I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
"organised sport" covers a colossal amount of stuff
Yep, and I never watch any of it, unless a friend is competing.
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
I suspect we are in territory similar to that of 1997. Noone gives a monkeys what Cummings says. The opposition is so weak that the.media is filling in the void as it did post 1997.
I agree, but the rot afflicting Labour now was sown in the Blair years of triumphant arrogance. I think the Tories are doing the same now, but it will be after the next GE that we see the loss of faith in the project. These things are a slow burner.
This is the nature of politics and government. The same things happened to the Tories up to 1997. The ones with the ideas and vision get tired and subject to events. Their replacements are apparatchiks and functionaries with fewer ideas of their own. Momentum is lost. The new direction comes from elsewhere.
What is unusual about the current government is that it is a major change of direction by a party that has already been in power for more than a decade. Have they restarted the clock on inevitable decline? Is it possible, post Boris, that they could do so again?
Moving on from May - and that period of dysfunctional government whilst the Remainers blocked Brexit - certainly feels like a very significant reset. Would anybody want to go back to that period (save for the fact we didn't have Covid, natch).
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
They don't have remotely comparable demographics.
The three major factors affecting spreads and death are: obesity rates, population density and rate of intergenerational households.
What other European countries would you suggest are more similar in size and demographic to the UK than Germany & France?
I think -- if you want to carry out this kind of comparison -- it should not be at the national level, as there are too many changing variables.
But, I think you could compare mortality rate from COVID in regions in France, Germany and the UK with similar population density/demography (eg Greater Birmingham with parts of the Ruhr, etc). I am sure these studies will be done. The results will be interesting.
But, I suspect none of the UK, Italy, Spain, France & Germany have much to brag about. These countries have all done pretty much the same. About 6 months ago, I would have said Germany was doing markedly better, but no longer.
In retrospect, I think the major mistake that the Government made was lateness in the first/second lockdowns. In the case of the first lockdown, it is clear that this mistake arose from modelling errors in SAGE. The modellers originally though the disease would spread more slowly than it actually did, so the first wave would peak later.
The borders I think are more arguable -- it is noticeable on pb.com that it is often the same people shrieking about the borders who can't wait to travel (@Leon). I think it is a lose-lose situation for any Government.
I would have done more to shut the borders, but there would have been the inevitable shrieks and hollers ... especially from the ranting hypocrites in the press.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
"organised sport" covers a colossal amount of stuff
Yep, and I never watch any of it, unless a friend is competing.
Disorganised sport is much more fun to watch. It can be quite the roller-coaster ride.
"Excellent post, I think the pictures from India may have changed peoples perceptions somewhat, Im sure lots are thinking thank god it wasn't that bad here and thank god for the vaccines."
I think our rate of morality (deaths per million) was actually worse than India's? so although we didnt have the same images of overrun clinics and lack of oxygen I am no sure we can say it wasnt as bad here.
"Excellent post, I think the pictures from India may have changed peoples perceptions somewhat, Im sure lots are thinking thank god it wasn't that bad here and thank god for the vaccines."
I think our rate of morality (deaths per million) was actually worse than India's? so although we didnt have the same images of overrun clinics and lack of oxygen I am no sure we can say it wasnt as bad here.
You cannot be sure about India with the Govt having no real idea of the death rate. Pictures of bodies floating down the Ganges adds to the picture of a disaster much worse than in the UK. Who knows (and we will never know) what the true death numbers are in India or any other Country for that matter for they all lie. Only the UK plays by the rules even if it overstated Covid deaths(which it undoubtedly does)
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
Deaths in the UK peaked on 19th Jan.
If we'd just locked down in September (2 months earlier as advised) and changed nothing else... still made all those other mistakes.... those 'deaths' would shift backwards in time by 2 months.
To mid-March by which time we had given about half the population a first dose. It does take a few weeks for protection to kick-in but that's >10k deaths averted without a single extra day of lockdown.
As I have repeatedly acknowledged vaccines are the game changer. Covid deferred is now Covid survived. I agree that we should be much more critical of decisions taken in light of that knowledge. Serious mistakes were made in late 2020 in the knowledge that the cavalry were not only coming but on the brow of the hill.
But that isn't what Cummings was talking about yesterday. He was talking about a time when vaccines were a distant hope not expected for at least a year as shown on the whiteboard Mike put on the header yesterday.
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
No headlines, long periods of mediocre consistency with not much happening? However HMG seems as addicted to ‘events’ as the reptile press, so not much chance of that.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
The great general public have little interest in the details of 7 hours of evidence. If the government can focus attention on one biggest headline issue - that thousands of people died needlessly - and cast real doubt on it then they will be able to move on.
About this there is another almost completely undiscussed issue. The UK death rate was at the top end of the scale of comparable countries, but not out of sight of a number of others, like France and Italy. Also England was not of a different order from Scotland.
But the undiscussed question - for reasons of politeness and courtesy - is the profile of the deaths. While the media can find voluble spokespeople to speak of the tragedy of 95 year old dementia patients dying in hospitals and care homes, there are countless more ordinary families experiencing this who are sad, would not have wanted deaths hastened, but accept fully that deaths happen and that very old and frail people dying is not an unmitigated tragedy requiring a search for blame.
I have never heard such family on the media. But I know lots personally. Do others?
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
1. Care homes policy was a literal slaughter in the tens of thousands range. Yes old people die of things other than Covid, but this policy, laid out in gruesome detail yesterday was a bloodbath 2. The borders allowed in off-shore variants which tore through chunks of the community and led to more regional lockdowns due to spikes in death rates
Both of these were avoidable
The idea that we were going to be able to protect those in care homes indefinitely is again delusional. Attempts to do so not only failed but resulted in the loss of contact with families and great hardship for the residents and those left behind without that chance to say goodbye. Scotland had exactly the same problem and for the same reasons. I am sure that you will find that deaths in care homes have been very high everywhere. They are concentrations of the most vulnerable.
The reason that these offshore variants tore through chunks of the community was because those communities had a higher than average multigenerational mix so the young would bring the virus back to the vulnerable who would succumb.
Without vaccines all of this was inevitable. Only the timing would vary.
Indefinitely? We should have tested patients on release from hospital. That largely would have stopped the primary route pox was introduced to homes and prevented 20k residents dying quickly. Old people die eventually of something - Mr Shakespeare the first to receive the vaccine has died. So it was not about anything indefinite. It was about not carelessly spreading the thing through closed environments full of vulnerable people.
Point of Order: Margaret Keenan was the first to receive the jab.
I don't think the tens of thousands of needless deaths comment will impact much. Anyone paying attention knows that already and the others won't start paying attention now. I think where this testimony is potentially damaging is in setting a narrative, in the absence of an imminent official enquiry, of a government in chaos, negligent, led by a man who is not fit to be there. And that's the reason for those deaths rather than a government that was struggling like so many others with a situation it couldn't control.
Cummings most interesting comment is this one in my view. He seemed to be pitching to the kind of people who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum, maybe because they already believe this about Johnson and himself.
I'm not smart, I've not built great things in the world. It's completely crackers that someone like me should have been in there just the same as it's crackers that Boris Johnson was in there."
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
Fantastic news for the UK sand Swiss pharma industries, and probably quite a few more industries too.
Who would agree any large contract for anything with the EU, after the way they’ve treated AstraZenica? A company who, let’s not forget, are doing this on a non-profit basis.
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
I suspect we are in territory similar to that of 1997. Noone gives a monkeys what Cummings says. The opposition is so weak that the.media is filling in the void as it did post 1997.
I agree, but the rot afflicting Labour now was sown in the Blair years of triumphant arrogance. I think the Tories are doing the same now, but it will be after the next GE that we see the loss of faith in the project. These things are a slow burner.
This is the nature of politics and government. The same things happened to the Tories up to 1997. The ones with the ideas and vision get tired and subject to events. Their replacements are apparatchiks and functionaries with fewer ideas of their own. Momentum is lost. The new direction comes from elsewhere.
What is unusual about the current government is that it is a major change of direction by a party that has already been in power for more than a decade. Have they restarted the clock on inevitable decline? Is it possible, post Boris, that they could do so again?
Moving on from May - and that period of dysfunctional government whilst the Remainers blocked Brexit - certainly feels like a very significant reset. Would anybody want to go back to that period (save for the fact we didn't have Covid, natch).
I agree that it feels like a very significant reset.
In answer to going back to that period, yes because it was the first time we actually had a parliament that really debated stuff and tried to influence opponents by argument, rather than the norm in this country, which is of an elected dictatorship.
Did they do it well? Well no, it was a shambles, but then it was the first time they had ever done it really. With a bit more experience, particularly if we don't have one party rule after an election they may get better at it. The coalition certainly seemed more productive.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
Good post. The problem I have with our response isn't the death toll, which as you say was probably inevitable unless we'd done a New Zealand In January last year, which was impossible politically and logistically. The problem is that we've combined that with some of the worst economic damage in Europe and the longest lockdowns. Sunak and SAGE have a lot to answer for.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
I take your point. The public aren't good at digesting complex messages such as their Prime Minister's incompetence and hubris cost the lives of tens of thousands while he and his floozy were choosing their wallpaper. What they might though is the arrogance of the Tory Party and their supporters.
What this has again shown is the Tory Party at its ugliest. Power at all costs. We chose a useless lying charlatan but as long as they like him in Hartlepool who cares....It may take some time but it'll catch up with him. The voters now have several more pieces of the jigsaw. It was arrogance and insensitivity that brought down the great leaderene and he is by some measure worse.
This is misleading. The voters had only two potential governments to choose from in 2019 - Jezza's and Boris's. In a context in which it was widely agreed by a majority that Brexit should happen rather than risk reversal the voters went for the only option which could deliver it and was within the voters' powers.
Boris's qualities, whatever they are, have to be assessed not by comparison with Gandhi and the precepts of the Buddha but by comparison with a government led by Jezza, and Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon and Laura Pidcock running the country.
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
"organised sport" covers a colossal amount of stuff
Yep, and I never watch any of it, unless a friend is competing.
Disorganised sport is much more fun to watch. It can be quite the roller-coaster ride.
As we who support England know.
Like the medieval "football" games between two villages that were basically rules-free homoerotic warfare?
Jenrick's got the short straw and is doing the media rounds this morning; every time he is asked about whether Hancock lied to Cabinet, his answer is that Hancock works very hard...
He certainly did get the short straw. I thought that was Grant S's job. Normally I don't sympathize with politicians who evade questions, but on BBC1 this morning he was asked some questions that were just impossible for him to answer and therefore unreasonable.
How are the questions unreasonable just because he can't answer them? Putting someone up who is both not suitably informed to be able to answer the inevitable questions and who is as dense as Jenrick to do the media rounds today is what is unreasonable.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
The other thing is that with hindsight you only really have two choices.
One is to do a New Zealand: hermetically seal the country. There is absolutely no way that Britain would have put up with this for 18 months (likely 3 or 4 years in NZ's case) nor would it even have been feasible, despite this being the Labour Party policy in opposition.
The other is to manage it as best as you can, accepting inevitable waves and deaths, like every other country in the world.
The Gov't decided to go for the second whilst pile-driving the development of vaccines which would, ultimately, save lives and get us back on track.
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
"organised sport" covers a colossal amount of stuff
Yep, and I never watch any of it, unless a friend is competing.
Disorganised sport is much more fun to watch. It can be quite the roller-coaster ride.
As we who support England know.
Like the medieval "football" games between two villages that were basically rules-free homoerotic warfare?
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
“Inflation hits 10%”
As @Philip_Thompson keeps telling me an increase in money supply is no longer inflationary, and if we do get some inflation it is "good". I can't recall why.
So no, Boris just keeps rolling along.
I have never said that!
I have said that it is inflationary but it doesn't automatically mean inflation because we also have deflationary pressures to take into account.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary ones cancel each other out then the net result is no inflation. As we've seen for the past decade.
What part of that are you struggling with? Do you need smaller words? 🤦♂️
What deflationary pressures - China is no longer selling things at below material cost
The deflationary pressures we have had - the falling cost of technology, manufacturing offshoring, cheap imports from China as it holds its currency down, free movement of labour - are, with the possible exception of the first, in retreat; a further reason why a move to more inflationary conditions is likely as we enter a post-pandemic spending boom.
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
“Inflation hits 10%”
As @Philip_Thompson keeps telling me an increase in money supply is no longer inflationary, and if we do get some inflation it is "good". I can't recall why.
So no, Boris just keeps rolling along.
I have never said that!
I have said that it is inflationary but it doesn't automatically mean inflation because we also have deflationary pressures to take into account.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary ones cancel each other out then the net result is no inflation. As we've seen for the past decade.
What part of that are you struggling with? Do you need smaller words? 🤦♂️
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
I have had a career of daft cases and dafter clients but I am not sure that I have seen anything quite like this.
If Pfizer lose, that would massively ramp up the political risk of doing business in the EU to somewhere close to Somalia..
Are they suing Pfizer too? I thought it was just AZ. The Commission has been dysfunctional for most of the last 20 years (the Delors period was better in fairness) but under von Der Leyen it must be imperiling the very future of the project. Who on earth would want to put up with this?
Edit The Delors commission finished in 1994. I'm getting old.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
Jenrick's got the short straw and is doing the media rounds this morning; every time he is asked about whether Hancock lied to Cabinet, his answer is that Hancock works very hard...
He certainly did get the short straw. I thought that was Grant S's job. Normally I don't sympathize with politicians who evade questions, but on BBC1 this morning he was asked some questions that were just impossible for him to answer and therefore unreasonable.
How are the questions unreasonable just because he can't answer them? Putting someone up who is both not suitably informed to be able to answer the inevitable questions and who is as dense as Jenrick to do the media rounds today is what is unreasonable.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
To be fair, there’s also plenty of people in the press who have spent the last 12 months (or five years in some cases) calling Dominic Cummings a lying charlatan, a despicable human unfit for any job, who are today treating his every word to the Select Committee as if it were gospel.
"Excellent post, I think the pictures from India may have changed peoples perceptions somewhat, Im sure lots are thinking thank god it wasn't that bad here and thank god for the vaccines."
I think our rate of morality (deaths per million) was actually worse than India's? so although we didnt have the same images of overrun clinics and lack of oxygen I am no sure we can say it wasnt as bad here.
Never mind was , they still are multiples of India but showing pictures of India and pretending it was much much worse there was typical Tory propaganda, regardless of how desperate it looked in India. Still without our NHS breaking down we are many times the rates of deaths is pretty devastating.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
Deaths in the UK peaked on 19th Jan.
If we'd just locked down in September (2 months earlier as advised) and changed nothing else... still made all those other mistakes.... those 'deaths' would shift backwards in time by 2 months.
To mid-March by which time we had given about half the population a first dose. It does take a few weeks for protection to kick-in but that's >10k deaths averted without a single extra day of lockdown.
As I have repeatedly acknowledged vaccines are the game changer. Covid deferred is now Covid survived. I agree that we should be much more critical of decisions taken in light of that knowledge. Serious mistakes were made in late 2020 in the knowledge that the cavalry were not only coming but on the brow of the hill.
But that isn't what Cummings was talking about yesterday. He was talking about a time when vaccines were a distant hope not expected for at least a year as shown on the whiteboard Mike put on the header yesterday.
Ah okay we're in agreement then. We could obviously have done better on the first wave in many ways - but the mistakes on the second wave were far more egregious, unforced and avoidable.
It's remarkable to me that having discovered a vaccine which worked and was safe on Dec 2 - the govt's response was to lift restrictions, ensuring a major surge in cases and deaths just when we knew most of the deaths could be avoided.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
They don't have remotely comparable demographics.
The three major factors affecting spreads and death are: obesity rates, population density and rate of intergenerational households.
What other European countries would you suggest are more similar in size and demographic to the UK than Germany & France?
I think -- if you want to carry out this kind of comparison -- it should not be at the national level, as there are too many changing variables.
But, I think you could compare mortality rate from COVID in regions in France, Germany and the UK with similar population density/demography (eg Greater Birmingham with parts of the Ruhr, etc). I am sure these studies will be done. The results will be interesting.
But, I suspect none of the UK, Italy, Spain, France & Germany have much to brag about. These countries have all done pretty much the same. About 6 months ago, I would have said Germany was doing markedly better, but no longer.
In retrospect, I think the major mistake that the Government made was lateness in the first/second lockdowns. In the case of the first lockdown, it is clear that this mistake arose from modelling errors in SAGE. The modellers originally though the disease would spread more slowly than it actually did, so the first wave would peak later.
The borders I think are more arguable -- it is noticeable on pb.com that it is often the same people shrieking about the borders who can't wait to travel (@Leon). I think it is a lose-lose situation for any Government.
I would have done more to shut the borders, but there would have been the inevitable shrieks and hollers ... especially from the ranting hypocrites in the press.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Top for fraud , graft and enriching friends and family as well
I will repeat again for good measure. I used to do this for a living — I did feasibility studies, tenders, and project designs for solar installations, amongst other renewable technologies.
They are objectively not a good investment in the UK. They simply do not output enough.
Without the high Gen Tariffs you're looking at a 20-25 year payback. Much more with an expensive Tesla battery. The panels themselves only have a lifespan for around 25 years.
Crap investment.
The panel lifespan is more than 25 years. It's more accurate to say that panels lose approximately 0.8% to 1% of the power they generate each year. (Mostly, IIRC, via surface oxidation, but I could be wrong.)
Most solar panels output about 105-110% of rated power in year one.
Aye but you're tailing off at that point, and in a country where it's already cloudy and overcast most the time, you're going to have a dribble of generation.
Tailing off? That means you're still getting 80+% of rated capacity at the end of the period.
Let's assume you don't take the FIT, and electricity prices rise 2% per year for the period. You'll be getting more each year - in cash terms - than in the previous one.
80% of very little is very little.
Of course that doesn't factor in your inverter failing, which is another expense (you're supposed to have them serviced every year, most don't), failing to wash the panels properly (most people don't do this either), etc etc.
Listen I did these calculations day in and day out. I know all the tricks solar zealots use. They assume zero shading, they assume perfect orientation with south, they assume a perfect 30 degree pitched roof.
It simply isn't a good investment. The figures don't lie.
A lot of people don't know that most panels are wired in series and therefore if one panel is shaded, for example by a cloud, either your whole array is generating nothing, or only half of the array is generating.
Etc.
They were fantastic under the ridiculously generous FIT. Otherwise I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.
Let's assume that you put panels on your roof and they cost you £1,000 and they give you £50/electricity a year. (I'm making up numbers here.)
Does that sound like a good investment or a bad investment?
Here's two things to remember:
(1) A cost (electricity) avoided is like getting after tax income. If I receive £50 in interest from the bank, I'm paying £25 of that back to the government in tax. On the other hand, if I cut my electricity bill by £50. That means the real yield - for higher rate tax payers - is more than it looks.
(2) The cost of electricity rises. So you're getting an asset generating a real return, not a nominal one. If you buy indexed linked government bonds you take a guaranteed loss. Even before you take into account the tax you'll be paying on the pitiful amount of income you get.
Look, if you have £1,000 will you do better in SpaceX or solar panels? Well, SpaceX, duh.
And if you are at the beginning of your career, then long dated low return assets are a bloody stupid idea.
But if the choice is between solar panels and government bonds... Or solar panels versus sitting in the bank earning the amazing 0.2% that Lloyds will offer you if you're willing to lock the money up for two years?
Well, in that case solar panels are the better financial investment. It all depends on where you are in your personal financial journey.
0.2% sure. But "great investment"?
Well said gallow. And while they're not a great investment economically, people tend to forget they're not a great one environmentally either.
Supply and demand don't intersect with solar panels.
We are a cold, overcast, northern island that relies upon heating in the winter not air conditioning in the summer. The panels generate less supply in the winter. Already today much more electricity is consumed in the winter and that's before gas boilers are discontinued and replaced with electric powered heating too!
The environment needs electricity supply most in the winter not the summer. Environmentally Solar Panels in place of coal was a great idea, but if we can get through winter with electric heating without much solar generation then what is the point of extra solar generation in the summer when the electric heating is turned off?
Hang on.
In a world where most of our generation is natural gas CCGTs that can be turned on and off at will, then if it's cheaper for an individual to generate power via the sun great. And if it's not, then people won't buy them.
My point is that for a young person (like you) solar panels are a terrible investment relative to (say) paying down your mortgage. For someone in their mid 50s, on the other hand, they are likely a pretty good investment relative to government bonds or leaving money in the bank.
Simply, you get a 5-6% real after tax return, which is shit compared to SpaceX, but fantastic compared to other low-risk assets.
That's the problem though, we aren't going to have most of our generation from gas CCGTs by 2030, let alone by 2040 or 2050.
Net zero entails removing CCGT surely and having sufficient clean energy to power electronic heating through the winter.
In which case what environmental purpose do solar panels serve.
This is a completely different to somewhere like California that relies upon air conditioning in the summer.
That's a minority of gas and it's falling fast. If you're looking at a 25 year lifespan then how many of those years do you think that will be true for?
In 2010 coal was about 80% of electricity. It's now about 0% most if the time. The same thing will happen now to gas within the next decade, not the next 25 years.
The future of greenery is surely in this country more stuff like wind and tidal etc than solar.
I agree with all of that except the last line. Solar has improved in efficiency so much that it will be an important part of the mix as well, even in this gloomy overcast country. It still occasionally startles me when I am out for a walk how many houses in the village now have solar panels. The increase in the last 3 years has been marked and I do not think that trend has petered out at all yet.
They are slowly getting better, but at 56°N they’re still very much uneconomical.
Great for virtue signalling though, to show the neighbours how ‘green’ you are.
At 53.4 degrees north mine have paid out an average of £1.98 per day since I've moved in. On top of that I've got the 'hidden' decrease in elec costs. Would I bother now with no feed in tariffs available ? No, but it was definitely a plus point when considering the house for purchase. I think I have about 15 years left on the tarriff. The generation is 11.99 KwH per day between 1st April 2018 and 1st April 2020.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
They don't have remotely comparable demographics.
The three major factors affecting spreads and death are: obesity rates, population density and rate of intergenerational households.
What other European countries would you suggest are more similar in size and demographic to the UK than Germany & France?
I think -- if you want to carry out this kind of comparison -- it should not be at the national level, as there are too many changing variables.
But, I think you could compare mortality rate from COVID in regions in France, Germany and the UK with similar population density/demography (eg Greater Birmingham with parts of the Ruhr, etc). I am sure these studies will be done. The results will be interesting.
But, I suspect none of the UK, Italy, Spain, France & Germany have much to brag about. These countries have all done pretty much the same. About 6 months ago, I would have said Germany was doing markedly better, but no longer.
In retrospect, I think the major mistake that the Government made was lateness in the first/second lockdowns. In the case of the first lockdown, it is clear that this mistake arose from modelling errors in SAGE. The modellers originally though the disease would spread more slowly than it actually did, so the first wave would peak later.
The borders I think are more arguable -- it is noticeable on pb.com that it is often the same people shrieking about the borders who can't wait to travel (@Leon). I think it is a lose-lose situation for any Government.
I would have done more to shut the borders, but there would have been the inevitable shrieks and hollers ... especially from the ranting hypocrites in the press.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Top for fraud , graft and enriching friends and family as well
I will repeat again for good measure. I used to do this for a living — I did feasibility studies, tenders, and project designs for solar installations, amongst other renewable technologies.
They are objectively not a good investment in the UK. They simply do not output enough.
Without the high Gen Tariffs you're looking at a 20-25 year payback. Much more with an expensive Tesla battery. The panels themselves only have a lifespan for around 25 years.
Crap investment.
The panel lifespan is more than 25 years. It's more accurate to say that panels lose approximately 0.8% to 1% of the power they generate each year. (Mostly, IIRC, via surface oxidation, but I could be wrong.)
Most solar panels output about 105-110% of rated power in year one.
Aye but you're tailing off at that point, and in a country where it's already cloudy and overcast most the time, you're going to have a dribble of generation.
Tailing off? That means you're still getting 80+% of rated capacity at the end of the period.
Let's assume you don't take the FIT, and electricity prices rise 2% per year for the period. You'll be getting more each year - in cash terms - than in the previous one.
80% of very little is very little.
Of course that doesn't factor in your inverter failing, which is another expense (you're supposed to have them serviced every year, most don't), failing to wash the panels properly (most people don't do this either), etc etc.
Listen I did these calculations day in and day out. I know all the tricks solar zealots use. They assume zero shading, they assume perfect orientation with south, they assume a perfect 30 degree pitched roof.
It simply isn't a good investment. The figures don't lie.
A lot of people don't know that most panels are wired in series and therefore if one panel is shaded, for example by a cloud, either your whole array is generating nothing, or only half of the array is generating.
Etc.
They were fantastic under the ridiculously generous FIT. Otherwise I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.
Let's assume that you put panels on your roof and they cost you £1,000 and they give you £50/electricity a year. (I'm making up numbers here.)
Does that sound like a good investment or a bad investment?
Here's two things to remember:
(1) A cost (electricity) avoided is like getting after tax income. If I receive £50 in interest from the bank, I'm paying £25 of that back to the government in tax. On the other hand, if I cut my electricity bill by £50. That means the real yield - for higher rate tax payers - is more than it looks.
(2) The cost of electricity rises. So you're getting an asset generating a real return, not a nominal one. If you buy indexed linked government bonds you take a guaranteed loss. Even before you take into account the tax you'll be paying on the pitiful amount of income you get.
Look, if you have £1,000 will you do better in SpaceX or solar panels? Well, SpaceX, duh.
And if you are at the beginning of your career, then long dated low return assets are a bloody stupid idea.
But if the choice is between solar panels and government bonds... Or solar panels versus sitting in the bank earning the amazing 0.2% that Lloyds will offer you if you're willing to lock the money up for two years?
Well, in that case solar panels are the better financial investment. It all depends on where you are in your personal financial journey.
0.2% sure. But "great investment"?
Well said gallow. And while they're not a great investment economically, people tend to forget they're not a great one environmentally either.
Supply and demand don't intersect with solar panels.
We are a cold, overcast, northern island that relies upon heating in the winter not air conditioning in the summer. The panels generate less supply in the winter. Already today much more electricity is consumed in the winter and that's before gas boilers are discontinued and replaced with electric powered heating too!
The environment needs electricity supply most in the winter not the summer. Environmentally Solar Panels in place of coal was a great idea, but if we can get through winter with electric heating without much solar generation then what is the point of extra solar generation in the summer when the electric heating is turned off?
Hang on.
In a world where most of our generation is natural gas CCGTs that can be turned on and off at will, then if it's cheaper for an individual to generate power via the sun great. And if it's not, then people won't buy them.
My point is that for a young person (like you) solar panels are a terrible investment relative to (say) paying down your mortgage. For someone in their mid 50s, on the other hand, they are likely a pretty good investment relative to government bonds or leaving money in the bank.
Simply, you get a 5-6% real after tax return, which is shit compared to SpaceX, but fantastic compared to other low-risk assets.
That's the problem though, we aren't going to have most of our generation from gas CCGTs by 2030, let alone by 2040 or 2050.
Net zero entails removing CCGT surely and having sufficient clean energy to power electronic heating through the winter.
In which case what environmental purpose do solar panels serve.
This is a completely different to somewhere like California that relies upon air conditioning in the summer.
That's a minority of gas and it's falling fast. If you're looking at a 25 year lifespan then how many of those years do you think that will be true for?
In 2010 coal was about 80% of electricity. It's now about 0% most if the time. The same thing will happen now to gas within the next decade, not the next 25 years.
The future of greenery is surely in this country more stuff like wind and tidal etc than solar.
I agree with all of that except the last line. Solar has improved in efficiency so much that it will be an important part of the mix as well, even in this gloomy overcast country. It still occasionally startles me when I am out for a walk how many houses in the village now have solar panels. The increase in the last 3 years has been marked and I do not think that trend has petered out at all yet.
They are slowly getting better, but at 56°N they’re still very much uneconomical.
Great for virtue signalling though, to show the neighbours how ‘green’ you are.
At 53.4 degrees north mine have paid out an average of £1.98 per day since I've moved in. On top of that I've got the 'hidden' decrease in elec costs. Would I bother now with no feed in tariffs available ? No, but it was definitely a plus point when considering the house for purchase. I think I have about 15 years left on the tarriff.
Yes, the old feed-in tarrifs change the economics substantially. But AIUI they’re no longer available for new installations.
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
"organised sport" covers a colossal amount of stuff
Yep, and I never watch any of it, unless a friend is competing.
Organised sport covers participation events too though, like the HMs I've done over recent years - not just stuff on the TV.
Jenrick's got the short straw and is doing the media rounds this morning; every time he is asked about whether Hancock lied to Cabinet, his answer is that Hancock works very hard...
He certainly did get the short straw. I thought that was Grant S's job. Normally I don't sympathize with politicians who evade questions, but on BBC1 this morning he was asked some questions that were just impossible for him to answer and therefore unreasonable.
How are the questions unreasonable just because he can't answer them? Putting someone up who is both not suitably informed to be able to answer the inevitable questions and who is as dense as Jenrick to do the media rounds today is what is unreasonable.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
To be fair, there’s also plenty of people in the press who have spent the last 12 months (or five years in some cases) calling Dominic Cummings a lying charlatan, a despicable human unfit for any job, who are today treating his every word to the Select Committee as if it were gospel.
True. Then again many journalists at many media outlets are paid to lie to set out the agreed narrative that the editor / proprietor wants published. MPs are supposed to be held to standards in public office.
Jenrick's got the short straw and is doing the media rounds this morning; every time he is asked about whether Hancock lied to Cabinet, his answer is that Hancock works very hard...
He certainly did get the short straw. I thought that was Grant S's job. Normally I don't sympathize with politicians who evade questions, but on BBC1 this morning he was asked some questions that were just impossible for him to answer and therefore unreasonable.
How are the questions unreasonable just because he can't answer them? Putting someone up who is both not suitably informed to be able to answer the inevitable questions and who is as dense as Jenrick to do the media rounds today is what is unreasonable.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
Rochadale, I agree with your last 2 paras, although it is common for politicians to throw summersaults on their views and get away with it.
Re the first, I can't remember the exact questions, but nobody could have answered them in the way they were framed, which made the interview pointless. More subtle questioning would either have got answers, or evasion, and people could genuinely judge for themselves.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
"organised sport" covers a colossal amount of stuff
Yep, and I never watch any of it, unless a friend is competing.
Organised sport covers participation events too though, like the HMs I've done over recent years - not just stuff on the TV.
And I don't watch those HMs either. I used to organise a Sunday kickaround with some friends at some nearby 5-a-side courts, but that's it.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
There's something in that and I know many oters have commented in support and against.
For me, there are two main things an earlier lockdown could have done: - Buy some time to do things better: --- Ramp up testing capacity --- Learn more about treatments --- Get more equipment - ventilators, but in particular PPE which may have reduced healthcare staff infections --- Use the Nightingale hospitals or other facilities as a quarantine for elderly people leaving hospital who would be returned to care homes (this could have made a big difference by not sending infected people into vulnerable populations in care homes) - Flatten the curve - no, really: early and frequent lockdowns of relatively short duration could be used to keep the virus at a sustained lower level. What I don't know is whether the public would have dealt with cycling restrictions very well - it could well have been harder than fewer, longer lockdowns (and with lower cases and deaths adherence may have been worse)
Having said that, I cut the government some slack on the first lockdown. They were late, but the choice was horrible - don't lockdown and likely terrible consequences; lockdown and definitely pretty horrible consequences. What I'd criticise the government for is being late with the later lockdowns and border control.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Thanks for that compelling analysis.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and postings from Roger.
There are three kinds of truths: statistics, damn statistics and more statistics.
You missed a trick there @YBarddCwsc . You could have countered by asserting that in late November/December/January, Llafur were second only to Belgium for per capita deaths, even though Boris saved Christmas and Drakeford failed, and cancelled it.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
Deaths in the UK peaked on 19th Jan.
If we'd just locked down in September (2 months earlier as advised) and changed nothing else... still made all those other mistakes.... those 'deaths' would shift backwards in time by 2 months.
To mid-March by which time we had given about half the population a first dose. It does take a few weeks for protection to kick-in but that's >10k deaths averted without a single extra day of lockdown.
As I have repeatedly acknowledged vaccines are the game changer. Covid deferred is now Covid survived. I agree that we should be much more critical of decisions taken in light of that knowledge. Serious mistakes were made in late 2020 in the knowledge that the cavalry were not only coming but on the brow of the hill.
But that isn't what Cummings was talking about yesterday. He was talking about a time when vaccines were a distant hope not expected for at least a year as shown on the whiteboard Mike put on the header yesterday.
Ah okay we're in agreement then. We could obviously have done better on the first wave in many ways - but the mistakes on the second wave were far more egregious, unforced and avoidable.
It's remarkable to me that having discovered a vaccine which worked and was safe on Dec 2 - the govt's response was to lift restrictions, ensuring a major surge in cases and deaths just when we knew most of the deaths could be avoided.
Surely the vaccine situation was pretty clear before that- even by mid autumn, it was a question of dotting is, crossing ts on the approval documentation and ramping up production for OAZ and Pfizer/BT.
It's a shame that so much of yesterday was about the spring not the autumn and winter- the second and third waves and lockdowns were much more significant.
I don't think the tens of thousands of needless deaths comment will impact much. Anyone paying attention knows that already and the others won't start paying attention now. I think where this testimony is potentially damaging is in setting a narrative, in the absence of an imminent official enquiry, of a government in chaos, negligent, led by a man who is not fit to be there. And that's the reason for those deaths rather than a government that was struggling like so many others with a situation it couldn't control.
Cummings most interesting comment is this one in my view. He seemed to be pitching to the kind of people who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum, maybe because they already believe this about Johnson and himself.
I'm not smart, I've not built great things in the world. It's completely crackers that someone like me should have been in there just the same as it's crackers that Boris Johnson was in there."
I watched all seven hours and in respect of your last paragraph Cummings added that even if Bill Gates had been brought in he would not have been able to deal with it
His vendetta against Boris and Hancock was extraordinary and to be honest some of his comments re Boris were believable, though to accuse officials and the PM to be skiing and on holiday in February when nobody was dealing with it seriously, has a large dose of hindsight
Indeed a lot of his testimony was with the benefit of hindsight rather than the real considerations of the moment
I would also comment that had this been a UK only crisis then his criticism would be more valid, but covid 19 struck across Europe, the US and Canada as well as the far east. Outside of the far east every government has struggled with it and remember Scotland, Wales and NI did not do any better.
And this morning the whole of Victoria state in Australia is in complete lockdown and includes Melbourne
Indeed Wales did apply the 2 week circuit breaker in September and it was a disaster as Wales opened up immediately only to plunge into a later prolonged lockdown.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
They don't have remotely comparable demographics.
The three major factors affecting spreads and death are: obesity rates, population density and rate of intergenerational households.
What other European countries would you suggest are more similar in size and demographic to the UK than Germany & France?
I think -- if you want to carry out this kind of comparison -- it should not be at the national level, as there are too many changing variables.
But, I think you could compare mortality rate from COVID in regions in France, Germany and the UK with similar population density/demography (eg Greater Birmingham with parts of the Ruhr, etc). I am sure these studies will be done. The results will be interesting.
But, I suspect none of the UK, Italy, Spain, France & Germany have much to brag about. These countries have all done pretty much the same. About 6 months ago, I would have said Germany was doing markedly better, but no longer.
In retrospect, I think the major mistake that the Government made was lateness in the first/second lockdowns. In the case of the first lockdown, it is clear that this mistake arose from modelling errors in SAGE. The modellers originally though the disease would spread more slowly than it actually did, so the first wave would peak later.
The borders I think are more arguable -- it is noticeable on pb.com that it is often the same people shrieking about the borders who can't wait to travel (@Leon). I think it is a lose-lose situation for any Government.
I would have done more to shut the borders, but there would have been the inevitable shrieks and hollers ... especially from the ranting hypocrites in the press.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Thank you, but I don't feel I can honestly take the credit, having neither died nor passed on the infection* to anyone else.
*A pre-vaccine test in one of the studies confirmed I had no antibodies a few weeks back
It's worth keeping in mind that Johnson's ratings were negative until recently. I think people quite rightly credit him for a good few months of stable government calmly introducing the vaccines without distraction, and that's given him a good boost. But people are under few illusions and the underlying view remains sceptical. Dom's evidence will reinforce that basic scepticism, without removing the credit.
So I don't think we'll see only a modest drop in Johnson's ratings. But if things go wrong later - with the economy, for instance - then Johnson's insouciant style will not be enough.
I don't think the tens of thousands of needless deaths comment will impact much. Anyone paying attention knows that already and the others won't start paying attention now. I think where this testimony is potentially damaging is in setting a narrative, in the absence of an imminent official enquiry, of a government in chaos, negligent, led by a man who is not fit to be there. And that's the reason for those deaths rather than a government that was struggling like so many others with a situation it couldn't control.
Cummings most interesting comment is this one in my view. He seemed to be pitching to the kind of people who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum, maybe because they already believe this about Johnson and himself.
I'm not smart, I've not built great things in the world. It's completely crackers that someone like me should have been in there just the same as it's crackers that Boris Johnson was in there."
I watched all seven hours and in respect of your last paragraph Cummings added that even if Bill Gates had been brought in he would not have been able to deal with it
His vendetta against Boris and Hancock was extraordinary and to be honest some of his comments re Boris were believable, though to accuse officials and the PM to be skiing and on holiday in February when nobody was dealing with it seriously, has a large dose of hindsight
Indeed a lot of his testimony was with the benefit of hindsight rather than the real considerations of the moment
I would also comment that had this been a UK only crisis then his criticism would be more valid, but covid 19 struck across Europe, the US and Canada as well as the far east. Outside of the far east every government has struggled with it and remember Scotland, Wales and NI did not do any better.
And this morning the whole of Victoria state in Australia is in complete lockdown and includes Melbourne
Indeed Wales did apply the 2 week circuit breaker in September and it was a disaster as Wales opened up immediately only to plunge into a later prolonged lockdown.
As I commented earlier this week the timescales that this disease moves in (7-10 days incubation, another 7-10 days until serious illness requiring hospitalisation) aren't timescales humans can easily understand
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
There's something in that and I know many oters have commented in support and against.
For me, there are two main things an earlier lockdown could have done: - Buy some time to do things better: --- Ramp up testing capacity --- Learn more about treatments --- Get more equipment - ventilators, but in particular PPE which may have reduced healthcare staff infections --- Use the Nightingale hospitals or other facilities as a quarantine for elderly people leaving hospital who would be returned to care homes (this could have made a big difference by not sending infected people into vulnerable populations in care homes) - Flatten the curve - no, really: early and frequent lockdowns of relatively short duration could be used to keep the virus at a sustained lower level. What I don't know is whether the public would have dealt with cycling restrictions very well - it could well have been harder than fewer, longer lockdowns (and with lower cases and deaths adherence may have been worse)
Having said that, I cut the government some slack on the first lockdown. They were late, but the choice was horrible - don't lockdown and likely terrible consequences; lockdown and definitely pretty horrible consequences. What I'd criticise the government for is being late with the later lockdowns and border control.
Where I would be most critical of the government is the failure to change course once we knew the vaccines were coming and they worked. Once we know that the cost/reward ratio on things like lockdown is fundamentally different and the efforts to open up the economy over the period from September 2020 seem inexplicable. The avoidable deaths in this pandemic were not in care homes or even as a result of the failure to close borders in March 2020, they were in January and February this year. Those deaths could and should have been avoided because by then there was a way out.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
Fantastic news for the UK sand Swiss pharma industries, and probably quite a few more industries too.
Who would agree any large contract for anything with the EU, after the way they’ve treated AstraZenica? A company who, let’s not forget, are doing this on a non-profit basis.
(Disclaimer I'm supposed to be rabid Europhile). A company that fails to deliver on three quarters of its commitments on a €1 billion contract is essentially guaranteed to be taken to court. The root cause is in my view quite simple. It committed to far more than it could realistically deliver. What it did actually deliver is there or there abouts. The legal implications of this will be played out in the courts, but in general promising more than you can deliver isn't much of a legal defence, as many much smaller companies have found to their cost. Companies the size of AZ have controls for contract risk. AZ does seem to have governance issues - they also have problems in the USA and it's only AZ that is in this situation.
I do agree however that AZ acted in good faith to do its bit to tackle the greatest crisis facing the world at present and the EC conspiracy theories are pretty bad.
The other thing is that with hindsight you only really have two choices.
One is to do a New Zealand: hermetically seal the country. There is absolutely no way that Britain would have put up with this for 18 months (likely 3 or 4 years in NZ's case) nor would it even have been feasible, despite this being the Labour Party policy in opposition.
The other is to manage it as best as you can, accepting inevitable waves and deaths, like every other country in the world.
The Gov't decided to go for the second whilst pile-driving the development of vaccines which would, ultimately, save lives and get us back on track.
There's a significant gap between hermetically sealing the country and having sod all border control.
If the government hadn't encouraged foreign holidays last summer then the autumn wave would have been both later and smaller.
If the government had restricted travel to India then we wouldn't have been talking about the Indian variant for the last fortnight.
There seems to have been a casual attitude of "it will get here sooner or later so why bother trying to stop it".
But time was vital and buying a month here and a month there through border control would have meant less death and less damage.
The U.K. was, on the bare figure, pretty much the worst in the EU in the first wave. And arguably the country with the most warning and time for planning. In the second wave this is by no means the case. And in the second wave it is the other countries that had the time for planning as we were the ones who were the first to meet the U.K. variant.
It’s almost as if in both cases, the countries with time to plan, assumed that the developing problems in other countries were just down to the other countries poor management rather than just that they were hit first.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Thanks for that compelling analysis.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and postings from Roger.
There are three kinds of truths: statistics, damn statistics and more statistics.
You missed a trick there @YBarddCwsc . You could have countered by asserting that in late November/December/January, Llafur were second only to Belgium for per capita deaths, even though Boris saved Christmas and Drakeford failed, and cancelled it.
Yes, you are correct, for a while Llafur had managed to propel Wales almost to the top of an international league table, albeit for per capita COVID deaths.
I do note ... somewhat wrily that Labour's position is a little inconsistent.
In England, their position is that we need an urgent public inquiry into the handling of COVID by the Government and the bunglings of Boris & Co.
In Scotland, their position is that we need an urgent public inquiry into the handling of COVID by the Government and the bunglings of Nicola & Co.
In Wales, their position is that we do ... NOT ... need an urgent public inquiry into the handling of COVID by the Government. It would, you see, be a distraction from Drakeford's economic recovery plan that will turn Wales into California.
Jenrick's got the short straw and is doing the media rounds this morning; every time he is asked about whether Hancock lied to Cabinet, his answer is that Hancock works very hard...
He certainly did get the short straw. I thought that was Grant S's job. Normally I don't sympathize with politicians who evade questions, but on BBC1 this morning he was asked some questions that were just impossible for him to answer and therefore unreasonable.
How are the questions unreasonable just because he can't answer them? Putting someone up who is both not suitably informed to be able to answer the inevitable questions and who is as dense as Jenrick to do the media rounds today is what is unreasonable.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
Rochadale, I agree with your last 2 paras, although it is common for politicians to throw summersaults on their views and get away with it.
Re the first, I can't remember the exact questions, but nobody could have answered them in the way they were framed, which made the interview pointless. More subtle questioning would either have got answers, or evasion, and people could genuinely judge for themselves.
Didn't Jenrick eventually throw MattH under the bus? Responding to questions about Hancock: "Of course things happened which could have been better/not everything was done right/mistakes were made" or something similar.
What is interesting is that the numbers match quite well to the vaccination numbers. All the stuff about "1/3rd of the population has had it" can go in the bin.
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
I think one consequence of Cummings' appearance will be to ensure 21st June sees us free from Covid constraints. Boris will want to show he had a strategy to get out of lockdown - in contrast to the more chaotic times when Cummings was part of the problem in causing that chaos.
"Funny how things have run on rails since he left, eh?"
You may well be right, but isn't that simply confirming one of Cummings main criticisms of Johnson? That it is government for daily media headlines, not long term, or even medium term outcomes? It may well be a good way to win elections, but it is not a fit way to run a country.
Dealing with headlines is an important part of running a country. Pressure shows a problem and a solution is found to that problem. It is a critical democratic feedback loop. Indeed that's the irony of people banging on about OODA loops like it's a novel concept, the media are a major part of OODA that happens every day already.
Investing in vaccines was THE long term solution to the pandemic and this Government did it.
The EU shows what happens when there is no substantial media. They don't have any proper democratic accountability and no EU wide media either. So the pressures that our governments are forced to deal with don't exist, leaving the EU as a sclerotic, slow institution that doesn't deal with issues ending up with stuff like the vaccines debacle.
Yes our media can be a bit shit, it's obsession with holidays has been weird. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Good point about EU media, and also the structure of the EU that doesn’t have a role for an Opposition in the same way most countries do.
UK media have been uniformly terrible, uninformed and focussed on the wrong things during the pandemic - but the alternative is worse.
We have been in the EU for over 40 years up until last year. Are you saying we had an impotent media while we were in it and now we haven't?
I wonder if Dom might had some sort of nervous breakdown? Watching some of his evidence to the select committee on YouTube it seems he is taking every single death to heart and feels he and the government are personally to blame.
I think the responsibility he feels was on his shoulders might have driven him over the edge...
What is interesting is that the numbers match quite well to the vaccination numbers. All the stuff about "1/3rd of the population has had it" can go in the bin.
Well, except you have to knock off essentially the last three big weeks of vaccines to get to the period covered by this study.
EU officials have publicly said the bloc is better off anyway without the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in its future vaccine portfolio, the drugmaker's lawyers pointed out.
As Boularbah put it, it's “shocking that some members are asking for doses of a vaccine they have said they will no longer use.”....
.....The pharma company’s lawyers concluded that the EU was now trying to essentially rewrite the contract by asking the court to impose new, strict delivery deadlines and penalties.
Fantastic news for the UK sand Swiss pharma industries, and probably quite a few more industries too.
Who would agree any large contract for anything with the EU, after the way they’ve treated AstraZenica? A company who, let’s not forget, are doing this on a non-profit basis.
(Disclaimer I'm supposed to be rabid Europhile). A company that fails to deliver on three quarters of its commitments on a €1 billion contract is essentially guaranteed to be taken to court. The root cause is in my view quite simple. It committed to far more than it could realistically deliver. What it did actually deliver is there or there abouts. The legal implications of this will be played out in the courts, but in general promising more than you can deliver isn't much of a legal defence, as many much smaller companies have found to their cost. Companies the size of AZ have controls for contract risk. AZ does seem to have governance issues - they also have problems in the USA and it's only AZ that is in this situation.
I do agree however that AZ acted in good faith to do its bit to tackle the greatest crisis facing the world at present and the EC conspiracy theories are pretty bad.
The question is what "realistically deliver" meant. From what I understand, they had the facilities with the capacity, in theory, to produce the vaccines. The problems were mostly yield.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
They don't have remotely comparable demographics.
The three major factors affecting spreads and death are: obesity rates, population density and rate of intergenerational households.
What other European countries would you suggest are more similar in size and demographic to the UK than Germany & France?
I think -- if you want to carry out this kind of comparison -- it should not be at the national level, as there are too many changing variables.
But, I think you could compare mortality rate from COVID in regions in France, Germany and the UK with similar population density/demography (eg Greater Birmingham with parts of the Ruhr, etc). I am sure these studies will be done. The results will be interesting.
But, I suspect none of the UK, Italy, Spain, France & Germany have much to brag about. These countries have all done pretty much the same. About 6 months ago, I would have said Germany was doing markedly better, but no longer.
In retrospect, I think the major mistake that the Government made was lateness in the first/second lockdowns. In the case of the first lockdown, it is clear that this mistake arose from modelling errors in SAGE. The modellers originally though the disease would spread more slowly than it actually did, so the first wave would peak later.
The borders I think are more arguable -- it is noticeable on pb.com that it is often the same people shrieking about the borders who can't wait to travel (@Leon). I think it is a lose-lose situation for any Government.
I would have done more to shut the borders, but there would have been the inevitable shrieks and hollers ... especially from the ranting hypocrites in the press.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Top for fraud , graft and enriching friends and family as well
What is interesting is that the numbers match quite well to the vaccination numbers. All the stuff about "1/3rd of the population has had it" can go in the bin.
Well, except you have to knock off essentially the last three big weeks of vaccines to get to the period covered by this study.
The number of first vaccinations is still quite low.
So if we go back to the 3rd of May, 65% of adults in the UK had at least one vaccination.
It's worth keeping in mind that Johnson's ratings were negative until recently. I think people quite rightly credit him for a good few months of stable government calmly introducing the vaccines without distraction, and that's given him a good boost. But people are under few illusions and the underlying view remains sceptical. Dom's evidence will reinforce that basic scepticism, without removing the credit.
So I don't think we'll see only a modest drop in Johnson's ratings. But if things go wrong later - with the economy, for instance - then Johnson's insouciant style will not be enough.
Ot might well not be enough for him, but the opposition are hopeless and Starmer really is unable to.land a blow.
That's our Pandemic Preparedness Strategy. Remember that we were supposed to be one of the best prepared countries in the world for this?
But take a closer look at it.
The Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy
Everything in it is targeted at influenza.
So the takeaway is:
- Maybe don't do all your pandemic planning and preparation around one single disease?
Things like:
- This influenza outbreak will all be over in 1-3 months (Coronavirus: Big Nope)
- We judge face masks in the wider population are of limited use against influenza (Fine, but they're pretty useful against coronavirus)
- We'll use the existing seasonal influenza testing and surveillance system for the outbreak (Umm, no, that doesn't help with testing for coronavirus)
- People are infectious for about 2-4 days and not very infectious prior to symptoms (Not for coronavirus: 5-10 days, and up to 14 days, and the pre-symptomatic period is crucial)
- The disease isn't very airborne; compulsively washing hands to avoid fomites is crucial (Coronavirus is primarily airborne/aerosol; fomite transmission appears negligible)
- There is minimal effect from stopping mass gatherings (For coronavirus, stopping mass gatherings is the single biggest low hanging fruit)
- There is little point in closing the borders (Australia and New Zealand bend over laughing; we then wait for ages even stopping flights from places where new Variants of Concern originate)
... etc, etc. We can STILL see hangovers from this plan - which looks to have been very well researched and planned to deal with an influenza epidemic, but somewhere between minimal use and actively detrimental to a different viral pandemic - coming out in things like the reluctance to stop travel.
The one thing we got very right was the vaccine programme, which did have useful small sections in there.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
There are numerous reasons why we might have been more adversely affected such as population density, more vulnerable people incl ethnic minorities, structure of healthcare and social care, travel links to different regions and at different volumes, cultural differences.
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
“Inflation hits 10%”
As @Philip_Thompson keeps telling me an increase in money supply is no longer inflationary, and if we do get some inflation it is "good". I can't recall why.
So no, Boris just keeps rolling along.
I have never said that!
I have said that it is inflationary but it doesn't automatically mean inflation because we also have deflationary pressures to take into account.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary ones cancel each other out then the net result is no inflation. As we've seen for the past decade.
What part of that are you struggling with? Do you need smaller words? 🤦♂️
I can't be arsed to find your response but you stated that an increase in M3 is no longer guaranteed to be inflationary. You said the 1980s notion that there was a correlation between an increase in money supply and inflation had been debunked 20 years ago. It is 40 years since I studied economics, so I am taking you at your word.
That's not what I said.
What I said is that an increase in M3 is no longer guaranteed to result in inflation because there is greater awareness of deflationary pressures now. And I provided the data to back that up.
Like Japan in 1990 the west now is now very heavily indebted which can mean that people's available cash to spend can be contracting due to credit issues etc even when the money supply is officially increasing.
Increasing money supply is still inflationary but inflationary pressures alone are not sufficient to cause inflation if deflationary pressures exist too.
One way to think about it is how uniquitous credit cards are used nowadays compared to 40 years ago. Having £1000 available to spend in your bank account and having nothing in your bank account but a £1000 credit limit are not the same thing, even if they both permit expenditure.
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
“Inflation hits 10%”
As @Philip_Thompson keeps telling me an increase in money supply is no longer inflationary, and if we do get some inflation it is "good". I can't recall why.
So no, Boris just keeps rolling along.
I have never said that!
I have said that it is inflationary but it doesn't automatically mean inflation because we also have deflationary pressures to take into account.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary ones cancel each other out then the net result is no inflation. As we've seen for the past decade.
What part of that are you struggling with? Do you need smaller words? 🤦♂️
What deflationary pressures - China is no longer selling things at below material cost
Debt.
If people are using their money to pay off credit card debt they're not using it to buy goods.
Heavy indebtedness is what led to the Japanese deflationary situation from 1990 to date and they've not escaped deflation since despite a major increase in money supply in recent years. Heavy indebtedness also because a problem in the financial crisis 2007/08 onwards.
I wonder if Dom might had some sort of nervous breakdown? Watching some of his evidence to the select committee on YouTube it seems he is taking every single death to heart and feels he and the government are personally to blame.
I think the responsibility he feels was on his shoulders might have driven him over the edge...
Also the compare and contrast with his own reaction to having Covid - thinking he could be about to die and then trying to go all out to stop others actually dying - and the PM's reaction. "It was fine. Clap the nurses pay cut. Let other people die.
Cummings portrayed the same chaotic incompetence in government that others have independently talked about. The shocker was that despite him increasingly loathing the PM and all he stood for he realised that if he left then the bumbling would cause people to die and he didn't want that on his conscience.
If only he hadn't with a straight face tried to defend test driving with his wife and kid on board. He was almost convincing until then. Almost...
What is interesting is that the numbers match quite well to the vaccination numbers. All the stuff about "1/3rd of the population has had it" can go in the bin.
Well, except you have to knock off essentially the last three big weeks of vaccines to get to the period covered by this study.
Wondering about that - yes, you need ~3 weeks to get to a level of reasonable protection from the vaccine, but when do antibodies get produced in sufficient quantities to be detected in a blood sample. Could be sooner?
I will repeat again for good measure. I used to do this for a living — I did feasibility studies, tenders, and project designs for solar installations, amongst other renewable technologies.
They are objectively not a good investment in the UK. They simply do not output enough.
Without the high Gen Tariffs you're looking at a 20-25 year payback. Much more with an expensive Tesla battery. The panels themselves only have a lifespan for around 25 years.
Crap investment.
The panel lifespan is more than 25 years. It's more accurate to say that panels lose approximately 0.8% to 1% of the power they generate each year. (Mostly, IIRC, via surface oxidation, but I could be wrong.)
Most solar panels output about 105-110% of rated power in year one.
Aye but you're tailing off at that point, and in a country where it's already cloudy and overcast most the time, you're going to have a dribble of generation.
Tailing off? That means you're still getting 80+% of rated capacity at the end of the period.
Let's assume you don't take the FIT, and electricity prices rise 2% per year for the period. You'll be getting more each year - in cash terms - than in the previous one.
80% of very little is very little.
Of course that doesn't factor in your inverter failing, which is another expense (you're supposed to have them serviced every year, most don't), failing to wash the panels properly (most people don't do this either), etc etc.
Listen I did these calculations day in and day out. I know all the tricks solar zealots use. They assume zero shading, they assume perfect orientation with south, they assume a perfect 30 degree pitched roof.
It simply isn't a good investment. The figures don't lie.
A lot of people don't know that most panels are wired in series and therefore if one panel is shaded, for example by a cloud, either your whole array is generating nothing, or only half of the array is generating.
Etc.
They were fantastic under the ridiculously generous FIT. Otherwise I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.
Let's assume that you put panels on your roof and they cost you £1,000 and they give you £50/electricity a year. (I'm making up numbers here.)
Does that sound like a good investment or a bad investment?
Here's two things to remember:
(1) A cost (electricity) avoided is like getting after tax income. If I receive £50 in interest from the bank, I'm paying £25 of that back to the government in tax. On the other hand, if I cut my electricity bill by £50. That means the real yield - for higher rate tax payers - is more than it looks.
(2) The cost of electricity rises. So you're getting an asset generating a real return, not a nominal one. If you buy indexed linked government bonds you take a guaranteed loss. Even before you take into account the tax you'll be paying on the pitiful amount of income you get.
Look, if you have £1,000 will you do better in SpaceX or solar panels? Well, SpaceX, duh.
And if you are at the beginning of your career, then long dated low return assets are a bloody stupid idea.
But if the choice is between solar panels and government bonds... Or solar panels versus sitting in the bank earning the amazing 0.2% that Lloyds will offer you if you're willing to lock the money up for two years?
Well, in that case solar panels are the better financial investment. It all depends on where you are in your personal financial journey.
0.2% sure. But "great investment"?
Well said gallow. And while they're not a great investment economically, people tend to forget they're not a great one environmentally either.
Supply and demand don't intersect with solar panels.
We are a cold, overcast, northern island that relies upon heating in the winter not air conditioning in the summer. The panels generate less supply in the winter. Already today much more electricity is consumed in the winter and that's before gas boilers are discontinued and replaced with electric powered heating too!
The environment needs electricity supply most in the winter not the summer. Environmentally Solar Panels in place of coal was a great idea, but if we can get through winter with electric heating without much solar generation then what is the point of extra solar generation in the summer when the electric heating is turned off?
Hang on.
In a world where most of our generation is natural gas CCGTs that can be turned on and off at will, then if it's cheaper for an individual to generate power via the sun great. And if it's not, then people won't buy them.
My point is that for a young person (like you) solar panels are a terrible investment relative to (say) paying down your mortgage. For someone in their mid 50s, on the other hand, they are likely a pretty good investment relative to government bonds or leaving money in the bank.
Simply, you get a 5-6% real after tax return, which is shit compared to SpaceX, but fantastic compared to other low-risk assets.
That's the problem though, we aren't going to have most of our generation from gas CCGTs by 2030, let alone by 2040 or 2050.
Net zero entails removing CCGT surely and having sufficient clean energy to power electronic heating through the winter.
In which case what environmental purpose do solar panels serve.
This is a completely different to somewhere like California that relies upon air conditioning in the summer.
That's a minority of gas and it's falling fast. If you're looking at a 25 year lifespan then how many of those years do you think that will be true for?
In 2010 coal was about 80% of electricity. It's now about 0% most if the time. The same thing will happen now to gas within the next decade, not the next 25 years.
The future of greenery is surely in this country more stuff like wind and tidal etc than solar.
I agree with all of that except the last line. Solar has improved in efficiency so much that it will be an important part of the mix as well, even in this gloomy overcast country. It still occasionally startles me when I am out for a walk how many houses in the village now have solar panels. The increase in the last 3 years has been marked and I do not think that trend has petered out at all yet.
They are slowly getting better, but at 56°N they’re still very much uneconomical.
Great for virtue signalling though, to show the neighbours how ‘green’ you are.
At 53.4 degrees north mine have paid out an average of £1.98 per day since I've moved in. On top of that I've got the 'hidden' decrease in elec costs. Would I bother now with no feed in tariffs available ? No, but it was definitely a plus point when considering the house for purchase. I think I have about 15 years left on the tarriff.
Yes, the old feed-in tarrifs change the economics substantially. But AIUI they’re no longer available for new installations.
£2 per day on average would effectively wipe out my yearly electric cost of £700 per year. Thats effectively an interest on capital which is a lot more than the banks. As an older person with a lump sum languishing at 0.1% at Natwest, it sounds very lucrative. Even if you include the cost of a storage battery or have octopus variable tariff it is still very lucrative.
Jenrick's got the short straw and is doing the media rounds this morning; every time he is asked about whether Hancock lied to Cabinet, his answer is that Hancock works very hard...
He certainly did get the short straw. I thought that was Grant S's job. Normally I don't sympathize with politicians who evade questions, but on BBC1 this morning he was asked some questions that were just impossible for him to answer and therefore unreasonable.
How are the questions unreasonable just because he can't answer them? Putting someone up who is both not suitably informed to be able to answer the inevitable questions and who is as dense as Jenrick to do the media rounds today is what is unreasonable.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
Rochadale, I agree with your last 2 paras, although it is common for politicians to throw summersaults on their views and get away with it.
Re the first, I can't remember the exact questions, but nobody could have answered them in the way they were framed, which made the interview pointless. More subtle questioning would either have got answers, or evasion, and people could genuinely judge for themselves.
Didn't Jenrick eventually throw MattH under the bus? Responding to questions about Hancock: "Of course things happened which could have been better/not everything was done right/mistakes were made" or something similar.
(Around 8.17am R4)
I was watching BBC1. He may have said that on BBC1 also, I can't remember. It is a sensible thing to say as it is patently true, although politicians are very reluctant to say such things. I don't know why.
The other that always gets me is why politicians don't more often say 'I don't know'.
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
I think one consequence of Cummings' appearance will be to ensure 21st June sees us free from Covid constraints. Boris will want to show he had a strategy to get out of lockdown - in contrast to the more chaotic times when Cummings was part of the problem in causing that chaos.
"Funny how things have run on rails since he left, eh?"
You may well be right, but isn't that simply confirming one of Cummings main criticisms of Johnson? That it is government for daily media headlines, not long term, or even medium term outcomes? It may well be a good way to win elections, but it is not a fit way to run a country.
Dealing with headlines is an important part of running a country. Pressure shows a problem and a solution is found to that problem. It is a critical democratic feedback loop. Indeed that's the irony of people banging on about OODA loops like it's a novel concept, the media are a major part of OODA that happens every day already.
Investing in vaccines was THE long term solution to the pandemic and this Government did it.
The EU shows what happens when there is no substantial media. They don't have any proper democratic accountability and no EU wide media either. So the pressures that our governments are forced to deal with don't exist, leaving the EU as a sclerotic, slow institution that doesn't deal with issues ending up with stuff like the vaccines debacle.
Yes our media can be a bit shit, it's obsession with holidays has been weird. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Good point about EU media, and also the structure of the EU that doesn’t have a role for an Opposition in the same way most countries do.
UK media have been uniformly terrible, uninformed and focussed on the wrong things during the pandemic - but the alternative is worse.
We have been in the EU for over 40 years up until last year. Are you saying we had an impotent media while we were in it and now we haven't?
There was a British media while we were in the EU that was potent for British issues but not at a European level.
What Europe-wide European media are you aware of that the public watches or reads?
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
“Inflation hits 10%”
As @Philip_Thompson keeps telling me an increase in money supply is no longer inflationary, and if we do get some inflation it is "good". I can't recall why.
So no, Boris just keeps rolling along.
I have never said that!
I have said that it is inflationary but it doesn't automatically mean inflation because we also have deflationary pressures to take into account.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary ones cancel each other out then the net result is no inflation. As we've seen for the past decade.
What part of that are you struggling with? Do you need smaller words? 🤦♂️
I can't be arsed to find your response but you stated that an increase in M3 is no longer guaranteed to be inflationary. You said the 1980s notion that there was a correlation between an increase in money supply and inflation had been debunked 20 years ago. It is 40 years since I studied economics, so I am taking you at your word.
That's not what I said.
What I said is that an increase in M3 is no longer guaranteed to result in inflation because there is greater awareness of deflationary pressures now. And I provided the data to back that up.
Like Japan in 1990 the west now is now very heavily indebted which can mean that people's available cash to spend can be contracting due to credit issues etc even when the money supply is officially increasing.
Increasing money supply is still inflationary but inflationary pressures alone are not sufficient to cause inflation if deflationary pressures exist too.
One way to think about it is how uniquitous credit cards are used nowadays compared to 40 years ago. Having £1000 available to spend in your bank account and having nothing in your bank account but a £1000 credit limit are not the same thing, even if they both permit expenditure.
Credit cards terrify me. Especially as I am now on a fixed income. I haven’t had one for a very long time. They are a way of telling future you to go fuck yourself.
I will repeat again for good measure. I used to do this for a living — I did feasibility studies, tenders, and project designs for solar installations, amongst other renewable technologies.
They are objectively not a good investment in the UK. They simply do not output enough.
Without the high Gen Tariffs you're looking at a 20-25 year payback. Much more with an expensive Tesla battery. The panels themselves only have a lifespan for around 25 years.
Crap investment.
The panel lifespan is more than 25 years. It's more accurate to say that panels lose approximately 0.8% to 1% of the power they generate each year. (Mostly, IIRC, via surface oxidation, but I could be wrong.)
Most solar panels output about 105-110% of rated power in year one.
Aye but you're tailing off at that point, and in a country where it's already cloudy and overcast most the time, you're going to have a dribble of generation.
Tailing off? That means you're still getting 80+% of rated capacity at the end of the period.
Let's assume you don't take the FIT, and electricity prices rise 2% per year for the period. You'll be getting more each year - in cash terms - than in the previous one.
80% of very little is very little.
Of course that doesn't factor in your inverter failing, which is another expense (you're supposed to have them serviced every year, most don't), failing to wash the panels properly (most people don't do this either), etc etc.
Listen I did these calculations day in and day out. I know all the tricks solar zealots use. They assume zero shading, they assume perfect orientation with south, they assume a perfect 30 degree pitched roof.
It simply isn't a good investment. The figures don't lie.
A lot of people don't know that most panels are wired in series and therefore if one panel is shaded, for example by a cloud, either your whole array is generating nothing, or only half of the array is generating.
Etc.
They were fantastic under the ridiculously generous FIT. Otherwise I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.
Let's assume that you put panels on your roof and they cost you £1,000 and they give you £50/electricity a year. (I'm making up numbers here.)
Does that sound like a good investment or a bad investment?
Here's two things to remember:
(1) A cost (electricity) avoided is like getting after tax income. If I receive £50 in interest from the bank, I'm paying £25 of that back to the government in tax. On the other hand, if I cut my electricity bill by £50. That means the real yield - for higher rate tax payers - is more than it looks.
(2) The cost of electricity rises. So you're getting an asset generating a real return, not a nominal one. If you buy indexed linked government bonds you take a guaranteed loss. Even before you take into account the tax you'll be paying on the pitiful amount of income you get.
Look, if you have £1,000 will you do better in SpaceX or solar panels? Well, SpaceX, duh.
And if you are at the beginning of your career, then long dated low return assets are a bloody stupid idea.
But if the choice is between solar panels and government bonds... Or solar panels versus sitting in the bank earning the amazing 0.2% that Lloyds will offer you if you're willing to lock the money up for two years?
Well, in that case solar panels are the better financial investment. It all depends on where you are in your personal financial journey.
0.2% sure. But "great investment"?
Well said gallow. And while they're not a great investment economically, people tend to forget they're not a great one environmentally either.
Supply and demand don't intersect with solar panels.
We are a cold, overcast, northern island that relies upon heating in the winter not air conditioning in the summer. The panels generate less supply in the winter. Already today much more electricity is consumed in the winter and that's before gas boilers are discontinued and replaced with electric powered heating too!
The environment needs electricity supply most in the winter not the summer. Environmentally Solar Panels in place of coal was a great idea, but if we can get through winter with electric heating without much solar generation then what is the point of extra solar generation in the summer when the electric heating is turned off?
Hang on.
In a world where most of our generation is natural gas CCGTs that can be turned on and off at will, then if it's cheaper for an individual to generate power via the sun great. And if it's not, then people won't buy them.
My point is that for a young person (like you) solar panels are a terrible investment relative to (say) paying down your mortgage. For someone in their mid 50s, on the other hand, they are likely a pretty good investment relative to government bonds or leaving money in the bank.
Simply, you get a 5-6% real after tax return, which is shit compared to SpaceX, but fantastic compared to other low-risk assets.
That's the problem though, we aren't going to have most of our generation from gas CCGTs by 2030, let alone by 2040 or 2050.
Net zero entails removing CCGT surely and having sufficient clean energy to power electronic heating through the winter.
In which case what environmental purpose do solar panels serve.
This is a completely different to somewhere like California that relies upon air conditioning in the summer.
That's a minority of gas and it's falling fast. If you're looking at a 25 year lifespan then how many of those years do you think that will be true for?
In 2010 coal was about 80% of electricity. It's now about 0% most if the time. The same thing will happen now to gas within the next decade, not the next 25 years.
The future of greenery is surely in this country more stuff like wind and tidal etc than solar.
I agree with all of that except the last line. Solar has improved in efficiency so much that it will be an important part of the mix as well, even in this gloomy overcast country. It still occasionally startles me when I am out for a walk how many houses in the village now have solar panels. The increase in the last 3 years has been marked and I do not think that trend has petered out at all yet.
They are slowly getting better, but at 56°N they’re still very much uneconomical.
Great for virtue signalling though, to show the neighbours how ‘green’ you are.
At 53.4 degrees north mine have paid out an average of £1.98 per day since I've moved in. On top of that I've got the 'hidden' decrease in elec costs. Would I bother now with no feed in tariffs available ? No, but it was definitely a plus point when considering the house for purchase. I think I have about 15 years left on the tarriff.
Yes, the old feed-in tarrifs change the economics substantially. But AIUI they’re no longer available for new installations.
£2 per day on average would effectively wipe out my yearly electric cost of £700 per year. Thats effectively an interest on capital which is a lot more than the banks. As an older person with a lump sum languishing at 0.1% at Natwest, it sounds very lucrative. Even if you include the cost of a storage battery or have octopus variable tariff it is still very lucrative.
Yes it was worthwhile then when feed in tariffs were available. But they're not available anymore in the same way though.
Which is quite reasonable as when they were available we were getting most of our energy from coal. Now we're not.
Guidance published by the government in spring last year regarding admission to care homes, post discharge from hospitals.
1. Admission of residents The care sector looks after many of the most vulnerable people in our society. In this pandemic, we appreciate that care home providers are first and foremost looking after the people in their care, and doing so while some of their staff are absent due to sickness or isolation requirements. As part of the national effort, the care sector also plays a vital role in accepting patients as they are discharged from hospital – both because recuperation is better in non-acute settings, and because hospitals need to have enough beds to treat acutely sick patients. Residents may also be admitted to a care home from a home setting. Some of these patients may have COVID-19, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic. All of these patients can be safely cared for in a care home if this guidance is followed. If an individual has no COVID-19 symptoms or has tested positive for COVID-19 but is no longer showing symptoms and has completed their isolation period, then care should be provided as normal. The Hospital Discharge Service and staff will clarify with care homes the COVID-19 status of an individual and any COVID-19 symptoms, during the process of transfer from a hospital to the care home. Tests will primarily be given to: ! all patients in critical care for pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) or flu like illness ! all other patients requiring admission to hospital for pneumonia, ARDS or flu like illness ! where an outbreak has occurred in a residential or care setting, for example long-term care facility or prisons.1 Negative tests are not required prior to transfers / admissions into the care home.
I don't think the tens of thousands of needless deaths comment will impact much. Anyone paying attention knows that already and the others won't start paying attention now. I think where this testimony is potentially damaging is in setting a narrative, in the absence of an imminent official enquiry, of a government in chaos, negligent, led by a man who is not fit to be there. And that's the reason for those deaths rather than a government that was struggling like so many others with a situation it couldn't control.
Cummings most interesting comment is this one in my view. He seemed to be pitching to the kind of people who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum, maybe because they already believe this about Johnson and himself.
I'm not smart, I've not built great things in the world. It's completely crackers that someone like me should have been in there just the same as it's crackers that Boris Johnson was in there."
I watched all seven hours and in respect of your last paragraph Cummings added that even if Bill Gates had been brought in he would not have been able to deal with it
His vendetta against Boris and Hancock was extraordinary and to be honest some of his comments re Boris were believable, though to accuse officials and the PM to be skiing and on holiday in February when nobody was dealing with it seriously, has a large dose of hindsight
Indeed a lot of his testimony was with the benefit of hindsight rather than the real considerations of the moment
I would also comment that had this been a UK only crisis then his criticism would be more valid, but covid 19 struck across Europe, the US and Canada as well as the far east. Outside of the far east every government has struggled with it and remember Scotland, Wales and NI did not do any better.
And this morning the whole of Victoria state in Australia is in complete lockdown and includes Melbourne
Indeed Wales did apply the 2 week circuit breaker in September and it was a disaster as Wales opened up immediately only to plunge into a later prolonged lockdown.
If only there'd been a Conservative PB'er with the foresight to have been warning us how bad a leader he'd make in advance.
If the Tories aren’t hurt in the polls by headlines like these, what headlines would it take to do it?
“Inflation hits 10%”
As @Philip_Thompson keeps telling me an increase in money supply is no longer inflationary, and if we do get some inflation it is "good". I can't recall why.
So no, Boris just keeps rolling along.
I have never said that!
I have said that it is inflationary but it doesn't automatically mean inflation because we also have deflationary pressures to take into account.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary ones cancel each other out then the net result is no inflation. As we've seen for the past decade.
What part of that are you struggling with? Do you need smaller words? 🤦♂️
I can't be arsed to find your response but you stated that an increase in M3 is no longer guaranteed to be inflationary. You said the 1980s notion that there was a correlation between an increase in money supply and inflation had been debunked 20 years ago. It is 40 years since I studied economics, so I am taking you at your word.
That's not what I said.
What I said is that an increase in M3 is no longer guaranteed to result in inflation because there is greater awareness of deflationary pressures now. And I provided the data to back that up.
Like Japan in 1990 the west now is now very heavily indebted which can mean that people's available cash to spend can be contracting due to credit issues etc even when the money supply is officially increasing.
Increasing money supply is still inflationary but inflationary pressures alone are not sufficient to cause inflation if deflationary pressures exist too.
One way to think about it is how uniquitous credit cards are used nowadays compared to 40 years ago. Having £1000 available to spend in your bank account and having nothing in your bank account but a £1000 credit limit are not the same thing, even if they both permit expenditure.
Credit cards terrify me. Especially as I am now on a fixed income. I haven’t had one for a very long time. They are a way of telling future you to go fuck yourself.
Precisely! They're great if you're conscientious to pay them off in full every month so you just get an extra 50 days to pay but its paid in full.
But fail to pay in full, pay interest only, and you're f***ed. And there's far more people in that situation today than there were in the 70s or 80s and it doesn't show properly in money supply which is why the textbooks from the 70s and 80s aren't suitable for today.
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
They don't have remotely comparable demographics.
The three major factors affecting spreads and death are: obesity rates, population density and rate of intergenerational households.
What other European countries would you suggest are more similar in size and demographic to the UK than Germany & France?
I think -- if you want to carry out this kind of comparison -- it should not be at the national level, as there are too many changing variables.
But, I think you could compare mortality rate from COVID in regions in France, Germany and the UK with similar population density/demography (eg Greater Birmingham with parts of the Ruhr, etc). I am sure these studies will be done. The results will be interesting.
But, I suspect none of the UK, Italy, Spain, France & Germany have much to brag about. These countries have all done pretty much the same. About 6 months ago, I would have said Germany was doing markedly better, but no longer.
In retrospect, I think the major mistake that the Government made was lateness in the first/second lockdowns. In the case of the first lockdown, it is clear that this mistake arose from modelling errors in SAGE. The modellers originally though the disease would spread more slowly than it actually did, so the first wave would peak later.
The borders I think are more arguable -- it is noticeable on pb.com that it is often the same people shrieking about the borders who can't wait to travel (@Leon). I think it is a lose-lose situation for any Government.
I would have done more to shut the borders, but there would have been the inevitable shrieks and hollers ... especially from the ranting hypocrites in the press.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Top for fraud , graft and enriching friends and family as well
You've never lived in Italy I take it?
This lot make the Italians look like angels.
What's your evidence that we're more corrupt than Italy?
Once again it seems to me that the "tens of thousand died that didn't need to die" is a complete illusion. If we had locked down sooner we would have deferred some cases and some deaths. But unless we were to live in lockdown for the last 18 months it would only be a deferral. Those that died were the most vulnerable to this pernicious disease. As a generality they would have caught it and died whenever we opened up. Significant numbers of old, vulnerable people in care homes were always going to die of this. Its simply naive to claim otherwise.
So individual mistakes such as the care homes fiasco where hospitals were cleared of bed blockers or the unending failure to secure borders or the fiasco of the early T&T changed the shape of our death toll but I remain to be convinced that it affected the final result. The brutal truth was that pre vaccines somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of us were going to die of this disease, mainly the old, the obese and those with impaired immune systems with the odd unlucky other as well. This is the reality and pretending that this could be magicked away by some clever policy is delusional.
We still have a real problem in recognising that we are vulnerable to nature, that there are things that we simply cannot prevent. Its a bit weird.
You are correct, however the mortality rate in the UK (127,000 deaths) seems very high compared to say Germany or France (both similar sized countries with comparable demographics)....
They don't have remotely comparable demographics.
The three major factors affecting spreads and death are: obesity rates, population density and rate of intergenerational households.
What other European countries would you suggest are more similar in size and demographic to the UK than Germany & France?
I think -- if you want to carry out this kind of comparison -- it should not be at the national level, as there are too many changing variables.
But, I think you could compare mortality rate from COVID in regions in France, Germany and the UK with similar population density/demography (eg Greater Birmingham with parts of the Ruhr, etc). I am sure these studies will be done. The results will be interesting.
But, I suspect none of the UK, Italy, Spain, France & Germany have much to brag about. These countries have all done pretty much the same. About 6 months ago, I would have said Germany was doing markedly better, but no longer.
In retrospect, I think the major mistake that the Government made was lateness in the first/second lockdowns. In the case of the first lockdown, it is clear that this mistake arose from modelling errors in SAGE. The modellers originally though the disease would spread more slowly than it actually did, so the first wave would peak later.
The borders I think are more arguable -- it is noticeable on pb.com that it is often the same people shrieking about the borders who can't wait to travel (@Leon). I think it is a lose-lose situation for any Government.
I would have done more to shut the borders, but there would have been the inevitable shrieks and hollers ... especially from the ranting hypocrites in the press.
Fifth in the World for deaths. Top in Europe. Well done guys
Top for fraud , graft and enriching friends and family as well
You've never lived in Italy I take it?
This lot make the Italians look like angels.
What's your evidence that we're more corrupt than Italy?
March last year, the government issued mandatory guidance regarding discharge from hospitals. I'd link to it, but the document is no longer available on the government website.
...Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made...
Irrespective of infected status, if patients were not at a minimum on oxygen, they had to be considered for discharge.
For Hancock to claim that care homes were protected at the time was simply untrue.
Jenrick's got the short straw and is doing the media rounds this morning; every time he is asked about whether Hancock lied to Cabinet, his answer is that Hancock works very hard...
He certainly did get the short straw. I thought that was Grant S's job. Normally I don't sympathize with politicians who evade questions, but on BBC1 this morning he was asked some questions that were just impossible for him to answer and therefore unreasonable.
How are the questions unreasonable just because he can't answer them? Putting someone up who is both not suitably informed to be able to answer the inevitable questions and who is as dense as Jenrick to do the media rounds today is what is unreasonable.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
Rochadale, I agree with your last 2 paras, although it is common for politicians to throw summersaults on their views and get away with it.
Re the first, I can't remember the exact questions, but nobody could have answered them in the way they were framed, which made the interview pointless. More subtle questioning would either have got answers, or evasion, and people could genuinely judge for themselves.
Didn't Jenrick eventually throw MattH under the bus? Responding to questions about Hancock: "Of course things happened which could have been better/not everything was done right/mistakes were made" or something similar.
(Around 8.17am R4)
I was watching BBC1. He may have said that on BBC1 also, I can't remember. It is a sensible thing to say as it is patently true, although politicians are very reluctant to say such things. I don't know why.
The other that always gets me is why politicians don't more often say 'I don't know'.
That's why it stood out. He started off by not giving an inch and ended by saying "mistakes were made" which doesn't happen. Unless, I imagine, it's supposed to.
Guidance published by the government in spring last year regarding admission to care homes, post discharge from hospitals.
1. Admission of residents The care sector looks after many of the most vulnerable people in our society. In this pandemic, we appreciate that care home providers are first and foremost looking after the people in their care, and doing so while some of their staff are absent due to sickness or isolation requirements. As part of the national effort, the care sector also plays a vital role in accepting patients as they are discharged from hospital – both because recuperation is better in non-acute settings, and because hospitals need to have enough beds to treat acutely sick patients. Residents may also be admitted to a care home from a home setting. Some of these patients may have COVID-19, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic. All of these patients can be safely cared for in a care home if this guidance is followed. If an individual has no COVID-19 symptoms or has tested positive for COVID-19 but is no longer showing symptoms and has completed their isolation period, then care should be provided as normal. The Hospital Discharge Service and staff will clarify with care homes the COVID-19 status of an individual and any COVID-19 symptoms, during the process of transfer from a hospital to the care home. Tests will primarily be given to: ! all patients in critical care for pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) or flu like illness ! all other patients requiring admission to hospital for pneumonia, ARDS or flu like illness ! where an outbreak has occurred in a residential or care setting, for example long-term care facility or prisons.1 Negative tests are not required prior to transfers / admissions into the care home.
But who wrote that ?
That's clearly based on the then scientific view that the asymptomatic do not infect others.
Certainly a major mistake but the key question was when was it rectified.
What is interesting is that the numbers match quite well to the vaccination numbers. All the stuff about "1/3rd of the population has had it" can go in the bin.
Well, except you have to knock off essentially the last three big weeks of vaccines to get to the period covered by this study.
Wondering about that - yes, you need ~3 weeks to get to a level of reasonable protection from the vaccine, but when do antibodies get produced in sufficient quantities to be detected in a blood sample. Could be sooner?
I recently participated in the study (or a similar one), and eight weeks after the first AZN shot, did not test positive for antibodies. That doesn't mean no protection, of course.
I don't think this will be forgotten by the weekend but I don't think it'll have much impact in a month or two.
Cummings is too obviously out to get revenge and many people accept that mistakes were made early in the pandemic.
But the popular mood is of course quite difficult to read - I still can't understand what so many people see in hip-hop, Eurovision, organised sport, McDonald's, etc. etc. etc.
I think one consequence of Cummings' appearance will be to ensure 21st June sees us free from Covid constraints. Boris will want to show he had a strategy to get out of lockdown - in contrast to the more chaotic times when Cummings was part of the problem in causing that chaos.
"Funny how things have run on rails since he left, eh?"
You may well be right, but isn't that simply confirming one of Cummings main criticisms of Johnson? That it is government for daily media headlines, not long term, or even medium term outcomes? It may well be a good way to win elections, but it is not a fit way to run a country.
Dealing with headlines is an important part of running a country. Pressure shows a problem and a solution is found to that problem. It is a critical democratic feedback loop. Indeed that's the irony of people banging on about OODA loops like it's a novel concept, the media are a major part of OODA that happens every day already.
Investing in vaccines was THE long term solution to the pandemic and this Government did it.
The EU shows what happens when there is no substantial media. They don't have any proper democratic accountability and no EU wide media either. So the pressures that our governments are forced to deal with don't exist, leaving the EU as a sclerotic, slow institution that doesn't deal with issues ending up with stuff like the vaccines debacle.
Yes our media can be a bit shit, it's obsession with holidays has been weird. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Good point about EU media, and also the structure of the EU that doesn’t have a role for an Opposition in the same way most countries do.
UK media have been uniformly terrible, uninformed and focussed on the wrong things during the pandemic - but the alternative is worse.
We have been in the EU for over 40 years up until last year. Are you saying we had an impotent media while we were in it and now we haven't?
There was a British media while we were in the EU that was potent for British issues but not at a European level.
What Europe-wide European media are you aware of that the public watches or reads?
I remember reading something a few months ago that the European Commission was happy to get rid of the British media from their briefing rooms because the "European" way of journalism is deference to the Union with nice soft questions. When you don't have an opposition style figure because of "European unity", having a tame media all leads to one big echo chamber unless they really screw it up (see vaccines).
March last year, the government issued mandatory guidance regarding discharge from hospitals. I'd link to it, but the document is no longer available on the government website.
...Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made...
Irrespective of infected status, if patients were not at a minimum on oxygen, they had to be considered for discharge.
For Hancock to claim that care homes were protected at the time was simply untrue.
It should be a resignation offence - telling lies as a minister used to be the red line. However with Twice-Sacked Liar as PM and sacked liar as Home Secretary and sacked liar as Education Secretary we know Hancock is safe.
So what that he lied and broke the ministerial code and killed 20,000 people. The arbiter for what is a lie is Liar. So even when Patel gets found in breach of the code He simply overturns it and says "no she isn't". As he will with the findings of his own financial transgressions.
Whats more, the Cult will cheer it on! Its Good that they lie!
Comments
As we who support England know.
But that isn't what Cummings was talking about yesterday. He was talking about a time when vaccines were a distant hope not expected for at least a year as shown on the whiteboard Mike put on the header yesterday.
However HMG seems as addicted to ‘events’ as the reptile press, so not much chance of that.
About this there is another almost completely undiscussed issue. The UK death rate was at the top end of the scale of comparable countries, but not out of sight of a number of others, like France and Italy. Also England was not of a different order from Scotland.
But the undiscussed question - for reasons of politeness and courtesy - is the profile of the deaths. While the media can find voluble spokespeople to speak of the tragedy of 95 year old dementia patients dying in hospitals and care homes, there are countless more ordinary families experiencing this who are sad, would not have wanted deaths hastened, but accept fully that deaths happen and that very old and frail people dying is not an unmitigated tragedy requiring a search for blame.
I have never heard such family on the media. But I know lots personally. Do others?
Cummings most interesting comment is this one in my view. He seemed to be pitching to the kind of people who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum, maybe because they already believe this about Johnson and himself.
I'm not smart, I've not built great things in the world. It's completely crackers that someone like me should have been in there just the same as it's crackers that Boris Johnson was in there."
https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1397497006608748544
Who would agree any large contract for anything with the EU, after the way they’ve treated AstraZenica? A company who, let’s not forget, are doing this on a non-profit basis.
In answer to going back to that period, yes because it was the first time we actually had a parliament that really debated stuff and tried to influence opponents by argument, rather than the norm in this country, which is of an elected dictatorship.
Did they do it well? Well no, it was a shambles, but then it was the first time they had ever done it really. With a bit more experience, particularly if we don't have one party rule after an election they may get better at it. The coalition certainly seemed more productive.
in 2019 - Jezza's and Boris's. In a context in which it was widely agreed by a majority that Brexit should happen rather than risk reversal the voters went for the only option which could deliver it and was within the voters' powers.
Boris's qualities, whatever they are, have to be assessed not by comparison with Gandhi and the precepts of the Buddha but by comparison with a government led by Jezza, and Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon and Laura Pidcock running the country.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and postings from Roger.
There are three kinds of truths: statistics, damn statistics and more statistics.
Its odd though. The same people who went to painful lengths to defend Cummings after the BCET now go to painful lengths to dismiss him and everything he stands for. If we now get days of ministers having to stand up and defend themselves and their government I wonder if that becomes the story.
Either Cummings is genuine and can be trusted, or he is a liar and cannot be. The same people who pushed public support past credibility and tolerance to say the former now say the latter. Part of the reason why the red wall went Blue is that punters were sick of Labour patronising them. Tories want to be careful of falling into the same hole.
Until Covid....
I suspect without that blond dishevelled mop, he would look like an ugly, fat, bald slob.
Edit The Delors commission finished in 1994. I'm getting old.
Still without our NHS breaking down we are many times the rates of deaths is pretty devastating.
It's remarkable to me that having discovered a vaccine which worked and was safe on Dec 2 - the govt's response was to lift restrictions, ensuring a major surge in cases and deaths just when we knew most of the deaths could be avoided.
Would I bother now with no feed in tariffs available ? No, but it was definitely a plus point when considering the house for purchase. I think I have about 15 years left on the tarriff.
The generation is 11.99 KwH per day between 1st April 2018 and 1st April 2020.
But if they could get their contract unilaterally amended after the event to give the EU political cover, then....
I've missed on Boris = Samson before...
https://twitter.com/lolwestinghouse/status/1397499995411079170?s=21
Re the first, I can't remember the exact questions, but nobody could have answered them in the way they were framed, which made the interview pointless. More subtle questioning would either have got answers, or evasion, and people could genuinely judge for themselves.
I am the very model of a modern EU Commissioner ...
For me, there are two main things an earlier lockdown could have done:
- Buy some time to do things better:
--- Ramp up testing capacity
--- Learn more about treatments
--- Get more equipment - ventilators, but in particular PPE which may have reduced healthcare staff infections
--- Use the Nightingale hospitals or other facilities as a quarantine for elderly people leaving hospital who would be returned to care homes (this could have made a big difference by not sending infected people into vulnerable populations in care homes)
- Flatten the curve - no, really: early and frequent lockdowns of relatively short duration could be used to keep the virus at a sustained lower level. What I don't know is whether the public would have dealt with cycling restrictions very well - it could well have been harder than fewer, longer lockdowns (and with lower cases and deaths adherence may have been worse)
Having said that, I cut the government some slack on the first lockdown. They were late, but the choice was horrible - don't lockdown and likely terrible consequences; lockdown and definitely pretty horrible consequences. What I'd criticise the government for is being late with the later lockdowns and border control.
It's a shame that so much of yesterday was about the spring not the autumn and winter- the second and third waves and lockdowns were much more significant.
I watched all seven hours and in respect of your last paragraph Cummings added that even if Bill Gates had been brought in he would not have been able to deal with it
His vendetta against Boris and Hancock was extraordinary and to be honest some of his comments re Boris were believable, though to accuse officials and the PM to be skiing and on holiday in February when nobody was dealing with it seriously, has a large dose of hindsight
Indeed a lot of his testimony was with the benefit of hindsight rather than the real considerations of the moment
I would also comment that had this been a UK only crisis then his criticism would be more valid, but covid 19 struck across Europe, the US and Canada as well as the far east. Outside of the far east every government has struggled with it and remember Scotland, Wales and NI did not do any better.
And this morning the whole of Victoria state in Australia is in complete lockdown and includes Melbourne
Indeed Wales did apply the 2 week circuit breaker in September and it was a disaster as Wales opened up immediately only to plunge into a later prolonged lockdown.
*A pre-vaccine test in one of the studies confirmed I had no antibodies a few weeks back
So I don't think we'll see only a modest drop in Johnson's ratings. But if things go wrong later - with the economy, for instance - then Johnson's insouciant style will not be enough.
One is the the hair is so integral to the brand.
The other is the idea of Boris owing up to anything.
I do agree however that AZ acted in good faith to do its bit to tackle the greatest crisis facing the world at present and the EC conspiracy theories are pretty bad.
If the government hadn't encouraged foreign holidays last summer then the autumn wave would have been both later and smaller.
If the government had restricted travel to India then we wouldn't have been talking about the Indian variant for the last fortnight.
There seems to have been a casual attitude of "it will get here sooner or later so why bother trying to stop it".
But time was vital and buying a month here and a month there through border control would have meant less death and less damage.
It’s almost as if in both cases, the countries with time to plan, assumed that the developing problems in other countries were just down to the other countries poor management rather than just that they were hit first.
I do note ... somewhat wrily that Labour's position is a little inconsistent.
In England, their position is that we need an urgent public inquiry into the handling of COVID by the Government and the bunglings of Boris & Co.
In Scotland, their position is that we need an urgent public inquiry into the handling of COVID by the Government and the bunglings of Nicola & Co.
In Wales, their position is that we do ... NOT ... need an urgent public inquiry into the handling of COVID by the Government. It would, you see, be a distraction from Drakeford's economic recovery plan that will turn Wales into California.
(Around 8.17am R4)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveyantibodyandvaccinationdatafortheuk/26may2021
I think the responsibility he feels was on his shoulders might have driven him over the edge...
So if we go back to the 3rd of May, 65% of adults in the UK had at least one vaccination.
But, it's not hard to imagine the media demanding that we go back to normal etc. etc.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf
That's our Pandemic Preparedness Strategy. Remember that we were supposed to be one of the best prepared countries in the world for this?
But take a closer look at it.
The Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy
Everything in it is targeted at influenza.
So the takeaway is:
- Maybe don't do all your pandemic planning and preparation around one single disease?
Things like:
- This influenza outbreak will all be over in 1-3 months (Coronavirus: Big Nope)
- We judge face masks in the wider population are of limited use against influenza (Fine, but they're pretty useful against coronavirus)
- We'll use the existing seasonal influenza testing and surveillance system for the outbreak (Umm, no, that doesn't help with testing for coronavirus)
- People are infectious for about 2-4 days and not very infectious prior to symptoms
(Not for coronavirus: 5-10 days, and up to 14 days, and the pre-symptomatic period is crucial)
- The disease isn't very airborne; compulsively washing hands to avoid fomites is crucial (Coronavirus is primarily airborne/aerosol; fomite transmission appears negligible)
- There is minimal effect from stopping mass gatherings (For coronavirus, stopping mass gatherings is the single biggest low hanging fruit)
- There is little point in closing the borders (Australia and New Zealand bend over laughing; we then wait for ages even stopping flights from places where new Variants of Concern originate)
... etc, etc. We can STILL see hangovers from this plan - which looks to have been very well researched and planned to deal with an influenza epidemic, but somewhere between minimal use and actively detrimental to a different viral pandemic - coming out in things like the reluctance to stop travel.
The one thing we got very right was the vaccine programme, which did have useful small sections in there.
What I said is that an increase in M3 is no longer guaranteed to result in inflation because there is greater awareness of deflationary pressures now. And I provided the data to back that up.
Like Japan in 1990 the west now is now very heavily indebted which can mean that people's available cash to spend can be contracting due to credit issues etc even when the money supply is officially increasing.
Increasing money supply is still inflationary but inflationary pressures alone are not sufficient to cause inflation if deflationary pressures exist too.
One way to think about it is how uniquitous credit cards are used nowadays compared to 40 years ago. Having £1000 available to spend in your bank account and having nothing in your bank account but a £1000 credit limit are not the same thing, even if they both permit expenditure.
If people are using their money to pay off credit card debt they're not using it to buy goods.
Heavy indebtedness is what led to the Japanese deflationary situation from 1990 to date and they've not escaped deflation since despite a major increase in money supply in recent years. Heavy indebtedness also because a problem in the financial crisis 2007/08 onwards.
Cummings portrayed the same chaotic incompetence in government that others have independently talked about. The shocker was that despite him increasingly loathing the PM and all he stood for he realised that if he left then the bumbling would cause people to die and he didn't want that on his conscience.
If only he hadn't with a straight face tried to defend test driving with his wife and kid on board. He was almost convincing until then. Almost...
Edit: In fact, most would test positive after about two weeks and a fair minority within 1-2 weeks: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.12.21257102v2.full-text
The other that always gets me is why politicians don't more often say 'I don't know'.
What Europe-wide European media are you aware of that the public watches or reads?
Which is quite reasonable as when they were available we were getting most of our energy from coal. Now we're not.
1. Admission of residents
The care sector looks after many of the most vulnerable people in our society. In this pandemic, we appreciate that care home providers are first and foremost looking after the people in their care, and doing so while some of their staff are absent due to sickness or isolation requirements. As part of the national effort, the care sector also plays a vital role in accepting patients as they are discharged from hospital – both because recuperation is better in non-acute settings, and because hospitals need to have enough beds to treat acutely sick patients. Residents may also be admitted to a care home from a home setting. Some of these patients may have COVID-19, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic. All of these patients can be safely cared for in a care home if this guidance is followed.
If an individual has no COVID-19 symptoms or has tested positive for COVID-19 but is no longer showing symptoms and has completed their isolation period, then care should be provided as normal.
The Hospital Discharge Service and staff will clarify with care homes the COVID-19 status of an individual and any COVID-19 symptoms, during the process of transfer from a hospital to the care home. Tests will primarily be given to:
! all patients in critical care for pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) or flu like illness
! all other patients requiring admission to hospital for pneumonia, ARDS or flu like illness
! where an outbreak has occurred in a residential or care setting, for example long-term
care facility or prisons.1
Negative tests are not required prior to transfers / admissions into the care home.
But fail to pay in full, pay interest only, and you're f***ed. And there's far more people in that situation today than there were in the 70s or 80s and it doesn't show properly in money supply which is why the textbooks from the 70s and 80s aren't suitable for today.
...Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made...
Irrespective of infected status, if patients were not at a minimum on oxygen, they had to be considered for discharge.
For Hancock to claim that care homes were protected at the time was simply untrue.
That's clearly based on the then scientific view that the asymptomatic do not infect others.
Certainly a major mistake but the key question was when was it rectified.
That doesn't mean no protection, of course.
So what that he lied and broke the ministerial code and killed 20,000 people. The arbiter for what is a lie is Liar. So even when Patel gets found in breach of the code He simply overturns it and says "no she isn't". As he will with the findings of his own financial transgressions.
Whats more, the Cult will cheer it on! Its Good that they lie!