road as drivers instead of weaving in and out, ignoring traffic lights and one way systems and mounting the pavement whenever they feel like it?
    Counterintuitively, there is evidence that introduction of 20mph zones increases the number of accidents. As you would expect, the tone of this varies from source to source. The Daily Mail and Express are fairly unequivocal, as is 'Car Throttle', which doesn't sound a disinterested source. The Guardian is more non-commital, merely quoting a DfT report that says there is no evidence that 20mph zones reduced accidents. Other speed reduction advocacy groups, as you would expect, claim the opposite. The picture is at best muddy.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6166915/UK-councils-wasting-money-20mph-speed-limit-zones-cause-accidents-road-deaths.html

    Why should a reduction in speeds increase accidents? Law of unintended consequences. Basically, traffic is a complex system and simple inputs do not necessarily have simple outputs. People will make different route choices and drive with different amounts of care in different circumstances.
    Cyclists in rush hour are often cycling around 20mph so are regularly overtaking cars on the inside (and sometimes you get overtaken on both inside and outside at the same time by different cyclists). Unless the street layout and furniture is very well designed with cyclists in mind I am not surprised at all that the 20mph zones increase accidents.
    I've always thought we need our speed limits to be:

    25mph
    35mph
    50mph

    I say that because, 25mph is third gear and 35mph is fourth gear (at least, they are in my car).
    They have a 25mph urban speed limit in parts of California. It feels more sensible than 20, and is easier to keep within.
    It's going to be moot soon when internal combustion engines are history, but wouldn't it make more sense to encourage manufacturers to adjust the gearing to fit the speed limits than the other way round?
    They probably do - for the larger market where speed is measured in km/h...
This discussion has been closed.