Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Have to say that's utter nonsense. We have General Elections every 4-5 years normally (we had three in four and a half years so there are exceptions).
We do vote "again and again" - that's democracy. Saying everything is cast in stone and can't change "for a generation" us profoundly undemocratic.
It’s the difference between electing a representative body for a short period of time and fundamental change in the constitutional landscape
Like Brexit ?
Yes, it was right that our membership of the EU is tested every 20 years or so
When a party wins an election with that testing of 'our' membership in its manifesto, or are you now saying this should be something to put on the statute book? Perhaps there should be a referendum on it..
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Starmer is making a mistake. Labour is making a mistake. They are in the same lobby as Steve Baker. Disgusting decision.
Instead of respecting Democracy they are playing political games.
To believe in democracy you have to believe everyone in parliament can vote with their conscience on what they think of the deal, for the country and their constituents, without the weapon of no deal held to their heads.
If then it passes, it passes. That’s democracy saying yes. And, if governments deal can’t pass despite an eighty seat majority over all other parties, democracy is saying no.
Is that all Labour is now, a split between unreconstructed IRA loving Marxists or ambitious New Labour sell outs? If so then it is toast. This is the day history will point to as the day Labour became toast.
Surely if everyone can vote with their conscience then the fact that the government has an 80 seat majority is irrelevant?
Unless you think that Tories don’t have a conscience...
And what level of effectiveness can we have “every confidence in” ?
Having read the trial documents the efficacy is an odd one to understand and easily compare. In the AZ trial because of the weekly PCR test for participants, anyone who tested positive was then assessed for symptoms and even the most minor ones such as the sniffles or a solitary headache would count towards the total number of symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm. They created a rod for their own back because not a single person out there cares about getting the sniffles or a couple of headaches or other relatively minor symptoms. Symptoms that didn't get recorded in the other trials and didn't count towards their symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm.
I await the full trial data and classification of symptoms in the vaccine arm, that may actually help us to calculate efficacy of it against serious symptoms and mild symptoms rather than what may just be coincidental ones.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
I disagree. Our vaccine roll out is intended to mitigate the pressure on hospitals by treating those who are most likely to be hospitalised first. That seems sensible to me given the inevitable pressure the hospitals are going to be under for the next couple of months.
What's the point in hospitals if there's no doctors and nurses to run them? Too many are getting isolation notices right now and sadly both are highly likely to be unknowing super spreaders. Vaccinating them should have been priority one, everyone else should have been after that. Right now we could have vaccinated well, well over 1m NHS front line staff with the Pfizer vaccine, instead we've got complicated logistics and a much slower roll out to old people and not enough of them to make any real difference to the hospitalisation rate.
Hopefully from Monday the government will push for 300-500k per day for AZ but they don't seem up to the task and our hospitals are not only going to be overrun, they are also going to be short staffed. It's a double disaster becuaee the government fears bad headlines of young doctors and nurses getting vaccinated while old people are dying of it.
To put this into context, we're arming people back at home while the boys and girls going over the top are expected to fight bare handed. It's going to end badly.
My daughter works for the NHS. She is not patient treating but she is getting her jab very early in the New Year. It therefore seems to me that we are prioritising NHS staff. She is 31 and perfectly healthy. She would be waiting months otherwise. But once we have the medical staff covered we need to focus our efforts on those most likely to fill the beds even if they are not the most economically productive.
Which is fine, but as it stands wards are facing 20-30% staffing loss in January, if we'd made the vaccine NHS only from the start that wouldn't be the case. In addition we'd probably have done more of them as the logistics are much simpler to give it to front line staff in hospitals. Then the AZ vaccine could have been sent to care homes from Monday.
The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to face a very, very tough winter with short staffing which will inevitably lead to worse health outcomes for all patients.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree. I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Strange as my elderly grandparents, who are not "super high risk" in a medical sense and have not shielded, have had the jab already.
Postcode lottery? Although obviously the more (other) people have the vaccine, the more protection your elderly parents have from catching the virus (probably).
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
I disagree. Our vaccine roll out is intended to mitigate the pressure on hospitals by treating those who are most likely to be hospitalised first. That seems sensible to me given the inevitable pressure the hospitals are going to be under for the next couple of months.
What's the point in hospitals if there's no doctors and nurses to run them? Too many are getting isolation notices right now and sadly both are highly likely to be unknowing super spreaders. Vaccinating them should have been priority one, everyone else should have been after that. Right now we could have vaccinated well, well over 1m NHS front line staff with the Pfizer vaccine, instead we've got complicated logistics and a much slower roll out to old people and not enough of them to make any real difference to the hospitalisation rate.
Hopefully from Monday the government will push for 300-500k per day for AZ but they don't seem up to the task and our hospitals are not only going to be overrun, they are also going to be short staffed. It's a double disaster becuaee the government fears bad headlines of young doctors and nurses getting vaccinated while old people are dying of it.
To put this into context, we're arming people back at home while the boys and girls going over the top are expected to fight bare handed. It's going to end badly.
My daughter works for the NHS. She is not patient treating but she is getting her jab very early in the New Year. It therefore seems to me that we are prioritising NHS staff. She is 31 and perfectly healthy. She would be waiting months otherwise. But once we have the medical staff covered we need to focus our efforts on those most likely to fill the beds even if they are not the most economically productive.
Absolutely!
The over 85s and care home residents aren't "back at home" - they are in hospital beds. That is the problem. If they were back at home and not entering hospitals then the NHS wouldn't be under the strain that it is.
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree. I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Strange as my elderly grandparents, who are not "super high risk" in a medical sense and have not shielded, have had the jab already.
Postcode lottery? Although obviously the more (other) people have the vaccine, the more protection your elderly parents have from catching the virus (probably).
Its seems anecdotally spotty in some parts of the country. Obviously from next week, you will get either vaccine and so I would be surprised if they don't get a jab in the next couple of weeks.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
You are right in the central point. Claims of vaccine effectiveness made anywhere, in flyers, by PB posters, by scientists at Downing Street briefings, are piffle. Pie in the sky. No one can be sure without the massive beta test.
However. There is one thing we can be 100% sure of playing in this. Nationalism.
Claims anything out of Russia is not as good as ours.
Also British Government claiming we are the best country around, ahead of Europe and everyone whilst we distribute an imported vaccine manufactured with €100M investment.
Starmer is making a mistake. Labour is making a mistake. They are in the same lobby as Steve Baker. Disgusting decision.
Instead of respecting Democracy they are playing political games.
To believe in democracy you have to believe everyone in parliament can vote with their conscience on what they think of the deal, for the country and their constituents, without the weapon of no deal held to their heads.
If then it passes, it passes. That’s democracy saying yes. And, if governments deal can’t pass despite an eighty seat majority over all other parties, democracy is saying no.
Is that all Labour is now, a split between unreconstructed IRA loving Marxists or ambitious New Labour sell outs? If so then it is toast. This is the day history will point to as the day Labour became toast.
Obviously I disagree, but even from an opposition perspective, isn't there a strong argument for playing this with a straight bat? If the deal failed to be ratified by Parliament, we would be in a No deal situation. Yes, with a Tory majority that's unlikely, but I think the public respects voting for the actual preferred outcome, not grandstanding. Nobody blamed Boris for the letter he had to write, and I don't think voters will blame Starmer for the deal he must now support.
Let’s deal with how history views this.
2016 Labour leadership and front bench do not campaign very hard for Remain. It’s almost like they have always believed in brexit.
2017 Labour stand in GE on slim majority of voters in a flawed direct democracy vote have spoken a brexit means brexit platform.
2019 any chance of a sensible as possible soft brexit slaughtered by Labour. Any chance of a confirmatory vote slaughtered by Labour.
2020 ambitious slimy pole climbing New Labour leadership vote for and ensure hardest of brexit endorsing slimmest of deals.
Conclusion. This is not a Tory Brexit. Labour has the blood of British economy on its hands. As households and government coffers become poorer Labour has that blood on its hands too.
The referendum was not a "flawed direct democracy vote". You lose your readers by making that point.
Without wanting to rake over the coals, the Electoral Commission thought it was badly flawed and had it been a binding referendum it would have been legally voided. So I think that is a fair statement. Both sides were peppered with lies and mendacity and it illustrated broadly how *not* to run a referendum, regardless of the outcome.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
1st shot gives something like 50%+ protection, within 5-10 days.
Hartlepool, parts of the East Midlands such as Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, and all areas of the West Midlands metropolitan county are among the areas that could move to tier four.
It is thought a handful of areas in Lancashire - Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Pendle and Ribble Valley - could also be upgraded from tier three.
And there may be further curbs for areas already in the highest tier amid concerns that the current rules are not enough to stop the fast-spreading new virus variant.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
Is it time for the government to be explicit about an escape plan?
My concern is that we get to 2/3 rds of adults (say) vaccinated, some vaccinated people catching the virus anyway (inevitable as not 100% effective) and the government STILL gets pressed into a risk-averse place.
The virus is still going to be present - we must understand this and live with it to some extent or we will never escape.
The government should make this clear now, i.e. when NHS pressure is lessened by x degree then liberties are restored and financial support ends.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Democracy doesn't have a 20 year timespan, it has a 5 year timespan.
Parliament lasts 5 years not 20 years.
2021 is the next scheduled Holyrood elections. That is not "voting again and again" it is a regularly scheduled election.
If the Scots elect a government committed to another referendum that is not "voting again and again" it is democracy in action.
It’s not within the remit of the Scottish government to determine whether there is a referendum
The British could elect a government committed to requiring the French to implement the Treaty of Troyes but that wouldn’t make it a democratic requirement
But we are not going to agree on this so let’s not bother to rehearse the same old arguments
The French are a foreign nation. Are the Scots?
Your "again and again" or "generation" or "20 year" arguments are just fluff. Elections are routinely held every five years for a reason.
Either you respect Scottish democracy or you do not. It is a simple enough question. Do you respect Scottish democracy: yes or no?
Yes.
I also respect the current constitutional set up which explicitly reserves power on referendums to Westminster.
By all means campaign to get that changed. But until it is changed screaming “it’s undemocratic” doesn’t cut it.
It absolutely does cut it.
Scotland has elections. They should be respected.
If you want to say you don't respect Scottish elections then that will doom the union faster than anything else.
If the SNP wanted another referendum without another election in-between getting a mandate for that then that would be asking "again and again" but your notion of "20 years" has no grounding within our constitutional settlement.
No Parliament can bind its successors has been a clear principle of our Parliamentary Democracy for hundreds of years. This Parliament is not bound by a vote nearly a decade ago now when so much has changed inbetween, it either chooses to respect the Scottish electorates choice in 2021 or it does not - there is no hiding place.
Matters related to the Union are explicitly reserved to Westminster. I know the SNP believes that doesn’t include referendums but that is a minority view.
That is the current constitutional settlement. If you don’t like it you need to change it not just set it aside
Absolutely it is reserved to Westminster, and nearly 100% of Scottish Westminster MPs are in favour of another referendum. People are campaigning to change it and are doing so democratically at the ballot box.
Now Scotland has a regularly scheduled election next year. If the SNP win a mandate for a referendum then Westminster has the ability to respect the will of the voters, or the ability to treat voters with contempt.
In my view politicians treating voters with contempt is not smart or productive.
disagreeing with someone is not treating them with contempt. The Scottish voters determined they were part of the U.K. demos. So they should be treated as part of the U.K. demos for reserved matters.
They did choose that, but they're not bound in servitude to that choice.
If they vote for a referendum on changing that then that is their choice and should be respected.
It will still be reserved, but it will be asking the Scottish voters - because they asked to be asked - whether they still wish to remain part of that demos or not anymore. Their choice, to be respected because they are able to make that decision for themselves.
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Are they over 80? It's initially being rolled out by age cohort, not clinical risk.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
I think that is a good way to look at it and a good reason for our current ranking of priorities. This disease is not equal opportunity. The vast majority of 21 year olds who get it will not be ill at all. Many may not even know that they've had it. We all want to get to that stage as fast as possible but especially those who are likely to suffer serious complications as a result.
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Are they over 80? It's initially being rolled out by age cohort, not clinical risk.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
Yes they are over 80, while also ticking basically all the boxes for underlying health conditions that are super risky for COVID.
And what level of effectiveness can we have “every confidence in” ?
Having read the trial documents the efficacy is an odd one to understand and easily compare. In the AZ trial because of the weekly PCR test for participants, anyone who tested positive was then assessed for symptoms and even the most minor ones such as the sniffles or a solitary headache would count towards the total number of symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm. They created a rod for their own back because not a single person out there cares about getting the sniffles or a couple of headaches or other relatively minor symptoms. Symptoms that didn't get recorded in the other trials and didn't count towards their symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm.
I await the full trial data and classification of symptoms in the vaccine arm, that may actually help us to calculate efficacy of it against serious symptoms and mild symptoms rather than what may just be coincidental ones.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
I was at the Metrocentre yesterday and it was wall-to-wall heaving. Almost 100% mask usage but huge groups of teenagers just hanging out in clear contravention of the rules. Felt like a bit of a kick in the teeth.
I can however understand how difficult it must be for a parent to say to their child that they're the only one who can't hang out with their mates. That's if the parents even know of course.
And what level of effectiveness can we have “every confidence in” ?
Having read the trial documents the efficacy is an odd one to understand and easily compare. In the AZ trial because of the weekly PCR test for participants, anyone who tested positive was then assessed for symptoms and even the most minor ones such as the sniffles or a solitary headache would count towards the total number of symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm. They created a rod for their own back because not a single person out there cares about getting the sniffles or a couple of headaches or other relatively minor symptoms. Symptoms that didn't get recorded in the other trials and didn't count towards their symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm.
I await the full trial data and classification of symptoms in the vaccine arm, that may actually help us to calculate efficacy of it against serious symptoms and mild symptoms rather than what may just be coincidental ones.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
MaxPB since you used a wartime analogy of putting weapons in the hands of the NHS staff - that is absolutely being done which is why they are being vaccinated before most of pensioners.
But vaccinating the 1.6 million who are overwhelming the NHS in incoming hospitalisations is akin to silencing the enemy artillery that are bombarding the hospital. Get the enemy artillery silenced and then our armed doctors and nurses can better win this battle.
And what level of effectiveness can we have “every confidence in” ?
Having read the trial documents the efficacy is an odd one to understand and easily compare. In the AZ trial because of the weekly PCR test for participants, anyone who tested positive was then assessed for symptoms and even the most minor ones such as the sniffles or a solitary headache would count towards the total number of symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm. They created a rod for their own back because not a single person out there cares about getting the sniffles or a couple of headaches or other relatively minor symptoms. Symptoms that didn't get recorded in the other trials and didn't count towards their symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm.
I await the full trial data and classification of symptoms in the vaccine arm, that may actually help us to calculate efficacy of it against serious symptoms and mild symptoms rather than what may just be coincidental ones.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Such as holding rerun general elections in 2017 and 2019 because the party that won them didn't like the result. That kind of thing.
No.
Yes Charles. Yes.
No.
A referendum on the constitutional rules is not the same as an election of a representative body with a tone limited mandate
It is absolutely the same. It is something that can be voted on by the Parliament and no Parliament is bound by any predecessor.
If the Lib Dems won the 2019 Referendum then Brexit would have been cancelled. Because Parliamentary elections trump any prior referendum or election and aren't bound to anything prior. Same principle applies for 2021. No Parliament is bound by its predecessors.
Sovereignty is delegated to parliament. Once parliament asks for and receives an explicit instruction it trumps any delegated authority.
Until the next time it gets a new set of instructions.
Yes, a new referendum would override the earlier set. Because the demos evolves over time and it is right that the new demos has its say. (Same principle with no parliament being able to bind its successors).
A process to select members of a representative body is not the same even though you purport to infer instructions from those representatives non-binding manifestos
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
One jab is enough for 70% protection. Two jabs is for close to 100% protection.
So yes it should already have in January a major impact. The people vaccinated in December will majorly reduce the incoming hospitalisations in January immediately. That is in the collective good.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Such as holding rerun general elections in 2017 and 2019 because the party that won them didn't like the result. That kind of thing.
No.
Yes Charles. Yes.
No.
A referendum on the constitutional rules is not the same as an election of a representative body with a tone limited mandate
It is absolutely the same. It is something that can be voted on by the Parliament and no Parliament is bound by any predecessor.
If the Lib Dems won the 2019 Referendum then Brexit would have been cancelled. Because Parliamentary elections trump any prior referendum or election and aren't bound to anything prior. Same principle applies for 2021. No Parliament is bound by its predecessors.
Sovereignty is delegated to parliament. Once parliament asks for and receives an explicit instruction it trumps any delegated authority.
Until the next time it gets a new set of instructions.
Yes, a new referendum would override the earlier set. Because the demos evolves over time and it is right that the new demos has its say. (Same principle with no parliament being able to bind its successors).
A process to select members of a representative body is not the same even though you purport to infer instructions from those representatives non-binding manifestos
Your mental gymnastics are almost as impressive as @Philip_Thompson's. This is like the Olympics.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Such as holding rerun general elections in 2017 and 2019 because the party that won them didn't like the result. That kind of thing.
No.
Yes Charles. Yes.
No.
A referendum on the constitutional rules is not the same as an election of a representative body with a tone limited mandate
It is absolutely the same. It is something that can be voted on by the Parliament and no Parliament is bound by any predecessor.
If the Lib Dems won the 2019 Referendum then Brexit would have been cancelled. Because Parliamentary elections trump any prior referendum or election and aren't bound to anything prior. Same principle applies for 2021. No Parliament is bound by its predecessors.
Sovereignty is delegated to parliament. Once parliament asks for and receives an explicit instruction it trumps any delegated authority.
Until the next time it gets a new set of instructions.
Yes, a new referendum would override the earlier set. Because the demos evolves over time and it is right that the new demos has its say. (Same principle with no parliament being able to bind its successors).
A process to select members of a representative body is not the same even though you purport to infer instructions from those representatives non-binding manifestos
It is the same. It is the only way we have to determine it.
If there is to be a new referendum then only the representative can insist upon that and the way to do that is from an election manifesto demanding one.
If the Scottish voters vote for that next year then that will be their will. If they are to be treated with respect then their will will be honoured and respected.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
I think the first second jabs were actually given yesterday.
But say it's 7%. 105% of hospital capacity is a disaster. 98% is fine.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Have to say that's utter nonsense. We have General Elections every 4-5 years normally (we had three in four and a half years so there are exceptions).
We do vote "again and again" - that's democracy. Saying everything is cast in stone and can't change "for a generation" us profoundly undemocratic.
It’s the difference between electing a representative body for a short period of time and fundamental change in the constitutional landscape
Like Brexit ?
Yes, it was right that our membership of the EU is tested every 20 years or so
When a party wins an election with that testing of 'our' membership in its manifesto, or are you now saying this should be something to put on the statute book? Perhaps there should be a referendum on it..
There needs to be demand for a change and a reasonable period to time needs to have passed since the last referendum
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Have to say that's utter nonsense. We have General Elections every 4-5 years normally (we had three in four and a half years so there are exceptions).
We do vote "again and again" - that's democracy. Saying everything is cast in stone and can't change "for a generation" us profoundly undemocratic.
It’s the difference between electing a representative body for a short period of time and fundamental change in the constitutional landscape
Like Brexit ?
Yes, it was right that our membership of the EU is tested every 20 years or so
When a party wins an election with that testing of 'our' membership in its manifesto, or are you now saying this should be something to put on the statute book? Perhaps there should be a referendum on it..
There needs to be demand for a change and a reasonable period to time needs to have passed since the last referendum
A reasonable period of time is until the next Parliament.
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Are they over 80? It's initially being rolled out by age cohort, not clinical risk.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
It is definitely spotty. Not a word from my local GP. Parents / in-laws all over 85.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Have to say that's utter nonsense. We have General Elections every 4-5 years normally (we had three in four and a half years so there are exceptions).
We do vote "again and again" - that's democracy. Saying everything is cast in stone and can't change "for a generation" us profoundly undemocratic.
It’s the difference between electing a representative body for a short period of time and fundamental change in the constitutional landscape
Like Brexit ?
Yes, it was right that our membership of the EU is tested every 20 years or so
When a party wins an election with that testing of 'our' membership in its manifesto, or are you now saying this should be something to put on the statute book? Perhaps there should be a referendum on it..
There needs to be demand for a change and a reasonable period to time needs to have passed since the last referendum
Judging what is a suitable level of demand and what constitutes 'reasonable' decided by people like you? I get it.
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Are they over 80? It's initially being rolled out by age cohort, not clinical risk.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
It is definitely spotty. Not a word from my local GP. Parents / in-laws all over 85.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Such as holding rerun general elections in 2017 and 2019 because the party that won them didn't like the result. That kind of thing.
No.
Yes Charles. Yes.
No.
A referendum on the constitutional rules is not the same as an election of a representative body with a tone limited mandate
It is absolutely the same. It is something that can be voted on by the Parliament and no Parliament is bound by any predecessor.
If the Lib Dems won the 2019 Referendum then Brexit would have been cancelled. Because Parliamentary elections trump any prior referendum or election and aren't bound to anything prior. Same principle applies for 2021. No Parliament is bound by its predecessors.
Sovereignty is delegated to parliament. Once parliament asks for and receives an explicit instruction it trumps any delegated authority.
And the 2015 parliament received that guidance. Not an instruction. Explicitly not written into the Referendum Bill that it was a binding instruction.
Anyway, that instruction expired upon the dissolution of that parliament. No parliament can bind its successors. So the 2017 and 2019 parliaments were free to do as they please. Even if the referendum had been binding on the 2015 parliament - and it was not - it wouldn't have been binding on any successor parliament.
Come now Charles, an educated and erudite chap like yourself knows you are dancing on a pinhead trying to make this argument sound remotely rational.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
Is it time for the government to be explicit about an escape plan?
My concern is that we get to 2/3 rds of adults (say) vaccinated, some vaccinated people catching the virus anyway (inevitable as not 100% effective) and the government STILL gets pressed into a risk-averse place.
The virus is still going to be present - we must understand this and live with it to some extent or we will never escape.
The government should make this clear now, i.e. when NHS pressure is lessened by x degree then liberties are restored and financial support ends.
Don't think they'll put numbers on it but I expect that will be the thinking. Personally, if I were born to rule, I would go for a national tier 5 until we have vaccinated all over 65s, plus health and care workers and teachers, plus all people who specifically request it, then lift restrictions completely and return to full normality. It should be possible to give good advance notice of when that Freedom Day will be once we have made sufficient progress towards it.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Democracy doesn't have a 20 year timespan, it has a 5 year timespan.
Parliament lasts 5 years not 20 years.
2021 is the next scheduled Holyrood elections. That is not "voting again and again" it is a regularly scheduled election.
If the Scots elect a government committed to another referendum that is not "voting again and again" it is democracy in action.
It’s not within the remit of the Scottish government to determine whether there is a referendum
The British could elect a government committed to requiring the French to implement the Treaty of Troyes but that wouldn’t make it a democratic requirement
But we are not going to agree on this so let’s not bother to rehearse the same old arguments
The French are a foreign nation. Are the Scots?
Your "again and again" or "generation" or "20 year" arguments are just fluff. Elections are routinely held every five years for a reason.
Either you respect Scottish democracy or you do not. It is a simple enough question. Do you respect Scottish democracy: yes or no?
Yes.
I also respect the current constitutional set up which explicitly reserves power on referendums to Westminster.
By all means campaign to get that changed. But until it is changed screaming “it’s undemocratic” doesn’t cut it.
It absolutely does cut it.
Scotland has elections. They should be respected.
If you want to say you don't respect Scottish elections then that will doom the union faster than anything else.
If the SNP wanted another referendum without another election in-between getting a mandate for that then that would be asking "again and again" but your notion of "20 years" has no grounding within our constitutional settlement.
No Parliament can bind its successors has been a clear principle of our Parliamentary Democracy for hundreds of years. This Parliament is not bound by a vote nearly a decade ago now when so much has changed inbetween, it either chooses to respect the Scottish electorates choice in 2021 or it does not - there is no hiding place.
Matters related to the Union are explicitly reserved to Westminster. I know the SNP believes that doesn’t include referendums but that is a minority view.
That is the current constitutional settlement. If you don’t like it you need to change it not just set it aside
Absolutely it is reserved to Westminster, and nearly 100% of Scottish Westminster MPs are in favour of another referendum. People are campaigning to change it and are doing so democratically at the ballot box.
Now Scotland has a regularly scheduled election next year. If the SNP win a mandate for a referendum then Westminster has the ability to respect the will of the voters, or the ability to treat voters with contempt.
In my view politicians treating voters with contempt is not smart or productive.
disagreeing with someone is not treating them with contempt. The Scottish voters determined they were part of the U.K. demos. So they should be treated as part of the U.K. demos for reserved matters.
They did choose that, but they're not bound in servitude to that choice.
If they vote for a referendum on changing that then that is their choice and should be respected.
It will still be reserved, but it will be asking the Scottish voters - because they asked to be asked - whether they still wish to remain part of that demos or not anymore. Their choice, to be respected because they are able to make that decision for themselves.
They are voting for representatives and your are inferring everything else.
I put it to you that many SNP voters vote for them because SLAB are a bit shit and there is no other credible left of centre party
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Such as holding rerun general elections in 2017 and 2019 because the party that won them didn't like the result. That kind of thing.
No.
Yes Charles. Yes.
No.
A referendum on the constitutional rules is not the same as an election of a representative body with a tone limited mandate
It is absolutely the same. It is something that can be voted on by the Parliament and no Parliament is bound by any predecessor.
If the Lib Dems won the 2019 Referendum then Brexit would have been cancelled. Because Parliamentary elections trump any prior referendum or election and aren't bound to anything prior. Same principle applies for 2021. No Parliament is bound by its predecessors.
Sovereignty is delegated to parliament. Once parliament asks for and receives an explicit instruction it trumps any delegated authority.
Come now Charles, an educated and erudite chap like yourself knows you are dancing on a pinhead trying to make this argument sound remotely rational.
I was at the Metrocentre yesterday and it was wall-to-wall heaving. Almost 100% mask usage but huge groups of teenagers just hanging out in clear contravention of the rules. Felt like a bit of a kick in the teeth.
I can however understand how difficult it must be for a parent to say to their child that they're the only one who can't hang out with their mates. That's if the parents even know of course.
Compliance with the tiers and the regulations has collapsed. It's not helping. With the benefit of hindsight too many rules, far too many changes in them and inconsistent messaging have become a textbook example of how not to do laws.
In the form of the Twelve Day of Christmas, since the last Scottish Referendum we will have had:
3 General Elections 2 Scottish Elections 1 Brexit Referendum
How much more is needed for a Partridge in a Pear Tree for it to be considered 'a reasonable period of time' since the last one? 1 nationwide election since the last one would be enough for me but 6 nationwide elections in that time period is surely far more than enough to recognise time has changed.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Democracy doesn't have a 20 year timespan, it has a 5 year timespan.
Parliament lasts 5 years not 20 years.
2021 is the next scheduled Holyrood elections. That is not "voting again and again" it is a regularly scheduled election.
If the Scots elect a government committed to another referendum that is not "voting again and again" it is democracy in action.
It’s not within the remit of the Scottish government to determine whether there is a referendum
The British could elect a government committed to requiring the French to implement the Treaty of Troyes but that wouldn’t make it a democratic requirement
But we are not going to agree on this so let’s not bother to rehearse the same old arguments
The French are a foreign nation. Are the Scots?
Your "again and again" or "generation" or "20 year" arguments are just fluff. Elections are routinely held every five years for a reason.
Either you respect Scottish democracy or you do not. It is a simple enough question. Do you respect Scottish democracy: yes or no?
Yes.
I also respect the current constitutional set up which explicitly reserves power on referendums to Westminster.
By all means campaign to get that changed. But until it is changed screaming “it’s undemocratic” doesn’t cut it.
It absolutely does cut it.
Scotland has elections. They should be respected.
If you want to say you don't respect Scottish elections then that will doom the union faster than anything else.
If the SNP wanted another referendum without another election in-between getting a mandate for that then that would be asking "again and again" but your notion of "20 years" has no grounding within our constitutional settlement.
No Parliament can bind its successors has been a clear principle of our Parliamentary Democracy for hundreds of years. This Parliament is not bound by a vote nearly a decade ago now when so much has changed inbetween, it either chooses to respect the Scottish electorates choice in 2021 or it does not - there is no hiding place.
Matters related to the Union are explicitly reserved to Westminster. I know the SNP believes that doesn’t include referendums but that is a minority view.
That is the current constitutional settlement. If you don’t like it you need to change it not just set it aside
Absolutely it is reserved to Westminster, and nearly 100% of Scottish Westminster MPs are in favour of another referendum. People are campaigning to change it and are doing so democratically at the ballot box.
Now Scotland has a regularly scheduled election next year. If the SNP win a mandate for a referendum then Westminster has the ability to respect the will of the voters, or the ability to treat voters with contempt.
In my view politicians treating voters with contempt is not smart or productive.
disagreeing with someone is not treating them with contempt. The Scottish voters determined they were part of the U.K. demos. So they should be treated as part of the U.K. demos for reserved matters.
They did choose that, but they're not bound in servitude to that choice.
If they vote for a referendum on changing that then that is their choice and should be respected.
It will still be reserved, but it will be asking the Scottish voters - because they asked to be asked - whether they still wish to remain part of that demos or not anymore. Their choice, to be respected because they are able to make that decision for themselves.
They are voting for representatives and your are inferring everything else.
I put it to you that many SNP voters vote for them because SLAB are a bit shit and there is no other credible left of centre party
And I put it to you that it is irrelevant.
It isn't for you or me to make their choices, it is for them in any way they decide to do so. If you vote for a party then you take the rough with the smooth - and if you don't vote then you don't get to complain.
If the Scots don't want to go independent then they have two chances to veto it. If they deny the SNP and their pro-referendum allies a majority then it will be over, the people will have spoken and there won't be a referendum. But even if there is a referendum then they have every option to vote No if they want to - and then they will have spoken.
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Are they over 80? It's initially being rolled out by age cohort, not clinical risk.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
Yes they are over 80, while also ticking basically all the boxes for underlying health conditions that are super risky for COVID.
The health conditions don't make a difference yet. The clinically extremely vulnerable don't get to join the queue until the over-65s do which is priority 4.
But if they are over 80 it puts them in scope at the moment. So it must be down to how it is being organised locally in your area. Unfortunately most areas aren't telling people any more than "wait for an invite"
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
I think that is a good way to look at it and a good reason for our current ranking of priorities. This disease is not equal opportunity. The vast majority of 21 year olds who get it will not be ill at all. Many may not even know that they've had it. We all want to get to that stage as fast as possible but especially those who are likely to suffer serious complications as a result.
The point I do not fully get is this one about "does the vaccine stop you spreading it?" This is apparently not proven by the trials but I don't understand why not. We know it reduces the chance of being infected. So the inference here is it might be possible to pass on the virus without being infected yourself? Is that it?
And as a cultural nation Britain was invented in the 1700s so Blackford is right.
When did continental cultural identity become a thing?
Roman Empire? Christendom (to use the then contemporary word)?
Roman Empire probably. When it declined and fell, replacing it with the term 'the Dark Ages' suggests a certain nostalgic tristesse for lost mosaics, washing and central heating.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Are they over 80? It's initially being rolled out by age cohort, not clinical risk.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
It is definitely spotty. Not a word from my local GP. Parents / in-laws all over 85.
Do they live near or in a large city?
Population about 150k with a large central hospital (that desperately needs moving to a new site).
Other GPs in the area have done vaccinations, but ours has been pretty poor throughout.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Have to say that's utter nonsense. We have General Elections every 4-5 years normally (we had three in four and a half years so there are exceptions).
We do vote "again and again" - that's democracy. Saying everything is cast in stone and can't change "for a generation" us profoundly undemocratic.
It’s the difference between electing a representative body for a short period of time and fundamental change in the constitutional landscape
Like Brexit ?
Yes, it was right that our membership of the EU is tested every 20 years or so
When a party wins an election with that testing of 'our' membership in its manifesto, or are you now saying this should be something to put on the statute book? Perhaps there should be a referendum on it..
There needs to be demand for a change and a reasonable period to time needs to have passed since the last referendum
Surely a dramatic change in the constitution, status, or to a significant argument used on which decisions were made, justifies a referendum no matter how short the period since the last one.
A key argument given for maintaining the Union was the ability for Scotland to stay in the EU so leaving the EU is a fundamental change. It is made more fundamental given that there was a clear vote to stay in the EU by the Scots.
Whether intentional or not, the Scots were badly mislead.
I was at the Metrocentre yesterday and it was wall-to-wall heaving. Almost 100% mask usage but huge groups of teenagers just hanging out in clear contravention of the rules. Felt like a bit of a kick in the teeth.
I can however understand how difficult it must be for a parent to say to their child that they're the only one who can't hang out with their mates. That's if the parents even know of course.
Compliance with the tiers and the regulations has collapsed. It's not helping. With the benefit of hindsight too many rules, far too many changes in them and inconsistent messaging have become a textbook example of how not to do laws.
Some people are bored with covid. Some people don't care about regulations. Some people are young and don't think they are at risk. Some people have had it and don't think they are at risk. Some people think that the vaccines have sorted covid.
And as a cultural nation Britain was invented in the 1700s so Blackford is right.
When did continental cultural identity become a thing?
Roman Empire? Christendom (to use the then contemporary word)?
Roman Empire probably. When it declined and fell, replacing it with the term 'the Dark Ages' suggests a certain nostalgic tristesse for lost mosaics, washing and central heating.
Well, Bearsden certainly seems to aspire to its past glories.
{For those unfamiliar with it, Bearsden is a middle-class subirb of Glasgow first inhabited by Roman squaddies garrisoning the Antonine Wall.)
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
I think the first second jabs were actually given yesterday.
But say it's 7%. 105% of hospital capacity is a disaster. 98% is fine.
Staffing running at 100% with 105% capacity is better than 80% running at 98% capacity, the latter situation ends in disaster. That's what we're about to get in January and February. Other countries have made the same calculation and prioritised healthcare workers because of that.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Can't say for the UK, but in the US the two parcels would remain separate for ownership and taxation purposes unless you formally took legal steps to merge them into one parcel.
The only rule in real estate pricing is what a buyer will pay. I would suggest, based on your description, that this puts you, not the seller, in the driving seat as the land has more value to you than just about any other buyer. However, I'd suggest you don't screw him as much as you could, but do what you feel comfortable with and, to the extent possible, makes the seller happy.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Bloody difficult, it really comes down to a question of how much you want it. He will want you to pay all survey and legal fees (a lot). Bear in mind change of use planning issues if it is currently agricultural.
And as a cultural nation Britain was invented in the 1700s so Blackford is right.
When did continental cultural identity become a thing?
Roman Empire? Christendom (to use the then contemporary word)?
Roman Empire probably. When it declined and fell, replacing it with the term 'the Dark Ages' suggests a certain nostalgic tristesse for lost mosaics, washing and central heating.
Well, Bearsden certainly seems to aspire to its past glories.
{For those unfamiliar with it, Bearsden is a middle-class subirb of Glasgow first inhabited by Roman squaddies garrisoning the Antonine Wall.)
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Bloody difficult, it really comes down to a question of how much you want it. He will want you to pay all survey and legal fees (a lot). Bear in mind change of use planning issues if it is currently agricultural.
Thanks for that. Regarding planning issues, the original rent agreement from ten years ago specifies it as "garden land".
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Can't say for the UK, but in the US the two parcels would remain separate for ownership and taxation purposes unless you formally took legal steps to merge them into one parcel.
The only rule in real estate pricing is what a buyer will pay. I would suggest, based on your description, that this puts you, not the seller, in the driving seat as the land has more value to you than just about any other buyer. However, I'd suggest you don't screw him as much as you could, but do what you feel comfortable with and, to the extent possible, makes the seller happy.
That said, there surely is a marketplace for raw land with no building rights which you can find to see what land nearby is selling for per acre. A quick Google search showed this article, which gives a price for fully stocked forest land - so this price of GBP6800/acre would be higher than simple raw land.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
If there really is zero chance of the land being developed, you could offer to put a clause in any purchase agreement, offering him x % of the value of any sale of it as a building plot with y years. Makes him feel he isn't missing out on any windfall.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
These are mainly questions for a surveyor rather than a lawyer. When we bought our current house there was a mistake in the title in that the developer had whipped a bit of land belonging to the school and incorporated it into our gardens. I consulted a surveyor friend who told me that the loss of the garden ground would not affect their calculation of the value of the house on the basis of the RICS tables but he acknowledged that it would make the house harder to sell.
In your case I would expect the reverse. It won't significantly increase the value of the house but it will make the house more attractive to buyers who want a big garden.
So far as value is concerned a multiple of the rent seems a sensible way to measure it because that is what the farmer is giving up in exchange for the title. Of course there is no guarantee for him that the next owner of your house would want the land so some discount on the multiplier would be appropriate. I would suggest that maybe 5x, possibly with a contribution to legal costs, would seem a reasonable ball park.
I am not an English lawyer. In Scotland you would get a separate land certificate for the new bit of land and the 2 would be incorporated when you sold the lot. Either way I can't see that affecting the SDLT.
In the form of the Twelve Day of Christmas, since the last Scottish Referendum we will have had:
3 General Elections 2 Scottish Elections 1 Brexit Referendum
How much more is needed for a Partridge in a Pear Tree for it to be considered 'a reasonable period of time' since the last one? 1 nationwide election since the last one would be enough for me but 6 nationwide elections in that time period is surely far more than enough to recognise time has changed.
The "time" argument is a red herring imo. There's been a fundamental change of circumstances. If there hadn't been, it would be a bit soon to be having another Ref, but there has, undeniably so, and if on top of that the SNP win a mandate at Holyrood on a Sindy2 platform, the case for it looks pretty solid to me.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
I think the first second jabs were actually given yesterday.
But say it's 7%. 105% of hospital capacity is a disaster. 98% is fine.
Staffing running at 100% with 105% capacity is better than 80% running at 98% capacity, the latter situation ends in disaster. That's what we're about to get in January and February. Other countries have made the same calculation and prioritised healthcare workers because of that.
Except the JCVI quite rightly don't seem to believe vaccines would add 20% to staffing capacity.
It is all about admissions that is the problem at the minute for staffing. Stopping the artillery of high admission rates from a small fraction of the population will help the NHS dramatically.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
I think that is a good way to look at it and a good reason for our current ranking of priorities. This disease is not equal opportunity. The vast majority of 21 year olds who get it will not be ill at all. Many may not even know that they've had it. We all want to get to that stage as fast as possible but especially those who are likely to suffer serious complications as a result.
The point I do not fully get is this one about "does the vaccine stop you spreading it?" This is apparently not proven by the trials but I don't understand why not. We know it reduces the chance of being infected. So the inference here is it might be possible to pass on the virus without being infected yourself? Is that it?
We already know the asymptomatic can spread it.
The vaccine might make you an asymptomatic spreader, we don't know that yet it is too early to tell. But the JCVI clearly believe it will reduce spread which is why it is prioritising NHS staff and Care staff.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Is it "garden" land already or is it technically agricultural land? You might have to apply for a change of use via the planning process if you want to use it as a garden. If it is definitely "garden" then the price will be more difficult.
If it is still "agricultural land" of a specific grade then there will be a fairly standard price per acre even if it isn't really of much use. Even on a steep slope you could always grow a crop of trees on it. You might even be able to put it in some kind of stewardship.
And what level of effectiveness can we have “every confidence in” ?
Having read the trial documents the efficacy is an odd one to understand and easily compare. In the AZ trial because of the weekly PCR test for participants, anyone who tested positive was then assessed for symptoms and even the most minor ones such as the sniffles or a solitary headache would count towards the total number of symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm. They created a rod for their own back because not a single person out there cares about getting the sniffles or a couple of headaches or other relatively minor symptoms. Symptoms that didn't get recorded in the other trials and didn't count towards their symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm.
I await the full trial data and classification of symptoms in the vaccine arm, that may actually help us to calculate efficacy of it against serious symptoms and mild symptoms rather than what may just be coincidental ones.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
I think that is a good way to look at it and a good reason for our current ranking of priorities. This disease is not equal opportunity. The vast majority of 21 year olds who get it will not be ill at all. Many may not even know that they've had it. We all want to get to that stage as fast as possible but especially those who are likely to suffer serious complications as a result.
The point I do not fully get is this one about "does the vaccine stop you spreading it?" This is apparently not proven by the trials but I don't understand why not. We know it reduces the chance of being infected. So the inference here is it might be possible to pass on the virus without being infected yourself? Is that it?
Well we do have asymptomatic transmission already. The risk must be that you carry enough of the virus to infect others but it doesn't actually make you ill because your body defence mechanisms protect you. It doesn't really make much sense to me either.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
I think that is a good way to look at it and a good reason for our current ranking of priorities. This disease is not equal opportunity. The vast majority of 21 year olds who get it will not be ill at all. Many may not even know that they've had it. We all want to get to that stage as fast as possible but especially those who are likely to suffer serious complications as a result.
The point I do not fully get is this one about "does the vaccine stop you spreading it?" This is apparently not proven by the trials but I don't understand why not. We know it reduces the chance of being infected. So the inference here is it might be possible to pass on the virus without being infected yourself? Is that it?
Most of the trials didn't test whether people were infected, only if they were showing symptoms.
So it's possible that the vaccines prevented the symptoms, but not the infection - so a vaccinated person could still spread the virus asymptomatically to a person who hasn't received the vaccine.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Can't say for the UK, but in the US the two parcels would remain separate for ownership and taxation purposes unless you formally took legal steps to merge them into one parcel.
The only rule in real estate pricing is what a buyer will pay. I would suggest, based on your description, that this puts you, not the seller, in the driving seat as the land has more value to you than just about any other buyer. However, I'd suggest you don't screw him as much as you could, but do what you feel comfortable with and, to the extent possible, makes the seller happy.
I'm in a similar position - parents bought a house and garden and then later bought a second patch at back to add to garden and build a garage on (though most of it remains garden ground).
I got a surveyor to value them for IHT purposes. We had to value them both as one for IHT so we got that valuation, but I also got separate valuations out of interest for them being sold separately. Not that different.
Getting a formal valuation by a surveyor will give you a benchmark for the offer. It will cost a fee though. However it may be necessary to get a surveyor in anyway to demarcate the land for the deeds etc.
The titles are distinct and have remained distinct - no point in spending money to create a new land holding just for the sake of it.
They can be sold together effectively as one as and when the time comes. And keeping them as separate parcels gives you some flexibility.
But talk to your solicitor.
One other thought - update your house and garden insurance.
And what level of effectiveness can we have “every confidence in” ?
Having read the trial documents the efficacy is an odd one to understand and easily compare. In the AZ trial because of the weekly PCR test for participants, anyone who tested positive was then assessed for symptoms and even the most minor ones such as the sniffles or a solitary headache would count towards the total number of symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm. They created a rod for their own back because not a single person out there cares about getting the sniffles or a couple of headaches or other relatively minor symptoms. Symptoms that didn't get recorded in the other trials and didn't count towards their symptomatic COVID patients in the vaccine arm.
I await the full trial data and classification of symptoms in the vaccine arm, that may actually help us to calculate efficacy of it against serious symptoms and mild symptoms rather than what may just be coincidental ones.
Another day another piece of absurd detail in the omnishambles.
"And the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility reckoned it could raise around 500 million pounds in new tax revenue. ... The upshot, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, is that those tourists that do come could spend up to 6 billion pounds less."
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Hi @Stocky I'm unfortunately not yet qualified to really help with this or offer any advice of value.
I think @DavidL has covered everything that I could have said on the matter though.
On your last question, I believe that the sale of part would normally be given a new Title Number at the Land Registry and these would not automatically merge upon a further sale. You can however apply to the Land Registry to merge the titles and this is something to discuss with your conveyancer who would likely do this after completion.
» show previous quotes So Scotland should leave the EU with no deal?
Scotland should have remained in the EU and will be back in as soon as possible after independence. Unfortunately being a colony we were forced out by our Colonial Masters against our will.
Brexit makes the case for independence unanswerable. 55% of Scots wanted to stay in the UK, but 62% wanted to stay in the EU. We were dragged out by the English. It has switched me from Unionist to Nationalist.
Not really 'unanswerable'. It depends how much importance you attach to membership of each? The turnout for the EU referendum was much lower than for the 2014 one.
Most Scots didn't expect the English to vote to leave, so there wasn't the urgency to vote in 2016. After all, we were told in 2014 that if we voted No then we would stay in the EU. Who could have guessed that that was a flat out lie?
It wasn’t a lie.
At that time Brexit hadn’t been voted for (and I don’t think the referendum had even been announced).
No statement about the future looks at every conceivable scenario
OK. So circumstances have changed in ways people couldn't even have conceived since 2014, is that what you're saying? I take it you agree that Scotland should have another referendum then in light of this.
Yes, circumstances changed.
And I gave no problem with Scotland having another vote, say in 20 years
Voting again and again until you get the answer you want is undemocratic
Such as holding rerun general elections in 2017 and 2019 because the party that won them didn't like the result. That kind of thing.
No.
Yes Charles. Yes.
No.
A referendum on the constitutional rules is not the same as an election of a representative body with a tone limited mandate
It is absolutely the same. It is something that can be voted on by the Parliament and no Parliament is bound by any predecessor.
If the Lib Dems won the 2019 Referendum then Brexit would have been cancelled. Because Parliamentary elections trump any prior referendum or election and aren't bound to anything prior. Same principle applies for 2021. No Parliament is bound by its predecessors.
Sovereignty is delegated to parliament. Once parliament asks for and receives an explicit instruction it trumps any delegated authority.
You've invented that. Not even the government argued, despite what politicians might have said, that the referendum was required to be followed by Parliament, because legally it didn't.
I actually fully accept much of what you say in terms of the legalities of things eg around Scotland, though morally I take a different stance which is why I reluctantly support a Sindy ref, but you appear to be making up very specific rules why A must be followed but B must not.
Scotland was European before it was British, according to Mr Blackford.
What does he mean? That the first Scots came from Ireland?
No - he is referring to the alliance networks, I imagine, also cultural ones (e.g. universities). Britain as a modern history thingy didn't happen till 1603 and/or 1707.
Britain as an actual placey thingy, rather than a political construct, existed rather longer ago. Were the Iceni not British?
The Iceni were Welsh.
So, British?
I don't really know what you mean by the ovate word "British".
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
The Iceni with Brythonic Celts. They spoke a language related to Old Welsh.
IANAE but my recollection is that Boudicca's husband was a ruler in Norfolk and that her rebellion was principally in East Anglia. As she was a queen of the Iceni I am struggling to see how that makes them Welsh, as opposed to Britons (many of whom may have spoken a language more related to Welsh than other current languages). Happy to have the error of my ways explained.
But, Boudicca's rebellion was not in "East Anglia" .
The Angles were yet to arrive on the shores of the country we now call "England". There was to be no Kingdom of the East Angles until many hundreds of years later.
Nor was there a Wales. Indeed, arguably there never was, back then.
Do we have any idea whether x% effectiveness means
(1) "x% of the population become immune with this vaccine, and can meet infected people all the time and never catch it" or (2) "everyone has a reduction of x% in the probability of catching the infection on any one occasion exposed to it"?
If (1) were the case, then if x is high (e.g. Pfizer's 95%), we might start behaving normally. In particular, NHS staff who meet infected people all the time might be well-prrotected. If (2) is the case then we still need to socially distance etc. until the spread drops so far that you rarely meet an infected person (because you'll still catch it if you keep meeting them, just "100-x%" of time you would have caught it before).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can answer this?
Very interesting question. Hope others more viro'd up answer but here is my take -
A vax effectiveness of 90% means that if I take it my risk of becoming infected is 10% of what it would be if I did not take it.
So, for example, if my condition and lifestyle means I have a 50% chance of getting Covid in the next 3 months, if I take the vaccine, all else being equal, my chance of getting it drops to 5%.
And then hopefully the vax does 2 other things for me. It reduces the chance of me getting VERY sick if I do get it. And it stops me somehow spreading it despite not having it.
From the national as opposed to the personal interest it is really the first of these "other things" that is the key. If you are unlucky enough to catch the virus anyway despite your improved chances you are unlikely to need hospital treatment.
Yes, that looms large in my thinking. I'd accept a higher chance of catching it in exchange for a lower chance of getting seriously ill. I'd accept being 21 again, as it were.
I think that is a good way to look at it and a good reason for our current ranking of priorities. This disease is not equal opportunity. The vast majority of 21 year olds who get it will not be ill at all. Many may not even know that they've had it. We all want to get to that stage as fast as possible but especially those who are likely to suffer serious complications as a result.
The point I do not fully get is this one about "does the vaccine stop you spreading it?" This is apparently not proven by the trials but I don't understand why not. We know it reduces the chance of being infected. So the inference here is it might be possible to pass on the virus without being infected yourself? Is that it?
Most of the trials didn't test whether people were infected, only if they were showing symptoms.
So it's possible that the vaccines prevented the symptoms, but not the infection - so a vaccinated person could still spread the virus asymptomatically to a person who hasn't received the vaccine.
Which is another reason the best thing for the NHS is to protect the 1.6 million first before doctors and nurses.
Preventing the symptoms and thus hospitalisations will go a long way to reducing the strain on the NHS. But if a doctor or nurse gets the vaccine, becomes an asymptomatic carrier and then tests positive they'll still have to be removed from the front line even though they're vaccinated.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
These are mainly questions for a surveyor rather than a lawyer. When we bought our current house there was a mistake in the title in that the developer had whipped a bit of land belonging to the school and incorporated it into our gardens. I consulted a surveyor friend who told me that the loss of the garden ground would not affect their calculation of the value of the house on the basis of the RICS tables but he acknowledged that it would make the house harder to sell.
In your case I would expect the reverse. It won't significantly increase the value of the house but it will make the house more attractive to buyers who want a big garden.
So far as value is concerned a multiple of the rent seems a sensible way to measure it because that is what the farmer is giving up in exchange for the title. Of course there is no guarantee for him that the next owner of your house would want the land so some discount on the multiplier would be appropriate. I would suggest that maybe 5x, possibly with a contribution to legal costs, would seem a reasonable ball park.
I am not an English lawyer. In Scotland you would get a separate land certificate for the new bit of land and the 2 would be incorporated when you sold the lot. Either way I can't see that affecting the SDLT.
Thanks. You say that it would make my house more attractive to buyers who want a big garden. But could the converse also be true? I`m not sure which would weigh heavier. The last thing I want to do is to buy the land and it decrease the value of my house.
Regarding the multiplier - the local owner is a large estate, not a farmer. They play the long game with passing the estate through the generations in the uppermost of their minds. There is no way that 5x the rent would cut it. I`d be surprised if they went under 25 x.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
I think the first second jabs were actually given yesterday.
But say it's 7%. 105% of hospital capacity is a disaster. 98% is fine.
Staffing running at 100% with 105% capacity is better than 80% running at 98% capacity, the latter situation ends in disaster. That's what we're about to get in January and February. Other countries have made the same calculation and prioritised healthcare workers because of that.
But we have done. They are in Priority 2 with the over-80s and effectively Priority 1 due to the difficulties rolling out Pfizer in care homes.
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
I think the first second jabs were actually given yesterday.
But say it's 7%. 105% of hospital capacity is a disaster. 98% is fine.
Staffing running at 100% with 105% capacity is better than 80% running at 98% capacity, the latter situation ends in disaster. That's what we're about to get in January and February. Other countries have made the same calculation and prioritised healthcare workers because of that.
Except the JCVI quite rightly don't seem to believe vaccines would add 20% to staffing capacity.
It is all about admissions that is the problem at the minute for staffing. Stopping the artillery of high admission rates from a small fraction of the population will help the NHS dramatically.
Except they're wrong, it's what's actually happening on the ground. Like with many things, these mathematical models they rely on crumble when they come into contact with the real world.
These same types told us that the circuit breaker would save between 800 and 107,000 lives. One day, maybe soon, you'll learn to disregard all of these mathematical models and rely on what's actually happening on the ground. As it stands London hospitals (I'm using this because I actually know what's happening in London, I'm sure Foxy can illuminate us on Leicester) are suffering from staffing issues which is causing a capacity crunch, doctors and nurses are getting constant isolation notices and the capacity crunch is coming from a younger cohort, not the older one which is much more risk averse than they were in first wave (which shows in the overall rate).
The government has got the wrong priorities and in January the whole country is going to pay for that as the NHS simply won't be able to cope. Other countries, including the US, realised this and have made healthcare workers number one on the priority list to ensure they don't reach a situation similar to what we're about to face either with doctors and nurses having to work despite isolation notices or hospitals being completely short staffed and overrun with patients under the age of 65 where there is an explosion in infections.
I like how people on both sides overanalyse references to Pericles and the like, in the best traditions of PB. I mean, from that rejoinder it seems like she would endorse Perciles' view of democracy, which I doubt aligns fully with how we would view it today, so it's not that much sillier than Cash. And for all we know Alexander might be an apt comparison if Boris is gone far too soon (for his supporters) and what he has built collapses right afterwards.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
These are mainly questions for a surveyor rather than a lawyer. When we bought our current house there was a mistake in the title in that the developer had whipped a bit of land belonging to the school and incorporated it into our gardens. I consulted a surveyor friend who told me that the loss of the garden ground would not affect their calculation of the value of the house on the basis of the RICS tables but he acknowledged that it would make the house harder to sell.
In your case I would expect the reverse. It won't significantly increase the value of the house but it will make the house more attractive to buyers who want a big garden.
So far as value is concerned a multiple of the rent seems a sensible way to measure it because that is what the farmer is giving up in exchange for the title. Of course there is no guarantee for him that the next owner of your house would want the land so some discount on the multiplier would be appropriate. I would suggest that maybe 5x, possibly with a contribution to legal costs, would seem a reasonable ball park.
I am not an English lawyer. In Scotland you would get a separate land certificate for the new bit of land and the 2 would be incorporated when you sold the lot. Either way I can't see that affecting the SDLT.
Thanks. You say that it would make my house more attractive to buyers who want a big garden. But could the converse also be true? I`m not sure which would weigh heavier. The last thing I want to do is to buy the land and it decrease the value of my house.
Regarding the multiplier - the local owner is a large estate, not a farmer. They play the long game with passing the estate through the generations in the uppermost of their minds. There is no way that 5x the rent would cut it. I`d be surprised if they went under 25 x.
One thing to consider is that they may have to pay Capital Gains Tax on the disposal.
He says any teachers over 50 will be eligible for a vaccine in the first phase, as will those under 50 with underlying health conditions.
Phase two will take into account "a range of other professions and key workers", he says, particularly if they can’t avoid travelling to work or they can’t avoid exposure at work.
He adds that the decision about those vaccinated in phase two “has not been made yet”. He says the rate of delivering the vaccine will determine when phase two is decided.
----
If I am lucky I might get my by August.
They just need to get them into as many arms as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Whether you personally have had the vaccine is of little relevance to the success of this.
I don't disagree.
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Are they over 80? It's initially being rolled out by age cohort, not clinical risk.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
Yes they are over 80, while also ticking basically all the boxes for underlying health conditions that are super risky for COVID.
I was going to pay this earlier but despite the don't call us rhetoric this is a time to employ pointy elbows. If you are comfortable with that.
It (phone calls to the vaccination centre) resulted in me taking my mother for her jab yesterday (super efficient they are processing 350/day moving to 500/day shortly.
But as I said not everyone is happy with that approach. I have been forbidden to do it, for example, by my 86-yr old aunt.
Starmer is making a mistake. Labour is making a mistake. They are in the same lobby as Steve Baker. Disgusting decision.
Instead of respecting Democracy they are playing political games.
To believe in democracy you have to believe everyone in parliament can vote with their conscience on what they think of the deal, for the country and their constituents, without the weapon of no deal held to their heads.
If then it passes, it passes. That’s democracy saying yes. And, if governments deal can’t pass despite an eighty seat majority over all other parties, democracy is saying no.
Is that all Labour is now, a split between unreconstructed IRA loving Marxists or ambitious New Labour sell outs? If so then it is toast. This is the day history will point to as the day Labour became toast.
Obviously I disagree, but even from an opposition perspective, isn't there a strong argument for playing this with a straight bat? If the deal failed to be ratified by Parliament, we would be in a No deal situation. Yes, with a Tory majority that's unlikely, but I think the public respects voting for the actual preferred outcome, not grandstanding. Nobody blamed Boris for the letter he had to write, and I don't think voters will blame Starmer for the deal he must now support.
Let’s deal with what happens if parliament says no today. And tomorrow.
If parliament says no, Boris can speak to EU to roll on the transition. It is a discussion and agreement that will only take a couple of minutes. No one in power either side the channel creates no deal when alternatives are possible. Simples.
It’s not panto season with anyone saying “oh no he can’t” because, yes he can. It’s exactly the same as with May’s deal when she said it’s this or nothing, but ended up in that third option to re open the in un-reopenable.
it’s is NOT a binary choice about picking the lesser of two evils in the national interest. Starmer is a liar. He needs to be called out on this.
If parliament doesn’t pass it before the 1st it’s not inevitably no deal brexit. That is a lie. That is a lie by scoundrels. It can be more transition, would EU say no to more transition if parliament reject and government asked for hasty transition extension?
Is there anyone on PB this afternoon claiming it’s this deal or no deal, no other options? Come on speak up and say it. We are up for it. We’ll have you. Deals of this magnitude passing the commons because the clocks run down. Yeah that’s democracy.
There is no way any opposition party can whip this. There is not a single reason any MP of any party should feel there is a gun to their head if they don’t like this deal and don’t want to vote for it.
The Government have an EIGHTY SEAT majority, and it’s government alone who have negotiated it, created the deal. If the only way they can get votes for it is they have run the clock down, that goes completely against the better democracy they claim brexit is all about. It goes against all democracy.
If you tolerate having to vote for this because the clock has run down, burning down the parliament will be next.
I don't think there's much I can say to make this feel better for you at the moment. I look forward on your behalf to the many brighter and better things there are on the other side when Brexit subsides as a factor in your life.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Can't say for the UK, but in the US the two parcels would remain separate for ownership and taxation purposes unless you formally took legal steps to merge them into one parcel.
The only rule in real estate pricing is what a buyer will pay. I would suggest, based on your description, that this puts you, not the seller, in the driving seat as the land has more value to you than just about any other buyer. However, I'd suggest you don't screw him as much as you could, but do what you feel comfortable with and, to the extent possible, makes the seller happy.
I'm in a similar position - parents bought a house and garden and then later bought a second patch at back to add to garden and build a garage on (though most of it remains garden ground).
I got a surveyor to value them for IHT purposes. We had to value them both as one for IHT so we got that valuation, but I also got separate valuations out of interest for them being sold separately. Not that different.
Getting a formal valuation by a surveyor will give you a benchmark for the offer. It will cost a fee though. However it may be necessary to get a surveyor in anyway to demarcate the land for the deeds etc.
The titles are distinct and have remained distinct - no point in spending money to create a new land holding just for the sake of it.
They can be sold together effectively as one as and when the time comes. And keeping them as separate parcels gives you some flexibility.
But talk to your solicitor.
One other thought - update your house and garden insurance.
That last point is a very good one. I had a case where the owner had built a stable in the garden ground and the insurers refused to cover it when someone injured themselves there. We sued and won after we had settled with the injured party but it was a lot of unnecessary hassle.
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Is it "garden" land already or is it technically agricultural land? You might have to apply for a change of use via the planning process if you want to use it as a garden. If it is definitely "garden" then the price will be more difficult.
If it is still "agricultural land" of a specific grade then there will be a fairly standard price per acre even if it isn't really of much use. Even on a steep slope you could always grow a crop of trees on it. You might even be able to put it in some kind of stewardship.
What does the land registry say?
I don`t know what the land registry says. I imagine that it does not have a discrete registration - rather it would, I`m guessing, be part of a much larger land area. This implies that it is agricultural land, as the land that surrounds it is agricultural. However, the rent agreement from ten years age clearly says "garden land".
Basically the government got the strategy completely wrong and now they're having to try these odd strategies to ensure that hospitals are staffed properly and schools have teachers. Instead we've decided to waste our vaccines on older people who could have stayed indoors for another couple of months.
The US vaccine rollout is much, much better than ours. They've got their priorities right.
If the elderly could just "stay indoors" why have they been filling our hospitals?
The government have the right priorities. Need to cut hospitalisations fast. Care homes are one of the worst superspreaders in the entire nation and a source of a quarter of all deaths and a vast proportion of hospitalisations.
We're running out of doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Loads of them are getting isolation notices and wards are running on fumes.
With just 800K jabs we could have made a real dent in keeping the NHS running over the winter period. We really are in a "48h to save the NHS" situation and we've wasted the vaccine doses we do have.
We have done. Second doses only started yesterday.
I'm saying that all doses should be doing to the NHS until all front line staff have been jabbed. No point in hospitals with no doctors and nurses, which according to family in the NHS front line is what's happening.
I don't think any hospitals have 'no doctors and nurses', they may be seeing more patients than those doctors and nurses would like - and preventing a quarter of the patients from arriving in the hospital in the first place will reduce the strain on those doctors and nurses that are there dramatically.
Especially since that quarter of hospitalisations are more likely to get seriously ill, end in ICU and/or die.
Reducing 25% of ambulances call outs and hospitalisations from this will have an immediate impact.
It's not 25%, at 800k first shot to over 80s the reduction is maybe 5%, wards across the country are reporting they are short staffed and people in the front line are taking double shifts to cover it.
We won't get to that 25% figure until the end of January at the earliest, probably mid February at the current roll out rate. The NHS is going to collapse in between.
People are having to do extra shifts due to too many patients coming in, not simply a lack of staff. If there were fewer patients there would be less strain.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
On the last point, yes it would. More than that. It's why basically every other country including the US is vaccinating front line medical staff first. The maths works out that short staffed hospitals are worse for public health than over 80s waiting a bit longer. The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to have very large problems in January and most of February.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
Eliminating a quarter of incoming hospitalisations is in the collective good. The vaccine won't add a quarter to NHS staff, but reducing a quarter of patients being admitted to hospitals is of immediate benefit to the collective.
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
It's not a quarter. It's about 5-7% at the current level. It won't be a quarter until at least the end of January if not a couple of weeks after. We haven't given a over 80s two jabs. We've given some of them one jab.
I think the first second jabs were actually given yesterday.
But say it's 7%. 105% of hospital capacity is a disaster. 98% is fine.
Staffing running at 100% with 105% capacity is better than 80% running at 98% capacity, the latter situation ends in disaster. That's what we're about to get in January and February. Other countries have made the same calculation and prioritised healthcare workers because of that.
But we have done. They are in Priority 2 with the over-80s and effectively Priority 1 due to the difficulties rolling out Pfizer in care homes.
Just to get practical about it, given the relatively small number of persons in care homes and the rate of vaccination - how many days difference does it make to bump frontline healthcare workers above them? My guess is not much and we are arguing about angels on pinheads.
Comments
I am more concerned that my elderly parents still haven't had any news on getting one, as they are super high risk and have been shielding since March.
Unless you think that Tories don’t have a conscience...
The government got it wrong and now the NHS is going to face a very, very tough winter with short staffing which will inevitably lead to worse health outcomes for all patients.
25% of hospitalisations come from 1.6 million people. So 800k is half of that group (12.5% of admissions), at 70% efficacy it should reduce admissions by about 9%. Given this group have worse outcomes and longer stays in hospital I believe that could reduce the strain on doctors and nurses by about 10%.
Would giving the vaccine to doctors and nurses increase NHS supply of doctors and nurses by nearly 10%?
Postcode lottery? Although obviously the more (other) people have the vaccine, the more protection your elderly parents have from catching the virus (probably).
The over 85s and care home residents aren't "back at home" - they are in hospital beds. That is the problem. If they were back at home and not entering hospitals then the NHS wouldn't be under the strain that it is.
However. There is one thing we can be 100% sure of playing in this. Nationalism.
Claims anything out of Russia is not as good as ours.
Also British Government claiming we are the best country around, ahead of Europe and everyone whilst we distribute an imported vaccine manufactured with €100M investment.
It is thought a handful of areas in Lancashire - Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Pendle and Ribble Valley - could also be upgraded from tier three.
And there may be further curbs for areas already in the highest tier amid concerns that the current rules are not enough to stop the fast-spreading new virus variant.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-55478521
My concern is that we get to 2/3 rds of adults (say) vaccinated, some vaccinated people catching the virus anyway (inevitable as not 100% effective) and the government STILL gets pressed into a risk-averse place.
The virus is still going to be present - we must understand this and live with it to some extent or we will never escape.
The government should make this clear now, i.e. when NHS pressure is lessened by x degree then liberties are restored and financial support ends.
Once again we've focussed on the individual rather than the collective good. In a situation akin to wartime individual good goes out of the window. Doctors and nurses are our soldiers in this fight and we're sending them into battle bare handed.
If they vote for a referendum on changing that then that is their choice and should be respected.
It will still be reserved, but it will be asking the Scottish voters - because they asked to be asked - whether they still wish to remain part of that demos or not anymore. Their choice, to be respected because they are able to make that decision for themselves.
Also it is being organised locally which seems to be slowing things down in some areas. Here I believe the local GPS are setting up a vaccine hub at the civic centre and it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1344258638106525697?s=20
I'd like to see any data on how many NHS staff are out of action due to the virus who wouldn't be with the vaccine, I doubt it is anything like 10% to 25%.
I can however understand how difficult it must be for a parent to say to their child that they're the only one who can't hang out with their mates. That's if the parents even know of course.
But vaccinating the 1.6 million who are overwhelming the NHS in incoming hospitalisations is akin to silencing the enemy artillery that are bombarding the hospital. Get the enemy artillery silenced and then our armed doctors and nurses can better win this battle.
A process to select members of a representative body is not the same even though you purport to infer instructions from those representatives non-binding manifestos
So yes it should already have in January a major impact. The people vaccinated in December will majorly reduce the incoming hospitalisations in January immediately. That is in the collective good.
Popcorn.gif
Score of 10 from me so far.
If there is to be a new referendum then only the representative can insist upon that and the way to do that is from an election manifesto demanding one.
If the Scottish voters vote for that next year then that will be their will. If they are to be treated with respect then their will will be honoured and respected.
But say it's 7%. 105% of hospital capacity is a disaster. 98% is fine.
I get it.
Anyway, that instruction expired upon the dissolution of that parliament. No parliament can bind its successors. So the 2017 and 2019 parliaments were free to do as they please. Even if the referendum had been binding on the 2015 parliament - and it was not - it wouldn't have been binding on any successor parliament.
Come now Charles, an educated and erudite chap like yourself knows you are dancing on a pinhead trying to make this argument sound remotely rational.
I put it to you that many SNP voters vote for them because SLAB are a bit shit and there is no other credible left of centre party
3 General Elections
2 Scottish Elections
1 Brexit Referendum
How much more is needed for a Partridge in a Pear Tree for it to be considered 'a reasonable period of time' since the last one? 1 nationwide election since the last one would be enough for me but 6 nationwide elections in that time period is surely far more than enough to recognise time has changed.
It isn't for you or me to make their choices, it is for them in any way they decide to do so. If you vote for a party then you take the rough with the smooth - and if you don't vote then you don't get to complain.
If the Scots don't want to go independent then they have two chances to veto it. If they deny the SNP and their pro-referendum allies a majority then it will be over, the people will have spoken and there won't be a referendum. But even if there is a referendum then they have every option to vote No if they want to - and then they will have spoken.
But if they are over 80 it puts them in scope at the moment. So it must be down to how it is being organised locally in your area. Unfortunately most areas aren't telling people any more than "wait for an invite"
@Gallowgate ?
I may have a chance to buy 1/3rd acre of land behind by garden. I currently rent it from the landowner. How can a fair price be established? Would it be a multiple of the rent or is there a per acre guide for "garden land". There is no development potential and the land is on a slope and is no use to a farmer or as a horse paddock.
Alternatively, would the adjusted garden size - which would be increasing sixfold I guess - put value on my house? And if so would the current landowner argue for the extra value?
Finally, would there be a separate land ownership for the land in isolation with the land registry, or would the boundaries of my current plot be expanded to envelope the new land? Are there any stamp duty implications either way?
Any help much appreciated.
Other GPs in the area have done vaccinations, but ours has been pretty poor throughout.
A key argument given for maintaining the Union was the ability for Scotland to stay in the EU so leaving the EU is a fundamental change. It is made more fundamental given that there was a clear vote to stay in the EU by the Scots.
Whether intentional or not, the Scots were badly mislead.
Some people don't care about regulations.
Some people are young and don't think they are at risk.
Some people have had it and don't think they are at risk.
Some people think that the vaccines have sorted covid.
{For those unfamiliar with it, Bearsden is a middle-class subirb of Glasgow first inhabited by Roman squaddies garrisoning the Antonine Wall.)
The only rule in real estate pricing is what a buyer will pay. I would suggest, based on your description, that this puts you, not the seller, in the driving seat as the land has more value to you than just about any other buyer. However, I'd suggest you don't screw him as much as you could, but do what you feel comfortable with and, to the extent possible, makes the seller happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2uzDaB_tK4
https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/land-markets/record-forestry-prices-and-steady-mixed-woodland-trade-in-2020
https://twitter.com/ChristinaSNP/status/1344247499490516993
In your case I would expect the reverse. It won't significantly increase the value of the house but it will make the house more attractive to buyers who want a big garden.
So far as value is concerned a multiple of the rent seems a sensible way to measure it because that is what the farmer is giving up in exchange for the title. Of course there is no guarantee for him that the next owner of your house would want the land so some discount on the multiplier would be appropriate. I would suggest that maybe 5x, possibly with a contribution to legal costs, would seem a reasonable ball park.
I am not an English lawyer. In Scotland you would get a separate land certificate for the new bit of land and the 2 would be incorporated when you sold the lot. Either way I can't see that affecting the SDLT.
It is all about admissions that is the problem at the minute for staffing. Stopping the artillery of high admission rates from a small fraction of the population will help the NHS dramatically.
The vaccine might make you an asymptomatic spreader, we don't know that yet it is too early to tell. But the JCVI clearly believe it will reduce spread which is why it is prioritising NHS staff and Care staff.
If it is still "agricultural land" of a specific grade then there will be a fairly standard price per acre even if it isn't really of much use. Even on a steep slope you could always grow a crop of trees on it. You might even be able to put it in some kind of stewardship.
What does the land registry say?
So it's possible that the vaccines prevented the symptoms, but not the infection - so a vaccinated person could still spread the virus asymptomatically to a person who hasn't received the vaccine.
I got a surveyor to value them for IHT purposes. We had to value them both as one for IHT so we got that valuation, but I also got separate valuations out of interest for them being sold separately. Not that different.
Getting a formal valuation by a surveyor will give you a benchmark for the offer. It will cost a fee though. However it may be necessary to get a surveyor in anyway to demarcate the land for the deeds etc.
The titles are distinct and have remained distinct - no point in spending money to create a new land holding just for the sake of it.
They can be sold together effectively as one as and when the time comes. And keeping them as separate parcels gives you some flexibility.
But talk to your solicitor.
One other thought - update your house and garden insurance.
...
The upshot, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, is that those tourists that do come could spend up to 6 billion pounds less."
I think @DavidL has covered everything that I could have said on the matter though.
On your last question, I believe that the sale of part would normally be given a new Title Number at the Land Registry and these would not automatically merge upon a further sale. You can however apply to the Land Registry to merge the titles and this is something to discuss with your conveyancer who would likely do this after completion.
I actually fully accept much of what you say in terms of the legalities of things eg around Scotland, though morally I take a different stance which is why I reluctantly support a Sindy ref, but you appear to be making up very specific rules why A must be followed but B must not.
Preventing the symptoms and thus hospitalisations will go a long way to reducing the strain on the NHS. But if a doctor or nurse gets the vaccine, becomes an asymptomatic carrier and then tests positive they'll still have to be removed from the front line even though they're vaccinated.
Regarding the multiplier - the local owner is a large estate, not a farmer. They play the long game with passing the estate through the generations in the uppermost of their minds. There is no way that 5x the rent would cut it. I`d be surprised if they went under 25 x.
These same types told us that the circuit breaker would save between 800 and 107,000 lives. One day, maybe soon, you'll learn to disregard all of these mathematical models and rely on what's actually happening on the ground. As it stands London hospitals (I'm using this because I actually know what's happening in London, I'm sure Foxy can illuminate us on Leicester) are suffering from staffing issues which is causing a capacity crunch, doctors and nurses are getting constant isolation notices and the capacity crunch is coming from a younger cohort, not the older one which is much more risk averse than they were in first wave (which shows in the overall rate).
The government has got the wrong priorities and in January the whole country is going to pay for that as the NHS simply won't be able to cope. Other countries, including the US, realised this and have made healthcare workers number one on the priority list to ensure they don't reach a situation similar to what we're about to face either with doctors and nurses having to work despite isolation notices or hospitals being completely short staffed and overrun with patients under the age of 65 where there is an explosion in infections.
https://twitter.com/greigforbes/status/1344278740294053890?s=20
It (phone calls to the vaccination centre) resulted in me taking my mother for her jab yesterday (super efficient they are processing 350/day moving to 500/day shortly.
But as I said not everyone is happy with that approach. I have been forbidden to do it, for example, by my 86-yr old aunt.