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another_richard said:

dixiedean said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

Exactly WHY NOT is one of the great mysteries. It seems to unite most on PB. And it cuts across traditional boundaries. Tories and Labour Leavers
and Remainers. Lockuppers and Letfreeers.

Not just PBers but the general populace as well.

Yet the entire political government establishment takes the opposite view.

A difference which is worthy of academic research.

What's odd is that they seem to have had a completely fatalistic attitude to the virus reaching the UK — ("we can't possibly stop it getting here"), but once it was here they instituted all sorts of draconian measures within the UK. Wouldn't it have made more sense to be draconian to begin with in terms of quarantining and screening arrivals from overseas?

Andy_JS said:

another_richard said:

dixiedean said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

Exactly WHY NOT is one of the great mysteries. It seems to unite most on PB. And it cuts across traditional boundaries. Tories and Labour Leavers
and Remainers. Lockuppers and Letfreeers.

Not just PBers but the general populace as well.

Yet the entire political government establishment takes the opposite view.

A difference which is worthy of academic research.

What's odd is that they seem to have had a completely fatalistic attitude to the virus reaching the UK, but once it was here they instituted all sorts of draconian measures within the UK. Wouldn't it have made more sense to be draconian to begin with in terms of quarantining and screening arrivals from overseas?

You would think so.

The government thinks it should be easier to travel from New York to London than from York to London.

Given the lack of criticism it seems that Starmer agrees.

another_richard said:

dixiedean said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

Exactly WHY NOT is one of the great mysteries. It seems to unite most on PB. And it cuts across traditional boundaries. Tories and Labour Leavers
and Remainers. Lockuppers and Letfreeers.

Not just PBers but the general populace as well.

Yet the entire political and government establishment takes the opposite view.

A difference which is worthy of academic research.

It is simply bizarre. Almost all countries have shut incoming flights. Or at least insisted on enforced (to varying degree of ssverity) quarantine.
Except ours.
To the casual observer that appears nuts. And have heard no consistent rationale, nor any persistent media hounding.
I accept that it can't be a major form of transmission as the numbers are relatively small.
But nonetheless....

I always remember the tweet from an Italian guy (on about 20th March) who arrived back in the UK after visiting relatives in northern Italy and was shocked to find that he could just walk off the plane and into the UK without any checks of any type. There was a full lockdown in northern Italy at that time.

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/simonfell/status/1258498540000677890?s=20

Oh dear. That tune sounds a tad American but never mind because Vera Lynn is to follow but surely We'll Meet Again evokes the start of the war, not its end. And a national toast. The whole day's programme seems very unimaginative, drawn up on the back of an envelope by someone who doesn't care enough to think.

I for one will be watching the VE-Day rom com A Royal Night Out, which does not seem to be on telly, surprisingly.

Andy_JS said:

I always remember the tweet from an Italian guy (on about 20th March) who arrived back in the UK after visiting relatives in northern Italy and was shocked to find that he could just walk off the plane and into the UK without any checks of any type. There was a full lockdown in northern Italy at that time.

Similarly I was shocked before the lockdown when the woman in front of me in M&S was chatting about how lucky she'd been to get back the previous day from Spain where everything was closed because of Covid-19.

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

The main driver?

Statistically that sounds unlikely.

Apparently there are 20,000 new cases of CV-19 a day in the UK (source: PB earlier today quoting a SAGE member), and air travel has virtually shut down. I'd be staggered if more than 50,000 people were arriving by air into the UK a day, it may well be a lot lower than that.

I can't work out how air travel could be the main driver, unless you think 50% of foreigners are CV-19 carriers.

Track back those infections and they will originate in someone bringing the virus into the country.

That's what the government allowed to happen because it thought that unrestricted flying was more important than lives.

Sure. If you go back far enough 100% of infections came from abroad.

The right time to have shut down air travel was about eight weeks ago. It's now a bit late.

eadric said:

Andy_JS said:

another_richard said:

dixiedean said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

Exactly WHY NOT is one of the great mysteries. It seems to unite most on PB. And it cuts across traditional boundaries. Tories and Labour Leavers
and Remainers. Lockuppers and Letfreeers.

Not just PBers but the general populace as well.

Yet the entire political government establishment takes the opposite view.

A difference which is worthy of academic research.

What's odd is that they seem to have had a completely fatalistic attitude to the virus reaching the UK — ("we can't possibly stop it getting here"), but once it was here they instituted all sorts of draconian measures within the UK. Wouldn't it have made more sense to be draconian to begin with in terms of quarantining and screening arrivals from overseas?

Yes, quite

Oh we cannot possibly stop someone flying from Wuhan to London, it’s pointless and draconian

But we CAN close down all the schools, messing with the heads of many millions of British kids

What a fucking shit show. I have tried to be positive about this government and COVID but they have badly mismanaged almost everything from the get-go.

I bought my first masks on Feb 14 while Boris was in Chevening eating canapés

Up until Boris got ill it was all looking pretty organised and that 'things would be alright', we even had Ferguson predicting "5,000-20,000" deaths. Since then the government has
been flailing all over the show, even since Boris's return, and their failings at the start of the crisis are also now being exposed. The leaks and the clearly mistaken briefings to the media as well, such as that which caused this morning's newspaper headlines. Amateur hour.

"Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that "we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side"."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/government-has-terrorised-britons-believing-coronavirus-will/

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

The main driver?

Statistically that sounds unlikely.

Apparently there are 20,000 new cases of CV-19 a day in the UK (source: PB earlier today quoting a SAGE member), and air travel has virtually shut down. I'd be staggered if more than 50,000 people were arriving by air into the UK a day, it may well be a lot lower than that.

I can't work out how air travel could be the main driver, unless you think 50% of foreigners are CV-19 carriers.

Track back those infections and they will originate in someone bringing the virus into the country.

That's what the government allowed to happen because it thought that unrestricted flying was more important than lives.

Sure. If you go back far enough 100% of infections came from abroad.

The right time to have shut down air travel was about eight weeks ago. It's now a bit late.

Stage 4 of Sir Humphrey's guide to doing nothing.

"The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago; the second best time is now." It might be the same with closing airports, even if we should have acted sooner.

"Air travel was the main driver behind the spread of coronavirus, according to a study which adds more weight to the theory that closing borders helps avert major crises.

Brazilian researchers found the nations hit hardest by the killer disease were ones which had busy airports accepting thousands of international flights.

It may explain why the US and the UK - which have the first and third highest air travel globally - have also suffered the most COVID-19 deaths with 74,600 and 30,615, respectively."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

DecrepiterJohnL said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

The main driver?

Statistically that sounds unlikely.

Apparently there are 20,000 new cases of CV-19 a day in the UK (source: PB earlier today quoting a SAGE member), and air travel has virtually shut down. I'd be staggered if more than 50,000 people were arriving by air into the UK a day, it may well be a lot lower than that.

I can't work out how air travel could be the main driver, unless you think 50% of foreigners are CV-19 carriers.

Track back those infections and they will originate in someone bringing the virus into the country.

That's what the government allowed to happen because it thought that unrestricted flying was more important than lives.

Sure. If you go back far enough 100% of infections came from abroad.

The right time to have shut down air travel was about eight weeks ago. It's now a bit late.

Stage 4 of Sir Humphrey's guide to doing nothing.

"The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago; the second best time is now." It might be the same with closing airports, even if we should have acted sooner.

All this is a balance between economic impacts and likely health impacts.

So, you could drop road deaths in the UK by 90% by cutting speed limits 75%, but the economic (and societal impact) would be too great.

It also seems pointless to shut down flights to places without problems. South Korea has no CV-19 cases to speak of, so why bother? All you will do is discourage Korean companies from wanting to have major operations in the UK.

By contrast, Mexico clearly has a massive and growing problem, so why allow any at all?

In the middle, you want to implement - as the Chinese did - varying degrees of quarantine for people coming and going.

It's also worth remembering that we will continue to have freight flights (and ships) in and out of the UK. This means that people will come and go.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

rcs1000 said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

The main driver?

Statistically that sounds unlikely.

Apparently there are 20,000 new cases of CV-19 a day in the UK (source: PB earlier today quoting a SAGE member), and air travel has virtually shut down. I'd be staggered if more than 50,000 people were arriving by air into the UK a day, it may well be a lot lower than that.

I can't work out how air travel could be the main driver, unless you think 50% of foreigners are CV-19 carriers.

Track back those infections and they will originate in someone bringing the virus into the country.

That's what the government allowed to happen because it thought that unrestricted flying was more important than lives.

Sure. If you go back far enough 100% of infections came from abroad.

The right time to have shut down air travel was about eight weeks ago. It's now a bit late.

Stage 4 of Sir Humphrey's guide to doing nothing.

The key thing is the relative prevalence of the virus in our country and the ones we're connected with.

So, for example the first tier would would be arrivals from places like South Korea where there is no virus problem. We would allow flights from SK (and other places where the virus is demonstrably under control).

The second tier would be relatively low risk places like Germany or even I suspect Italy. They probably have lower virus prevalence than the UK, but it would be sensible to test all people arriving. Quarantine, however, is probably not required.

Third tier would be places with virus prevalence like UK or slightly worse, like France or the US. Here you'd want to implement two week quarantines for people arriving to make sure you didn't import cases.

Finally would be places where the virus is out of control, where you would simply not allow flights at all.

Quarantine in an airport hotel does not sound like too much of a hardship compared with lockdown here or wherever passengers flew in from. However, with testing or screening even this could be minimised, and the airports kept open.

One can only imagine that, as with apps and ppe and testing, the airports policy suffers from letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. We cannot guarantee no cases will slip through the net, and therefore we can do nothing.

There are many thousands of beds available in airport hotels around Heathrow. It really wouldn't be a major problem to use them for this.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

The main driver?

Statistically that sounds unlikely.

Apparently there are 20,000 new cases of CV-19 a day in the UK (source: PB earlier today quoting a SAGE member), and air travel has virtually shut down. I'd be staggered if more than 50,000 people were arriving by air into the UK a day, it may well be a lot lower than that.

I can't work out how air travel could be the main driver, unless you think 50% of foreigners are CV-19 carriers.

Track back those infections and they will originate in someone bringing the virus into the country.

That's what the government allowed to happen because it thought that unrestricted flying was more important than lives.

Sure. If you go back far enough 100% of infections came from abroad.

The right time to have shut down air travel was about eight weeks ago. It's now a bit late.

Stage 4 of Sir Humphrey's guide to doing nothing.

"The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago; the second best time is now." It might be the same with closing airports, even if we should have acted sooner.

All this is a balance between economic impacts and likely health impacts.

So, you could drop road deaths in the UK by 90% by cutting speed limits 75%, but the economic (and societal impact) would be too great.

It also seems pointless to shut down flights to places without problems. South Korea has no CV-19 cases to speak of, so why bother? All you will do is discourage Korean companies from wanting to have major operations in the UK.

By contrast, Mexico clearly has a massive and growing problem, so why allow any at all?

In the middle, you want to implement - as the Chinese did - varying degrees of quarantine for people coming and going.

It's also worth remembering that we will continue to have freight flights (and ships) in and out of the UK. This means that people will come and go.

I'm not advocating closing our skies, but more screening. However, we should note that any number of other countries have stopped passenger flights. What worries me is that we are doing nothing, either because there is no perfect solution or because we should have acted earlier but it is too late now (Sir Humphrey).

They have. But I suspect those that have shut them are now beginning (tentatively) to reopen them, especially to places with very low incidence of CV-19.

It also doesn't seem beyond the wit of man to have divide countries into tiers and have different rules for different countries.

Anabobazina said:

It’s amazing how often I come to PB and read that the only way forward is eternal lockdown.

Funny old world.

Not on this thread you haven't.

We've discussed American politics, screening air passengers, celebrating VE Day, reopening schools at home and abroad, and clapping.

Newsnight -- lockdown and science
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQrtd-WCjos

Always fun to read the education conversations on here. On summer openings, staff (whether state or independent) are contracted for a certain number of teaching days per year. The pay is for those days (though spread over twelve months). I’ve been teaching full days, albeit it with a shift in emphasis, as much more written marking is being generated, compensating for the loss of consistent verbal interaction. Much of my time is spent putting together completely new lessons that can be done online, experimenting with the new technology, making videos, online tutorials, meetings and all sorts of things. So how would schools pay for the extra days if there are summer lessons? Or is the idea that they don’t? Would anyone else work for free for a couple of months? Thought not. Yes, some teachers are going to be doing less but the parental surveys suggest not that many.

The idea that a) children want to see their friends leads so b) fully reopen schools is an equation that seems to be missing the obvious. Schools are spending time teaching and learning (the main job), if children need greater socialisation then lobby government for that instead. Allow them to go and see their friends. If they don’t spread it that would be okay wouldn’t it? What do they do during the summer holidays? Sit in their room and wait until September to see anyone else their age?

This is another example of ‘we must do what we always do’ level of thinking. As some have said earlier, change the school year to compensate for lost time. Use the next few months to resocialise in a safe, controlled environment rather than chucking the children into a maelstrom of fear and concern (and that’s just from the parents).

Anyway, can’t sleep again but it’s a bank holiday so no work tomorrow! Happy V.E. Day everyone.

ukpaul said:

Always fun to read the education conversations on here. On summer openings, staff (whether state or independent) are contracted for a certain number of teaching days per year. The pay is for those days (though spread over twelve months). I’ve been teaching full days, albeit it with a shift in emphasis, as much more written marking is being generated, compensating for the loss of consistent verbal interaction. Much of my time is spent putting together completely new lessons that can be done online, experimenting with the new technology, making videos, online tutorials, meetings and all sorts of things. So how would schools pay for the extra days if there are summer lessons? Or is the idea that they don’t? Would anyone else work for free for a couple of months? Thought not. Yes, some teachers are going to be doing less but the parental surveys suggest not that many.

The idea that a) children want to see their friends leads so b) fully reopen schools is an equation that seems to be missing the obvious. Schools are spending time teaching and learning (the main job), if children need greater socialisation then lobby government for that instead. Allow them to go and see their friends. If they don’t spread it that would be okay wouldn’t it? What do they do during the summer holidays? Sit in their room and wait until September to see anyone else their age?

This is another example of ‘we must do what we always do’ level of thinking. As some have said earlier, change the school year to compensate for lost time. Use the next few months to resocialise in a safe, controlled environment rather than chucking the children into a maelstrom of fear and concern (and that’s just from the parents).

Anyway, can’t sleep again but it’s a bank holiday so no work tomorrow! Happy V.E. Day everyone.

That all seems reasonable. Based on what I see walking to the fish and chip shop, many lessons involve drawing rainbows to display in the window.

There are probably questions for a future inquiry. Did we need to close the schools, given (at the time) children seemed largely unaffected? Could we have closed the schools for everyone except those about to take A-levels?

More immediately, what will have changed in our understanding of the pandemic between closing schools and reopening them, whenever that comes? Are any new precautions required? Or is there no new science and we are just relying on the shapes of graphs emerging from the Imperial College abacus?

rcs1000 said:

rottenborough said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

rottenborough said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Alistair said:

40% of Sweden's home are single occupancy. The UK is 29%.

Wow that is a surprising figure and a massive difference. That should definitely be a relevant figure up there with urbanised population density.

Nearly half the country lives alone? Wow!

In Sweden they have help to buy type scheme on steroids.

Sounds a bit bleak though. All those introverted Swedes sitting in their flats on their own every evening.

It sounds almost like Sweden is in permanent lockdown.

Worth pointing out that 40% of homes being single occupancy is very much not the same thing as nearly half the country living alone. It's more like 18% living in those homes.

TGOHF666 said:

felix said:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1258483091477274627

Oh dear Sir Keith Milibands honeymoon didn’t last long.

Dream on

Andy_JS said:

"Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that "we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side"."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/government-has-terrorised-britons-believing-coronavirus-will/

The two metre advice is fine, making it one metre would have meant less in the real world

Pulpstar said:

On the flights, don't forget particularly a long haul flight acts as a ready catalyst itself One person gets on the flight with it, 3 pre symptomatic carriers get off....

Is there any evidence for this? There seems to be a case where a stewardess may have got covid19 from a religious group on a flight, but beyond that we don't seem to be seeing reports of clusters traceable to people close to you on a plane. If it was happening you'd think we'd be seeing it, because airlines have personal information about their passengers, and know exactly who sat in what seat.

The whole Keir Starmer clap story is fake news. He was just trying to collect his daughter, it's a non story. Even the daily mail article clarifies this. Cameraman involved has tweeted footage from a different angle

https://twitter.com/MarcStevenPhoto/status/1258510260815319040?s=19

Black_Rook said:

isam said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Alistair said:

40% of Sweden's home are single occupancy. The UK is 29%.

Wow that is a surprising figure and a massive difference. That should definitely be a relevant figure up there with urbanised population density.

87.6% of Swedish people who died from Covid were aged 70 or over. It’s probably all to do with care homes. Everyone under 70 has been allowed out

Thus about 95% of all Swedish deaths from Covid-19 were in persons aged 60 or over; wholly consistent with the 96% observed in Italian statistics that I remember quoting on here a week or two back.

Yet more evidence (if it were needed) that this is a disease for which the old pay with their lives and the young pay with their livelihoods.

And on that general topic, time to repeat (with no apology, the full article is well worth the read) this little reminder that, for everyone but the old and those with serious underlying health conditions, this pandemic really does pose no more of a threat than a bad flu season:



Researchers from Stanford University in the US have been trying to count the risk another way - equating it to that which we face from dying while driving.

In the UK, they calculate that those under the age of 65 have faced the same risk over the past few months from coronavirus as they would have faced from driving 185 miles a day - the equivalent of commuting from Swindon to London.

Strip out the under-65s with health conditions - about one in 16 - and the risk is even lower, with deaths in non-vulnerable groups being "remarkably uncommon".

Putting risk in perspective is going to be essential for individuals and decision-makers, the authors suggest.

If we do, we may learn to live with coronavirus. We may have to.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52543692

edmundintokyo said:

Pulpstar said:

On the flights, don't forget particularly a long haul flight acts as a ready catalyst itself One person gets on the flight with it, 3 pre symptomatic carriers get off....

Is there any evidence for this? There seems to be a case where a stewardess may have got covid19 from a religious group on a flight, but beyond that we don't seem to be seeing reports of clusters traceable to people close to you on a plane. If it was happening you'd think we'd be seeing it, because airlines have personal information about their passengers, and know exactly who sat in what seat.

Every flight I've ever been on has never really had my right shoulder distancing from my left, can't really see how it wouldn't have spread with those models too and younger people were barely tested early on here

SouthamObserver said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

felix said:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1258483091477274627

We did this hours ago at the start of this thread. Yes it is all very embarrassing but there is no election and how do the critics think politicians get on telly if not by interacting with camera crews? Seriously?

Did you do this from the cameraman he was speaking to?

https://twitter.com/marcstevenphoto/status/1258510260815319040?s=21

No, common sense, but there you go.

Pulpstar said:

edmundintokyo said:

Pulpstar said:

On the flights, don't forget particularly a long haul flight acts as a ready catalyst itself One person gets on the flight with it, 3 pre symptomatic carriers get off....

Is there any evidence for this? There seems to be a case where a stewardess may have got covid19 from a religious group on a flight, but beyond that we don't seem to be seeing reports of clusters traceable to people close to you on a plane. If it was happening you'd think we'd be seeing it, because airlines have personal information about their passengers, and know exactly who sat in what seat.

Every flight I've ever been on has never really had my right shoulder distancing from my left, can't really see how it wouldn't have spread with those models too and younger people were barely tested early on here

Didn't someone in a recent thread suggest it is because airliners are ventilated vertically so horizontal saliva travel is minimised? Whether there is much communal singing or even conversation is another question.

On topic. Why was it so bad that one of the Georgia senators sold all their shares? Sounds very sensible to me!

Paristonda said:

The whole Keir Starmer clap story is fake news. He was just trying to collect his daughter, it's a non story. Even the daily mail article clarifies this. Cameraman involved has tweeted footage from a different angle

https://twitter.com/MarcStevenPhoto/status/1258510260815319040?s=19

Of course it's just the usual stuff that every Labour leader gets. The fact that the Daily Mail has to scrape the barrel so ridiculously in its character assassination attempt is probably a good sign for Starmer.

But I guess they'll just go back to their tradition methods of just making stuff up.

tlg86 said:

On topic. Why was it so bad that one of the Georgia senators sold all their shares? Sounds very sensible to me!

Spoken like a true Republican!

Berlusconi/Trump: "Of course I evade taxes, it just shows how sensible I am"

tlg86 said:

kamski said:

tlg86 said:

On topic. Why was it so bad that one of the Georgia senators sold all their shares? Sounds very sensible to me!

Spoken like a true Republican!

Berlusconi/Trump: "Of course I evade taxes, it just shows how sensible I am"

What's illegal about selling shares? It's hardly insider trading - everyone could see what was going on.

She sold them after a confidential senate briefing. The point is other people are not able to profit from confidential senate briefings.

kamski said:

tlg86 said:

kamski said:

tlg86 said:

On topic. Why was it so bad that one of the Georgia senators sold all their shares? Sounds very sensible to me!

Spoken like a true Republican!

Berlusconi/Trump: "Of course I evade taxes, it just shows how sensible I am"

What's illegal about selling shares? It's hardly insider trading - everyone could see what was going on.

She sold them after a confidential senate briefing. The point is other people are not able to profit from confidential senate briefings.

And what did that briefing say that wasn't in the public domain?

tlg86 said:

Not impressed with Starmer. Why can't he just write a piece saying why it's important to remember VE Day* without bringing current politics into it?

* I don't think it is actually important, and I wouldn't hold it against a politician who didn't get involved in all of this (I note even the Guardian has it on the front page).

I don't think that is right at all. I've noticed a lot of my Conservative friends being deeply upset this past 24 hours for the precise reason that Sir Keir raises. This touches a very raw nerve for a lot of people. They put their lives on the line for this country and our future, so that you can post things like that. We owe them at the very least the best protection we can provide.

Mysticrose said:

kamski said:

Paristonda said:

The whole Keir Starmer clap story is fake news. He was just trying to collect his daughter, it's a non story. Even the daily mail article clarifies this. Cameraman involved has tweeted footage from a different angle

https://twitter.com/MarcStevenPhoto/status/1258510260815319040?s=19

Of course it's just the usual stuff that every Labour leader gets. The fact that the Daily Mail has to scrape the barrel so ridiculously in its character assassination attempt is probably a good sign for Starmer.

He's had a remarkable front page on today's Daily Telegraph. Their headline is:

Starmer: We owe it to VE Day generation to protect them from virus in care homes

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/sir-keir-starmer-owe-ve-day-generation-protect-virus-care-homes/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-52584638

OK I haven't read the article, but that headline is not positive at all for Starmer from my point of view.

What has being in the "VE generation" got to do with protecting people from the virus in care homes? It's actually a pretty disturbing thing to say.

tlg86 said:

kamski said:

tlg86 said:

kamski said:

tlg86 said:

On topic. Why was it so bad that one of the Georgia senators sold all their shares? Sounds very sensible to me!

Spoken like a true Republican!

Berlusconi/Trump: "Of course I evade taxes, it just shows how sensible I am"

What's illegal about selling shares? It's hardly insider trading - everyone could see what was going on.

She sold them after a confidential senate briefing. The point is other people are not able to profit from confidential senate briefings.

And what did that briefing say that wasn't in the public domain?

Ummm, the briefing wasn't in the public domain, hence confidential.

I'm sure all kinds of people were saying all kinds of things in the public domain at the time.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Andy_JS said:

"Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that "we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side"."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/government-has-terrorised-britons-believing-coronavirus-will/

They did not think the public would understand one metre and were too pig-headed to call it a yard, or three feet, or the length of a supermarket trolley.

Except in football. Back 10 yards for a free kick!

My grandson knows his height in feet and inches.

Anyone under 50 knows what a metre is more than they know what a yard is.

kamski said:

Mysticrose said:

kamski said:

Paristonda said:

The whole Keir Starmer clap story is fake news. He was just trying to collect his daughter, it's a non story. Even the daily mail article clarifies this. Cameraman involved has tweeted footage from a different angle

https://twitter.com/MarcStevenPhoto/status/1258510260815319040?s=19

Of course it's just the usual stuff that every Labour leader gets. The fact that the Daily Mail has to scrape the barrel so ridiculously in its character assassination attempt is probably a good sign for Starmer.

He's had a remarkable front page on today's Daily Telegraph. Their headline is:

Starmer: We owe it to VE Day generation to protect them from virus in care homes

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/sir-keir-starmer-owe-ve-day-generation-protect-virus-care-homes/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-52584638

OK I haven't read the article, but that headline is not positive at all for Starmer from my point of view.

What has being in the "VE generation" got to do with protecting people from the virus in care homes? It's actually a pretty disturbing thing to say.

You're really not up to speed. Sky headline:


https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-nine-chelsea-pensioners-die-with-covid-19-as-hospital-marks-ve-day-11985012

isam said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Alistair said:

40% of Sweden's home are single occupancy. The UK is 29%.

Wow that is a surprising figure and a massive difference. That should definitely be a relevant figure up there with urbanised population density.

87.6% of Swedish people who died from Covid were aged 70 or over. It’s probably all to do with care homes. Everyone under 70 has been allowed out

The majority of Covid ICU cases in Sweden are aged 50 to 69.

rcs1000 said:

Mysticrose said:

Pulpstar said:

On the flights, don't forget particularly a long haul flight acts as a ready catalyst itself One person gets on the flight with it, 3 pre symptomatic carriers get off....

I travelled to SE Asia with Qatar Airways at beginning of February, admittedly in Business Class but I would have no hesitation in flying with them again at the moment. They have introduced some terrific measures from spaced seating, altered meal systems, deep sprayed aircraft to HEPA 99.97% air filtration on board and all with flexible bookings. Book any flight between now and Sept 30th and you can change it around or even cancel it for free.

I don't have any association with Qatar but there's a reason they're the No.1 airline in the world.

https://www.qatarairways.com/en/travel-with-confidence.html

You fly commercial?

There is a moment in his television programme when Piers Morgan put it to Lord Sugar that he'd paid £30 million for a private jet just to avoid queueing at the airport. Sugar thought for a moment and said yes.

logical_song said:

"A secret report warned three years ago that the UK's plans for dealing with a health pandemic were "not sufficient"
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-leaked-report-reveals-government-was-warned-pandemic-plans-were-not-sufficient-11984773

Am surprised that the 'secret report' didn't reach a concerned or friendly journalist in 2017, after Operation Cygnus. Opposition and other MPs don't appear to have been given tip offs to ask about its failings.

Pulpstar said:

edmundintokyo said:

Pulpstar said:

On the flights, don't forget particularly a long haul flight acts as a ready catalyst itself One person gets on the flight with it, 3 pre symptomatic carriers get off....

Is there any evidence for this? There seems to be a case where a stewardess may have got covid19 from a religious group on a flight, but beyond that we don't seem to be seeing reports of clusters traceable to people close to you on a plane. If it was happening you'd think we'd be seeing it, because airlines have personal information about their passengers, and know exactly who sat in what seat.

Every flight I've ever been on has never really had my right shoulder distancing from my left, can't really see how it wouldn't have spread with those models too and younger people were barely tested early on here

Apparently the air gets sucked pretty fast from top to bottom (not horizontally) then passed through a HEPA filter, and people mostly face forwards and don't talk to the person next to them, so it's definitely not a no-brainer that there would be contagion.

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

eadric said:

Daily reminder that Boris STILL hasn’t closed the airports


“Air travel is the main driver of COVID-19 infection”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296417/Why-countries-shut-borders-Scientists-air-travel-main-driver-COVID-19-outbreaks.html

The main driver?

Statistically that sounds unlikely.

Apparently there are 20,000 new cases of CV-19 a day in the UK (source: PB earlier today quoting a SAGE member), and air travel has virtually shut down. I'd be staggered if more than 50,000 people were arriving by air into the UK a day, it may well be a lot lower than that.

I can't work out how air travel could be the main driver, unless you think 50% of foreigners are CV-19 carriers.

Track back those infections and they will originate in someone bringing the virus into the country.

That's what the government allowed to happen because it thought that unrestricted flying was more important than lives.

Sure. If you go back far enough 100% of infections came from abroad.

The right time to have shut down air travel was about eight weeks ago. It's now a bit late.

Stage 4 of Sir Humphrey's guide to doing nothing.

"The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago; the second best time is now." It might be the same with closing airports, even if we should have acted sooner.

All this is a balance between economic impacts and likely health impacts.

So, you could drop road deaths in the UK by 90% by cutting speed limits 75%, but the economic (and societal impact) would be too great.

It also seems pointless to shut down flights to places without problems. South Korea has no CV-19 cases to speak of, so why bother? All you will do is discourage Korean companies from wanting to have major operations in the UK.

By contrast, Mexico clearly has a massive and growing problem, so why allow any at all?

In the middle, you want to implement - as the Chinese did - varying degrees of quarantine for people coming and going.

It's also worth remembering that we will continue to have freight flights (and ships) in and out of the UK. This means that people will come and go.

I'm not advocating closing our skies, but more screening. However, we should note that any number of other countries have stopped passenger flights. What worries me is that we are doing nothing, either because there is no perfect solution or because we should have acted earlier but it is too late now (Sir Humphrey).

They have. But I suspect those that have shut them are now beginning (tentatively) to reopen them, especially to places with very low incidence of CV-19.

It also doesn't seem beyond the wit of man to have divide countries into tiers and have different rules for different countries.

It is not beyond the wit of man at all but it has consequences.

The US should be in the highest risk group. Despite the US banning UK citizens, it is fairly likely Trump would see a reciprocation as an attack he needs to respond to. Other countries will react similarly but obviously their responses have less threat.

If the policy doesnt have much impact but has some downsides it probably it isnt a good policy. Once we get our own numbers down the upside of the policy changes and the balance between the two shifts.

As long as we are actively preparing for how we would manage this in the future the government have got this policy correct.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Andy_JS said:

"Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that "we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side"."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/government-has-terrorised-britons-believing-coronavirus-will/

They did not think the public would understand one metre and were too pig-headed to call it a yard, or three feet, or the length of a supermarket trolley.

Anyone under 50 knows what a metre is more than they know what a yard is.

Well, that certainly isn’t true.

Referring to previous posts, I agree with @matthiasfromhamburg that the smart thing to do would be for schools to start the summer holidays early - say, June - and go back on the 1st August. There might need to be adjustments to the October half term given September-December is already a brutally long term, but I think as a one-off if it got us back in the classroom teachers would take it.

Particularly since it would mean an early end to online teaching, which is bloody hard work.

However, as it would be sensible it won’t happen.

ydoethur said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Andy_JS said:

"Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that "we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side"."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/government-has-terrorised-britons-believing-coronavirus-will/

They did not think the public would understand one metre and were too pig-headed to call it a yard, or three feet, or the length of a supermarket trolley.

Anyone under 50 knows what a metre is more than they know what a yard is.

Well, that certainly isn’t true.

What percentage wouldnt know which is longer? Im guessing its over 10%?

In practice without any measurement devices, Id imagine a lot would use a big stride is about a metre and use exactly the same process to measure a yard.

noneoftheabove said:

ydoethur said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Andy_JS said:

"Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that "we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side"."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/government-has-terrorised-britons-believing-coronavirus-will/

They did not think the public would understand one metre and were too pig-headed to call it a yard, or three feet, or the length of a supermarket trolley.

Anyone under 50 knows what a metre is more than they know what a yard is.

Well, that certainly isn’t true.

What percentage wouldnt know which is longer? Im guessing its over 10%?

In practice without any measurement devices, Id imagine a lot would use a big stride is about a metre and use exactly the same process to measure a yard.

Agreed. And in my experience they’re pretty poor at estimating as a result. How many people know the length of their stride?

I tend to visualise a tall person lying down, which I find is a bit more useful.