Until the YouGov CON 13% lead is supported by other polling then it should be treated as an outlier

Gallowgate said:

Charles said:

Gallowgate said:

Endillion said:

Gallowgate said:

Job application question: do people think it's better to "tone down" experience when applying for "entry level" positions?

No. Play it up for all you can.

The problem with recruiting entry level positions is that you are to a large extent gambling that theoretical ability will eventually translate into actual performance. I find any evidence that a candidate has already proven themselves to be incredibly reassuring.

The worry is being overlooked due to fear of a desire to "move on" too quickly.

That’s always my concern. But aren’t you a career changer?

Yeah, I'm a career changer. Does that change things in your view?

Gallowgate said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Gallowgate said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

This polling is contrary to the comments of many on this forum and it seems the more Boris is attacked the more popular he becomes.

Mind you, Starmer is not helping himself with some of the positions he is taking but the 50% preferring Boris is a higher figure than many expected

You always say this but it simply isn't true. Very few people on here have said anything other than that they have expected a Boris vaccine bounce.

That doesn't mean he cant be criticised. Just because someone may be popular it doesn't mean they are perfect.

When have I said Boris is perfect and cannot be criticised

Indeed, I would prefer Rishi in place now but you cannot hide the fact that labour and Starmer are going backwards

But nobody is saying that Labour and Starmer are doing anything other than going backwards.

Yet you make out like everyone here is constantly ramping the opposite - "This polling is contrary to the comments of many on this forum" – no it isn't.

AlistairM said:

Here's the school testing coming in...



Cases still down on last week...

Charles said:

Gallowgate said:

Charles said:

Gallowgate said:

Endillion said:

Gallowgate said:

Job application question: do people think it's better to "tone down" experience when applying for "entry level" positions?

No. Play it up for all you can.

The problem with recruiting entry level positions is that you are to a large extent gambling that theoretical ability will eventually translate into actual performance. I find any evidence that a candidate has already proven themselves to be incredibly reassuring.

The worry is being overlooked due to fear of a desire to "move on" too quickly.

That’s always my concern. But aren’t you a career changer?

Yeah, I'm a career changer. Does that change things in your view?

For me the key question is how do the firms view the role of paralegal.

Is it a temporary position while people seek a permanent contract (in which case you would be better than the average bear). Or is it a permanent position for people who don’t want the pressure of a full legal role?

That will dramatically impact how you should position yourself

Gallowgate said:

Charles said:

Gallowgate said:

Charles said:

Gallowgate said:

Endillion said:

Gallowgate said:

Job application question: do people think it's better to "tone down" experience when applying for "entry level" positions?

No. Play it up for all you can.

The problem with recruiting entry level positions is that you are to a large extent gambling that theoretical ability will eventually translate into actual performance. I find any evidence that a candidate has already proven themselves to be incredibly reassuring.

The worry is being overlooked due to fear of a desire to "move on" too quickly.

That’s always my concern. But aren’t you a career changer?

Yeah, I'm a career changer. Does that change things in your view?

For me the key question is how do the firms view the role of paralegal.

Is it a temporary position while people seek a permanent contract (in which case you would be better than the average bear). Or is it a permanent position for people who don’t want the pressure of a full legal role?

That will dramatically impact how you should position yourself

Truthfully, I don't know the answer to that. @DougSeal any thoughts?

TOPPING said:

AlwaysSinging said:

They are just shooting the messenger, in this case the messenger explaining why restrictions can't be lifted sooner.

--AS

No one is shooting the messenger. I am just wary of potential scenarios. One of which is following the science to an extended lockdown.

Why? Because for some people there is no lower limit to the ok number of Covid deaths.

You'd have to be a particular kind of naive not to include it in your list of scenarios.

contrarian said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

contrarian said:

DougSeal said:

TOPPING said:

LostPassword said:

TOPPING said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

TOPPING said:

Selebian said:

rottenborough said:

contrarian said:

Why is Whitty not challenged with evidence from America that the link between covid and lockdown is not what he and the rest of the SAGE committee manifestly assume it is? ie a thermostatic central heating link?

Or on the models. Why did they get Sweden so utterly wrong if the model is an accurate reflection of real life?

The models are (if correctly specified) an accurate (within predictable uncertainty) reflection of what happens if the assumptions underlying the model are true.

The models from early on set out predictions on what would happen if various actions were taken/not taken. They assumed, largely, that in the absence of legal restrictions, people would behave as normal. Sweden diverged from the models because although few restrictions were put in early on the government did ask people to reduce doing certain things and the Swedes, being Swedes, did so (the model may still have been wrong in many ways, but results in Sweden being less bad than a modelled scenario of life as usual is not evidence for the model being wrong when life and actions were far from usual.

Early on, that's more or less what you can do - model what happens if you mostly stop certain activities and what happens in you carry on. You could of course model assuming that you ban nothing, but levels of x decrease by 40% anyway due to people taking precautions, but there's no real evidence base to get that 40%.

What we've seen so far will probably help to fine tune "worst case" models in future as we'll have a better idea of how bad things can get before people self-impose restrictions and avert the naive worst case.

@rcs1000 is always saying, when discussing formal lockdowns, that, and I paraphrase: "the people will do it anyway". And he says it to prove that one way or another there will be lockdown, whether legislatively or voluntarily.

But this is to miss the point. Given the huge restriction of our freedoms imposed upon us by the government, I would be much happier with a voluntary one. Would it work? Not sure. That is the crux of the govt action. They don't trust us. Not in a conspiracy theory kind of way, just that they don't trust us to do the "right" thing.

As @eek said, upthread:

"Many states are fully open because well it's the States and freedom trumps everything else."

I don't know if he realised the irony of his post because it could be read as disparaging - but that's the thing - freedom trumps if not everything then a hell of a lot.

The difference between an official lock down and an unofficial one is that the government can be reasonably expected make some effort to compensate businesses and workers affected by the former while in the latter case many more will just go bust.

That is very true. Plus being bloody-minded Brits we are as likely as not to ignore it.

But there is something that sits very uneasily with legislative restrictions on behaviour.

I'm not happy with the government legislating over who can enter my private home. But this is an abstract unhappiness, since I'm not inclined to let anyone in anyway due to the pandemic.

I think there has been decades of governments creating new crimes to an excessive degree, so perhaps it should not be surprising that their response to a pandemic is to reach for the law, rather than to use the power of persuasion and leadership to encourage people to follow advice.

It's very unfortunate that every public figure I am aware of who has argued against the government legislating on access to my home has done so by talking complete and dangerous cobblers about the virus.

I think *deep breath* that Steve Baker has spoken a lot of sense about this. He has, in essence, been saying vaccinate the vulnerable and then ease the restrictions - not been following closely enough to determine to what extent/details, etc but that seems about right.

But also, when faced with the government's behaviour, it is imo right and proper that we should also have polemicists even such as Toby and JHB (and of course our very own contrarian). When it comes to freedom it is all hands on deck.

Unless something goes catastrophically wrong it is going to be virtually impossible for the Government to resile from its latest roadmap.

What do you base that assumption on? The government could easily get away with an extension. Huge numbers of people, including voices such as yourself, are foursquare behind their strategy. The logic of that strategy facilitates an extension.

Holding the government to account involves you relying on those people you and many on here have heaped scorn on for a year.

Not a chance could they extend without any data to justify it.

The only question is if they resist bringing the end to lockdown forward as I think they should and they're currently resisting. There's no chance at all of it going back. There's no call for it, no evidence for it, no demand for it.

We have Whitty soundbiting* extra surges later in the year some time. The govt has been following the science and is bound by data, not dates. I mean I've no idea if they would or they wouldn't, but everything is in place for the data and the science to dictate that June is too early.

As I said, my $0.02 is that it is unlikely, but given the free ride the govt has had to date it's not beyond the realms of the possible.

Take the current planned end to lockdown. June. Too late, say you. Just right, say many others. Same if it was September. Too late you would say. Just right, we're following the data/science would say millions of others.

*apols for verbing "soundbite".

Its worth listening to what Whitty says in full. He's saying there will be extra surges later but that they will need to be lived with and the vaccine will prevent deaths.

To clarify I'm not saying the June one is too late. The June one includes reopening nightclubs etc and that should be done perhaps three weeks after all adults have been vaccinated, including 18-21 year olds going clubbing. So June might be right for that. Maybe it should be brought forwards, but its a bit early to answer that definitively yet.

The one I think is ridiculous is reopening indoor hospitality in May. That should be done with the outdoor hospitality in April.

There is a world of difference in reopening a restaurant, and reopening a nightclub.

Yes. Whitty says the ratio of cases to deaths will be hugely different on account of the vaccinations. But he also says that it will occur in those unvaccinated. Hence the surge.

The building blocks are in place for the govt to "follow the science" by saying we can't afford a surge.

And your ridiculous might be, say, @FrancisUrquhart or @Andy_Cooke's too early (you'll of course have to ask them - @Andy is online now I think). Given the past year there will always be people who are happy to sit out and wait longer. Plenty of them on PB.

And pour scorn on those who say there are elements in the governing regime who either do not want lockdown to end or do not want the abhorrent threat of its brutal sanction to end.

Philip_Thompson said:

gealbhan said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Malmesbury said:

TimT said:

Malmesbury said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Another very poor day of vaccination numbers. This bumper March thing hasn't got off to a very good start.

From the health service letter referenced the other days, the "bumper March thing" starts the week beginning the 15th.

It was quite specific that supplies would be poor for the week starting the 8th - this week.

EDIT - https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2021/03/C1165-COVID-19-vaccination-deployment-next-steps-and-plans-for-weeks-of-8-and-15-March.pdf

FURTHER EDIT - "From 11 March, vaccine supply will increase substantially and be sustained at a higher level for several weeks. Therefore, from the week of 15 March we are now asking systems to plan and support all vaccination centres and local vaccination services to deliver around twice the level of vaccine available in the week of 1 March."

And if 250,000 is our definition of a poor day now, is that not a reflection of just how well things have gone to date?

Clearly this is a supply issue, which we were warned about and which we were told would be fixed in mid-March

Worth noting that the figures for 1st-7th March were 2,428,631 total vaccinations

So they are saying it will be 4.8m a week or so... 700k a day average.... which is not far off a "year" of the population per day.

Its essentially an entire 5-year cohort per week isn't it?

We should be completed vaccinating the over 50s and doing 40-somethings before the end of March. Add 3 weeks for middle of April and there's no excuse not to open indoors by then.

Yet even with the vaccination, it comes back and surges again. Apparently. According to top scientists. 😕

“ Virus will surge at some point - either in the summer after the gradual easing of lockdown - or as a result of the seasonal effect, in autumn and winter.”

How’s that happen then?

For the same reason the flu comes back every year.

We will just have to live with it, as he said and explained.

mwadams said:

Andy_Cooke said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

contrarian said:

DougSeal said:

TOPPING said:

LostPassword said:

TOPPING said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

TOPPING said:

Selebian said:

rottenborough said:

contrarian said:

Why is Whitty not challenged with evidence from America that the link between covid and lockdown is not what he and the rest of the SAGE committee manifestly assume it is? ie a thermostatic central heating link?

Or on the models. Why did they get Sweden so utterly wrong if the model is an accurate reflection of real life?

The models are (if correctly specified) an accurate (within predictable uncertainty) reflection of what happens if the assumptions underlying the model are true.

The models from early on set out predictions on what would happen if various actions were taken/not taken. They assumed, largely, that in the absence of legal restrictions, people would behave as normal. Sweden diverged from the models because although few restrictions were put in early on the government did ask people to reduce doing certain things and the Swedes, being Swedes, did so (the model may still have been wrong in many ways, but results in Sweden being less bad than a modelled scenario of life as usual is not evidence for the model being wrong when life and actions were far from usual.

Early on, that's more or less what you can do - model what happens if you mostly stop certain activities and what happens in you carry on. You could of course model assuming that you ban nothing, but levels of x decrease by 40% anyway due to people taking precautions, but there's no real evidence base to get that 40%.

What we've seen so far will probably help to fine tune "worst case" models in future as we'll have a better idea of how bad things can get before people self-impose restrictions and avert the naive worst case.

@rcs1000 is always saying, when discussing formal lockdowns, that, and I paraphrase: "the people will do it anyway". And he says it to prove that one way or another there will be lockdown, whether legislatively or voluntarily.

But this is to miss the point. Given the huge restriction of our freedoms imposed upon us by the government, I would be much happier with a voluntary one. Would it work? Not sure. That is the crux of the govt action. They don't trust us. Not in a conspiracy theory kind of way, just that they don't trust us to do the "right" thing.

As @eek said, upthread:

"Many states are fully open because well it's the States and freedom trumps everything else."

I don't know if he realised the irony of his post because it could be read as disparaging - but that's the thing - freedom trumps if not everything then a hell of a lot.

The difference between an official lock down and an unofficial one is that the government can be reasonably expected make some effort to compensate businesses and workers affected by the former while in the latter case many more will just go bust.

That is very true. Plus being bloody-minded Brits we are as likely as not to ignore it.

But there is something that sits very uneasily with legislative restrictions on behaviour.

I'm not happy with the government legislating over who can enter my private home. But this is an abstract unhappiness, since I'm not inclined to let anyone in anyway due to the pandemic.

I think there has been decades of governments creating new crimes to an excessive degree, so perhaps it should not be surprising that their response to a pandemic is to reach for the law, rather than to use the power of persuasion and leadership to encourage people to follow advice.

It's very unfortunate that every public figure I am aware of who has argued against the government legislating on access to my home has done so by talking complete and dangerous cobblers about the virus.

I think *deep breath* that Steve Baker has spoken a lot of sense about this. He has, in essence, been saying vaccinate the vulnerable and then ease the restrictions - not been following closely enough to determine to what extent/details, etc but that seems about right.

But also, when faced with the government's behaviour, it is imo right and proper that we should also have polemicists even such as Toby and JHB (and of course our very own contrarian). When it comes to freedom it is all hands on deck.

Unless something goes catastrophically wrong it is going to be virtually impossible for the Government to resile from its latest roadmap.

What do you base that assumption on? The government could easily get away with an extension. Huge numbers of people, including voices such as yourself, are foursquare behind their strategy. The logic of that strategy facilitates an extension.

Holding the government to account involves you relying on those people you and many on here have heaped scorn on for a year.

Not a chance could they extend without any data to justify it.

The only question is if they resist bringing the end to lockdown forward as I think they should and they're currently resisting. There's no chance at all of it going back. There's no call for it, no evidence for it, no demand for it.

We have Whitty soundbiting* extra surges later in the year some time. The govt has been following the science and is bound by data, not dates. I mean I've no idea if they would or they wouldn't, but everything is in place for the data and the science to dictate that June is too early.

As I said, my $0.02 is that it is unlikely, but given the free ride the govt has had to date it's not beyond the realms of the possible.

Take the current planned end to lockdown. June. Too late, say you. Just right, say many others. Same if it was September. Too late you would say. Just right, we're following the data/science would say millions of others.

*apols for verbing "soundbite".

Its worth listening to what Whitty says in full. He's saying there will be extra surges later but that they will need to be lived with and the vaccine will prevent deaths.

To clarify I'm not saying the June one is too late. The June one includes reopening nightclubs etc and that should be done perhaps three weeks after all adults have been vaccinated, including 18-21 year olds going clubbing. So June might be right for that. Maybe it should be brought forwards, but its a bit early to answer that definitively yet.

The one I think is ridiculous is reopening indoor hospitality in May. That should be done with the outdoor hospitality in April.

There is a world of difference in reopening a restaurant, and reopening a nightclub.

Yes. Whitty says the ratio of cases to deaths will be hugely different on account of the vaccinations. But he also says that it will occur in those unvaccinated. Hence the surge.

The building blocks are in place for the govt to "follow the science" by saying we can't afford a surge.

And your ridiculous might be, say, @FrancisUrquhart or @Andy_Cooke's too early (you'll of course have to ask them - @Andy is online now I think). Given the past year there will always be people who are happy to sit out and wait longer. Plenty of them on PB.

I think the current timeline is either pretty close to right, or even may have the potential to be brought earlier - depending on how cases and hospitalisations go.
The acid test on that will be the next three weeks. If R craters even with schools back (which isn't impossible), we could be very much on the sunny side of what's possible.
Let's see.

And leave it another week or so to see the impact of Secondary Schools and Universities, as per the rise in September/October.

Mango said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Jesus.
The thing is, we all saw this coming at the time.
(The other two academics at that meeting other than Tegnell were Gupta and Heneghan. Such a surprise.)

It's only looking back that we can recall just how forecasts of 200 deaths a day were so thoroughly mocked by the lockdown sceptics. We went above that on the 21st of October and we are JUST about to drop below a 200-a-day seven day average now for the first time since then. We were past 350 a day on the 1st of November and past 400 a day by the end of the first week in November.

Thanks a bunch, Heneghan, Tegnell, Gupta, Sunak, and the Lockdown Sceptics.
And by paying the price of those thousands upon thousands of bereaved families... they ended up fucking up the economy with an even longer and deeper lockdown, anyway. Thanks to the moronic denialists.
[2/2]

Johnson fucked it again, driven by ideology.

There will be no accountability.

felix said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Oh dear, I see Piers Moron, so popular with the twitterati over the past year, not so popular now. Now calling for his sacking, and an online petition of course.

It would be amusing if this issue brought him down. I'm unclear if there'll be much sympathy for him regardless of views on MM.

Floater said:

OOps

https://order-order.com/2021/03/09/no-bregrets-just-39-of-brits-want-to-re-join-the-eu/

Another slow hand clap for the EU

squareroot2 said:

justin124 said:

The Redfield & Wilton poll is good for the Tories but does tend to suggest that Yougov's 32% Labour share was too low.

Labour have been on the rocky slope ever since Brown tried first to destabilise Blair and then took over from him. Blame it all on Brown... it all stems from him.

Philip_Thompson said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Johnson’s decision [not to lock down] flew in the face of all the advice over the summer from the World Bank, the cross-party group of politicians and leading international public health experts. Some of his advisers were incandescent. “I don’t have sympathy for the government making the same mistake twice,” said a senior source on the Sage committee. “We told them quite clearly what they need to do for it to work. They don’t do that . . . It’s been wishful thinking all the way through. I think that probably characterises Boris Johnson, frankly.” "

...

"Vallance gave an example of what might happen if the current levels of infections were allowed to carry on doubling every week — as they appeared to be doing. This, he said, would lead to around 200-plus deaths per day by the middle of November. It was a shocking prediction that drew scathing criticism — one newspaper quoted an unnamed Tory MP describing them as Messrs “Witless and Unbalanced” for exaggerating the figures. In fact, Vallance had hugely downplayed the predicted November death figures, which would be nearer the 500 daily fatalities upper estimate he had given Johnson a few days earlier. "

...

"On October 30, the operation committee met again in Downing Street. Johnson, Sunak, Gove and Hancock were all present to listen to a presentation from Sir Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, who delivered an unequivocal message: hospitals would be overrun in every part of England within weeks if nothing was done.

The prime minister had no choice. He had to finally give in — despite everything he and his chancellor had said about their determination to avoid locking down. A decision was taken to announce a lockdown after the weekend. But fearing that Johnson might wobble again, someone in the prime minister’s close circle leaked the news to the The Times. The prime minister was forced to call a press conference the next day."

------------

Jesus.
The thing is, we all saw this coming at the time.
(The other two academics at that meeting other than Tegnell were Gupta and Heneghan. Such a surprise.)

It's only looking back that we can recall just how forecasts of 200 deaths a day were so thoroughly mocked by the lockdown sceptics. We went above that on the 21st of October and we are JUST about to drop below a 200-a-day seven day average now for the first time since then. We were past 350 a day on the 1st of November and past 400 a day by the end of the first week in November.

Thanks a bunch, Heneghan, Tegnell, Gupta, Sunak, and the Lockdown Sceptics.
And by paying the price of those thousands upon thousands of bereaved families... they ended up fucking up the economy with an even longer and deeper lockdown, anyway. Thanks to the moronic denialists.
[2/2]

Sorry if I missed it in your posts, but on what date were HMG still giving Tegnell, Gupta and Heneghan a hearing?

Mid-September.
It was thanks to them that the "circuit breaker" lockdown for early October got canned.
Leading to the full-on second wave, letting it get out of control, and needing drastic measures to bring it back under control.

They and the Lockdown Sceptics pressure (via the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs) against any restrictions (so it always got worse and needed more and more restrictions) are why we've had such a hell of a winter, and why we've been in lockdown so long.

In an alternate timeline, where they weren't listened to, we locked down in October, saw off the rise, went with tougher Tiers, and kept it all under control without kids missing one day of school or the need for any full-on lockdown.

This is the Sunak/Gupta/Heneghan lockdown - needed thanks to their idiocy.

Except circuit breakers don't work.

Wales tried the circuit break, it was a miserable failure.

Other nations around the globe have tried circuit breaks. Not one of them has succeeded.

So other than that, good point, well done.

They do work. It's coming out of them that doesn't work as well.
The four week circuit break in November brought it down.
The nine weeks since early January has worked as well.

Call it what you like; we're talking about applying lockdown rules for a given period to bring down infection rates. And every time we've done this, infection rates have dropped.

Lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't. That's the point.

The second you lift the "circuit break" cases instantly start rising again. And if its only 2 weeks that achieves squat since people party "last night of freedom" before the 2 weeks, then party "wahay free again" afterwards counteracting the whole point of just 2 weeks which isn't long enough to do much.

So you can't point to today's lockdown and act as if it would have all been avoidable had we just wished it away with a 2 week circuit break. 2 weeks doesn't work.

If you want a lockdown, fair enough, but then don't complain about having a lockdown. The idea a lockdown could be avoided if we'd just done one for 2 weeks then got back to normal is farcical wishful thinking.

If the 4 weeks in November worked then you can't blame today's lockdown on not having a 2 week one in October.

A circuit breaker is slang for a short lockdown. Can a lockdown be so short as to not work because the "last night party" effect outweighs the gains? Yes. But can a lockdown be long enough to work but still short enough to be called a circuit breaker? Also yes.

Ergo "lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't" = tilt.

How short is short enough to still be called a circuit breaker? Especially when the circuit breaker has been defined as 2 weeks.

If you say that a circuit break works, so long as you don't come out of it, then that is a lockdown not a circuit break. A circuit break only works if you can come out of it in the time stated.

Can you name any country, anywhere, which has had significant case numbers and rising cases which has seen a 2 week circuit break work?

Barnesian said:

justin124 said:

The Redfield & Wilton poll is good for the Tories but does tend to suggest that Yougov's 32% Labour share was too low.

EMA now shows Tories on 41.9%, Labour on 36.1%.
That's a lead of nearly 6% for the Tories.
Tory overall majority of 28

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Johnson’s decision [not to lock down] flew in the face of all the advice over the summer from the World Bank, the cross-party group of politicians and leading international public health experts. Some of his advisers were incandescent. “I don’t have sympathy for the government making the same mistake twice,” said a senior source on the Sage committee. “We told them quite clearly what they need to do for it to work. They don’t do that . . . It’s been wishful thinking all the way through. I think that probably characterises Boris Johnson, frankly.” "

...

"Vallance gave an example of what might happen if the current levels of infections were allowed to carry on doubling every week — as they appeared to be doing. This, he said, would lead to around 200-plus deaths per day by the middle of November. It was a shocking prediction that drew scathing criticism — one newspaper quoted an unnamed Tory MP describing them as Messrs “Witless and Unbalanced” for exaggerating the figures. In fact, Vallance had hugely downplayed the predicted November death figures, which would be nearer the 500 daily fatalities upper estimate he had given Johnson a few days earlier. "

...

"On October 30, the operation committee met again in Downing Street. Johnson, Sunak, Gove and Hancock were all present to listen to a presentation from Sir Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, who delivered an unequivocal message: hospitals would be overrun in every part of England within weeks if nothing was done.

The prime minister had no choice. He had to finally give in — despite everything he and his chancellor had said about their determination to avoid locking down. A decision was taken to announce a lockdown after the weekend. But fearing that Johnson might wobble again, someone in the prime minister’s close circle leaked the news to the The Times. The prime minister was forced to call a press conference the next day."

------------

Jesus.
The thing is, we all saw this coming at the time.
(The other two academics at that meeting other than Tegnell were Gupta and Heneghan. Such a surprise.)

It's only looking back that we can recall just how forecasts of 200 deaths a day were so thoroughly mocked by the lockdown sceptics. We went above that on the 21st of October and we are JUST about to drop below a 200-a-day seven day average now for the first time since then. We were past 350 a day on the 1st of November and past 400 a day by the end of the first week in November.

Thanks a bunch, Heneghan, Tegnell, Gupta, Sunak, and the Lockdown Sceptics.
And by paying the price of those thousands upon thousands of bereaved families... they ended up fucking up the economy with an even longer and deeper lockdown, anyway. Thanks to the moronic denialists.
[2/2]

Sorry if I missed it in your posts, but on what date were HMG still giving Tegnell, Gupta and Heneghan a hearing?

Mid-September.
It was thanks to them that the "circuit breaker" lockdown for early October got canned.
Leading to the full-on second wave, letting it get out of control, and needing drastic measures to bring it back under control.

They and the Lockdown Sceptics pressure (via the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs) against any restrictions (so it always got worse and needed more and more restrictions) are why we've had such a hell of a winter, and why we've been in lockdown so long.

In an alternate timeline, where they weren't listened to, we locked down in October, saw off the rise, went with tougher Tiers, and kept it all under control without kids missing one day of school or the need for any full-on lockdown.

This is the Sunak/Gupta/Heneghan lockdown - needed thanks to their idiocy.

Except circuit breakers don't work.

Wales tried the circuit break, it was a miserable failure.

Other nations around the globe have tried circuit breaks. Not one of them has succeeded.

So other than that, good point, well done.

They do work. It's coming out of them that doesn't work as well.
The four week circuit break in November brought it down.
The nine weeks since early January has worked as well.

Call it what you like; we're talking about applying lockdown rules for a given period to bring down infection rates. And every time we've done this, infection rates have dropped.

Lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't. That's the point.

The second you lift the "circuit break" cases instantly start rising again. And if its only 2 weeks that achieves squat since people party "last night of freedom" before the 2 weeks, then party "wahay free again" afterwards counteracting the whole point of just 2 weeks which isn't long enough to do much.

So you can't point to today's lockdown and act as if it would have all been avoidable had we just wished it away with a 2 week circuit break. 2 weeks doesn't work.

If you want a lockdown, fair enough, but then don't complain about having a lockdown. The idea a lockdown could be avoided if we'd just done one for 2 weeks then got back to normal is farcical wishful thinking.

If the 4 weeks in November worked then you can't blame today's lockdown on not having a 2 week one in October.

A circuit breaker is slang for a short lockdown. Can a lockdown be so short as to not work because the "last night party" effect outweighs the gains? Yes. But can a lockdown be long enough to work but still short enough to be called a circuit breaker? Also yes.

Ergo "lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't" = tilt.

How short is short enough to still be called a circuit breaker? Especially when the circuit breaker has been defined as 2 weeks.

If you say that a circuit break works, so long as you don't come out of it, then that is a lockdown not a circuit break. A circuit break only works if you can come out of it in the time stated.

Can you name any country, anywhere, which has had significant case numbers and rising cases which has seen a 2 week circuit break work?

I'm wasn't aware we had an accepted definition of it as being of duration 2 weeks.

Link?

Philip_Thompson said:

mwadams said:

Andy_Cooke said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

contrarian said:

DougSeal said:

TOPPING said:

LostPassword said:

TOPPING said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

TOPPING said:

Selebian said:

rottenborough said:

contrarian said:

Why is Whitty not challenged with evidence from America that the link between covid and lockdown is not what he and the rest of the SAGE committee manifestly assume it is? ie a thermostatic central heating link?

Or on the models. Why did they get Sweden so utterly wrong if the model is an accurate reflection of real life?

The models are (if correctly specified) an accurate (within predictable uncertainty) reflection of what happens if the assumptions underlying the model are true.

The models from early on set out predictions on what would happen if various actions were taken/not taken. They assumed, largely, that in the absence of legal restrictions, people would behave as normal. Sweden diverged from the models because although few restrictions were put in early on the government did ask people to reduce doing certain things and the Swedes, being Swedes, did so (the model may still have been wrong in many ways, but results in Sweden being less bad than a modelled scenario of life as usual is not evidence for the model being wrong when life and actions were far from usual.

Early on, that's more or less what you can do - model what happens if you mostly stop certain activities and what happens in you carry on. You could of course model assuming that you ban nothing, but levels of x decrease by 40% anyway due to people taking precautions, but there's no real evidence base to get that 40%.

What we've seen so far will probably help to fine tune "worst case" models in future as we'll have a better idea of how bad things can get before people self-impose restrictions and avert the naive worst case.

@rcs1000 is always saying, when discussing formal lockdowns, that, and I paraphrase: "the people will do it anyway". And he says it to prove that one way or another there will be lockdown, whether legislatively or voluntarily.

But this is to miss the point. Given the huge restriction of our freedoms imposed upon us by the government, I would be much happier with a voluntary one. Would it work? Not sure. That is the crux of the govt action. They don't trust us. Not in a conspiracy theory kind of way, just that they don't trust us to do the "right" thing.

As @eek said, upthread:

"Many states are fully open because well it's the States and freedom trumps everything else."

I don't know if he realised the irony of his post because it could be read as disparaging - but that's the thing - freedom trumps if not everything then a hell of a lot.

The difference between an official lock down and an unofficial one is that the government can be reasonably expected make some effort to compensate businesses and workers affected by the former while in the latter case many more will just go bust.

That is very true. Plus being bloody-minded Brits we are as likely as not to ignore it.

But there is something that sits very uneasily with legislative restrictions on behaviour.

I'm not happy with the government legislating over who can enter my private home. But this is an abstract unhappiness, since I'm not inclined to let anyone in anyway due to the pandemic.

I think there has been decades of governments creating new crimes to an excessive degree, so perhaps it should not be surprising that their response to a pandemic is to reach for the law, rather than to use the power of persuasion and leadership to encourage people to follow advice.

It's very unfortunate that every public figure I am aware of who has argued against the government legislating on access to my home has done so by talking complete and dangerous cobblers about the virus.

I think *deep breath* that Steve Baker has spoken a lot of sense about this. He has, in essence, been saying vaccinate the vulnerable and then ease the restrictions - not been following closely enough to determine to what extent/details, etc but that seems about right.

But also, when faced with the government's behaviour, it is imo right and proper that we should also have polemicists even such as Toby and JHB (and of course our very own contrarian). When it comes to freedom it is all hands on deck.

Unless something goes catastrophically wrong it is going to be virtually impossible for the Government to resile from its latest roadmap.

What do you base that assumption on? The government could easily get away with an extension. Huge numbers of people, including voices such as yourself, are foursquare behind their strategy. The logic of that strategy facilitates an extension.

Holding the government to account involves you relying on those people you and many on here have heaped scorn on for a year.

Not a chance could they extend without any data to justify it.

The only question is if they resist bringing the end to lockdown forward as I think they should and they're currently resisting. There's no chance at all of it going back. There's no call for it, no evidence for it, no demand for it.

We have Whitty soundbiting* extra surges later in the year some time. The govt has been following the science and is bound by data, not dates. I mean I've no idea if they would or they wouldn't, but everything is in place for the data and the science to dictate that June is too early.

As I said, my $0.02 is that it is unlikely, but given the free ride the govt has had to date it's not beyond the realms of the possible.

Take the current planned end to lockdown. June. Too late, say you. Just right, say many others. Same if it was September. Too late you would say. Just right, we're following the data/science would say millions of others.

*apols for verbing "soundbite".

Its worth listening to what Whitty says in full. He's saying there will be extra surges later but that they will need to be lived with and the vaccine will prevent deaths.

To clarify I'm not saying the June one is too late. The June one includes reopening nightclubs etc and that should be done perhaps three weeks after all adults have been vaccinated, including 18-21 year olds going clubbing. So June might be right for that. Maybe it should be brought forwards, but its a bit early to answer that definitively yet.

The one I think is ridiculous is reopening indoor hospitality in May. That should be done with the outdoor hospitality in April.

There is a world of difference in reopening a restaurant, and reopening a nightclub.

Yes. Whitty says the ratio of cases to deaths will be hugely different on account of the vaccinations. But he also says that it will occur in those unvaccinated. Hence the surge.

The building blocks are in place for the govt to "follow the science" by saying we can't afford a surge.

And your ridiculous might be, say, @FrancisUrquhart or @Andy_Cooke's too early (you'll of course have to ask them - @Andy is online now I think). Given the past year there will always be people who are happy to sit out and wait longer. Plenty of them on PB.

I think the current timeline is either pretty close to right, or even may have the potential to be brought earlier - depending on how cases and hospitalisations go.
The acid test on that will be the next three weeks. If R craters even with schools back (which isn't impossible), we could be very much on the sunny side of what's possible.
Let's see.

And leave it another week or so to see the impact of Secondary Schools and Universities, as per the rise in September/October.

September/October had universities and Fresher Flu and the aftermath of foreign holidays.

Alphabet_Soup said:

Floater said:

OOps

https://order-order.com/2021/03/09/no-bregrets-just-39-of-brits-want-to-re-join-the-eu/

Another slow hand clap for the EU

A lot of timid folk, such as myself, voted for the status quo in 2016. It stands to reason, therefore, that we would now tend to vote to stay out, rather than repeating the tortuous negotiations of the past 4 years. On the other hand, a few of those who voted Leave are lifelong radicals always on the lookout for something to change. It's hard to see how rejoining the EU would satisfy their craving.

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Johnson’s decision [not to lock down] flew in the face of all the advice over the summer from the World Bank, the cross-party group of politicians and leading international public health experts. Some of his advisers were incandescent. “I don’t have sympathy for the government making the same mistake twice,” said a senior source on the Sage committee. “We told them quite clearly what they need to do for it to work. They don’t do that . . . It’s been wishful thinking all the way through. I think that probably characterises Boris Johnson, frankly.” "

...

"Vallance gave an example of what might happen if the current levels of infections were allowed to carry on doubling every week — as they appeared to be doing. This, he said, would lead to around 200-plus deaths per day by the middle of November. It was a shocking prediction that drew scathing criticism — one newspaper quoted an unnamed Tory MP describing them as Messrs “Witless and Unbalanced” for exaggerating the figures. In fact, Vallance had hugely downplayed the predicted November death figures, which would be nearer the 500 daily fatalities upper estimate he had given Johnson a few days earlier. "

...

"On October 30, the operation committee met again in Downing Street. Johnson, Sunak, Gove and Hancock were all present to listen to a presentation from Sir Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, who delivered an unequivocal message: hospitals would be overrun in every part of England within weeks if nothing was done.

The prime minister had no choice. He had to finally give in — despite everything he and his chancellor had said about their determination to avoid locking down. A decision was taken to announce a lockdown after the weekend. But fearing that Johnson might wobble again, someone in the prime minister’s close circle leaked the news to the The Times. The prime minister was forced to call a press conference the next day."

------------

Jesus.
The thing is, we all saw this coming at the time.
(The other two academics at that meeting other than Tegnell were Gupta and Heneghan. Such a surprise.)

It's only looking back that we can recall just how forecasts of 200 deaths a day were so thoroughly mocked by the lockdown sceptics. We went above that on the 21st of October and we are JUST about to drop below a 200-a-day seven day average now for the first time since then. We were past 350 a day on the 1st of November and past 400 a day by the end of the first week in November.

Thanks a bunch, Heneghan, Tegnell, Gupta, Sunak, and the Lockdown Sceptics.
And by paying the price of those thousands upon thousands of bereaved families... they ended up fucking up the economy with an even longer and deeper lockdown, anyway. Thanks to the moronic denialists.
[2/2]

Sorry if I missed it in your posts, but on what date were HMG still giving Tegnell, Gupta and Heneghan a hearing?

Mid-September.
It was thanks to them that the "circuit breaker" lockdown for early October got canned.
Leading to the full-on second wave, letting it get out of control, and needing drastic measures to bring it back under control.

They and the Lockdown Sceptics pressure (via the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs) against any restrictions (so it always got worse and needed more and more restrictions) are why we've had such a hell of a winter, and why we've been in lockdown so long.

In an alternate timeline, where they weren't listened to, we locked down in October, saw off the rise, went with tougher Tiers, and kept it all under control without kids missing one day of school or the need for any full-on lockdown.

This is the Sunak/Gupta/Heneghan lockdown - needed thanks to their idiocy.

Except circuit breakers don't work.

Wales tried the circuit break, it was a miserable failure.

Other nations around the globe have tried circuit breaks. Not one of them has succeeded.

So other than that, good point, well done.

They do work. It's coming out of them that doesn't work as well.
The four week circuit break in November brought it down.
The nine weeks since early January has worked as well.

Call it what you like; we're talking about applying lockdown rules for a given period to bring down infection rates. And every time we've done this, infection rates have dropped.

Lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't. That's the point.

The second you lift the "circuit break" cases instantly start rising again. And if its only 2 weeks that achieves squat since people party "last night of freedom" before the 2 weeks, then party "wahay free again" afterwards counteracting the whole point of just 2 weeks which isn't long enough to do much.

So you can't point to today's lockdown and act as if it would have all been avoidable had we just wished it away with a 2 week circuit break. 2 weeks doesn't work.

If you want a lockdown, fair enough, but then don't complain about having a lockdown. The idea a lockdown could be avoided if we'd just done one for 2 weeks then got back to normal is farcical wishful thinking.

If the 4 weeks in November worked then you can't blame today's lockdown on not having a 2 week one in October.

A circuit breaker is slang for a short lockdown. Can a lockdown be so short as to not work because the "last night party" effect outweighs the gains? Yes. But can a lockdown be long enough to work but still short enough to be called a circuit breaker? Also yes.

Ergo "lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't" = tilt.

How short is short enough to still be called a circuit breaker? Especially when the circuit breaker has been defined as 2 weeks.

If you say that a circuit break works, so long as you don't come out of it, then that is a lockdown not a circuit break. A circuit break only works if you can come out of it in the time stated.

Can you name any country, anywhere, which has had significant case numbers and rising cases which has seen a 2 week circuit break work?

I'm wasn't aware we had an accepted definition of it as being of duration 2 weeks.

Link?

Gallowgate said:

mwadams said:

Philip_Thompson said:

mwadams said:

Andy_Cooke said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

contrarian said:

DougSeal said:

TOPPING said:

LostPassword said:

TOPPING said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

TOPPING said:

Selebian said:

rottenborough said:

contrarian said:

Why is Whitty not challenged with evidence from America that the link between covid and lockdown is not what he and the rest of the SAGE committee manifestly assume it is? ie a thermostatic central heating link?

Or on the models. Why did they get Sweden so utterly wrong if the model is an accurate reflection of real life?

The models are (if correctly specified) an accurate (within predictable uncertainty) reflection of what happens if the assumptions underlying the model are true.

The models from early on set out predictions on what would happen if various actions were taken/not taken. They assumed, largely, that in the absence of legal restrictions, people would behave as normal. Sweden diverged from the models because although few restrictions were put in early on the government did ask people to reduce doing certain things and the Swedes, being Swedes, did so (the model may still have been wrong in many ways, but results in Sweden being less bad than a modelled scenario of life as usual is not evidence for the model being wrong when life and actions were far from usual.

Early on, that's more or less what you can do - model what happens if you mostly stop certain activities and what happens in you carry on. You could of course model assuming that you ban nothing, but levels of x decrease by 40% anyway due to people taking precautions, but there's no real evidence base to get that 40%.

What we've seen so far will probably help to fine tune "worst case" models in future as we'll have a better idea of how bad things can get before people self-impose restrictions and avert the naive worst case.

@rcs1000 is always saying, when discussing formal lockdowns, that, and I paraphrase: "the people will do it anyway". And he says it to prove that one way or another there will be lockdown, whether legislatively or voluntarily.

But this is to miss the point. Given the huge restriction of our freedoms imposed upon us by the government, I would be much happier with a voluntary one. Would it work? Not sure. That is the crux of the govt action. They don't trust us. Not in a conspiracy theory kind of way, just that they don't trust us to do the "right" thing.

As @eek said, upthread:

"Many states are fully open because well it's the States and freedom trumps everything else."

I don't know if he realised the irony of his post because it could be read as disparaging - but that's the thing - freedom trumps if not everything then a hell of a lot.

The difference between an official lock down and an unofficial one is that the government can be reasonably expected make some effort to compensate businesses and workers affected by the former while in the latter case many more will just go bust.

That is very true. Plus being bloody-minded Brits we are as likely as not to ignore it.

But there is something that sits very uneasily with legislative restrictions on behaviour.

I'm not happy with the government legislating over who can enter my private home. But this is an abstract unhappiness, since I'm not inclined to let anyone in anyway due to the pandemic.

I think there has been decades of governments creating new crimes to an excessive degree, so perhaps it should not be surprising that their response to a pandemic is to reach for the law, rather than to use the power of persuasion and leadership to encourage people to follow advice.

It's very unfortunate that every public figure I am aware of who has argued against the government legislating on access to my home has done so by talking complete and dangerous cobblers about the virus.

I think *deep breath* that Steve Baker has spoken a lot of sense about this. He has, in essence, been saying vaccinate the vulnerable and then ease the restrictions - not been following closely enough to determine to what extent/details, etc but that seems about right.

But also, when faced with the government's behaviour, it is imo right and proper that we should also have polemicists even such as Toby and JHB (and of course our very own contrarian). When it comes to freedom it is all hands on deck.

Unless something goes catastrophically wrong it is going to be virtually impossible for the Government to resile from its latest roadmap.

What do you base that assumption on? The government could easily get away with an extension. Huge numbers of people, including voices such as yourself, are foursquare behind their strategy. The logic of that strategy facilitates an extension.

Holding the government to account involves you relying on those people you and many on here have heaped scorn on for a year.

Not a chance could they extend without any data to justify it.

The only question is if they resist bringing the end to lockdown forward as I think they should and they're currently resisting. There's no chance at all of it going back. There's no call for it, no evidence for it, no demand for it.

We have Whitty soundbiting* extra surges later in the year some time. The govt has been following the science and is bound by data, not dates. I mean I've no idea if they would or they wouldn't, but everything is in place for the data and the science to dictate that June is too early.

As I said, my $0.02 is that it is unlikely, but given the free ride the govt has had to date it's not beyond the realms of the possible.

Take the current planned end to lockdown. June. Too late, say you. Just right, say many others. Same if it was September. Too late you would say. Just right, we're following the data/science would say millions of others.

*apols for verbing "soundbite".

Its worth listening to what Whitty says in full. He's saying there will be extra surges later but that they will need to be lived with and the vaccine will prevent deaths.

To clarify I'm not saying the June one is too late. The June one includes reopening nightclubs etc and that should be done perhaps three weeks after all adults have been vaccinated, including 18-21 year olds going clubbing. So June might be right for that. Maybe it should be brought forwards, but its a bit early to answer that definitively yet.

The one I think is ridiculous is reopening indoor hospitality in May. That should be done with the outdoor hospitality in April.

There is a world of difference in reopening a restaurant, and reopening a nightclub.

Yes. Whitty says the ratio of cases to deaths will be hugely different on account of the vaccinations. But he also says that it will occur in those unvaccinated. Hence the surge.

The building blocks are in place for the govt to "follow the science" by saying we can't afford a surge.

And your ridiculous might be, say, @FrancisUrquhart or @Andy_Cooke's too early (you'll of course have to ask them - @Andy is online now I think). Given the past year there will always be people who are happy to sit out and wait longer. Plenty of them on PB.

I think the current timeline is either pretty close to right, or even may have the potential to be brought earlier - depending on how cases and hospitalisations go.
The acid test on that will be the next three weeks. If R craters even with schools back (which isn't impossible), we could be very much on the sunny side of what's possible.
Let's see.

And leave it another week or so to see the impact of Secondary Schools and Universities, as per the rise in September/October.

September/October had universities and Fresher Flu and the aftermath of foreign holidays.

Exactly - University students won't be returning for another couple of weeks (after the Easter vac) and we need to wait to see the impact of that. Hopefully, the Sept/October issue was driven by all of that coupled to the holiday travel (both local and overseas), and not just the mass movement of students around the country.

Actually some university students are already returning, but not in huge numbers. Some people have returned on the sly during lockdown, and some courses are again being taught on campus this week.

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Johnson’s decision [not to lock down] flew in the face of all the advice over the summer from the World Bank, the cross-party group of politicians and leading international public health experts. Some of his advisers were incandescent. “I don’t have sympathy for the government making the same mistake twice,” said a senior source on the Sage committee. “We told them quite clearly what they need to do for it to work. They don’t do that . . . It’s been wishful thinking all the way through. I think that probably characterises Boris Johnson, frankly.” "

...

"Vallance gave an example of what might happen if the current levels of infections were allowed to carry on doubling every week — as they appeared to be doing. This, he said, would lead to around 200-plus deaths per day by the middle of November. It was a shocking prediction that drew scathing criticism — one newspaper quoted an unnamed Tory MP describing them as Messrs “Witless and Unbalanced” for exaggerating the figures. In fact, Vallance had hugely downplayed the predicted November death figures, which would be nearer the 500 daily fatalities upper estimate he had given Johnson a few days earlier. "

...

"On October 30, the operation committee met again in Downing Street. Johnson, Sunak, Gove and Hancock were all present to listen to a presentation from Sir Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, who delivered an unequivocal message: hospitals would be overrun in every part of England within weeks if nothing was done.

The prime minister had no choice. He had to finally give in — despite everything he and his chancellor had said about their determination to avoid locking down. A decision was taken to announce a lockdown after the weekend. But fearing that Johnson might wobble again, someone in the prime minister’s close circle leaked the news to the The Times. The prime minister was forced to call a press conference the next day."

------------

Jesus.
The thing is, we all saw this coming at the time.
(The other two academics at that meeting other than Tegnell were Gupta and Heneghan. Such a surprise.)

It's only looking back that we can recall just how forecasts of 200 deaths a day were so thoroughly mocked by the lockdown sceptics. We went above that on the 21st of October and we are JUST about to drop below a 200-a-day seven day average now for the first time since then. We were past 350 a day on the 1st of November and past 400 a day by the end of the first week in November.

Thanks a bunch, Heneghan, Tegnell, Gupta, Sunak, and the Lockdown Sceptics.
And by paying the price of those thousands upon thousands of bereaved families... they ended up fucking up the economy with an even longer and deeper lockdown, anyway. Thanks to the moronic denialists.
[2/2]

Sorry if I missed it in your posts, but on what date were HMG still giving Tegnell, Gupta and Heneghan a hearing?

Mid-September.
It was thanks to them that the "circuit breaker" lockdown for early October got canned.
Leading to the full-on second wave, letting it get out of control, and needing drastic measures to bring it back under control.

They and the Lockdown Sceptics pressure (via the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs) against any restrictions (so it always got worse and needed more and more restrictions) are why we've had such a hell of a winter, and why we've been in lockdown so long.

In an alternate timeline, where they weren't listened to, we locked down in October, saw off the rise, went with tougher Tiers, and kept it all under control without kids missing one day of school or the need for any full-on lockdown.

This is the Sunak/Gupta/Heneghan lockdown - needed thanks to their idiocy.

Except circuit breakers don't work.

Wales tried the circuit break, it was a miserable failure.

Other nations around the globe have tried circuit breaks. Not one of them has succeeded.

So other than that, good point, well done.

They do work. It's coming out of them that doesn't work as well.
The four week circuit break in November brought it down.
The nine weeks since early January has worked as well.

Call it what you like; we're talking about applying lockdown rules for a given period to bring down infection rates. And every time we've done this, infection rates have dropped.

Lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't. That's the point.

The second you lift the "circuit break" cases instantly start rising again. And if its only 2 weeks that achieves squat since people party "last night of freedom" before the 2 weeks, then party "wahay free again" afterwards counteracting the whole point of just 2 weeks which isn't long enough to do much.

So you can't point to today's lockdown and act as if it would have all been avoidable had we just wished it away with a 2 week circuit break. 2 weeks doesn't work.

If you want a lockdown, fair enough, but then don't complain about having a lockdown. The idea a lockdown could be avoided if we'd just done one for 2 weeks then got back to normal is farcical wishful thinking.

If the 4 weeks in November worked then you can't blame today's lockdown on not having a 2 week one in October.

A circuit breaker is slang for a short lockdown. Can a lockdown be so short as to not work because the "last night party" effect outweighs the gains? Yes. But can a lockdown be long enough to work but still short enough to be called a circuit breaker? Also yes.

Ergo "lockdowns work, circuit breaks don't" = tilt.

How short is short enough to still be called a circuit breaker? Especially when the circuit breaker has been defined as 2 weeks.

If you say that a circuit break works, so long as you don't come out of it, then that is a lockdown not a circuit break. A circuit break only works if you can come out of it in the time stated.

Can you name any country, anywhere, which has had significant case numbers and rising cases which has seen a 2 week circuit break work?

I'm wasn't aware we had an accepted definition of it as being of duration 2 weeks.

Link?

Barnesian said:

justin124 said:

The Redfield & Wilton poll is good for the Tories but does tend to suggest that Yougov's 32% Labour share was too low.

EMA now shows Tories on 41.9%, Labour on 36.1%.
That's a lead of nearly 6% for the Tories.
Tory overall majority of 28

Gallowgate said:

eek said:

Gallowgate said:

mwadams said:

Philip_Thompson said:

mwadams said:

Andy_Cooke said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

contrarian said:

DougSeal said:

TOPPING said:

LostPassword said:

TOPPING said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

TOPPING said:

Selebian said:

rottenborough said:

contrarian said:

Why is Whitty not challenged with evidence from America that the link between covid and lockdown is not what he and the rest of the SAGE committee manifestly assume it is? ie a thermostatic central heating link?

Or on the models. Why did they get Sweden so utterly wrong if the model is an accurate reflection of real life?

The models are (if correctly specified) an accurate (within predictable uncertainty) reflection of what happens if the assumptions underlying the model are true.

The models from early on set out predictions on what would happen if various actions were taken/not taken. They assumed, largely, that in the absence of legal restrictions, people would behave as normal. Sweden diverged from the models because although few restrictions were put in early on the government did ask people to reduce doing certain things and the Swedes, being Swedes, did so (the model may still have been wrong in many ways, but results in Sweden being less bad than a modelled scenario of life as usual is not evidence for the model being wrong when life and actions were far from usual.

Early on, that's more or less what you can do - model what happens if you mostly stop certain activities and what happens in you carry on. You could of course model assuming that you ban nothing, but levels of x decrease by 40% anyway due to people taking precautions, but there's no real evidence base to get that 40%.

What we've seen so far will probably help to fine tune "worst case" models in future as we'll have a better idea of how bad things can get before people self-impose restrictions and avert the naive worst case.

@rcs1000 is always saying, when discussing formal lockdowns, that, and I paraphrase: "the people will do it anyway". And he says it to prove that one way or another there will be lockdown, whether legislatively or voluntarily.

But this is to miss the point. Given the huge restriction of our freedoms imposed upon us by the government, I would be much happier with a voluntary one. Would it work? Not sure. That is the crux of the govt action. They don't trust us. Not in a conspiracy theory kind of way, just that they don't trust us to do the "right" thing.

As @eek said, upthread:

"Many states are fully open because well it's the States and freedom trumps everything else."

I don't know if he realised the irony of his post because it could be read as disparaging - but that's the thing - freedom trumps if not everything then a hell of a lot.

The difference between an official lock down and an unofficial one is that the government can be reasonably expected make some effort to compensate businesses and workers affected by the former while in the latter case many more will just go bust.

That is very true. Plus being bloody-minded Brits we are as likely as not to ignore it.

But there is something that sits very uneasily with legislative restrictions on behaviour.

I'm not happy with the government legislating over who can enter my private home. But this is an abstract unhappiness, since I'm not inclined to let anyone in anyway due to the pandemic.

I think there has been decades of governments creating new crimes to an excessive degree, so perhaps it should not be surprising that their response to a pandemic is to reach for the law, rather than to use the power of persuasion and leadership to encourage people to follow advice.

It's very unfortunate that every public figure I am aware of who has argued against the government legislating on access to my home has done so by talking complete and dangerous cobblers about the virus.

I think *deep breath* that Steve Baker has spoken a lot of sense about this. He has, in essence, been saying vaccinate the vulnerable and then ease the restrictions - not been following closely enough to determine to what extent/details, etc but that seems about right.

But also, when faced with the government's behaviour, it is imo right and proper that we should also have polemicists even such as Toby and JHB (and of course our very own contrarian). When it comes to freedom it is all hands on deck.

Unless something goes catastrophically wrong it is going to be virtually impossible for the Government to resile from its latest roadmap.

What do you base that assumption on? The government could easily get away with an extension. Huge numbers of people, including voices such as yourself, are foursquare behind their strategy. The logic of that strategy facilitates an extension.

Holding the government to account involves you relying on those people you and many on here have heaped scorn on for a year.

Not a chance could they extend without any data to justify it.

The only question is if they resist bringing the end to lockdown forward as I think they should and they're currently resisting. There's no chance at all of it going back. There's no call for it, no evidence for it, no demand for it.

We have Whitty soundbiting* extra surges later in the year some time. The govt has been following the science and is bound by data, not dates. I mean I've no idea if they would or they wouldn't, but everything is in place for the data and the science to dictate that June is too early.

As I said, my $0.02 is that it is unlikely, but given the free ride the govt has had to date it's not beyond the realms of the possible.

Take the current planned end to lockdown. June. Too late, say you. Just right, say many others. Same if it was September. Too late you would say. Just right, we're following the data/science would say millions of others.

*apols for verbing "soundbite".

Its worth listening to what Whitty says in full. He's saying there will be extra surges later but that they will need to be lived with and the vaccine will prevent deaths.

To clarify I'm not saying the June one is too late. The June one includes reopening nightclubs etc and that should be done perhaps three weeks after all adults have been vaccinated, including 18-21 year olds going clubbing. So June might be right for that. Maybe it should be brought forwards, but its a bit early to answer that definitively yet.

The one I think is ridiculous is reopening indoor hospitality in May. That should be done with the outdoor hospitality in April.

There is a world of difference in reopening a restaurant, and reopening a nightclub.

Yes. Whitty says the ratio of cases to deaths will be hugely different on account of the vaccinations. But he also says that it will occur in those unvaccinated. Hence the surge.

The building blocks are in place for the govt to "follow the science" by saying we can't afford a surge.

And your ridiculous might be, say, @FrancisUrquhart or @Andy_Cooke's too early (you'll of course have to ask them - @Andy is online now I think). Given the past year there will always be people who are happy to sit out and wait longer. Plenty of them on PB.

I think the current timeline is either pretty close to right, or even may have the potential to be brought earlier - depending on how cases and hospitalisations go.
The acid test on that will be the next three weeks. If R craters even with schools back (which isn't impossible), we could be very much on the sunny side of what's possible.
Let's see.

And leave it another week or so to see the impact of Secondary Schools and Universities, as per the rise in September/October.

September/October had universities and Fresher Flu and the aftermath of foreign holidays.

Exactly - University students won't be returning for another couple of weeks (after the Easter vac) and we need to wait to see the impact of that. Hopefully, the Sept/October issue was driven by all of that coupled to the holiday travel (both local and overseas), and not just the mass movement of students around the country.

Actually some university students are already returning, but not in huge numbers. Some people have returned on the sly during lockdown, and some courses are again being taught on campus this week.

Durham is surprisingly full of students - but given the choice of at home with parents or in the house you are paying for with mates I can see the attraction.

Yeah, that seems to be the rational. "Why keep living with my parents when I could be living in a house with my mates that I'm paying for anyway?"

LostPassword said:

AlistairM said:

Here's the school testing coming in...



Cases still down on last week...

An extra 700,000 tests, but only an extra 1,000 cases, so the false positive rate cannot be higher than 1-in-700 (and then only if all the cases were false positives). Would anyone who was touting a higher figure care to comment?

Given the ONS figures on virus prevalence it looks like there's a large false negative rate (though we hope that's because the lateral flow tests only give positive results while people are infectious).

felix said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Oh dear, I see Piers Moron, so popular with the twitterati over the past year, not so popular now. Now calling for his sacking, and an online petition of course.

It would be amusing if this issue brought him down. I'm unclear if there'll be much sympathy for him regardless of views on MM.

kle4 said:

TimT said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

gealbhan said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Malmesbury said:

TimT said:

Malmesbury said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Another very poor day of vaccination numbers. This bumper March thing hasn't got off to a very good start.

From the health service letter referenced the other days, the "bumper March thing" starts the week beginning the 15th.

It was quite specific that supplies would be poor for the week starting the 8th - this week.

EDIT - https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2021/03/C1165-COVID-19-vaccination-deployment-next-steps-and-plans-for-weeks-of-8-and-15-March.pdf

FURTHER EDIT - "From 11 March, vaccine supply will increase substantially and be sustained at a higher level for several weeks. Therefore, from the week of 15 March we are now asking systems to plan and support all vaccination centres and local vaccination services to deliver around twice the level of vaccine available in the week of 1 March."

And if 250,000 is our definition of a poor day now, is that not a reflection of just how well things have gone to date?

Clearly this is a supply issue, which we were warned about and which we were told would be fixed in mid-March

Worth noting that the figures for 1st-7th March were 2,428,631 total vaccinations

So they are saying it will be 4.8m a week or so... 700k a day average.... which is not far off a "year" of the population per day.

Its essentially an entire 5-year cohort per week isn't it?

We should be completed vaccinating the over 50s and doing 40-somethings before the end of March. Add 3 weeks for middle of April and there's no excuse not to open indoors by then.

Yet even with the vaccination, it comes back and surges again. Apparently. According to top scientists. 😕

“ Virus will surge at some point - either in the summer after the gradual easing of lockdown - or as a result of the seasonal effect, in autumn and winter.”

How’s that happen then?

For the same reason the flu comes back every year.

We will just have to live with it, as he said and explained.

We're still needing to explain the concept of disease?

Actually, when a run workshops on infection control for physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers, yes, I feel a need to start by explaining disease.

What, that they exist?

TimT said:

MarqueeMark said:

malcolmg said:

This is lucky is it not...........
Records of meetings between Nicola Sturgeon, permanent secretary Leslie Evans and the Scottish Government’s legal counsel about the investigation into Alex Salmond cannot be found, John Swinney has confirmed. https://bit.ly/2N6wz20

Shameful.

I don't understand this. Surely, the external counsel also took their own notes of the meeting. Are they in on the conspiracy? If not, why has the Council not asked Swinney to seek Counsel's notes of the meeting in lieu of the government's notes? I presume they cannot claim client privilege in these circumstances.

justin124 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

justin124 said:

The Redfield & Wilton poll is good for the Tories but does tend to suggest that Yougov's 32% Labour share was too low.

True to form, always sees a positive for Labour in a poll...

I did not vote Labour in 2019 - nor did I do so at the elections held from 1997 to 2010 inclusive. It is,however, worth reflecting that Labour's 36% given by Redfield Wilton matches Blair's share in 2005 - and is very close to what Cameron polled in 2010 and 2015.

kle4 said:

kinabalu said:

felix said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Oh dear, I see Piers Moron, so popular with the twitterati over the past year, not so popular now. Now calling for his sacking, and an online petition of course.

It would be amusing if this issue brought him down. I'm unclear if there'll be much sympathy for him regardless of views on MM.

It won't bring him down. He'll be loving it. There are 4 little words that he values above all else. That he lives and breathes for. That keep his pecker pointing skywards and the moolah pouring into his groaning bank account.

"Piers Morgan is trending."

I've said before I have a weird respect for Piers Morgan. I've been aware of him as a person for nearly 20 years and in all that time it seems as though everyone hates him, yet he's managed to have what appears to be a successful and diverse career in that time.

Floater said:

malcolmg said:

This is lucky is it not...........
Records of meetings between Nicola Sturgeon, permanent secretary Leslie Evans and the Scottish Government’s legal counsel about the investigation into Alex Salmond cannot be found, John Swinney has confirmed. https://bit.ly/2N6wz20

How is Evans still in a job?

rottenborough said:

And so it begins.

How many days before we are being told the roadmap is on hold due to a spike in cases?

https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1369301855348666376

Floater said:

TimT said:

Floater said:

TimT said:

MarqueeMark said:

malcolmg said:

This is lucky is it not...........
Records of meetings between Nicola Sturgeon, permanent secretary Leslie Evans and the Scottish Government’s legal counsel about the investigation into Alex Salmond cannot be found, John Swinney has confirmed. https://bit.ly/2N6wz20

Shameful.

I don't understand this. Surely, the external counsel also took their own notes of the meeting. Are they in on the conspiracy? If not, why has the Council not asked Swinney to seek Counsel's notes of the meeting in lieu of the government's notes? I presume they cannot claim client privilege in these circumstances.

I would not be surprised if they could claim privilege

Counsel might, but surely if the government waived privilege they'd have no basis on which to object?

The government is doing all it can to avoid handing out this info......

kinabalu said:

Alphabet_Soup said:

Floater said:

OOps

https://order-order.com/2021/03/09/no-bregrets-just-39-of-brits-want-to-re-join-the-eu/

Another slow hand clap for the EU

A lot of timid folk, such as myself, voted for the status quo in 2016. It stands to reason, therefore, that we would now tend to vote to stay out, rather than repeating the tortuous negotiations of the past 4 years. On the other hand, a few of those who voted Leave are lifelong radicals always on the lookout for something to change. It's hard to see how rejoining the EU would satisfy their craving.

Yes, and there were many like you. Leavers, really, but too wussy to vote for it. This is why 52/48 does not sum up the result. It wasn't, in truth, that close. The true mood of the nation was clear Leave. It was a mood landslide.

kle4 said:

kinabalu said:

felix said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Oh dear, I see Piers Moron, so popular with the twitterati over the past year, not so popular now. Now calling for his sacking, and an online petition of course.

It would be amusing if this issue brought him down. I'm unclear if there'll be much sympathy for him regardless of views on MM.

It won't bring him down. He'll be loving it. There are 4 little words that he values above all else. That he lives and breathes for. That keep his pecker pointing skywards and the moolah pouring into his groaning bank account.

"Piers Morgan is trending."

I've said before I have a weird respect for Piers Morgan. I've been aware of him as a person for nearly 20 years and in all that time it seems as though everyone hates him, yet he's managed to have what appears to be a successful and diverse career in that time.

DougSeal said:

Andy_Cooke said:

LostPassword said:

AlistairM said:

Here's the school testing coming in...



Cases still down on last week...

An extra 700,000 tests, but only an extra 1,000 cases, so the false positive rate cannot be higher than 1-in-700 (and then only if all the cases were false positives). Would anyone who was touting a higher figure care to comment?

Given the ONS figures on virus prevalence it looks like there's a large false negative rate (though we hope that's because the lateral flow tests only give positive results while people are infectious).

Well, that's a bloody encouraging result.
It's got to be plausible that we're now picking up a majority of infectious people in the case numbers.
In which case, if most of those do self-isolate - well. Makes it very difficult indeed for the virus if that happens.

We have not reached herd immunity but that's not a switch that gets flipped suddenly. Around a third of England has been infected at some point, add the vaccinated, and the ability to transmit is severely hampered. There have been two solid falls in the Zoe app the last couple of days which is mighty encouraging.

Anabobazina said:

CarlottaVance said:

As noted above - testing!

Crikey! And 231 very low for a Tuesday. We could be looking at daily averages sub 100 within a fortnight.

FrancisUrquhart said:

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/BellaWallerstei/status/1369283021573079047?s=20

Obviously never going to happen, nor any tough interviewer, as there was enough holes in some of the stories for it to go south very quickly.

Philip_Thompson said:

rottenborough said:

And so it begins.

How many days before we are being told the roadmap is on hold due to a spike in cases?

https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1369301855348666376

Why is she blaming the government for this and not the school, given the DfE's line is that the PCR test trumps the LTF if its negative? 😕

Oh actually look who the Tweet comes from. Nevermind. 🙄

Andy_Cooke said:

DougSeal said:

Andy_Cooke said:

LostPassword said:

AlistairM said:

Here's the school testing coming in...



Cases still down on last week...

An extra 700,000 tests, but only an extra 1,000 cases, so the false positive rate cannot be higher than 1-in-700 (and then only if all the cases were false positives). Would anyone who was touting a higher figure care to comment?

Given the ONS figures on virus prevalence it looks like there's a large false negative rate (though we hope that's because the lateral flow tests only give positive results while people are infectious).

Well, that's a bloody encouraging result.
It's got to be plausible that we're now picking up a majority of infectious people in the case numbers.
In which case, if most of those do self-isolate - well. Makes it very difficult indeed for the virus if that happens.

We have not reached herd immunity but that's not a switch that gets flipped suddenly. Around a third of England has been infected at some point, add the vaccinated, and the ability to transmit is severely hampered. There have been two solid falls in the Zoe app the last couple of days which is mighty encouraging.

Very positive about this so far.
As you say - erosion of transmission is a sliding scale, and with the vaccinated-for-three weeks plus even conservative estimates of the infected-and-recovered, we're looking at downwards pressure on R of around a factor of 1.75 (only around 57% of the country targetable at best). Even with the effect on transmission being only, say, a conservative 85%, it's still a 1.5-times reduction in R against whatever background we're at.

And with a positivity rate of around 0.4%, we've surely got to be picking up a really big chunk of the infectious.

I'd think that inside Government right now, they're looking at the figures with considerable (if fairly disbelieving) relief. Of course, it's way, way too early to draw conclusions, but I'd have bitten your hand off to the elbow for figures like these against test numbers like those.

kle4 said:

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1369332168116350978?s=20

I love the marathon/sprint analogy, used to claim going faster is a bad thing essentially (until they have gone faster). People still run fast in a marathon, in fact they go as fast as they possibly can. If they could physically sprint a marathon they would.

rottenborough said:

Philip_Thompson said:

rottenborough said:

And so it begins.

How many days before we are being told the roadmap is on hold due to a spike in cases?

https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1369301855348666376

Why is she blaming the government for this and not the school, given the DfE's line is that the PCR test trumps the LTF if its negative? 😕

Oh actually look who the Tweet comes from. Nevermind. 🙄

No. The policy for a PCR is only called for if the lateral test was done at home, not by the school.


"What happens if a test is positive?

If anyone’s test is positive, they should immediately start isolating in line with public health guidance. Members of their household should also start isolating.

Where a pupil’s test has been taken on site under supervision, the chance of it being incorrect is minimal so there is no need for a further test to confirm the result.

All pupils, staff, and their households who take their tests at home should report the results by calling 119 or through the online form."

If taken correctly, there is a very small chance of a home test being wrong but there is a slightly higher chance of it being administered incorrectly. As such, if a pupil, member of staff or a member of their household gets a positive result at home they should report the result and arrange to have a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test by following this link.

In the event that the PCR test is negative – that they do not have Covid 19 – this overrides the lateral flow test if it was taken at home and they should therefore return to school."


https://dfemedia.blog.gov.uk/2021/03/09/covid-testing-in-schools-who-will-get-tested-how-and-where-will-they-be-tested-who-has-to-isolate-after-a-positive-test-these-questions-and-more-answered/