Alastair is right to point out that the death toll from this pernicious disease has been dreadful and the preliminary evidence is that it is slightly more dreadful here than elsewhere. That may not ultimately prove to be the case, the uncertainty with international comparisons is large, but the preliminary evidence is against us.
Why is an important question and it is not one that this piece tries to address. If we hypothesise that things went wrong what was it that went wrong?
For me, the most obvious and egregious errors relate to border control or the lack of them. Yesterday at his press conference Boris was claiming that we now had some of the toughest border controls in the world. If that had been the case a year ago tens of thousands would not have died of Covid (many of the them may well have died of other things of course).
Even yesterday Boris was explaining that this was a difficult balancing act given the need for the UK to trade, the need to import nearly half our food, the very open nature of our economy. This is undoubtedly true and these judgments are not easy but the first duty of the government is to protect its people and the likes of Grant Shapps and the airline lobby have a major responsibility. We must learn from this mistake.
Of course the government has done a lot of things well too, notably some of the economic measures and the vaccines. But I personally have no problem in recognising that serious mistakes that cost lives were made.
Most of those comments could apply to Vietnam. And they have a large land border with China. But their ruthlessness in closing borders and enforcing quarantine mean they’ve been practically unaffected.
Whether a democratic government could have got away with locking travellers up in army camps with no WiFi for two weeks is another question, but it worked for them.
New Zealand and Australia are better comparators albeit they have a considerable advantage in distance over us.
I cannot help feeling that class had a lot to do with this. Rules may be appropriate for the little people going to Spain for their drunken breaks but a professional and important man needs to ski, needs to go on oh so important business trips, rules are not for the likes of us. The result was a liberal scattering of Covid into our communities in an almost random fashion that proved extremely hard to control plus some new variants on top. And death, lots of death.
As I understand it, Australians have been prevented from leaving their country. Most people entering the UK are British people who went abroad a few days ago. Yet there is no attempt to stop people travelling for inessential reasons.
The gov are now asking people to state the nature of their trip, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence of them refusing to let people into airports.
The biggest problem with travel is behavioral. Those traveling now are the sort of people who think it's okay to travel during a global pandemic. They're also the sort of people who think they don't need to quarantine if they're not sick, or that going back to work is more important. Sadly, imposing proper quarantine in hotels, with no exceptions, is the only way to stop new variants being imported.
The new one is claiming you are travelling because one is moving house (to another country)....
If they're genuinely moving abroad, they'll have a one-way plane ticket and reams of paperwork from where they're going.
As usual, an eloquent piece by Mr Meeks. However, it makes the usual mistakes of blaming Boris/The Tories without actually answering (or even asking) why so many deaths?
I've seen lots of opinion:
We should have locked down sooner/longer (yes, but arguing for that, one must consider the economic and mental health wellbeing. This is very well encapsulated with Cyclefree's family experience)
We should have closed the airports (yes, but aren't there statistics showing only a small percentage of cases attributable to open airports)
How can Australia and New Zealand deal with it effectively but we can't (yes, but what are the differences in population density, BAME communities, obesity levels etc.)
OK, what about Germany, they did well last year, we should have done what they did (yes, but what exactly was that. As far as I can see it is summarised as 'Did lots of testing'. OK, so why didn't we? Did we not have the kit or infrastructure? Was our testing regime too centralised and if so, why is that?)
We should have introduced a circuit breaker in September (yes, but where is the evidence that a two week circuit breaker works)
We should never have relaxed the rules at Christmas (yes but government advice was to 'only meet your Christmas bubble in private homes or in your garden, places of worship, or public outdoor spaces. only see your bubble on Christmas Day'. From what I have seen on PB, I don't think that I saw any comments that suggested anyone was going to ignore that advice and many were cancelling Christmas - I admit I may have missed any comments to the contrary. If the population in general followed government advice, why did we see such a post Christmas spike in cases).
I could go on, but hopefully, you get my drift. Lazily invoking Royal Wootton Bassett and war deaths makes for articulate commentary in a novel (have we seen SeanT and Mr Meeks at the same time in the same room?), but does it actually add to what we should be doing and, more importantly why are our numbers so high and what could we have done to prevent or mitigate this tragedy. If all we can say is "The government has benefited from this human failing." (and the observant will notice the full stop) then we can see what the real reason behind this piece is. Blame is easy if you never have to take responsibility, just look at the TikTok video of the young gentleman having a go at Chris Whitty. Did anyone think that it was remotely helpful? As the vaccines help to drag us out of this awful mess, let's have a real look at what we could do better, and learn from our mistakes. Put in place procedures, structures and organisations that will make us better prepared. I suspect this is not the last Covid or similar disaster. Whatever stripe of party is in power will thank us if we take a proper look at what we can do better rather than engage in a tribal blame game.
I think you are making the mistake of treating these as independent variables. It is, in fact, the cumulative and interactive effect of all of these poor decisions (and others) that is the trouble.
To take but one example - the impact on Cyclefree's family would have been far less had there been more and better work done on business support, with better planning, notice, and criteria for entering and leaving lockdown. (For context, I am also in the "small hospitality business" in a small way, and we got keys to new premises *during* lockdown I, so I appreciate the issues; clearly the same applies to e.g. home schooling, identifying keyworkers.)
All of this was somewhat forgivable during Lockdown I (notwithstanding the disbanding/failure of pandemic planning pre-Covid) but to repeat the same errors the second time can surely be attributed to "now is not the time to learn". Now is *exactly* the time to learn, given we clearly haven't learned yet.
What we need are more international comparisons. Not less.
What I would like to see, is some in-depth measurement of what measures actually worked, around the world.
- It turns out that track and trace apps seem to have been a bust in much (maybe all of) Europe. Why? Take up? people ignoring them? - What measures for isolating cases/getting people to isolate have actually worked? Australian hotel policy etc. - What extent the epidemic was driven by community transmission vs re-infection from abroad. Would shutting the airports actually do the job? Or would we have to shut Dover as well?
What seems to have been the case, in much of Europe, is that restrictions slow the spread.
Lock downs *reduce* cases.
The main problem from the government is being slow, I think. Slow to lock down in the first instance. Slow to lock down again.
Because of the exponential increase thing, once you are on the upward slope, days matter. Maybe even hours.
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
Britain is also vaccinating faster than most nations so I expect in a few months we will be back towards the middle in terms of Covid death rates
Take yourself back to your University days. When the question asked is "Analyse the UK's current pandemic death toll, and explain why you think it might have occurred", you get no marks for writing the world's greatest dissertation on UK vaccine provision. Your tutor would send it back to you with the mark "F" and the comment "read the question".
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
ZOE has some deeply weird data and I do not trust it.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
I don't know the last time the UK government even mentionee the track and trace app. I presume few people are using it / it really isn't doing any good.
Some of us did say it wouldn't work in the West in the way it has in South Korea.
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
ZOE's been pretty good at that sort of stuff, nationally and locally. Here on the island it had us coloured darker on its map when we were still in Tier One; a few weeks later we were in Tier Four and at one point a confirmed case rate up there with the worst bits of London. The ZOE map now has us back in mid range.
I don't think we will be back to normal for a very long time. I've noticed that some of the people working on vaccines are now explicitly talking about the next round of vaccination in the UK this coming autumn/winter. At best we will be looking at the "new normal" with extensive vaccination on a regular basis and the use of NPIs when cases surge.
Remember we have people working on new flu vaccines pretty much constantly, yet life goes on. Are we likely to need annual covid jabs, sure, does that mean its closer to lockdown life than normal life, not at all.
Politicalbetting is an excellent site and I have enjoyed coming here (and very occasionally posting) over the past 15 years. The insight on the future being the main reason.
But this post is the last straw. I am no fan of Boris but this has nothing to do with political betting and is just pure political vitriol that I can go and read on the Canary if I want to.
Good to luck to OGH and all of you but I vote with my feet.
I feel the same.
I like this site for mostly good debate on threads that, certainly in Mike's case, are invariably betting related.
This has bugger all to do with betting. It's just bile from an embittered man who lost on Brexit.
Sort it out OGH or your regulars will depart this site.
The response to comments like this is, “see yer”.
And you run the risk of losing many varied and good contributors by comments like that
You will lose a lot more if you and Mysticrose succeed in banning any articles that criticise the sainted Boris
For all their whining, Alastair’s milkshake sure brings all the BJ apologists and fawners to his yard.
Trolling has a tendency to get a response all over the internet.
Asking the people responsible for deaths to take responsibility for their actions is not "trolling". The corpses are not some piece of political theatre. They are people.
There is no single person responsible. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Is the PM responsible for the actions of Piers Corbyn and Toby Young and everyone they've influenced?
I hope we never live in a country where one person is responsible for everyone.
I want the PM - like everyone else - to take personal responsibility for his actions. Are you saying he is blameless?
No. I think he is human, I think some mistakes have been made, some things have gone very well. Lessons should be learnt and he's accepted responsibility. Responsibility doesn't mean resigning and passing the buck for dealing with your actions onto somebody else.
Quite frankly the most important thing of the pandemic is not the death toll, it is how to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer to that is surely vaccines and the government has done a good job on that, the most important issue of all.
On average over 50,000 people die every single month in the UK normal circumstances. Over 600,000 people normally die per year in the UK in normal circumstances. For every month this pandemic drags on past the point it could be over that is an average of 50,000 people who have lost their last month of their life without seeing their family - time they will never get back.
This pandemic hasn't just cost 100,000 lives - this pandemic and the restrictions imposed will have seen about 700,000 people die in the past year who were unable to see their families, unable to live the end of their lives as normal.
Quibbling over a few thousand excess death variance is silly pointscoring nonsense. End the pandemic, give everyone their lives back and learn lessons.
100,000 excess deaths is a big deal and we need to learn the lessons. Boris is responsible and accountable for the government. The buck stops with him for better or worse.
Is it 100,000 excess deaths? I thought it was 100,000 deaths within 28 days of a positive test
It is so easy to rant and spray hyperbolic biased views from the comfort of a keyboard.
Of course the government made mistakes. More lives could have been saved. In doing so more may be destroyed in other ways.
Obsession with international comparisons is still lacking much useful practical or intellectual validity. Until you take away all the variables from population type, density, adherence, mental health, average BMI, co morbidity health service capaity and many other factors influencing the outcome, you know little of use. In effect you are pissing in the wind, probably being stupid doing it into the wind and howling at the moon.
We all know the risks we face in life, assess them and select an action. Some actions kill us, some kill others and some don't kill.
In all probability the worst action is care homes early on.
I'd tend to agree.
I'm really not convinced the better performance of other countries can be wholly attributed to policy decisions.
At any rate, these involve a set of trade-offs around health, the economy, personal freedoms. Effectively suspending the functioning of civil society and the economy isn't without its costs either, the relevant metric can't just be body bags (not to minimise the pain of anyone who's lost those close to them).
For me, Covid comes pretty close to qualifying as a death from natural cause (even accounting for any revelations coming from the WHO visit to China). Is it reasonable to expect the government to legislate against that?
I guess it's easy to look back in retrospect, and pinpoint errors. Xmas must be one of thoses. Given the inadequacy of the public health's establishments initial response, I think blame, if it is to be attributed, can't just be levelled on elected officials.
Good post, I think its the closest to my overall view, but I would go a little bit further in criticism of the govt - not for the responses initially, but making the same mistake over and over, repeatedly waiting and postponing action in hope rather than getting ahead of the virus, the biggest example being xmas and the latest example being quarantine which will only happen in mid Feb which might be too late to stop the SA variant coming in. Despite these mistakes, it is still a mixed scorecard, like everywhere else, involving trade offs and shared responsibility between govt and wider society.
+1
Opening the schools - despite lots of relevant people calling for you not to - on a Monday, so that children could share their infections, then caving in and closing them on a Tuesday was another classic.
As was threatening a council with legal action for wanting to move its schools to remote learning one week, then closing those schools by law a week later.
The strange thing that I picked up in that was that the scientific advisers were only meeting on that Monday to look at the new evidence to make a recommendation to the government - which they then followed. Are we seriously saying that at a time of crisis and at a key time the scientists couldn't have met and given the government the same advice on the Saturday or Sunday?
It's all very well criticising the government but we don't want them going all Macron and looking at the science and coming up their own conclusions.
Perhaps it's time we stepped back and asked what is wrong with our system that it produces such bad governance? What are the problems with the current incentives and penalties in our system that elevates sub-optimal people into positions of power? Daniel Hannan to the Lords, as Alistair pointed out, being a prime example. Many years ago as an engineering grad I read Peter Senge "The fifth discipline" and I think it has a lot of insights that we could use in politics today.
It is simple and not a thing reserved either to politics or even this country you see it in business and the civil service too.
Above a certain level
1) People are put in charge of things they don't understand 2) People get to move on before the ordure hits the fan 3) The reward for failure is a promotion
A good post, but how do you improve it. Here are a few suggestions (and I know we can all point out situations elsewhere where this has worked equally badly):
a) Change our system from confrontational to consensus politics b) One way of achieving a) is to dump the 2 party system c) Separate the Government more from the law making and scrutiny role (currently it is a conflict of interest and appointments are made from a pool of just over 325 with limited qualifications for dozens of roles d) Beef up the scrutiny to actually be effective
Our MPs are far too partisan and very few have any expertise in running a Govt or any knowledge on the Depts they run (and as you say they get shuffled along anyway if they do). How many for instance actually have knowledge of health care, the military, science, foreign affairs, etc. if you are going to appoint from outside (eg senior diplomat as For Sec) then the scrutiny has to be top notch and not what we have now.
A major part of the problem is that we, the electorate, get exactly the politicians we vote for.
Modern politics is the Big Brother house - a combination of manipulation, zero privacy and the main requirement is to present a suitable image for the cameras.
The darkly fun bit, is that this is the conclusion reached by a certain special adviser.
Politicalbetting is an excellent site and I have enjoyed coming here (and very occasionally posting) over the past 15 years. The insight on the future being the main reason.
But this post is the last straw. I am no fan of Boris but this has nothing to do with political betting and is just pure political vitriol that I can go and read on the Canary if I want to.
Good to luck to OGH and all of you but I vote with my feet.
I feel the same.
I like this site for mostly good debate on threads that, certainly in Mike's case, are invariably betting related.
This has bugger all to do with betting. It's just bile from an embittered man who lost on Brexit.
Sort it out OGH or your regulars will depart this site.
The response to comments like this is, “see yer”.
And you run the risk of losing many varied and good contributors by comments like that
You will lose a lot more if you and Mysticrose succeed in banning any articles that criticise the sainted Boris
Given the latest poll a hatchet job on Boris is hardly representative either
Britain is also vaccinating faster than most nations so I expect in a few months we will be back towards the middle in terms of Covid death rates
Take yourself back to your University days. When the question asked is "Analyse the UK's current pandemic death toll, and explain why you think it might have occurred", you get no marks for writing the world's greatest dissertation on UK vaccine provision. Your tutor would send it back to you with the mark "F" and the comment "read the question".
When the question almost completely ignores the success of the UK vaccination programme to ensure it is as negative as possible about the government however that is clearly a question more subjective than objective
- It turns out that track and trace apps seem to have been a bust in much (maybe all of) Europe. Why? Take up? people ignoring them?
Take up mainly, but also BLE really isn't up to the job. There are new versions of Bluetooth that will help but they are not widely available yet, and also there are things like UWB and Wi-Fi RTT that can do precise positioning, but again they aren't widely available. I think this is a case of a lot of techbros thinking they can "solve COVID-19" and coming up with a dud.
I don't know the last time the UK government even mentionee the track and trace app. I presume few people are using it / it really isn't doing any good.
Some of us did say it wouldn't work in the West in the way it has in South Korea.
It was never going to work unless it was mandatory and invasive, to an extent that no Western country has been able to get away with doing.
We only have to read the reports from the T&T phone line operators, who were sworn at, ignored and blocked by people who didn't want to co-operate. In countries that have done well, that response would be met with a visit from a policeman or two.
As mentioned previously, the people who were screaming at T&T will be the same people who think that foreign holidays during a pandemic are okay.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
Actually we did what other European countries did in June, and allowed people to travel, with restrictions. Unfortunately I think what was missed was that on holiday people engage in activity more likely to spread the virus. We actually did quite well over the summer and other countries had worse early autumn peaks. In retrospect lifting the lockdown in early December was a mistake, but it is likely the tiers would have been successful in keeping the old variant down.
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
Until the number in hospital drop massively, it would be madness to relax restrictions.
The real issue with the border, I suspect, is the suspension of immigration that closing it would cause.
Politicalbetting is an excellent site and I have enjoyed coming here (and very occasionally posting) over the past 15 years. The insight on the future being the main reason.
But this post is the last straw. I am no fan of Boris but this has nothing to do with political betting and is just pure political vitriol that I can go and read on the Canary if I want to.
Good to luck to OGH and all of you but I vote with my feet.
I feel the same.
I like this site for mostly good debate on threads that, certainly in Mike's case, are invariably betting related.
This has bugger all to do with betting. It's just bile from an embittered man who lost on Brexit.
Sort it out OGH or your regulars will depart this site.
The response to comments like this is, “see yer”.
And you run the risk of losing many varied and good contributors by comments like that
You will lose a lot more if you and Mysticrose succeed in banning any articles that criticise the sainted Boris
Given the latest poll a hatchet job on Boris is hardly representative either
Politicalbetting is an excellent site and I have enjoyed coming here (and very occasionally posting) over the past 15 years. The insight on the future being the main reason.
But this post is the last straw. I am no fan of Boris but this has nothing to do with political betting and is just pure political vitriol that I can go and read on the Canary if I want to.
Good to luck to OGH and all of you but I vote with my feet.
I feel the same.
I like this site for mostly good debate on threads that, certainly in Mike's case, are invariably betting related.
This has bugger all to do with betting. It's just bile from an embittered man who lost on Brexit.
Sort it out OGH or your regulars will depart this site.
The response to comments like this is, “see yer”.
And you run the risk of losing many varied and good contributors by comments like that
You will lose a lot more if you and Mysticrose succeed in banning any articles that criticise the sainted Boris
Given the latest poll a hatchet job on Boris is hardly representative either
Politicalbetting is an excellent site and I have enjoyed coming here (and very occasionally posting) over the past 15 years. The insight on the future being the main reason.
But this post is the last straw. I am no fan of Boris but this has nothing to do with political betting and is just pure political vitriol that I can go and read on the Canary if I want to.
Good to luck to OGH and all of you but I vote with my feet.
I feel the same.
I like this site for mostly good debate on threads that, certainly in Mike's case, are invariably betting related.
This has bugger all to do with betting. It's just bile from an embittered man who lost on Brexit.
Sort it out OGH or your regulars will depart this site.
The response to comments like this is, “see yer”.
And you run the risk of losing many varied and good contributors by comments like that
You will lose a lot more if you and Mysticrose succeed in banning any articles that criticise the sainted Boris
Given the latest poll a hatchet job on Boris is hardly representative either
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
The local information on the Government site is excellent Nick, I suggest you just go by that. On the map when zooming in you get cases in the last 7 days down to sub-local authority level and movement in the 7 day average. For Waverley as a whole it currently has 232 cases over the last 7 days, down 21% on the previous week's average. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
The government and its supporters loves to make international comparisons right up until the moment that they are unfavourable. At that point they somehow become inappropriate and impossible to make.
Yes, it's been vastly entertaining, and mildly amusing, on here this morning. A slightly provocative, but accurate, header has provoked a real pile on from some PB Tories. I'm struggling to understand it all, bit it seems to go like this:
1. Making international comparisons on death rates is irrelevant at this stage of the pandemic, and anyway even if our death rates are high it's nothing to do with policy decisions - our population is dense etc. etc. Government is not responsible. 2. Making international comparisons on vaccination rates is highly relevant at this stage of the pandemic, and shows how much better we are than those ghastly Europeans at everything. Our government is marvellous and is entirely responsible. 3. Any anyway, those moaning about our death toll are really just moaning about Brexit - can't they just get over it? 4. PB is a betting site so what right has Meeks got to write something that's not about betting? Any anyway, I bet our vaccination rates are the best.
I don't think we will be back to normal for a very long time. I've noticed that some of the people working on vaccines are now explicitly talking about the next round of vaccination in the UK this coming autumn/winter. At best we will be looking at the "new normal" with extensive vaccination on a regular basis and the use of NPIs when cases surge.
We should keep our populations' vaccinations as up to date as possible, and require vaccinations from elsewhere to enter into the country (Sputnik can be appropriate for this as it shows efficacy even though we're not using it). Globally the rest of the world can benefit from our research, and contributions to Covax. The EU, USA, Japan and other rich nations should all be investing similarly in vaccines - the EU in particular still seems to think this is a one time ordering process and not an ongoing fight.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
Actually we did what other European countries did in June, and allowed people to travel, with restrictions. Unfortunately I think what was missed was that on holiday people engage in activity more likely to spread the virus. We actually did quite well over the summer and other countries had worse early autumn peaks. In retrospect lifting the lockdown in early December was a mistake, but it is likely the tiers would have been successful in keeping the old variant down.
I suspect there was a good correlation between those who did travel internationally with those who ignored restrictions both during and after their travel.
I never realised we had so many Boris lovers on here. It's almost Trumpesque. If there's one thing the Trump phenomenon taught us it's that criticism is useless. They'll answer with a slogan.
All I'll say is I've little doubt that Johnson put personal popularity above his responsibility as Prime Minister and if we'd had-dare I say it -Theresa May as PM I've little doubt the death toll would have been less. Probably considerably less.
How, precisely did Boris's personal popularity get a boost from his actions? Spoiler - his popularity numbers have tanked. I can believe there was one over-arching political concern: if we have people succumbing to Covid in hospital corridors because the NHS has been overwhelmed, that would be a) disastrous for the country and b) disastrous for the country. These two imperatives were coincident.
Circling the wagons around the NHS was right. Chucking out "bed-blockers" into care homes, regardless of the the risk of them taking Covid with them, was a wrong-headed decision. As it turned out. The first wave of infection in hospital was significantly below the second and we coped in the second. In that first wave, many hospitals were at far from peak capacity. We could probably have kept many of those we moved tucked up in their original beds - and got away with it. Probably.
I don't think it was the PM's personal popularity that had the pubs and shops back opening when - in my personal opinion - they should have stayed closed. I hope the retail and hospitality sector is prepared to take their fair share of responsibility for the extra deaths. Their lobbying led to them. True, it reduced the Govt.'s weekly bill for Covid. For a while. But not much in the great scheme of things. And probably nets out at damn all, when the extra costs of national health and wellbeing are factored in.
The scientists have led the charge on Covid. Brilliant on vaccines. But on modelling? I wonder how far their projections took account of how ornery a bunch we are. Open the pubs at all, and there will be plenty having super-spreader lock-ins and pub crawls. Open the shops - but how had they modelled the levels of twattish non-mask wearing? A few percentage points out on compliance - and your R rate is out hugely.
On vaccines, the nation has covered itself in glory. Getting it devised, bought, delivered, distributed, jabbed in arms, taken-up - all look as good as you could ever hope. On everything up to that point? There are plenty of failings to be shared around.
Interesting topic, but a more useful comparator would be, perhaps, with the number that lose their lives annually in road accidents; or even with the number of potential people that are aborted.
Good morning, everyone.
I mentioned the first of these:
“They number more than all the road deaths in Britain since 1988.”
And yes, I took the trouble to tot this up, but you can add 1987 to that too now, and we’ll probably pass 1986 today.
Thank you; as you will have guessed I only had time to skim the header very quickly. Thank you too for the time & effort you put into these headers. They are always thought-provoking.
@Sandpit replied that the number of abortions in (I think) 2018 was 220,000. That started me wondering whether the worst generational crime was/is for successive generations to deny following generations so many of their contemporaries. That leaves few bearing a burden that could have been shared between many.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
Thanks Max. I gave that a like but it doesn't do it justice so please note that I think you have called it spot on.
We'll learn more in due course but for the moment there isn't much more to be said.
- It turns out that track and trace apps seem to have been a bust in much (maybe all of) Europe. Why? Take up? people ignoring them?
Take up mainly, but also BLE really isn't up to the job. There are new versions of Bluetooth that will help but they are not widely available yet, and also there are things like UWB and Wi-Fi RTT that can do precise positioning, but again they aren't widely available. I think this is a case of a lot of techbros thinking they can "solve COVID-19" and coming up with a dud.
Partly, but I think that the main issues are social/political.
For example, in South Korea, the government simply pulled the data to get credit card usage and cell phone location. It wasn't so much voluntary cooperation, as force majeur.
The app was just a way to co-operate with the inevitable.
I don't think we will be back to normal for a very long time. I've noticed that some of the people working on vaccines are now explicitly talking about the next round of vaccination in the UK this coming autumn/winter. At best we will be looking at the "new normal" with extensive vaccination on a regular basis and the use of NPIs when cases surge.
We can't be sure of any such thing. The development of new vaccines is a sensible and timely precaution (government seems to have learned something here), but it's just as possible that those who've been vaccinated and/or already infected will experience only mild disease from mutations which escape immunity. Like the coronaviruses we experience as the common cold. For the cost of a few hundred million, manufacturing and testing new vaccines is an insurance policy against repeating the experience of the last year.
Perhaps it's time we stepped back and asked what is wrong with our system that it produces such bad governance? What are the problems with the current incentives and penalties in our system that elevates sub-optimal people into positions of power? Daniel Hannan to the Lords, as Alistair pointed out, being a prime example. Many years ago as an engineering grad I read Peter Senge "The fifth discipline" and I think it has a lot of insights that we could use in politics today.
It is simple and not a thing reserved either to politics or even this country you see it in business and the civil service too.
Above a certain level
1) People are put in charge of things they don't understand 2) People get to move on before the ordure hits the fan 3) The reward for failure is a promotion
A good post, but how do you improve it. Here are a few suggestions (and I know we can all point out situations elsewhere where this has worked equally badly):
a) Change our system from confrontational to consensus politics b) One way of achieving a) is to dump the 2 party system c) Separate the Government more from the law making and scrutiny role (currently it is a conflict of interest and appointments are made from a pool of just over 325 with limited qualifications for dozens of roles d) Beef up the scrutiny to actually be effective
Our MPs are far too partisan and very few have any expertise in running a Govt or any knowledge on the Depts they run (and as you say they get shuffled along anyway if they do). How many for instance actually have knowledge of health care, the military, science, foreign affairs, etc. if you are going to appoint from outside (eg senior diplomat as For Sec) then the scrutiny has to be top notch and not what we have now.
A major part of the problem is that we, the electorate, get exactly the politicians we vote for.
Modern politics is the Big Brother house - a combination of manipulation, zero privacy and the main requirement is to present a suitable image for the cameras.
The darkly fun bit, is that this is the conclusion reached by a certain special adviser.
kjh is right, though, and a big part of the problem is that the system itself is self-perpetuating presenting huge barriers to entry for anyone seeking to change it.
Britain is also vaccinating faster than most nations so I expect in a few months we will be back towards the middle in terms of Covid death rates
Unlikely, if you mean totals across the whole pandemic. Our Christmas/New Year spike was huge, roughly as big as the March/April one, and ongoing. And while we have been understandably flicking V's at vdL, the UK has been pulling ahead in the death race.
The UK vaccination programme will stop the next spike (unless Sources Close To The Chancellor get their way), but that's likely to be true in other countries too, even though their programmes are far worse than ours.
Maybe that's why the outcry in Europe hasn't happened to the extent some would apparently like. Other countries aren't in such a rush to vaccinate, because they trust their governments to keep them safe in the meantime.
This is a poor piece of Meeksiana, late in the cycle after his bitter realisation that he was not being received in triumph as pb.com's Messiah.
The UK has not done well (more specifically, England and the devolved administrations have not done well). Happy to see Boris, Mark, Nicola & Arlene sharing the same cell, if you want.
Western Europe has not done well. Happy to see Emmanuel, Angela, Pedro Sanchez, Guiseppe, Antonio join them in the cells.
Of course, there is a special cell reserved for the rulers of Belgium, who are top of the Europe death league (normalized to population).
Eastern Europe has not done well, the PMs of Czechia and Slovenia at least need to be trooping down to join the other politicians in the cells as well. The US, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru have not done well. The cells are filling up.
So, ... Boris would be in real trouble if England had done demonstrably poorer than other countries in Western Europe or the Americas.
As it is, England is not even the poorest performer in the British Isles in the death table. That is Wales (or was, the last time I computed, it is close though).
There appear to be statistical models to suit every prejudice.
According to Google, deaths per million to date are:
That was my point earlier. - and that is before you consider all the factors impacting death rates in different places or the definitions being used to classify cases or deaths or the reliability of reporting methods or the rile of governments in manipulating and just plain lying about the data. It is a minefield but very easy for those with a political axe to grind.
Dunno what axe, political or otherwise, Google has to grind...
I have no idea - except gigo applies to all such tables imho. The problem is with the way some use the tables as if they were both final and gospel. True even with vax data if you go with 1 dose 2 dose debate.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
One of the very few comments on this thread with which I'm largely in agreement.
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
Until the number in hospital drop massively, it would be madness to relax restrictions.
The real issue with the border, I suspect, is the suspension of immigration that closing it would cause.
It is so easy to rant and spray hyperbolic biased views from the comfort of a keyboard.
Of course the government made mistakes. More lives could have been saved. In doing so more may be destroyed in other ways.
Obsession with international comparisons is still lacking much useful practical or intellectual validity. Until you take away all the variables from population type, density, adherence, mental health, average BMI, co morbidity health service capaity and many other factors influencing the outcome, you know little of use. In effect you are pissing in the wind, probably being stupid doing it into the wind and howling at the moon.
We all know the risks we face in life, assess them and select an action. Some actions kill us, some kill others and some don't kill.
In all probability the worst action is care homes early on.
I'd tend to agree.
I'm really not convinced the better performance of other countries can be wholly attributed to policy decisions.
At any rate, these involve a set of trade-offs around health, the economy, personal freedoms. Effectively suspending the functioning of civil society and the economy isn't without its costs either, the relevant metric can't just be body bags (not to minimise the pain of anyone who's lost those close to them).
For me, Covid comes pretty close to qualifying as a death from natural cause (even accounting for any revelations coming from the WHO visit to China). Is it reasonable to expect the government to legislate against that?
I guess it's easy to look back in retrospect, and pinpoint errors. Xmas must be one of thoses. Given the inadequacy of the public health's establishments initial response, I think blame, if it is to be attributed, can't just be levelled on elected officials.
Good post, I think its the closest to my overall view, but I would go a little bit further in criticism of the govt - not for the responses initially, but making the same mistake over and over, repeatedly waiting and postponing action in hope rather than getting ahead of the virus, the biggest example being xmas and the latest example being quarantine which will only happen in mid Feb which might be too late to stop the SA variant coming in. Despite these mistakes, it is still a mixed scorecard, like everywhere else, involving trade offs and shared responsibility between govt and wider society.
+1
Opening the schools - despite lots of relevant people calling for you not to - on a Monday, so that children could share their infections, then caving in and closing them on a Tuesday was another classic.
As was threatening a council with legal action for wanting to move its schools to remote learning one week, then closing those schools by law a week later.
The strange thing that I picked up in that was that the scientific advisers were only meeting on that Monday to look at the new evidence to make a recommendation to the government - which they then followed. Are we seriously saying that at a time of crisis and at a key time the scientists couldn't have met and given the government the same advice on the Saturday or Sunday?
It's all very well criticising the government but we don't want them going all Macron and looking at the science and coming up their own conclusions.
This. OODA cycle etc.
I think that someone here commented that he picked up on the second wave by looking at the heat maps of cases.
What was the government looking at on a daily basis?
Again, a certain special advisor commented that the Cabinet Room is less functional than in 1914. The fireplace has been blocked up, so it can't be used to burn confidential papers....
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
The local information on the Government site is excellent Nick, I suggest you just go by that. On the map when zooming in you get cases in the last 7 days down to sub-local authority level and movement in the 7 day average. For Waverley as a whole it currently has 232 cases over the last 7 days, down 21% on the previous week's average. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
That data is good, but with a lag. Whereas ZOE is picking up people in Nick's area who, yesterday, are reporting a pack of symptoms indicative of possible infection. Obviously at very local level there is a reasonable probability of random error, but in the round, these have generally provided warning flags for areas about to experience an uptick in case rates.
I never realised we had so many Boris lovers on here. It's almost Trumpesque. If there's one thing the Trump phenomenon taught us it's that criticism is useless. They'll answer with a slogan.
All I'll say is I've little doubt that Johnson put personal popularity above his responsibility as Prime Minister and if we'd had-dare I say it -Theresa May as PM I've little doubt the death toll would have been less. Probably considerably less.
How, precisely did Boris's personal popularity get a boost from his actions? Spoiler - his popularity numbers have tanked. I can believe there was one over-arching political concern: if we have people succumbing to Covid in hospital corridors because the NHS has been overwhelmed, that would be a) disastrous for the country and b) disastrous for the country. These two imperatives were coincident.
Circling the wagons around the NHS was right. Chucking out "bed-blockers" into care homes, regardless of the the risk of them taking Covid with them, was a wrong-headed decision. As it turned out. The first wave of infection in hospital was significantly below the second and we coped in the second. In that first wave, many hospitals were at far from peak capacity. We could probably have kept many of those we moved tucked up in their original beds - and got away with it. Probably.
I don't think it was the PM's personal popularity that had the pubs and shops back opening when - in my personal opinion - they should have stayed closed. I hope the retail and hospitality sector is prepared to take their fair share of responsibility for the extra deaths. Their lobbying led to them. True, it reduced the Govt.'s weekly bill for Covid. For a while. But not much in the great scheme of things. And probably nets out at damn all, when the extra costs of national health and wellbeing are factored in.
The scientists have led the charge on Covid. Brilliant on vaccines. But on modelling? I wonder how far their projections took account of how ornery a bunch we are. Open the pubs at all, and there will be plenty having super-spreader lock-ins and pub crawls. Open the shops - but how had they modelled the levels of twattish non-mask wearing? A few percentage points out on compliance - and your R rate is out hugely.
On vaccines, the nation has covered itself in glory. Getting it devised, bought, delivered, distributed, jabbed in arms, taken-up - all look as good as you could ever hope. On everything up to that point? There are plenty of failings to be shared around.
I think the vaccines credit is shared between the scientists and Cummings, of all people. If I'm not very much mistaken, it was him that took a huge punt on the AstraZeneca vaccine very early on, while it still looked a maverick and unfunded project from the outside. The one really real legacy of the interlude of his obsession with boldly and solely science-led, "moonshot" government.
Mr F makes a good point. There's a question in my mind about definition, too. When we compare deaths from Covid among the four nations (If N Ireland is a nation) then we are comparing like with like. Everyone defines them as 'deaths which have occurred within 28 days of a positive test'. Whether or not, incidentally Covid WAS the cause of death. Is that a WHO standard definition? Is it even (whisper it) an EU definition.? Or a Russian or Brazilian one?
There was a report in Spain in the autumn in El Pais which estimated Spain was then under counting to the scale of around 30k deaths. Wheter true or not it shows the weakness of league tables compiled from the data indivudual countries supply to the varies bodies which publish the data.
The government and its supporters loves to make international comparisons right up until the moment that they are unfavourable. At that point they somehow become inappropriate and impossible to make.
The opposition and its supporters loves to make international comparisons right up until the moment that they are favourable. At that point they somehow become inappropriate and impossible to make.
I like playing a game on PB where I try and guess the author before the sign-off becomes visible. Some authors are frustratingly hard to pin down. My record wrt to Mr Meeks' articles over the past 6-12 months is a perfect one, with the correct guess often being made in the first few paragraphs of the article.
Wrt the actual content, I largely agree with MaxPB's comment, with the additional caveat that while the Government could have done a lot more (not encouraging foreign holidays for a start), we also need to wait for excess death stats to be collated before getting a true measure.
Britain is also vaccinating faster than most nations so I expect in a few months we will be back towards the middle in terms of Covid death rates
Unlikely, if you mean totals across the whole pandemic. Our Christmas/New Year spike was huge, roughly as big as the March/April one, and ongoing. And while we have been understandably flicking V's at vdL, the UK has been pulling ahead in the death race.
The UK vaccination programme will stop the next spike (unless Sources Close To The Chancellor get their way), but that's likely to be true in other countries too, even though their programmes are far worse than ours.
Maybe that's why the outcry in Europe hasn't happened to the extent some would apparently like. Other countries aren't in such a rush to vaccinate, because they trust their governments to keep them safe in the meantime.
Continental Europe also has the advantage that life will start to move outdoors again in March.
Perhaps it's time we stepped back and asked what is wrong with our system that it produces such bad governance? What are the problems with the current incentives and penalties in our system that elevates sub-optimal people into positions of power? Daniel Hannan to the Lords, as Alistair pointed out, being a prime example. Many years ago as an engineering grad I read Peter Senge "The fifth discipline" and I think it has a lot of insights that we could use in politics today.
It is simple and not a thing reserved either to politics or even this country you see it in business and the civil service too.
Above a certain level
1) People are put in charge of things they don't understand 2) People get to move on before the ordure hits the fan 3) The reward for failure is a promotion
A good post, but how do you improve it. Here are a few suggestions (and I know we can all point out situations elsewhere where this has worked equally badly):
a) Change our system from confrontational to consensus politics b) One way of achieving a) is to dump the 2 party system c) Separate the Government more from the law making and scrutiny role (currently it is a conflict of interest and appointments are made from a pool of just over 325 with limited qualifications for dozens of roles d) Beef up the scrutiny to actually be effective
Our MPs are far too partisan and very few have any expertise in running a Govt or any knowledge on the Depts they run (and as you say they get shuffled along anyway if they do). How many for instance actually have knowledge of health care, the military, science, foreign affairs, etc. if you are going to appoint from outside (eg senior diplomat as For Sec) then the scrutiny has to be top notch and not what we have now.
I am not sure there is a democracy in the world without a broad 40/40 left right split, a cynical electorate and partisan supporters. It's the nature of the beast.
A typical Alastair Meeks article. Within three words it was obvious who authored it. It's not just the tortuous flowery language. It's the constant diatribes against the Conservatives. Boris was big to take full responsibility, a much bigger person than Meeks. Because it's not just his fault. The Brits are a recalcitrant lot. We don't listen and we don't follow rules: from social distancing, to face mask wearing (STILL) and lockdown.
Yep, the Gov't screwed up early on. Nope, we won't forget that lots died. However, it's also time to stop being moaning whinge-bags (Alastair), be thankful for the brilliance of the vaccine rollout and for the living to get on with living.
Taking responsibility is more than saying "I take responsibility".
There will be no accountability. There never is. Why is Dido Harding within a million miles of making important decisions? Because that's how things are done here. Why do Hannan and Young delete their death-doubling tweets and simply walk of to cash the next billionaire's cheque for 500 words on "let's really free up the energy industry"? Because that's how things are done here.
At the going down of the sun, we will utterly ignore them.
Unless it's to inspire a maudlin clap-fest as a replacement for taxation to properly fund health services.
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I am not convinced this forum or the participants want a long discussion on political reform to be fair, yes possibly a subset do. Perhaps I will find another way to do it so only those interested get it inflicted
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
Until the number in hospital drop massively, it would be madness to relax restrictions.
The real issue with the border, I suspect, is the suspension of immigration that closing it would cause.
Who is emigrating to here during a pandemic ?
The people UKG is bringing in to pick fruit and veg?
For all their whining, Alastair’s milkshake sure brings all the BJ apologists and fawners to his yard.
Trolling has a tendency to get a response all over the internet.
Asking the people responsible for deaths to take responsibility for their actions is not "trolling". The corpses are not some piece of political theatre. They are people.
There is no single person responsible. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Is the PM responsible for the actions of Piers Corbyn and Toby Young and everyone they've influenced?
I hope we never live in a country where one person is responsible for everyone.
I want the PM - like everyone else - to take personal responsibility for his actions. Are you saying he is blameless?
No. I think he is human, I think some mistakes have been made, some things have gone very well. Lessons should be learnt and he's accepted responsibility. Responsibility doesn't mean resigning and passing the buck for dealing with your actions onto somebody else.
Quite frankly the most important thing of the pandemic is not the death toll, it is how to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer to that is surely vaccines and the government has done a good job on that, the most important issue of all.
On average over 50,000 people die every single month in the UK normal circumstances. Over 600,000 people normally die per year in the UK in normal circumstances. For every month this pandemic drags on past the point it could be over that is an average of 50,000 people who have lost their last month of their life without seeing their family - time they will never get back.
This pandemic hasn't just cost 100,000 lives - this pandemic and the restrictions imposed will have seen about 700,000 people die in the past year who were unable to see their families, unable to live the end of their lives as normal.
Quibbling over a few thousand excess death variance is silly pointscoring nonsense. End the pandemic, give everyone their lives back and learn lessons.
100,000 excess deaths is a big deal and we need to learn the lessons. Boris is responsible and accountable for the government. The buck stops with him for better or worse.
Not to quibble, but are there 100,000 excess deaths?
Perhaps the craziest policy since........................Iraq....Brexit....the poll tax.....
Happened in similar ways in many countries at the same time - particularly so here in Spain where tourism was recklessly encouraged. It was very popular. I'm not sure how much evidence there is that restaurant dining was a particular vector for the waves which followed - less so I suspect than the gatherings of families in summer breaks or the reopenings of bars and clubs. Certainly the comparisons you make are inappropriate - I don't recall ooo,s on the streets demanding the policy be scrapped at the time.
I have to agree with those who say this is a fairly lousy article. Alastair Meeks and those of his fellow travellers never really outline what alternative policy they would have followed. Locking down a few days earlier doesn't really cut it.
A challenge for the Brains Trust. Anyone know of any photos? I would have though Thatcher, and perhaps Major, Blair etc would have done this at some stage.
Britain is also vaccinating faster than most nations so I expect in a few months we will be back towards the middle in terms of Covid death rates
Unlikely, if you mean totals across the whole pandemic. Our Christmas/New Year spike was huge, roughly as big as the March/April one, and ongoing. And while we have been understandably flicking V's at vdL, the UK has been pulling ahead in the death race.
The UK vaccination programme will stop the next spike (unless Sources Close To The Chancellor get their way), but that's likely to be true in other countries too, even though their programmes are far worse than ours.
Maybe that's why the outcry in Europe hasn't happened to the extent some would apparently like. Other countries aren't in such a rush to vaccinate, because they trust their governments to keep them safe in the meantime.
Continental Europe also has the advantage that life will start to move outdoors again in March.
Only in southern Europe and that will inevitably bring pressure to open up maybe too quickly. We had it last year.
That's a nice header, Alastair, also a timely antidote to the nasty bout of vaccine triumphalism some of us have been suffering from lately. Our success in that field is to be celebrated and I do. I feel relief and gratitude. I would also feel pride if I were capable of this emotion about a country. But crowing about it? "Just luving" how it shows we are too good for the EU? Using it to obscure the poor performance of the government in the face of this enormous tragedy? No thank you.
For all their whining, Alastair’s milkshake sure brings all the BJ apologists and fawners to his yard.
Trolling has a tendency to get a response all over the internet.
Asking the people responsible for deaths to take responsibility for their actions is not "trolling". The corpses are not some piece of political theatre. They are people.
There is no single person responsible. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Is the PM responsible for the actions of Piers Corbyn and Toby Young and everyone they've influenced?
I hope we never live in a country where one person is responsible for everyone.
I want the PM - like everyone else - to take personal responsibility for his actions. Are you saying he is blameless?
No. I think he is human, I think some mistakes have been made, some things have gone very well. Lessons should be learnt and he's accepted responsibility. Responsibility doesn't mean resigning and passing the buck for dealing with your actions onto somebody else.
Quite frankly the most important thing of the pandemic is not the death toll, it is how to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer to that is surely vaccines and the government has done a good job on that, the most important issue of all.
On average over 50,000 people die every single month in the UK normal circumstances. Over 600,000 people normally die per year in the UK in normal circumstances. For every month this pandemic drags on past the point it could be over that is an average of 50,000 people who have lost their last month of their life without seeing their family - time they will never get back.
This pandemic hasn't just cost 100,000 lives - this pandemic and the restrictions imposed will have seen about 700,000 people die in the past year who were unable to see their families, unable to live the end of their lives as normal.
Quibbling over a few thousand excess death variance is silly pointscoring nonsense. End the pandemic, give everyone their lives back and learn lessons.
100,000 excess deaths is a big deal and we need to learn the lessons. Boris is responsible and accountable for the government. The buck stops with him for better or worse.
Not to quibble, but are there 100,000 excess deaths?
I believe so, the real question is how many excess deaths are there in other places. As a friend of mine told me, you have to try exceptionally hard to die of COVID in Spain.
I never realised we had so many Boris lovers on here. It's almost Trumpesque. If there's one thing the Trump phenomenon taught us it's that criticism is useless. They'll answer with a slogan.
All I'll say is I've little doubt that Johnson put personal popularity above his responsibility as Prime Minister and if we'd had-dare I say it -Theresa May as PM I've little doubt the death toll would have been less. Probably considerably less.
How, precisely did Boris's personal popularity get a boost from his actions? Spoiler - his popularity numbers have tanked. I can believe there was one over-arching political concern: if we have people succumbing to Covid in hospital corridors because the NHS has been overwhelmed, that would be a) disastrous for the country and b) disastrous for the country. These two imperatives were coincident.
Circling the wagons around the NHS was right. Chucking out "bed-blockers" into care homes, regardless of the the risk of them taking Covid with them, was a wrong-headed decision. As it turned out. The first wave of infection in hospital was significantly below the second and we coped in the second. In that first wave, many hospitals were at far from peak capacity. We could probably have kept many of those we moved tucked up in their original beds - and got away with it. Probably.
I don't think it was the PM's personal popularity that had the pubs and shops back opening when - in my personal opinion - they should have stayed closed. I hope the retail and hospitality sector is prepared to take their fair share of responsibility for the extra deaths. Their lobbying led to them. True, it reduced the Govt.'s weekly bill for Covid. For a while. But not much in the great scheme of things. And probably nets out at damn all, when the extra costs of national health and wellbeing are factored in.
The scientists have led the charge on Covid. Brilliant on vaccines. But on modelling? I wonder how far their projections took account of how ornery a bunch we are. Open the pubs at all, and there will be plenty having super-spreader lock-ins and pub crawls. Open the shops - but how had they modelled the levels of twattish non-mask wearing? A few percentage points out on compliance - and your R rate is out hugely.
On vaccines, the nation has covered itself in glory. Getting it devised, bought, delivered, distributed, jabbed in arms, taken-up - all look as good as you could ever hope. On everything up to that point? There are plenty of failings to be shared around.
I think the vaccines credit is shared between the scientists and Cummings, of all people. If I'm not very much mistaken, it was him that took a huge punt on the AstraZeneca vaccine very early on, while it still looked a maverick and unfunded project from the outside. The one really real legacy of the interlude of his obsession with boldly and solely science-led, "moonshot" government.
Note that the AZN deal with Oxford was signed before his foolish expedition. Though granted the bulk order came later.
Perhaps the craziest policy since........................Iraq....Brexit....the poll tax.....
Happened in similar ways in many countries at the same time - particularly so here in Spain where tourism was recklessly encouraged. It was very popular. I'm not sure how much evidence there is that restaurant dining was a particular vector for the waves which followed - less so I suspect than the gatherings of families in summer breaks or the reopenings of bars and clubs. Certainly the comparisons you make are inappropriate - I don't recall ooo,s on the streets demanding the policy be scrapped at the time.
How much dining can be done outside in Spain though?
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
The local information on the Government site is excellent Nick, I suggest you just go by that. On the map when zooming in you get cases in the last 7 days down to sub-local authority level and movement in the 7 day average. For Waverley as a whole it currently has 232 cases over the last 7 days, down 21% on the previous week's average. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
That data is good, but with a lag. Whereas ZOE is picking up people in Nick's area who, yesterday, are reporting a pack of symptoms indicative of possible infection. Obviously at very local level there is a reasonable probability of random error, but in the round, these have generally provided warning flags for areas about to experience an uptick in case rates.
We don't seem to have followed up with the sewage testing that once was mentioned as giving a good early indicator of infections in comparatively small areas. Or did we, and it's just gone underground, so to speak?
I have to agree with those who say this is a fairly lousy article. Alastair Meeks and those of his fellow travellers never really outline what alternative policy they would have followed. Locking down a few days earlier doesn't really cut it.
The public also must take a lot of blame, By October everyone knew the risks with Covid, yet the people I know who got it behaved in daft way to get it, mainly through house parties.
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
Until the number in hospital drop massively, it would be madness to relax restrictions.
The real issue with the border, I suspect, is the suspension of immigration that closing it would cause.
Who is emigrating to here during a pandemic ?
Consider that we have had, at the height of the this epidemic, people crossing the worlds busiest shipping land at night in RIBs. That's the extreme example - but it points to an underlying trend.
Immigration is down. There are even some numbers suggesting very low net immigration for 2020. But immigration is occurring right now.
For all their whining, Alastair’s milkshake sure brings all the BJ apologists and fawners to his yard.
Trolling has a tendency to get a response all over the internet.
Asking the people responsible for deaths to take responsibility for their actions is not "trolling". The corpses are not some piece of political theatre. They are people.
There is no single person responsible. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Is the PM responsible for the actions of Piers Corbyn and Toby Young and everyone they've influenced?
I hope we never live in a country where one person is responsible for everyone.
I want the PM - like everyone else - to take personal responsibility for his actions. Are you saying he is blameless?
No. I think he is human, I think some mistakes have been made, some things have gone very well. Lessons should be learnt and he's accepted responsibility. Responsibility doesn't mean resigning and passing the buck for dealing with your actions onto somebody else.
Quite frankly the most important thing of the pandemic is not the death toll, it is how to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer to that is surely vaccines and the government has done a good job on that, the most important issue of all.
On average over 50,000 people die every single month in the UK normal circumstances. Over 600,000 people normally die per year in the UK in normal circumstances. For every month this pandemic drags on past the point it could be over that is an average of 50,000 people who have lost their last month of their life without seeing their family - time they will never get back.
This pandemic hasn't just cost 100,000 lives - this pandemic and the restrictions imposed will have seen about 700,000 people die in the past year who were unable to see their families, unable to live the end of their lives as normal.
Quibbling over a few thousand excess death variance is silly pointscoring nonsense. End the pandemic, give everyone their lives back and learn lessons.
100,000 excess deaths is a big deal and we need to learn the lessons. Boris is responsible and accountable for the government. The buck stops with him for better or worse.
Not to quibble, but are there 100,000 excess deaths?
A challenge for the Brains Trust. Anyone know of any photos? I would have though Thatcher, and perhaps Major, Blair etc would have done this at some stage.
Aside from borders the one decision I really couldn't understand was not keeping up a full lockdown right up till christmas.
The November lockdown was fairly ineffective, London & the SE exited the lockdown with significantly more cases that they entered it with. Without knowledge of the new strain it must have looked like people were just ignoring it, and it doesn't make much sense to extend a measure that seemingly isn't working.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
I think you're letting them off too likely for the decisions made that contributed to the scale of the first wave in the UK. There really were an awful lot of calls that they got badly wrong.
Nonetheless, I would look to spread the blame for the early wave in so far as a lot of the mistakes go back long before Johnson took over. Jeremy Hunt pushed the creation of Public Health England with responsibilities transferred to local authorities in order to get its budgets outside the NHS spending envelope and subject to the huge scale of punative cuts applied to local authorities in general. We turned public health into a Cinderrella and it wasn't in a position to cope initially. Then there was the failure to act on the findings of the large scale wargaming exercise which gave a few years warning of how badly exposed the country was. Then there's the issue of why the NHS felt it had so little option but to push patients into care homes and why care homes were so badly equipped to cope, harking back to the long term failure to sort of the NHS/care home relationship. So by early 2020 the context was that any UK government would have struggled, although (vaccines aside) ours did particularly badly.
For all their whining, Alastair’s milkshake sure brings all the BJ apologists and fawners to his yard.
Trolling has a tendency to get a response all over the internet.
Asking the people responsible for deaths to take responsibility for their actions is not "trolling". The corpses are not some piece of political theatre. They are people.
There is no single person responsible. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Is the PM responsible for the actions of Piers Corbyn and Toby Young and everyone they've influenced?
I hope we never live in a country where one person is responsible for everyone.
I want the PM - like everyone else - to take personal responsibility for his actions. Are you saying he is blameless?
No. I think he is human, I think some mistakes have been made, some things have gone very well. Lessons should be learnt and he's accepted responsibility. Responsibility doesn't mean resigning and passing the buck for dealing with your actions onto somebody else.
Quite frankly the most important thing of the pandemic is not the death toll, it is how to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer to that is surely vaccines and the government has done a good job on that, the most important issue of all.
On average over 50,000 people die every single month in the UK normal circumstances. Over 600,000 people normally die per year in the UK in normal circumstances. For every month this pandemic drags on past the point it could be over that is an average of 50,000 people who have lost their last month of their life without seeing their family - time they will never get back.
This pandemic hasn't just cost 100,000 lives - this pandemic and the restrictions imposed will have seen about 700,000 people die in the past year who were unable to see their families, unable to live the end of their lives as normal.
Quibbling over a few thousand excess death variance is silly pointscoring nonsense. End the pandemic, give everyone their lives back and learn lessons.
100,000 excess deaths is a big deal and we need to learn the lessons. Boris is responsible and accountable for the government. The buck stops with him for better or worse.
Not to quibble, but are there 100,000 excess deaths?
Not sure either, but I`ve seen 100,000 reported. Sounds plausible.
600k deaths in UK is norm I think, so a 17% increase on the norm.
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
The local information on the Government site is excellent Nick, I suggest you just go by that. On the map when zooming in you get cases in the last 7 days down to sub-local authority level and movement in the 7 day average. For Waverley as a whole it currently has 232 cases over the last 7 days, down 21% on the previous week's average. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
That data is good, but with a lag. Whereas ZOE is picking up people in Nick's area who, yesterday, are reporting a pack of symptoms indicative of possible infection. Obviously at very local level there is a reasonable probability of random error, but in the round, these have generally provided warning flags for areas about to experience an uptick in case rates.
We don't seem to have followed up with the sewage testing that once was mentioned as giving a good early indicator of infections in comparatively small areas. Or did we, and it's just gone underground, so to speak?
I hope it's not another bright (and in hindsight obvious) idea that hasn't been allowed to go down the drain. That (seriously) would be criminal. But I believe they may be using it in the current panic over the SA form in Lndon/Kent/Surrey.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
Very interesting post. I do think we can generally trust the numbers here.
I speak as someone who has lost my job in the hospitality industry. I think the industry has been poorly treated, and I know the physical measures implemented by most pubs I worked with to become Covid safe. The government subsequently moved the goalposts seemingly from a bias from scientific advice related to unchanged venues and business models. That said I think it is difficult to measure impact of pubs being open.
With regards to travel I think there is a weakness in the scientific advice. I seem to remember last year that the advice to government was that closing the borders would not bring down the R rate compared to other measures. I think this was true but it missed the key fact that there was potential for it to significantly increase rates, if people didn't follow the self quarantine advice (and how was this being enforced) and also the behaviour of travellers and risks would have been on modelling possibly on infection rates early in the pandemic when really those traveling were probably more likely to be risk takers.
The government should have and still should see shutting borders as an open goal. If someone really has to travel then a quarantine hotel is the cost
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I am not convinced this forum or the participants want a long discussion on political reform to be fair, yes possibly a subset do. Perhaps I will find another way to do it so only those interested get it inflicted
Perhaps it's time we stepped back and asked what is wrong with our system that it produces such bad governance? What are the problems with the current incentives and penalties in our system that elevates sub-optimal people into positions of power? Daniel Hannan to the Lords, as Alistair pointed out, being a prime example. Many years ago as an engineering grad I read Peter Senge "The fifth discipline" and I think it has a lot of insights that we could use in politics today.
It is simple and not a thing reserved either to politics or even this country you see it in business and the civil service too.
Above a certain level
1) People are put in charge of things they don't understand 2) People get to move on before the ordure hits the fan 3) The reward for failure is a promotion
A good post, but how do you improve it. Here are a few suggestions (and I know we can all point out situations elsewhere where this has worked equally badly):
a) Change our system from confrontational to consensus politics b) One way of achieving a) is to dump the 2 party system c) Separate the Government more from the law making and scrutiny role (currently it is a conflict of interest and appointments are made from a pool of just over 325 with limited qualifications for dozens of roles d) Beef up the scrutiny to actually be effective
Our MPs are far too partisan and very few have any expertise in running a Govt or any knowledge on the Depts they run (and as you say they get shuffled along anyway if they do). How many for instance actually have knowledge of health care, the military, science, foreign affairs, etc. if you are going to appoint from outside (eg senior diplomat as For Sec) then the scrutiny has to be top notch and not what we have now.
I am not sure there is a democracy in the world without a broad 40/40 left right split, a cynical electorate and partisan supporters. It's the nature of the beast.
I'm sure you are right Felix, but my suggestion wasn't just limited to that split and anyway the change would break up the groupings into a more disparate group eg Independents, Marxists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Liberals, Free market, socially liberal Conservatives, Socially conservative Conservatives, etc.
Such a change (together with the others I mentioned) would mean people in these groups would work together where they agree more freely and that would be a lot.
One thing I find interesting about PB is I agree more often with people I have different political views to than I disagree.
For instance I have a lot in common with Sandpit , yourself, SeanF, David Herdson, etc. Equally on the other side I really enjoy kinabalu and others. Philip is the best example. I strongly disagree with him say 20% of the time and strongly agree with him 80% of the time.
I have of course left out those I agree with most of the time (eg Nigelb, IanB2, etc).
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I am not convinced this forum or the participants want a long discussion on political reform to be fair, yes possibly a subset do. Perhaps I will find another way to do it so only those interested get it inflicted
Header?
I would be very interested to read a header from @Pagan2 on this subject.
I like playing a game on PB where I try and guess the author before the sign-off becomes visible. Some authors are frustratingly hard to pin down. My record wrt to Mr Meeks' articles over the past 6-12 months is a perfect one, with the correct guess often being made in the first few paragraphs of the article.
Similar for me. If before reading piece I see posters saying they can guess the author after a few paragraphs it’s usually Meeks they’re talking about. Not a bad predictor of those posters’ political inclinations either.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
Before absolving the government of blame for the first wave deaths, we should remember Exercise Cygnus had identified PPE shortfalls, but was suppressed. Boris's hands are clean because he was out of office but the government's are not.
Dominic Cummings identified our need for superforecasters. Should we have been blindsided by Coronavirus? Bill Gates, inter alia, had been banging on about the dangers of pandemics caused by novel viruses, and as Matt Hancock reminds us, so had Hollywood. So here, perhaps Dominic Cummings was right.
I have to agree with those who say this is a fairly lousy article. Alastair Meeks and those of his fellow travellers never really outline what alternative policy they would have followed. Locking down a few days earlier doesn't really cut it.
The public also must take a lot of blame, By October everyone knew the risks with Covid, yet the people I know who got it behaved in daft way to get it, mainly through house parties.
Don't forget it was"your patriotic duty to go to the pub" during the summer.
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I am not convinced this forum or the participants want a long discussion on political reform to be fair, yes possibly a subset do. Perhaps I will find another way to do it so only those interested get it inflicted
Header?
I agree it would make a good header. What is more it was inventive and didn't actually involve voting reform, which although a passion of mine would bore others.
Although nobody else knows what we are referring to it had interesting ideas that people would rip into or expand upon.
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I am not convinced this forum or the participants want a long discussion on political reform to be fair, yes possibly a subset do. Perhaps I will find another way to do it so only those interested get it inflicted
Header?
I would be very interested to read a header from @Pagan2 on this subject.
I will think about writing it up properly then up to Mike, though be warned I am not much of a writer and MysticRose will complain its too long and not about betting
For all their whining, Alastair’s milkshake sure brings all the BJ apologists and fawners to his yard.
Trolling has a tendency to get a response all over the internet.
Asking the people responsible for deaths to take responsibility for their actions is not "trolling". The corpses are not some piece of political theatre. They are people.
There is no single person responsible. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Is the PM responsible for the actions of Piers Corbyn and Toby Young and everyone they've influenced?
I hope we never live in a country where one person is responsible for everyone.
I want the PM - like everyone else - to take personal responsibility for his actions. Are you saying he is blameless?
No. I think he is human, I think some mistakes have been made, some things have gone very well. Lessons should be learnt and he's accepted responsibility. Responsibility doesn't mean resigning and passing the buck for dealing with your actions onto somebody else.
Quite frankly the most important thing of the pandemic is not the death toll, it is how to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer to that is surely vaccines and the government has done a good job on that, the most important issue of all.
On average over 50,000 people die every single month in the UK normal circumstances. Over 600,000 people normally die per year in the UK in normal circumstances. For every month this pandemic drags on past the point it could be over that is an average of 50,000 people who have lost their last month of their life without seeing their family - time they will never get back.
This pandemic hasn't just cost 100,000 lives - this pandemic and the restrictions imposed will have seen about 700,000 people die in the past year who were unable to see their families, unable to live the end of their lives as normal.
Quibbling over a few thousand excess death variance is silly pointscoring nonsense. End the pandemic, give everyone their lives back and learn lessons.
100,000 excess deaths is a big deal and we need to learn the lessons. Boris is responsible and accountable for the government. The buck stops with him for better or worse.
Not to quibble, but are there 100,000 excess deaths?
To suggest that all of the 80+ age group would have survived an extra year is clearly wrong.
In the end, you can only talk of early deaths. Life is, ultimately, 100% fatal.
Perhaps the craziest policy since........................Iraq....Brexit....the poll tax.....
Happened in similar ways in many countries at the same time - particularly so here in Spain where tourism was recklessly encouraged. It was very popular. I'm not sure how much evidence there is that restaurant dining was a particular vector for the waves which followed - less so I suspect than the gatherings of families in summer breaks or the reopenings of bars and clubs. Certainly the comparisons you make are inappropriate - I don't recall ooo,s on the streets demanding the policy be scrapped at the time.
How much dining can be done outside in Spain though?
The answer is zero in North East England.
None atm in our area - takeaway only and you cannot leave your town!
A challenge for the Brains Trust. Anyone know of any photos? I would have though Thatcher, and perhaps Major, Blair etc would have done this at some stage.
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I am not convinced this forum or the participants want a long discussion on political reform to be fair, yes possibly a subset do. Perhaps I will find another way to do it so only those interested get it inflicted
Header?
I would be very interested to read a header from @Pagan2 on this subject.
I will think about writing it up properly then up to Mike, though be warned I am not much of a writer and MysticRose will complain its too long and not about betting
Looking forward to it. Take no notice of MysticRose.
For me it's difficult to pin the blame of all the first 35-40k dead at the government's feet. It was a difficult situation and we'd never really had this sort of emergency before, APAC nations were far, far better prepared for it with pre-existing SARS and bird flu containment procedures tested regularly given their proximity to China.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
I think you're letting them off too likely for the decisions made that contributed to the scale of the first wave in the UK. There really were an awful lot of calls that they got badly wrong.
Nonetheless, I would look to spread the blame for the early wave in so far as a lot of the mistakes go back long before Johnson took over. Jeremy Hunt pushed the creation of Public Health England with responsibilities transferred to local authorities in order to get its budgets outside the NHS spending envelope and subject to the huge scale of punative cuts applied to local authorities in general. We turned public health into a Cinderrella and it wasn't in a position to cope initially. Then there was the failure to act on the findings of the large scale wargaming exercise which gave a few years warning of how badly exposed the country was. Then there's the issue of why the NHS felt it had so little option but to push patients into care homes and why care homes were so badly equipped to cope, harking back to the long term failure to sort of the NHS/care home relationship. So by early 2020 the context was that any UK government would have struggled, although (vaccines aside) ours did particularly badly.
The comments regarding public health are fair - though note that capabilities had been steadily degraded for a couple of decades before Hunt arrived on the scene (and also Hunt should get some credit for recognising his mistakes).
There were a lot of bad calls early on, but I think Max's point, fairly made, is that any government would likely have made a number of them, and that in the early stages of the pandemic governments' responses worldwide were essentially driven by whatever systems were or weren't already in place.
The discharge into care homes of infected or untested patients from hospitals was probably the most indefensible mistake - and the offence was compounded by government never really owning up to it.
For all their whining, Alastair’s milkshake sure brings all the BJ apologists and fawners to his yard.
Trolling has a tendency to get a response all over the internet.
Asking the people responsible for deaths to take responsibility for their actions is not "trolling". The corpses are not some piece of political theatre. They are people.
There is no single person responsible. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Is the PM responsible for the actions of Piers Corbyn and Toby Young and everyone they've influenced?
I hope we never live in a country where one person is responsible for everyone.
I want the PM - like everyone else - to take personal responsibility for his actions. Are you saying he is blameless?
No. I think he is human, I think some mistakes have been made, some things have gone very well. Lessons should be learnt and he's accepted responsibility. Responsibility doesn't mean resigning and passing the buck for dealing with your actions onto somebody else.
Quite frankly the most important thing of the pandemic is not the death toll, it is how to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer to that is surely vaccines and the government has done a good job on that, the most important issue of all.
On average over 50,000 people die every single month in the UK normal circumstances. Over 600,000 people normally die per year in the UK in normal circumstances. For every month this pandemic drags on past the point it could be over that is an average of 50,000 people who have lost their last month of their life without seeing their family - time they will never get back.
This pandemic hasn't just cost 100,000 lives - this pandemic and the restrictions imposed will have seen about 700,000 people die in the past year who were unable to see their families, unable to live the end of their lives as normal.
Quibbling over a few thousand excess death variance is silly pointscoring nonsense. End the pandemic, give everyone their lives back and learn lessons.
100,000 excess deaths is a big deal and we need to learn the lessons. Boris is responsible and accountable for the government. The buck stops with him for better or worse.
Not to quibble, but are there 100,000 excess deaths?
I believe so, the real question is how many excess deaths are there in other places. As a friend of mine told me, you have to try exceptionally hard to die of COVID in Spain.
The FT team have been tracking that, but their latest graphs are very out of date now, unless anyone knows differently
Perhaps the craziest policy since........................Iraq....Brexit....the poll tax.....
Happened in similar ways in many countries at the same time - particularly so here in Spain where tourism was recklessly encouraged. It was very popular. I'm not sure how much evidence there is that restaurant dining was a particular vector for the waves which followed - less so I suspect than the gatherings of families in summer breaks or the reopenings of bars and clubs. Certainly the comparisons you make are inappropriate - I don't recall ooo,s on the streets demanding the policy be scrapped at the time.
How much dining can be done outside in Spain though?
The answer is zero in North East England.
Bigg Market? 2am on a Fri/Sat night? Lots of outdoor dining of Kebab/Chips etc. no?
A second seems quite extreme but it is indisputable that these new variants were a game changer in so far as tiers were concerned. I think the hint yesterday was that we may have seen the last of those and that is a good thing.
PB must be quite rare in the sense that the political slant of the headers is often so different to that of the posters - and I think this is probably a good thing. Funnily enough, I have only really just now started placing a few political bets, so I would appreciate more of those type of threads!
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
The local information on the Government site is excellent Nick, I suggest you just go by that. On the map when zooming in you get cases in the last 7 days down to sub-local authority level and movement in the 7 day average. For Waverley as a whole it currently has 232 cases over the last 7 days, down 21% on the previous week's average. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
That data is good, but with a lag. Whereas ZOE is picking up people in Nick's area who, yesterday, are reporting a pack of symptoms indicative of possible infection. Obviously at very local level there is a reasonable probability of random error, but in the round, these have generally provided warning flags for areas about to experience an uptick in case rates.
Good point re the map. However, on the case data as opposed to the map they do have the most recent local authority data by specimen date currently up to 2nd Feb which would be enough to flag up anything ominious even if the data is incomplete due to reporting lags (as will be any other source using it.)
I have to agree with those who say this is a fairly lousy article. Alastair Meeks and those of his fellow travellers never really outline what alternative policy they would have followed. Locking down a few days earlier doesn't really cut it.
I have a thousand words or so in a thread header, in which I usually try to make one point. My one point this time was that Britain’s death toll is awful and was to a considerable extent avoidable, and must not be swept under the carpet. This point has proven too controversial for your fellow travellers, for reasons apparently connected to Brexit but which have not been fully articulated.
You are complaining that I have not written a different article. There are many points I would make about the why. Some are the responsibility of government, some are not. But others are at least as well placed as me to write it, and often better placed.
Over focussing on the success of the vaccination program at the expense of the number of dead reminds me of 2000 era New Labour politicians talking up the amount of money spent on public services as if that was the sole metric of how good schools and hospitals were.
Outcomes are more important than process and in the end the 2 outcomes that will go down in the history books will be number of deaths and economic hit.
A challenge for the Brains Trust. Anyone know of any photos? I would have though Thatcher, and perhaps Major, Blair etc would have done this at some stage.
On topic, the deaths are a tragedy - let there be no doubt about that, whatsoever - and with swifter decisions by the Government the death toll now might "only" be in the 65-75,000 range rather than at the 108,000 mark. But, it'd never have been zero; this going to be a global catastrophe as soon as the virus got loose.
However, let there be no mistake: that's not what this thread header is really about; it's about the author wanting the Prime Minister gone because of his role in Brexit and as cheerleader for Brexit - nothing more, nothing less. Covid is merely a useful stick to beat him with. If there was any doubt about that the mentioning of Dan Hannan gives it away.
I will mourn with close friends of mine who've experienced personal tragedy, advocate policies that help us rebuild and mitigate the long-term effects on our children and young people, and I will do what I can to influence the policy debate to see that such a calamity never visits us again.
But, I don't have much time for emotional blackmail and cheap politics - and I say that as someone who didn't want Boris for PM in the first place, and still don't think he's up to the job.
@Pagan2 - Thank you for that message. I know it is long but you should post it here; it was well thought out.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I am not convinced this forum or the participants want a long discussion on political reform to be fair, yes possibly a subset do. Perhaps I will find another way to do it so only those interested get it inflicted
Header?
I agree it would make a good header. What is more it was inventive and didn't actually involve voting reform, which although a passion of mine would bore others.
Although nobody else knows what we are referring to it had interesting ideas that people would rip into or expand upon.
Anecdata of sorts, but the Zoe app has shown infections in my area (Waverley) resurging this week (up from 729 to 779 active cases). I'm not sure that Zoe is the best guide, or that it's not a blip or very local, but there is a general reminder there that we shouldn't get into "Now we can relax a bit" mode just yet.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
The local information on the Government site is excellent Nick, I suggest you just go by that. On the map when zooming in you get cases in the last 7 days down to sub-local authority level and movement in the 7 day average. For Waverley as a whole it currently has 232 cases over the last 7 days, down 21% on the previous week's average. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
That data is good, but with a lag. Whereas ZOE is picking up people in Nick's area who, yesterday, are reporting a pack of symptoms indicative of possible infection. Obviously at very local level there is a reasonable probability of random error, but in the round, these have generally provided warning flags for areas about to experience an uptick in case rates.
We don't seem to have followed up with the sewage testing that once was mentioned as giving a good early indicator of infections in comparatively small areas. Or did we, and it's just gone underground, so to speak?
I hope it's not another bright (and in hindsight obvious) idea that hasn't been allowed to go down the drain. That (seriously) would be criminal. But I believe they may be using it in the current panic over the SA form in Lndon/Kent/Surrey.
Ah, I wondered about that when they issued warnings to people in postcode areas.
Comments
https://twitter.com/mnrrntt/status/1357257882664902656?s=21
What I would like to see, is some in-depth measurement of what measures actually worked, around the world.
- It turns out that track and trace apps seem to have been a bust in much (maybe all of) Europe. Why? Take up? people ignoring them?
- What measures for isolating cases/getting people to isolate have actually worked? Australian hotel policy etc.
- What extent the epidemic was driven by community transmission vs re-infection from abroad. Would shutting the airports actually do the job? Or would we have to shut Dover as well?
What seems to have been the case, in much of Europe, is that restrictions slow the spread.
Lock downs *reduce* cases.
The main problem from the government is being slow, I think. Slow to lock down in the first instance. Slow to lock down again.
Because of the exponential increase thing, once you are on the upward slope, days matter. Maybe even hours.
I wouldn't dream of reopening schools, pubs and restaurants for some time yet, but would support temporary extra taxation to fund assistance for them. I'd close the borders for personal travel, but continue to allow goods transport with the best available precautions, including moving drivers up the queue to urgent for vaccinations.
That's where I depart from the "can't blame Boris" train. The whole second wave and our shocking response is all down to Boris. There are 65-70k people who have died in the second wave. Their lives have been thrown away by Boris. There are millions of people working in hospitality who don't know when the next time they'll have a job is. Their livelihoods have been thrown away by Boris.
Our failure to close the border and bring in hotel quarantine in June is the single most destructive decision tis the government has taken and it deserves to pay the price for it. Unfortunately Labour are useless and Boris will probably win an even bigger majority in 2024. We've thrown away people's lives and livelihoods to keep the border open and no one in the government can give us a good reason why and no one in the media or opposition is asking the right questions.
There's some sort of collective silence on this issue and an inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of it. When COVID 22 arrives next year we need to have a set of measures in place that includes immediate closure of the border and for insurance policies to cover the expense of quarantine hotels on return even if that means an extra pound on travel insurance.
This criticism is completely separate from vaccines and the absolutely great decisions made there. Full credit to the government on that for bringing industry, scientists and the NHS together to have a truly world beating scheme. It's not going to bring back the dead though, and our success there gives us a great template for the future already.
As for international comparisons, I would suggest to those creaming themselves over the UK or England being top of a list to calm down. Firstly it's unedifying that you seem so glad that so many have died, secondly this pandemic isn't over yet, and thirdly comparing numbers from a highly transparent nation such as the UK to anywhere else isn't smart. Every time we've had a leak from other countries their non-COVID respiratory deaths always seem 3x higher than normal. Even in some US states.
Some of us did say it wouldn't work in the West in the way it has in South Korea.
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-latest.html
Edit: and that, being PHE, is England excess deaths only.
It's all very well criticising the government but we don't want them going all Macron and looking at the science and coming up their own conclusions.
Modern politics is the Big Brother house - a combination of manipulation, zero privacy and the main requirement is to present a suitable image for the cameras.
The darkly fun bit, is that this is the conclusion reached by a certain special adviser.
https://twitter.com/itvpeston/status/1357052407906238467?s=20
We only have to read the reports from the T&T phone line operators, who were sworn at, ignored and blocked by people who didn't want to co-operate. In countries that have done well, that response would be met with a visit from a policeman or two.
As mentioned previously, the people who were screaming at T&T will be the same people who think that foreign holidays during a pandemic are okay.
The real issue with the border, I suspect, is the suspension of immigration that closing it would cause.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
1. Making international comparisons on death rates is irrelevant at this stage of the pandemic, and anyway even if our death rates are high it's nothing to do with policy decisions - our population is dense etc. etc. Government is not responsible.
2. Making international comparisons on vaccination rates is highly relevant at this stage of the pandemic, and shows how much better we are than those ghastly Europeans at everything. Our government is marvellous and is entirely responsible.
3. Any anyway, those moaning about our death toll are really just moaning about Brexit - can't they just get over it?
4. PB is a betting site so what right has Meeks got to write something that's not about betting? Any anyway, I bet our vaccination rates are the best.
The EU, USA, Japan and other rich nations should all be investing similarly in vaccines - the EU in particular still seems to think this is a one time ordering process and not an ongoing fight.
https://twitter.com/BigBearF1/status/1356535540435324928
Circling the wagons around the NHS was right. Chucking out "bed-blockers" into care homes, regardless of the the risk of them taking Covid with them, was a wrong-headed decision. As it turned out. The first wave of infection in hospital was significantly below the second and we coped in the second. In that first wave, many hospitals were at far from peak capacity. We could probably have kept many of those we moved tucked up in their original beds - and got away with it. Probably.
I don't think it was the PM's personal popularity that had the pubs and shops back opening when - in my personal opinion - they should have stayed closed. I hope the retail and hospitality sector is prepared to take their fair share of responsibility for the extra deaths. Their lobbying led to them. True, it reduced the Govt.'s weekly bill for Covid. For a while. But not much in the great scheme of things. And probably nets out at damn all, when the extra costs of national health and wellbeing are factored in.
The scientists have led the charge on Covid. Brilliant on vaccines. But on modelling? I wonder how far their projections took account of how ornery a bunch we are. Open the pubs at all, and there will be plenty having super-spreader lock-ins and pub crawls. Open the shops - but how had they modelled the levels of twattish non-mask wearing? A few percentage points out on compliance - and your R rate is out hugely.
On vaccines, the nation has covered itself in glory. Getting it devised, bought, delivered, distributed, jabbed in arms, taken-up - all look as good as you could ever hope. On everything up to that point? There are plenty of failings to be shared around.
@Sandpit replied that the number of abortions in (I think) 2018 was 220,000. That started me wondering whether the worst generational crime was/is for successive generations to deny following generations so many of their contemporaries. That leaves few bearing a burden that could have been shared between many.
We'll learn more in due course but for the moment there isn't much more to be said.
For example, in South Korea, the government simply pulled the data to get credit card usage and cell phone location. It wasn't so much voluntary cooperation, as force majeur.
The app was just a way to co-operate with the inevitable.
The development of new vaccines is a sensible and timely precaution (government seems to have learned something here), but it's just as possible that those who've been vaccinated and/or already infected will experience only mild disease from mutations which escape immunity. Like the coronaviruses we experience as the common cold.
For the cost of a few hundred million, manufacturing and testing new vaccines is an insurance policy against repeating the experience of the last year.
Next on Spiked, why Scottish populist nationalism is bad and Scots shouldn’t be listened to.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
The UK vaccination programme will stop the next spike (unless Sources Close To The Chancellor get their way), but that's likely to be true in other countries too, even though their programmes are far worse than ours.
Maybe that's why the outcry in Europe hasn't happened to the extent some would apparently like. Other countries aren't in such a rush to vaccinate, because they trust their governments to keep them safe in the meantime.
I have no idea - except gigo applies to all such tables imho. The problem is with the way some use the tables as if they were both final and gospel. True even with vax data if you go with 1 dose 2 dose debate.
I don't agree with it all, but that doesn't matter because it is a start and a much more detailed one than I came up with. No doubt it will get torn apart by others on here, after all that is what we do and I have done it to you recently, but I thought it an excellent document for discussion.
In particular your point 3 (I know nobody else knows what we are talking about) is something I have thought about a lot and have a different solution to, but which I agree with completely. We have a situation in this country where we avoid passing laws because they are not perfect (loopholes, or catch out people who haven't done anything wrong but fail the jobs worth test) or pass laws that then get applied where they shouldn't be (eg the jobs worth who tells you 'but that is the law').
Go on post it Pagan.
I think that someone here commented that he picked up on the second wave by looking at the heat maps of cases.
What was the government looking at on a daily basis?
Again, a certain special advisor commented that the Cabinet Room is less functional than in 1914. The fireplace has been blocked up, so it can't be used to burn confidential papers....
Geese and ganders
Wrt the actual content, I largely agree with MaxPB's comment, with the additional caveat that while the Government could have done a lot more (not encouraging foreign holidays for a start), we also need to wait for excess death stats to be collated before getting a true measure.
There will be no accountability. There never is. Why is Dido Harding within a million miles of making important decisions? Because that's how things are done here. Why do Hannan and Young delete their death-doubling tweets and simply walk of to cash the next billionaire's cheque for 500 words on "let's really free up the energy industry"? Because that's how things are done here.
At the going down of the sun, we will utterly ignore them.
Unless it's to inspire a maudlin clap-fest as a replacement for taxation to properly fund health services.
https://twitter.com/pmojl2/status/1357080522053349376
Though granted the bulk order came later.
The answer is zero in North East England.
Immigration is down. There are even some numbers suggesting very low net immigration for 2020. But immigration is occurring right now.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/press/press-releases/excess-deaths-ons-data-kings-fund-response
As it says, one metric to watch is the drop in life expectancy. Though that will punish countries with the highest LE previously.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/6DALf.jpg
But it is true the UK PM never normally had it, unlike for France/Germany etc.
Nonetheless, I would look to spread the blame for the early wave in so far as a lot of the mistakes go back long before Johnson took over. Jeremy Hunt pushed the creation of Public Health England with responsibilities transferred to local authorities in order to get its budgets outside the NHS spending envelope and subject to the huge scale of punative cuts applied to local authorities in general. We turned public health into a Cinderrella and it wasn't in a position to cope initially. Then there was the failure to act on the findings of the large scale wargaming exercise which gave a few years warning of how badly exposed the country was. Then there's the issue of why the NHS felt it had so little option but to push patients into care homes and why care homes were so badly equipped to cope, harking back to the long term failure to sort of the NHS/care home relationship. So by early 2020 the context was that any UK government would have struggled, although (vaccines aside) ours did particularly badly.
600k deaths in UK is norm I think, so a 17% increase on the norm.
Can anyone confirm?
I speak as someone who has lost my job in the hospitality industry. I think the industry has been poorly treated, and I know the physical measures implemented by most pubs I worked with to become Covid safe. The government subsequently moved the goalposts seemingly from a bias from scientific advice related to unchanged venues and business models. That said I think it is difficult to measure impact of pubs being open.
With regards to travel I think there is a weakness in the scientific advice. I seem to remember last year that the advice to government was that closing the borders would not bring down the R rate compared to other measures. I think this was true but it missed the key fact that there was potential for it to significantly increase rates, if people didn't follow the self quarantine advice (and how was this being enforced) and also the behaviour of travellers and risks would have been on modelling possibly on infection rates early in the pandemic when really those traveling were probably more likely to be risk takers.
The government should have and still should see shutting borders as an open goal. If someone really has to travel then a quarantine hotel is the cost
Such a change (together with the others I mentioned) would mean people in these groups would work together where they agree more freely and that would be a lot.
One thing I find interesting about PB is I agree more often with people I have different political views to than I disagree.
For instance I have a lot in common with Sandpit , yourself, SeanF, David Herdson, etc. Equally on the other side I really enjoy kinabalu and others. Philip is the best example. I strongly disagree with him say 20% of the time and strongly agree with him 80% of the time.
I have of course left out those I agree with most of the time (eg Nigelb, IanB2, etc).
Dominic Cummings identified our need for superforecasters. Should we have been blindsided by Coronavirus? Bill Gates, inter alia, had been banging on about the dangers of pandemics caused by novel viruses, and as Matt Hancock reminds us, so had Hollywood. So here, perhaps Dominic Cummings was right.
Although nobody else knows what we are referring to it had interesting ideas that people would rip into or expand upon.
In the end, you can only talk of early deaths. Life is, ultimately, 100% fatal.
There were a lot of bad calls early on, but I think Max's point, fairly made, is that any government would likely have made a number of them, and that in the early stages of the pandemic governments' responses worldwide were essentially driven by whatever systems were or weren't already in place.
The discharge into care homes of infected or untested patients from hospitals was probably the most indefensible mistake - and the offence was compounded by government never really owning up to it.
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938
You are complaining that I have not written a different article. There are many points I would make about the why. Some are the responsibility of government, some are not. But others are at least as well placed as me to write it, and often better placed.
Outcomes are more important than process and in the end the 2 outcomes that will go down in the history books will be number of deaths and economic hit.
However, let there be no mistake: that's not what this thread header is really about; it's about the author wanting the Prime Minister gone because of his role in Brexit and as cheerleader for Brexit - nothing more, nothing less. Covid is merely a useful stick to beat him with. If there was any doubt about that the mentioning of Dan Hannan gives it away.
I will mourn with close friends of mine who've experienced personal tragedy, advocate policies that help us rebuild and mitigate the long-term effects on our children and young people, and I will do what I can to influence the policy debate to see that such a calamity never visits us again.
But, I don't have much time for emotional blackmail and cheap politics - and I say that as someone who didn't want Boris for PM in the first place, and still don't think he's up to the job.