On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
Hear hear (so to speak). Not stupid (and if it is the case it's not you who is the stupid one).
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
No, it works by proximity of the bluetooth signal, which cares about all three dimensions.
I've always been a big supporter of devolution within England so was interested in the Prime Minister's comments today.
I'm not wholly sure what a "County Deal" is and it doesn't seem the Prime Minister is either. Surrey and Hampshire are not London and expecting Tim Oliver to take over "transport" beyond local buses and cycling seems curious. Are we suggesting for example the County Councils take over South Western Railway? To be fair, they could only do a better job.
There's no mention of proper devolution such as ending capping and allowing Councils to set whatever Council Tax they consider justified for service provision. There's no mention (no surprise) of handing planning control back to elected local councillors (might be good if you wanted to stop the drift of disillusioned Conservatives to the LDs) and, more important, no mention of moving powers to local authorities and providing adequate resources (public health being one example).
The problem with County Councils is so much of their funding is taken up by the provision of care to adults and children - until and unless we see a resolution to the provision and funding of adult social care in particular (those the cost of provision of care to vulnerable children is another big drain on resources), the financial question is going to bedevil progress in other areas.
It also seems the Government has backed away from any talk of ending two-tier local Government and this will be another issue - again, back to Surrey where the Conservative-run County Council faces eleven Districts and Boroughs, many of whom are now run by anti-Conservative groupings. Seeking a common approach to devolution is almost impossible in such a dislocated political environment.
Yes, Runnymede, Surrey Heath, Reigate & Banstead and Woking (minority) are Conservative led out of the 11 Ds&Bs in Surrey. I completely agree that the possibility of even a basic accommodation with the County is near zero.
The Tories now only need to lose 5 seats to lose control of Surrey CC too, Surrey is now full of Tory-LD marginals like Esher and Walton and Guildford and Surrey SW, it is no longer the ultra safe Tory county of the Major years that stayed true blue as other areas fell to Blair and Ashdown.
By contrast here in Essex, which used to be classic marginal territory with lots of seats won by New Labour, every seat is Tory held and most with big majorities and at county council level the Tories have a large majority of 31 now
Not quite, Cons 47 others 34 so seven seats! But point taken...though don't forget that Guildford had a LibDem MP until 2010 and Jeremy Hunt only held Surrey SW by three figures in 2005. E&W had an over 20,000 majority just 4 years ago in 2017 and the LibDems did not do well in the May elections albeit they captured Cobham in a by-election last week.
Guildford it is true had a LD MP for 1 term but that is the only seat the Tories have lost in the county before. At the next election it is conceivable Surrey SW, Esher and Walton, Woking as well as Guildford could all go yellow as they are all in the top 50 LD target seats.
By contrast here in Essex seats like Harlow and Clacton and Harwich and Thurrock which Blair won are not even in the top 100 Labour target seats or Colchester which was LD is not in the top 50 LD targets either.
One of the curiosities is that there's such a strong East-West gradient on the political map. The places where UKIP/BXP/New Model Tories have done really well tend to be along the East Coast. The further west you go, in general, with exceptions, the less the appeal.
Are there any good theories about what's going on?
Yes. George Osborne. Austerity. Government cut funding to councils; councils made cuts; people blamed the Labour councils, and the EU and everyone except the government; voted UKIP then Leave then Tory.
And this is where I used to say Cameron and Osborne caused Brexit and ended their own careers with their gerrymandering (whose side-effect was disenfranchising pro-Remain voters) and austerity. However, now PB Tories might say, ah, but there is a God and the end result was Conservative hegemony under the great Boris!
This is what Dominic Cummings saw, hence the levelling up agenda which as we know from Boris's speech yesterday, is, well, who can tell?
That's a polite fiction lefties are telling themselves to convince themselves they have "won the argument".
If blaming Councils were the issue then why haven't Tory Councils been blamed? Tories already had most Councillors nationwide.
More significantly is surely that the country has full employment. With the Living Wage that Osborne introduced, full employment, and affordable houses people are able to afford their own homes and not rely upon Councils.
George Osborne didn't introduce the living wage, he renamed the minimum wage which Conservatives opposed.
He did introduce the Living Wage.
The Minimum Wage tiers already existed. The Living Wage is a brand new even higher tier introduced by Osborne.
Dancing on a pinhead.
Why did the Tories object to the minimum wage?
Why should we care?
That was before I was even an adult and I've voted in six general elections since then.
Whether a prior generation of politicians, very few of whom are still in Parliament and none of whom hold a senior role in the party anymore, opposed it or not is moot now. The Tories in Parliament today have introduced the Living Wage and uplifted the Minimum Wage faster than inflation.
See my post on 'elected dictatorship'. We have an appalling form of democracy. This is symptomatic of it.
Govt ignore parliament, oppositions oppose everything. There is no real debate.
What are you talking about? How is that symptomatic of anything?
In a previous century, a previous generation of politicians lost an argument. They had the argument for good reasons, implemented badly a minimum wage can lead to mass unemployment, but they lost the argument. Future generations of politicians have accepted the new reality and moved on.
But you seem to want to be trapped in a previous century with previous politicians. Why?
I think you are missing the point Philip. As happened then and as happens now Govts do what ever they want and opposition opposes regardless of the merits of the argument. There is no constructive debate.
Stamer came up with a logical issue 2 PMQs ago. I raised it at the time. Everyone including you now agrees with him. Boris just tried to ridicule him as would every PM in history regardless of party. It is what a PM is expected to do.
Same in reverse all that time ago on Mon wage and flip to living wage.
In fact same with every issue. Doesn't matter if you are a Tory or Labour. It is the system.
That is the point. The system is broken. There is no constructive debate.
That's not a broken system it's a system that is working as intended.
Having an opposition that challenges and stress tests the government probing for weaknesses to exploit is a strength of our system.
Having a government that is willing to learn and pick up and address good points the opposition makes, neutering them as a political issue and addressing the issue for the nation, is a strength of our system.
But as it happens the Tories of the day didn't oppose the Minimum Wage just for opposition's sake, but on principle this state level interference in the market can be really harmful and counterproductive. At the time this happened Youth Unemployment was a real issue across much of the West. Many nations had 30%+ Youth Unemployment.
Opposing a policy that you think could lead to 30%+ Youth Unemployment is a good thing not a bad one.
As it happens, the staggering of the age brackets avoided the feared Youth Unemployment issue. Though at the last election Corbyn wanted to abolish the age brackets - I would 100% oppose that for the same reason the minimum wage was originally opposed. Because that would fail. The system is working thanks to the brackets, so abolishing them would be massively counterproductive.
Philip see my other post. I do think you are deluded if you think the opposition stress tests and the govt is willing to learn.
The opposition (no matter who it is) opposes everything and governments (no matter who they are) ignore them. Only when their own side or external pressure comes to force does this change. Just look at the recent issue of excessive isolation due to pings. Starmer was ridiculed by the PM when he brought it up. Only now a week and a bit later is it being considered and because of the reaction in the media and by the population. Starmer had zero impact.
In a well run system, a PM would have taken the issue onboard, had it looked at and agreed or dismissed it. Not dismiss it without a 2nd thought.
But you're wrong, with respect.
The opposition opposing everything means they are testing the government. The media and the government do listen to this opposition and yes the government tries to reject the opposition but if they can't then that's significant.
"Constructive" debate like "checks and balances" doesn't work. It leads to lethargy and false assumptions.
That Starmer wasn't taken more seriously on pings says a lot about Starmers general weakness but it tapped into and fed the conversation in the media about pings and only a few days later the government said they were looking to make changes on how pings work.
If the government isn't willing to learn then the government becomes complacent, the public gets annoyed that issues aren't fixed, and the public can eject the government at the next election. Successful governments do learn, even if they won't give the opposition credit.
GB News attracted zero viewers during some of its broadcasts this week, according to official television audience figures produced by rating agency Barb, after a viewer boycott prompted by one of its presenters taking the knee in solidarity with the England football team.
Well if they bill themselves as an anti-woke channel (and why not?) then its best not to go more woke than your mainstream channels. Otherwise you do get precisely (or imprecisely) nil viewers
Yes, they really don't like free speech or contrary opinions do they the GB News viewers!
What really is killing it, apart from the poor production values, is that there is very little news, just repetitive pub bores rolling out the same tired ill-informed whinges. They just cannot fill 24 hours that way. They probably could manage a couple of hours in the evening.
You know what would be fucking mint? PBTV.
Sample Schedule:
A Look at the Polls with HYUFD
Cooking with Thommo. How to feed a family of four for a week on £1.20.
Doctor Whoishenow. A soap opera featuring a drunk identity shifting rodomontade specialist.
Casino Presents Wokewatch. Today's episode: First they came for the statues.
Questions of Nationalism presented by Malc. (OFCOM permitting)
This Week in Millionaires Complaining About Tyres with Morris Dancer
Dura Ace Fucking Roasts Viewers' Cars
@kinabalu could host “Morality Corner”, positioned like Ronnie Corbett in a chair too big for him, wearing his standard attire of cloth cap and cravat and stroking his chin with Topping as side-kick dishing out thrashings to the morally inferior.
A binocular-attired Francis would then present “Holiday-maker C**ts” to get the blood rising further.
Then, “Trim-watch” with Leon regaling us of “the birds wot I have shagged” while sipping red wine on a different Greek shore every week, feet-up on the previous night’s conquest.
“Marky’s Moth Bothering” would provide lighter relief.
Perhaps we should pick up Leon’s X-Files tribute looking at UFOs and the Lab Leak theories. Who would be Scully to his Mulder though?
For those who don’t understand Barb panels (like the Guardian) it is very common for digital channels to reach ‘zero’ figures. It happens to Sky News , BT Sport often as you can imagine because the panel only has approx 20,000 viewers and if for example 3 quarters don’t have their TV on it is quite believable that none of the other 5k are watching a channel high up the EPG, or equally during a big England match a whole host of channels will rate zero.
This isn’t me saying GB News is doing well or badly or somewhere inbetween more the Guardian reporter has no context or understanding of TV ratings.
I'm sure that the Guardian's Media Editor understands TV ratings — if he doesn't he should not be in the job — so the story is simpy getting a dig in. Sounds a bit "fake news" to me.
Yes I’d probably agree with that. It’s a very tabloid approach to things. Channel 4 News for example is almost always pulling in around 700,000 viewers which is one of the worst performing programmes on the Channel but I can’t imagine the Guardian pushing them for a revamp or slot move.
The key for GB News going forward is what they can achieve for their centrepiece shows like Andrew Neill as that will make or break them rather than the filler.
The weird thing about the outrage towards GB News is that it has surely caused a sort of Streisand effect. TV news is a declining medium anyway. If it had just been ignored by the left then many on the right would probably have stayed away rather than watch in solidarity.
On the other hand the right-leaning viewers may have been disappointed that it was not as right-wing as the left had portrayed it.
More that they found that watching a repetitive right wing echo chamber is actually rather dull. Much more fun frothing at the mouth over something that gets the juices flowing like C4 news.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
What is the rate of risk for hospitalisation or death for a double vaccinated individual? Versus the same for flu?
And bear in mind that we've now vaccinated for Covid people that would not be eligible for a flu vaccine. I've personally had two Covid jabs but would have zero flu jabs in flu season as not eligible for a flu jab.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
That’s true and important but other than masks what’s the significant difference here? I get the impression that the advice to all the administrations is that this wave is going to happen, so best to have it now. I was really surprised that Scotland has decided to loosen restrictions given that prevalence is still so high and their previous zero covid attitude - although thankfully now rates are declining north of the border.
This is something that was obvious from the first minute to myself and a few others on here.
Why it took media and the police so long to recognise and spread mistruths I don’t know. Hopefully they can focus on the online world of racism which is where serious reform is required and the new online safety bill might make some difference.
I was surprised that the BBC went with the flow by describing it as racist. It may well have been racially motivated - though that's a dubious thing to speculate upon - but it seems poor that the normally very small c conservative BBC would make such an error.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
It is not a dud. It is a fantastic vaccine developed in record time.
Pfizer and Moderna are even better
If you say so Charles. Vaccine efficacy of 70.4% doesn’t sound too impressive to my layman’s ears, and you quite literally can’t give away Oxford/AZ in most countries.
I’m delighted to be double-Pfizered and to have my EU vaccine passport clearly stating this fact. It certainly made my Cretan trip last week a very relaxing and pleasant affair. (There were virtually zero UK people there: we bumped in to a total of two Englishmen in the packed Denmark-supporting pub, and they were both residents, not visitors.)
70% is great for vaccines. Flu is often around 50%
Flu tends to be one jab rather than two doesn't it?
I wonder whether if we had two jabs for flu, like two for Covid, whether we might significantly improve protection against the flu?
I wonder if in the future mRNA etc might help produce better flu vaccines too?
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
It doesn't work like that at all. There is no location information used. The distance between contacts is inferred from the received signal strength of Bluetooth Low Energy advertisments that your phone and other phones are continually broadcasting whilst contact tracing is enabled.
It is a crude and inaccurate method of determining proximity, but it enables contact tracing to be on all the time without significantly draining the battery they way continuously using location services might. It also means that contact tracing is being done on the phone relatively anonymously by keep tracking of random IDs to compare against a received list, rather than by collating a large amount of location data points centrally.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
it uses bluetooth and bluetooth will send and receive signals to/from devices x metres from your phone. And that will be in all 3 dimensions and might include walls depending on the impact of the wall on the signal strength.
This is something that was obvious from the first minute to myself and a few others on here.
Why it took media and the police so long to recognise and spread mistruths I don’t know. Hopefully they can focus on the online world of racism which is where serious reform is required and the new online safety bill might make some difference.
I was surprised that the BBC went with the flow by describing it as racist. It may well have been racially motivated - though that's a dubious thing to speculate upon - but it seems poor that the normally very small c conservative BBC would make such an error.
"I was surprised that the BBC went with the flow by describing it as racist" - really?
To the BBC, everything is racist until proven otherwise.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
I wish I could keep up, I'm sure the usual suspects on here were saying the other day that Nicola was doing stuff just to be different from the gibberish merchant.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
That’s true and important but other than masks what’s the significant difference here? I get the impression that the advice to all the administrations is that this wave is going to happen, so best to have it now. I was really surprised that Scotland has decided to loosen restrictions given that prevalence is still so high and their previous zero covid attitude - although thankfully now rates are declining north of the border.
I suspect part of it may be the practical issue of confusion between different areas - there is a limit to the differences that are possible in reality; using the same SAGE data, legal powers, budgetary issues such as furlough, what is politically possible when someone across the border is having a nicer time, and simple confusion amongst the public seem to have featured at different times.
It did not help that IIRC Mr Johnson forgot to explain in his crucial Freedom Day speech on IIRC Monday that the new chnages only applied to England, for instance (as I recall, this tgended to get left out at the beginning of the pandemic but things were improved quite quickly). This was commented on by the Welsh as well on a quick check -
And the SNP is not a majority government anyway unlike the Tories in England, so there is a limit to what they can do if ever the opposition manage to gang up on them. Vide SLAB trying to cut down the jab interval.
This is something that was obvious from the first minute to myself and a few others on here.
Why it took media and the police so long to recognise and spread mistruths I don’t know. Hopefully they can focus on the online world of racism which is where serious reform is required and the new online safety bill might make some difference.
I was surprised that the BBC went with the flow by describing it as racist. It may well have been racially motivated - though that's a dubious thing to speculate upon - but it seems poor that the normally very small c conservative BBC would make such an error.
"I was surprised that the BBC went with the flow by describing it as racist" - really?
To the BBC, everything is racist until proven otherwise.
To be fair to them, when there was the argument about pundits wearing BLM badges, the BBC were very clear that it was not acceptable on the BBC. They normally are careful. They could have reporting the grafitti and then reporting that many consider it to be racially motivated.
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
Covid has so far been more dangerous than 'ordinary' flu but less dangerous than 1918 'Spanish' flu.
How covid mutates in future and how vaccines are further developed to combat it we don't yet know.
The weird thing about the outrage towards GB News is that it has surely caused a sort of Streisand effect. TV news is a declining medium anyway. If it had just been ignored by the left then many on the right would probably have stayed away rather than watch in solidarity.
On the other hand the right-leaning viewers may have been disappointed that it was not as right-wing as the left had portrayed it.
More that they found that watching a repetitive right wing echo chamber is actually rather dull. Much more fun frothing at the mouth over something that gets the juices flowing like C4 news.
See also those Yoons with subs to the National. Obviously lefties would rather point and laugh at G***** B***** News than actually watch that shite for their fix of outrage.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
I wish I could keep up, I'm sure the usual suspects on here were saying the other day that Nicola was doing stuff just to be different from the gibberish merchant.
You mean, like doing what the public approve of?
Must really go now. This work will not get done else.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
A tiny difference in the grand scheme of things. Mask wearing being mandated rather than advised is not going to be the difference between success and catastrophe. Three governments looked at the same data and advice from the UKHSA and all came to the same conclusion, that unlocking over the next month or so and getting through an exit wave of infections is a better plan than delaying it until the autumn or winter.
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
Delta is near-ubiquitous so the app is pinging like a PBer with... although tbh I shouldn't be surprised to hear it was a coding error.
I've always been a big supporter of devolution within England so was interested in the Prime Minister's comments today.
I'm not wholly sure what a "County Deal" is and it doesn't seem the Prime Minister is either. Surrey and Hampshire are not London and expecting Tim Oliver to take over "transport" beyond local buses and cycling seems curious. Are we suggesting for example the County Councils take over South Western Railway? To be fair, they could only do a better job.
There's no mention of proper devolution such as ending capping and allowing Councils to set whatever Council Tax they consider justified for service provision. There's no mention (no surprise) of handing planning control back to elected local councillors (might be good if you wanted to stop the drift of disillusioned Conservatives to the LDs) and, more important, no mention of moving powers to local authorities and providing adequate resources (public health being one example).
The problem with County Councils is so much of their funding is taken up by the provision of care to adults and children - until and unless we see a resolution to the provision and funding of adult social care in particular (those the cost of provision of care to vulnerable children is another big drain on resources), the financial question is going to bedevil progress in other areas.
It also seems the Government has backed away from any talk of ending two-tier local Government and this will be another issue - again, back to Surrey where the Conservative-run County Council faces eleven Districts and Boroughs, many of whom are now run by anti-Conservative groupings. Seeking a common approach to devolution is almost impossible in such a dislocated political environment.
Yes, Runnymede, Surrey Heath, Reigate & Banstead and Woking (minority) are Conservative led out of the 11 Ds&Bs in Surrey. I completely agree that the possibility of even a basic accommodation with the County is near zero.
The Tories now only need to lose 5 seats to lose control of Surrey CC too, Surrey is now full of Tory-LD marginals like Esher and Walton and Guildford and Surrey SW, it is no longer the ultra safe Tory county of the Major years that stayed true blue as other areas fell to Blair and Ashdown.
By contrast here in Essex, which used to be classic marginal territory with lots of seats won by New Labour, every seat is Tory held and most with big majorities and at county council level the Tories have a large majority of 31 now
Not quite, Cons 47 others 34 so seven seats! But point taken...though don't forget that Guildford had a LibDem MP until 2010 and Jeremy Hunt only held Surrey SW by three figures in 2005. E&W had an over 20,000 majority just 4 years ago in 2017 and the LibDems did not do well in the May elections albeit they captured Cobham in a by-election last week.
Guildford it is true had a LD MP for 1 term but that is the only seat the Tories have lost in the county before. At the next election it is conceivable Surrey SW, Esher and Walton, Woking as well as Guildford could all go yellow as they are all in the top 50 LD target seats.
By contrast here in Essex seats like Harlow and Clacton and Harwich and Thurrock which Blair won are not even in the top 100 Labour target seats or Colchester which was LD is not in the top 50 LD targets either.
One of the curiosities is that there's such a strong East-West gradient on the political map. The places where UKIP/BXP/New Model Tories have done really well tend to be along the East Coast. The further west you go, in general, with exceptions, the less the appeal.
Are there any good theories about what's going on?
Yes. George Osborne. Austerity. Government cut funding to councils; councils made cuts; people blamed the Labour councils, and the EU and everyone except the government; voted UKIP then Leave then Tory.
And this is where I used to say Cameron and Osborne caused Brexit and ended their own careers with their gerrymandering (whose side-effect was disenfranchising pro-Remain voters) and austerity. However, now PB Tories might say, ah, but there is a God and the end result was Conservative hegemony under the great Boris!
This is what Dominic Cummings saw, hence the levelling up agenda which as we know from Boris's speech yesterday, is, well, who can tell?
That's a polite fiction lefties are telling themselves to convince themselves they have "won the argument".
If blaming Councils were the issue then why haven't Tory Councils been blamed? Tories already had most Councillors nationwide.
More significantly is surely that the country has full employment. With the Living Wage that Osborne introduced, full employment, and affordable houses people are able to afford their own homes and not rely upon Councils.
George Osborne didn't introduce the living wage, he renamed the minimum wage which Conservatives opposed.
He did introduce the Living Wage.
The Minimum Wage tiers already existed. The Living Wage is a brand new even higher tier introduced by Osborne.
Dancing on a pinhead.
Why did the Tories object to the minimum wage?
Why should we care?
That was before I was even an adult and I've voted in six general elections since then.
Whether a prior generation of politicians, very few of whom are still in Parliament and none of whom hold a senior role in the party anymore, opposed it or not is moot now. The Tories in Parliament today have introduced the Living Wage and uplifted the Minimum Wage faster than inflation.
See my post on 'elected dictatorship'. We have an appalling form of democracy. This is symptomatic of it.
Govt ignore parliament, oppositions oppose everything. There is no real debate.
What are you talking about? How is that symptomatic of anything?
In a previous century, a previous generation of politicians lost an argument. They had the argument for good reasons, implemented badly a minimum wage can lead to mass unemployment, but they lost the argument. Future generations of politicians have accepted the new reality and moved on.
But you seem to want to be trapped in a previous century with previous politicians. Why?
I think you are missing the point Philip. As happened then and as happens now Govts do what ever they want and opposition opposes regardless of the merits of the argument. There is no constructive debate.
Stamer came up with a logical issue 2 PMQs ago. I raised it at the time. Everyone including you now agrees with him. Boris just tried to ridicule him as would every PM in history regardless of party. It is what a PM is expected to do.
Same in reverse all that time ago on Mon wage and flip to living wage.
In fact same with every issue. Doesn't matter if you are a Tory or Labour. It is the system.
That is the point. The system is broken. There is no constructive debate.
That's not a broken system it's a system that is working as intended.
Having an opposition that challenges and stress tests the government probing for weaknesses to exploit is a strength of our system.
Having a government that is willing to learn and pick up and address good points the opposition makes, neutering them as a political issue and addressing the issue for the nation, is a strength of our system.
But as it happens the Tories of the day didn't oppose the Minimum Wage just for opposition's sake, but on principle this state level interference in the market can be really harmful and counterproductive. At the time this happened Youth Unemployment was a real issue across much of the West. Many nations had 30%+ Youth Unemployment.
Opposing a policy that you think could lead to 30%+ Youth Unemployment is a good thing not a bad one.
As it happens, the staggering of the age brackets avoided the feared Youth Unemployment issue. Though at the last election Corbyn wanted to abolish the age brackets - I would 100% oppose that for the same reason the minimum wage was originally opposed. Because that would fail. The system is working thanks to the brackets, so abolishing them would be massively counterproductive.
Philip see my other post. I do think you are deluded if you think the opposition stress tests and the govt is willing to learn.
The opposition (no matter who it is) opposes everything and governments (no matter who they are) ignore them. Only when their own side or external pressure comes to force does this change. Just look at the recent issue of excessive isolation due to pings. Starmer was ridiculed by the PM when he brought it up. Only now a week and a bit later is it being considered and because of the reaction in the media and by the population. Starmer had zero impact.
In a well run system, a PM would have taken the issue onboard, had it looked at and agreed or dismissed it. Not dismiss it without a 2nd thought.
But you're wrong, with respect.
The opposition opposing everything means they are testing the government. The media and the government do listen to this opposition and yes the government tries to reject the opposition but if they can't then that's significant.
"Constructive" debate like "checks and balances" doesn't work. It leads to lethargy and false assumptions.
That Starmer wasn't taken more seriously on pings says a lot about Starmers general weakness but it tapped into and fed the conversation in the media about pings and only a few days later the government said they were looking to make changes on how pings work.
If the government isn't willing to learn then the government becomes complacent, the public gets annoyed that issues aren't fixed, and the public can eject the government at the next election. Successful governments do learn, even if they won't give the opposition credit.
I disagree, but I can't fault your argument. It is a matter of opinion.
The weird thing about the outrage towards GB News is that it has surely caused a sort of Streisand effect. TV news is a declining medium anyway. If it had just been ignored by the left then many on the right would probably have stayed away rather than watch in solidarity.
On the other hand the right-leaning viewers may have been disappointed that it was not as right-wing as the left had portrayed it.
More that they found that watching a repetitive right wing echo chamber is actually rather dull. Much more fun frothing at the mouth over something that gets the juices flowing like C4 news.
See also those Yoons with subs to the National. Obviously lefties would rather point and laugh at G***** B***** News than actually watch that shite for their fix of outrage.
I wouldn't even bother. The nearest I ever got to the DT was Edinburgh Airport to get the free bottle of water (and then I asked the counter clerk to dump the paper in the recycling bin and give me the water). I wonder what that did to their circulation stats in Scotland, now I think back ...
The weird thing about the outrage towards GB News is that it has surely caused a sort of Streisand effect. TV news is a declining medium anyway. If it had just been ignored by the left then many on the right would probably have stayed away rather than watch in solidarity.
On the other hand the right-leaning viewers may have been disappointed that it was not as right-wing as the left had portrayed it.
More that they found that watching a repetitive right wing echo chamber is actually rather dull. Much more fun frothing at the mouth over something that gets the juices flowing like C4 news.
See also those Yoons with subs to the National. Obviously lefties would rather point and laugh at G***** B***** News than actually watch that shite for their fix of outrage.
I have a suspicion that many people watching it are looking for a fix of outrage. And many others watching it are doing so to see what all the outrage is about. Either way the outrage has given a poor channel in a declining industry publicity it could not otherwise dream of.
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
It doesn't work like that at all. There is no location information used. The distance between contacts is inferred from the received signal strength of Bluetooth Low Energy advertisments that your phone and other phones are continually broadcasting whilst contact tracing is enabled.
It is a crude and inaccurate method of determining proximity, but it enables contact tracing to be on all the time without significantly draining the battery they way continuously using location services might. It also means that contact tracing is being done on the phone relatively anonymously by keep tracking of random IDs to compare against a received list, rather than by collating a large amount of location data points centrally.
Ah right, thank you (and @eek). I did say it might be a stupid suggestion! 😬
This is something that was obvious from the first minute to myself and a few others on here.
Why it took media and the police so long to recognise and spread mistruths I don’t know. Hopefully they can focus on the online world of racism which is where serious reform is required and the new online safety bill might make some difference.
I was surprised that the BBC went with the flow by describing it as racist. It may well have been racially motivated - though that's a dubious thing to speculate upon - but it seems poor that the normally very small c conservative BBC would make such an error.
Personally I am rather more scceptical of the BBC.
They have been contributing to fake moral panics for years and years and years.
One of the issues is that the organisation resolutely takes mistaken positions and refuses to backdown when necessary.
Here, for example, is a BBC contributor on the Today Programme going at the Architect the late Zaha Hadid over alleged deaths in her construction project for the 2022 world cup. And hen tying to triangulate the error aftterwards.
They did a very similar job on the chair of the Grenfell Enquiry, before it started, when they repeatedly tried to make her commit to a simplistic outcome - rather than have an intelligent and useful conversation.
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
Covid has so far been more dangerous than 'ordinary' flu but less dangerous than 1918 'Spanish' flu.
How covid mutates in future and how vaccines are further developed to combat it we don't yet know.
‘Spanish’ flu is still about but we’ve had so much exposure to it that it barely matters anymore. Hopefully Covid goes the same way but via vaccination primarily.
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
What is the rate of risk for hospitalisation or death for a double vaccinated individual? Versus the same for flu?
And bear in mind that we've now vaccinated for Covid people that would not be eligible for a flu vaccine. I've personally had two Covid jabs but would have zero flu jabs in flu season as not eligible for a flu jab.
So what would be the relative risk now?
Do we have Long Flu? Where catching Flu may leave you with a long term condition which at best is no taste and smell? The reason why people are still very worried is that your "most of you won't die" argument isn't only what they're worried about
This one is simples. People do not do what the government tell them when the instruction is "do not look at the crushing wave of infections and all the people you know personally getting ill right now". No matter how much you want to stamp your personal liberty onto their throats.
That we have a growing list of people vaccinated is a Good Thing. 50k new cases a day and rising is not as bad as the same in January. But as infections surge way past that, if we're talking a lower percentage of double jabbed and a larger percentage of single jabbed / not jabbed getting really ill then that is still a lot of people.
I know how frustrating you find it that so many are not as clever as you. It is what it is, and you won't persuade their behaviour to change with the "pray the pox away" approach you are deploying.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
A tiny difference in the grand scheme of things. Mask wearing being mandated rather than advised is not going to be the difference between success and catastrophe. Three governments looked at the same data and advice from the UKHSA and all came to the same conclusion, that unlocking over the next month or so and getting through an exit wave of infections is a better plan than delaying it until the autumn or winter.
But none of them are going to come out and say that for obvious reasons,
On topic: The problem isn't the app, is it? We're seeing nearly 50,000 confirmed Covid cases per day, so 500,000 'pings' in a week is entirely proportionate. The app seems to be working fine.
What needs to change is the advice. It would be massively better to have people use the app, and if they get pinged take whatever sensible precautions they can just in case they are infectious, but in any case to test themselves daily with a free LFT test, than for people to switch the app off completely. The former gives some, but not perfect, protection against infecting others; the latter gives no protection at all.
Yet again, the government has badly screwed up the messaging, allowed the best to be the enemy of the good, and got its priorities wrong. The result will, yet again, be avoidable deaths and hospitalisations, unnecessary long Covid, and, inexorably, more economic damage and disruption than we would have got with a more measured and coherent approach.
If you have been double jabbed I agree you should not have to self isolate now if you come into contact with a positive case, not have to wait until the middle of next month
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
It doesn't work like that at all. There is no location information used. The distance between contacts is inferred from the received signal strength of Bluetooth Low Energy advertisments that your phone and other phones are continually broadcasting whilst contact tracing is enabled.
It is a crude and inaccurate method of determining proximity, but it enables contact tracing to be on all the time without significantly draining the battery they way continuously using location services might. It also means that contact tracing is being done on the phone relatively anonymously by keep tracking of random IDs to compare against a received list, rather than by collating a large amount of location data points centrally.
Ah right, thank you (and @eek). I did say it might be a stupid suggestion! 😬
It's acxtually been a very informative discussion - sometimes the best are those which come from someome who isn'tr afraid of seeming to be stupid.
I do wonder if any of it is due to neighbours going out into the garden with their mobiles?
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
Oh come now, thjere are for sure some idiots more henerally (incoluding deliberate bots, remember) but you are confoinding natikonalists and independistas. The SNP make no attempt to keep win ding up the old clock, certainly nothing on the scale of the Tories in England. I haven't seen them trying to reissue some Caledonian version of 'Our Island Story' for instance. They're modern independistas.
I've said it before, but the relative reactions to the vandalisms of the Churchill and Bruce at Bannockburn statues were totally different - and revealingly so.
Off to work now, so play nicely all.
Perhaps the Scottish National Party should change it's name to disassociate itself from the term "nationalist", maybe Scottish Independence Party? Slight problem is that the opinions expressed on here by independence supporters, with the exception of yourself, largely seem to be simply driven anti-English racism. The recent one suggesting that the AZ vaccine was a "dud" because it was invented in England really took the biscuit in crass stupidity.
I deleted the App 24 hours after installing it last year. I could see what was coming.
Now that we have vaccines, testing is a waste of time. We don't test people for flu.
We need to snap out of this fear-laden doom-mongered mindset. And live.
I know this bit is controversial, but if I've caught covid I shan't inform anyone. I'll wear a mask out and about including at the shops and that's it.
And, once again, knowingly put people at risk of catching a highly transmissible and potentially fatal deal is evil.
If you know you have the bug then the only right thing to do is self isolate.
Everything else is fine.
But if the thing is one doesn't KNOW one HAS (capital's intended). All you KNOW is that at some point, possibly several days ago, you've been reasonably near someone who almost certainly is infective.
This isn’t about pinging
My response was to the comment “if I’ve caught COVID I shan’t tell anyone…”
He’s posted it before as well
I was gobsmacked when I saw it this morning. And almost nobody called it out for the contemptible selfishness that it is. This kind of poster, and the nasty tarring of anyone who does disagree as "afraid", is why I don't come here much any more.
Foxy, best of luck with the summer wave. I share your view that it might be okay, but it could equally grow way out of control, with all that that entails. Ironically, it's precisely the behaviour of those who hate lockdown the most that could result in its return.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
That’s true and important but other than masks what’s the significant difference here? I get the impression that the advice to all the administrations is that this wave is going to happen, so best to have it now. I was really surprised that Scotland has decided to loosen restrictions given that prevalence is still so high and their previous zero covid attitude - although thankfully now rates are declining north of the border.
I suspect part of it may be the practical issue of confusion between different areas - there is a limit to the differences that are possible in reality; using the same SAGE data, legal powers, budgetary issues such as furlough, what is politically possible when someone across the border is having a nicer time, and simple confusion amongst the public seem to have featured at different times.
It did not help that IIRC Mr Johnson forgot to explain in his crucial Freedom Day speech on IIRC Monday that the new chnages only applied to England, for instance (as I recall, this tgended to get left out at the beginning of the pandemic but things were improved quite quickly). This was commented on by the Welsh as well on a quick check -
And the SNP is not a majority government anyway unlike the Tories in England, so there is a limit to what they can do if ever the opposition manage to gang up on them. Vide SLAB trying to cut down the jab interval.
The Boris speech point is a great one - hard to tell people "no that isn't the case" when they have just seen the PM say it on live TV. As for the Scottish government, can I just point out again that they have a comfortable majority as the SNP are backed by the Greens?
The whole point of GB News was to be a UK version of Fox News I thought with 99% of its viewers being Leave voting Boris and Trump lovers.
In which case any sign of left liberalism like this will turn off its core viewership, it has to remember it is not a national broadcaster like BBC or ITV or Sky and certainly not a left liberal broadcaster like C4 news it is a channel the only point of watching is for rightwing spin on the news
If you have been double jabbed I agree you should not have to self isolate now if you come into contact with a positive case, not have to wait until the middle of next month
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
What is the rate of risk for hospitalisation or death for a double vaccinated individual? Versus the same for flu?
And bear in mind that we've now vaccinated for Covid people that would not be eligible for a flu vaccine. I've personally had two Covid jabs but would have zero flu jabs in flu season as not eligible for a flu jab.
So what would be the relative risk now?
Do we have Long Flu? Where catching Flu may leave you with a long term condition which at best is no taste and smell? The reason why people are still very worried is that your "most of you won't die" argument isn't only what they're worried about
This one is simples. People do not do what the government tell them when the instruction is "do not look at the crushing wave of infections and all the people you know personally getting ill right now". No matter how much you want to stamp your personal liberty onto their throats.
That we have a growing list of people vaccinated is a Good Thing. 50k new cases a day and rising is not as bad as the same in January. But as infections surge way past that, if we're talking a lower percentage of double jabbed and a larger percentage of single jabbed / not jabbed getting really ill then that is still a lot of people.
I know how frustrating you find it that so many are not as clever as you. It is what it is, and you won't persuade their behaviour to change with the "pray the pox away" approach you are deploying.
Post viral syndroms happens with flu. There were underreported sequalae to the “Spanish” flu pandemic -
On topic: The problem isn't the app, is it? We're seeing nearly 50,000 confirmed Covid cases per day, so 500,000 'pings' in a week is entirely proportionate. The app seems to be working fine.
What needs to change is the advice. It would be massively better to have people use the app, and if they get pinged take whatever sensible precautions they can just in case they are infectious, but in any case to test themselves daily with a free LFT test, than for people to switch the app off completely. The former gives some, but not perfect, protection against infecting others; the latter gives no protection at all.
Yet again, the government has badly screwed up the messaging, allowed the best to be the enemy of the good, and got its priorities wrong. The result will, yet again, be avoidable deaths and hospitalisations, unnecessary long Covid, and, inexorably, more economic damage and disruption than we would have got with a more measured and coherent approach.
For a populist government a more measured and coherent approach is not possible when you are reacting to the brain farts of the non-science/non-logic based masses including the public, the media and the opposition parties.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
It is not a dud. It is a fantastic vaccine developed in record time.
Pfizer and Moderna are even better
If you say so Charles. Vaccine efficacy of 70.4% doesn’t sound too impressive to my layman’s ears, and you quite literally can’t give away Oxford/AZ in most countries.
I’m delighted to be double-Pfizered and to have my EU vaccine passport clearly stating this fact. It certainly made my Cretan trip last week a very relaxing and pleasant affair. (There were virtually zero UK people there: we bumped in to a total of two Englishmen in the packed Denmark-supporting pub, and they were both residents, not visitors.)
70% is great for vaccines. Flu is often around 50%
Flu tends to be one jab rather than two doesn't it?
I wonder whether if we had two jabs for flu, like two for Covid, whether we might significantly improve protection against the flu?
I wonder if in the future mRNA etc might help produce better flu vaccines too?
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
Delta is near-ubiquitous so the app is pinging like a PBer with... although tbh I shouldn't be surprised to hear it was a coding error.
We only need to look at India and see the Delta resulted in a massive spike in cases followed by a rapid decline in numbers.
Scotland seems to show a similar pattern.
And I believe the current fear is that a large number of cases with various level of immunity via vaccination could result in a new variant being created that vaccines are not efficient in protecting us from.
How true that last sentence is I don't know but its a possible risk at the moment given how high cases currently are and how many people have seemingly been told to isolate.
If you have been double jabbed I agree you should not have to self isolate now if you come into contact with a positive case, not have to wait until the middle of next month
I dont understand why LFT testing is not linked to self isolation? Test negative a couple of times over somewhere between 3-5 days and free from isolation? What is wrong with that?
The weird thing about the outrage towards GB News is that it has surely caused a sort of Streisand effect. TV news is a declining medium anyway. If it had just been ignored by the left then many on the right would probably have stayed away rather than watch in solidarity.
On the other hand the right-leaning viewers may have been disappointed that it was not as right-wing as the left had portrayed it.
More that they found that watching a repetitive right wing echo chamber is actually rather dull. Much more fun frothing at the mouth over something that gets the juices flowing like C4 news.
I'm still quite amused at all the frothing from people and groups who support diversity campaigning against diversity in the media. Just very funny.
Why do diversity campaigners always want to impose sameness?
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
What is the rate of risk for hospitalisation or death for a double vaccinated individual? Versus the same for flu?
And bear in mind that we've now vaccinated for Covid people that would not be eligible for a flu vaccine. I've personally had two Covid jabs but would have zero flu jabs in flu season as not eligible for a flu jab.
So what would be the relative risk now?
Do we have Long Flu? Where catching Flu may leave you with a long term condition which at best is no taste and smell? The reason why people are still very worried is that your "most of you won't die" argument isn't only what they're worried about
This one is simples. People do not do what the government tell them when the instruction is "do not look at the crushing wave of infections and all the people you know personally getting ill right now". No matter how much you want to stamp your personal liberty onto their throats.
That we have a growing list of people vaccinated is a Good Thing. 50k new cases a day and rising is not as bad as the same in January. But as infections surge way past that, if we're talking a lower percentage of double jabbed and a larger percentage of single jabbed / not jabbed getting really ill then that is still a lot of people.
I know how frustrating you find it that so many are not as clever as you. It is what it is, and you won't persuade their behaviour to change with the "pray the pox away" approach you are deploying.
Yes we absolutely do have "Long Flu", we just don't have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder for the Flu so we don't pay too much attention to it. Long symptoms after a viral infection is nothing new whatsoever.
I have no qualms with people choosing to take precautions if they want to do so, that is personal liberty. If people choose to take extra precautions then that is their personal choice. Personal liberty means having the freedom to decide to take precautions if you wish to do so.
50k cases a day and rises is not that big a deal in a post-vaccination population of 67 million.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
It is not a dud. It is a fantastic vaccine developed in record time.
Pfizer and Moderna are even better
If you say so Charles. Vaccine efficacy of 70.4% doesn’t sound too impressive to my layman’s ears, and you quite literally can’t give away Oxford/AZ in most countries.
I’m delighted to be double-Pfizered and to have my EU vaccine passport clearly stating this fact. It certainly made my Cretan trip last week a very relaxing and pleasant affair. (There were virtually zero UK people there: we bumped in to a total of two Englishmen in the packed Denmark-supporting pub, and they were both residents, not visitors.)
70% is great for vaccines. Flu is often around 50%
Flu tends to be one jab rather than two doesn't it?
I wonder whether if we had two jabs for flu, like two for Covid, whether we might significantly improve protection against the flu?
I wonder if in the future mRNA etc might help produce better flu vaccines too?
I deleted the App 24 hours after installing it last year. I could see what was coming.
Now that we have vaccines, testing is a waste of time. We don't test people for flu.
We need to snap out of this fear-laden doom-mongered mindset. And live.
I know this bit is controversial, but if I've caught covid I shan't inform anyone. I'll wear a mask out and about including at the shops and that's it.
And, once again, knowingly put people at risk of catching a highly transmissible and potentially fatal deal is evil.
If you know you have the bug then the only right thing to do is self isolate.
Everything else is fine.
But if the thing is one doesn't KNOW one HAS (capital's intended). All you KNOW is that at some point, possibly several days ago, you've been reasonably near someone who almost certainly is infective.
This isn’t about pinging
My response was to the comment “if I’ve caught COVID I shan’t tell anyone…”
He’s posted it before as well
I was gobsmacked when I saw it this morning. And almost nobody called it out for the contemptible selfishness that it is. This kind of poster, and the nasty tarring of anyone who does disagree as "afraid", is why I don't come here much any more.
Foxy, best of luck with the summer wave. I share your view that it might be okay, but it could equally grow way out of control, with all that that entails. Ironically, it's precisely the behaviour of those who hate lockdown the most that could result in its return.
--AS
Always good to hear your measured view AS. Hope you’re well.
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
What is the rate of risk for hospitalisation or death for a double vaccinated individual? Versus the same for flu?
And bear in mind that we've now vaccinated for Covid people that would not be eligible for a flu vaccine. I've personally had two Covid jabs but would have zero flu jabs in flu season as not eligible for a flu jab.
So what would be the relative risk now?
Do we have Long Flu? Where catching Flu may leave you with a long term condition which at best is no taste and smell? The reason why people are still very worried is that your "most of you won't die" argument isn't only what they're worried about
This one is simples. People do not do what the government tell them when the instruction is "do not look at the crushing wave of infections and all the people you know personally getting ill right now". No matter how much you want to stamp your personal liberty onto their throats.
That we have a growing list of people vaccinated is a Good Thing. 50k new cases a day and rising is not as bad as the same in January. But as infections surge way past that, if we're talking a lower percentage of double jabbed and a larger percentage of single jabbed / not jabbed getting really ill then that is still a lot of people.
I know how frustrating you find it that so many are not as clever as you. It is what it is, and you won't persuade their behaviour to change with the "pray the pox away" approach you are deploying.
Post viral syndroms happens with flu. There were underreported sequalae to the “Spanish” flu pandemic -
Yes, Long Flu and Long Pneumonia are fairly common. They don’t have a catchy name, but as you say it’s unfortunately fairly common for people to take a while to recover from a virus.
The weird thing about the outrage towards GB News is that it has surely caused a sort of Streisand effect. TV news is a declining medium anyway. If it had just been ignored by the left then many on the right would probably have stayed away rather than watch in solidarity.
On the other hand the right-leaning viewers may have been disappointed that it was not as right-wing as the left had portrayed it.
More that they found that watching a repetitive right wing echo chamber is actually rather dull. Much more fun frothing at the mouth over something that gets the juices flowing like C4 news.
I'm still quite amused at all the frothing from people and groups who support diversity campaigning against diversity in the media. Just very funny.
Why do diversity campaigners always want to impose sameness?
Apart from consumers in the marketplace of ideas running away from GB News as fast as their legs will carry them, who's ‘imposing’ anything?
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
It is not a dud. It is a fantastic vaccine developed in record time.
Pfizer and Moderna are even better
If you say so Charles. Vaccine efficacy of 70.4% doesn’t sound too impressive to my layman’s ears, and you quite literally can’t give away Oxford/AZ in most countries.
I’m delighted to be double-Pfizered and to have my EU vaccine passport clearly stating this fact. It certainly made my Cretan trip last week a very relaxing and pleasant affair. (There were virtually zero UK people there: we bumped in to a total of two Englishmen in the packed Denmark-supporting pub, and they were both residents, not visitors.)
70% is great for vaccines. Flu is often around 50%
Flu tends to be one jab rather than two doesn't it?
I wonder whether if we had two jabs for flu, like two for Covid, whether we might significantly improve protection against the flu?
I wonder if in the future mRNA etc might help produce better flu vaccines too?
J&J is one jab, that is now approved.
Does that not have a lower efficacy?
It does yes. If you have multiple vaccines some will have a higher efficacy and others lower by definition. The head of the vaccine task force said she would have approved vaccines around 40% efficacy, J&J is mid sixties, i.e. a good vaccine.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
The reality is that when Murray was young he made the stupid "anyone but England" quote. That was hardly going to endear him. And while he is very admirable and an amazing athlete he isn't exactly likeable. In spite of all of that masses of English people supported him, including myself. the Nats like to try and spin the lie though.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
A moronic post that does you no credit Stuart.
Back to trashing the vaccines on PB.
Have to say it is correct though, you rarely if ever hear anything about "Oxford vaccine" nowadays.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
The reality is that when Murray was young he made the stupid "anyone but England" quote. That was hardly going to endear him. And while he is very admirable and an amazing athlete he isn't exactly likeable. In spite of all of that masses of English people supported him, including myself. the Nats like to try and spin the lie though.
I have always found him funny and likeable, even when he was a moody teenage reluctant star.
There are some utterly moronic posts this morning from ostensibly intelligent posters who really ought to know better. Leaving aside the teeth-grindingly awful childish patois that some employ “the pox”, the antivax trashing of AZ and the absolutely imbecilic straw men “people are wishing covid away”, the grasp of conditional probabilities is truly embarrassing for what should be a mathematical site.
Those that wish to lock themselves away forever are free to do so. Much of the country has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives. Unless you are preaching total lockdown with the main vector - schools - closed permanently and life barely worth living, other interventions are fairly marginal.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
To answer the Spectator's question: I think the Tories failed to listen to the players' own explanation for why they were taking the knee. If they had listened and taken the players seriously they would have seen that taking the opposite side would land them in hot water, because most reasonable people listening to what the players were saying with an open mind would be on their side. Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem. The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'. I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
The reality is that when Murray was young he made the stupid "anyone but England" quote. That was hardly going to endear him. And while he is very admirable and an amazing athlete he isn't exactly likeable. In spite of all of that masses of English people supported him, including myself. the Nats like to try and spin the lie though.
My sympathies are with Murray there. The context was a jokey exchange with Tim Henman and a BBC presenter, at the time of the 2006 World Cup, who were roundly taking the piss out of Scotland not qualifying. In those circumstances his response was equally jokey and fine - the media made far too much out of it. What is NOT a fair criticism of the U.K. papers is they change his nationality based on whether he wins or loses, that’s bollocks, and proven to be so.
On thread: Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but there are examples of people getting pinged from being in the next house to someone who tests positive. Close proximity, yes, but surely a wall being in the way makes it difficult for the bug? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/neighbours-pinged-walls-nhs-covid-app/
My gut feeling over the past week is that there is something weird happening with the app. This is partly because lots of not especially raver type mates (generally bookish introverts) have been getting pinged without knowing anyone else who had.
In blocks of flats and offices in particular, 2m proximity for over 15m is definitely imaginable....
Um, this is probably a really stupid suggestion but could there be a 2D effect here? By which I mean, is the app locating people in only two dimensions so that it decides you are in the same place as someone 10 floors above you?
I assume the phones use a combination of GPS and mobile cell triangulation... not sure how well GPS will work inside, say, a block of flats, which only leaves the triangulation.
If someone actually knows how this works it would be interesting to hear.
It doesn't work like that at all. There is no location information used. The distance between contacts is inferred from the received signal strength of Bluetooth Low Energy advertisments that your phone and other phones are continually broadcasting whilst contact tracing is enabled.
It is a crude and inaccurate method of determining proximity, but it enables contact tracing to be on all the time without significantly draining the battery they way continuously using location services might. It also means that contact tracing is being done on the phone relatively anonymously by keep tracking of random IDs to compare against a received list, rather than by collating a large amount of location data points centrally.
Ah right, thank you (and @eek). I did say it might be a stupid suggestion! 😬
It's acxtually been a very informative discussion - sometimes the best are those which come from someome who isn'tr afraid of seeming to be stupid.
I do wonder if any of it is due to neighbours going out into the garden with their mobiles?
You can also imagine the situation in a semi or terrace or flat where bedrooms back on to each other and the occupants of each pop their phones next to the bed overnight. Assuming the BT will penetrate the wall, then that's hours in 'close proximity' if the person on one side is infected.
*The BT link to the car from our phones will penetrate a wall, for sure, but might be different BT profile, lower power for the app?
Indeed. My point is that the border between "I know I have Covid, fuck off" from Cocky and "I may have Covid, I am going to act like I haven't" or better still "YOU may have Covid, I am going to instruct you as my employee to act like you haven't" is a fine one.
Some posters want to pray the pox away. It appears the majority do not - so are being described as "afraid". Yes, they are afraid. A runaway pandemic where once again the UK is at the leading edge of the infection wave does that to you.
"Its just like the flu" in terms of impact and the way we should act is what they keep posting. Most of us have had flu. It isn't a big deal and has a fixed short-term impact. Covid is not flu. It does not have a fixed impact, and the long-term effects for many sound fare more debilitating than the short. Suggest that its long covid that has people afeared.
Covid is not the flu you're right. Flu season kills tens of thousands of people and post vaccination Covid is killing far less than that.
Covid post vaccines is less than the flu not more than it.
If you're not vaccinated get vaccinated but if you are vaccinated then Covid has every chance of being asymptomatic and considerably milder than real flu (as opposed to man flu).
FWIW I think RP is right and you're wrong, and dangerously so. If we all followed your advice we would collectively be in very deep trouble.
What is the rate of risk for hospitalisation or death for a double vaccinated individual? Versus the same for flu?
And bear in mind that we've now vaccinated for Covid people that would not be eligible for a flu vaccine. I've personally had two Covid jabs but would have zero flu jabs in flu season as not eligible for a flu jab.
So what would be the relative risk now?
Do we have Long Flu? Where catching Flu may leave you with a long term condition which at best is no taste and smell? The reason why people are still very worried is that your "most of you won't die" argument isn't only what they're worried about
This one is simples. People do not do what the government tell them when the instruction is "do not look at the crushing wave of infections and all the people you know personally getting ill right now". No matter how much you want to stamp your personal liberty onto their throats.
That we have a growing list of people vaccinated is a Good Thing. 50k new cases a day and rising is not as bad as the same in January. But as infections surge way past that, if we're talking a lower percentage of double jabbed and a larger percentage of single jabbed / not jabbed getting really ill then that is still a lot of people.
I know how frustrating you find it that so many are not as clever as you. It is what it is, and you won't persuade their behaviour to change with the "pray the pox away" approach you are deploying.
Post viral syndroms happens with flu. There were underreported sequalae to the “Spanish” flu pandemic -
Yes, Long Flu and Long Pneumonia are fairly common. They don’t have a catchy name, but as you say it’s unfortunately fairly common for people to take a while to recover from a virus.
My wife is now 21 months and still not fully recovered, doubt her lungs will ever be fully recovered either.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
A moronic post that does you no credit Stuart.
Back to trashing the vaccines on PB.
Have to say it is correct though, you rarely if ever hear anything about "Oxford vaccine" nowadays.
So speaks the king of moronic posts. Let's say this very slowly so even you might understand. It is called the AZ vaccine because that is the company that has taken it into mass production. It has been largely known as this since well before anti-vaxxers and morons like Macron tried to suggest there was a problem with it.
Personally I would rather take the view of the MHRA than Mr Macron, or for that matter some thick as pig shit anti-English Scottish nationalists
Obviously the app should be de-sensitized a bit. Those who to what they're told after being pinged are those who can afford to self-isolate. Many can't afford to self isolate. And those who are double-jabbed and continue to self-isolate after a negative test are likely to find the whole business ridiculous. Thus it's hard for almost everyone told to self isolate by the to take the message seriously. + the app would surely need to play less of a role if the pre-July 19th regime continued a bit longer. Never mentioned, thanks for so much of the talk being about masks, are the restrictions there have been on "events"—yielding rules which have applied, among others, to night club owners and hosts of large parties. From the 19th, there'll surely be many more superspreading events, and plenty more pinging.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
Scumbag on with his hatred and bile yet again I see. Back under your rock vile creature.
There are some utterly moronic posts this morning from ostensibly intelligent posters who really ought to know better. Leaving aside the teeth-grindingly awful childish patois that some employ “the pox”, the antivax trashing of AZ and the absolutely imbecilic straw men “people are wishing covid away”, the grasp of conditional probabilities is truly embarrassing for what should be a mathematical site.
Those that wish to lock themselves away forever are free to do so. Much of the country has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives. Unless you are preaching total lockdown with the main vector - schools - closed permanently and life barely worth living, other interventions are fairly marginal.
Enough.
Question. If "much of the has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives" then why do repeated polls show the opposite is true? As for people wishing to "lock themselves away forever" who is suggesting that? Today is Friday, the sun is shining, people are getting out and about and that is before Monday's "freedom day". In what way are we locked down at the moment?
You may have decided that deleting the shark detector app removes the shark, but the majority as yet have not. For the morally outraged of you this summer is not going to be fun. A summer of headlines as pox tears out of control, with a long list if restrictions being maintained in the UK and a longer list of countries refusing to let us waltz over from plague island without restrictions.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
To answer the Spectator's question: I think the Tories failed to listen to the players' own explanation for why they were taking the knee. If they had listened and taken the players seriously they would have seen that taking the opposite side would land them in hot water, because most reasonable people listening to what the players were saying with an open mind would be on their side. Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem. The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'. I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
Perhaps they thought England would crash out early in the tournament, and everyone could blame the players for not focusing enough on football? With the backup plan of cheering the players and riding the optimistic wave if England did well.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
To answer the Spectator's question: I think the Tories failed to listen to the players' own explanation for why they were taking the knee. If they had listened and taken the players seriously they would have seen that taking the opposite side would land them in hot water, because most reasonable people listening to what the players were saying with an open mind would be on their side. Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem. The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'. I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
There are some utterly moronic posts this morning from ostensibly intelligent posters who really ought to know better. Leaving aside the teeth-grindingly awful childish patois that some employ “the pox”, the antivax trashing of AZ and the absolutely imbecilic straw men “people are wishing covid away”, the grasp of conditional probabilities is truly embarrassing for what should be a mathematical site.
Those that wish to lock themselves away forever are free to do so. Much of the country has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives. Unless you are preaching total lockdown with the main vector - schools - closed permanently and life barely worth living, other interventions are fairly marginal.
Enough.
You have a point - however the level of discourse on this subject (everywhere) has dropped to the same level of polarised nonsense where rational conversation becomes impossible. Covid is neither the end times nor less than an extremely serious public health problem. Accept those incontrovertible facts and we can talk.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
Oh come now, thjere are for sure some idiots more henerally (incoluding deliberate bots, remember) but you are confoinding natikonalists and independistas. The SNP make no attempt to keep win ding up the old clock, certainly nothing on the scale of the Tories in England. I haven't seen them trying to reissue some Caledonian version of 'Our Island Story' for instance. They're modern independistas.
I've said it before, but the relative reactions to the vandalisms of the Churchill and Bruce at Bannockburn statues were totally different - and revealingly so.
Off to work now, so play nicely all.
Perhaps the Scottish National Party should change it's name to disassociate itself from the term "nationalist", maybe Scottish Independence Party? Slight problem is that the opinions expressed on here by independence supporters, with the exception of yourself, largely seem to be simply driven anti-English racism. The recent one suggesting that the AZ vaccine was a "dud" because it was invented in England really took the biscuit in crass stupidity.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
The reality is that when Murray was young he made the stupid "anyone but England" quote. That was hardly going to endear him. And while he is very admirable and an amazing athlete he isn't exactly likeable. In spite of all of that masses of English people supported him, including myself. the Nats like to try and spin the lie though.
I have always found him funny and likeable, even when he was a moody teenage reluctant star.
Me too. In fact on the (now defunct) Big 4 of tennis, my pref - measured by how much I root for them whilst watching - has always been a bit contrarian.
Murray Djokovic Nadal Federer
I like them all but that's my order, and I reckon it's probably the dead opposite to most tennis fans.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
To answer the Spectator's question: I think the Tories failed to listen to the players' own explanation for why they were taking the knee. If they had listened and taken the players seriously they would have seen that taking the opposite side would land them in hot water, because most reasonable people listening to what the players were saying with an open mind would be on their side. Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem. The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'. I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
Credit to Boris though who appears to have struck a tone on the knee that reflects the country. Patel has been accused for going too far for not speaking out against the booing and Starmer going too far by taking the knee himself. BJ appears to have captured the centre ground on this one.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
To answer the Spectator's question: I think the Tories failed to listen to the players' own explanation for why they were taking the knee. If they had listened and taken the players seriously they would have seen that taking the opposite side would land them in hot water, because most reasonable people listening to what the players were saying with an open mind would be on their side. Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem. The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'. I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
Fantastic post.
As a Tory seeing so many on 'my own side' fall down here with closed-minded ignorance of what people were protesting against and a pig-headed refusal to listen to what the gesture meant to the people making it has been downright frustrating.
Whatever mainstream gesture people make, whether it be flying the flag or bending the knee, to be arrogantly telling other people what that gesture means rather than listening to those making it is hubristic, rude and ignorant.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
That’s true and important but other than masks what’s the significant difference here? I get the impression that the advice to all the administrations is that this wave is going to happen, so best to have it now. I was really surprised that Scotland has decided to loosen restrictions given that prevalence is still so high and their previous zero covid attitude - although thankfully now rates are declining north of the border.
Hence the reason they loosened it , numbers were dropping rapidly and they actually look at the data unlike Boris.
On topic, the current wave of Delta, leading to high case numbers and rising hospitalisations and deaths, seems to have provoked a matching wave of many on here wishing Covid would magically disappear, and making a personal contribution to this by deleting the app.
The trouble is that a lot of people know people who are getting it, even those who are double vaxxed, and are getting ill, so they wish to be cautious. My personal anecdote is my 29-year-old stepdaughter. Double jabbed early on, because of her job. No health issues. Got pinged two weeks ago, and didn't ignore it despite her vaccination status. Then fell ill. PCR tested positive. Spent most of last weekend in A&E, where there were huge queues. Now diagnosed with pneumonia, with potential long-term consequences. She's been, and still is, really ill. No, she's not going to die, but what she's gone through is really nothing like flu. Meanwhile, we have been having to look after the infected grandchild, who also had Covid symptoms, and have been a bit nervous despite being double vaxxed.
Maybe we've just been unlucky, but I suspect that despite the dismissive comments on here quite a lot of the population have similar stories to tell and therefore remain understandably cautious.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
The reality is that when Murray was young he made the stupid "anyone but England" quote. That was hardly going to endear him. And while he is very admirable and an amazing athlete he isn't exactly likeable. In spite of all of that masses of English people supported him, including myself. the Nats like to try and spin the lie though.
I have always found him funny and likeable, even when he was a moody teenage reluctant star.
Andy Murray has done Mock the Week several times. He has a sense of humour.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
It is not a dud. It is a fantastic vaccine developed in record time.
Pfizer and Moderna are even better
If you say so Charles. Vaccine efficacy of 70.4% doesn’t sound too impressive to my layman’s ears, and you quite literally can’t give away Oxford/AZ in most countries.
I’m delighted to be double-Pfizered and to have my EU vaccine passport clearly stating this fact. It certainly made my Cretan trip last week a very relaxing and pleasant affair. (There were virtually zero UK people there: we bumped in to a total of two Englishmen in the packed Denmark-supporting pub, and they were both residents, not visitors.)
70% is great for vaccines. Flu is often around 50%
Flu tends to be one jab rather than two doesn't it?
I wonder whether if we had two jabs for flu, like two for Covid, whether we might significantly improve protection against the flu?
I wonder if in the future mRNA etc might help produce better flu vaccines too?
J&J is one jab, that is now approved.
You don't want to have just 1 jab of J&J against delta. I think it would be a great booster though.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
That’s true and important but other than masks what’s the significant difference here? I get the impression that the advice to all the administrations is that this wave is going to happen, so best to have it now. I was really surprised that Scotland has decided to loosen restrictions given that prevalence is still so high and their previous zero covid attitude - although thankfully now rates are declining north of the border.
Hence the reason they loosened it , numbers were dropping rapidly and they actually look at the data unlike Boris.
In recent opinion polls the Tories are steady and Labour is down slightly. No sign of damage to the Conservatives from the "taking the knee" debate as the Spectator seems to think.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
The reality is that when Murray was young he made the stupid "anyone but England" quote. That was hardly going to endear him. And while he is very admirable and an amazing athlete he isn't exactly likeable. In spite of all of that masses of English people supported him, including myself. the Nats like to try and spin the lie though.
I have always found him funny and likeable, even when he was a moody teenage reluctant star.
Andy Murray has done Mock the Week several times. He has a sense of humour.
I feel like the contradiction of those 2 sentences needs some explanation.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
Many Scots with chips on their shoulders love saying this, because it plays to the idea of "Infamy, infamy, the English have all got it in for me". But "Sutton United Win the FA Cup" would be front-page British news, whereas "Sutton United Get Knocked Out in the Preliminaries" would only make the local press.
Trust me. You're not being picked on.
Don't tell him that. He bizarrely likes to wallow in a phoney sense of Scottish inferiority to appeal to an equally phoney sense of injustice. The inconvenient truth for the Nats is that Scots have been a driving force behind the British establishment. Their universities and schools have provided a disproportionate amount of leading politicians who are either Scottish or of Scottish decent. The Blair government was a leading example. The Scots were enthusiastic promoters of Empire, and their troops used to repress the genuinely oppressed around the world. Nats promote a false history, just like all nationalists and their close cousins, fascists.
The 'colonised' claims some SNATs use are fascinating given that there were no end to the Scottish settlers / soldiers / traders / explorers during the British Empire days.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
That’s history. I get more pissed off at his peddling demonstrably false claims about current events.
Yes indeed, but most Nats are so used to lying to try and promote their cause that the two things are heavily linked. Their approach is not that dissimilar to Trump supporters.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve posted that article reporting on the Dundee study that debunked the Murray “Scottish/British” myth but to no avail.
The reality is that when Murray was young he made the stupid "anyone but England" quote. That was hardly going to endear him. And while he is very admirable and an amazing athlete he isn't exactly likeable. In spite of all of that masses of English people supported him, including myself. the Nats like to try and spin the lie though.
I have always found him funny and likeable, even when he was a moody teenage reluctant star.
The fact he is Scottish is all that matters to the most septic poster on the site.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
To answer the Spectator's question: I think the Tories failed to listen to the players' own explanation for why they were taking the knee. If they had listened and taken the players seriously they would have seen that taking the opposite side would land them in hot water, because most reasonable people listening to what the players were saying with an open mind would be on their side. Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem. The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'. I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
Well this conservative is on board and backing the comments of Steve Baker to his colleagues
No doubt as a Man Utd supporter of near 70 years you will understand that I admired Marcus Rashford as a player but his background story and his fight for free school meals has been inspirational and done in a non political way and successfully
I called out the likes of Natalie Elphicke and others whose involvement in the free school meal debate was embarrassing and it is a lesson to the conservative party and its leaders that they need to rid themselves of their deafness to this subject
On taking the knee, I do not like anyone doing it and to be fair there are black premiership footballers who object to it, but the one thing these vile racists have done is to power up support for taking the knee and I am with the players on this
Indeed the three players targeted by the rascists have been an example of the very best of our country in their response
In recent opinion polls the Tories are steady and Labour is down slightly. No sign of damage to the Conservatives from the "taking the knee" debate as the Spectator seems to think.
Some evidence of leakage to the LDs in the culturally liberal Home Counties though. Raab is looking over his shoulder I understand.
Obviously the app should be de-sensitized a bit. Those who to what they're told after being pinged are those who can afford to self-isolate. Many can't afford to self isolate. And those who are double-jabbed and continue to self-isolate after a negative test are likely to find the whole business ridiculous. Thus it's hard for almost everyone told to self isolate by the to take the message seriously. + the app would surely need to play less of a role if the pre-July 19th regime continued a bit longer. Never mentioned, thanks for so much of the talk being about masks, are the restrictions there have been on "events"—yielding rules which have applied, among others, to night club owners and hosts of large parties. From the 19th, there'll surely be many more superspreading events, and plenty more pinging.
So with a fixed signal length how do you de-sensitize it?
The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
To answer the Spectator's question: I think the Tories failed to listen to the players' own explanation for why they were taking the knee. If they had listened and taken the players seriously they would have seen that taking the opposite side would land them in hot water, because most reasonable people listening to what the players were saying with an open mind would be on their side. Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem. The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'. I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
Fantastic post.
As a Tory seeing so many on 'my own side' fall down here with closed-minded ignorance of what people were protesting against and a pig-headed refusal to listen to what the gesture meant to the people making it has been downright frustrating.
Whatever mainstream gesture people make, whether it be flying the flag or bending the knee, to be arrogantly telling other people what that gesture means rather than listening to those making it is hubristic, rude and ignorant.
Your point about the flag is interesting. It seems to be a trigger for both sides in the culture war. The left point to the England / Union flags link to racism and suggest anyone displaying them are racist. The right point to the Scottish flag and insist anyone displaying it has entirely different motivation to the people they defend waving the England/Union flags (often themselves).
Its a flag. Racists shouldn't be allowed to take them for themselves so repatriating it from them is the right thing to do. At the same time it can't be patriotic to fly the England flag in England but almost traitorous to fly the Scotland flag in Scotland.
A lot of criticism of the government, and yet despite how obviously terrible everything they are doing is the Welsh and Scottish governments are doing essentially the same thing. Which is surprising as surely there is some clearly better alternative plan that they could follow in Wales and Scotland rather than aping Johnson's mad plan to kill us all in England. Or maybe what is being done in England, Wales, and Scotland is the least bad option, and the critics are full of it.
TBF, the S and W gmts are not rushing to dump masks on public transport, for one thing.
That’s true and important but other than masks what’s the significant difference here? I get the impression that the advice to all the administrations is that this wave is going to happen, so best to have it now. I was really surprised that Scotland has decided to loosen restrictions given that prevalence is still so high and their previous zero covid attitude - although thankfully now rates are declining north of the border.
Hence the reason they loosened it , numbers were dropping rapidly and they actually look at the data unlike Boris.
There are some utterly moronic posts this morning from ostensibly intelligent posters who really ought to know better. Leaving aside the teeth-grindingly awful childish patois that some employ “the pox”, the antivax trashing of AZ and the absolutely imbecilic straw men “people are wishing covid away”, the grasp of conditional probabilities is truly embarrassing for what should be a mathematical site.
Those that wish to lock themselves away forever are free to do so. Much of the country has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives. Unless you are preaching total lockdown with the main vector - schools - closed permanently and life barely worth living, other interventions are fairly marginal.
Enough.
Question. If "much of the has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives" then why do repeated polls show the opposite is true? As for people wishing to "lock themselves away forever" who is suggesting that? Today is Friday, the sun is shining, people are getting out and about and that is before Monday's "freedom day". In what way are we locked down at the moment?
You may have decided that deleting the shark detector app removes the shark, but the majority as yet have not. For the morally outraged of you this summer is not going to be fun. A summer of headlines as pox tears out of control, with a long list if restrictions being maintained in the UK and a longer list of countries refusing to let us waltz over from plague island without restrictions.
I said much not most (again a basic maths fail on your part). And your final paragraph stinks of hysteria and hyperbole - as usual.
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
A moronic post that does you no credit Stuart.
Back to trashing the vaccines on PB.
Have to say it is correct though, you rarely if ever hear anything about "Oxford vaccine" nowadays.
So speaks the king of moronic posts. Let's say this very slowly so even you might understand. It is called the AZ vaccine because that is the company that has taken it into mass production. It has been largely known as this since well before anti-vaxxers and morons like Macron tried to suggest there was a problem with it.
Personally I would rather take the view of the MHRA than Mr Macron, or for that matter some thick as pig shit anti-English Scottish nationalists
"On a personal level I know of several people I have regular dealings with who have had to self isolate because they were pinged even though they have been double jabbed."
And why not? AstraZeneca is estimated to have only about 60% efficacy against symptomatic infection, where the Delta variant is concerned. Its efficacy against asymptomatic infection is expected to be lower. The "double jabbed" can still get the disease and pass on the disease.
Whatever anyone thinks the best strategy is for dealing with this, please let's not mislead anyone into thinking otherwise.
I love how when it was launched, amid much boke-inducing hype, it was boastingly called the “Oxford” vaccine (sticking out of chest compulsory). Now that the planet universally acknowledges it as a dud, it is the “AstraZeneca” vaccine, a product of a dodgy EU company, based in Sweden.
Shades of that other phenomenon: - Andy Murray winning =British success - Andy Murray losing = Scottish failure
A moronic post that does you no credit Stuart.
Back to trashing the vaccines on PB.
Have to say it is correct though, you rarely if ever hear anything about "Oxford vaccine" nowadays.
So speaks the king of moronic posts. Let's say this very slowly so even you might understand. It is called the AZ vaccine because that is the company that has taken it into mass production. It has been largely known as this since well before anti-vaxxers and morons like Macron tried to suggest there was a problem with it.
Personally I would rather take the view of the MHRA than Mr Macron, or for that matter some thick as pig shit anti-English Scottish nationalists
You should have let the SCons know about that 'largely known as' thing before they exploded with outrage.
Obviously the app should be de-sensitized a bit. Those who to what they're told after being pinged are those who can afford to self-isolate. Many can't afford to self isolate. And those who are double-jabbed and continue to self-isolate after a negative test are likely to find the whole business ridiculous. Thus it's hard for almost everyone told to self isolate by the to take the message seriously. + the app would surely need to play less of a role if the pre-July 19th regime continued a bit longer. Never mentioned, thanks for so much of the talk being about masks, are the restrictions there have been on "events"—yielding rules which have applied, among others, to night club owners and hosts of large parties. From the 19th, there'll surely be many more superspreading events, and plenty more pinging.
So with a fixed signal length how do you de-sensitize it?
Desensitising it seems the wrong answer to the wrong problem.
A sane, sensible solution is to keep it at the same sensitivity but to ignore the 'pings' unless and until verified with a test. So a ping is nothing more than a nudge to say "you may have been infected, its probably a good idea to get a test". Nothing more, nothing less, no isolation unless a test actually says "positive".
There are some utterly moronic posts this morning from ostensibly intelligent posters who really ought to know better. Leaving aside the teeth-grindingly awful childish patois that some employ “the pox”, the antivax trashing of AZ and the absolutely imbecilic straw men “people are wishing covid away”, the grasp of conditional probabilities is truly embarrassing for what should be a mathematical site.
Those that wish to lock themselves away forever are free to do so. Much of the country has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives. Unless you are preaching total lockdown with the main vector - schools - closed permanently and life barely worth living, other interventions are fairly marginal.
Enough.
You have a point - however the level of discourse on this subject (everywhere) has dropped to the same level of polarised nonsense where rational conversation becomes impossible. Covid is neither the end times nor less than an extremely serious public health problem. Accept those incontrovertible facts and we can talk.
Absolutely. You see it on here daily: it’s stupidly polarised with normally intelligent posters spouting antivax poison to support their extreme positions.
I’m an avowed Covid centrist, and therefore in a small minority it would seem.
It does yes. If you have multiple vaccines some will have a higher efficacy and others lower by definition. The head of the vaccine task force said she would have approved vaccines around 40% efficacy, J&J is mid sixties, i.e. a good vaccine.
In an ideal world a vaccine would be great in terms of every characteristic. Efficacy, cost, ease of use, storage, manufacturing difficulties, the strength/promptness/duration of the immune response; all of these thing would be top notch in that ideal world, but in reality they all vary.
As it stands it is looking like the lipid nanoparticle vector vaccines (Pfizer) produce the fastest and strongest immune response, and that viral vector vaccines (AZN) may produce the most enduring response. It may be that we would choose the former for fighting outbreaks, and the latter for regular mass immunisation programmes.
But anybody who tries to reduce such complicated science and technology down to "this is good, that is bad" is a chump.
When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem.
Just as well politicians never use speech writers ...
Also, if they are going to tweak the app, rather than making it less sensitive, they should make it more informative. At the moment it can tell you the day on which you had the contact, but that information is slightly hidden, and it doesn't tell you the time period. They should change it so that it prominently displays both date and approximate time - so that if, for example, the 'contact' was during the night when someone was sleeping with their phone next to a party wall with their neighbour, or was during the day outdoors, then you could figure out that it's a false alarm. Conversely, if it was at a potentially risky indoor venue, then that too is worth knowing - you could warn people who were with you but who might not have had the app installed that they need to take precautions and get tested.
Comments
The opposition opposing everything means they are testing the government. The media and the government do listen to this opposition and yes the government tries to reject the opposition but if they can't then that's significant.
"Constructive" debate like "checks and balances" doesn't work. It leads to lethargy and false assumptions.
That Starmer wasn't taken more seriously on pings says a lot about Starmers general weakness but it tapped into and fed the conversation in the media about pings and only a few days later the government said they were looking to make changes on how pings work.
If the government isn't willing to learn then the government becomes complacent, the public gets annoyed that issues aren't fixed, and the public can eject the government at the next election. Successful governments do learn, even if they won't give the opposition credit.
The key for GB News going forward is what they can achieve for their centrepiece shows like Andrew Neill as that will make or break them rather than the filler.
And before that there was Scotland's own attempts at colonies most notably the Darien debacle.
And before that there were the Scottish invasions of Ireland and plantations in Ulster (and the Hebrides).
And bear in mind that we've now vaccinated for Covid people that would not be eligible for a flu vaccine. I've personally had two Covid jabs but would have zero flu jabs in flu season as not eligible for a flu jab.
So what would be the relative risk now?
It is a crude and inaccurate method of determining proximity, but it enables contact tracing to be on all the time without significantly draining the battery they way continuously using location services might. It also means that contact tracing is being done on the phone relatively anonymously by keep tracking of random IDs to compare against a received list, rather than by collating a large amount of location data points centrally.
To the BBC, everything is racist until proven otherwise.
It did not help that IIRC Mr Johnson forgot to explain in his crucial Freedom Day speech on IIRC Monday that the new chnages only applied to England, for instance (as I recall, this tgended to get left out at the beginning of the pandemic but things were improved quite quickly). This was commented on by the Welsh as well on a quick check -
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/mark-drakeford-criticises-boris-johnson-21041949
And the SNP is not a majority government anyway unlike the Tories in England, so there is a limit to what they can do if ever the opposition manage to gang up on them. Vide SLAB trying to cut down the jab interval.
How covid mutates in future and how vaccines are further developed to combat it we don't yet know.
Obviously lefties would rather point and laugh at G***** B***** News than actually watch that shite for their fix of outrage.
Must really go now. This work will not get done else.
They have been contributing to fake moral panics for years and years and years.
One of the issues is that the organisation resolutely takes mistaken positions and refuses to backdown when necessary.
Here, for example, is a BBC contributor on the Today Programme going at the Architect the late Zaha Hadid over alleged deaths in her construction project for the 2022 world cup. And hen tying to triangulate the error aftterwards.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2015/sep/24/zaha-hadid-walks-out-bbc-today-programme-interview-audio
They are just not very good at some things.
They did a very similar job on the chair of the Grenfell Enquiry, before it started, when they repeatedly tried to make her commit to a simplistic outcome - rather than have an intelligent and useful conversation.
This one is simples. People do not do what the government tell them when the instruction is "do not look at the crushing wave of infections and all the people you know personally getting ill right now". No matter how much you want to stamp your personal liberty onto their throats.
That we have a growing list of people vaccinated is a Good Thing. 50k new cases a day and rising is not as bad as the same in January. But as infections surge way past that, if we're talking a lower percentage of double jabbed and a larger percentage of single jabbed / not jabbed getting really ill then that is still a lot of people.
I know how frustrating you find it that so many are not as clever as you. It is what it is, and you won't persuade their behaviour to change with the "pray the pox away" approach you are deploying.
What needs to change is the advice. It would be massively better to have people use the app, and if they get pinged take whatever sensible precautions they can just in case they are infectious, but in any case to test themselves daily with a free LFT test, than for people to switch the app off completely. The former gives some, but not perfect, protection against infecting others; the latter gives no protection at all.
Yet again, the government has badly screwed up the messaging, allowed the best to be the enemy of the good, and got its priorities wrong. The result will, yet again, be avoidable deaths and hospitalisations, unnecessary long Covid, and, inexorably, more economic damage and disruption than we would have got with a more measured and coherent approach.
I do wonder if any of it is due to neighbours going out into the garden with their mobiles?
Ouch Starmer
Foxy, best of luck with the summer wave. I share your view that it might be okay, but it could equally grow way out of control, with all that that entails. Ironically, it's precisely the behaviour of those who hate lockdown the most that could result in its return.
--AS
In which case any sign of left liberalism like this will turn off its core viewership, it has to remember it is not a national broadcaster like BBC or ITV or Sky and certainly not a left liberal broadcaster like C4 news it is a channel the only point of watching is for rightwing spin on the news
Good grief! The Party has got this one wrong?
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/spanish-flu-pandemic-and-mental-health-historical-perspective
Back to trashing the vaccines on PB.
Scotland seems to show a similar pattern.
And I believe the current fear is that a large number of cases with various level of immunity via vaccination could result in a new variant being created that vaccines are not efficient in protecting us from.
How true that last sentence is I don't know but its a possible risk at the moment given how high cases currently are and how many people have seemingly been told to isolate.
Why do diversity campaigners always want to impose sameness?
I have no qualms with people choosing to take precautions if they want to do so, that is personal liberty. If people choose to take extra precautions then that is their personal choice. Personal liberty means having the freedom to decide to take precautions if you wish to do so.
50k cases a day and rises is not that big a deal in a post-vaccination population of 67 million.
https://www.healthline.com/health/adult-vaccines/johnson-and-johnson-vaccine-efficacy#for-how-long
Those that wish to lock themselves away forever are free to do so. Much of the country has decided that it is happy to live with the slim risk to the vaccinated and get on with its lives. Unless you are preaching total lockdown with the main vector - schools - closed permanently and life barely worth living, other interventions are fairly marginal.
Enough.
Why didn't they do that? Snobbishness is probably part of the story. When Southgate penned his excellent and moving "Dear England" letter, there were complaints from Downing Street suggesting it must have been ghostwritten. Because obviously nobody in football (not even a man intelligent enough to have been tasked with managing the national team) could be smart enough to write in proper English, right? The reflexive elitism of the English ruling class is a problem.
The other obvious explanation is that they are just unaware or deliberately blind to the extent of racism in English society, and so are conditioned to downplay the very thing that the England players were protesting against. If you don't think racism is a problem, you will tend to assume that anti-racist actions are just 'gesture politics' or 'wokery'.
I sincerely hope the Tories learn something from this because we need as many people as possible to be on board in the fight to create a society free from the poison of racism, and the comments coming from the Cabinet, right from the top in fact, on this topic were unhelpful towards that cause, in my opinion.
*The BT link to the car from our phones will penetrate a wall, for sure, but might be different BT profile, lower power for the app?
Personally I would rather take the view of the MHRA than Mr Macron, or for that matter some thick as pig shit anti-English Scottish nationalists
+ the app would surely need to play less of a role if the pre-July 19th regime continued a bit longer. Never mentioned, thanks for so much of the talk being about masks, are the restrictions there have been on "events"—yielding rules which have applied, among others, to night club owners and hosts of large parties. From the 19th, there'll surely be many more superspreading events, and plenty more pinging.
You may have decided that deleting the shark detector app removes the shark, but the majority as yet have not. For the morally outraged of you this summer is not going to be fun. A summer of headlines as pox tears out of control, with a long list if restrictions being maintained in the UK and a longer list of countries refusing to let us waltz over from plague island without restrictions.
Murray
Djokovic
Nadal
Federer
I like them all but that's my order, and I reckon it's probably the dead opposite to most tennis fans.
As a Tory seeing so many on 'my own side' fall down here with closed-minded ignorance of what people were protesting against and a pig-headed refusal to listen to what the gesture meant to the people making it has been downright frustrating.
Whatever mainstream gesture people make, whether it be flying the flag or bending the knee, to be arrogantly telling other people what that gesture means rather than listening to those making it is hubristic, rude and ignorant.
The trouble is that a lot of people know people who are getting it, even those who are double vaxxed, and are getting ill, so they wish to be cautious. My personal anecdote is my 29-year-old stepdaughter. Double jabbed early on, because of her job. No health issues. Got pinged two weeks ago, and didn't ignore it despite her vaccination status. Then fell ill. PCR tested positive. Spent most of last weekend in A&E, where there were huge queues. Now diagnosed with pneumonia, with potential long-term consequences. She's been, and still is, really ill. No, she's not going to die, but what she's gone through is really nothing like flu. Meanwhile, we have been having to look after the infected grandchild, who also had Covid symptoms, and have been a bit nervous despite being double vaxxed.
Maybe we've just been unlucky, but I suspect that despite the dismissive comments on here quite a lot of the population have similar stories to tell and therefore remain understandably cautious.
No doubt as a Man Utd supporter of near 70 years you will understand that I admired Marcus Rashford as a player but his background story and his fight for free school meals has been inspirational and done in a non political way and successfully
I called out the likes of Natalie Elphicke and others whose involvement in the free school meal debate was embarrassing and it is a lesson to the conservative party and its leaders that they need to rid themselves of their deafness to this subject
On taking the knee, I do not like anyone doing it and to be fair there are black premiership footballers who object to it, but the one thing these vile racists have done is to power up support for taking the knee and I am with the players on this
Indeed the three players targeted by the rascists have been an example of the very best of our country in their response
Its a flag. Racists shouldn't be allowed to take them for themselves so repatriating it from them is the right thing to do. At the same time it can't be patriotic to fly the England flag in England but almost traitorous to fly the Scotland flag in Scotland.
I've always found it just fine to give my name and number on a piece of paper.
A sane, sensible solution is to keep it at the same sensitivity but to ignore the 'pings' unless and until verified with a test. So a ping is nothing more than a nudge to say "you may have been infected, its probably a good idea to get a test". Nothing more, nothing less, no isolation unless a test actually says "positive".
I’m an avowed Covid centrist, and therefore in a small minority it would seem.
As it stands it is looking like the lipid nanoparticle vector vaccines (Pfizer) produce the fastest and strongest immune response, and that viral vector vaccines (AZN) may produce the most enduring response. It may be that we would choose the former for fighting outbreaks, and the latter for regular mass immunisation programmes.
But anybody who tries to reduce such complicated science and technology down to "this is good, that is bad" is a chump.