Have not read the details, William. Does this align to any extent with my prediction of "extension but no extension" and in particular -
FM ends 1 Jan 2021. All else the same. We pay for frictionless SM access for the foreseeable future or we get it in return for LPF guarantees. We defer agreeing divergence and tariffs and indeed might never do so.
Not nearly enough chaos for Cummings in your scenario.
New admissions to hospital up for 2nd day in a row.
But total number in hospital down again quite well.
If that continues and prevents me from going on holiday (to a self-catering cottage in Dorset with my own household, as it happens) I'm going to be pissed off.
Have not read the details, William. Does this align to any extent with my prediction of "extension but no extension" and in particular -
FM ends 1 Jan 2021. All else the same. We pay for frictionless SM access for the foreseeable future or we get it in return for LPF guarantees. We defer agreeing divergence and tariffs and indeed might never do so.
That sounds about right. I don't think there are any details at this stage, just gossip about the thinking of EU officials.
Oh no, so when we ask for less they respond they are only able to give us what we originally asked for?
How are we going to live with that. Calling the EUs bluff was a brilliant move.
You presumably don't read the Guardian so may have missed their write up from yesterday. It very much reads as though the EU leaders have blinked rather than continue to leave things to the dead hand of Barnier:
"The signal that the EU’s 27 heads of state and government are prepared to turn their focus to the stalling talks will be a boost to Downing Street, where officials have emphasised the need for a resetting of Michel Barnier’s negotiating position."
It reminds me of the reports we used to get about Merkel intervening on the Irish border question.
You are going to be disappointed when she agrees a deal in September
My prediction is that there will be a repeat of what happened over the WA. Johnson will capitulate to the EU in such a way that he can pretend he has 'won'. Farage will point out that he capitulated, but because it will come at the end of a load of hysteria about No Deal, no-one will listen to him.
I will join you in that prediction.
Regardless of the detail, the central certainty (imo) is there will be no "WTO" Brexit on 1st Jan 2021. Or indeed ever.
If Biden can even keep competitive in Texas it will be advantageous, as it will force Trumpton out there to defend it, which will a) create its own narrative and b) suck resources from other battlegrounds.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
Been having another look - PHE model looks solid until end April, given the most recent ONS deaths figure from 22 days later, and if you accept their 0.88%IFR.
After that, we don't have the deaths to verify against, but PHE has the daily infection count almost flatlining, whereas hospital case data would suggest they continued to drop. Struggling to reconcile the two.
Perhaps a smaller proportion of those who now test positive end up in hospital?
Is anyone watching Trump, live on Sky at the moment? What a rambling incompetent, incoherent fool.
Currently ranting about how he knows stocks better than Warren Buffet.
You'll be approaching my level of Trumpophobia at this rate, Philip. And I hope you make it.
I'm past your level.
You're willing to relax and take on faith that Trump will be defeated in November. My level of loathing for Trump is so far past that, that even if he were polling 25% in the polls I wouldn't take anything for granted.
Like a monster in a horror movie, we can't turn our back and assume he won't revive, we need to see this atrocity metaphorically get a stake through the heart, be burnt to dust, whatever it takes.
Agreed. Trump is a danger to everyone: He’s perfectly capable of accidentally triggerring WWIII through shear incompetence & he’s going to cling on to power with every last breath. Until he’s been booted out of the presidency into orbit none of us are safe.
I'd say he is capable of deliberately starting a war if he thought it would play for him in November.
I also expect him to (i) try and fix the election and (ii) when he loses claim it was fraudulent and not concede.
I can see him being frog marched out of the Oval Office by a SWAT team.
Yep. Or medicated and transported horizontal to a room in Trump Tower.
It will be interesting how he plays things post office (assuming no jail). Monetize monetize monetize, I guess.
Difficult if Vladimir calls in his loans.
Btw, any news of Vlad? Not got the virus, has he?
Not been spotted bareback riding recently, no. A mystery. Still pushing through his "Ruler for Life" plan, though, I gather.
Now this really is an EU trap. We would be arguing about the guano tariff exceptions for years. I wonder if HMG will fall for it/gratefully kick the ball into the long grass.
Regional Difference in Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Tokyo: Results from the community point-of-care antibody testing https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.03.20121020v1 The serosurvey is an alternative way to know the magnitude of the population infected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) since the expansion of capacity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was delayed. We herein report seroprevalence of COVID-19 accessed in the two community clinics in Tokyo. The point-of-care immunodiagnostic test was implemented to detect the SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG antibody in the peripheral capillary blood. The overall positive percentage of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody is 3.83% (95% confidence interval: 2.76-5.16) for the entire cohort (n =1,071). The central Tokyo of 23 special wards exhibited a significantly higher prevalence compared to the other area of Tokyo (p =0.02, 4.68% [95%CI: 3.08-6.79] versus 1.83 [0.68-3.95] in central and suburban Tokyo, respectively). The seroprevalence of the cohort surveyed in this study is low for herd immunity, which suggests the need for robust disease control and prevention. A community-based approach, rather than state or prefectural levels, is of importance to figure out profiles of the SARS-COV-2 outbreak...
Nigel, does this paper address the issue of potential cross-reactivity with common cold coronaviruses?
If Biden can even keep competitive in Texas it will be advantageous, as it will force Trumpton out there to defend it, which will a) create its own narrative and b) suck resources from other battlegrounds.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
If Biden did win Texas he would be the first Democrat to do so since Carter in 1976 and have won a landslide
New admissions to hospital up for 2nd day in a row.
But total number in hospital down again quite well.
It's a little hard to interpret the admissions numbers though (at least for England). There's a pretty strong weekend effect in the data, where reported admissions are lower on Saturday-Monday (especially Sunday). They then rise Tuesday-Friday before falling again at the weekends. Given this, the week-on-week figures are more meaningful and these are still dropping at least.
By contrast, the number of people in hospitals is dropping (across most regions) a bit more consistently.
A lot of trials were halted on the back of that report.
Yes.
It's a horrifying story, and the people behind the fake study need to be identified.
It wasn't just on the back of one report. It was a concerted effort to stop the drug becoming a gold standard treatment, because of Trump. Also because it's a cheap, widely available drug, with little profit for the wider drugs industry. But mostly because of Trump.
New admissions to hospital up for 2nd day in a row.
But total number in hospital down again quite well.
If that continues and prevents me from going on holiday (to a self-catering cottage in Dorset with my own household, as it happens) I'm going to be pissed off.
It's as zero a risk holiday as you get.
I hope you get your family holiday.
There are lots of zero and low risk activities that we are still prevented from doing, for no good reason.
Yours is one such example that makes a massive difference to people’s lives.
My son and I ride out on our mountain bikes every July on the bridleways, trails and byways, staying in pubs and eating outside in the evening. It’s the best few days of the year for me, every year.
Regardless of the massive benefits of fresh air, sunshine and keeping fit, it’s pretty clear that that activity is pretty low risk.
The government thinks it’s okay to open bloody Topshop and Miss Selfridge in ten days.
When will it open the hospitality industry in a sensible way, so people can get out and enjoy our country? Yet shops in air conditioned hell come first.
Oh no, so when we ask for less they respond they are only able to give us what we originally asked for?
How are we going to live with that. Calling the EUs bluff was a brilliant move.
You presumably don't read the Guardian so may have missed their write up from yesterday. It very much reads as though the EU leaders have blinked rather than continue to leave things to the dead hand of Barnier:
"The signal that the EU’s 27 heads of state and government are prepared to turn their focus to the stalling talks will be a boost to Downing Street, where officials have emphasised the need for a resetting of Michel Barnier’s negotiating position."
It reminds me of the reports we used to get about Merkel intervening on the Irish border question.
You are going to be disappointed when she agrees a deal in September
My prediction is that there will be a repeat of what happened over the WA. Johnson will capitulate to the EU in such a way that he can pretend he has 'won'. Farage will point out that he capitulated, but because it will come at the end of a load of hysteria about No Deal, no-one will listen to him.
I will join you in that prediction.
Regardless of the detail, the central certainty (imo) is there will be no "WTO" Brexit on 1st Jan 2021. Or indeed ever.
That would require us to keep most single market rules and regulations even if we manage to end free movement and leave the customs union, based on Barnier's position today on what we have to do for a deal
Have not read the details, William. Does this align to any extent with my prediction of "extension but no extension" and in particular -
FM ends 1 Jan 2021. All else the same. We pay for frictionless SM access for the foreseeable future or we get it in return for LPF guarantees. We defer agreeing divergence and tariffs and indeed might never do so.
Not nearly enough chaos for Cummings in your scenario.
Yes, there isn't enough opportunity for profiteering from disaster but I suspect most people would prefer no disaster provided we don't have the immigrants.
Is anyone watching Trump, live on Sky at the moment? What a rambling incompetent, incoherent fool.
Currently ranting about how he knows stocks better than Warren Buffet.
You'll be approaching my level of Trumpophobia at this rate, Philip. And I hope you make it.
I'm past your level.
You're willing to relax and take on faith that Trump will be defeated in November. My level of loathing for Trump is so far past that, that even if he were polling 25% in the polls I wouldn't take anything for granted.
Like a monster in a horror movie, we can't turn our back and assume he won't revive, we need to see this atrocity metaphorically get a stake through the heart, be burnt to dust, whatever it takes.
Agreed. Trump is a danger to everyone: He’s perfectly capable of accidentally triggerring WWIII through shear incompetence & he’s going to cling on to power with every last breath. Until he’s been booted out of the presidency into orbit none of us are safe.
I'd say he is capable of deliberately starting a war if he thought it would play for him in November.
I also expect him to (i) try and fix the election and (ii) when he loses claim it was fraudulent and not concede.
Trump certainly wouldn't be the first US politician to start or perpetuate a war for domestic electoral purposes. Every President from Eisenhower to Ford did so in respect of Vietnam.
Have not read the details, William. Does this align to any extent with my prediction of "extension but no extension" and in particular -
FM ends 1 Jan 2021. All else the same. We pay for frictionless SM access for the foreseeable future or we get it in return for LPF guarantees. We defer agreeing divergence and tariffs and indeed might never do so.
Not nearly enough chaos for Cummings in your scenario.
- perhaps there is a limit to even his appetite for that.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Doesn't it work quite well for Brexiters too?
We retain flexibility to change our rules, or reject a change to EU rules, but we don't have to pay for that flexibility with tariffs until we want to use it.
Yes, that's a good point. It allows us to retain the illusion of sovereignty, without it ever being worth our while to exercise it.
Is anyone watching Trump, live on Sky at the moment? What a rambling incompetent, incoherent fool.
Currently ranting about how he knows stocks better than Warren Buffet.
You'll be approaching my level of Trumpophobia at this rate, Philip. And I hope you make it.
I'm past your level.
You're willing to relax and take on faith that Trump will be defeated in November. My level of loathing for Trump is so far past that, that even if he were polling 25% in the polls I wouldn't take anything for granted.
Like a monster in a horror movie, we can't turn our back and assume he won't revive, we need to see this atrocity metaphorically get a stake through the heart, be burnt to dust, whatever it takes.
Agreed. Trump is a danger to everyone: He’s perfectly capable of accidentally triggerring WWIII through shear incompetence & he’s going to cling on to power with every last breath. Until he’s been booted out of the presidency into orbit none of us are safe.
I'd say he is capable of deliberately starting a war if he thought it would play for him in November.
I also expect him to (i) try and fix the election and (ii) when he loses claim it was fraudulent and not concede.
Trump certainly wouldn't be the first US politician to start or perpetuate a war for domestic electoral purposes. Every President from Eisenhower to Ford did so in respect of Vietnam.
New admissions to hospital up for 2nd day in a row.
But total number in hospital down again quite well.
If that continues and prevents me from going on holiday (to a self-catering cottage in Dorset with my own household, as it happens) I'm going to be pissed off.
It's as zero a risk holiday as you get.
My son and I ride out on our mountain bikes every July on the bridleways, trails and byways, staying in pubs and eating outside in the evening. It’s the best few days of the year for me, every year.
I get that, but youre effectively just wanting all pubs and hotels to be open. 'Your' activity may be low risk, but many others wouldn't be.
Thats the issue. Me seeing my parents and having them around might also be as 'low risk' as you get, but all those low low risks in total do add up.
Oh no, so when we ask for less they respond they are only able to give us what we originally asked for?
How are we going to live with that. Calling the EUs bluff was a brilliant move.
You presumably don't read the Guardian so may have missed their write up from yesterday. It very much reads as though the EU leaders have blinked rather than continue to leave things to the dead hand of Barnier:
"The signal that the EU’s 27 heads of state and government are prepared to turn their focus to the stalling talks will be a boost to Downing Street, where officials have emphasised the need for a resetting of Michel Barnier’s negotiating position."
It reminds me of the reports we used to get about Merkel intervening on the Irish border question.
You are going to be disappointed when she agrees a deal in September
My prediction is that there will be a repeat of what happened over the WA. Johnson will capitulate to the EU in such a way that he can pretend he has 'won'. Farage will point out that he capitulated, but because it will come at the end of a load of hysteria about No Deal, no-one will listen to him.
I will join you in that prediction.
Regardless of the detail, the central certainty (imo) is there will be no "WTO" Brexit on 1st Jan 2021. Or indeed ever.
That would require us to keep most single market rules and regulations even if we manage to end free movement and leave the customs union, based on Barnier's position today on what we have to do for a deal
I reckon if you threaten No Deal until September/October, you can intimidate them into accepting your concessions to their terms.
If Biden can even keep competitive in Texas it will be advantageous, as it will force Trumpton out there to defend it, which will a) create its own narrative and b) suck resources from other battlegrounds.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
If Biden did win Texas he would be the first Democrat to do so since Carter in 1976 and have won a landslide
Democrats winning Texas? Yes, and I expect Elvis will be touring the UK shortly.
TSE will eat pineapple-topped pizza before either happens.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
Is anyone watching Trump, live on Sky at the moment? What a rambling incompetent, incoherent fool.
Currently ranting about how he knows stocks better than Warren Buffet.
You'll be approaching my level of Trumpophobia at this rate, Philip. And I hope you make it.
I'm past your level.
You're willing to relax and take on faith that Trump will be defeated in November. My level of loathing for Trump is so far past that, that even if he were polling 25% in the polls I wouldn't take anything for granted.
Like a monster in a horror movie, we can't turn our back and assume he won't revive, we need to see this atrocity metaphorically get a stake through the heart, be burnt to dust, whatever it takes.
Agreed. Trump is a danger to everyone: He’s perfectly capable of accidentally triggerring WWIII through shear incompetence & he’s going to cling on to power with every last breath. Until he’s been booted out of the presidency into orbit none of us are safe.
I'd say he is capable of deliberately starting a war if he thought it would play for him in November.
I also expect him to (i) try and fix the election and (ii) when he loses claim it was fraudulent and not concede.
Trump certainly wouldn't be the first US politician to start or perpetuate a war for domestic electoral purposes. Every President from Eisenhower to Ford did so in respect of Vietnam.
Thought Nam was unpopular back home, no?
Kennedy felt he couldn't get out of Vietnam and hope to win an election. Nixon famously remarked that he noticed every time he bombed Hanoi, his approval rating went up.
If Biden can even keep competitive in Texas it will be advantageous, as it will force Trumpton out there to defend it, which will a) create its own narrative and b) suck resources from other battlegrounds.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
If Biden did win Texas he would be the first Democrat to do so since Carter in 1976 and have won a landslide
Democrats winning Texas? Yes, and I expect Elvis will be touring the UK shortly.
TSE will eat pineapple-topped pizza before either happens.
TSE has already stated he will eat a pineapple-topped pizza if the Democrats win Texas.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
New admissions to hospital up for 2nd day in a row.
But total number in hospital down again quite well.
If that continues and prevents me from going on holiday (to a self-catering cottage in Dorset with my own household, as it happens) I'm going to be pissed off.
It's as zero a risk holiday as you get.
My son and I ride out on our mountain bikes every July on the bridleways, trails and byways, staying in pubs and eating outside in the evening. It’s the best few days of the year for me, every year.
I get that, but youre effectively just wanting all pubs and hotels to be open. 'Your' activity may be low risk, but many others wouldn't be.
Thats the issue. Me seeing my parents and having them around might also be as 'low risk' as you get, but all those low low risks in total do add up.
Disagree.
My parents, uncle and aunt are all in their 70s and therefore are in high-risk groups. My parents live miles away but my uncle and aunt live two miles from me here in London and I haven’t seen them for months.
I think that’s right. I don’t think I should be able to see them. The stats are crystal clear - they are high risk and having me, my wife or my son pass on something asymptomatically is too big a risk.
But, my travelling to country pubs, where the average age of the barmaids is 25, and where I’d sit outside to eat, is very low risk.
If we are letting shops open, we should let pubs with beer gardens open, and let people stay in pub rooms.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
Regional Difference in Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Tokyo: Results from the community point-of-care antibody testing https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.03.20121020v1 The serosurvey is an alternative way to know the magnitude of the population infected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) since the expansion of capacity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was delayed. We herein report seroprevalence of COVID-19 accessed in the two community clinics in Tokyo. The point-of-care immunodiagnostic test was implemented to detect the SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG antibody in the peripheral capillary blood. The overall positive percentage of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody is 3.83% (95% confidence interval: 2.76-5.16) for the entire cohort (n =1,071). The central Tokyo of 23 special wards exhibited a significantly higher prevalence compared to the other area of Tokyo (p =0.02, 4.68% [95%CI: 3.08-6.79] versus 1.83 [0.68-3.95] in central and suburban Tokyo, respectively). The seroprevalence of the cohort surveyed in this study is low for herd immunity, which suggests the need for robust disease control and prevention. A community-based approach, rather than state or prefectural levels, is of importance to figure out profiles of the SARS-COV-2 outbreak...
Nigel, does this paper address the issue of potential cross-reactivity with common cold coronaviruses?
No - it's a very brief paper. But given the low numbers detected, it seems unlikely they detected such ?
The test kit was the point of care "SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing Kit IgG RF-NC002, Kurabo Industries Ltd, Osaka, Japan".
And the paper conclusion: The overall seroprevalence in this study is low as the survey in Los Angeles,4 which suggests that the majority of the population is immunologically naïve for SARS-CoV-2. Naturally, the prevalence is higher in the place with a higher density of population, such as central Tokyo, since the SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted by droplets. The regional trend of seroprevalence is similar to the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients per unit population (Supplementary Table 3). These facts suggest that the community-based investigation would be beneficial to explore the cause of epidemic contagion. Limitation includes the selection bias and accuracy of the test kit. Concerns about the risk of COVID-19 infection such as past fever, illness of cohabitants or co-workers and working environment were common reasons for the participation of this study, which can cause elevation of seroprevalence. Less sensitivity of test kit develops the underestimation of the prevalence. Further serosurvey, along with the fine characterization of population, is warranted for the measurement of a future outbreak...
It's not a massively significant result, but another data point suggesting relatively low cumulative infection so far.
In general one thing that has become clear to everyone who is paying attention is that the Boris administration definitely prefers no deal to one that prefers the EU. I think the EU is is in the same boat and prefers no deal to one that prefers the UK and both sides want preferential treatment so we are heading to no deal.
Just out, a poll on Trump's handling of race relations. It is damning, and hopefully is truly a sign of the end of him:
"As the country erupts in protests over police brutality and racism, two-thirds of Americans think President Trump has increased racial tensions in the U.S., according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
...
"Overall, 67% said Trump has mostly increased racial tensions, including 92% of Democrats, 73% of independents, 88% of Africans Americans and 63% of whites.
"... almost 6 in 10 Republicans believe he has either increased tensions (29%) or are not sure (30%). That's a finding the pollsters see as significant given how in lockstep Republicans have been with Trump on nearly everything.
"It's very unusual to see Republicans break when the name Trump is presented, but that is the case here," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll."
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
As I understand it, it would be current state aid, taxation, environmental and labour rules (LPF) carried into the agreement in exchange for zero tariffs and zero quotas. The UK government objects to those LPF commitments as too onerous, while at the same time pointing to current high standards. So the EU suggests: stick with LPF standards for now, you could lower them later but we will claw back the tariffs in that case.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
It wasn't just on the back of one report. It was a concerted effort to stop the drug becoming a gold standard treatment, because of Trump. Also because it's a cheap, widely available drug, with little profit for the wider drugs industry. But mostly because of Trump.
That's a pretty strange characterisation. Yes, this was a crap and quite possibly fraudulent paper - but that is it.
The reason most scientists were so riled with Trump is that he contributed to the ridiculous hype of a treatment, which led to a very large number of non randomised, unblinded and poorly designed trials. Which contributed nothing to medical knowledge, and actively hindered trials of other therapies.
And irrespective of the dodgy paper, it seems exceedingly unlikely that this is going to be a particularly useful therapy, let alone a "gold standard".
‘The trial has proceeded at unprecedented speed, enrolling over 11,000 patients from 175 NHS hospitals in the UK. Throughout this time, the independent Data Monitoring Committee has reviewed the emerging data about every two weeks to determine if there is evidence that would be strong enough to affect national and global treatment of COVID-19.
‘On Thursday 4 June, in response to a request from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the independent Data Monitoring Committee conducted a further review of the data. Last night, the Committee recommended the chief investigators review the unblinded data on the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial.
‘We have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19. We have therefore decided to stop enrolling participants to the hydroxychloroquine arm of the RECOVERY Trial with immediate effect. We are now releasing the preliminary results as they have important implications for patient care and public health....
A lot of trials were halted on the back of that report.
Yes.
It's a horrifying story, and the people behind the fake study need to be identified.
It wasn't just on the back of one report. It was a concerted effort to stop the drug becoming a gold standard treatment, because of Trump. Also because it's a cheap, widely available drug, with little profit for the wider drugs industry. But mostly because of Trump.
I agree.
Some people - whose have managed to hide their identities so far - chose to manufacture some data suggesting it was more dangerous simply because they didn't like President Trump. That is appalling behaviour.
(There is an alternative conspiracy theory, if you like. A group of people with Lupus who suddenly found it difficult to get their regular medication decided to discredit it so that there wouldn't be shortages...)
On the positive side, science worked. People - and probably people who didn't vote for President Trump - recognised quite quickly that the study was flawed.
The president said: "Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying, 'This is a great thing that's happening for our country. It's a great day for him, it's a great day for everybody. It's a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day."
If Biden can even keep competitive in Texas it will be advantageous, as it will force Trumpton out there to defend it, which will a) create its own narrative and b) suck resources from other battlegrounds.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
If Biden did win Texas he would be the first Democrat to do so since Carter in 1976 and have won a landslide
Democrats winning Texas? Yes, and I expect Elvis will be touring the UK shortly.
TSE will eat pineapple-topped pizza before either happens.
You can get 1.36 on the Republicans holding Texas. A good return?
Advertising IMO only works when the message resonates. I cannot see how adding back 2.5 million jobs out of 26 million lost will feel like a 'win' to anyone. And it does not even exceed expectations, as 18-20 million are expected to be regained once all countermeasures are taken away.
Neither a win nor an exceeded expectation to claim here.
A lot of trials were halted on the back of that report.
Yes.
It's a horrifying story, and the people behind the fake study need to be identified.
It wasn't just on the back of one report. It was a concerted effort to stop the drug becoming a gold standard treatment, because of Trump. Also because it's a cheap, widely available drug, with little profit for the wider drugs industry. But mostly because of Trump.
I agree.
Some people - whose have managed to hide their identities so far - chose to manufacture some data suggesting it was more dangerous simply because they didn't like President Trump. That is appalling behaviour.
(There is an alternative conspiracy theory, if you like. A group of people with Lupus who suddenly found it difficult to get their regular medication decided to discredit it so that there wouldn't be shortages...)
On the positive side, science worked. People - and probably people who didn't vote for President Trump - recognised quite quickly that the study was flawed.
And even more positively, the drug doesn't work, so the fraudulent paper will do little damage other than to the already poor reputation of the Lancet.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
In general one thing that has become clear to everyone who is paying attention is that the Boris administration definitely prefers no deal to one that prefers the EU. I think the EU is is in the same boat and prefers no deal to one that prefers the UK and both sides want preferential treatment so we are heading to no deal.
Maybe. But a Covid-19 No Deal will be grim. Estimates of the medium term damage of the epidemic after the rebound next year are about 6% of GDP. No Deal medium term damage median consensus about 8% of GDP compared with baseline. It's not a straight addition - you can't close the same car factory twice - but it's still bad.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
Our business has taken it seriously and got some practice in by reducing our turnover by 80% since mid March.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
As I understand it, it would be current state aid, taxation, environmental and labour rules (LPF) carried into the agreement in exchange for zero tariffs and zero quotas. The UK government objects to those LPF commitments as too onerous, while at the same time pointing to current high standards. So the EU suggests: stick with LPF standards for now, you could lower them later but we will claw back the tariffs in that case.
Again, why would the Boris administration agree to that? It's very clear they have dug in with their position, the EU have given plenty of opportunities for Frost and Cummings to climb down but each time they have been refused. For better or worse we're heading to no deal unless the EU agrees to the Canada deal. There's no other way out of it.
If Biden can even keep competitive in Texas it will be advantageous, as it will force Trumpton out there to defend it, which will a) create its own narrative and b) suck resources from other battlegrounds.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
If Biden did win Texas he would be the first Democrat to do so since Carter in 1976 and have won a landslide
Democrats winning Texas? Yes, and I expect Elvis will be touring the UK shortly.
TSE will eat pineapple-topped pizza before either happens.
You can get 1.36 on the Republicans holding Texas. A good return?
Not when you can almost double your money on Trump losing.
A lot of trials were halted on the back of that report.
Yes.
It's a horrifying story, and the people behind the fake study need to be identified.
It wasn't just on the back of one report. It was a concerted effort to stop the drug becoming a gold standard treatment, because of Trump. Also because it's a cheap, widely available drug, with little profit for the wider drugs industry. But mostly because of Trump.
I agree.
Some people - whose have managed to hide their identities so far - chose to manufacture some data suggesting it was more dangerous simply because they didn't like President Trump. That is appalling behaviour.
(There is an alternative conspiracy theory, if you like. A group of people with Lupus who suddenly found it difficult to get their regular medication decided to discredit it so that there wouldn't be shortages...)
On the positive side, science worked. People - and probably people who didn't vote for President Trump - recognised quite quickly that the study was flawed.
And even more positively, the drug doesn't work, so the fraudulent paper will do little damage other than to the already poor reputation of the Lancet.
The MMR Andrew Wakefield defender until far too late Lancet, I think you mean.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
As we discussed the other day, there are far fewer people who might counsel against a no deal than there ever have been. I don't think it will happen (no deal) but it is likely to be a damn near close run thing.
In general one thing that has become clear to everyone who is paying attention is that the Boris administration definitely prefers no deal to one that prefers the EU. I think the EU is is in the same boat and prefers no deal to one that prefers the UK and both sides want preferential treatment so we are heading to no deal.
Maybe. But a Covid-19 No Deal will be grim. Estimates of the medium term damage of the epidemic after the rebound next year are about 6% of GDP. No Deal medium term damage median consensus about 8% of GDP compared with baseline. It's not a straight addition - you can't close the same car factory twice - but it's still bad.
Tbh, I've stopped listening to your posts on this, it's become very clear your agenda is for the EU to "win" at any cost. All of your posts make sense when seen through this lens.
Regional Difference in Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Tokyo: Results from the community point-of-care antibody testing https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.03.20121020v1 The serosurvey is an alternative way to know the magnitude of the population infected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) since the expansion of capacity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was delayed. We herein report seroprevalence of COVID-19 accessed in the two community clinics in Tokyo. The point-of-care immunodiagnostic test was implemented to detect the SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG antibody in the peripheral capillary blood. The overall positive percentage of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody is 3.83% (95% confidence interval: 2.76-5.16) for the entire cohort (n =1,071). The central Tokyo of 23 special wards exhibited a significantly higher prevalence compared to the other area of Tokyo (p =0.02, 4.68% [95%CI: 3.08-6.79] versus 1.83 [0.68-3.95] in central and suburban Tokyo, respectively). The seroprevalence of the cohort surveyed in this study is low for herd immunity, which suggests the need for robust disease control and prevention. A community-based approach, rather than state or prefectural levels, is of importance to figure out profiles of the SARS-COV-2 outbreak...
Nigel, does this paper address the issue of potential cross-reactivity with common cold coronaviruses?
No - it's a very brief paper. But given the low numbers detected, it seems unlikely they detected such ?
The test kit was the point of care "SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing Kit IgG RF-NC002, Kurabo Industries Ltd, Osaka, Japan".
And the paper conclusion: The overall seroprevalence in this study is low as the survey in Los Angeles,4 which suggests that the majority of the population is immunologically naïve for SARS-CoV-2. Naturally, the prevalence is higher in the place with a higher density of population, such as central Tokyo, since the SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted by droplets. The regional trend of seroprevalence is similar to the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients per unit population (Supplementary Table 3). These facts suggest that the community-based investigation would be beneficial to explore the cause of epidemic contagion. Limitation includes the selection bias and accuracy of the test kit. Concerns about the risk of COVID-19 infection such as past fever, illness of cohabitants or co-workers and working environment were common reasons for the participation of this study, which can cause elevation of seroprevalence. Less sensitivity of test kit develops the underestimation of the prevalence. Further serosurvey, along with the fine characterization of population, is warranted for the measurement of a future outbreak...
It's not a massively significant result, but another data point suggesting relatively low cumulative infection so far.
Very surprised to see this in there "Less sensitivity of test kit develops the underestimation of the prevalence". I know it is a different test from a different company, but the LaRoche test claims 100% sensitivity and 99.8% specificity. With such low levels of prevalence, it is very important to use the most sensitive tests available. That wording implies their tests was less than 100% sensitive.
FWIW, at that level of prevalence, the LaRoche test would give a 95% predictive value for a positive test. Not bad.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
In general one thing that has become clear to everyone who is paying attention is that the Boris administration definitely prefers no deal to one that prefers the EU. I think the EU is is in the same boat and prefers no deal to one that prefers the UK and both sides want preferential treatment so we are heading to no deal.
Maybe. But a Covid-19 No Deal will be grim. Estimates of the medium term damage of the epidemic after the rebound next year are about 6% of GDP. No Deal medium term damage median consensus about 8% of GDP compared with baseline. It's not a straight addition - you can't close the same car factory twice - but it's still bad.
As I said earlier, people forget that because something has dropped in value by 90% doesn't mean it can't drop in value by another 90%.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
Most people underestimate the importance of perceived fairness in the way people make decisions.
I hate it when economists call this irrational behaviour. For a social animal, overall fairness within the group is essential for the health of cooperation within, and hence the overall welfare of, the group, and so enforcing it is entirely rational, even if enforcement sometimes carries short-term costs.
A lot of trials were halted on the back of that report.
Yes.
It's a horrifying story, and the people behind the fake study need to be identified.
It wasn't just on the back of one report. It was a concerted effort to stop the drug becoming a gold standard treatment, because of Trump. Also because it's a cheap, widely available drug, with little profit for the wider drugs industry. But mostly because of Trump.
I agree.
Some people - whose have managed to hide their identities so far - chose to manufacture some data suggesting it was more dangerous simply because they didn't like President Trump. That is appalling behaviour.
(There is an alternative conspiracy theory, if you like. A group of people with Lupus who suddenly found it difficult to get their regular medication decided to discredit it so that there wouldn't be shortages...)
On the positive side, science worked. People - and probably people who didn't vote for President Trump - recognised quite quickly that the study was flawed.
And even more positively, the drug doesn't work, so the fraudulent paper will do little damage other than to the already poor reputation of the Lancet.
The MMR Andrew Wakefield defender until far too late Lancet, I think you mean.
Another ill-understood, but likely quite important arm of the immune system;
COVID-19 Virulence in Aged Patients Might Be Impacted by the Host Cellular MicroRNAs Abundance/Profile http://www.aginganddisease.org/EN/10.14336/AD.2020.0428 At the current stage, due to the lack of effective treatment strategies for COVID-19 innovative approaches need to be considered. It is well known that host cellular miRNAs can directly target both viral 3'UTR and coding region of the viral genome to induce the antiviral effect. In this study, we did in silico analysis of human miRNAs targeting SARS (4 isolates) and COVID-19 (29 recent isolates from different regions) genome and correlated our findings with aging and underlying conditions. We found 848 common miRNAs targeting the SARS genome and 873 common microRNAs targeting the COVID-19 genome. Out of a total of 848 miRNAs from SARS, only 558 commonly present in all COVID-19 isolates. Interestingly, 315 miRNAs are unique for COVID-19 isolates and 290 miRNAs unique to SARS. We also noted that out of 29 COVID-19 isolates, 19 isolates have identical miRNA targets. The COVID-19 isolates, Netherland (EPI_ISL_422601), Australia (EPI_ISL_413214), and Wuhan (EPI_ISL_403931) showed six, four, and four unique miRNAs targets, respectively. Furthermore, GO, and KEGG pathway analysis showed that COVID-19 targeting human miRNAs involved in various age-related signaling and diseases. Recent studies also suggested that some of the human miRNAs targeting COVID-19 decreased with aging and underlying conditions. GO and KEGG identified impaired signaling pathway may be due to low abundance miRNA which might be one of the contributing factors for the increasing severity and mortality in aged individuals and with other underlying conditions. Further, in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to validate some of these targets and identify potential therapeutic targets...
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
It really depends on the deal. If it's the deal that includes a self correcting LPF mechanism then it's not worth agreeing to. Anyone who thinks that we get a second bite at this cherry is wrong, once the deal is set, it's set so including something as onerous as a self correcting mechanism that hugely favours the EU will hurt the UK for next 20 years while no deal may hurt for the next 5. I'm not sure which is better or worse at this stage, but I do know that the government are right to resist any treaty clause that self corrects by single party consent. It would signal open season on the UK and all other countries would insist on such clauses going forwards.
In general one thing that has become clear to everyone who is paying attention is that the Boris administration definitely prefers no deal to one that prefers the EU. I think the EU is is in the same boat and prefers no deal to one that prefers the UK and both sides want preferential treatment so we are heading to no deal.
Maybe. But a Covid-19 No Deal will be grim. Estimates of the medium term damage of the epidemic after the rebound next year are about 6% of GDP. No Deal medium term damage median consensus about 8% of GDP compared with baseline. It's not a straight addition - you can't close the same car factory twice - but it's still bad.
Tbh, I've stopped listening to your posts on this, it's become very clear your agenda is for the EU to "win" at any cost. All of your posts make sense when seen through this lens.
Huh? Shooting the messenger? You're more forensic than that Max.
In general one thing that has become clear to everyone who is paying attention is that the Boris administration definitely prefers no deal to one that prefers the EU. I think the EU is is in the same boat and prefers no deal to one that prefers the UK and both sides want preferential treatment so we are heading to no deal.
Maybe. But a Covid-19 No Deal will be grim. Estimates of the medium term damage of the epidemic after the rebound next year are about 6% of GDP. No Deal medium term damage median consensus about 8% of GDP compared with baseline. It's not a straight addition - you can't close the same car factory twice - but it's still bad.
Tbh, I've stopped listening to your posts on this, it's become very clear your agenda is for the EU to "win" at any cost. All of your posts make sense when seen through this lens.
Huh? Shooting the messenger? You're more forensic than that Max.
No, it's just EU propaganda at this stage. I'd rather read @williamglenn, his posts make sense from time to time.
Actually he said that Germany's low rate (of infections and deaths, rather than specifically CFR) is not due to superior testing. Logic suggests that it is surely at least partly due to that.
And surely it makes more sense to compare Sweden with its neighbours before deciding that lockdown has no effect?
And does Germany have an anomalously low CFR? There are loads of countries with similar or lower CFRs.
If you want to compare the UK and Germany, it looks like the main reason why there are more deaths in the UK is because more people were infected.
1. No-one (or at least no-one sane) is saying lockdown has no effect. Of course if you confine the entire population to house arrest so they don't interact, a contagious disease is not going to spread much for the duration of that lockdown. No-one disputes that.
We literally had it introduced here with someone posting a summary point that: "- The similar mortality results between Sweden (no lockdown) and the UK (lockdown) are best explained by the fact that in reality there was no difference - the impact of the legal lockdown in Professor Friston's models "literally goes away"
I completely believe your representation. But there are a significant number of people out there who believe (or advocate that they believe) that the lockdowns have no effect or benefit. A quick google of that phrase (in quotes) comes up with plenty of results, including from fairly mainstream publications.
It's that take on it that raises my hackles. Not people suggesting there a a bunch of unknowns. I've said so myself. It's the people suggesting that unknowns may help and instantly advocating that we act as though these unknowns are certainly true and make other precautions immediately unnecessary.
Friston trained as a psychiatrist, and has specialised in image processing techniques applicable to brain scans. His area of specialism doesn't appear at all relevant to epidemiology.
I don't understand how he reconciles his claim that as few as 20% of the population may be susceptible to the disease with estimates of the R number of between 2 and 3 - which of course would imply the underlying value of R0 could be as high as 10-15, perhaps making it the most or second most infectious virus known to science. Then there is the "super-spreader" incident in which nearly 90% of a choir were infected.
Can any of Friston's fans explain how to get round those difficulties, I wonder.
Is anyone watching Trump, live on Sky at the moment? What a rambling incompetent, incoherent fool.
Currently ranting about how he knows stocks better than Warren Buffet.
You'll be approaching my level of Trumpophobia at this rate, Philip. And I hope you make it.
I'm past your level.
You're willing to relax and take on faith that Trump will be defeated in November. My level of loathing for Trump is so far past that, that even if he were polling 25% in the polls I wouldn't take anything for granted.
Like a monster in a horror movie, we can't turn our back and assume he won't revive, we need to see this atrocity metaphorically get a stake through the heart, be burnt to dust, whatever it takes.
Agreed. Trump is a danger to everyone: He’s perfectly capable of accidentally triggerring WWIII through shear incompetence & he’s going to cling on to power with every last breath. Until he’s been booted out of the presidency into orbit none of us are safe.
I'd say he is capable of deliberately starting a war if he thought it would play for him in November.
I also expect him to (i) try and fix the election and (ii) when he loses claim it was fraudulent and not concede.
Trump certainly wouldn't be the first US politician to start or perpetuate a war for domestic electoral purposes. Every President from Eisenhower to Ford did so in respect of Vietnam.
Thought Nam was unpopular back home, no?
Kennedy felt he couldn't get out of Vietnam and hope to win an election. Nixon famously remarked that he noticed every time he bombed Hanoi, his approval rating went up.
Loved the recent doc series on it.
Ultimately I believe public opinion was get out.
But maybe that was only after it became clear they were on a loser.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
Most people underestimate the importance of perceived fairness in the way people make decisions.
I hate it when economists call this irrational behaviour. For a social animal, overall fairness within the group is essential for the health of cooperation within, and hence the overall welfare of, the group, and so enforcing it is entirely rational, even if enforcement sometimes carries short-term costs.
The problem is that something that seems perfectly rational to one person can seem completely unfair and irrational to another.
As an example suppose 2 people apply for 2 jobs. One gets the job and is paid £10k more than the other due to their extra experience. Yet the person being paid less may think it unfair they are being paid less than the other person as on the surface both jobs are identical.
If Biden can even keep competitive in Texas it will be advantageous, as it will force Trumpton out there to defend it, which will a) create its own narrative and b) suck resources from other battlegrounds.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
If Biden did win Texas he would be the first Democrat to do so since Carter in 1976 and have won a landslide
Democrats winning Texas? Yes, and I expect Elvis will be touring the UK shortly.
TSE will eat pineapple-topped pizza before either happens.
You can get 1.36 on the Republicans holding Texas. A good return?
Actually he said that Germany's low rate (of infections and deaths, rather than specifically CFR) is not due to superior testing. Logic suggests that it is surely at least partly due to that.
And surely it makes more sense to compare Sweden with its neighbours before deciding that lockdown has no effect?
And does Germany have an anomalously low CFR? There are loads of countries with similar or lower CFRs.
If you want to compare the UK and Germany, it looks like the main reason why there are more deaths in the UK is because more people were infected.
1. No-one (or at least no-one sane) is saying lockdown has no effect. Of course if you confine the entire population to house arrest so they don't interact, a contagious disease is not going to spread much for the duration of that lockdown. No-one disputes that.
We literally had it introduced here with someone posting a summary point that: "- The similar mortality results between Sweden (no lockdown) and the UK (lockdown) are best explained by the fact that in reality there was no difference - the impact of the legal lockdown in Professor Friston's models "literally goes away"
I completely believe your representation. But there are a significant number of people out there who believe (or advocate that they believe) that the lockdowns have no effect or benefit. A quick google of that phrase (in quotes) comes up with plenty of results, including from fairly mainstream publications.
It's that take on it that raises my hackles. Not people suggesting there a a bunch of unknowns. I've said so myself. It's the people suggesting that unknowns may help and instantly advocating that we act as though these unknowns are certainly true and make other precautions immediately unnecessary.
Friston trained as a psychiatrist, and has specialised in image processing techniques applicable to brain scans. His area of specialism doesn't appear at all relevant to epidemiology.
I don't understand how he reconciles his claim that as few as 20% of the population may be susceptible to the disease with estimates of the R number of between 2 and 3 - which of course would imply the underlying value of R0 could be as high as 10-15, perhaps making it the most or second most infectious virus known to science. Then there is the "super-spreader" incident in which nearly 90% of a choir were infected.
Can any of Friston's fans explain how to get round those difficulties, I wonder.
The Guardian article explanation:
Can you give an example of what you mean by uncertainty, with respect to Covid-19, and how you build it into your models? A common type of epidemiological model used today is the SEIR model, which considers that people must be in one of four states – susceptible (S), exposed (E), infected (I) or recovered (R). Unfortunately, reality doesn’t break them down so neatly. For example, what does it mean to be recovered? We know that with Covid-19 you can be infected but asymptomatic, so does it mean recovered from the symptoms or recovered from the infection? And that question hides a host of others, including questions relating to national testing strategies. SEIR models start to fall apart when you think about the underlying causes of the data. You need models that can allow for all possible states, and assess which ones matter for shaping the pandemic’s trajectory over time This is the first time the generative approach has been applied to a pandemic. Has it proved itself in other domains? These techniques have enjoyed enormous success ever since they moved out of physics. They’ve been running your iPhone and nuclear power stations for a long time. In my field, neurobiology, we call the approach dynamic causal modelling (DCM). We can’t see brain states directly, but we can infer them given brain imaging data. In fact, we have pushed that idea even further. We think the brain may be doing its own dynamic causal modelling, reducing its uncertainty about the causes of the data the senses feed to it. We call this the free energy principle. But whether you’re talking about a pandemic or a brain, the essential problem is the same – you’re trying to understand a complex system that changes over time. In that sense, I’m not doing anything new. The data is generated by Covid-19 patients rather than neurons, but otherwise it’s just another day at the office
So basically, AIUI, his models test what contribution various factors make to the observed outcomes and are amended and refined, accordingly. And using this approach, you can, according to him, identify what percentage of observed outcomes is not explained by known factors.
I think many Britons and especially white Britons try to look at the issue of race in America through the lens of what happens here, when the history and reality of race relations and power structures in the states is so very different to here.
I think this is a time to listen to those protesting in America and reflect on what they are asking and in some cases demanding, instead of projecting our British experiences on to them.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
It really depends on the deal. If it's the deal that includes a self correcting LPF mechanism then it's not worth agreeing to. Anyone who thinks that we get a second bite at this cherry is wrong, once the deal is set, it's set so including something as onerous as a self correcting mechanism that hugely favours the EU will hurt the UK for next 20 years while no deal may hurt for the next 5. I'm not sure which is better or worse at this stage, but I do know that the government are right to resist any treaty clause that self corrects by single party consent. It would signal open season on the UK and all other countries would insist on such clauses going forwards.
Well we are starting from a bonkers premise ie the only trade deal negotiations on the planet ever where the aim is to make trading conditions worse than they currently are.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
Yep.
There is not a snowball's chance of WTO Brexit ever happening.
I think Johnson needs to end FM - at least in theory - to avoid Leaver blowback but otherwise he can get away with no divergence. Spin it as a triumphant blend of principle and pragmatism. Enough will buy. They did last time.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
It really depends on the deal. If it's the deal that includes a self correcting LPF mechanism then it's not worth agreeing to. Anyone who thinks that we get a second bite at this cherry is wrong, once the deal is set, it's set so including something as onerous as a self correcting mechanism that hugely favours the EU will hurt the UK for next 20 years while no deal may hurt for the next 5. I'm not sure which is better or worse at this stage, but I do know that the government are right to resist any treaty clause that self corrects by single party consent. It would signal open season on the UK and all other countries would insist on such clauses going forwards.
Well we are starting from a bonkers premise ie the only trade deal negotiations on the planet ever where the aim is to make trading conditions worse than they currently are.
Yes, but the leave vote wasn't an economic one. Certainly for me it wasn't. If I wanted to vote for my own interests it would have been to stay in. Leave voters are prepared to accept the economic hit as the price for freedom.
Actually he said that Germany's low rate (of infections and deaths, rather than specifically CFR) is not due to superior testing. Logic suggests that it is surely at least partly due to that.
And surely it makes more sense to compare Sweden with its neighbours before deciding that lockdown has no effect?
And does Germany have an anomalously low CFR? There are loads of countries with similar or lower CFRs.
If you want to compare the UK and Germany, it looks like the main reason why there are more deaths in the UK is because more people were infected.
1. No-one (or at least no-one sane) is saying lockdown has no effect. Of course if you confine the entire population to house arrest so they don't interact, a contagious disease is not going to spread much for the duration of that lockdown. No-one disputes that.
We literally had it introduced here with someone posting a summary point that: "- The similar mortality results between Sweden (no lockdown) and the UK (lockdown) are best explained by the fact that in reality there was no difference - the impact of the legal lockdown in Professor Friston's models "literally goes away"
I completely believe your representation. But there are a significant number of people out there who believe (or advocate that they believe) that the lockdowns have no effect or benefit. A quick google of that phrase (in quotes) comes up with plenty of results, including from fairly mainstream publications.
It's that take on it that raises my hackles. Not people suggesting there a a bunch of unknowns. I've said so myself. It's the people suggesting that unknowns may help and instantly advocating that we act as though these unknowns are certainly true and make other precautions immediately unnecessary.
Friston trained as a psychiatrist, and has specialised in image processing techniques applicable to brain scans. His area of specialism doesn't appear at all relevant to epidemiology.
I don't understand how he reconciles his claim that as few as 20% of the population may be susceptible to the disease with estimates of the R number of between 2 and 3 - which of course would imply the underlying value of R0 could be as high as 10-15, perhaps making it the most or second most infectious virus known to science. Then there is the "super-spreader" incident in which nearly 90% of a choir were infected.
Can any of Friston's fans explain how to get round those difficulties, I wonder.
The Guardian article explanation:
Can you give an example of what you mean by uncertainty, with respect to Covid-19, and how you build it into your models? A common type of epidemiological model used today is the SEIR model, which considers that people must be in one of four states – susceptible (S), exposed (E), infected (I) or recovered (R). Unfortunately, reality doesn’t break them down so neatly. For example, what does it mean to be recovered? We know that with Covid-19 you can be infected but asymptomatic, so does it mean recovered from the symptoms or recovered from the infection? And that question hides a host of others, including questions relating to national testing strategies. SEIR models start to fall apart when you think about the underlying causes of the data. You need models that can allow for all possible states, and assess which ones matter for shaping the pandemic’s trajectory over time This is the first time the generative approach has been applied to a pandemic. Has it proved itself in other domains? These techniques have enjoyed enormous success ever since they moved out of physics. They’ve been running your iPhone and nuclear power stations for a long time. In my field, neurobiology, we call the approach dynamic causal modelling (DCM). We can’t see brain states directly, but we can infer them given brain imaging data. In fact, we have pushed that idea even further. We think the brain may be doing its own dynamic causal modelling, reducing its uncertainty about the causes of the data the senses feed to it. We call this the free energy principle. But whether you’re talking about a pandemic or a brain, the essential problem is the same – you’re trying to understand a complex system that changes over time. In that sense, I’m not doing anything new. The data is generated by Covid-19 patients rather than neurons, but otherwise it’s just another day at the office
So basically, AIUI, his models test what contribution various factors make to the observed outcomes and are amended and refined, accordingly. And using this approach, you can, according to him, identify what percentage of observed outcomes is not explained by known factors.
Forget about modelling. If he's claiming only 20% may be susceptible, there are immediately two big problems.
The estimate is that each person with COVID-19 infects, on average, between 2 and 3 others. If only 20% of the population are susceptible, in a fully susceptible population that would mean 10-15 people. That would make it maybe the most infectious virus known to science, or the second most. Does this guy really believe that?
The other problem is even more stark. If only 20% are susceptible, how can nearly 90% be infected in a single incident? Does he even address that?
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
It really depends on the deal. If it's the deal that includes a self correcting LPF mechanism then it's not worth agreeing to. Anyone who thinks that we get a second bite at this cherry is wrong, once the deal is set, it's set so including something as onerous as a self correcting mechanism that hugely favours the EU will hurt the UK for next 20 years while no deal may hurt for the next 5. I'm not sure which is better or worse at this stage, but I do know that the government are right to resist any treaty clause that self corrects by single party consent. It would signal open season on the UK and all other countries would insist on such clauses going forwards.
Well we are starting from a bonkers premise ie the only trade deal negotiations on the planet ever where the aim is to make trading conditions worse than they currently are.
Yes, but the leave vote wasn't an economic one. Certainly for me it wasn't. If I wanted to vote for my own interests it would have been to stay in. Leave voters are prepared to accept the economic hit as the price for freedom.
The leave vote was a coalition for a mix of reasons, none of which on their own have a majority in the country. Hence the over promising, to keep the coalition together. It will be impossible to maintain through the reality of the next 4 years, but good luck to them.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
It really depends on the deal. If it's the deal that includes a self correcting LPF mechanism then it's not worth agreeing to. Anyone who thinks that we get a second bite at this cherry is wrong, once the deal is set, it's set so including something as onerous as a self correcting mechanism that hugely favours the EU will hurt the UK for next 20 years while no deal may hurt for the next 5. I'm not sure which is better or worse at this stage, but I do know that the government are right to resist any treaty clause that self corrects by single party consent. It would signal open season on the UK and all other countries would insist on such clauses going forwards.
Well we are starting from a bonkers premise ie the only trade deal negotiations on the planet ever where the aim is to make trading conditions worse than they currently are.
Yes, but the leave vote wasn't an economic one. Certainly for me it wasn't. If I wanted to vote for my own interests it would have been to stay in. Leave voters are prepared to accept the economic hit as the price for freedom.
I think you will be in for a surprise there - leave voters will be happy to accept an economic hit to others as the price of freedom I seriously doubt they will accept it when they discover they are the ones taking the hit.
We still have a handful of posters who admit to wanting him to win. Plus some who secretly do (I know who they are). Plus those who still wibble on about what a terrible choice it is, him or Biden, as if there is an equivalence there.
But you are solid enough on the matter, I sense. Which is all you can be.
Funny how this time around hardly anybody is saying they want to see Trump win the election. As you say, some secretly do but are too embarrassed to come right out with it. out and say it.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
Yep.
There is not a snowball's chance of WTO Brexit ever happening.
I think Johnson needs to end FM - at least in theory - to avoid Leaver blowback but otherwise he can get away with no divergence. Spin it as a triumphant blend of principle and pragmatism. Enough will buy. They did last time.
He's not called "Boris" for nothing.
I don't think Boris does 'pragmatism'. For him it's got to be new-dawn, epoch-making wonderment. His brand of rhetoric is wholly unsuited to the practical and the mundane, and without his rhetoric there's not much left.
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure that's not coming. I'd be preparing for no deal if you haven't already.
What would it say about the UK if we went for no deal when a deal was available.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
It really depends on the deal. If it's the deal that includes a self correcting LPF mechanism then it's not worth agreeing to. Anyone who thinks that we get a second bite at this cherry is wrong, once the deal is set, it's set so including something as onerous as a self correcting mechanism that hugely favours the EU will hurt the UK for next 20 years while no deal may hurt for the next 5. I'm not sure which is better or worse at this stage, but I do know that the government are right to resist any treaty clause that self corrects by single party consent. It would signal open season on the UK and all other countries would insist on such clauses going forwards.
Well we are starting from a bonkers premise ie the only trade deal negotiations on the planet ever where the aim is to make trading conditions worse than they currently are.
Exactly. So make the negotiations last forever. It makes perfect sense when you think of it like this.
Just out, a poll on Trump's handling of race relations. It is damning, and hopefully is truly a sign of the end of him:
"As the country erupts in protests over police brutality and racism, two-thirds of Americans think President Trump has increased racial tensions in the U.S., according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
...
"Overall, 67% said Trump has mostly increased racial tensions, including 92% of Democrats, 73% of independents, 88% of Africans Americans and 63% of whites.
"... almost 6 in 10 Republicans believe he has either increased tensions (29%) or are not sure (30%). That's a finding the pollsters see as significant given how in lockstep Republicans have been with Trump on nearly everything.
"It's very unusual to see Republicans break when the name Trump is presented, but that is the case here," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll."
Yes, but what percentage of those Republicans see increased racial tension as a bad thing?
That's a really clever idea. It allows for a transition without calling it a transition, provides political cover for Boris, and best of all allows the whole self-harm nonsense to be quietly forgotten by some future British government.
I rather suspect the Brexiteer loons won't fall for it though.
Why would the EU agree to any zero/zero deal with it the existing commitments?
I'm sure they won't. If I understand correctly, the wheeze is to allow the commitments to fall away later if we want them to - but at a price (which in practice we won't want to accept, for all the well-known reasons).
Then why would the Boris government agree to something that sounds a lot like the backstop?
My dear boy, for the same reason that they caved in on the WA by going back to the original EU proposal for a border in the Irish Sea. This is entirely about finding some kind of half-plausible political cover to allow Boris to claim he's 'got Brexit done', without signing up irrecovably to the LPF and without an extension, but without actually wrecking the economy completely in January next year. He needs to be able to claim some spurious 'victory', and this might work for that purpose. Maybe.
Yep.
There is not a snowball's chance of WTO Brexit ever happening.
I think Johnson needs to end FM - at least in theory - to avoid Leaver blowback but otherwise he can get away with no divergence. Spin it as a triumphant blend of principle and pragmatism. Enough will buy. They did last time.
He's not called "Boris" for nothing.
I don't think Boris does 'pragmatism'. For him it's got to be new-dawn, epoch-making wonderment. His brand of rhetoric is wholly unsuited to the practical and the mundane, and without his rhetoric there's not much left.
So give him the rhetoric. Theoretical freedom that no UK government will ever use is right up his street. It may boil down to "pay, obey, no real say", but in theory, W could walk away whenever we liked....
Preliminary research from Hong Kong found that around 20 per cent of COVID-19 sufferers are highly infectious, and responsible for 80 per cent of all transmissions.
However, 70 per cent of people infected with the virus do not pass it on to anyone else.
Seems to fit with the anecdotal examples (the club in Seoul, the festival in Germany, the barman in the Italian alps).
How do we identify and isolate the super-spreaders?
It seems to be super-spreader events, rather than people who are intrinsically more contagious, if I'm reading it correctly. So it requires controls or bans on things like choirs, crowded noisy bars, etc.
Large crowds with lots of screaming and shouting .....erhhh.. protests....
A bit of foresight and discipline could have resulted in a silent protest that would still have been striking and a lot less risky. Barnard Castle thinking from all concerned.
I was thinking something similar the other day, watching the protests.
How powerful would it have been for the genuine BLM group protestors to take over somewhere like Hyde Park, standing (or kneeling) still in a 2m grid, for an hour or so?
That would have got everyone to notice them. Instead, their cause gets diluted by the idiots who cause trouble. The issue is that the group organising the protests are quite happy that the 'others' get involved, even if they can deny being involved in the bad side of the protests themselves.
I don't think it's a question of "others" getting involved, how on earth would you stop those "others" from joining the bandwagon.
I think that the BLM protest leaders are happy to see their "completely peaceful protests" happen against a background of others being involved in violence and looting, involvement in which they can plausibly deny, especially in the US.
If that were not the case, the BLM leaders could have done something like the silent or socially distanced protest, which would have been much more powerful - but peaceful protests don't change minds of authorities.
Comments
It's as zero a risk holiday as you get.
Regardless of the detail, the central certainty (imo) is there will be no "WTO" Brexit on 1st Jan 2021. Or indeed ever.
It's a horrifying story, and the people behind the fake study need to be identified.
It’s great for Biden to be within a couple of points, even if he doesn’t win it (I don’t expect him to win it).
https://twitter.com/JacquesSalade/status/1268810010118819840
By contrast, the number of people in hospitals is dropping (across most regions) a bit more consistently.
There are lots of zero and low risk activities that we are still prevented from doing, for no good reason.
Yours is one such example that makes a massive difference to people’s lives.
My son and I ride out on our mountain bikes every July on the bridleways, trails and byways, staying in pubs and eating outside in the evening. It’s the best few days of the year for me, every year.
Regardless of the massive benefits of fresh air, sunshine and keeping fit, it’s pretty clear that that activity is pretty low risk.
The government thinks it’s okay to open bloody Topshop and Miss Selfridge in ten days.
When will it open the hospitality industry in a sensible way, so people can get out and enjoy our country? Yet shops in air conditioned hell come first.
Thats the issue. Me seeing my parents and having them around might also be as 'low risk' as you get, but all those low low risks in total do add up.
TSE will eat pineapple-topped pizza before either happens.
My parents, uncle and aunt are all in their 70s and therefore are in high-risk groups. My parents live miles away but my uncle and aunt live two miles from me here in London and I haven’t seen them for months.
I think that’s right. I don’t think I should be able to see them. The stats are crystal clear - they are high risk and having me, my wife or my son pass on something asymptomatically is too big a risk.
But, my travelling to country pubs, where the average age of the barmaids is 25, and where I’d sit outside to eat, is very low risk.
If we are letting shops open, we should let pubs with beer gardens open, and let people stay in pub rooms.
I just thought I'd get that in before the PB Tories! Or am I already too late?
We need a clear timetable here.
But given the low numbers detected, it seems unlikely they detected such ?
The test kit was the point of care "SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing Kit IgG RF-NC002, Kurabo Industries Ltd, Osaka, Japan".
And the paper conclusion:
The overall seroprevalence in this study is low as the survey in Los Angeles,4 which suggests that the majority of the population is immunologically naïve for SARS-CoV-2. Naturally, the prevalence is higher in the place with a higher density of population, such as central Tokyo, since the SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted by droplets. The regional trend of seroprevalence is similar to the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients per unit population (Supplementary Table 3). These facts suggest that the community-based investigation would be beneficial to explore the cause of epidemic contagion. Limitation includes the selection bias and accuracy of the test kit. Concerns about the risk of COVID-19 infection such as past fever, illness of cohabitants or co-workers and working environment were common reasons for the participation of this study, which can cause elevation of seroprevalence. Less sensitivity of test kit develops the underestimation of the prevalence. Further serosurvey, along with the fine characterization of population, is warranted for the measurement of a future outbreak...
It's not a massively significant result, but another data point suggesting relatively low cumulative infection so far.
https://gov.gg/article/177569/Guernsey-meets-with-the-New-Zealand-High-Commission-to-share-experiences-of-dealing-with-COVID-19?fbclid=IwAR3Sf0zLzugzDw-6KBZvmKe0Hzv-YKljnYNHwr1Lmpd3-XMapl13m1Nor9Y
"As the country erupts in protests over police brutality and racism, two-thirds of Americans think President Trump has increased racial tensions in the U.S., according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
...
"Overall, 67% said Trump has mostly increased racial tensions, including 92% of Democrats, 73% of independents, 88% of Africans Americans and 63% of whites.
"... almost 6 in 10 Republicans believe he has either increased tensions (29%) or are not sure (30%). That's a finding the pollsters see as significant given how in lockstep Republicans have been with Trump on nearly everything.
"It's very unusual to see Republicans break when the name Trump is presented, but that is the case here," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll."
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1268943786937397248?s=20
However voters unhappy with his handling of Covid and race relations
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1268946974516162563?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1268947974987689984?s=20
Biden leads by 7% overall
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1268939404896239618?s=20
Yes, this was a crap and quite possibly fraudulent paper - but that is it.
The reason most scientists were so riled with Trump is that he contributed to the ridiculous hype of a treatment, which led to a very large number of non randomised, unblinded and poorly designed trials. Which contributed nothing to medical knowledge, and actively hindered trials of other therapies.
And irrespective of the dodgy paper, it seems exceedingly unlikely that this is going to be a particularly useful therapy, let alone a "gold standard".
No clinical benefit from use of hydroxychloroquine in hospitalised patients with COVID-19
https://www.recoverytrial.net/news/statement-from-the-chief-investigators-of-the-randomised-evaluation-of-covid-19-therapy-recovery-trial-on-hydroxychloroquine-5-june-2020-no-clinical-benefit-from-use-of-hydroxychloroquine-in-hospitalised-patients-with-covid-19
Professor Peter Horby and Professor Martin Landray, chief investigators of the RECOVERY Trial, said ‘In March this year, RECOVERY was established as a randomised clinical trial to test a range of potential drugs for COVID-19, including hydroxycholoroquine.
‘The trial has proceeded at unprecedented speed, enrolling over 11,000 patients from 175 NHS hospitals in the UK. Throughout this time, the independent Data Monitoring Committee has reviewed the emerging data about every two weeks to determine if there is evidence that would be strong enough to affect national and global treatment of COVID-19.
‘On Thursday 4 June, in response to a request from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the independent Data Monitoring Committee conducted a further review of the data. Last night, the Committee recommended the chief investigators review the unblinded data on the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial.
‘We have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19. We have therefore decided to stop enrolling participants to the hydroxychloroquine arm of the RECOVERY Trial with immediate effect. We are now releasing the preliminary results as they have important implications for patient care and public health....
Some people - whose have managed to hide their identities so far - chose to manufacture some data suggesting it was more dangerous simply because they didn't like President Trump. That is appalling behaviour.
(There is an alternative conspiracy theory, if you like. A group of people with Lupus who suddenly found it difficult to get their regular medication decided to discredit it so that there wouldn't be shortages...)
On the positive side, science worked. People - and probably people who didn't vote for President Trump - recognised quite quickly that the study was flawed.
Trump says he hopes George Floyd 'looking down' and seeing today’s jobs numbers as 'a great day for him'
There are almost certiainly serial killers with greater empathy than Donald Trump.
Neither a win nor an exceeded expectation to claim here.
Not so much a "Lancet" as "Shank".
FWIW, at that level of prevalence, the LaRoche test would give a 95% predictive value for a positive test. Not bad.
It's like that experiment where two passers by are offered vastly different sums of money and the one who has been offered the smaller amount usually declines.
I hate it when economists call this irrational behaviour. For a social animal, overall fairness within the group is essential for the health of cooperation within, and hence the overall welfare of, the group, and so enforcing it is entirely rational, even if enforcement sometimes carries short-term costs.
COVID-19 Virulence in Aged Patients Might Be Impacted by the Host Cellular MicroRNAs Abundance/Profile
http://www.aginganddisease.org/EN/10.14336/AD.2020.0428
At the current stage, due to the lack of effective treatment strategies for COVID-19 innovative approaches need to be considered. It is well known that host cellular miRNAs can directly target both viral 3'UTR and coding region of the viral genome to induce the antiviral effect. In this study, we did in silico analysis of human miRNAs targeting SARS (4 isolates) and COVID-19 (29 recent isolates from different regions) genome and correlated our findings with aging and underlying conditions. We found 848 common miRNAs targeting the SARS genome and 873 common microRNAs targeting the COVID-19 genome. Out of a total of 848 miRNAs from SARS, only 558 commonly present in all COVID-19 isolates. Interestingly, 315 miRNAs are unique for COVID-19 isolates and 290 miRNAs unique to SARS. We also noted that out of 29 COVID-19 isolates, 19 isolates have identical miRNA targets. The COVID-19 isolates, Netherland (EPI_ISL_422601), Australia (EPI_ISL_413214), and Wuhan (EPI_ISL_403931) showed six, four, and four unique miRNAs targets, respectively. Furthermore, GO, and KEGG pathway analysis showed that COVID-19 targeting human miRNAs involved in various age-related signaling and diseases. Recent studies also suggested that some of the human miRNAs targeting COVID-19 decreased with aging and underlying conditions. GO and KEGG identified impaired signaling pathway may be due to low abundance miRNA which might be one of the contributing factors for the increasing severity and mortality in aged individuals and with other underlying conditions. Further, in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to validate some of these targets and identify potential therapeutic targets...
https://order-order.com/2020/06/05/exclusive-imperial-college-drops-imperial-motto-rooted-in-power-oppression
Suppressing history is not learning from it.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/over-20-more-schools-closed-as-israel-sees-largest-daily-virus-rise-in-a-month/
I don't understand how he reconciles his claim that as few as 20% of the population may be susceptible to the disease with estimates of the R number of between 2 and 3 - which of course would imply the underlying value of R0 could be as high as 10-15, perhaps making it the most or second most infectious virus known to science. Then there is the "super-spreader" incident in which nearly 90% of a choir were infected.
Can any of Friston's fans explain how to get round those difficulties, I wonder.
Ultimately I believe public opinion was get out.
But maybe that was only after it became clear they were on a loser.
As an example suppose 2 people apply for 2 jobs. One gets the job and is paid £10k more than the other due to their extra experience. Yet the person being paid less may think it unfair they are being paid less than the other person as on the surface both jobs are identical.
"New unemployment numbers by race: White: April 14.2% May 12.4% Black: April 16.7% May 16.8%"
And that orange fool says George Floyd will be looking down at the job numbers today and will be smiling from heaven!
Unbelievable. This man is simply shameful.
Can you give an example of what you mean by uncertainty, with respect to Covid-19, and how you build it into your models?
A common type of epidemiological model used today is the SEIR model, which considers that people must be in one of four states – susceptible (S), exposed (E), infected (I) or recovered (R). Unfortunately, reality doesn’t break them down so neatly. For example, what does it mean to be recovered? We know that with Covid-19 you can be infected but asymptomatic, so does it mean recovered from the symptoms or recovered from the infection? And that question hides a host of others, including questions relating to national testing strategies. SEIR models start to fall apart when you think about the underlying causes of the data. You need models that can allow for all possible states, and assess which ones matter for shaping the pandemic’s trajectory over time
This is the first time the generative approach has been applied to a pandemic. Has it proved itself in other domains?
These techniques have enjoyed enormous success ever since they moved out of physics. They’ve been running your iPhone and nuclear power stations for a long time. In my field, neurobiology, we call the approach dynamic causal modelling (DCM). We can’t see brain states directly, but we can infer them given brain imaging data. In fact, we have pushed that idea even further. We think the brain may be doing its own dynamic causal modelling, reducing its uncertainty about the causes of the data the senses feed to it. We call this the free energy principle. But whether you’re talking about a pandemic or a brain, the essential problem is the same – you’re trying to understand a complex system that changes over time. In that sense, I’m not doing anything new. The data is generated by Covid-19 patients rather than neurons, but otherwise it’s just another day at the office
So basically, AIUI, his models test what contribution various factors make to the observed outcomes and are amended and refined, accordingly. And using this approach, you can, according to him, identify what percentage of observed outcomes is not explained by known factors.
NEW THREAD
I think this is a time to listen to those protesting in America and reflect on what they are asking and in some cases demanding, instead of projecting our British experiences on to them.
There is not a snowball's chance of WTO Brexit ever happening.
I think Johnson needs to end FM - at least in theory - to avoid Leaver blowback but otherwise he can get away with no divergence. Spin it as a triumphant blend of principle and pragmatism. Enough will buy. They did last time.
He's not called "Boris" for nothing.
The estimate is that each person with COVID-19 infects, on average, between 2 and 3 others. If only 20% of the population are susceptible, in a fully susceptible population that would mean 10-15 people. That would make it maybe the most infectious virus known to science, or the second most. Does this guy really believe that?
The other problem is even more stark. If only 20% are susceptible, how can nearly 90% be infected in a single incident? Does he even address that?
If that were not the case, the BLM leaders could have done something like the silent or socially distanced protest, which would have been much more powerful - but peaceful protests don't change minds of authorities.