With just eight days to go before the end of the Brexit transition the majority of those polled say

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Leon said:

Black_Rook said:

Leon said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

Gaussian said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

RobD said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

RobD said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

RobD said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

RobD said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341467794743971843

More? Why not the whole of England?

Lockdown now.

A bit extreme for some areas, don't you think?

Come back to me in a few weeks, we will regret not taking action now.

Time to lockdown the entirety of England.

I think the regional approach is better. I think that is how many countries have faced this issue. Locking down the entire country because of an outbreak in one area is a bit of overkill.

The Tier system has comprehensively failed. It's time to accept that.

Yet it works in other countries. Shutting down the entire country for an outbreak in one part is not the answer.

It's not an outbreak in one place, it's spreading everywhere.

You have your point of view, I think it's going to come to be a very poor one. We will see.

Then that argues for an adjustment to the restrictions in each region. It doesn't mean one size fits all.

I think a regional approach simply doesn't work, as I said, we will see.

The regional approach worked ok in Scotland. The problem is that the increased transmissibility of the new virus renders anything below tier 4 insufficient to keep R below 1, so I agree it needs to be tier 4 everywhere now.

And the jury is out on whether tier 4 is enough. Good job it will effectively be tier 5 for the next couple weeks due to the school holidays. God help us if that's not enough.

My amateur hunch, from reading the various expert views, is that Tier 4/5 will not be enough. Supercovid is that bad. I fervently pray I am wrong.

If I am right we are in for a horrific winter, until the vaccines really start to kick in, around March/April, when a significant proportion of the country will be invulnerable and the virus will find it harder and harder to spread

Um. Supercovid can't leap through walls.

If we all stay at home it can't spread.

The higher R is largely down to a longer asymptomatic period.

It hasn't grown legs.

But that’s exactly it. The only answer is Ultra-lockdown, a la Wuhan, where you weld everyone into their homes for several months. Is that do-able in a western democracy? I guess it will have to be, if it’s the only choice.

But wow. You can see why any politician - of any flavour - would be reluctant to go down that road.

That's impossible. I would suggest that the end state would be a lockdown almost the same as that in March and April, where people are allowed out of their homes only for work (if it can't be done from home,) for essential shopping, to attend medical appointments and for exercise. The main difference being that, now we've established that outdoor settings are very much safer than indoors, and that (socially distanced) outdoor exercise is good for physical and mental health, people should be encouraged to do as much of that as possible - crap weather allowing - and that should include shielders, who previously were effectively welded up inside their homes. And education must go back online, except for the relatively small numbers of children who could still be sent to school under the arrangements in force last Spring.

If that's not sufficient to stop the thing in its tracks, or at least slow it down enough to limit the damage whilst we race to get the vaccinations completed, then we're stuffed.

Lockdown 1 - in the Spring - got R down to 0.8. If the pessimistic take on Supercovid is correct, and the new variant increases R by 0.4-0.9 (and likely nearer 0.9) your lockdown would not be enough. Plenty of key workers would still have to leave home (we are not all lawyers or bankers) they would get infected, they will then hit the hospitals, and the health system crashes.

As I say, let’s hope the pessimistic take is very wrong.

The big difference between now and last March is the vaccines. Hopefully AstraZeneca willl be approved just after Xmas. That releases millions of jabs, and will offer real cause for cautious and guarded optimism

I was under the impression that the estimate was an increase in R0.
That is, from 3 to 3.4-3.9.

If the spring lockdown reduced R from 3 to 0.8, then it reduced it by a factor of 3.75.

That equates to 0.90-1.04.

That’s doable.

DID the Spring lockdown reduce R from 3 to 0.8?

Genuine Q. I have no idea

That was the sort of figure suggested in early summer.

R from cases



R from hospitalisations

A man who had just been jabbed with vaccine speaking on local news says he feels safer already when getting out and about.

Hope that isn't the message that is getting through on a wider basis. It's not instant.

Leon said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1274024170729373702

That is awkward

I expect she'll apologise and that'll be that. It's a minor breach.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341511229479792644

Why delay? Should be in place now

I'm not sure how you get a Rizzla paper between their "high chance" and certainty.

Pulpstar said:

Leon said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1274024170729373702

That is awkward

I expect she'll apologise and that'll be that. It's a minor breach.

In the rail industry, the estimate is that wearing masks halves the chances of transmitting the virus. Not sure about a location like that, but I doubt it's that different. Quite frankly, she should resign, but won't.

Black_Rook said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

NHS leaders have raised concerns about the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, with more than half of hospital trusts and two-thirds of GPs yet to receive supplies amid growing alarm over the new fast-spreading variant.

Dr Richard Vautrey, the chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, urged the government to speed up delivery of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in order to save lives. Experts also demanded greater transparency from ministers on how many doses are available.

Vautrey said: “We need millions of doses to be made available as soon as possible – urgently – because it’s the number one priority for GP practices, our patients and the nation, especially given the new mutant strain.

“GPs who haven’t got it yet are frustrated because they want to be getting on and vaccinating their patients as well. Their frustration is understandable. They want to protect their patients, especially their vulnerable patients, as quickly as possible.”

Hospital bosses in England are also dismayed that, a fortnight after Margaret Keenan from Coventry became the first person to have the jab on 8 December, more than half of the country’s 135 NHS acute hospital trusts have still not received their first supplies. So far 57 (42%) of them have had a delivery and been able to start vaccination, the Guardian understands.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/22/nhs-leaders-raise-concerns-pace-covid-vaccine-rollout

As I said earlier, this is why the Government isn't making more of the success of the vaccine rollout. They actually appear to be making a decent fist of distributing the Pfizer jab, but there's not enough of it. When the regulator - we fervently hope - gives the green light to Oxford/AZN then it might have more success in getting deliveries to every hospital and surgery that needs them. Until then, the have-nots will inevitably moan loudly.

It could be worse. We could be Ireland. Thanks to their involvement in the brilliant EU vaccine scheme, Ireland will be receiving its first vaccines on the 30th December. All 10,000 doses.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341510820266700800

Dear God, let it be "Go!"

Pulpstar said:

Leon said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1274024170729373702

That is awkward

I expect she'll apologise and that'll be that. It's a minor breach.

Correct about the apology

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-55419564

kle4 said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341508176294887426

Very foolish of her if that is a breach of the regs, though at least she is some distance away.

She's only about her height away. And she ain't two metres tall.

eristdoof said:

Leon said:

BTW. The German death figure, today - 944 - is a record for the country, by some distance.

I imagine tonight’s German TV news will NOT be dominated by Supercovid or Brexit lorries.

N501Y and the stranded lorries (they aren't Brexit lorries) are making the news, but you're right, it's not the headlines. Yesterday evening the headlines were life imprisonment for a terrorist attack on a synagogue a year ago. There are a few other things going on than just Covid and Brexit.

Is there concern in Germany about the data now? The deaths and cases are beginning to stack up

I somehow missed that Baldurs Gate 3 is being developed, by the makers of Divinity: Original Sin. Probably worth keeping an eye on, fellow nerds.

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

Alistair said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341508176294887426

Whilst she should have kept her mask on it was the wake of a funeral.

Why would it being a wake matter in any way?

I don't think people should resign for minor breaches of things, but I suspect a lot of politicians have said they think that in the past, and will be rolling back on that.

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

Of course Supercovid is in the EU, it is inconceivable that it hasn’t crossed the Channel. They are just a few weeks behind us (or maybe not, looking at the figures now coming out of Germany, Italy, etc)

It's certainly going to be an awkward daily briefing for Sturgeon tomorrow. Actually, checking, I see it's FMQ's tomorrow I think, so a different awkward but awkward nevertheless.

MarqueeMark said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341510820266700800

Dear God, let it be "Go!"

Garbage headline. We know that the vaccine is safe. The question is the efficacy.

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

tlg86 said:

Alistair said:

Pulpstar said:

Leon said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1274024170729373702

That is awkward

I expect she'll apologise and that'll be that. It's a minor breach.

Correct about the apology

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-55419564

Last Friday, while attending a funeral wake, I had my mask off briefly.

She better hope no one comes forward to contradict the briefly bit.

That is going to enter folklore

I had my mask off briefly

Yes. She’s given a hostage to posterity. Every True Scotsman now has a cast iron excuse for breaking the rules - any rules.

Ach, I was only kissing your wife briefly

Crivvens, I was only burgling your apartment briefly

Hoots, I was just murdering my mother in law briefly

Leon said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

Of course Supercovid is in the EU, it is inconceivable that it hasn’t crossed the Channel. They are just a few weeks behind us (or maybe not, looking at the figures now coming out of Germany, Italy, etc)

The current death figures correspond to the case levels from a few weeks ago. It's all going to get much worse when the supercovid rise filters through into deaths (unless the mutation has made it less lethal, for which there's no evidence so far).

Black_Rook said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

But unlike England, Germany does not think it is outstanding at everything.

eristdoof said:

Black_Rook said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

But unlike England, Germany does not think it is outstanding at everything.

Good grief! I assume that you don't live here. Nobody thinks we've had a "good" pandemic, if such a thing exists.

SandyRentool said:

kle4 said:

SandyRentool said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341505129904812032

We should hang our heads in shame.

Who is we here? Party or public?

Sorry, we as in the Labour Party.

The party established to represent the interests of working people. Not a bunch of tofu munching hand-wringers in Hampstead.

Bit harsh. Has it ever been confirmed that kinabalu even likes tofu?

SandyRentool said:

kle4 said:

SandyRentool said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341505129904812032

We should hang our heads in shame.

Who is we here? Party or public?

Sorry, we as in the Labour Party.

The party established to represent the interests of working people. Not a bunch of tofu munching hand-wringers in Hampstead.

After the election
The Secretary of the GMB
Had articles distributed in the New Statesmen
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the Party
And could only win it back
By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler
for the Party
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

OK, looked at the numbers a bit more.

Looks like Kent, as a current example of an R rate forged in Tier 3 (post lockdown) is running with R at about 1.3, compared with an average around 0.9 in the earlier T3s once they stabilised.

Looks like Essex, which is an example of an R rate forged in Tier 2, is running at about 1.6, as opposed to around 1.1-1.2 typical for earlier tier 2 regimes - this might be the peak growth.

So, it does look like a numerical 0.4 on observed R rates a month or two ago.

The thought that this extra transmissibility is mostly through children passing the virus on does seem plausible. And so a quiet tier 4 Christmas will help.

R rates are similarly high across the whole East and South East. I'd do something like the following - the exact tiers would depend on the distribution signals for the new strain:

Re-tier
- Be minded to make the whole SE, E and London T4.
- Make all remaining areas London side of the Severn and Trent, T3.
- No areas to remain in T1.
- Review tiers on a daily basis.

Strengthen the current tiers a little more specifically for childrens' activities:
- Tier 3 currently allows most in person out of school and leisure activities for children, socially distanced of course, to continue. This should stop, say at least for over 11s in T2, and probably for all ages in tier 3.
- The extension of secondary Christmas holidays until at least 11/1, possibly with the phased return, then an additional week to half-term (13/2-28/2 would be typical). The first week to ensure schools' rapid testing can be set up successfully. (we can see a little why it was sudden now, but breathing space will be no bad thing).
- Option for secondary schools to run part remote where they are set up for that. Teaching should continue for all pupils but a lot more discretion given as to how - the central question being can they teach their pupils well enough by that mode.
- Parents encouraged to minimise childrens' current bus use.

I like the idea that T5 could be like March lockdown, but I wouldn't deploy that yet (T4 with the schools off for Xmad is pretty close to this).

IshmaelZ said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/22/tier-4-widened-boxing-day/

Oh good, Plymouth is a hotspot. Terrific.

Chillax. In about a fortnight everywhere will be a hotspot. This is New Improved Ultracovid. This is what it does

eristdoof said:

Leon said:

BTW. The German death figure, today - 944 - is a record for the country, by some distance.

I imagine tonight’s German TV news will NOT be dominated by Supercovid or Brexit lorries.

N501Y and the stranded lorries (they aren't Brexit lorries) are making the news, but you're right, it's not the headlines. Yesterday evening the headlines were life imprisonment for a terrorist attack on a synagogue a year ago. There are a few other things going on than just Covid and Brexit.

To back up my point, the first item on the German news at midnight was the collapse of the Israeli government, despite the record number of covid deaths in Germany today.

eristdoof said:

eristdoof said:

Leon said:

BTW. The German death figure, today - 944 - is a record for the country, by some distance.

I imagine tonight’s German TV news will NOT be dominated by Supercovid or Brexit lorries.

N501Y and the stranded lorries (they aren't Brexit lorries) are making the news, but you're right, it's not the headlines. Yesterday evening the headlines were life imprisonment for a terrorist attack on a synagogue a year ago. There are a few other things going on than just Covid and Brexit.

To back up my point, the first item on the German news at midnight was the collapse of the Israeli government, despite the record number of covid deaths in Germany today.

That seems quite odd. To me. But I know from a friend who worked for German State TV that your media is quite bonkers, by British standards

Black_Rook said:

SandyRentool said:

kle4 said:

SandyRentool said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341505129904812032

We should hang our heads in shame.

Who is we here? Party or public?

Sorry, we as in the Labour Party.

The party established to represent the interests of working people. Not a bunch of tofu munching hand-wringers in Hampstead.

LOL. To paraphrase Brecht, much of the Labour membership would very much like to dissolve the current working class and replace it with another. The tofu munchers despise everything about them.

Great minds...

Orwell repeatedly warned that there was a chunk of intellectual socialism that thought the biggest problem was the working class. And that this could destroy the Labour movement....

eristdoof said:

eristdoof said:

Leon said:

BTW. The German death figure, today - 944 - is a record for the country, by some distance.

I imagine tonight’s German TV news will NOT be dominated by Supercovid or Brexit lorries.

N501Y and the stranded lorries (they aren't Brexit lorries) are making the news, but you're right, it's not the headlines. Yesterday evening the headlines were life imprisonment for a terrorist attack on a synagogue a year ago. There are a few other things going on than just Covid and Brexit.

To back up my point, the first item on the German news at midnight was the collapse of the Israeli government, despite the record number of covid deaths in Germany today.

Priorities - they can see betting opportunities on another election.

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

eristdoof said:

Black_Rook said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

But unlike England, Germany does not think it is outstanding at everything.

English exceptionaiism is odd. We certainly have a class of people who think we are exceptionally good, clever, brave, democratic, free, resourceful, ancient, glorious, and so on. Yet we have another class of people - generally richer, probably larger in number - that believes we are exceptionally evil, crap, gauche, racist, supremacist, silly, inept, bigoted and snobbish.

We are, I believe, exceptional in having these two kinds of exceptionalism.

No - it's just that negative nationalism is rarely noted by people *outside* the country in question.

You can find negative nationalists in every country.

But Orwell correctly noted that the English are exceptional in this respect.

Our negative nationalists are much better worse than anyone else's negative nationalists

Exactly! And only an Englishman would phrase it so exceptionally well

kle4 said:

I somehow missed that Baldurs Gate 3 is being developed, by the makers of Divinity: Original Sin. Probably worth keeping an eye on, fellow nerds.

It looks very very good - but is in early access

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/22/tier-4-widened-boxing-day/

Oh good, Plymouth is a hotspot. Terrific.

Chillax. In about a fortnight everywhere will be a hotspot. This is New Improved Ultracovid. This is what it does

Whole of England is going to Tier 4 28 Dec - to be announced 27 Dec

Will need to be in place to 28 Feb, and that will only work if Oxford AZ is approved this year ie next week.

Also schools closed until 28 Feb - government will announce 'on line' learning for part of Jan initially, will be extended to 28 Feb

Partial relaxations in March, maybe reduction to Tier 3 national, dependent on vaccine progress by 28 Feb.

Schools closed until 28 Feb?????? OMFG

Personally, that is awful news. I hope you are wrong, I fear you could be right

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1341516002207674373?s=20
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1341523991304024068?s=20

Black_Rook said:

eristdoof said:

Black_Rook said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

But unlike England, Germany does not think it is outstanding at everything.

Good grief! I assume that you don't live here. Nobody thinks we've had a "good" pandemic, if such a thing exists.

I have been in Berlin for the last 7 years, but am English and have lived in England for over 40 years. So yes I do realize that many English think Britain is shit at everything. But there are also very many English people who think that Britain is best at almost everything except for winter sports. That kind of blind patriotism vs antipatriotism is not common at all here (i want to make it clear that I'm not talking about the rise of the AfD and pegida which is something quite different)

Black_Rook said:

Pro_Rata said:

OK, looked at the numbers a bit more.

Looks like Kent, as a current example of an R rate forged in Tier 3 (post lockdown) is running with R at about 1.3, compared with an average around 0.9 in the earlier T3s once they stabilised.

Looks like Essex, which is an example of an R rate forged in Tier 2, is running at about 1.6, as opposed to around 1.1-1.2 typical for earlier tier 2 regimes - this might be the peak growth.

So, it does look like a numerical 0.4 on observed R rates a month or two ago.

The thought that this extra transmissibility is mostly through children passing the virus on does seem plausible. And so a quiet tier 4 Christmas will help.

R rates are similarly high across the whole East and South East. I'd do something like the following - the exact tiers would depend on the distribution signals for the new strain:

Re-tier
- Be minded to make the whole SE, E and London T4.
- Make all remaining areas London side of the Severn and Trent, T3.
- No areas to remain in T1.
- Review tiers on a daily basis.

Strengthen the current tiers a little more specifically for childrens' activities:
- Tier 3 currently allows most in person out of school and leisure activities for children, socially distanced of course, to continue. This should stop, say at least for over 11s in T2, and probably for all ages in tier 3.
- The extension of secondary Christmas holidays until at least 11/1, possibly with the phased return, then an additional week to half-term (13/2-28/2 would be typical). The first week to ensure schools' rapid testing can be set up successfully. (we can see a little why it was sudden now, but breathing space will be no bad thing).
- Option for secondary schools to run part remote where they are set up for that. Teaching should continue for all pupils but a lot more discretion given as to how - the central question being can they teach their pupils well enough by that mode.
- Parents encouraged to minimise childrens' current bus use.

I like the idea that T5 could be like March lockdown, but I wouldn't deploy that yet (T4 with the schools off for Xmad is pretty close to this).

If the principal remaining causes of transmission are supermarket shopping and schools, and we cannot stop the former because the home delivery capacity of the nation won't keep everybody fed, then why don't we simply dispense with the game of kiddie hokey-cokey and go back to remote learning?

The sooner the kids are out of circulation, the sooner the disease (hopefully) comes under control, and the earlier we can start to let people back out again once the vaccination programme is well advanced? If we can get the caseload right the way down then it might be possible to, for example, get children back to school once we've got as far as jabbing all the over 70s and the shielders, rather than needing to wait until we've got down as far as the over 60s or over 55s, because the hospitals are still too full to risk it?

You do realise there are kids who desperately NEED school, not just for learning, but for socialising, maturing, interacting, growing up? Blithely closing down the schools, for months at a time, is mad. And doing it to save the old?

Moreover, if you close the schools you shutter the economy in a particularly vicious way. It means millions of parents have to stay home to look after the kids. It is a brutal blow to economic activity.

This is why the government - which has got many things wrong - has rightly striven to keep the schools open at almost any cost.

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

eristdoof said:

Black_Rook said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

But unlike England, Germany does not think it is outstanding at everything.

English exceptionaiism is odd. We certainly have a class of people who think we are exceptionally good, clever, brave, democratic, free, resourceful, ancient, glorious, and so on. Yet we have another class of people - generally richer, probably larger in number - that believes we are exceptionally evil, crap, gauche, racist, supremacist, silly, inept, bigoted and snobbish.

We are, I believe, exceptional in having these two kinds of exceptionalism.

No - it's just that negative nationalism is rarely noted by people *outside* the country in question.

You can find negative nationalists in every country.

But Orwell correctly noted that the English are exceptional in this respect.

Our negative nationalists are much better worse than anyone else's negative nationalists

Exactly! And only an Englishman would phrase it so exceptionally well

Well, God *is* an Englishman. As Admiral "Mad" Jack Fisher observed.

Was he the one whose epistolary style was indistinguishable from that of a California Valley Girl?

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/22/tier-4-widened-boxing-day/

Oh good, Plymouth is a hotspot. Terrific.

Chillax. In about a fortnight everywhere will be a hotspot. This is New Improved Ultracovid. This is what it does

Whole of England is going to Tier 4 28 Dec - to be announced 27 Dec

Will need to be in place to 28 Feb, and that will only work if Oxford AZ is approved this year ie next week.

Also schools closed until 28 Feb - government will announce 'on line' learning for part of Jan initially, will be extended to 28 Feb

Partial relaxations in March, maybe reduction to Tier 3 national, dependent on vaccine progress by 28 Feb.

Schools closed until 28 Feb?????? OMFG

Personally, that is awful news. I hope you are wrong, I fear you could be right

These are only my predictions. We need to close the schools as they are driving this. With usual exceptions for children of key workers etc.

Seconded. It'll be God awful for working parents, and also for those children whose domestic circumstances are crap, but the sooner it's done the sooner it's over.

As I've said before, if there were no vaccine and no imminent prospect of one then we'd have to attempt risk segmentation or other strategies to try to live with this thing, because we can't go on with lockdown cycles ad infinitum. But there is a highly effective vaccine, with a prospect of one that's much easier to administer and available in larger quantities coming round the next corner.

The end is in sight, even if it is still a fairly distant prospect that is going to make a locked down Winter bloody miserable for everybody. Letting the virus run amok in the schools and bring down the healthcare system isn't justified by any reasonable cost-benefit analysis.

eristdoof said:

Black_Rook said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

But unlike England, Germany does not think it is outstanding at everything.

Are you still in 1940? I'm curious where this idea about England comes from.

Malmesbury said:

Black_Rook said:

SandyRentool said:

kle4 said:

SandyRentool said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1341505129904812032

We should hang our heads in shame.

Who is we here? Party or public?

Sorry, we as in the Labour Party.

The party established to represent the interests of working people. Not a bunch of tofu munching hand-wringers in Hampstead.

LOL. To paraphrase Brecht, much of the Labour membership would very much like to dissolve the current working class and replace it with another. The tofu munchers despise everything about them.

Great minds...

Orwell repeatedly warned that there was a chunk of intellectual socialism that thought the biggest problem was the working class. And that this could destroy the Labour movement....

He also repeatedly condemned the anti intellectualism of the British ruling class.

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

Black_Rook said:

Pro_Rata said:

OK, looked at the numbers a bit more.

Looks like Kent, as a current example of an R rate forged in Tier 3 (post lockdown) is running with R at about 1.3, compared with an average around 0.9 in the earlier T3s once they stabilised.

Looks like Essex, which is an example of an R rate forged in Tier 2, is running at about 1.6, as opposed to around 1.1-1.2 typical for earlier tier 2 regimes - this might be the peak growth.

So, it does look like a numerical 0.4 on observed R rates a month or two ago.

The thought that this extra transmissibility is mostly through children passing the virus on does seem plausible. And so a quiet tier 4 Christmas will help.

R rates are similarly high across the whole East and South East. I'd do something like the following - the exact tiers would depend on the distribution signals for the new strain:

Re-tier
- Be minded to make the whole SE, E and London T4.
- Make all remaining areas London side of the Severn and Trent, T3.
- No areas to remain in T1.
- Review tiers on a daily basis.

Strengthen the current tiers a little more specifically for childrens' activities:
- Tier 3 currently allows most in person out of school and leisure activities for children, socially distanced of course, to continue. This should stop, say at least for over 11s in T2, and probably for all ages in tier 3.
- The extension of secondary Christmas holidays until at least 11/1, possibly with the phased return, then an additional week to half-term (13/2-28/2 would be typical). The first week to ensure schools' rapid testing can be set up successfully. (we can see a little why it was sudden now, but breathing space will be no bad thing).
- Option for secondary schools to run part remote where they are set up for that. Teaching should continue for all pupils but a lot more discretion given as to how - the central question being can they teach their pupils well enough by that mode.
- Parents encouraged to minimise childrens' current bus use.

I like the idea that T5 could be like March lockdown, but I wouldn't deploy that yet (T4 with the schools off for Xmad is pretty close to this).

If the principal remaining causes of transmission are supermarket shopping and schools, and we cannot stop the former because the home delivery capacity of the nation won't keep everybody fed, then why don't we simply dispense with the game of kiddie hokey-cokey and go back to remote learning?

The sooner the kids are out of circulation, the sooner the disease (hopefully) comes under control, and the earlier we can start to let people back out again once the vaccination programme is well advanced? If we can get the caseload right the way down then it might be possible to, for example, get children back to school once we've got as far as jabbing all the over 70s and the shielders, rather than needing to wait until we've got down as far as the over 60s or over 55s, because the hospitals are still too full to risk it?

You do realise there are kids who desperately NEED school, not just for learning, but for socialising, maturing, interacting, growing up? Blithely closing down the schools, for months at a time, is mad. And doing it to save the old?

Moreover, if you close the schools you shutter the economy in a particularly vicious way. It means millions of parents have to stay home to look after the kids. It is a brutal blow to economic activity.

This is why the government - which has got many things wrong - has rightly striven to keep the schools open at almost any cost.

Leon - I don't want to be gloomy but if we get to 100,000 maybe 200,000 cases a day and maybe 100,000 deaths Q1 2020 that is going to be a 'brutal blow' to everyone!

It's not just about 'saving the old', 100,000 dead and many more with long COVID often young is not a good idea. For most children having two months at home won't make a difference, it's a long time since I went to school but I know 80% of the time there is wasted/spent on pointless things so there will be no real learning loss.

Much better to bring in very regular testing for kids and teachers. And keep the schools open thereby

Leon said:

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

Black_Rook said:

Pro_Rata said:

OK, looked at the numbers a bit more.

Looks like Kent, as a current example of an R rate forged in Tier 3 (post lockdown) is running with R at about 1.3, compared with an average around 0.9 in the earlier T3s once they stabilised.

Looks like Essex, which is an example of an R rate forged in Tier 2, is running at about 1.6, as opposed to around 1.1-1.2 typical for earlier tier 2 regimes - this might be the peak growth.

So, it does look like a numerical 0.4 on observed R rates a month or two ago.

The thought that this extra transmissibility is mostly through children passing the virus on does seem plausible. And so a quiet tier 4 Christmas will help.

R rates are similarly high across the whole East and South East. I'd do something like the following - the exact tiers would depend on the distribution signals for the new strain:

Re-tier
- Be minded to make the whole SE, E and London T4.
- Make all remaining areas London side of the Severn and Trent, T3.
- No areas to remain in T1.
- Review tiers on a daily basis.

Strengthen the current tiers a little more specifically for childrens' activities:
- Tier 3 currently allows most in person out of school and leisure activities for children, socially distanced of course, to continue. This should stop, say at least for over 11s in T2, and probably for all ages in tier 3.
- The extension of secondary Christmas holidays until at least 11/1, possibly with the phased return, then an additional week to half-term (13/2-28/2 would be typical). The first week to ensure schools' rapid testing can be set up successfully. (we can see a little why it was sudden now, but breathing space will be no bad thing).
- Option for secondary schools to run part remote where they are set up for that. Teaching should continue for all pupils but a lot more discretion given as to how - the central question being can they teach their pupils well enough by that mode.
- Parents encouraged to minimise childrens' current bus use.

I like the idea that T5 could be like March lockdown, but I wouldn't deploy that yet (T4 with the schools off for Xmad is pretty close to this).

If the principal remaining causes of transmission are supermarket shopping and schools, and we cannot stop the former because the home delivery capacity of the nation won't keep everybody fed, then why don't we simply dispense with the game of kiddie hokey-cokey and go back to remote learning?

The sooner the kids are out of circulation, the sooner the disease (hopefully) comes under control, and the earlier we can start to let people back out again once the vaccination programme is well advanced? If we can get the caseload right the way down then it might be possible to, for example, get children back to school once we've got as far as jabbing all the over 70s and the shielders, rather than needing to wait until we've got down as far as the over 60s or over 55s, because the hospitals are still too full to risk it?

You do realise there are kids who desperately NEED school, not just for learning, but for socialising, maturing, interacting, growing up? Blithely closing down the schools, for months at a time, is mad. And doing it to save the old?

Moreover, if you close the schools you shutter the economy in a particularly vicious way. It means millions of parents have to stay home to look after the kids. It is a brutal blow to economic activity.

This is why the government - which has got many things wrong - has rightly striven to keep the schools open at almost any cost.

Leon - I don't want to be gloomy but if we get to 100,000 maybe 200,000 cases a day and maybe 100,000 deaths Q1 2020 that is going to be a 'brutal blow' to everyone!

It's not just about 'saving the old', 100,000 dead and many more with long COVID often young is not a good idea. For most children having two months at home won't make a difference, it's a long time since I went to school but I know 80% of the time there is wasted/spent on pointless things so there will be no real learning loss.

Much better to bring in very regular testing for kids and teachers. And keep the schools open thereby

Fair point - but then you are reliant on the government organising it properly...

Also you have the problem of parents spreading it between themselves as they congregate outside of school before and after lessons as of course nowadays children can't walk to school - in my day children got themselves to school, perfectly safely!

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

Black_Rook said:

Pro_Rata said:

OK, looked at the numbers a bit more.

Looks like Kent, as a current example of an R rate forged in Tier 3 (post lockdown) is running with R at about 1.3, compared with an average around 0.9 in the earlier T3s once they stabilised.

Looks like Essex, which is an example of an R rate forged in Tier 2, is running at about 1.6, as opposed to around 1.1-1.2 typical for earlier tier 2 regimes - this might be the peak growth.

So, it does look like a numerical 0.4 on observed R rates a month or two ago.

The thought that this extra transmissibility is mostly through children passing the virus on does seem plausible. And so a quiet tier 4 Christmas will help.

R rates are similarly high across the whole East and South East. I'd do something like the following - the exact tiers would depend on the distribution signals for the new strain:

Re-tier
- Be minded to make the whole SE, E and London T4.
- Make all remaining areas London side of the Severn and Trent, T3.
- No areas to remain in T1.
- Review tiers on a daily basis.

Strengthen the current tiers a little more specifically for childrens' activities:
- Tier 3 currently allows most in person out of school and leisure activities for children, socially distanced of course, to continue. This should stop, say at least for over 11s in T2, and probably for all ages in tier 3.
- The extension of secondary Christmas holidays until at least 11/1, possibly with the phased return, then an additional week to half-term (13/2-28/2 would be typical). The first week to ensure schools' rapid testing can be set up successfully. (we can see a little why it was sudden now, but breathing space will be no bad thing).
- Option for secondary schools to run part remote where they are set up for that. Teaching should continue for all pupils but a lot more discretion given as to how - the central question being can they teach their pupils well enough by that mode.
- Parents encouraged to minimise childrens' current bus use.

I like the idea that T5 could be like March lockdown, but I wouldn't deploy that yet (T4 with the schools off for Xmad is pretty close to this).

If the principal remaining causes of transmission are supermarket shopping and schools, and we cannot stop the former because the home delivery capacity of the nation won't keep everybody fed, then why don't we simply dispense with the game of kiddie hokey-cokey and go back to remote learning?

The sooner the kids are out of circulation, the sooner the disease (hopefully) comes under control, and the earlier we can start to let people back out again once the vaccination programme is well advanced? If we can get the caseload right the way down then it might be possible to, for example, get children back to school once we've got as far as jabbing all the over 70s and the shielders, rather than needing to wait until we've got down as far as the over 60s or over 55s, because the hospitals are still too full to risk it?

You do realise there are kids who desperately NEED school, not just for learning, but for socialising, maturing, interacting, growing up? Blithely closing down the schools, for months at a time, is mad. And doing it to save the old?

Moreover, if you close the schools you shutter the economy in a particularly vicious way. It means millions of parents have to stay home to look after the kids. It is a brutal blow to economic activity.

This is why the government - which has got many things wrong - has rightly striven to keep the schools open at almost any cost.

Leon - I don't want to be gloomy but if we get to 100,000 maybe 200,000 cases a day and maybe 100,000 deaths Q1 2020 that is going to be a 'brutal blow' to everyone!

It's not just about 'saving the old', 100,000 dead and many more with long COVID often young is not a good idea. For most children having two months at home won't make a difference, it's a long time since I went to school but I know 80% of the time there is wasted/spent on pointless things so there will be no real learning loss.

You seem to be making a pretty compelling case for just closing the schools permanently.

It's not about two months though is it, it's that plus the three months earlier this year plus the disruption in between. Plus the distinction between secondary schools and primary schools where disruption at such a formative age is even more keenly felt.

To me the school closure calls always have the same problem. It's easy to see why it may well need to be done but one rarely, if ever, sees any call to close the schools that explains how that time could (or should) be made back up.

We have to assume that online/blended learning is only at best a partial replacement for in-person teaching, particularly at the younger age brackets or in areas where access to online materials will be more difficult, and therefore the time spent physically out of school needs to be made back up somewhere.

Calls to close schools would be more compelling if that was addressed within them, even excepting the many other good reasons to avoid it if possible.

eristdoof said:

Black_Rook said:

eristdoof said:

Black_Rook said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It is rather concerning that while we are trying to deal with Supercovid the deaths yesterday in Germany were 50% higher than in the UK.

In most other European countries too deaths have been worse in the second wave than here.

Yet supposedly we are plague island? I am really concerned this virus is sweeping through the Continent and they simply don't know and are stabbing in the dark.

At the moment, we don't know who the "index case" was - the person from which the mutated version of the virus first emerged.

As a result, we don't know whether the mutation began in Kent or whether it was introduced from elsewhere, Prof Peacock said.

And we don't know whether it has already spread onwards from the UK to other countries.

Prof Tom Connor, who was involved in setting up Covid sequencing in Wales, believes it is "probable" that similar variants are emerging around the world, but they may not have been detected yet.

"We are sequencing in the UK at a disproportionate rate," he said, insisting the UK has a better surveillance system than other countries.

In order to know how far the variant has travelled or where it came from, you would need to compare notes with other countries - but comparable data very often does not exist, Prof Connor said.

For example, Public Health Wales sequenced about 4,000 genomes in the past week, more than the whole of France since the beginning of the pandemic.

This point was emphasised by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge, who pointed out it was "no coincidence" that an "interesting" multiple mutation had also been seen in South Africa, another country which does a lot of genomic sequencing.

Other European countries which were very quick to pick up notable mutations, Denmark and the Netherlands, also have strong surveillance systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55413666

As I suggested earlier, they probably have the same variant, or their own homegrown version(s), in circulation in many countries, it's just that they're either not bothering to look or are incapable of doing so.

Even Germany isn't outstanding at everything.

But unlike England, Germany does not think it is outstanding at everything.

Good grief! I assume that you don't live here. Nobody thinks we've had a "good" pandemic, if such a thing exists.

I have been in Berlin for the last 7 years, but am English and have lived in England for over 40 years. So yes I do realize that many English think Britain is shit at everything. But there are also very many English people who think that Britain is best at almost everything except for winter sports. That kind of blind patriotism vs antipatriotism is not common at all here (i want to make it clear that I'm not talking about the rise of the AfD and pegida which is something quite different)

English exeptionalism is a cancer in this country. It's why we are Brexiting.

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1341291395349397505?s=20
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1341513083089547266?s=20
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1341518551467892738?s=20

solarflare said:

londonpubman said:

Leon said:

Black_Rook said:

Pro_Rata said:

OK, looked at the numbers a bit more.

Looks like Kent, as a current example of an R rate forged in Tier 3 (post lockdown) is running with R at about 1.3, compared with an average around 0.9 in the earlier T3s once they stabilised.

Looks like Essex, which is an example of an R rate forged in Tier 2, is running at about 1.6, as opposed to around 1.1-1.2 typical for earlier tier 2 regimes - this might be the peak growth.

So, it does look like a numerical 0.4 on observed R rates a month or two ago.

The thought that this extra transmissibility is mostly through children passing the virus on does seem plausible. And so a quiet tier 4 Christmas will help.

R rates are similarly high across the whole East and South East. I'd do something like the following - the exact tiers would depend on the distribution signals for the new strain:

Re-tier
- Be minded to make the whole SE, E and London T4.
- Make all remaining areas London side of the Severn and Trent, T3.
- No areas to remain in T1.
- Review tiers on a daily basis.

Strengthen the current tiers a little more specifically for childrens' activities:
- Tier 3 currently allows most in person out of school and leisure activities for children, socially distanced of course, to continue. This should stop, say at least for over 11s in T2, and probably for all ages in tier 3.
- The extension of secondary Christmas holidays until at least 11/1, possibly with the phased return, then an additional week to half-term (13/2-28/2 would be typical). The first week to ensure schools' rapid testing can be set up successfully. (we can see a little why it was sudden now, but breathing space will be no bad thing).
- Option for secondary schools to run part remote where they are set up for that. Teaching should continue for all pupils but a lot more discretion given as to how - the central question being can they teach their pupils well enough by that mode.
- Parents encouraged to minimise childrens' current bus use.

I like the idea that T5 could be like March lockdown, but I wouldn't deploy that yet (T4 with the schools off for Xmad is pretty close to this).

If the principal remaining causes of transmission are supermarket shopping and schools, and we cannot stop the former because the home delivery capacity of the nation won't keep everybody fed, then why don't we simply dispense with the game of kiddie hokey-cokey and go back to remote learning?

The sooner the kids are out of circulation, the sooner the disease (hopefully) comes under control, and the earlier we can start to let people back out again once the vaccination programme is well advanced? If we can get the caseload right the way down then it might be possible to, for example, get children back to school once we've got as far as jabbing all the over 70s and the shielders, rather than needing to wait until we've got down as far as the over 60s or over 55s, because the hospitals are still too full to risk it?

You do realise there are kids who desperately NEED school, not just for learning, but for socialising, maturing, interacting, growing up? Blithely closing down the schools, for months at a time, is mad. And doing it to save the old?

Moreover, if you close the schools you shutter the economy in a particularly vicious way. It means millions of parents have to stay home to look after the kids. It is a brutal blow to economic activity.

This is why the government - which has got many things wrong - has rightly striven to keep the schools open at almost any cost.

Leon - I don't want to be gloomy but if we get to 100,000 maybe 200,000 cases a day and maybe 100,000 deaths Q1 2020 that is going to be a 'brutal blow' to everyone!

It's not just about 'saving the old', 100,000 dead and many more with long COVID often young is not a good idea. For most children having two months at home won't make a difference, it's a long time since I went to school but I know 80% of the time there is wasted/spent on pointless things so there will be no real learning loss.

You seem to be making a pretty compelling case for just closing the schools permanently.

It's not about two months though is it, it's that plus the three months earlier this year plus the disruption in between. Plus the distinction between secondary schools and primary schools where disruption at such a formative age is even more keenly felt.

To me the school closure calls always have the same problem. It's easy to see why it may well need to be done but one rarely, if ever, sees any call to close the schools that explains how that time could (or should) be made back up.

We have to assume that online/blended learning is only at best a partial replacement for in-person teaching, particularly at the younger age brackets or in areas where access to online materials will be more difficult, and therefore the time spent physically out of school needs to be made back up somewhere.

Calls to close schools would be more compelling if that was addressed within them, even excepting the many other good reasons to avoid it if possible.

Just for two months only ie to 28 Feb ie really six weeks, as suggested by me, if we can get all 65+ vaccinated by 28 Feb that reduces the exposure sufficiently.

Noted re primary schools and the exposure there ie primary schools appears to be less so maybe keep them open.

In general though in terms of learning the 'lost' summer term 2019/2020 and first half term Q1 2020/2021 would really make very little difference.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1341529716268929025

Ignore him, he's just covering all the bases.