If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Damn, just looked that up and discovered I'm a millennial! Does that mean I'm a snowflake? I'd always assumed I was generation X, that sounds cool
Yes. Gen X is the coolest generation. The decade that we dominated culture, the 90s, was the last decade where anything worthwhile was produced. We just weren't much good at cricket.
Oh God.
An Oasis-Blur apologist.
Any Gen Xer worth their salt knows that the answer to Oasis or Blur was, of course, Pulp.
Any impartial millennial will tell you that Oasis were clearly the best. I couldn't even name any Blur songs.
Oh, well they mustn't be any good then.
You don't have to take it personally. My point was that as someone who is quite "in to" music and not particularly sheltered, I can name tons of Oasis songs but very few, if any Blur songs. That says a lot in regards to legacy.
All it says 'a lot' about, is you.
Ooh, this is fun - not had good Oasis v Blur album for 30 years!
I saw Oasis just after Supersonic came out. Their music was good, I suppose. But it was the most boring performance I had seen in my life up to that point. It was the first gig where I had ever been bored enough to go to the toilet. Whenever I revisit Definitely Maybe, I'm astonished how good it was. They did the opposite of most bands and released a greatest hits as their first album. There are only a couple of songs off 'What's the story' and nothing thereafter that can hold a candle to Definitely Maybe. After 1996, Oasis just did the same thing over and over again, less interestingly each time. It was a good thing to start with, admittedly. But their career lasted about ten years too long. Blur don't have an album which comes anywhere near Definitely Maybe. But they've reinvented themselves several times, and have been consistently interesting, and have a handful of songs which get better the more you listen to them. Oasis are more fun - a lot of the best bits of Blur are quite bleak - but overall I'd give it to Blur. Even though I'm a Mancunian. And live, Blur are far better.
I may be influenced by the fact that the Gallagher brothers are such utter pains in the arse.
And I agree that Pulp were even better. (Although a lot of Pulp is bleaker still.)
My era of choice though was baggy rather than Britpop - though I was only 15 in 1990 and slightly too young for it. Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, James, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, Northside, Charlatans...
I’m a year older than you, in the Sixth Form 90-92, and those were the sounds of the common room. Screamadelica, Bummed...89 was a great year for albums actually - Disintegration, Doolittle, The Stone Roses...
Ah, Doolittle- my favourite album of all time. In fact, my favourite artistic thing in any medium.
At what point do you draw a line between a second and third waves?
If this current surge was indeed due to the Kent virus which wasn't an issue in October then surely this is a third wave, just a third wave that very promptly followed the second?
There was a definite dip in cases late November/early December.
Indeed. The December surge came from the Kent variant from what had been a standing start and unheard of around October.
Seems reasonable to me to draw a distinction between the October second wave and the current Kent December onwards third wave.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
At what point do you draw a line between a second and third waves?
If this current surge was indeed due to the Kent virus which wasn't an issue in October then surely this is a third wave, just a third wave that very promptly followed the second?
There was a definite dip in cases late November/early December.
Of course cases dipped. Because we spent November in National Tier 4/Lockdown with schools open/whatever it was called, I forget. And then, when the situation opened up again in early December, it was followed by a renewed rise in cases.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
In London we have something similar called the 'Heathrow Triangle'. This is causing cases in Hounslow, Hillingdon and Slough, which all border Heathrow, to persist at a high level, the highest in SE England.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
Yes, me too. Judging from the case saturations it seems Kent Covid pretty much hit Dorset in Jan, but didn't spread further West.
Nationalist Scotland, the North Korea of northwest Europe, has a media befitting its democratic status
Also note the second headline. No criticism allowed, apparently.
It is all truly sinister. Classic symptoms of a one party state. A politicised judiciary, entrenched corruption, education as propaganda, and the beginnings of a servile media.
An indy Scotland could be a notably unhappy place, for quite a while, if it ever happened.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
In London we have something similar called the 'Heathrow Triangle'. This is causing cases in Hounslow, Hillingdon and Slough, which all border Heathrow, to persist at a high level, the highest in SE England.
Yes, while I am not a lockdown enthusiast, and largely in favour of relaxations, I think keeping schools closed in districts with substantially above average cases is not unreasonable.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
Given the number of tests being conducted, if cases *don’t* go up dramatically in the weeks beginning the 8th and the 15th we’ll know LFT are no use unless administered by trained personnel such as yourselves.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
Maybe they don’t want lots of SeanT types fleeing the capital for the West Country the minute life looks easier down there?
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
In London we have something similar called the 'Heathrow Triangle'. This is causing cases in Hounslow, Hillingdon and Slough, which all border Heathrow, to persist at a high level, the highest in SE England.
Yes, while I am not a lockdown enthusiast, and largely in favour of relaxations, I think keeping schools closed in districts with substantially above average cases is not unreasonable.
At what point do you draw a line between a second and third waves?
If this current surge was indeed due to the Kent virus which wasn't an issue in October then surely this is a third wave, just a third wave that very promptly followed the second?
There was a definite dip in cases late November/early December.
Of course cases dipped. Because we spent November in National Tier 4/Lockdown with schools open/whatever it was called, I forget. And then, when the situation opened up again in early December, it was followed by a renewed rise in cases.
The only surprise is that anyone was surprised.
Logically when we reopen the schools we will be back to November. And what we know is that the Kent variant was not controlled by November-level restrictions.
And the government is expecting this, as they said on Monday.
On the other hand, we have ever increasing levels of vaccination, Easter as a natural firebreak and the onward march of spring.
So we'll probably be okay.
But then I'm a bit confused about the recent increase in cases in Edinburgh.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
62% for two people is 124% like for like with half as many people getting it.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
Given the number of tests being conducted, if cases *don’t* go up dramatically in the weeks beginning the 8th and the 15th we’ll know LFT are no use unless administered by trained personnel such as yourselves.
Yes, there is that factor, though LFT gives more false negatives than positives. That alone will increase case detection.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
Given the number of tests being conducted, if cases *don’t* go up dramatically in the weeks beginning the 8th and the 15th we’ll know LFT are no use unless administered by trained personnel such as yourselves.
Will we? Or will low cases actually be the result of a 2 month lock down?
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
We'll start getting some real world 12 week Pfizer data in soon.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
That alone says the delay is worthwhile. Better two having 62% than one at 95% and the other at 0%.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
You can always find individual places where there's an increase in infections.
Another outbreak in Rutland prison doesn't make a 4th wave.
There’s not enough Scottish polls to take a proper view on a bet is there? But it does seem to me that it wouldn’t take too much to lose the chance of a majority.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
I do fear some will remain like the Japanese soldiers in the jungle after WW2, not accepting the reality of post-vaccination life. I very much feel for them; I must admit that the key for my mental well being was realising how rare fomite infection must be. Hand washing per day went down from about 50 times to about 5......
Even driving to Tesco this evening I saw big groups of young people just happily walking down the street without a care in the world. Lockdown weariness is definitely setting in.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
It's no wonder that a lot of folk aren't at all keen on changing their habits before they've had the jab. It's now November 1918 in the Great Covid War. The end is in sight. Nobody wants to be one of the last poor fucks who gets shot through the head five minutes before it's over.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
62% for two people is 124% like for like with half as many people getting it.
The interesting thing about the Scottish data is that the protection at 3-4 weeks was much better than 5-6 weeks. The error bars were quite wide, but that is noticeably different to the Israeli data, where there was far stronger protection at six weeks.
There should be more data soon which will hopefully clarify.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
We haven't had a third wave yet.
We had a brief suppression in the second, ongoing, wave in November due to the short tightening of restrictions but that's all.
It is a question of semantics whether we had a bimodal second wave, or a second and third wave.
I think In Greater Manchester it's quite helpful to talk about this as the third wave. The first wave was the first wave. The second wave was what happened when Autumn started (not necessarily when things started to open up -for some of us they never really did). This peaked just before LD2. The third wave was the Kent variant. This started arriving in December.
However, in some parts of the country (eg Kent) there appear to only have been two waves. They didn't really have the middle one.
At what point do you draw a line between a second and third waves?
If this current surge was indeed due to the Kent virus which wasn't an issue in October then surely this is a third wave, just a third wave that very promptly followed the second?
There was a definite dip in cases late November/early December.
Of course cases dipped. Because we spent November in National Tier 4/Lockdown with schools open/whatever it was called, I forget. And then, when the situation opened up again in early December, it was followed by a renewed rise in cases.
The only surprise is that anyone was surprised.
Afterwards there was a new wave sparked by a new variant that wasn't known about when the first lockdown ended.
The fact they're two distinct waves should be clear from the regional data. The second wave was centred around the North and Midlands. The Kent wave was sparked rapidly around Kent, London, the East and South.
Nothing seems to link the waves besides being close in time. The North was still seeing cases falling prior to the Kent variant seeing surging cases spreading from down south.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
Maybe they don’t want lots of SeanT types fleeing the capital for the West Country the minute life looks easier down there?
Evening Ian. Thinking of a trip to the Isle of Wight this spring. Can you recommend some good pubs/gastropubs/restaurants around Shanklin?
Regarding yesterday's discussion on best films, what's the best way to access a given classic film?
From a quick search Apple iTunes seems to have most of those that were mentioned yesterday for rent at £3.49 or purchase at £7.99. Is that the best option or or there others?
My way of finding out is first check
1) Sky Movies 2) Netflix 3) Amazon Prime 4) Disney+/Star 5) Britbox
If it isn't available on those, then I'll buy it on iTunes.
Thanks for all the answers on this.
All those subscription must add up to over £50 pm TSE. Given that I get along fine with freeview plus a shared family Netflix, I am not going to be signing up for the others. I'd rather pay as you go on the Apple store for any flims not on freeview catch-up or Netflix.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
I do fear some will remain like the Japanese soldiers in the jungle after WW2, not accepting the reality of post-vaccination life. I very much feel for them; I must admit that the key for my mental well being was realising how rare fomite infection must be. Hand washing per day went down from about 50 times to about 5......
Yeah, the whole "surfaces" thing was overdone. I sanitise a few times a day, it was dozens....
On the other hand I have gone an entire year without a cold. So hygiene - and isolation - do have their advantages
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
62% for two people is 124% like for like with half as many people getting it.
The interesting thing about the Scottish data is that the protection at 3-4 weeks was much better than 5-6 weeks. The error bars were quite wide, but that is noticeably different to the Israeli data, where there was far stronger protection at six weeks.
There should be more data soon which will hopefully clarify.
Wasn’t there a problem that there were extremely few people in that last date range? Scottish sub samples all over again.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
I do fear some will remain like the Japanese soldiers in the jungle after WW2, not accepting the reality of post-vaccination life. I very much feel for them; I must admit that the key for my mental well being was realising how rare fomite infection must be. Hand washing per day went down from about 50 times to about 5......
This has, globally, been an incredibly traumatic experience. We will be studying the effects of mass PTSD for years to come.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
You can always find individual places where there's an increase in infections.
Another outbreak in Rutland prison doesn't make a 4th wave.
Though that is a long way from Coalville or Shepshed.
We are not yet in a 4th wave, but these graphs are not flat...
Regarding yesterday's discussion on best films, what's the best way to access a given classic film?
From a quick search Apple iTunes seems to have most of those that were mentioned yesterday for rent at £3.49 or purchase at £7.99. Is that the best option or or there others?
Amazon will have the DVD second hand for a couple of quid, shirley. (If you're old school and still have such things)
DVDs = hassle factor... order, wait, receive. Some DVDs are surprisingly poor picture quality too.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
We haven't had a third wave yet.
We had a brief suppression in the second, ongoing, wave in November due to the short tightening of restrictions but that's all.
It is a question of semantics whether we had a bimodal second wave, or a second and third wave.
I think In Greater Manchester it's quite helpful to talk about this as the third wave. The first wave was the first wave. The second wave was what happened when Autumn started (not necessarily when things started to open up -for some of us they never really did). This peaked just before LD2. The third wave was the Kent variant. This started arriving in December.
However, in some parts of the country (eg Kent) there appear to only have been two waves. They didn't really have the middle one.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
I do fear some will remain like the Japanese soldiers in the jungle after WW2, not accepting the reality of post-vaccination life. I very much feel for them; I must admit that the key for my mental well being was realising how rare fomite infection must be. Hand washing per day went down from about 50 times to about 5......
Yeah, the whole "surfaces" thing was overdone. I sanitise a few times a day, it was dozens....
On the other hand I have gone an entire year without a cold. So hygiene - and isolation - do have their advantages
A primary schoolteacher told me five years ago that if I studiously washed my hands several times a day under my fingernails I would rarely catch a cold. She was right. I did what she said and haven’t had a cold since.
Even driving to Tesco this evening I saw big groups of young people just happily walking down the street without a care in the world. Lockdown weariness is definitely setting in.
Was inevitable. You can’t keep the young locked up for even a short period of time. Even the Government knows this.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
I do fear some will remain like the Japanese soldiers in the jungle after WW2, not accepting the reality of post-vaccination life. I very much feel for them; I must admit that the key for my mental well being was realising how rare fomite infection must be. Hand washing per day went down from about 50 times to about 5......
This is true, and you can imagine a lot of frightened elderly people, and people who were germophobes before the Plague, simply retreating into a hermit-like existence now that they've got used to being "careful" about bloody everything. Many of us are going to have parents or grandparents who are going to need coaxing back out of their houses to do very much other than grocery shopping at the end of all this.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
62% for two people is 124% like for like with half as many people getting it.
The interesting thing about the Scottish data is that the protection at 3-4 weeks was much better than 5-6 weeks. The error bars were quite wide, but that is noticeably different to the Israeli data, where there was far stronger protection at six weeks.
There should be more data soon which will hopefully clarify.
Wasn’t there a problem that there were extremely few people in that last date range? Scottish sub samples all over again.
Can PB not put it's mind to solving the Scottish subsample problem?
My first thoughts:
1) Encourage mass immigration to Scotland. 2) Hold more PB meet ups in Scotland, coinciding with polling of said location.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
62% for two people is 124% like for like with half as many people getting it.
The interesting thing about the Scottish data is that the protection at 3-4 weeks was much better than 5-6 weeks. The error bars were quite wide, but that is noticeably different to the Israeli data, where there was far stronger protection at six weeks.
There should be more data soon which will hopefully clarify.
Wasn’t there a problem that there were extremely few people in that last date range? Scottish sub samples all over again.
The same number of cases as in weeks 3 or 4, so believe both or neither according to your desire. Don't hold on to one and poo poo the other.
Regarding yesterday's discussion on best films, what's the best way to access a given classic film?
From a quick search Apple iTunes seems to have most of those that were mentioned yesterday for rent at £3.49 or purchase at £7.99. Is that the best option or or there others?
My way of finding out is first check
1) Sky Movies 2) Netflix 3) Amazon Prime 4) Disney+/Star 5) Britbox
If it isn't available on those, then I'll buy it on iTunes.
I wish there was a quick and easy way to find which service, if any, a title is on.
There probably is, but not found one yet.
Google has indexed Netflix and Amazon Prime, I think they're adding D+ as well.
How does that work - how do I find out on Google if Shrek (for example) is available on Netflix?
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
I do fear some will remain like the Japanese soldiers in the jungle after WW2, not accepting the reality of post-vaccination life. I very much feel for them; I must admit that the key for my mental well being was realising how rare fomite infection must be. Hand washing per day went down from about 50 times to about 5......
This is true, and you can imagine a lot of frightened elderly people, and people who were germophobes before the Plague, simply retreating into a hermit-like existence now that they've got used to being "careful" about bloody everything. Many of us are going to have parents or grandparents who are going to need coaxing back out of their houses to do very much other than grocery shopping at the end of all this.
Mothers, however, seem in general absolutely aching to get back to hugging all and sundry.
Lots of Mothers I know seem to think that Bubbles extend to basically anyone they hold dear.....
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
No. Foxy has finally lost the plot.
He's had a very tough year. And has much useful perspective to add given that experience, and reason for caution on some choices made. But unless there's some detail missing here the UK simply wasn't involved in this issue other than having signed a contract sooner.
Of course, but my point is that if France couldn't get the AZN vaccine in time for whatever reason, then it couldn't prevent a new wave.
They have it now, and people are refusing to take it because of the bollocks spouted by Macron and others.
That is so, but having it now doesn't prevent a current wave. To have that effect they would have needed it in numbers a month or more ago.
I have never argued that the EU contract should have over ridden the UK one, though some in the EU did. The upshot though is that they did not have it at the time and in the numbers to prevent a further wave.
What exactly did you mean when you said Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
Allowed to take what?
The vaccines. We didn't let AZN alter the delivery of their contract, not that AZN particularly wanted to do so. I have no problem with that decision, but clearly Macron did at that time a month ago.
The upshot is that France could not have prevented a further wave by vaccination. It remains to be seen if we can either, even with a 4 week headstart, though probably mortality and admissions will be fewer.
The contracts are the contracts. They booked in more than three after us, that's nothing to do with us refusing, its to do with their procurement.
They could have had more by signing contracts sooner.
And they do have vaccines (and have had for weeks now) that they've not used and those they have used they've used ineffectively by stubbornly sticking to giving boosters for half as many people instead of vaccinating twice as many despite learning from our experience that it works.
So yes a lot fewer people are vaccinated than could have been, even taking into account their procurement failures which had nothing to do with us.
But it wouldn't have prevented the wave if they had used their few availible vaccines differently.
Indeed we won't either. It is accepted at the highest levels that r will go up as a result of ending lockdown in the UK. Not as much as in an unvaccinated population, but there will be a 4th wave here, predominantly in the young.
An increase in R, even if it does happen, is not the same as an increase in infections let alone a 4th wave.
An increase in r is defined as an increase in transmission, hence increased infections. The point at which it gets called a 4th wave is less well defined.
I suspect the 4th wave will have fewer admissions and fatalities in the UK, though with 2/3 of the adult population unvaccinated and nearly all the other third having had a single dose, we will not escape completely.
Though as I have often said, this needs to be balanced against other social and economic factors.
If R=0.6 but then increases to R=0.8 then R has increased but the number of infections will continue to fall albeit at a slower rate.
Your eagerness to declare a 4th wave seems to be a continuation of the hostility you have expressed towards the government's vaccination strategy.
With a bizarreness that now stretches to you discounting the acquired immunity of perhaps over ten million people.
I have not been hostile to the UK vaccination strategy (apart from advocating a 3 week gap for the Pfizer, a 12 week gap is evidenced for AZN). Indeed I have been fully supportive.
In parts of Leics the r value is above 1 already, even before schools reopen. We are going to get a 4th wave, even if the South Hams does not.
Efficacy of Pfizer after 1 dose and 20 days is 92%, 2 doses 3 weeks apart is 95%. That on it's own justifies a 12 week strategy in my view.
Though on the Scottish data published earlier this week, a single dose is only 62% at 6 weeks, albeit small numbers.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
62% for two people is 124% like for like with half as many people getting it.
The interesting thing about the Scottish data is that the protection at 3-4 weeks was much better than 5-6 weeks. The error bars were quite wide, but that is noticeably different to the Israeli data, where there was far stronger protection at six weeks.
There should be more data soon which will hopefully clarify.
Wasn’t there a problem that there were extremely few people in that last date range? Scottish sub samples all over again.
The same number of cases as in weeks 3 or 4, so believe both or neither according to your desire. Don't hold on to one and poo poo the other.
But was the denominator the same? If the protection dipped that suggests no.
At what point do you draw a line between a second and third waves?
If this current surge was indeed due to the Kent virus which wasn't an issue in October then surely this is a third wave, just a third wave that very promptly followed the second?
There was a definite dip in cases late November/early December.
Of course cases dipped. Because we spent November in National Tier 4/Lockdown with schools open/whatever it was called, I forget. And then, when the situation opened up again in early December, it was followed by a renewed rise in cases.
The only surprise is that anyone was surprised.
Afterwards there was a new wave sparked by a new variant that wasn't known about when the first lockdown ended.
The fact they're two distinct waves should be clear from the regional data. The second wave was centred around the North and Midlands. The Kent wave was sparked rapidly around Kent, London, the East and South.
Nothing seems to link the waves besides being close in time. The North was still seeing cases falling prior to the Kent variant seeing surging cases spreading from down south.
Although the details weren't known, the fact that there was a problem was known. There were enough data to show that cases in Kent and the wider SE weren't falling the way they should have done under the November lockdown. And yet the government took away the restrictions anyway. London went into Tier 2, for pity's sake.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
Maybe they don’t want lots of SeanT types fleeing the capital for the West Country the minute life looks easier down there?
Evening Ian. Thinking of a trip to the Isle of Wight this spring. Can you recommend some good pubs/gastropubs/restaurants around Shanklin?
The Cottage gets the best reviews in Shanklin. I have a soft spot for the Hideaway on the coastal path, as I always remember the first time I found it by chance on a long distance walk. The Thai restaurant on the high street gets reasonable reviews. Otherwise Shanklin has lots of perfectly acceptable mid range places and plenty of decent tea rooms. For an Indian try Ventnor, the Red Chilli or Masala Bay. There are some good pubs if you have transport; to eat at the Pointer Inn at Newchurch you always need to book well in advance. The Seaview Hotel up the coast has a good restaurant and there are some good seafood places in Bembridge. Don’t even think of eating out in Sandown. In Ventnor we have the Royal Hotel for Victorian style dining if you overlook the inbred staff, the Hambrough Hotel is now doing dinners again, the Smokin’ Lobster on the sea front gets great reviews and there’s a new Japanese fusion place Drunken Lobster in the town centre. Both the Spyglass and Buddle Inn (at Niton) do perfectly acceptable bog standard pub food.
And, on a binary choice, here is another Manc opting for Blur. Personal choice, but for an indie kid, I was a fairly commercially minded music follower, rarely ahead of the game, and even if Blur had touched the top 10 in their baggy phase, my love for 'Modern Life is Rubbish' was one of the few times I was ever ahead of the curve. (and they tried and failed to pick some massive battle with Suede at that point in a precursor of the Oasis thing).
And I think they may have the best known tune, if not the best known song, of either band, courtesy of British Gas - great ballad. The use of 'Sing' at the moment Trainspotting turns, bloody hell it makes that song. And they had a certain playfulness in arrangement: Ken Livingstone on vocals, 'Turn It Up' where I swear they wrote the song and just put the whole song structure backwards. More fun than Oasis, less in your face with n their talent
The Pulp answer is massively hackneyed, but you can't argue with the justification. Lots more class war in that album, love the sleaze of I Spy, and as a geek Misshapes just edges Common People on a personal level - I won't be the only one on here, I'm sure.
Anyway, my musical tastes aren't the most credible ever - don't care. And with that I'll be off to shake Andalusia
It really doesn't take much to tip Holyrood into a hung parliament. After all, Labour designed it that way. With so much uncertainty over Salmondgate,...... 80%?
Back in 2016 (thanks to Mr Meeks) I backed the SNP to lose their majority at 10/1 and 8/1 on election day, which was pooh poohed by the Cybernats.
I don't get that same feeling again this year. The Nats can take a major step towards independence if they win a majority in May, so they'll wear a nosepeg and back the SNP.
I think a First Ministerial resignation before election day might do it.
Er, you think Sturgeon will resign before the election, and this will be GOOD for the Nats?!
Hats off to you, for your earlier winning bet, however
I reckon, right now, it is impossible to say what will happen. It is so volatile. I can see soft YES voters being repelled by Salmond V Sturgeon and going Green, or abstaining, fracturing the SNP vote so they fall short
And that's another, alternative danger for the Nats: a big drop in turnout. Even if/when they do get an overall maj it might be on a significantly decreased vote, giving Boris all the more reason to say Nah
It's a hugely entertaining scandal, anyway, and a welcome diversion from Covid
No, I think if Sturgeon went before election day it might make the 50/1 value/a good trading bet as the market overreacted ridiculously.
To be honest I'm still reeling from Sturgeon's contribution today which sounded like, and I paraphrase,
'Yeah Salmond was found not guilty but no smoke without fire eh?'
Either she's very confident in her position or she's panicking.
Ah, I misconstrued.
Sturgeon is definitely panicking. Her remark was an entirely unforced error. There was no reason to say it and it gains her nothing, for those minded to doubt her it looks dodgy, if not defamatory. It will repel or anger neutrals.
Why is she panicking? Because she is lying, and now she has to defend that lie
Remember the first few minutes of this notorious interview on Sky. The normally super-assured Sturgeon is pinned down on this lie. Her contorted body language, especially the rapid blinking, says it all.
What is remarkable is the extent to which others have put their careers on the line to help protect Sturgeon. Life-long dull, dull, dull public servants going to the extremes where people can rightly point and laugh at their creative contortions - all to prevent the First Minister not having to answer the question: did you lie?
Because they must know she did. And know that she must resign unless they can extricate her.
Which only becomes explicable if those at the centre of this web have absolute certainty in their hearts that Salmond cannot be allowed to prevail.
Yes, that's essentially my reading.
Which, of course, implies that Salmond DOES have evidence which could being down Sturgeon. Otherwise why these desperate attempts to muffle him? They are scared of him.
If she goes then the entire house of Nat cards could tumble, very quickly. Because her SNP bigwig husband is in it deeper than her. And so on....
It really doesn't take much to tip Holyrood into a hung parliament. After all, Labour designed it that way. With so much uncertainty over Salmondgate,...... 80%?
Back in 2016 (thanks to Mr Meeks) I backed the SNP to lose their majority at 10/1 and 8/1 on election day, which was pooh poohed by the Cybernats.
I don't get that same feeling again this year. The Nats can take a major step towards independence if they win a majority in May, so they'll wear a nosepeg and back the SNP.
I think a First Ministerial resignation before election day might do it.
Er, you think Sturgeon will resign before the election, and this will be GOOD for the Nats?!
Hats off to you, for your earlier winning bet, however
I reckon, right now, it is impossible to say what will happen. It is so volatile. I can see soft YES voters being repelled by Salmond V Sturgeon and going Green, or abstaining, fracturing the SNP vote so they fall short
And that's another, alternative danger for the Nats: a big drop in turnout. Even if/when they do get an overall maj it might be on a significantly decreased vote, giving Boris all the more reason to say Nah
It's a hugely entertaining scandal, anyway, and a welcome diversion from Covid
No, I think if Sturgeon went before election day it might make the 50/1 value/a good trading bet as the market overreacted ridiculously.
To be honest I'm still reeling from Sturgeon's contribution today which sounded like, and I paraphrase,
'Yeah Salmond was found not guilty but no smoke without fire eh?'
Either she's very confident in her position or she's panicking.
Ah, I misconstrued.
Sturgeon is definitely panicking. Her remark was an entirely unforced error. There was no reason to say it and it gains her nothing, for those minded to doubt her it looks dodgy, if not defamatory. It will repel or anger neutrals.
Why is she panicking? Because she is lying, and now she has to defend that lie
Remember the first few minutes of this notorious interview on Sky. The normally super-assured Sturgeon is pinned down on this lie. Her contorted body language, especially the rapid blinking, says it all.
What is remarkable is the extent to which others have put their careers on the line to help protect Sturgeon. Life-long dull, dull, dull public servants going to the extremes where people can rightly point and laugh at their creative contortions - all to prevent the First Minister not having to answer the question: did you lie?
Because they must know she did. And know that she must resign unless they can extricate her.
Which only becomes explicable if those at the centre of this web have absolute certainty in their hearts that Salmond cannot be allowed to prevail.
Yes, that's essentially my reading.
Which, of course, implies that Salmond DOES have evidence which could being down Sturgeon. Otherwise why these desperate attempts to muffle him? They are scared of him.
If she goes then the entire house of Nat cards could tumble, very quickly. Because her SNP bigwig husband is in it deeper than her. And so on....
There will be some pretty substantial pension funds in jeopardy if the house of cards falls.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
You can always find individual places where there's an increase in infections.
Another outbreak in Rutland prison doesn't make a 4th wave.
Though that is a long way from Coalville or Shepshed.
We are not yet in a 4th wave, but these graphs are not flat...
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
Maybe they don’t want lots of SeanT types fleeing the capital for the West Country the minute life looks easier down there?
Evening Ian. Thinking of a trip to the Isle of Wight this spring. Can you recommend some good pubs/gastropubs/restaurants around Shanklin?
The Cottage gets the best reviews in Shanklin. I have a soft spot for the Hideaway on the coastal path, as I always remember the first time I found it by chance on a long distance walk. The Thai restaurant on the high street gets reasonable reviews. Otherwise Shanklin has lots of perfectly acceptable mid range places and plenty of decent tea rooms. For an Indian try Ventnor, the Red Chilli or Masala Bay. There are some good pubs if you have transport; to eat at the Pointer Inn at Newchurch you always need to book well in advance. The Seaview Hotel up the coast has a good restaurant and there are some good seafood places in Bembridge. Don’t even think of eating out in Sandown. In Ventnor we have the Royal Hotel for Victorian style dining if you overlook the inbred staff, the Hambrough Hotel is now doing dinners again, the Smokin’ Lobster on the sea front gets great reviews and there’s a new Japanese fusion place Drunken Lobster in the town centre. Both the Spyglass and Buddle Inn (at Niton) do perfectly acceptable bog standard pub food.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
I'm surprised there haven't been demands from SW England for reducing restrictions given how low new infections have fallen there.
Maybe they don’t want lots of SeanT types fleeing the capital for the West Country the minute life looks easier down there?
Evening Ian. Thinking of a trip to the Isle of Wight this spring. Can you recommend some good pubs/gastropubs/restaurants around Shanklin?
The Cottage gets the best reviews in Shanklin. I have a soft spot for the Hideaway on the coastal path, as I always remember the first time I found it by chance on a long distance walk. The Thai restaurant on the high street gets reasonable reviews. Otherwise Shanklin has lots of perfectly acceptable mid range places and plenty of decent tea rooms. For an Indian try Ventnor, the Red Chilli or Masala Bay. There are some good pubs if you have transport; to eat at the Pointer Inn at Newchurch you always need to book well in advance. The Seaview Hotel up the coast has a good restaurant and there are some good seafood places in Bembridge. Don’t even think of eating out in Sandown. In Ventnor we have the Royal Hotel for Victorian style dining if you overlook the inbred staff, the Hambrough Hotel is now doing dinners again, the Smokin’ Lobster on the sea front gets great reviews and there’s a new Japanese fusion place Drunken Lobster in the town centre. Both the Spyglass and Buddle Inn (at Niton) do perfectly acceptable bog standard pub food.
Any insight on how it is that the press is continuously biased in favour of the Conservatives? Is it bribery? Are journalists conditioned to like the colour blue? What?
Or is it just that they make a call on which way a majority of their readers would like them to lean, and it just happens that there's more right-leaning people than left-leaning people reading a majority of our major papers?
If the press reflected the electorate then there would be probably 2 left-wing papers for every 3 right-wing papers? There isn't and there never will be.
It's a mix of factors - but I would suggest the crucial one is that people who own newspapers are very wealthy and they don't like the sound of the redistribution that the left is keen on.
Ok let's think this one through properly.
We can presumably agree on the Telegraph and Mail being right wing, and the Guardian and the Mirror being left. So let's call that a wash; it's not my fault the right wing variants are so much more popular.
The Express is clearly right wing. The Star should be roughly its left wing equivalent, based on ownership, although its editorial line is very unclear to me (and it seems from a quick Google that I'm not alone). But in theory that should be a wash.
The Independent, we can disagree on whether it is actually independent, but it certainly isn't right wing.
The Financial Times and City AM aren't all that political and have circulations far too small to matter mostly consisting of people who aren't traditional swing voters.
The Metro and the Standard... I've never been able to discern any form of political editorial line from either; they function mostly as celebrity trash mags..
So that leaves the Sun and the Times. And means that the argument that we have a "right wing press" that is unduly influencing elections rests solely on the shoulders of Rupert Murdoch, a man who famously backed Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (as Chancellor, if not as PM) for well over a decade. And, is there really that much evidence that either paper is all that enthusiastic about the current administration?
Whether you look by number of papers or circulation it is clear that the political distribution of newspapers does not match the political distribution of the electorate.
On your specific points - the Standard is run by George Osborne and endorsed the Conservative party in 2019 and 2017. The Sun always endorses the Tories except for Tony Blair.
"It is clear"? To whom, exactly? I've just outlined the distribution by paper and it does not support your analysis. The fact that more people buy right wing papers than left is because there are more of them in the country to begin with, not because of some nefarious goings-on by dodgy cigar-chomping magnates.
Also, Osborne was editor of the Standard - not the owner - from 2017 only, and has now left. His replacement is apparently Samantha Cameron's sister, albeit I'm not sure how much that has influenced her politics. In any event, the Standard's distribution is pretty much limited to London, which is the one area of the country where the Tories went backwards in 2019, so I don't think this helps your point in the slightest.
(FPT) It's obvious. I can't believe you've baited me into looking this up. But you have, so I might as well lay it out.
In 2019, Labour got 32% of the vote vs Tories 46%.
Labour received the endorsement of the daily mirror, guardian, morning star. Total circulation = 650k. The Tories got the endorsement of Express, Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Times, Evening Standard. Total circulation = 4.5m.
Regarding yesterday's discussion on best films, what's the best way to access a given classic film?
From a quick search Apple iTunes seems to have most of those that were mentioned yesterday for rent at £3.49 or purchase at £7.99. Is that the best option or or there others?
My way of finding out is first check
1) Sky Movies 2) Netflix 3) Amazon Prime 4) Disney+/Star 5) Britbox
If it isn't available on those, then I'll buy it on iTunes.
I wish there was a quick and easy way to find which service, if any, a title is on.
There probably is, but not found one yet.
Google has indexed Netflix and Amazon Prime, I think they're adding D+ as well.
How does that work - how do I find out on Google if Shrek (for example) is available on Netflix?
Not a perfect service, but if you have a specific film or show in mind, Just Watch website provides UK availability. I'm not a heavy enough follower of hyped "event TV" to have any current subscription other than D+, but occasionally use JW to hunt out a rental stream.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
Yes, I think that is right.
The Christmas alteration seems to have made people jittery. A colleague whom I had a drink with in December, in an actual pub, thinks we should now wait until summer before doing anything re: opening up, and is very fearful of kids going back to school (though perhaps because she doesn't have any).
People are crapping themselves. You could open up the whole country tomorrow and a good deal wouldn’t come out. Being vaccinated will change all that but at the moment a lot of people are only starting to peer over the parapet. Some are less worried, such as those I commented upon on our village green at the weekend, but it’s going to take a lot to get the rest out, being vaccinated will help confidence as well as the more obvious effects,
It's no wonder that a lot of folk aren't at all keen on changing their habits before they've had the jab. It's now November 1918 in the Great Covid War. The end is in sight. Nobody wants to be one of the last poor fucks who gets shot through the head five minutes before it's over.
A lot of fighting occurred after the Armistice, for example in Russia, Turkey, and Ireland.
Nationalist Scotland, the North Korea of northwest Europe, has a media befitting its democratic status
Niall Fergusson remarked that pre-Union Scotland was the "Afghanistan of Europe" and maybe independence might be worth it so they can get over themselves......
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
You can always find individual places where there's an increase in infections.
Another outbreak in Rutland prison doesn't make a 4th wave.
Though that is a long way from Coalville or Shepshed.
We are not yet in a 4th wave, but these graphs are not flat...
Is 30 miles “a long way” ?
It is in the sense that nobody has ever made the journey from Rutland to Coalville, though they might meet people from Coalville in Leicester.
Nationalist Scotland, the North Korea of northwest Europe, has a media befitting its democratic status
Niall Fergusson remarked that pre-Union Scotland was the "Afghanistan of Europe" and maybe independence might be worth it so they can get over themselves......
That's quite LOL for a newspaper which published a column by Mhairi Black MP comparing all members of the Tory Party to Nazis on the basis of a quote in a speech by the Home Secretary that was not even in the speech.
The fears of a massive increase in infections from schools reopening seem exaggerated to me as they would be dependent upon:
1) a massive amount of infection currently among children - is there ? 2) a total lack of herd immunity existing among children - there must be some of that from the autumn
And even if there is an increase in infection among children it would likely take a few infection cycles for it to pass into the adult population - during which time millions more adults become vaccinated.
I think a further wave is quite likely in Leics. We currently have a number of districts with double or more the English average, and the same is true of some parts of the West Midlands and North. It is pretty nailed on that cases will go up, even if deaths and admissions go up by a smaller amount.
You can always find individual places where there's an increase in infections.
Another outbreak in Rutland prison doesn't make a 4th wave.
Though that is a long way from Coalville or Shepshed.
We are not yet in a 4th wave, but these graphs are not flat...
Is 30 miles “a long way” ?
It is in the sense that nobody has ever made the journey from Rutland to Coalville, though they might meet people from Coalville in Leicester.
The key here surely is where the numbers will be after another 11 days of lockdown.
Sorry - I have travelled from Rutland to Coalville :-) . Very good traditional butcher in Coalville.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the header poll by regions and social class. My hunch is that the purple wall is not as "socially conservative" as it has been made out to be.
I think that's right. Lots of people are not very respectful of political correctness and quite capable of telling dodgy jokes about gays and other minorities, but in the end take a live and let live view. Society's changed a lot in my lifetime.
Younger people, by and large, won't even tolerate the jokes.
I think that depends what you mean by "socially conservative".
I would distinguish on the basis of private and public expression of a view, perhaps between:
1 - "active opposition to (lifestyle, sex outside marriage - whatever)", as in my gran refusing to rent her cottage to unmarried couples 50 years ago.
2 - "not an issue". That is toleration - you have your lifestyle and I have mine.
3 - "insisting that I comply with your opinions / instructions". That is an enforcement of a particular view.
I would say that a vast majority in the Red Wall would be at least in group 2. Group 1 is now very very rare, at least as a publicly expressed view. Consider how many people would now take an "Anderton" view ("swirling in a human cesspit of their own making"), or even talk about taking that view.
eg I would characterise 3 as when the boss of Mermaids sets the police on people with different opinions as a means of silencing them under allegations of "hate speech", or denying people the right to speak through disagreement with their views.
Though there are many nuances. There used (is there still?) to be a difference between public toleration and private toleration eg gay couples in various church settings who would be known in some way but not acknowledged in public or in ritual. That has imo very much waned in a vast majority of settings.
One way to explore views might be about how far Harriet Harman's "Public Sector Equality Duty" should be pushed.
Comments
Seems reasonable to me to draw a distinction between the October second wave and the current Kent December onwards third wave.
From Israel we know the booster dose effectively eradicates disease by 6 weeks.
The only surprise is that anyone was surprised.
An indy Scotland could be a notably unhappy place, for quite a while, if it ever happened.
And the government is expecting this, as they said on Monday.
On the other hand, we have ever increasing levels of vaccination, Easter as a natural firebreak and the onward march of spring.
So we'll probably be okay.
But then I'm a bit confused about the recent increase in cases in Edinburgh.
Another outbreak in Rutland prison doesn't make a 4th wave.
There should be more data soon which will hopefully clarify.
The first wave was the first wave.
The second wave was what happened when Autumn started (not necessarily when things started to open up -for some of us they never really did). This peaked just before LD2.
The third wave was the Kent variant. This started arriving in December.
However, in some parts of the country (eg Kent) there appear to only have been two waves. They didn't really have the middle one.
The fact they're two distinct waves should be clear from the regional data. The second wave was centred around the North and Midlands. The Kent wave was sparked rapidly around Kent, London, the East and South.
Nothing seems to link the waves besides being close in time. The North was still seeing cases falling prior to the Kent variant seeing surging cases spreading from down south.
All those subscription must add up to over £50 pm TSE. Given that I get along fine with freeview plus a shared family Netflix, I am not going to be signing up for the others. I'd rather pay as you go on the Apple store for any flims not on freeview catch-up or Netflix.
On the other hand I have gone an entire year without a cold. So hygiene - and isolation - do have their advantages
We are not yet in a 4th wave, but these graphs are not flat...
DVDs = hassle factor... order, wait, receive. Some DVDs are surprisingly poor picture quality too.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=region&areaName=Yorkshire and The Humber
I'm curious as to what caused that.
There have been different patterns in different parts of the country.
My first thoughts:
1) Encourage mass immigration to Scotland.
2) Hold more PB meet ups in Scotland, coinciding with polling of said location.
Any more?
Lots of Mothers I know seem to think that Bubbles extend to basically anyone they hold dear.....
And, on a binary choice, here is another Manc opting for Blur. Personal choice, but for an indie kid, I was a fairly commercially minded music follower, rarely ahead of the game, and even if Blur had touched the top 10 in their baggy phase, my love for 'Modern Life is Rubbish' was one of the few times I was ever ahead of the curve. (and they tried and failed to pick some massive battle with Suede at that point in a precursor of the Oasis thing).
And I think they may have the best known tune, if not the best known song, of either band, courtesy of British Gas - great ballad. The use of 'Sing' at the moment Trainspotting turns, bloody hell it makes that song. And they had a certain playfulness in arrangement: Ken Livingstone on vocals, 'Turn It Up' where I swear they wrote the song and just put the whole song structure backwards. More fun than Oasis, less in your face with n their talent
The Pulp answer is massively hackneyed, but you can't argue with the justification. Lots more class war in that album, love the sleaze of I Spy, and as a geek Misshapes just edges Common People on a personal level - I won't be the only one on here, I'm sure.
Anyway, my musical tastes aren't the most credible ever - don't care. And with that I'll be off to shake Andalusia
The key here surely is where the numbers will be after another 11 days of lockdown.
Sorry - I have travelled from Rutland to Coalville :-) . Very good traditional butcher in Coalville.
Though it was not with a flock of geese.
Morning all.
What music do you leave on Shuffle when out to make the house sounds occupied?
Currently here it is "Alexa, shuffle Abba".
I would distinguish on the basis of private and public expression of a view, perhaps between:
1 - "active opposition to (lifestyle, sex outside marriage - whatever)", as in my gran refusing to rent her cottage to unmarried couples 50 years ago.
2 - "not an issue". That is toleration - you have your lifestyle and I have mine.
3 - "insisting that I comply with your opinions / instructions". That is an enforcement of a particular view.
I would say that a vast majority in the Red Wall would be at least in group 2. Group 1 is now very very rare, at least as a publicly expressed view. Consider how many people would now take an "Anderton" view ("swirling in a human cesspit of their own making"), or even talk about taking that view.
eg I would characterise 3 as when the boss of Mermaids sets the police on people with different opinions as a means of silencing them under allegations of "hate speech", or denying people the right to speak through disagreement with their views.
Though there are many nuances. There used (is there still?) to be a difference between public toleration and private toleration eg gay couples in various church settings who would be known in some way but not acknowledged in public or in ritual. That has imo very much waned in a vast majority of settings.
One way to explore views might be about how far Harriet Harman's "Public Sector Equality Duty" should be pushed.