It is the next big scandal waiting to happen. It’s an issue that crosses party lines and has tainted our politics for too long, an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money.
I’m talking about lobbying – and we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism. We believe in market economics, not crony capitalism. So we must be the party that sorts all this out.
Now, I want to be clear: it’s not just big business that gets involved in lobbying. Charities and other organisations, including trade unions, do it too. What’s more, when it's open and transparent, when people know who is meeting who, for what reason and with what outcome, lobbying is perfectly reasonable.
It’s important that businesses, charities and other organisations feel they can make sure their voice is heard. And indeed, lobbying often makes for better, more workable, legislation. But I believe that it is increasingly clear that lobbying in this country is getting out of control.
Today it is a £2 billion industry that has a huge presence in Parliament. The Hansard Society has estimated that some MPs are approached over one hundred times a week by lobbyists. Much of the time this happens covertly.
We don’t know who is meeting whom. We don’t know whether any favours are being exchanged. We don’t know which outside interests are wielding unhealthy influence. This isn’t a minor issue with minor consequences. Commercial interests - not to mention government contracts - worth hundreds of billions of pounds are potentially at stake.
I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people’s worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works, with money buying power, power fishing for money and a cosy club at the top making decisions in their own interest.
We can’t go on like this. I believe it’s time we shone the light of transparency on lobbying in our country and forced our politics to come clean about who is buying power and influence.
to the Greensill share options and 'lessons to be learned'.
Cameron has disgraced himself, his reputation is in tatters.
I liked him but he is now clearly forevermore the Disgraced Former Prime Minister David Cameron.
Poor old TSE must be in mourning.
Indeed. And what now for Alastair Meeks' much-mourned 'era of dull competence'. Turns out it was the era of trousering enormous amounts of cash and not being clever enough to cover your tracks.
The issue isn't Cameron as a historically corrupt politician. He wasn't corrupt. He is being lined up as the fall guy.
The issue is Cameron's recent relationship with friends in cabinet, and they look a bit iffy. The malodor is recent and not a throwback to the days before the fragrant Johnson drained the swamp.
Former Labour MP says the rich should be abolished to solve the climate crisis
If that was "Former Labour MP says WHITE MALE rich should be abolished to solve the climate crisis and END INJUSTICE", it would hit all the points in the Guardianista manifesto.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Former Labour MP says the rich should be abolished to solve the climate crisis
If that was "Former Labour MP says WHITE MALE rich should be abolished to solve the climate crisis and END INJUSTICE", it would hit all the points in the Guardianista manifesto.
Friend of mine has been sent a vaccination invite right at the same time as she's been sent home from work and needs a Covid test. Hopefully it'll be negative, she cleans in a food processing enviroment though and is only just under 50.
I just booked mine on line without waiting for a letter. 6 days leadtime
Ursula von der Leyen says the EU is negotiating a new contract with BioNTech/Pfizer for 1.8bn doses for 2022-2023 with the full supply chain in the EU.
Sounds like the price just went up quite a bit!
It is worth remembering that the EU, unlike the UK and US, has not agreed to indemnify vaccine providers against any costs of side effects emerging from vaccine use. So, the AZ and J&J blood clotting problems should result in the EU having to pay more as it's now more likely Pfizer will be on the hook for something (ignoring the fact that it's a completely different type of vaccine).
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
There seems to be a lot of anger at not instantly unlocking completely. We have to remember:
1 - We are not at herd immunity yet. If we were, the ONS infection figures would be dropping at 70%+ per week; in the latest week, they increased slightly. Our antibody levels have increased slightly since then, but they won't have increased enough to cause R to drop by a factor of 2-3.
Accordingly, we eliminate all restrictions and go back to normal right NOW and infections will skyrocket.
2 - While we've heavily eroded the link between infections and hospitalisations, it's not completely broken. Group 2 is largely unvaccinated, and most of Group 1 is only single-dosed. That provides considerable protection, and the "get one dose out as fast as possible" route was certainly the best way to move with limited supplies, but it doesn't yet provide the full protection. From breakthrough infections and infections in the unvaccinated, we can easily get enough to (re-)flood the NHS. Just because infections, hospitalisations, and deaths are low today doesn't mean that everything's all gone away. Hell, from Group 2 alone, we can swamp ICUs.
3 - It does affect younger age groups - just at a lower rate than the older ones, and, with hospital support, is considerably more survivable in the younger groups. Statements like "the young are unaffected by the virus" are simply false. Brazil has a considerably younger age skew than the UK, and now half of all covid patients in ICUs there are under 40. Given that their healthcare system is well into collapse, we can surmise that they're already triaging considerably.
4 - The ever-widening vaccination programme is providing more and more first doses and really boosting second doses. Every single day takes us closer to that hoped-for herd immunity. It's just not instant.
5 - If we unlock too soon and infections skyrocket, and then hospitalisations start to follow ten days later (albeit at a slower slope than before - but with exponential growth, able to go upwards just as it did before) then regardless of what people say, they WOULD re-impose restrictions. They wouldn't simply shrug as hospitals overloaded again. And people WOULD largely follow them again. We heard "they'll never do a second lockdown" through most of last summer. There was less "they'll never do a third lockdown" but some still said it. Anyone saying "they'll never do a fourth lockdown" is just repeating what was wrong before.
I'm impatient; God knows. I've found myself more and more prone to being on an emotional rollercoaster as this goes on and on and bloody on. But wanting something to be true has never made it true, no matter how hard I want it to be, and that's just as true today as it's ever been.
Very good summary of the current situation. We need to move as fast as is safe but no faster.
Goodness knows how most other European countries are feeling right now.
What we are disagreeing about here is the definition of "safe", which is a purely subjective term. Is it "safe" crossing the road? No, it's not, but there are things we can do to mitigate the risk and ultimately we can decide whether it is "safe" to cross the road ... even though it can never be, as long as there are vehicles on it.
The government has got itself into a position on COVID where there is zero appetite for any COVID risk at all, hence "safe". This is a ludicrous situation when the vulnerable are now protected, the NHS is not overwhelmed and when there are greater risks to public health than COVID out there that are not being dealt with.
I hate the use of the word "safe" by politicians ... what a cop-out. They need to be held to account about what level of COVID risk they are prepared to tolerate politically. Why do we tolerate the level of flu deaths per year? Without checking, I'd guess our current COVID death run rate is below that already. Worrying about future variants and whether the vaccine will be effective is an exercise in futility because it cannot be predicted.
They are acting as if they are following a zero-COVID policy and if that is the case they need to be up front about it and see if the public are willing to accept perpetual lockdowns, because it seems to me that's what zero-COVID means.
Gibraltar is very encouraging, they've clearly gone past vaccine threshold sterlising immunity without paediatric vaccination - so we can get there too. An occasional case does pop up, but it's always just one case in isolation all through April and then no more.
There seems to be a lot of anger at not instantly unlocking completely. We have to remember:
1 - We are not at herd immunity yet. If we were, the ONS infection figures would be dropping at 70%+ per week; in the latest week, they increased slightly. Our antibody levels have increased slightly since then, but they won't have increased enough to cause R to drop by a factor of 2-3.
Accordingly, we eliminate all restrictions and go back to normal right NOW and infections will skyrocket.
2 - While we've heavily eroded the link between infections and hospitalisations, it's not completely broken. Group 2 is largely unvaccinated, and most of Group 1 is only single-dosed. That provides considerable protection, and the "get one dose out as fast as possible" route was certainly the best way to move with limited supplies, but it doesn't yet provide the full protection. From breakthrough infections and infections in the unvaccinated, we can easily get enough to (re-)flood the NHS. Just because infections, hospitalisations, and deaths are low today doesn't mean that everything's all gone away. Hell, from Group 2 alone, we can swamp ICUs.
3 - It does affect younger age groups - just at a lower rate than the older ones, and, with hospital support, is considerably more survivable in the younger groups. Statements like "the young are unaffected by the virus" are simply false. Brazil has a considerably younger age skew than the UK, and now half of all covid patients in ICUs there are under 40. Given that their healthcare system is well into collapse, we can surmise that they're already triaging considerably.
4 - The ever-widening vaccination programme is providing more and more first doses and really boosting second doses. Every single day takes us closer to that hoped-for herd immunity. It's just not instant.
5 - If we unlock too soon and infections skyrocket, and then hospitalisations start to follow ten days later (albeit at a slower slope than before - but with exponential growth, able to go upwards just as it did before) then regardless of what people say, they WOULD re-impose restrictions. They wouldn't simply shrug as hospitals overloaded again. And people WOULD largely follow them again. We heard "they'll never do a second lockdown" through most of last summer. There was less "they'll never do a third lockdown" but some still said it. Anyone saying "they'll never do a fourth lockdown" is just repeating what was wrong before.
I'm impatient; God knows. I've found myself more and more prone to being on an emotional rollercoaster as this goes on and on and bloody on. But wanting something to be true has never made it true, no matter how hard I want it to be, and that's just as true today as it's ever been.
Thank you, Andy - an unpleasant but very salutary and necessary bucket of cold water. In the spirit of optimism, do you have a current estimate for when you think we're likely to pass the point of danger? I'd be very interested to hear it, and I'm sure others would too.
I did do a quick-and-dirty model based on the antibody level from two weeks ago, and assuming one dose or prior infection impairs transmission by 60%, while two doses or infection-plus-one-dose impairs it by 90%.
And roll-out average of 67 million first doses and 335 million second doses (or first-dose-plus-prior-infection) per day between now and end of April, increasing to 268 million first doses and 500 second doses (or first-dose-plus-prior-infection) per day after that.
It gave us hitting an impairment in R of about a factor of 2 right now, a factor of 2.5 by mid-May... and going past the inflexion point on the reciprocal curve to climb rapidly after that, hitting a factor of 4.5 (which should be enough to bring even Kent Covid down to below 1) by mid-to-late June.
It lines up spookily closely with the roadmap - to an extent that makes me suspicious of how well it aligns. And it's based on a massive series of assumptions, but the shape of a reciprocal curve is well known and it will accelerate hugely past a certain point.
This is a scrawl (I won't dignify it with the term "graph") of how it comes out.
The blue line is the effective proportion of immunity-to-transmission; the orange line is the factor by which R is reduced. The dashed green line is the handwavily guesstimated R0 of Kent Covid.
As emphasised above - massive assumptions and guesses throughout, but it's the shape of the orange line (which is accentuated by the inflexion point coming at around the point I'm assuming an uptick in vaccine supplies) that's crucial and will be valid; just with different slope due to assumptions when they change.
That's very interesting, thank you - I hadn't realized that the rate of reduction in R would change shape and accelerate in that way. And you're right, the alignment of dates is downright spooky.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
Florida. Texas.
Ah, the denialist switching around to try to cherry-pick whatever they can. We don't hear about Brazil, the major country run by a true Lockdown Sceptic. Or Chile, or Uruguay, or Poland, or Czechia. Or that urban areas in Texas that do have mask mandates (because county-level powers are considerably higher there than here) have significantly lower death rates. Missed that point, inexplicably. Or people getting their doors kicked in for posting accurate stats on Florida issues. Or that things like mask mandates and restrictions vary hugely across the various areas and counties of both Florida and Texas.
But what we do know is that the moment things don't suit your narrative in Texas or Florida, they'll be abandoned as quickly as Sweden, or India (herd immunity? Nope), or IFR calculations that show a missed decimal points.
Because you're not interested in how things actually are. We've seen that over the past year, with "choosing" Gupta and her model regardless of whether it fit reality, with choosing to believe Yeadon and Cummins because they were saying what you wanted to be true, with choosing to believe the absurd FALSE POSITIVES and CASEDEMIC narratives.
Just how you can argue things, in support of "It's not happening it's not happening it's not happening it's not happening"
This virus doesn't care how you argue, how I argue, how anyone argues. It's not sentient. It can't be argued with, or reasoned with, or anything like that. It just does what it does, unless we stop it.
Of course you and Malmsbury are basing your arguments on Covid gold standard country Chile
FFS Andy.
I think Andy typed a few other words in addition to Chile.
It was a beautiful illustration of my entire point about cherry-picking. I'm tempted to believe it was deliberate and tongue-in-cheek by him.
With the success of how they managed COVID and GOT BREXIT DONE the Tories are not just on for a Stella night, heaping the pressure on Starmer, but Labour can now write off the next General Election too. Starmer will be replaced then or before then, what do Labour do, skip a generation to someone we have hardly heard of?
Meanwhile in the big news story, Daily Star has more on the aliens who have, allegedly, made a deal with Trump.
Maybe the deal was to have replaced Biden with a robot, Biden does come across as someone losing his faculties at an alarming rate.
You are ignoring the fact when the county council seats up this year were last up in 2017 the Tories had an 11% lead, most current polls have the Tories lead on less than that so Labour should actually make gains, at least at county level.
Given Corbyn survived losing 382 Labour county councillors and control of 7 county councils in 2017 Starmer will certainly survive making Labour gains at county level.
Given too Labour only got 27% in the 2017 counties and 31% in the 2016 district elections which were when the local seats up this year were last up, even the 34% Yougov has Labour now on would be an improvement (other pollsters have Labour on 36%).
In fact given the LDs 15% in 2016 and 18% in 2017 and are now polling under 10% they may face the biggest losses, on paper at least, though they tend to do better locally than nationally
In your post just below this one Mike you pointed out this is a new landscape. No UKIP. By delivering painless brexit (WWIII not broken out yet) Boris has shored up his Dec 19 vote. He has voters UKIP once pulled from Labour and Conservative. On top of that, Boris government has ensured we are just one of two nations to have beaten COVID and back to normal. As Marquee says, excellent reports back from the doorsteps.
Tories will achieve way about 40% here not less than 38.
Out of the two arguments on here today, this is the more persuasive one, HY data is unreliable against this backdrop.
It’s a new Landscape, that ensures the Tories have the next GE sown up as well.
In the 2017 local elections the Tories got 38% and Corbyn Labour got just 27%, an 11% lead.
The latest Yougov has the Tories on 41% and Starmer Labour on 34%, so even if the Tories get over 40% in the county elections their lead will be smaller and Labour will make gains (with both parties likely squeezing the LDs who got 18% in the 2017 locals).
UKIP will be less of a factor in the county elections as they only got 4% in 2017 anyway, the Tories if they make gains will likely do so in the district elections where the Tories only got 30% when they were last up in 2016 with UKIP on 12%, thus a much bigger UKIP vote in the district elections for the Tories to squeeze
The obvious mistake you are making is Labour voters now vote Tory.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
I think the ONS detected it in a couple of areas, but they didn't see any resulting rise in the hospitalisation rate.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
Florida. Texas.
Ah, the denialist switching around to try to cherry-pick whatever they can. We don't hear about Brazil, the major country run by a true Lockdown Sceptic. Or Chile, or Uruguay, or Poland, or Czechia. Or that urban areas in Texas that do have mask mandates (because county-level powers are considerably higher there than here) have significantly lower death rates. Missed that point, inexplicably. Or people getting their doors kicked in for posting accurate stats on Florida issues. Or that things like mask mandates and restrictions vary hugely across the various areas and counties of both Florida and Texas.
But what we do know is that the moment things don't suit your narrative in Texas or Florida, they'll be abandoned as quickly as Sweden, or India (herd immunity? Nope), or IFR calculations that show a missed decimal points.
Because you're not interested in how things actually are. We've seen that over the past year, with "choosing" Gupta and her model regardless of whether it fit reality, with choosing to believe Yeadon and Cummins because they were saying what you wanted to be true, with choosing to believe the absurd FALSE POSITIVES and CASEDEMIC narratives.
Just how you can argue things, in support of "It's not happening it's not happening it's not happening it's not happening"
This virus doesn't care how you argue, how I argue, how anyone argues. It's not sentient. It can't be argued with, or reasoned with, or anything like that. It just does what it does, unless we stop it.
Some believe he brings a "necessary different perspective" to PB Covid debate. I'm not convinced of this myself.
But he does add value because his shtick often triggers one of your exocets. Which look good in flight and rarely miss.
Ursula von der Leyen says the EU is negotiating a new contract with BioNTech/Pfizer for 1.8bn doses for 2022-2023 with the full supply chain in the EU.
Sounds like the price just went up quite a bit!
It is worth remembering that the EU, unlike the UK and US, has not agreed to indemnify vaccine providers against any costs of side effects emerging from vaccine use. So, the AZ and J&J blood clotting problems should result in the EU having to pay more as it's now more likely Pfizer will be on the hook for something (ignoring the fact that it's a completely different type of vaccine).
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
I'm still not sure how much the increase in cases when the kids went back was due to (a) a real increase in infections or (b) picking up many more asymptomatic infections via the huge increase in lateral flow tests (which were not always confirmed by PCR). No system is perfect, but it seemed to me that the increase was more likely reflecting picking up more cases, than an overall change in rate.
Just checked my vaccine appointment for Sunday and there is a warning that you will need to wait 15 minutes after taking the vaccine. I suspect that means I (and everyone else under 50) is getting Moderna as I think that has the same adverse reaction checks that pfizer needs.
I was wondering that - got the same warning. Are people with AZ being made to wait as well for simplicity?
Just checked my vaccine appointment for Sunday and there is a warning that you will need to wait 15 minutes after taking the vaccine. I suspect that means I (and everyone else under 50) is getting Moderna as I think that has the same adverse reaction checks that pfizer needs.
I was wondering that - got the same warning. Are people with AZ being made to wait as well for simplicity?
No, I just walked out of there. The wait was before the jab – two hours.
Went to court last November, but her barrister collapsed and had to be rushed to hospital, according the Wikipedia! And there, for the moment the matter rests.
Ursula von der Leyen says the EU is negotiating a new contract with BioNTech/Pfizer for 1.8bn doses for 2022-2023 with the full supply chain in the EU.
Sounds like the price just went up quite a bit!
It is worth remembering that the EU, unlike the UK and US, has not agreed to indemnify vaccine providers against any costs of side effects emerging from vaccine use. So, the AZ and J&J blood clotting problems should result in the EU having to pay more as it's now more likely Pfizer will be on the hook for something (ignoring the fact that it's a completely different type of vaccine).
That's ok but ultimately they really needed that last quarter and to adjust the rollout to match our first dose prioritisation. I think this is in addition to the 100m already expected so that makes 150m until the end of June plus about 50m from Moderna until then too. If they are able to cover 200m first doses with that it would basically end the pandemic on Europe by the middle of July. Unfortunately they'll only get around 80m people done instead.
Just checked my vaccine appointment for Sunday and there is a warning that you will need to wait 15 minutes after taking the vaccine. I suspect that means I (and everyone else under 50) is getting Moderna as I think that has the same adverse reaction checks that pfizer needs.
I was wondering that - got the same warning. Are people with AZ being made to wait as well for simplicity?
We were asked to wait for 15 mins after the AZ vaccine too. In the end I bumped into a colleague and had a chat.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
I'm still not sure how much the increase in cases when the kids went back was due to (a) a real increase in infections or (b) picking up many more asymptomatic infections via the huge increase in lateral flow tests (which were not always confirmed by PCR). No system is perfect, but it seemed to me that the increase was more likely reflecting picking up more cases, than an overall change in rate.
The ONS picked up on a small uptick in a few areas, nothing major though.
I spent £1 on a 'ripe and ready' avocado that it turned out was neither 'ripe' nor 'ready'.
I blame capitalism and/or the Tories.
You should complain to the Ombudsman.
I'm going to the ombudsman. So if there's a bang at the door and you answer it and there's a man in a stovepipe hat with a long, hooky stick, that's him. The ombudsman.
With the success of how they managed COVID and GOT BREXIT DONE the Tories are not just on for a Stella night, heaping the pressure on Starmer, but Labour can now write off the next General Election too. Starmer will be replaced then or before then, what do Labour do, skip a generation to someone we have hardly heard of?
Meanwhile in the big news story, Daily Star has more on the aliens who have, allegedly, made a deal with Trump.
Maybe the deal was to have replaced Biden with a robot, Biden does come across as someone losing his faculties at an alarming rate.
You are ignoring the fact when the county council seats up this year were last up in 2017 the Tories had an 11% lead, most current polls have the Tories lead on less than that so Labour should actually make gains, at least at county level.
Given Corbyn survived losing 382 Labour county councillors and control of 7 county councils in 2017 Starmer will certainly survive making Labour gains at county level.
Given too Labour only got 27% in the 2017 counties and 31% in the 2016 district elections which were when the local seats up this year were last up, even the 34% Yougov has Labour now on would be an improvement (other pollsters have Labour on 36%).
In fact given the LDs 15% in 2016 and 18% in 2017 and are now polling under 10% they may face the biggest losses, on paper at least, though they tend to do better locally than nationally
In your post just below this one Mike you pointed out this is a new landscape. No UKIP. By delivering painless brexit (WWIII not broken out yet) Boris has shored up his Dec 19 vote. He has voters UKIP once pulled from Labour and Conservative. On top of that, Boris government has ensured we are just one of two nations to have beaten COVID and back to normal. As Marquee says, excellent reports back from the doorsteps.
Tories will achieve way about 40% here not less than 38.
Out of the two arguments on here today, this is the more persuasive one, HY data is unreliable against this backdrop.
It’s a new Landscape, that ensures the Tories have the next GE sown up as well.
In the 2017 local elections the Tories got 38% and Corbyn Labour got just 27%, an 11% lead.
The latest Yougov has the Tories on 41% and Starmer Labour on 34%, so even if the Tories get over 40% in the county elections their lead will be smaller and Labour will make gains (with both parties likely squeezing the LDs who got 18% in the 2017 locals).
UKIP will be less of a factor in the county elections as they only got 4% in 2017 anyway, the Tories if they make gains will likely do so in the district elections where the Tories only got 30% when they were last up in 2016 with UKIP on 12%, thus a much bigger UKIP vote in the district elections for the Tories to squeeze
The obvious mistake you are making is Labour voters now vote Tory.
Not from the 2016 and 2017 locals they don't, given Labour is now on 34% in the latest Yougov and Labour only got 31% in the 2016 locals and 27% in the 2017 locals.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
I think the ONS detected it in a couple of areas, but they didn't see any resulting rise in the hospitalisation rate.
There will be natural variation even if the trend is down some areas will go up from time to time.
Overall the national figure was still R below 1 the entire time wasn't it?
It seems to me that where Labour is gaining from the Tories is a bit niche, and the reverse is more of a general repeatable trend. Labour gain from the Tories in a cluster of enclaves: Too posh to vote Tory, Polly Toynbee land, university vote, whatever I am supposed to call BAME seats this week, super urban.
All the big influencers and media types live in these, as do all the people they know, it affects their judgement. There aren't many more to gain. At the same time Workington is Tory and Barnsley East is actually a marginal. So 'matched by middle class seats slipping to Labour' may not be quite right.
That's a mistaken impression, because what's happening is a shift within every constituency - while there are some niche seats as you say (just as there are some with few ABC1 voters), the battlegrounds are seats where the demography is gradually shifting.
This gives a good picture of the situation, based on 2017 when the parties were close nationally:
Thanks. But just to knock the Tories off their majority perch they need to lose 40 or so seats. Several factors make this alone tricky: The Tories are going all out to consolidate the non super urban ex Labour vote and Labour give no sense of having a better retail offer up their sleeve;
to keep what they have Labour rely a bit on the Polly/Guardian tendency, which they would lose from the middle class if they went all cloth cap/populist;
Tory support consolidates at the risk of a rainbow/separatist coalition - which is the only offer Labour can make.
Most of the top 50 Labour targets are not posh/BAME/super urban/Guardian territory. The Tories will be fighting to extend their ground in their new found marginals (Barnsley East etc!). Labour will have to both defend and attack in an election they cannot win outright. It's possible but it is a big ask.
I think (not sure) that at the next election the Tories can run a truly populist campaign, but Labour can't risk it.
it isn't going to be dull.
Labour may never (well, medium term never) win back the likes of Workington and Mansfield. But there will be dozens of previously safe seats in the remainery south east which will come into play for them - seats which were Tory even in 1997.
I wonder what would the top 20 of those would be? To get to 10 in the south east region you are into Labours top 100 target area if I have counted correctly.
My reading of that chart is for Boris to lose his majority, all other things being equal, Labour need to win down to Wycombe which requires a 3.85% swing (since gaining 2 off the SNP doesn't affect the Tories). Given Sinn Fein etc you are probably more looking at Don Valley which requires a 3.99% swing to definitely get them out of office, given the lack of viable coalition partners..
That's a pretty chunky swing but there is nothing outrageous about it. Some of the Tory triumphalism on here of late seems a bit overdone to me.
It seems to me that where Labour is gaining from the Tories is a bit niche, and the reverse is more of a general repeatable trend. Labour gain from the Tories in a cluster of enclaves: Too posh to vote Tory, Polly Toynbee land, university vote, whatever I am supposed to call BAME seats this week, super urban.
All the big influencers and media types live in these, as do all the people they know, it affects their judgement. There aren't many more to gain. At the same time Workington is Tory and Barnsley East is actually a marginal. So 'matched by middle class seats slipping to Labour' may not be quite right.
That's a mistaken impression, because what's happening is a shift within every constituency - while there are some niche seats as you say (just as there are some with few ABC1 voters), the battlegrounds are seats where the demography is gradually shifting.
This gives a good picture of the situation, based on 2017 when the parties were close nationally:
Thanks. But just to knock the Tories off their majority perch they need to lose 40 or so seats. Several factors make this alone tricky: The Tories are going all out to consolidate the non super urban ex Labour vote and Labour give no sense of having a better retail offer up their sleeve;
to keep what they have Labour rely a bit on the Polly/Guardian tendency, which they would lose from the middle class if they went all cloth cap/populist;
Tory support consolidates at the risk of a rainbow/separatist coalition - which is the only offer Labour can make.
Most of the top 50 Labour targets are not posh/BAME/super urban/Guardian territory. The Tories will be fighting to extend their ground in their new found marginals (Barnsley East etc!). Labour will have to both defend and attack in an election they cannot win outright. It's possible but it is a big ask.
I think (not sure) that at the next election the Tories can run a truly populist campaign, but Labour can't risk it.
it isn't going to be dull.
Labour may never (well, medium term never) win back the likes of Workington and Mansfield. But there will be dozens of previously safe seats in the remainery south east which will come into play for them - seats which were Tory even in 1997.
I wonder what would the top 20 of those would be? To get to 10 in the south east region you are into Labours top 100 target area if I have counted correctly.
My reading of that chart is for Boris to lose his majority, all other things being equal, Labour need to win down to Wycombe which requires a 3.85% swing (since gaining 2 off the SNP doesn't affect the Tories). Given Sinn Fein etc you are probably more looking at Don Valley which requires a 3.99% swing to definitely get them out of office, given the lack of viable coalition partners..
That's a pretty chunky swing but there is nothing outrageous about it. Some of the Tory triumphalism on here of late seems a bit overdone to me.
Moreover Don Valley was comfortably Labour- held in 2017 - as was Workington . Why is it so unlikely that a swing which occurred between June 2017 and December 2019 will be reversed by 2024? At the time we were told that Corbyn - more than Brexit - was the main factor responsible, but he is no longer relevant. I am also very doubtful that Brexit will prove to be the key issue in Hartlepool which so many assume.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
Apologies, I know I've posted this before but I feel it gives a useful, if necessarily speculative, indication of the impact of lockdown easing and vaccination roll-out on R.
And here's how it is turning out so far:
(Courtesy steve jackson@goalprojection on Twitter)
Just checked my vaccine appointment for Sunday and there is a warning that you will need to wait 15 minutes after taking the vaccine. I suspect that means I (and everyone else under 50) is getting Moderna as I think that has the same adverse reaction checks that pfizer needs.
I was wondering that - got the same warning. Are people with AZ being made to wait as well for simplicity?
I had AZ and I wasn't made to wait. Although they were just doing first doses that day - possibly it's different when they have a mix at the same centre on the same day?
Friend of mine has been sent a vaccination invite right at the same time as she's been sent home from work and needs a Covid test. Hopefully it'll be negative, she cleans in a food processing enviroment though and is only just under 50.
I just booked mine on line without waiting for a letter. 6 days leadtime
"@DarrenGBNews NEW: Belgium’s top virologist slams Denmark’s decision to stop using #AstraZeneca entirely
Marc Van Ranst: "It's hysterical, yes, because you save a lot of people with it... And if you know it saves more people than it harms people, then this is clearly an emotional decision”"
Ursula von der Leyen says the EU is negotiating a new contract with BioNTech/Pfizer for 1.8bn doses for 2022-2023 with the full supply chain in the EU.
40-45 billion Euro expenditure.
Certainly a change of spots.
It's a lot of money to spend to monopolise the supply chain for vaccines that the EU won't need.
I’m wondering what they’re going to do next.
Is there a mindless, totally avoidable bizarre cockup they haven’t tried?
My money’s on injecting people with Covid instead of with the vaccine.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
Apologies, I know I've posted this before but I feel it gives a useful, if necessarily speculative, indication of the impact of lockdown easing and vaccination roll-out on R.
And here's how it is turning out so far:
(Courtesy steve jackson@goalprojection on Twitter)
Thanks. The actual results seem to be even better than the highly protective blue line scenario.
Your top chart, is that the red line scenario or the blue line scenario?
Just checked my vaccine appointment for Sunday and there is a warning that you will need to wait 15 minutes after taking the vaccine. I suspect that means I (and everyone else under 50) is getting Moderna as I think that has the same adverse reaction checks that pfizer needs.
I was wondering that - got the same warning. Are people with AZ being made to wait as well for simplicity?
No. Or at least not a few weeks back when I got jabbed.
https://www.sst.dk/en/english/news/2021/denmark-continues-its-vaccine-rollout-without-the-covid-19-vaccine-from-astrazeneca ..."In the midst of an epidemic, it has been a difficult decision to continue our vaccination programme without an effective and readily available vaccine against COVID-19. However, we have other vaccines at our disposal, and the epidemic is currently under control. Furthermore, we have come a long way towards vaccinating the older age groups where vaccination has a tremendous potential impact on preventing infection. Age is the main risk factor for becoming severely ill from COVID-19. The upcoming target groups for vaccination are less likely to become severely ill from COVID-19. We must weigh this against the fact that we now have a known risk of severe adverse effects from vaccination with AstraZeneca, even if the risk in absolute terms is slight," says Søren Brostrøm. The consequence of this decision is that anyone aged 16 or older can expect to receive an offer of vaccination in late June. Thus, everyone who accepts the offer will be fully vaccinated about five weeks later – in early August.
The Danish Health Authority's decision means that we will cancel all booked times and invitations to vaccination with the vaccine from AstraZeneca. Those who have received the first injection with AstraZeneca will later receive an invitation to vaccination with another vaccine. Those who have previously been invited to receive their first injection with the vaccine from AstraZeneca – but who had the invitation cancelled – will be re-invited based on an assessment of the current epidemic situation.
The Danish Health Authority has decided to continue the rollout at this time without AstraZeneca, but this does not exclude that we may re-introduce the vaccine at a later date if the situation changes.
"We are basically in agreement with EMA's assessment regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. That is why it is important to emphasise that it is still an approved vaccine. And I understand if other countries in a different situation than us choose to continue using the vaccine. If Denmark were in a completely different situation and in the midst of a violent third outbreak, for example, and a healthcare system under pressure – and if we had not reached such an advanced point in our rollout of the vaccines – then I would not hesitate to use the vaccine, even if there were rare but severe complications associated with using it," says Søren Brostrøm....
@DavidL are you expecting the SNP to get a majority?
Its going to be close. I think (hope) that they will fall just short but their little green helpers will get them over the line once again. I expect the Tories to fall back a bit, possibly to 3rd and Labour to pick up a bit but not necessarily win many more seats.
Most of the campaigning seems to revolve around the regional list vote, where the MSM and broadcasters are continuing to blank the Alba party. Salmond needs something to give them a second push. I expect an assault on all the lead SNP candidate in the regional lists, all of whom IIRC received a tiny proportion of members' votes, but have been advanced to the top as preferred BAME/disabled status (self ID'd or not).
That would be interesting. Salmond must be getting just a little bit desperate. He is an ego maniac and he is seriously in danger of being completely humiliated. He may well lash out at some point.
But the campaign has been almost non existent. Which has suited Nicola just fine of course.
Like a lot of pols I believe Salmond, wily campaigner though he is, has been listening to ill chosen advisors & believed twitter was real life. He's maybe been out of the ring too long.
'You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself.'
I haven't been following it but I did catch a few of his interviews at the start and it seemed to me he had a potential comms problem with the "sex pest" thing. Every interviewer was asking him if he had reflected on his behaviour and felt there were lessons there (for him) as regards future interactions with women. Clearly angling for something like "Of course I did nothing criminal, a court has confirmed that, but yes I've reflected long and hard, and yes I can see that perhaps I did occasionally behave in a way that made people uncomfortable, and I'm sorry if that was the case, and I have absolutely taken this on board."
But he wouldn't go anywhere near it. All he kept doing was stone walling with "Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent". Refusing to acknowledge any territory existed between totally ok behaviour and criminal behaviour (when everyone knows that not only does such territory exist but that it's quite spacious).
I do get that it's a sensitive area and that his approach might be the only one he thought he could manage or risk, but it didn't come over well. Not to me it didn't anyway. And I thought to myself, mmm, this is a non answer to a big and juicy question, therefore it's probably going to keep coming back - a la Farron and gay sex - and maybe Alex would be better off biting the bullet and getting an answer sorted out.
It seems to me that where Labour is gaining from the Tories is a bit niche, and the reverse is more of a general repeatable trend. Labour gain from the Tories in a cluster of enclaves: Too posh to vote Tory, Polly Toynbee land, university vote, whatever I am supposed to call BAME seats this week, super urban.
All the big influencers and media types live in these, as do all the people they know, it affects their judgement. There aren't many more to gain. At the same time Workington is Tory and Barnsley East is actually a marginal. So 'matched by middle class seats slipping to Labour' may not be quite right.
That's a mistaken impression, because what's happening is a shift within every constituency - while there are some niche seats as you say (just as there are some with few ABC1 voters), the battlegrounds are seats where the demography is gradually shifting.
This gives a good picture of the situation, based on 2017 when the parties were close nationally:
Thanks. But just to knock the Tories off their majority perch they need to lose 40 or so seats. Several factors make this alone tricky: The Tories are going all out to consolidate the non super urban ex Labour vote and Labour give no sense of having a better retail offer up their sleeve;
to keep what they have Labour rely a bit on the Polly/Guardian tendency, which they would lose from the middle class if they went all cloth cap/populist;
Tory support consolidates at the risk of a rainbow/separatist coalition - which is the only offer Labour can make.
Most of the top 50 Labour targets are not posh/BAME/super urban/Guardian territory. The Tories will be fighting to extend their ground in their new found marginals (Barnsley East etc!). Labour will have to both defend and attack in an election they cannot win outright. It's possible but it is a big ask.
I think (not sure) that at the next election the Tories can run a truly populist campaign, but Labour can't risk it.
it isn't going to be dull.
Labour may never (well, medium term never) win back the likes of Workington and Mansfield. But there will be dozens of previously safe seats in the remainery south east which will come into play for them - seats which were Tory even in 1997.
I wonder what would the top 20 of those would be? To get to 10 in the south east region you are into Labours top 100 target area if I have counted correctly.
I would say, from that list, the following - which I think were all blue in 1997 (?) will tip into the Labour column in the next decade: Kensington (again) Chipping Barnet Chingford and Wood Green Stroud Hendon Filton and Bradley Stoke Altrincham and Sale West Cities of London and Westminster Finchley and Golders Green Croydon South Welwyn Hatfield
Perhaps I was overstating it with 'dozens', and obviously the list above owes a lot more to 'remainery' than 'south east'!. I would have thought there would be a few more in Bucks/Surrey too but on closer inspection likely candidates aren't leaping out at me.
I think Stroud and Finchley famously flipped to New Labour in 1997.
David Drew has been the Stroud MP in the recent past. Stroud is one of those eco hubs like Totnes, Frome and Hebden Bridge. There is a strong consistent Labour vote there, but the town is not the biggest and the adjacent areas seem more Tory.
It seems to me that where Labour is gaining from the Tories is a bit niche, and the reverse is more of a general repeatable trend. Labour gain from the Tories in a cluster of enclaves: Too posh to vote Tory, Polly Toynbee land, university vote, whatever I am supposed to call BAME seats this week, super urban.
All the big influencers and media types live in these, as do all the people they know, it affects their judgement. There aren't many more to gain. At the same time Workington is Tory and Barnsley East is actually a marginal. So 'matched by middle class seats slipping to Labour' may not be quite right.
That's a mistaken impression, because what's happening is a shift within every constituency - while there are some niche seats as you say (just as there are some with few ABC1 voters), the battlegrounds are seats where the demography is gradually shifting.
This gives a good picture of the situation, based on 2017 when the parties were close nationally:
Thanks. But just to knock the Tories off their majority perch they need to lose 40 or so seats. Several factors make this alone tricky: The Tories are going all out to consolidate the non super urban ex Labour vote and Labour give no sense of having a better retail offer up their sleeve;
to keep what they have Labour rely a bit on the Polly/Guardian tendency, which they would lose from the middle class if they went all cloth cap/populist;
Tory support consolidates at the risk of a rainbow/separatist coalition - which is the only offer Labour can make.
Most of the top 50 Labour targets are not posh/BAME/super urban/Guardian territory. The Tories will be fighting to extend their ground in their new found marginals (Barnsley East etc!). Labour will have to both defend and attack in an election they cannot win outright. It's possible but it is a big ask.
I think (not sure) that at the next election the Tories can run a truly populist campaign, but Labour can't risk it.
it isn't going to be dull.
Labour may never (well, medium term never) win back the likes of Workington and Mansfield. But there will be dozens of previously safe seats in the remainery south east which will come into play for them - seats which were Tory even in 1997.
I wonder what would the top 20 of those would be? To get to 10 in the south east region you are into Labours top 100 target area if I have counted correctly.
I would say, from that list, the following - which I think were all blue in 1997 (?) will tip into the Labour column in the next decade: Kensington (again) Chipping Barnet Chingford and Wood Green Stroud Hendon Filton and Bradley Stoke Altrincham and Sale West Cities of London and Westminster Finchley and Golders Green Croydon South Welwyn Hatfield
Perhaps I was overstating it with 'dozens', and obviously the list above owes a lot more to 'remainery' than 'south east'!. I would have thought there would be a few more in Bucks/Surrey too but on closer inspection likely candidates aren't leaping out at me.
I think Stroud and Finchley famously flipped to New Labour in 1997.
David Drew has been the Stroud MP in the recent past. Stroud is one of those eco hubs like Totnes, Frome and Hebden Bridge. There is a strong consistent Labour vote there, but the town is not the biggest and the adjacent areas seem more Tory.
Indeed Labout gained Stroud in 2017 - only to lose it again in 2019.
Ursula von der Leyen says the EU is negotiating a new contract with BioNTech/Pfizer for 1.8bn doses for 2022-2023 with the full supply chain in the EU.
40-45 billion Euro expenditure.
Certainly a change of spots.
It's a lot of money to spend to monopolise the supply chain for vaccines that the EU won't need.
I’m wondering what they’re going to do next.
Is there a mindless, totally avoidable bizarre cockup they haven’t tried?
My money’s on injecting people with Covid instead of with the vaccine.
Horrible feeling we’re being mentally prepared for many more months of restrictions
Endless talk of variants. Safferbug in Clapham. Supervariant in Brazil. Scary new variant in India (which is surging into a terrifying second wave)
Meanwhile vaccines are suddenly less important... and we must expect new waves and 50,000 deaths. Hmm
Cui bono? I don’t believe the government wants us locked down forever; I do believe there is a group of scientists who are properly scared, and they are spooking the politicians
The other interpretation is that neither scientists nor government have any more desire for further lockdowns than you do, and that is what is driving their caution. The only way we get another major wave is if all precautions are abandoned before we vaccinate a substantial majority of the population, I think.
It's a perverted logic that says "because we don't want another lockdown we must maintain lockdown now despite it no longer being necessary at all".
1000 x this. We're currently locked up on the basis that there is a (increasingly vanishingly small) risk we might be needed to be locked up again. I'd rather take my chances on this than wait months more for a (still uncertain) apparently irreversible normally.
It's difficult to believe that our political leaders are this stupid, but it really does seem that they are.
That said, they aren't going to change course now, so the really important thing is that we must ensure every single restriction (other than foreign travel - that's a special case for good reasons) goes on the 21st June. Circumstances to prevent spread are simply not ever going to get any better than those that will exist then (summer, almost everyone jabbed), and a return to full normality is more important than anything else, even virus case numbers.
It's going to happen anyway eventually whatever the government does (as it would have done even without vaccines) so we should get on with it, rather than ending up with permanent nominal restrictions that are widely ignored (cf speed limits) which is where the regulations are rapidly heading at the moment.
We're not "locked up". C'mon.
I'm popping out shortly to do a few things. Bit of shopping. Walk in Regents Park. Maybe a beer with a mate. Haircut even if there's a slot.
North London's my oyster. (which I'd never order in a pub).
The problem is that you are exceptionally intelligent and an above average specimen of humankind. So your post, apart from the obviously transparent fabrication of "with a mate", employs that special intelligence to intellectualise the current situation.
As we have seen here on PB and I'm sure in the broader community, not to say especially with young people, they are either unwilling or unable to analyse it all away. "Lockdown" becomes bigger than not being able to go to the footie with another 40,000 people while being able, if you read the small print, to go to the pub outside. It is an oppressive, debilitating frame of mind that many people are hugely affected by.
It was in fact all a fabrication. I'm going nowhere. But I could, is the point. Nevertheless I understand what you're saying. It's a fair enough observation. It's just the language. "Locked up". Total hyperbole and tbh it irritates me. There are people in this world who are locked up. We need a new word for that if we're going to recast what the term means by nabbing it for this.
Institutionalized. We are like long term prisoners who can now leave, at least partially, but often we don’t want to. It’s too much of a faff. Booking a pub. We make excuses, some good, some bad. We’ve got so used to our own four walls it’s easier to stay home, psychologically
Something in this, yes. I've been looking forward to April 12th for ages, thought I'd be bouncing around like zeberdee this week, but no. Very little has happened with me. Kind of stuck.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎
We're not "meant to be grateful". And stop virtue signalling. You don't love liberty any more than the next man. Same to all the posters banging on in this vein.
I'm not virtue signalling, its my opinion.
And I do love liberty more than many other people. I'm a libertarian/classical liberal, I always take the liberty position normally which many other people don't. A lot of people are happier to default to authoritarian positions.
Hmm, really? You have been consistently and thoughtfully supportive (as I have) of the government's use of "lockdown" as a core tool to control the pandemic. Also supportive (as I have) of the roadmap back to domestic normality.
Ok, so now, with the vaccination rollout working a dream, one can start making a case for accelerating the reopening a little bit. If you were to do so, you'd get no grief from me. I might even agree.
But no, what do we get instead? We get you switching on a sixpence into some liberty rottweiler and calling this a "scandal", that we are being "given scraps", wailing that this "isn't normal" and it's just a total abomination that we aren't already "unlocked" and "free".
It just doesn't scan.
You're a phony, Philip.
Actually for the past year in discussions with Stocky and TOPPING etc I have said I was philosophically against restrictions and their necessity was uncomfortable for me.
They're not necessary now. They were deemed necessary to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed, but now they're not. So yes it is a scandal.
It isn't acceptable to take away civil liberties unnecessarily.
As opposed to all those people who in discussions with Stocky and Topping etc said that they were "philosophically" in favour of having their liberty curtailed and who found it deeply pleasing?
C'mon.
Just argue for a quicker reopening if that's what you want to do. No need for all the virtue-signalling crap. It strikes an "off" note.
No virtue-signalling, I am arguing for a quicker reopening. 🤷♂️
You're the one signalling, when I agree with the Government over something you say I am doing so as a partisan. When I say I oppose what the Government is doing you call me a "phony". Seems you have a stick up your arse, I'm happy to call it as I see it regardless of politics.
No, I judge case by case. No hard & fast rules.
As do I and in this case making it illegal to be in other people's home, illegal to be inside a restaurant etc etc when there is no imminent risk of the NHS being overwhelmed is utterly inexcusable.
The fact that my Government says it must be done does not change my principles.
The fact that I very reluctantly was OK with lockdowns as a last resort last year does not change the fact I am no OK with lockdowns now when we are not in a last resort position.
At no date last year did we have it illegal to be in other people's homes when the threat from Covid was as low as it is today. If we did, I would have opposed it then too.
It's a tonal thing. The way you've lurched from supportive to spitting bricks feels off. Carry on, if you must, but it would look more authentic if turned down slightly.
Horrible feeling we’re being mentally prepared for many more months of restrictions
Endless talk of variants. Safferbug in Clapham. Supervariant in Brazil. Scary new variant in India (which is surging into a terrifying second wave)
Meanwhile vaccines are suddenly less important... and we must expect new waves and 50,000 deaths. Hmm
Cui bono? I don’t believe the government wants us locked down forever; I do believe there is a group of scientists who are properly scared, and they are spooking the politicians
The other interpretation is that neither scientists nor government have any more desire for further lockdowns than you do, and that is what is driving their caution. The only way we get another major wave is if all precautions are abandoned before we vaccinate a substantial majority of the population, I think.
It's a perverted logic that says "because we don't want another lockdown we must maintain lockdown now despite it no longer being necessary at all".
1000 x this. We're currently locked up on the basis that there is a (increasingly vanishingly small) risk we might be needed to be locked up again. I'd rather take my chances on this than wait months more for a (still uncertain) apparently irreversible normally.
It's difficult to believe that our political leaders are this stupid, but it really does seem that they are.
That said, they aren't going to change course now, so the really important thing is that we must ensure every single restriction (other than foreign travel - that's a special case for good reasons) goes on the 21st June. Circumstances to prevent spread are simply not ever going to get any better than those that will exist then (summer, almost everyone jabbed), and a return to full normality is more important than anything else, even virus case numbers.
It's going to happen anyway eventually whatever the government does (as it would have done even without vaccines) so we should get on with it, rather than ending up with permanent nominal restrictions that are widely ignored (cf speed limits) which is where the regulations are rapidly heading at the moment.
We're not "locked up". C'mon.
I'm popping out shortly to do a few things. Bit of shopping. Walk in Regents Park. Maybe a beer with a mate. Haircut even if there's a slot.
North London's my oyster. (which I'd never order in a pub).
The problem is that you are exceptionally intelligent and an above average specimen of humankind. So your post, apart from the obviously transparent fabrication of "with a mate", employs that special intelligence to intellectualise the current situation.
As we have seen here on PB and I'm sure in the broader community, not to say especially with young people, they are either unwilling or unable to analyse it all away. "Lockdown" becomes bigger than not being able to go to the footie with another 40,000 people while being able, if you read the small print, to go to the pub outside. It is an oppressive, debilitating frame of mind that many people are hugely affected by.
It was in fact all a fabrication. I'm going nowhere. But I could, is the point. Nevertheless I understand what you're saying. It's a fair enough observation. It's just the language. "Locked up". Total hyperbole and tbh it irritates me. There are people in this world who are locked up. We need a new word for that if we're going to recast what the term means by nabbing it for this.
Institutionalized. We are like long term prisoners who can now leave, at least partially, but often we don’t want to. It’s too much of a faff. Booking a pub. We make excuses, some good, some bad. We’ve got so used to our own four walls it’s easier to stay home, psychologically
Something in this, yes. I've been looking forward to April 12th for ages, thought I'd be bouncing around like zeberdee this week, but no. Very little has happened with me. Kind of stuck.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎
We're not "meant to be grateful". And stop virtue signalling. You don't love liberty any more than the next man. Same to all the posters banging on in this vein.
I'm not virtue signalling, its my opinion.
And I do love liberty more than many other people. I'm a libertarian/classical liberal, I always take the liberty position normally which many other people don't. A lot of people are happier to default to authoritarian positions.
Hmm, really? You have been consistently and thoughtfully supportive (as I have) of the government's use of "lockdown" as a core tool to control the pandemic. Also supportive (as I have) of the roadmap back to domestic normality.
Ok, so now, with the vaccination rollout working a dream, one can start making a case for accelerating the reopening a little bit. If you were to do so, you'd get no grief from me. I might even agree.
But no, what do we get instead? We get you switching on a sixpence into some liberty rottweiler and calling this a "scandal", that we are being "given scraps", wailing that this "isn't normal" and it's just a total abomination that we aren't already "unlocked" and "free".
It just doesn't scan.
You're a phony, Philip.
Actually for the past year in discussions with Stocky and TOPPING etc I have said I was philosophically against restrictions and their necessity was uncomfortable for me.
They're not necessary now. They were deemed necessary to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed, but now they're not. So yes it is a scandal.
It isn't acceptable to take away civil liberties unnecessarily.
As opposed to all those people who in discussions with Stocky and Topping etc said that they were "philosophically" in favour of having their liberty curtailed and who found it deeply pleasing?
C'mon.
Just argue for a quicker reopening if that's what you want to do. No need for all the virtue-signalling crap. It strikes an "off" note.
No virtue-signalling, I am arguing for a quicker reopening. 🤷♂️
You're the one signalling, when I agree with the Government over something you say I am doing so as a partisan. When I say I oppose what the Government is doing you call me a "phony". Seems you have a stick up your arse, I'm happy to call it as I see it regardless of politics.
No, I judge case by case. No hard & fast rules.
As do I and in this case making it illegal to be in other people's home, illegal to be inside a restaurant etc etc when there is no imminent risk of the NHS being overwhelmed is utterly inexcusable.
The fact that my Government says it must be done does not change my principles.
The fact that I very reluctantly was OK with lockdowns as a last resort last year does not change the fact I am no OK with lockdowns now when we are not in a last resort position.
At no date last year did we have it illegal to be in other people's homes when the threat from Covid was as low as it is today. If we did, I would have opposed it then too.
In large parts of the North of England it became illegal last summer to enter other people's homes. At that point local case rates were around half what they are today and with no great burden of hospitalisation.
I don't think that's right. The national case rate now is back to what it was in August last year.
Please can you say when and where it became illegal to enter other people's homes with a local case rate around half what they are today.
So, to take my own example, on July 30th last year it became illegal in Kirklees to meet in private homes or gardens. The rolling case rate in the borough at that time - and testing has significantly ramped up at that point - was around 24 per 100000 residents. Nationally, we are now at 28 per 100000 residents now (locally in Kirklees 72 per 100k) and it is now permitted to meet in gardens.
You can probably kick around various factors at the edges of those stats if you like, but lockdown regulations were being actively introduced at current case levels.
So the CPS have pulled Newcastle upon Tyne as an available location option just as I was about to submit my application and 4 days before the closing date. What a complete waste of time.
I guess my career as a criminal prosecutor is over before it even began.
Don't take a job as a criminal prosecutor because the pay is shit and you're overworked, kids with paper rounds will make more money per hour than you would as a criminal prosecutor you might end up being just like Sir Keir Starmer.
What TSE says - I really can't imagine anything worse except possible being an on-duty legal aid defence lawyer.
I was quite excited about the opportunity. Although I didn't expect to actually be successful, I think it would have been good. Never mind.
It can be a very good job, I have three friends who started off at the CPS, one of them is on course to be a head of a division, two two others left their mid level jobs at the CPS with no other jobs lined up simply because they wanted to get away from it.
Interestingly all three of them are very dubious of the police since they started working with the CPS.
since ?
The impression I get from people in the legal profession on here is that none of you particularly like the police regardless of CPS employment or not.
Since, I was fine with the police until I started to deal with them on a regular basis. Is the way of the world.
For the CPS it is a two way street, I believe the Rozzers tell everyone that the CPS stands for the Criminal Protection Service.
Though the CPS will bang on that the quality of evidence produced by a lot of police is substandard.
One of Mrs Thatcher's great achievements was bringing in PACE.
Bent Coppers documentary BBC2 tonight after the Masterchef final.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
Apologies, I know I've posted this before but I feel it gives a useful, if necessarily speculative, indication of the impact of lockdown easing and vaccination roll-out on R.
And here's how it is turning out so far:
(Courtesy steve jackson@goalprojection on Twitter)
That lower graph really is quite an amazing fit of model to data, particularly if he has not tweaked it and it is data versus prediction (i.e. not against revised model).
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
Apologies, I know I've posted this before but I feel it gives a useful, if necessarily speculative, indication of the impact of lockdown easing and vaccination roll-out on R.
And here's how it is turning out so far:
(Courtesy steve jackson@goalprojection on Twitter)
That lower graph really is quite an amazing fit of model to data, particularly if he has not tweaked it and it is data versus prediction (i.e. not against revised model).
It's impressive, albeit everything from before the 27th of February was what went into it.
However, since then, it's matched nicely. This is where it started:
He has, quite rightly, been tracking the errors since the model, and they look pretty decent, which does support the projection going forwards (at the moment!)
Horrible feeling we’re being mentally prepared for many more months of restrictions
Endless talk of variants. Safferbug in Clapham. Supervariant in Brazil. Scary new variant in India (which is surging into a terrifying second wave)
Meanwhile vaccines are suddenly less important... and we must expect new waves and 50,000 deaths. Hmm
Cui bono? I don’t believe the government wants us locked down forever; I do believe there is a group of scientists who are properly scared, and they are spooking the politicians
The other interpretation is that neither scientists nor government have any more desire for further lockdowns than you do, and that is what is driving their caution. The only way we get another major wave is if all precautions are abandoned before we vaccinate a substantial majority of the population, I think.
It's a perverted logic that says "because we don't want another lockdown we must maintain lockdown now despite it no longer being necessary at all".
1000 x this. We're currently locked up on the basis that there is a (increasingly vanishingly small) risk we might be needed to be locked up again. I'd rather take my chances on this than wait months more for a (still uncertain) apparently irreversible normally.
It's difficult to believe that our political leaders are this stupid, but it really does seem that they are.
That said, they aren't going to change course now, so the really important thing is that we must ensure every single restriction (other than foreign travel - that's a special case for good reasons) goes on the 21st June. Circumstances to prevent spread are simply not ever going to get any better than those that will exist then (summer, almost everyone jabbed), and a return to full normality is more important than anything else, even virus case numbers.
It's going to happen anyway eventually whatever the government does (as it would have done even without vaccines) so we should get on with it, rather than ending up with permanent nominal restrictions that are widely ignored (cf speed limits) which is where the regulations are rapidly heading at the moment.
We're not "locked up". C'mon.
I'm popping out shortly to do a few things. Bit of shopping. Walk in Regents Park. Maybe a beer with a mate. Haircut even if there's a slot.
North London's my oyster. (which I'd never order in a pub).
The problem is that you are exceptionally intelligent and an above average specimen of humankind. So your post, apart from the obviously transparent fabrication of "with a mate", employs that special intelligence to intellectualise the current situation.
As we have seen here on PB and I'm sure in the broader community, not to say especially with young people, they are either unwilling or unable to analyse it all away. "Lockdown" becomes bigger than not being able to go to the footie with another 40,000 people while being able, if you read the small print, to go to the pub outside. It is an oppressive, debilitating frame of mind that many people are hugely affected by.
It was in fact all a fabrication. I'm going nowhere. But I could, is the point. Nevertheless I understand what you're saying. It's a fair enough observation. It's just the language. "Locked up". Total hyperbole and tbh it irritates me. There are people in this world who are locked up. We need a new word for that if we're going to recast what the term means by nabbing it for this.
Institutionalized. We are like long term prisoners who can now leave, at least partially, but often we don’t want to. It’s too much of a faff. Booking a pub. We make excuses, some good, some bad. We’ve got so used to our own four walls it’s easier to stay home, psychologically
Something in this, yes. I've been looking forward to April 12th for ages, thought I'd be bouncing around like zeberdee this week, but no. Very little has happened with me. Kind of stuck.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎
We're not "meant to be grateful". And stop virtue signalling. You don't love liberty any more than the next man. Same to all the posters banging on in this vein.
I'm not virtue signalling, its my opinion.
And I do love liberty more than many other people. I'm a libertarian/classical liberal, I always take the liberty position normally which many other people don't. A lot of people are happier to default to authoritarian positions.
Hmm, really? You have been consistently and thoughtfully supportive (as I have) of the government's use of "lockdown" as a core tool to control the pandemic. Also supportive (as I have) of the roadmap back to domestic normality.
Ok, so now, with the vaccination rollout working a dream, one can start making a case for accelerating the reopening a little bit. If you were to do so, you'd get no grief from me. I might even agree.
But no, what do we get instead? We get you switching on a sixpence into some liberty rottweiler and calling this a "scandal", that we are being "given scraps", wailing that this "isn't normal" and it's just a total abomination that we aren't already "unlocked" and "free".
It just doesn't scan.
You're a phony, Philip.
Actually for the past year in discussions with Stocky and TOPPING etc I have said I was philosophically against restrictions and their necessity was uncomfortable for me.
They're not necessary now. They were deemed necessary to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed, but now they're not. So yes it is a scandal.
It isn't acceptable to take away civil liberties unnecessarily.
As opposed to all those people who in discussions with Stocky and Topping etc said that they were "philosophically" in favour of having their liberty curtailed and who found it deeply pleasing?
C'mon.
Just argue for a quicker reopening if that's what you want to do. No need for all the virtue-signalling crap. It strikes an "off" note.
No virtue-signalling, I am arguing for a quicker reopening. 🤷♂️
You're the one signalling, when I agree with the Government over something you say I am doing so as a partisan. When I say I oppose what the Government is doing you call me a "phony". Seems you have a stick up your arse, I'm happy to call it as I see it regardless of politics.
No, I judge case by case. No hard & fast rules.
As do I and in this case making it illegal to be in other people's home, illegal to be inside a restaurant etc etc when there is no imminent risk of the NHS being overwhelmed is utterly inexcusable.
The fact that my Government says it must be done does not change my principles.
The fact that I very reluctantly was OK with lockdowns as a last resort last year does not change the fact I am no OK with lockdowns now when we are not in a last resort position.
At no date last year did we have it illegal to be in other people's homes when the threat from Covid was as low as it is today. If we did, I would have opposed it then too.
It's a tonal thing. The way you've lurched from supportive to spitting bricks feels off. Carry on, if you must, but it would look more authentic if turned down slightly.
I am broadly with PT on this one. Fully supportive of 1st lockdown, thought autumn/winter restrictions were too lax because of xmas but think we now at the point where support for ongoing lockdowns is driven more by emotion than data or logic.
I am not saying no restrictions at all, and the relaxations this week are good progress, but I think we can go further. We are not allowed to even consider the data that checks if we can go faster as the govt has put "not before" dates on the stages. That grates, especially combined with the threats of ongoing restrictions past June for years ahead.
Horrible feeling we’re being mentally prepared for many more months of restrictions
Endless talk of variants. Safferbug in Clapham. Supervariant in Brazil. Scary new variant in India (which is surging into a terrifying second wave)
Meanwhile vaccines are suddenly less important... and we must expect new waves and 50,000 deaths. Hmm
Cui bono? I don’t believe the government wants us locked down forever; I do believe there is a group of scientists who are properly scared, and they are spooking the politicians
The other interpretation is that neither scientists nor government have any more desire for further lockdowns than you do, and that is what is driving their caution. The only way we get another major wave is if all precautions are abandoned before we vaccinate a substantial majority of the population, I think.
It's a perverted logic that says "because we don't want another lockdown we must maintain lockdown now despite it no longer being necessary at all".
1000 x this. We're currently locked up on the basis that there is a (increasingly vanishingly small) risk we might be needed to be locked up again. I'd rather take my chances on this than wait months more for a (still uncertain) apparently irreversible normally.
It's difficult to believe that our political leaders are this stupid, but it really does seem that they are.
That said, they aren't going to change course now, so the really important thing is that we must ensure every single restriction (other than foreign travel - that's a special case for good reasons) goes on the 21st June. Circumstances to prevent spread are simply not ever going to get any better than those that will exist then (summer, almost everyone jabbed), and a return to full normality is more important than anything else, even virus case numbers.
It's going to happen anyway eventually whatever the government does (as it would have done even without vaccines) so we should get on with it, rather than ending up with permanent nominal restrictions that are widely ignored (cf speed limits) which is where the regulations are rapidly heading at the moment.
We're not "locked up". C'mon.
I'm popping out shortly to do a few things. Bit of shopping. Walk in Regents Park. Maybe a beer with a mate. Haircut even if there's a slot.
North London's my oyster. (which I'd never order in a pub).
The problem is that you are exceptionally intelligent and an above average specimen of humankind. So your post, apart from the obviously transparent fabrication of "with a mate", employs that special intelligence to intellectualise the current situation.
As we have seen here on PB and I'm sure in the broader community, not to say especially with young people, they are either unwilling or unable to analyse it all away. "Lockdown" becomes bigger than not being able to go to the footie with another 40,000 people while being able, if you read the small print, to go to the pub outside. It is an oppressive, debilitating frame of mind that many people are hugely affected by.
It was in fact all a fabrication. I'm going nowhere. But I could, is the point. Nevertheless I understand what you're saying. It's a fair enough observation. It's just the language. "Locked up". Total hyperbole and tbh it irritates me. There are people in this world who are locked up. We need a new word for that if we're going to recast what the term means by nabbing it for this.
Institutionalized. We are like long term prisoners who can now leave, at least partially, but often we don’t want to. It’s too much of a faff. Booking a pub. We make excuses, some good, some bad. We’ve got so used to our own four walls it’s easier to stay home, psychologically
Something in this, yes. I've been looking forward to April 12th for ages, thought I'd be bouncing around like zeberdee this week, but no. Very little has happened with me. Kind of stuck.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎
We're not "meant to be grateful". And stop virtue signalling. You don't love liberty any more than the next man. Same to all the posters banging on in this vein.
I'm not virtue signalling, its my opinion.
And I do love liberty more than many other people. I'm a libertarian/classical liberal, I always take the liberty position normally which many other people don't. A lot of people are happier to default to authoritarian positions.
Hmm, really? You have been consistently and thoughtfully supportive (as I have) of the government's use of "lockdown" as a core tool to control the pandemic. Also supportive (as I have) of the roadmap back to domestic normality.
Ok, so now, with the vaccination rollout working a dream, one can start making a case for accelerating the reopening a little bit. If you were to do so, you'd get no grief from me. I might even agree.
But no, what do we get instead? We get you switching on a sixpence into some liberty rottweiler and calling this a "scandal", that we are being "given scraps", wailing that this "isn't normal" and it's just a total abomination that we aren't already "unlocked" and "free".
It just doesn't scan.
You're a phony, Philip.
Actually for the past year in discussions with Stocky and TOPPING etc I have said I was philosophically against restrictions and their necessity was uncomfortable for me.
They're not necessary now. They were deemed necessary to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed, but now they're not. So yes it is a scandal.
It isn't acceptable to take away civil liberties unnecessarily.
As opposed to all those people who in discussions with Stocky and Topping etc said that they were "philosophically" in favour of having their liberty curtailed and who found it deeply pleasing?
C'mon.
Just argue for a quicker reopening if that's what you want to do. No need for all the virtue-signalling crap. It strikes an "off" note.
No virtue-signalling, I am arguing for a quicker reopening. 🤷♂️
You're the one signalling, when I agree with the Government over something you say I am doing so as a partisan. When I say I oppose what the Government is doing you call me a "phony". Seems you have a stick up your arse, I'm happy to call it as I see it regardless of politics.
No, I judge case by case. No hard & fast rules.
As do I and in this case making it illegal to be in other people's home, illegal to be inside a restaurant etc etc when there is no imminent risk of the NHS being overwhelmed is utterly inexcusable.
The fact that my Government says it must be done does not change my principles.
The fact that I very reluctantly was OK with lockdowns as a last resort last year does not change the fact I am no OK with lockdowns now when we are not in a last resort position.
At no date last year did we have it illegal to be in other people's homes when the threat from Covid was as low as it is today. If we did, I would have opposed it then too.
It's a tonal thing. The way you've lurched from supportive to spitting bricks feels off. Carry on, if you must, but it would look more authentic if turned down slightly.
I am broadly with PT on this one. Fully supportive of 1st lockdown, thought autumn/winter restrictions were too lax because of xmas but think we now at the point where support for ongoing lockdowns is driven more by emotion than data or logic.
I am not saying no restrictions at all, and the relaxations this week are good progress, but I think we can go further. We are not allowed to even consider the data that checks if we can go faster as the govt has put "not before" dates on the stages. That grates, especially combined with the threats of ongoing restrictions past June for years ahead.
Fair enough. It is just the tone. You know how it is with me and Philip.
I myself don't see a danger of ongoing restrictions in the longer term. If there are, absent a compelling reason like a new pandemic, I'll be against them.
I've not been looking forward to this week as its not enough for me.
I have no interest in sitting outside in a beer garden while its cold. I'll be honest, I never did that in normal years anyway. In a beer garden when its sunny and warm - not much better than that - but in this weather? Its shit, I'd go indoors but no that's that's still illegal.
We're currently supposed to be grateful for the scraps of civil liberties we're restored? No, I'll pass. This is not good enough while cases, deaths, hospitalisations are so low, there is zero risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and the vulnerable are vaccinated already.
The 17 May one, that's the one I'm looking forward to, but it is where we should be today already.
This week is just not good enough, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with these scraps. 👎.
Completely agree Philip ... I'm glad it's not just me. Solidarity mon brave.
The justification for May 17th can be seen in the ONS antibody survey (repost from Andy Cooke) -
The idea is clearly that by getting the 2nd doses in the older population done, and a large chunk of those for the younger groups *and* getting vaccinations down into the mid/low 40s, to maximise protection for the most vulnerable groups before opening things out further.
How's that a justification?
The justification for lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS isn't being overwhelmed. The 99% who were vulnerable to dying have all been offered a vaccine already.
We can't and shouldn't have zero-risk, its just time to get on with it.
Go look at Brazil or Chile. The idea that younger people aren't effected by COVID, is ignorant, stupid, garbage.
We are not in herd immunity. Yet. Otherwise hospitalisation (for one) would have collapsed. It hasn't.
If we simply lift all restrictions now. hospitalisation R will rise above 1.
We're not Brazil or Chile, we're not starting from their point and they don't have our vaccines (Chile is using almost glorified saline not our vaccines).
I never said the young weren't vulnerable, I said they weren't that the 99% vulnerable to dying which is true. A key to remember is that in that 99% is the vulnerable young who have been vaccinated.
Hospitalisation figures have collapsed. They're nothing like what they were.
The figures from Chile are quite clear - they are protecting the vaccinated, though less well than here. The hospitals are filling with younger people, who are not vaccinated.
The groups being protected has done a high proportion of the dying so far. But if you fill the hospitals with younger people, that will change.
That is what will happen here, in short order, if you simply lift restrictions. R will go to 1.2+ and the rest will follow.
You're tilting at windmills. Who is proposing we "simply lift restrictions"?
There is a difference between simply lifting all restrictions including quarantining at the border, opening nightclubs etc - and saying it should not be illegal to go into a relatives living room. Or that restaurants and pubs should not be closed by law (indoors).
If we were to go to Stage 3 restrictions domestically sooner, but postpone the Stage 3 opening of the border until the rest of the world has caught up with us, then that would be smarter for preventing the virus here. Data not dates, the data says domestic is safer but abroad is not.
Ah yes, the list of "These things are obviously safe".
The funny thing is that if you sum up the lists of "These things are obviously safe" for everyone you get a list of.... everything.
Hospital R is currently banging around 0.8 - with the schools closed. What are you proposing to do that will only move R by 0.2 or less?
I never said they were "obviously safe".
Schools aren't closed, schools are open. Schools reopened over a month ago. As for what I am proposing, I would bring forward the domestic element of the Stage 3 restrictions to no later than the end of the month, which would be 3 weeks after the Phase I rollout was completed.
But I would balance that by postponing the lifting of restrictions on travel due for the middle of May. I would add every nation with a case rate double ours per capita (or insufficient testing to accurately measure their case rate) to the red list, which is pretty much all of Europe.
Stop cases coming in from where they are, rather than spreading where they aren't.
Schools are in the process of re-opening after the break. The last time they were open, R increased. When they open again, R will probably increase.
Hospitalisations have a lag between date of infection and day of hospitalisation, people don't go to hospital on the day they get infected. So your hospitalisation R almost entirely in recent periods relates to when schools were open, not closed.
Your hospitalisation R never increased to 1, indeed it didn't come close to 1 - and the rates of vaccination have only ever increased from there.
I'm not sure you've understood R. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a measure of infection spread, not just a general concept of how much a quantity is increasing/decreasing. Hence, there's no such thing as "hospitalisation R".
That too is my understanding. Isn’t it how many people one infected person infects? So under R 0.8 every ten people infects eight more and so on...
The R derived from hospitalisation is a useful measure of the current growth rate of serious disease. What we can look out for is the the case rate R going above 1 over the next few weeks but the R derived from the hospitalisation rate staying below 1. We've already observed this once with schools reopening and the 29th unlockdown step. I think we will have a small rise in the R from hospital admissions a week or so after a much bigger rise and panic from the case R going above 1.
Did we ever have real case rate R going above 1 with schools reopening? I thought ONS and other surveys said no.
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
Apologies, I know I've posted this before but I feel it gives a useful, if necessarily speculative, indication of the impact of lockdown easing and vaccination roll-out on R.
And here's how it is turning out so far:
(Courtesy steve jackson@goalprojection on Twitter)
That lower graph really is quite an amazing fit of model to data, particularly if he has not tweaked it and it is data versus prediction (i.e. not against revised model).
It's impressive, albeit everything from before the 27th of February was what went into it.
However, since then, it's matched nicely. This is where it started:
He has, quite rightly, been tracking the errors since the model, and they look pretty decent, which does support the projection going forwards (at the moment!)
That's interesting - but note that the difference is being shown in absolute values, not proportions. Thus, the amount we are currently undershooting may be more significant than it appears (depending on how it appears to each reader!). We are possibly quite a long way ahead of where the model said we would be - though I don't think we've quite finished bumping through the extra bank holidays at Easter yet.
Former Labour MP says the rich should be abolished to solve the climate crisis
If that was "Former Labour MP says WHITE MALE rich should be abolished to solve the climate crisis and END INJUSTICE", it would hit all the points in the Guardianista manifesto.
No it doesn't. That would mean we wealthy white male Guardianistas would be abolishing ourselves, and we can't have that. We are not turkeys voting for Christmas you know.
A stupid statement by a stupid ex-Labour politician.
Comments
The issue is Cameron's recent relationship with friends in cabinet, and they look a bit iffy. The malodor is recent and not a throwback to the days before the fragrant Johnson drained the swamp.
The likes of Oprah are "successful".
The only reason cases recorded ever went above R of 1, very briefly, was that we added around a million tests per day, but still even with all those extra tests they struggled to find many extra cases and then the decline in cases continued.
The government has got itself into a position on COVID where there is zero appetite for any COVID risk at all, hence "safe". This is a ludicrous situation when the vulnerable are now protected, the NHS is not overwhelmed and when there are greater risks to public health than COVID out there that are not being dealt with.
I hate the use of the word "safe" by politicians ... what a cop-out. They need to be held to account about what level of COVID risk they are prepared to tolerate politically. Why do we tolerate the level of flu deaths per year? Without checking, I'd guess our current COVID death run rate is below that already. Worrying about future variants and whether the vaccine will be effective is an exercise in futility because it cannot be predicted.
They are acting as if they are following a zero-COVID policy and if that is the case they need to be up front about it and see if the public are willing to accept perpetual lockdowns, because it seems to me that's what zero-COVID means.
An occasional case does pop up, but it's always just one case in isolation all through April and then no more.
1 / 0.9 = 1.111
1 / 0.8 = 1.250
1 / 0.7 = 1.429
1 / 0.6 = 1.666
1 / 0.5 = 2.000
1 / 0.4 = 2.500
1 / 0.3 = 3.333
1 / 0.2 = 5.000
1 / 0.1 = 10.00
Every step is a decrease of 10% of the population being vulnerable.
Gentle rise, then accelerates, then heads to orbit
I'm tempted to believe it was deliberate and tongue-in-cheek by him.
But he does add value because his shtick often triggers one of your exocets. Which look good in flight and rarely miss.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1382312386594504710
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/28/leicester-east-mp-claudia-webbe-charged-with-harassment
I spent £1 on a 'ripe and ready' avocado that it turned out was neither 'ripe' nor 'ready'.
I blame capitalism and/or the Tories.
Overall the national figure was still R below 1 the entire time wasn't it?
And here's how it is turning out so far:
(Courtesy steve jackson@goalprojection on Twitter)
There is however a 0.004% chance of dying in childbirth in Denmark.
Therefore, it is clear the pill is an unacceptable risk to the health of women and must be banned immediately.
For the barbers - just under two weeks to wait. #somethingneededtobedone.
Currently
England 75, NI 72, Scotland 71, Wales 68
Is there a mindless, totally avoidable bizarre cockup they haven’t tried?
My money’s on injecting people with Covid instead of with the vaccine.
Your top chart, is that the red line scenario or the blue line scenario?
https://www.sst.dk/en/english/news/2021/denmark-continues-its-vaccine-rollout-without-the-covid-19-vaccine-from-astrazeneca
..."In the midst of an epidemic, it has been a difficult decision to continue our vaccination programme without an effective and readily available vaccine against COVID-19. However, we have other vaccines at our disposal, and the epidemic is currently under control. Furthermore, we have come a long way towards vaccinating the older age groups where vaccination has a tremendous potential impact on preventing infection. Age is the main risk factor for becoming severely ill from COVID-19. The upcoming target groups for vaccination are less likely to become severely ill from COVID-19. We must weigh this against the fact that we now have a known risk of severe adverse effects from vaccination with AstraZeneca, even if the risk in absolute terms is slight," says Søren Brostrøm.
The consequence of this decision is that anyone aged 16 or older can expect to receive an offer of vaccination in late June. Thus, everyone who accepts the offer will be fully vaccinated about five weeks later – in early August.
The Danish Health Authority's decision means that we will cancel all booked times and invitations to vaccination with the vaccine from AstraZeneca. Those who have received the first injection with AstraZeneca will later receive an invitation to vaccination with another vaccine. Those who have previously been invited to receive their first injection with the vaccine from AstraZeneca – but who had the invitation cancelled – will be re-invited based on an assessment of the current epidemic situation.
The Danish Health Authority has decided to continue the rollout at this time without AstraZeneca, but this does not exclude that we may re-introduce the vaccine at a later date if the situation changes.
"We are basically in agreement with EMA's assessment regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. That is why it is important to emphasise that it is still an approved vaccine. And I understand if other countries in a different situation than us choose to continue using the vaccine. If Denmark were in a completely different situation and in the midst of a violent third outbreak, for example, and a healthcare system under pressure – and if we had not reached such an advanced point in our rollout of the vaccines – then I would not hesitate to use the vaccine, even if there were rare but severe complications associated with using it," says Søren Brostrøm....
NEW THREAD
But he wouldn't go anywhere near it. All he kept doing was stone walling with "Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent". Refusing to acknowledge any territory existed between totally ok behaviour and criminal behaviour (when everyone knows that not only does such territory exist but that it's quite spacious).
I do get that it's a sensitive area and that his approach might be the only one he thought he could manage or risk, but it didn't come over well. Not to me it didn't anyway. And I thought to myself, mmm, this is a non answer to a big and juicy question, therefore it's probably going to keep coming back - a la Farron and gay sex - and maybe Alex would be better off biting the bullet and getting an answer sorted out.
So, I don't know if he has? Or has it gone away?
She was asked if she was driving, said no, and therefore not asked to wait. I wasn't asked at all (man in a wheelchair? - he won't be driving).
Consequently we got straight in the car and I drove home (with no issues, obvs).
You can probably kick around various factors at the edges of those stats if you like, but lockdown regulations were being actively introduced at current case levels.
However, since then, it's matched nicely.
This is where it started:
He has, quite rightly, been tracking the errors since the model, and they look pretty decent, which does support the projection going forwards (at the moment!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fcWl47C8ik
I am not saying no restrictions at all, and the relaxations this week are good progress, but I think we can go further. We are not allowed to even consider the data that checks if we can go faster as the govt has put "not before" dates on the stages. That grates, especially combined with the threats of ongoing restrictions past June for years ahead.
I myself don't see a danger of ongoing restrictions in the longer term. If there are, absent a compelling reason like a new pandemic, I'll be against them.
We are possibly quite a long way ahead of where the model said we would be - though I don't think we've quite finished bumping through the extra bank holidays at Easter yet.
A stupid statement by a stupid ex-Labour politician.