I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
Syphillis, I think, went the other way. A thank you present I suppose for the all the smallpox the Europeans brought to America.
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
Syphilis.
That's an excellent example, though an STD rather than an eg common cold coronavirus so not really a pandemic in the same way.
Surely the native Americans should have had their own coronaviruses that would have been novel to Europeans and not just STDs?
They had not been living in such close proximity to one another nor to such numbers and variety of domestic ated animals, is the usual theory.
Personally I think that we're running into trouble again - a view shared by several senior people in the borough with no axe to grind. The Surrey case rate is up 68% over last week (and nationally it's up 53%), and hospitalisations are rising too. This appears to be overwhelmingly younger, not fully vaccinated people, and a chunk of those are having serious problems. Compliance is finally crumbling as people have genuinely lost track of what the rules are.
The hard-headed answer is to wait with relaxation, in particular international travel, until the great majority of adults (and IMO children too) have been vaccinated. After a period where the authorities got serious about the situation we have relapsed into vacillation.
Those cases aren't translating into increased hospitalisations. If you get COVID, get some or no symptoms and don't need to go to hospital or use any NHS resources does it matter if you get it or not? That's the situation for 28m double jabbed people in groups 1-9 with that number growing by 450k per day on average. For groups 10-12 the risk is already extremely low (less than 1/4000) and that is reduced between 60-80% with just a single dose of Pfizer or Moderna 12 days post vaccine.
Once again, no one can answer the question - exactly who is going to overwhelm the NHS? Which group of people will present an overwhelming number of cases to the NHS? It's not the 30m vaccinated old, it's not the young because most of the cases in young people were in groups 4 and 6 who have all been double jabbed. The only group left that is at risk are vaccine refusers. National policy cannot be crafted around people who have refused to help themselves.
The risk is now all individual and we as individuals should be able to take that risk the same as someone climbing up a mountain or even just going for a drive.
If you get COVID, get some or no symptoms and don't need to go to hospital or use any NHS resources does it matter if you get it or not?
Actually this might be desirable - a soft case post virus & post vax your immunity will be up so if a nastier variant comes along then you'll have greater protection.
Haven't some knowledgeable people said that ultimately we're all going to be infected ?
Better that many do so by allowing it to seep through the country this summer than get hit by more concentrated and dangerous waves winter after winter.
Most people. The sterilisation efficacy of the Astra vaccine against the indian variant looks like it may well be too low to prevent most cases (Just make them mild). Is this the fundamental problem ? I think it's serendipitous that under 40s are on mRNA to be perfectly frank.
Yes, on the latter it's actually a huge national benefit as Pfizer and Moderna are better at preventing the spread and under 40s are much likelier to spread the virus. The cumulative risk reduction from that decision is massive as transmission chains simply don't exist.
This isn't an argument against reopening, but it will need some time to work through though.
12 days with a single dose of either prevents spread by about 50%. The study is ongoing for two doses but estimates based on antibody prevalence modelling puts Pfizer at about 70% and Moderna at about 75% with AZ at about 60%.
The best thing about moving younger cohorts to Pfizer and Moderna is that they are very fast acting and cumulate into a huge reduction in the spread of the virus. AZ provides better long term protection and gets really wide t-cell immunity so is actually probably a better fit for groups 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9.
I presume the PHE study that said either were only 30% effective after one jab will be banded about as another reason for not opening up. Personally I am very sceptical of those numbers, if it was that low, we would have seen an even bigger outbreak and already have hospitals jammed in places like Bolton, and we haven't.
30% efficacy (and rising now that we're getting more stats) for AZ against infection. 60% for either of them against severe disease and hospitalisation with a single dose after 3 weeks. Again, the single dose preference still makes sense because it's about keeping people out of hospital. That's what vaccines are for, everything else is a bonus.
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
I reran this using ONS data because NIMS triggers Philip.
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
We've reached the why do Jocks hate the English stage of an international tournament. Thankfully this time the violent end of England fandom is too busy hating on their own team to issue fatwas on anyone being less than enthusiastic about 'ar boys'.
Personally I think that we're running into trouble again - a view shared by several senior people in the borough with no axe to grind. The Surrey case rate is up 68% over last week (and nationally it's up 53%), and hospitalisations are rising too. This appears to be overwhelmingly younger, not fully vaccinated people, and a chunk of those are having serious problems. Compliance is finally crumbling as people have genuinely lost track of what the rules are.
The hard-headed answer is to wait with relaxation, in particular international travel, until the great majority of adults (and IMO children too) have been vaccinated. After a period where the authorities got serious about the situation we have relapsed into vacillation.
Those cases aren't translating into increased hospitalisations. If you get COVID, get some or no symptoms and don't need to go to hospital or use any NHS resources does it matter if you get it or not? That's the situation for 28m double jabbed people in groups 1-9 with that number growing by 450k per day on average. For groups 10-12 the risk is already extremely low (less than 1/4000) and that is reduced between 60-80% with just a single dose of Pfizer or Moderna 12 days post vaccine.
Once again, no one can answer the question - exactly who is going to overwhelm the NHS? Which group of people will present an overwhelming number of cases to the NHS? It's not the 30m vaccinated old, it's not the young because most of the cases in young people were in groups 4 and 6 who have all been double jabbed. The only group left that is at risk are vaccine refusers. National policy cannot be crafted around people who have refused to help themselves.
The risk is now all individual and we as individuals should be able to take that risk the same as someone climbing up a mountain or even just going for a drive.
If you get COVID, get some or no symptoms and don't need to go to hospital or use any NHS resources does it matter if you get it or not?
Actually this might be desirable - a soft case post virus & post vax your immunity will be up so if a nastier variant comes along then you'll have greater protection.
Haven't some knowledgeable people said that ultimately we're all going to be infected ?
Better that many do so by allowing it to seep through the country this summer than get hit by more concentrated and dangerous waves winter after winter.
Most people. The sterilisation efficacy of the Astra vaccine against the indian variant looks like it may well be too low to prevent most cases (Just make them mild). Is this the fundamental problem ? I think it's serendipitous that under 40s are on mRNA to be perfectly frank.
Yes, on the latter it's actually a huge national benefit as Pfizer and Moderna are better at preventing the spread and under 40s are much likelier to spread the virus. The cumulative risk reduction from that decision is massive as transmission chains simply don't exist.
This isn't an argument against reopening, but it will need some time to work through though.
12 days with a single dose of either prevents spread by about 50%. The study is ongoing for two doses but estimates based on antibody prevalence modelling puts Pfizer at about 70% and Moderna at about 75% with AZ at about 60%.
The best thing about moving younger cohorts to Pfizer and Moderna is that they are very fast acting and cumulate into a huge reduction in the spread of the virus. AZ provides better long term protection and gets really wide t-cell immunity so is actually probably a better fit for groups 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9.
I presume the PHE study that said either were only 30% effective after one jab will be banded about as another reason for not opening up. Personally I am very sceptical of those numbers, if it was that low, we would have seen an even bigger outbreak and already have hospitals jammed in places like Bolton, and we haven't.
Those don't neccesarily follow - a vaccine can be strong enough to prevent moderate illness & hospitalisation but not strong enough to completely eliminate a positive case on contact with the virus.
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
Syphilis.
That's an excellent example, though an STD rather than an eg common cold coronavirus so not really a pandemic in the same way.
Surely the native Americans should have had their own coronaviruses that would have been novel to Europeans and not just STDs?
Indeed but that matches what I was saying, 80% to 95% of indigenous Americans are believed to have died due to novel (to them) pandemics like smallpox.
If Columbus and those that followed had brought back to Europe diseases that had wiped out 80 to 95% of Europeans then history would have been very different!
Fewer people and fewer diseases in the new world compared to the old?
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
Similar in the Pacific Islands, I think, although I'm not sure about Australia.
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
Mortality rates for (eg) early US settlers from disease were pretty high, but the exchange of novel pathogens was asymmetric (lack of American domestic livestock and therefore fewer zoonotic pathogens, for example), as Wikipedia explains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics
My brother informs me that Brussels has reopened cinemas, restricted indoor dining, office working etc.
They seem to be three weeks behind us in terms of their re-opening schedule.
This is Eurodave's summary. BJs now back in Brussels.
Good morning #Brussels. From today:
😷 No facemasks needed outdoors 🏋️♂️ Gyms, theatres, casinos open 🍻 Bars & restaurants open indoors & outdoors, till 23:30 💋 Prostitution again allowed ⛪️ Churches open up to 100 ppl 👯♂️ Outdoor events up to 400 ppl 👨👨👧👦 4 guests allowed at home https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1402483090098819074
He lives there, when not in Strasbourg with the Court of King Caratacus.
To me the interesting thing will be watching what happens with reopening, and at some point the Indian variant, in a low-vax high interaction environment. Fully effective vaccinated is under 20%.
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
Syphilis.
That's an excellent example, though an STD rather than an eg common cold coronavirus so not really a pandemic in the same way.
Surely the native Americans should have had their own coronaviruses that would have been novel to Europeans and not just STDs?
Indeed but that matches what I was saying, 80% to 95% of indigenous Americans are believed to have died due to novel (to them) pandemics like smallpox.
If Columbus and those that followed had brought back to Europe diseases that had wiped out 80 to 95% of Europeans then history would have been very different!
Mr. 43, I've heard that too (regarding syphilis). Believe it started as as a more general fever type disease before evolving.
Worth noting that happens with various diseases, changing their form over time. Can make diagnosing historical death causes tricky because sometimes the disease just doesn't exist any more.
LONDON — EU officials and diplomats are discussing an emergency plan to solve the impasse over the Brexit settlement in Northern Ireland by restricting Ireland’s access to the bloc’s single market for goods.
The idea, which is causing extreme anxiety in Dublin where officials see it as unfair punishment for its neighbor’s decision to Brexit, is meant as a backup plan to solve the conundrum of where to carry out vital checks on goods. These are designed to protect EU countries from food and plant diseases.
That issue was meant to have been solved by the Northern Ireland protocol, a key part of the Brexit deal, but London is resisting implementing this part of the agreement which it claims is unworkable.
Why would a border between Ireland and the EU be any more “workable” than the border in the Irish Sea?
Or is the theory that having two borders (one EU/Ireland, one in the Irish Sea) makes it easier to justify not enforcing serious controls for either?
Either are workable it’s just the UK understands the sensitivity better than the EU (ex RoI) so is unwilling to inflame tensions in NI
The truly remarkable thing is that the Johnson government chooses to split its own country in preference to accepting any alignment with EU regs. Ireland and the EU are also uncompromising, but nothing as radical as that.
Surely now we have to start looking at charging anyone for Covid treatment if they have had the opportunity to book a vaccine appointment and failed to do so?
Because that’s almost the whole of the problem and would I guess go a long way towards solving it. Sure, you will always have principled refusers like Dura Ace, but for nutters like Contrarian, bleating about lockdown while forcing us into more of it, need to be warned that their stupidity and selfishness has real world consequences.
@contrarian has not had the vaccine because he disagrees, on principle, with the state pressurising its citizens into a medical intervention (especially when the vaccines are so new). @Dura_Ace has not been vaccinated because he distrusts, and doesn't want to support, "Big Pharma".
Just different principles surely? Are you sure that these two guys have fewer principles than the masses who have eagerly and meekly done what they have been told?
No, Dura Ace hasn’t been vaccinated because the vaccine was tested on animals. That’s a perfectly valid stance, consistent with his longstanding veganism, and though I disagree with his conclusions I respect his consistency.
The issue with Contrarian (well, among many other issues) is that he says nobody should be pressured to take the vaccine and then says nobody should have to lockdown, and lectures the rest of us on how he alone is standing up for our freedoms when taking the very action that’s making it impossible to get them back.
Well, newsflash, it’s one or the other. His position is as grotesque and inconsistent as the Catholic ban on both contraception and abortion. And, further newsflash, it shows he’s not a principled person but a selfish prick (or perhaps, lack of prick ).
Have a good morning.
I'm sorry, but this is bollocks on stilts. Vegans refusing to get the COVID jab are just as bad as the Bill Gates conspiracy nut jobs.
It’s really simple. Anyone that refuses it is a selfish prick and should be socially shunned and made to feel awful. It needs to be viewed as the same level of unacceptable as drink driving. They are unpleasant people.
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
I don't think this is of too much value, there's not a great grandmother in the world that wouldn't be delighted with a new arrival. Even the ones that aren't won't say it publicly, particularly not the Queen !
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
I don't think this is of too much value, there's not a great grandmother in the world that wouldn't be delighted with a new arrival. Even the ones that aren't won't say it publicly, particularly not the Queen !
Of course not but creeps like @IshmaelZ and @squareroot2 are determined to find this offensive on behalf of HMQ even when HMQ says she's delighted.
If only there were a term for people who take offence on behalf of others, even when the others aren't expressing any offence themselves.
A useful article which might help sift @Leon 's occasional nuggets from his copious dross, if you're interested.
Thanks for this.
Just one general issue re journals. One of the slight issues is that an increasing part of their revenues and, more importantly, contribution to their growth rates come from China and the Government is very happy to block or punish publications seen as critical. I wouldn't automatically assume scientific journals as being 100% neutral and driven entirely by the science
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
I have no such creepy obsession, I come here to chat shit about the trivia du jour, and this is such a piece of trivia. It's also a subject on which you have posted about 10x as frequently as I have... a refreshing change from how the world owes you an affordable 4 bed executive des res I spose, so I'm not complaining.
And, yes, lilibet would be sickbag time in any context.
The Oxford student who tabled the motion to remove an 'unwelcoming' portrait of the Queen from the graduate common room at Magdalen College is a privately educated American post grad.
I honestly don't understand why a delay is even being considered. People act as though the vaccine programme will just cease on the 21st and on the 22nd everyone who hasn't been vaccinated will be simultaneously infected.
Two things are obvious: 1) we will have more information by June 14th. 2) there are experts who are worried about lifting all restrictions on June 21.
Given these two things -> it is obviously responsible to consider a delay. And decide when we have more information.
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
I don't think this is of too much value, there's not a great grandmother in the world that wouldn't be delighted with a new arrival. Even the ones that aren't won't say it publicly, particularly not the Queen !
I hate even devoting a single brain cell to this issue but the lack of any nod whatsoever to her side of the family was striking to me.
My brother informs me that Brussels has reopened cinemas, restricted indoor dining, office working etc.
They seem to be three weeks behind us in terms of their re-opening schedule.
They will probably open up fully before us at this rate. Ditto France and Spain.
This was the stupid thing about the EU throwing a tantrum about vaccines. All they did was highlight their own incompetence!
Watching European politicians simultaneously complain that AZ weren’t delivering them fast enough, and that they didn’t work, were no good and not wanted, would have been amusing if it wasn’t so serious.
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
IIRC from reading Guns, Germs and Steel, one plausible explanation is that the East/West orientation of Eurasia allowed for easier migration (since migrants found similar climactic conditions) and hence for the easier circulation of infectious diseases, allowing for the gradual accumulation of immunity. This was harder in the Americas where migration was mostly North/South and hence harder. The population of the Americas was also smaller and had been in situ for less time, I think, which presumably also limited their ability to acquire immunity.
I'm down to London next week for a couple of days - for the first time in over 15 months. (An in-the-room meeting with the animators for the first time.) Dinner booked at Hide.
Is there anything on that is must-see at the mo?
I'd enjoy a report on Hide.
To each their own, of course. I love my fine dining, but judging by the pics I might privately go Jeremy Clarkson on them.
To me the presentation has a for-instagram feel to it - like the shift from 'stripped out scandi' to 'urban hipster with textures' we have seen in interior decor over the last few years.
Frankly I would punch someone in the face who served me such pretentious shite.
Have you been there and done that ?
I was once taken into a restaurant in Strasbourg (iirc) for a dinner meeting where I saw plates with such rubbish on. I walked out. Food is for eating. It is for sustenance, not for some clown to tell you how clever he is whilst picking your pocket.
It was only relatively recently that I worked out that "fine dining" is a euphemism for "tiny portions".
The sort of place where you spend £100 a head on food, yet leave feeling hungry.
The Oxford student who tabled the motion to remove an 'unwelcoming' portrait of the Queen from the graduate common room at Magdalen College is a privately educated American post grad.
Controversial opinion, I know, but I don't think anyone over the age of 30 (tops) should stick their noses into what decorates student common rooms, or indeed what goes on in student common rooms at all.
The UK’s vaccination programme has broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths, and hospitals were reporting fewer and younger patients, according to a senior boss in the NHS.
Very easily found an article about European diseases among Native Australians, on the 'aboriginalhistoryofyarra.com.au' site which ends with the following:
'Ultimately, the introduction of European diseases and lifestyle-related health problems had a devastating and ongoing impact on the Aboriginal people of Victoria.'
To be 'fair', lifestyle changes...... alcohol, clothing for example..... were nearly as bad for the 'natives' as European diseases.
The people who were going to set up an Independent Country in 18 months can't transfer powers they were given 5 years ago....for another 3 years:
A senior SNP minister has blamed “technical challenges” for the Scottish government’s failure to take full control over devolved benefits as she demands more powers from Westminster.
Shona Robison, who has pushed this week for Holyrood to have full command over employment rights, said that the snagging issues centred on the “safe and secure” transfer of data.
What is required up there is a proper incentive. 1. A second referendum producing a Yes vote; 2. A declaration from the remainder of the UK that we expect them to be gone in a year.
The Scottish Government can get all of this sorted out if London is no longer willing to hold its hand. And if it can't, well, quite honestly, who gives a fuck?
Repeatedly saying who gives a fuck is a notably convincing way of indicating that one doesn’t give a fuck.
Entirely accurate in this case though. You go, we're rid of each other. Scotland inside the UK has to be looked after, Scotland outside the UK is no different to Denmark. If it has issues then they're for the people who live there to sort out, ultimately.
In that case perhaps time to start criticising the lying, self serving prick who seems intent on blocking the mechanism for making this come to pass, particularly if you voted for him?
Yet just last month the Scottish Conservatives got 23.5% of the vote on the regional list at Holyrood, the highest Scottish Conservative voteshare on either the constituency or regional list vote at Holyrood since it was founded in 1999
My hypothesis though is that the Tories also have high negatives in Scotland. In other words, you either love them or hate them.
Perpetual Tory rule in Westminster, therefore, works as a ratchet toward Scottish independence, as Tory-hating unionists realise they might prefer anything to ongoing Tory hegemony.
This is another reason why it’s so important we have a viable Opposition. It’s better for the Union.
Keir has flunked it already. He needs to shuffle off.
I feel like a broken record as I explained all of this and how important Scotland was to my mate who is high up in the Labour Party but he didn’t really get it.
A useful article which might help sift @Leon 's occasional nuggets from his copious dross, if you're interested.
Thanks for this.
Just one general issue re journals. One of the slight issues is that an increasing part of their revenues and, more importantly, contribution to their growth rates come from China and the Government is very happy to block or punish publications seen as critical. I wouldn't automatically assume scientific journals as being 100% neutral and driven entirely by the science
Then where does the layman get scientific information it can trust? Karen on Facebook?
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
I don't think this is of too much value, there's not a great grandmother in the world that wouldn't be delighted with a new arrival. Even the ones that aren't won't say it publicly, particularly not the Queen !
Of course not but creeps like @IshmaelZ and @squareroot2 are determined to find this offensive on behalf of HMQ even when HMQ says she's delighted.
If only there were a term for people who take offence on behalf of others, even when the others aren't expressing any offence themselves.
On topic, the suggested delay to Freedom Day is the right move (possibly for the wrong reasons but let's come back to that).
Although more than 77% of adults have had a first jab and over half have had both across the UK, that still leaves a substantial number who haven't had either - around 12m by my reckoning (plus children, who are also well capable of catching and transmitting the virus).
Now, as Mike says, it's true that at the moment there are few deaths resulting from the virus but too often - and this is another example - policy has been decided on how things are now, not how they would be as a result of the policy.
Suppose we open up with 12m adults unvaccinated, including most under-30s. Then stick 200 young adults into an airless, confined nightclub without any social distancing, masks or the like. If one of the 200 has the virus at the start of the evening, how many will have it by the end? The social life of young adults involves a lot of that random mixing, often in that sort of close proximity. In current circumstances, Freedom Day rules would be an invitation to a very substantial third wave.
Now, if it was just under-30s - who seemingly have a high resistance to the virus - perhaps that would be tolerable but of course it wouldn't. Most under-50s have had only one jab and with millions of cases swirling around the country, there'd be many leaking up into those partially-protected older age groups with greater vulnerability (there'd also be cases among unvaccinated anti-vaxxers but, frankly, that's their fault and their problem).
Until we have at least one dose offered to all over-18s, I really don't see how we can go back to status quo ante rules. The capacity for uncontrolled transmission is just too great.
And that goes for foreign travel too. Leave aside that most countries would ban Brits from entering if there was a third wave of the scale described above. One problem last summer (interestingly not experienced that much in the UK but certainly elsewhere in Europe) was that people went to countries with low rates but mixed there with people from countries with high rates - and set off new waves all over. The vaccines can control that to a degree but the risks, including of new variants remains.
Finally, a point on social solidarity. The young - both adults and children - suffered appallingly in this epidemic, through lost education, jobs, incomes, savings and so on. They did so despite the virus posing little risk to them personally. They might well have asked "why should have put up with these restrictions when they hurt me so much for so little personal benefit?". The answer was, of course, that society needs to look after everyone, as best it can. So now in reverse. Those who've had both jabs can damn well put up with the restrictions for a little longer until the young, who've sacrificed so much for their elders, have had their turn.
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
IIRC from reading Guns, Germs and Steel, one plausible explanation is that the East/West orientation of Eurasia allowed for easier migration (since migrants found similar climactic conditions) and hence for the easier circulation of infectious diseases, allowing for the gradual accumulation of immunity. This was harder in the Americas where migration was mostly North/South and hence harder. The population of the Americas was also smaller and had been in situ for less time, I think, which presumably also limited their ability to acquire immunity.
That's a good explanation thank you. Especially the interactions over centuries/millenia between Europe, Africa and Asia probably meant there was a much higher level of circulating 'background' common cold style viruses.
For England the doubling time for cases is 30 days. For Scotland it is 15.
Cases on May 1st: 1,353 Cases on June 1st: 5,238
Hospital patients on May 1st: 1,283 Hospital patients on June 1st: 922
Deaths on May 1st: 8 Deaths on June 1st: 4
The link between cases and serious illness is kaput, and the disease has long since reached the point where the mortality rate is trundling along at about one in a million per week. With the huge, huge majority of all the most vulnerable people already having been vaccinated (nearly all of those being double-jabbed to boot,) no plausible mechanism exists by which Delta can cause another tsunami of death. Now, can we please finally stop the trouser wetting over the bloody cases?
Technically, as cases don't cause hospitalisations on the same day and for people to keel over a couple of hours after that, these are not comparing like with like (so it's not really a surprise that there is no link).
Cases on May 1st should be compared to hospital admissions on May 11th and deaths on May 21st. Then compare to cases on June 1st, hospital admissions on Hune 11th, and deaths on June 21st. Admittedly, it's challenging to compare these with the June figures without a time machine, but that's precisely why we need more data.
@ydoethur I think @Dura_Ace is a misanthrope who loves animals but hates people.
I like some people (Greta, Bielsa, AOC, Mrs DA, that XF Motorsports guy on YouTube) I just hate tories, cultural conservatives and rich people with shit cars.
That is an admirable list of targets for your opprobrium. I do worry that I could edge into your final category, though, depending on where you set the bar.
If you drive a Nissan Juke or Qashqai, I think you are in big trouble.
The Oxford student who tabled the motion to remove an 'unwelcoming' portrait of the Queen from the graduate common room at Magdalen College is a privately educated American post grad.
I still find it weird to see the contrasting perceptions of many European countries and America that the pandemic is largely over, whilst the U.K. has got a real problem - and reconcling that with stats on hospitalisations and deaths where the U.K. is clearly running at an order of 5-10 times lower than many other countries.
Remember that deaths, especially, are a lagging indicator- they reflect the situation about a month ago.
Also remember that direction not travel matters- high and falling is in some ways better than low and rising.
Not really that lagging. It's about 4-7 days for a symptomatic case to show up in the stats, another 5-8 days for that to develop into s hospitalisation and a further 8-20 days for that person to die or be discharged. On average, for older people, the average length of infection from detection to death was about 20 days and for younger people about 30 days.
We're well past the stage where we'd be seeing that early case growth from Bolton spill over into hospitalisation and death rates, especially in older adults. It hasn't.
The vaccines are doing their job and the alarmists and doom mongers are shifting the goal posts from needing lockdown measures to prevent an NHS catastrophe to eliminating COVID. The latter is simply not realistic but the former has already been achieved. There are just not enough unvaccinated over 50s to clog up hospitals now and those who haven't taken the vaccine chose not to. We can't make decisions based on vaccine refusers, they've made their decision and must live with the consequences.
The vast majority of virologists are pretty sure that this coronavirus won't be eliminated - and will eventually add to the list of 'common cold' coronaviruses.
As an aside, it does give you an idea of what happened to the indigenous Americans when they encountered a dozen or so novel to them (and their immune systems) viruses from the Old World... All at once.
novel That's the key word here. Why it is such a danger pre vax and so not post vax.
That's the point. What were likely fairly harmless common cold bugs to Europeans probably killed large numbers of indigenous Americans post Columbus.
One thing I've never understood is that this is extremely commonly reported, that Europeans introduced viruses to the native Americans post Columbus. But how come its not commonly reported that the same happened in reverse?
Shouldn't the native Americans have had all their own coronaviruses etc that were novel to the settlers and traders, who would have carried them back to the old world and let to outbreaks in the old world?
Unless I've missed it, I can't think of major European pandemics from meeting the native Americans that match in scale those reported for the native Americans from meeting Europeans.
IIRC from reading Guns, Germs and Steel, one plausible explanation is that the East/West orientation of Eurasia allowed for easier migration (since migrants found similar climactic conditions) and hence for the easier circulation of infectious diseases, allowing for the gradual accumulation of immunity. This was harder in the Americas where migration was mostly North/South and hence harder. The population of the Americas was also smaller and had been in situ for less time, I think, which presumably also limited their ability to acquire immunity.
Went recently on a WEA course on Icelandic literature and while there we discussed the Viking trips to Vinland. Someone raised the question of the lack of pre-Columban travel 'America" > Europe, and it was suggested that either prevailing winds or shipbuilding capacity, or, to be fair, both, were the reasons.
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
I don't think this is of too much value, there's not a great grandmother in the world that wouldn't be delighted with a new arrival. Even the ones that aren't won't say it publicly, particularly not the Queen !
Of course not but creeps like @IshmaelZ and @squareroot2 are determined to find this offensive on behalf of HMQ even when HMQ says she's delighted.
If only there were a term for people who take offence on behalf of others, even when the others aren't expressing any offence themselves.
Creeps is strong stuff.
God owes you that bungalow.
I don't think anyone owes anybody anything, I just think there should be a free market in housing.
If someone who owns land wants to build on it, they should be able to do so, since its their land. If someone who owns land wants to sell it to someone who wants to develop the land then they should be able to do so, its their land.
I also think if you want land near your home not to be developed then you should be able to buy that land and refuse to develop it. Since it will be your land, so your choice.
I'm not sure why you find a free market and free choice so objectionable and scary. What do you have against freedom to choose?
For England the doubling time for cases is 30 days. For Scotland it is 15.
Cases on May 1st: 1,353 Cases on June 1st: 5,238
Hospital patients on May 1st: 1,283 Hospital patients on June 1st: 922
Deaths on May 1st: 8 Deaths on June 1st: 4
The link between cases and serious illness is kaput, and the disease has long since reached the point where the mortality rate is trundling along at about one in a million per week. With the huge, huge majority of all the most vulnerable people already having been vaccinated (nearly all of those being double-jabbed to boot,) no plausible mechanism exists by which Delta can cause another tsunami of death. Now, can we please finally stop the trouser wetting over the bloody cases?
Technically, as cases don't cause hospitalisations on the same day and for people to keel over a couple of hours after that, these are not comparing like with like (so it's not really a surprise that there is no link).
Cases on May 1st should be compared to hospital admissions on May 11th and deaths on May 21st. Then compare to cases on June 1st, hospital admissions on Hune 11th, and deaths on June 21st. Admittedly, it's challenging to compare these with the June figures without a time machine, but that's precisely why we need more data.
The figures I saw had hospitalisations to case rates at about half what they were before. Which is obviously a big improvement. But if case rates expand exponentially from currently low figures that still could result in a lot of hospitalisations. That I think is the remaining concern. The other stats look good.
We've reached the why do Jocks hate the English stage of an international tournament. Thankfully this time the violent end of England fandom is too busy hating on their own team to issue fatwas on anyone being less than enthusiastic about 'ar boys'.
"oversite"
Could be doing it deliberately to discredit Scottish education? Or Occam's razor says just stoopid.
Oops - quick follow up. I said I'd come to why I thought delaying Freedom Day might be the right decision for the wrong reason. While I implied what I thought the right reason was, I forgot to mention the wrong one.
I'm far from convinced that Delta is that much more transmissable. it's notable that Bedford's vaccination rates are some way below the national average. We have to question whether the greater transmission of Delta is because of the virus or because of the people who have it. Are they acting differently from other parts of the country, or from those who don't? Are they following rules and guidance to the same extent - and so on? Are their vaccination rates the same, or higher, or lower, than the areas and groups not suffering outbreaks?
The question underlying all this is why, when Delta is also found in other countries, has its outbreak in the UK grown far faster than elsewhere?
Now, there are tricky issues surrounding the asking of these questions, which is why they probably won't be asked and are even less likely to be answered honestly and openly. All the same, I can't help but think that the governments assumptions about transmission are not looking at the whole picture and, hence, flawed.
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
If they plan to lock us down this coming winter they will need to use the excuse of vaccine resistant strains rather than we are doing this because 1.6m people didn't get the vax and the NHS needs protection from them.
No way public will accept locking down for refusers.
Maybe I am wrong, but I reckon that no one I know will do it or at least if they do it will be under extreme duress and I don't see them recruiting enough police for that.
Students from University engage in freedom of speech to oppose the monarchy"
"No, not like that!"
The culture war is a lie, a made up fiction designed as a political football, it is not about any actual issue.
I think saying that they shouldn't be able to do it full stop would be wrong (they can do what they like as far as I'm concerned). But I don't have a problem with politicians saying that they think it's absurd to do it on the grounds of colonialism.
Very easily found an article about European diseases among Native Australians, on the 'aboriginalhistoryofyarra.com.au' site which ends with the following:
'Ultimately, the introduction of European diseases and lifestyle-related health problems had a devastating and ongoing impact on the Aboriginal people of Victoria.'
To be 'fair', lifestyle changes...... alcohol, clothing for example..... were nearly as bad for the 'natives' as European diseases.
But the introduction of European and American medicine has more than offset that since then, doubling their life expectancy to 73 years.
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
Players’ Tribune do have some really good writers.
The fans are still going to boo the players kneeling before the matches.
Southgate’s piece sounds like a David Cameron leadership pitch, ie empty ‘modernising’ dross.
I don’t think I’ll be booing at the matches as I’m too polite for that but you can tell from the supporters club forum he isn’t winning too many over. Ultimately though he’ll be judged by results on the pitch and I’m not overly optimistic England are in a good place on the eve of the tournament.
My best guess is that England will scrape second place in the group and then go down to a pathetic defeat in the first knockout game. Defeat to Poland in a penalty shootout or something like that.
No, we're winning. Name on the trophy. Remember how the 'dentist's chair' fired up the team in 96 and led to a thrilling run which ended only with a terribly unlucky semi final defeat to Germany? Ok, so same here with 'taking the knee'. This is uniting the players and the manager. It's bringing them together and creating a powerful "us against the gammons" vibe which, given we are better now than 96, should take us all the way. Available at 7 on Betfair. That's value if you share my analysis. Otherwise it looks far too short.
The Oxford student who tabled the motion to remove an 'unwelcoming' portrait of the Queen from the graduate common room at Magdalen College is a privately educated American post grad.
This is just the well-known evolutionary phenomenon of 'protective mimicry'.
The Oxford student who tabled the motion to remove an 'unwelcoming' portrait of the Queen from the graduate common room at Magdalen College is a privately educated American post grad.
Things haven't changed in 40 years then.....
Well they have in that the controversial portrait was only installed 8 years ago.
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
The number of daily coronavirus infections has risen in Russia for a seventh day in a row, as the country prepares to welcome fans for the delayed Euro 2020 football championships.
On topic, the suggested delay to Freedom Day is the right move (possibly for the wrong reasons but let's come back to that).
Although more than 77% of adults have had a first jab and over half have had both across the UK, that still leaves a substantial number who haven't had either - around 12m by my reckoning (plus children, who are also well capable of catching and transmitting the virus).
Now, as Mike says, it's true that at the moment there are few deaths resulting from the virus but too often - and this is another example - policy has been decided on how things are now, not how they would be as a result of the policy.
Suppose we open up with 12m adults unvaccinated, including most under-30s. Then stick 200 young adults into an airless, confined nightclub without any social distancing, masks or the like. If one of the 200 has the virus at the start of the evening, how many will have it by the end? The social life of young adults involves a lot of that random mixing, often in that sort of close proximity. In current circumstances, Freedom Day rules would be an invitation to a very substantial third wave.
Now, if it was just under-30s - who seemingly have a high resistance to the virus - perhaps that would be tolerable but of course it wouldn't. Most under-50s have had only one jab and with millions of cases swirling around the country, there'd be many leaking up into those partially-protected older age groups with greater vulnerability (there'd also be cases among unvaccinated anti-vaxxers but, frankly, that's their fault and their problem).
Until we have at least one dose offered to all over-18s, I really don't see how we can go back to status quo ante rules. The capacity for uncontrolled transmission is just too great.
And that goes for foreign travel too. Leave aside that most countries would ban Brits from entering if there was a third wave of the scale described above. One problem last summer (interestingly not experienced that much in the UK but certainly elsewhere in Europe) was that people went to countries with low rates but mixed there with people from countries with high rates - and set off new waves all over. The vaccines can control that to a degree but the risks, including of new variants remains.
Finally, a point on social solidarity. The young - both adults and children - suffered appallingly in this epidemic, through lost education, jobs, incomes, savings and so on. They did so despite the virus posing little risk to them personally. They might well have asked "why should have put up with these restrictions when they hurt me so much for so little personal benefit?". The answer was, of course, that society needs to look after everyone, as best it can. So now in reverse. Those who've had both jabs can damn well put up with the restrictions for a little longer until the young, who've sacrificed so much for their elders, have had their turn.
I'm sorry, but any youngster who is worried about the virus is perfectly free to abstain from nightclubs and commuter trains until they are jabbed.
If this is becoming a question of individual safety, the government needs to come clean about that. But up to now the mantra has been "protect the NHS". As far as I'm concerned, once the threat to the NHS has gone, then this is over.
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
As was suggested the other day, the UK should team up with countries like Switzerland and Israel on things like this, if the EU are going to be so unnecessarily obstructive.
The Oxford student who tabled the motion to remove an 'unwelcoming' portrait of the Queen from the graduate common room at Magdalen College is a privately educated American post grad.
Who likely already has a degree from an Ivy League college in the US and will return to the US to work in NYC or California and thus never step out of their woke bubble
The people who were going to set up an Independent Country in 18 months can't transfer powers they were given 5 years ago....for another 3 years:
A senior SNP minister has blamed “technical challenges” for the Scottish government’s failure to take full control over devolved benefits as she demands more powers from Westminster.
Shona Robison, who has pushed this week for Holyrood to have full command over employment rights, said that the snagging issues centred on the “safe and secure” transfer of data.
What is required up there is a proper incentive. 1. A second referendum producing a Yes vote; 2. A declaration from the remainder of the UK that we expect them to be gone in a year.
The Scottish Government can get all of this sorted out if London is no longer willing to hold its hand. And if it can't, well, quite honestly, who gives a fuck?
Repeatedly saying who gives a fuck is a notably convincing way of indicating that one doesn’t give a fuck.
Entirely accurate in this case though. You go, we're rid of each other. Scotland inside the UK has to be looked after, Scotland outside the UK is no different to Denmark. If it has issues then they're for the people who live there to sort out, ultimately.
In that case perhaps time to start criticising the lying, self serving prick who seems intent on blocking the mechanism for making this come to pass, particularly if you voted for him?
Yet just last month the Scottish Conservatives got 23.5% of the vote on the regional list at Holyrood, the highest Scottish Conservative voteshare on either the constituency or regional list vote at Holyrood since it was founded in 1999
My hypothesis though is that the Tories also have high negatives in Scotland. In other words, you either love them or hate them.
Perpetual Tory rule in Westminster, therefore, works as a ratchet toward Scottish independence, as Tory-hating unionists realise they might prefer anything to ongoing Tory hegemony.
This is another reason why it’s so important we have a viable Opposition. It’s better for the Union.
Keir has flunked it already. He needs to shuffle off.
I feel like a broken record as I explained all of this and how important Scotland was to my mate who is high up in the Labour Party but he didn’t really get it.
Yes the SNP failed to get a majority in 2019 despite a Tory majority, yet Salmond got a majority in 2011 when there was no Tory majority
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
As was suggested the other day, the UK should team up with countries like Switzerland and Israel on things like this, if the EU are going to be so unnecessarily obstructive.
If the EU wants to cut itself off from scientific excellence then that is it's choice.
How many of the world's top 50 Universities are in the UK and Switzerland and other non-EU European countries?
@ydoethur I think @Dura_Ace is a misanthrope who loves animals but hates people.
I like some people (Greta, Bielsa, AOC, Mrs DA, that XF Motorsports guy on YouTube) I just hate tories, cultural conservatives and rich people with shit cars.
That is an admirable list of targets for your opprobrium. I do worry that I could edge into your final category, though, depending on where you set the bar.
If you drive a Nissan Juke or Qashqai, I think you are in big trouble.
The 40kwh Leaf is a good car but Nissan have fallen far and fast from the days of the R32/3/4 GTR, Z32 and S13/4/5.
@ydoethur I think @Dura_Ace is a misanthrope who loves animals but hates people.
I like some people (Greta, Bielsa, AOC, Mrs DA, that XF Motorsports guy on YouTube) I just hate tories, cultural conservatives and rich people with shit cars.
I do hope Mrs DA is okay with being placed fourth in your list of likes, behind Greta, Bielsa and AOC. Stiff competition though, I agree.
On topic, the suggested delay to Freedom Day is the right move (possibly for the wrong reasons but let's come back to that).
Although more than 77% of adults have had a first jab and over half have had both across the UK, that still leaves a substantial number who haven't had either - around 12m by my reckoning (plus children, who are also well capable of catching and transmitting the virus).
Now, as Mike says, it's true that at the moment there are few deaths resulting from the virus but too often - and this is another example - policy has been decided on how things are now, not how they would be as a result of the policy.
Suppose we open up with 12m adults unvaccinated, including most under-30s. Then stick 200 young adults into an airless, confined nightclub without any social distancing, masks or the like. If one of the 200 has the virus at the start of the evening, how many will have it by the end? The social life of young adults involves a lot of that random mixing, often in that sort of close proximity. In current circumstances, Freedom Day rules would be an invitation to a very substantial third wave.
Now, if it was just under-30s - who seemingly have a high resistance to the virus - perhaps that would be tolerable but of course it wouldn't. Most under-50s have had only one jab and with millions of cases swirling around the country, there'd be many leaking up into those partially-protected older age groups with greater vulnerability (there'd also be cases among unvaccinated anti-vaxxers but, frankly, that's their fault and their problem).
Until we have at least one dose offered to all over-18s, I really don't see how we can go back to status quo ante rules. The capacity for uncontrolled transmission is just too great.
And that goes for foreign travel too. Leave aside that most countries would ban Brits from entering if there was a third wave of the scale described above. One problem last summer (interestingly not experienced that much in the UK but certainly elsewhere in Europe) was that people went to countries with low rates but mixed there with people from countries with high rates - and set off new waves all over. The vaccines can control that to a degree but the risks, including of new variants remains.
Finally, a point on social solidarity. The young - both adults and children - suffered appallingly in this epidemic, through lost education, jobs, incomes, savings and so on. They did so despite the virus posing little risk to them personally. They might well have asked "why should have put up with these restrictions when they hurt me so much for so little personal benefit?". The answer was, of course, that society needs to look after everyone, as best it can. So now in reverse. Those who've had both jabs can damn well put up with the restrictions for a little longer until the young, who've sacrificed so much for their elders, have had their turn.
Every young person I know wants to go back to unrestricted life. Its the boomers who are being wary, in my experience. Those who don't want to live a free life can be more cautious; no-one is stopping them.....
On topic, the suggested delay to Freedom Day is the right move (possibly for the wrong reasons but let's come back to that).
Although more than 77% of adults have had a first jab and over half have had both across the UK, that still leaves a substantial number who haven't had either - around 12m by my reckoning (plus children, who are also well capable of catching and transmitting the virus).
Now, as Mike says, it's true that at the moment there are few deaths resulting from the virus but too often - and this is another example - policy has been decided on how things are now, not how they would be as a result of the policy.
Suppose we open up with 12m adults unvaccinated, including most under-30s. Then stick 200 young adults into an airless, confined nightclub without any social distancing, masks or the like. If one of the 200 has the virus at the start of the evening, how many will have it by the end? The social life of young adults involves a lot of that random mixing, often in that sort of close proximity. In current circumstances, Freedom Day rules would be an invitation to a very substantial third wave.
Now, if it was just under-30s - who seemingly have a high resistance to the virus - perhaps that would be tolerable but of course it wouldn't. Most under-50s have had only one jab and with millions of cases swirling around the country, there'd be many leaking up into those partially-protected older age groups with greater vulnerability (there'd also be cases among unvaccinated anti-vaxxers but, frankly, that's their fault and their problem).
Until we have at least one dose offered to all over-18s, I really don't see how we can go back to status quo ante rules. The capacity for uncontrolled transmission is just too great.
And that goes for foreign travel too. Leave aside that most countries would ban Brits from entering if there was a third wave of the scale described above. One problem last summer (interestingly not experienced that much in the UK but certainly elsewhere in Europe) was that people went to countries with low rates but mixed there with people from countries with high rates - and set off new waves all over. The vaccines can control that to a degree but the risks, including of new variants remains.
Finally, a point on social solidarity. The young - both adults and children - suffered appallingly in this epidemic, through lost education, jobs, incomes, savings and so on. They did so despite the virus posing little risk to them personally. They might well have asked "why should have put up with these restrictions when they hurt me so much for so little personal benefit?". The answer was, of course, that society needs to look after everyone, as best it can. So now in reverse. Those who've had both jabs can damn well put up with the restrictions for a little longer until the young, who've sacrificed so much for their elders, have had their turn.
I'm sorry, but any youngster who is worried about the virus is perfectly free to abstain from nightclubs and commuter trains until they are jabbed.
If this is becoming a question of individual safety, the government needs to come clean about that. But up to now the mantra has been "protect the NHS". As far as I'm concerned, once the threat to the NHS has gone, then this is over.
It's not about individual under-30s being worried about the virus; it's about what the risk of a third wave generated by uncontrolled mixing of under-30s (and, to a lesser extent, partially-vaccinated over-30s), would be to the whole of society - including the NHS (or more accurately, those who need to rely on it).
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
As was suggested the other day, the UK should team up with countries like Switzerland and Israel on things like this, if the EU are going to be so unnecessarily obstructive.
If the EU wants to cut itself off from scientific excellence then that is it's choice.
How many of the world's top 50 Universities are in the UK and Switzerland and other non-EU European countries?
How many are in the EU?
The proposals were already defeated after a large number of EU states, and academic institutions, pointed out how unhelpful they would be.
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
I reran this using ONS data because NIMS triggers Philip.
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
Bollocks to this analysis.
The UK all but banned Ivermectin, a safe effective drug developed in 1975 - cheap, no pesky patents remaining - that can deal with most COVID-19 cases. (No hospital treatment needed.) The USA has restricted it although many doctors are using it.
No profit in it. Oh dear. We can't use it. We must only recommend vaccines or new 'improved' patented drugs.
Youtube censored Dr Pierre Kory's evidence to the US Senate, including how many lives have needlessly lost
90% of PB users seem to lack the power of critical thinking. Ask why cheap effective treatments get suppressed. Ask again. Sack the people in the NHS who operate this medical corruption, or more likely it's forced on them by corrupt politicians.
The MPs to ask the most awkward questions this year seem to have been David Davis on vitamin D and two Tory backbenchers quizzed Hancock on vaccine deaths. Pathetic ... an official opposition that doesn't oppose, so that the only visible opposition on COVID since March 2020 comes from Tory backbenchers.
@ydoethur I think @Dura_Ace is a misanthrope who loves animals but hates people.
I like some people (Greta, Bielsa, AOC, Mrs DA, that XF Motorsports guy on YouTube) I just hate tories, cultural conservatives and rich people with shit cars.
I do hope Mrs DA is okay with being placed fourth in your list of likes, behind Greta, Bielsa and AOC. Stiff competition though, I agree.
It was no particular order but I think she knows she's behind Bielsa.
@ydoethur I think @Dura_Ace is a misanthrope who loves animals but hates people.
I like some people (Greta, Bielsa, AOC, Mrs DA, that XF Motorsports guy on YouTube) I just hate tories, cultural conservatives and rich people with shit cars.
I do hope Mrs DA is okay with being placed fourth in your list of likes, behind Greta, Bielsa and AOC. Stiff competition though, I agree.
Maybe it's reverse order? Well done the XF Motorsports guy in that case.
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
As was suggested the other day, the UK should team up with countries like Switzerland and Israel on things like this, if the EU are going to be so unnecessarily obstructive.
It was me who suggested it!
But I do think it silly for Brexiters like Carlotta to bemoan it; this is “realpolitik” and it’s part of what we signed up for, along with a decline in our trade with the EU.
On topic, the suggested delay to Freedom Day is the right move (possibly for the wrong reasons but let's come back to that).
Although more than 77% of adults have had a first jab and over half have had both across the UK, that still leaves a substantial number who haven't had either - around 12m by my reckoning (plus children, who are also well capable of catching and transmitting the virus).
Now, as Mike says, it's true that at the moment there are few deaths resulting from the virus but too often - and this is another example - policy has been decided on how things are now, not how they would be as a result of the policy.
Suppose we open up with 12m adults unvaccinated, including most under-30s. Then stick 200 young adults into an airless, confined nightclub without any social distancing, masks or the like. If one of the 200 has the virus at the start of the evening, how many will have it by the end? The social life of young adults involves a lot of that random mixing, often in that sort of close proximity. In current circumstances, Freedom Day rules would be an invitation to a very substantial third wave.
Now, if it was just under-30s - who seemingly have a high resistance to the virus - perhaps that would be tolerable but of course it wouldn't. Most under-50s have had only one jab and with millions of cases swirling around the country, there'd be many leaking up into those partially-protected older age groups with greater vulnerability (there'd also be cases among unvaccinated anti-vaxxers but, frankly, that's their fault and their problem).
Until we have at least one dose offered to all over-18s, I really don't see how we can go back to status quo ante rules. The capacity for uncontrolled transmission is just too great.
And that goes for foreign travel too. Leave aside that most countries would ban Brits from entering if there was a third wave of the scale described above. One problem last summer (interestingly not experienced that much in the UK but certainly elsewhere in Europe) was that people went to countries with low rates but mixed there with people from countries with high rates - and set off new waves all over. The vaccines can control that to a degree but the risks, including of new variants remains.
Finally, a point on social solidarity. The young - both adults and children - suffered appallingly in this epidemic, through lost education, jobs, incomes, savings and so on. They did so despite the virus posing little risk to them personally. They might well have asked "why should have put up with these restrictions when they hurt me so much for so little personal benefit?". The answer was, of course, that society needs to look after everyone, as best it can. So now in reverse. Those who've had both jabs can damn well put up with the restrictions for a little longer until the young, who've sacrificed so much for their elders, have had their turn.
I'm sorry, but any youngster who is worried about the virus is perfectly free to abstain from nightclubs and commuter trains until they are jabbed.
If this is becoming a question of individual safety, the government needs to come clean about that. But up to now the mantra has been "protect the NHS". As far as I'm concerned, once the threat to the NHS has gone, then this is over.
It's not about individual under-30s being worried about the virus; it's about what the risk of a third wave generated by uncontrolled mixing of under-30s (and, to a lesser extent, partially-vaccinated over-30s), would be to the whole of society - including the NHS (or more accurately, those who need to rely on it).
Right, can you show us some evidence that the final unlocking (and by the way, we are quite unlocked already) would result in lots of under 30s getting COVID and being hospitalised at the same time in numbers sufficient to be of concern to the NHS?
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
There is such a thing as etiquette. Most reasonable people follow it. You obviously don't, neither does Dura Ace but that doesn't mean it should be woked away.
The people who were going to set up an Independent Country in 18 months can't transfer powers they were given 5 years ago....for another 3 years:
A senior SNP minister has blamed “technical challenges” for the Scottish government’s failure to take full control over devolved benefits as she demands more powers from Westminster.
Shona Robison, who has pushed this week for Holyrood to have full command over employment rights, said that the snagging issues centred on the “safe and secure” transfer of data.
What is required up there is a proper incentive. 1. A second referendum producing a Yes vote; 2. A declaration from the remainder of the UK that we expect them to be gone in a year.
The Scottish Government can get all of this sorted out if London is no longer willing to hold its hand. And if it can't, well, quite honestly, who gives a fuck?
Repeatedly saying who gives a fuck is a notably convincing way of indicating that one doesn’t give a fuck.
Entirely accurate in this case though. You go, we're rid of each other. Scotland inside the UK has to be looked after, Scotland outside the UK is no different to Denmark. If it has issues then they're for the people who live there to sort out, ultimately.
In that case perhaps time to start criticising the lying, self serving prick who seems intent on blocking the mechanism for making this come to pass, particularly if you voted for him?
Yet just last month the Scottish Conservatives got 23.5% of the vote on the regional list at Holyrood, the highest Scottish Conservative voteshare on either the constituency or regional list vote at Holyrood since it was founded in 1999
My hypothesis though is that the Tories also have high negatives in Scotland. In other words, you either love them or hate them.
Perpetual Tory rule in Westminster, therefore, works as a ratchet toward Scottish independence, as Tory-hating unionists realise they might prefer anything to ongoing Tory hegemony.
This is another reason why it’s so important we have a viable Opposition. It’s better for the Union.
Keir has flunked it already. He needs to shuffle off.
I feel like a broken record as I explained all of this and how important Scotland was to my mate who is high up in the Labour Party but he didn’t really get it.
Yes the SNP failed to get a majority in 2019 despite a Tory majority, yet Salmond got a majority in 2011 when there was no Tory majority
Sure, but pro-Indy sentiment is certainly higher than in 2011.
The UK’s vaccination programme has broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths, and hospitals were reporting fewer and younger patients, according to a senior boss in the NHS.
To me, that's absolutely categoric evidence for opening on 21 June. Hopson has been among the most conservative figures in this pandemic. He is at the frontline. And he thinks it's all over.
My brother informs me that Brussels has reopened cinemas, restricted indoor dining, office working etc.
They seem to be three weeks behind us in terms of their re-opening schedule.
One other point of note is that from July 1st EU countries cannot prevent unvaccinated people from crossing borders. Presumably Schengen area.
The EU's '#VaccinePassport' legislation has been agreed and will take effect 1 July.
The certificate will show vax status, negative tests & prior diagnosis.
All EU countries must accept it, but how they use it is up to them. They cannot block an unvaccinated citizen from entry.
This legislation doesn't impact non-EU citizens. But there's an understanding among EU countries that they'll start letting in vaccinated people from key countries like US & UK
Problem is, those countries don't have vaccine passports. US only has easily forgeable slips of paper
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
As was suggested the other day, the UK should team up with countries like Switzerland and Israel on things like this, if the EU are going to be so unnecessarily obstructive.
It was me who suggested it!
But I do think it silly for Brexiters like Carlotta to bemoan it; this is “realpolitik” and it’s part of what we signed up for, along with a decline in our trade with the EU.
The UK’s vaccination programme has broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths, and hospitals were reporting fewer and younger patients, according to a senior boss in the NHS.
To me, that's absolutely categoric evidence for opening on 21 June. Hopson has been among the most conservative figures in this pandemic. He is at the frontline. And he thinks it's all over.
Some people are on the pitch.....they think its all over....
The people who were going to set up an Independent Country in 18 months can't transfer powers they were given 5 years ago....for another 3 years:
A senior SNP minister has blamed “technical challenges” for the Scottish government’s failure to take full control over devolved benefits as she demands more powers from Westminster.
Shona Robison, who has pushed this week for Holyrood to have full command over employment rights, said that the snagging issues centred on the “safe and secure” transfer of data.
What is required up there is a proper incentive. 1. A second referendum producing a Yes vote; 2. A declaration from the remainder of the UK that we expect them to be gone in a year.
The Scottish Government can get all of this sorted out if London is no longer willing to hold its hand. And if it can't, well, quite honestly, who gives a fuck?
Repeatedly saying who gives a fuck is a notably convincing way of indicating that one doesn’t give a fuck.
Entirely accurate in this case though. You go, we're rid of each other. Scotland inside the UK has to be looked after, Scotland outside the UK is no different to Denmark. If it has issues then they're for the people who live there to sort out, ultimately.
In that case perhaps time to start criticising the lying, self serving prick who seems intent on blocking the mechanism for making this come to pass, particularly if you voted for him?
Yet just last month the Scottish Conservatives got 23.5% of the vote on the regional list at Holyrood, the highest Scottish Conservative voteshare on either the constituency or regional list vote at Holyrood since it was founded in 1999
My hypothesis though is that the Tories also have high negatives in Scotland. In other words, you either love them or hate them.
Perpetual Tory rule in Westminster, therefore, works as a ratchet toward Scottish independence, as Tory-hating unionists realise they might prefer anything to ongoing Tory hegemony.
This is another reason why it’s so important we have a viable Opposition. It’s better for the Union.
Keir has flunked it already. He needs to shuffle off.
I feel like a broken record as I explained all of this and how important Scotland was to my mate who is high up in the Labour Party but he didn’t really get it.
Yes the SNP failed to get a majority in 2019 despite a Tory majority, yet Salmond got a majority in 2011 when there was no Tory majority
Sure, but pro-Indy sentiment is certainly higher than in 2011.
Not that much more, only 49% of Scots voted for the SNP and Greens on the constituency vote last month despite over 60% of Scots voting Remain in 2016
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
I reran this using ONS data because NIMS triggers Philip.
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
Bollocks to this analysis.
The UK all but banned Ivermectin, a safe effective drug developed in 1975 - cheap, no pesky patents remaining - that can deal with most COVID-19 cases. (No hospital treatment needed.) The USA has restricted it although many doctors are using it.
No profit in it. Oh dear. We can't use it. We must only recommend vaccines or new 'improved' patented drugs.
Youtube censored Dr Pierre Kory's evidence to the US Senate, including how many lives have needlessly lost
90% of PB users seem to lack the power of critical thinking. Ask why cheap effective treatments get suppressed. Ask again. Sack the people in the NHS who operate this medical corruption, or more likely it's forced on them by corrupt politicians.
The MPs to ask the most awkward questions this year seem to have been David Davis on vitamin D and two Tory backbenchers quizzed Hancock on vaccine deaths. Pathetic ... an official opposition that doesn't oppose, so that the only visible opposition on COVID since March 2020 comes from Tory backbenchers.
I didn't think there was any studies showing Ivermectin had any affect?
Very easily found an article about European diseases among Native Australians, on the 'aboriginalhistoryofyarra.com.au' site which ends with the following:
'Ultimately, the introduction of European diseases and lifestyle-related health problems had a devastating and ongoing impact on the Aboriginal people of Victoria.'
To be 'fair', lifestyle changes...... alcohol, clothing for example..... were nearly as bad for the 'natives' as European diseases.
But the introduction of European and American medicine has more than offset that since then, doubling their life expectancy to 73 years.
Unquestionably, although the conditions under which many Native Australians still live and work are far from 'ideal'. Depending of course on who is defining 'ideal'!
Equally one could say that if the Native Australians are now getting access to the same medicines and other support as the immigrants that if it's only now, then there's not a lot for the immigrants to be proud of.
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
There is such a thing as etiquette. Most reasonable people follow it. You obviously don't, neither does Dura Ace but that doesn't mean it should be woked away.
Where is it said that etiquette means that great grandparents get to pre-vet the names of their great grandchildren? As opposed to being informed of the name?
High Court finds Govt acted unlawfully giving contract during Covid crisis to Public First run by friends of Dominic Cummings. Mr Cummings denied it was due to friendship but court finds was “apparent bias and was unlawful” https://twitter.com/lucymanning/status/1402562186992619521
The UK’s vaccination programme has broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths, and hospitals were reporting fewer and younger patients, according to a senior boss in the NHS.
To me, that's absolutely categoric evidence for opening on 21 June. Hopson has been among the most conservative figures in this pandemic. He is at the frontline. And he thinks it's all over.
Yup, the people asking for extensions are just institutionalised by lockdown. They fear the freedom and change that comes with it. They're so used to this awful new normal that the can't see why the old way was better and are scared of that unknown quantity. I have no issue with that, those people are free to stay home and wear masks all the time. They shouldn't impose that on the rest of us who are happy to take that risk of going out and being free. Freedom necessarily has personal risks. The collective risk from COVID has been eliminated by vaccination.
A wisp of white smoke cruelly snuffed out after both Brussels side and London organised 3 separate briefings on Brexit talks at the same time in 2 different countries - traditionally a sign of a coordinated breakthrough announcement.
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
If they plan to lock us down this coming winter they will need to use the excuse of vaccine resistant strains rather than we are doing this because 1.6m people didn't get the vax and the NHS needs protection from them.
No way public will accept locking down for refusers.
Maybe I am wrong, but I reckon that no one I know will do it or at least if they do it will be under extreme duress and I don't see them recruiting enough police for that.
It’s quite clear that compliance with any remaining rules is already close to bust. The problem is for an NHS administrator. How do you treat the backlog of regular patients if you have to devote an ordinate amount of resource to the infectious wing, which cannot risk being intermingled with the regular ward? There is one political choice: if you have suspected covid and need hospital, you’re not going to hospital. You’re going to a less well equipped Nightingale tent, where we will do our best for you. Meanwhile most of the nhs gets on with clearing the backlog. And you hope that the noisy signposting of the policy nudges the antivax numbers down a bit.
@ydoethur I think @Dura_Ace is a misanthrope who loves animals but hates people.
I like some people (Greta, Bielsa, AOC, Mrs DA, that XF Motorsports guy on YouTube) I just hate tories, cultural conservatives and rich people with shit cars.
That is an admirable list of targets for your opprobrium. I do worry that I could edge into your final category, though, depending on where you set the bar.
If you drive a Nissan Juke or Qashqai, I think you are in big trouble.
The 40kwh Leaf is a good car but Nissan have fallen far and fast from the days of the R32/3/4 GTR, Z32 and S13/4/5.
In the last week, confronted by these and other inconsistencies, Andersen began to quietly delete his old tweets. 4000 of them. He has now deleted his entire Twitter account
Has the two week delay been confirmed? It looks to me like people are voting with their feet and things are going to be opening up whatever the government might say. Social distancing no longer seems to exist, for example.
All very well to say that about individuals. It does not help businesses. They are restricted in what they can do and earn. So we get the worst of all worlds: individuals flouting restrictions and potentially spreading the virus but none of the economic / commercial benefits of easing restrictions.
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
I reran this using ONS data because NIMS triggers Philip.
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
Bollocks to this analysis.
The UK all but banned Ivermectin, a safe effective drug developed in 1975 - cheap, no pesky patents remaining - that can deal with most COVID-19 cases. (No hospital treatment needed.) The USA has restricted it although many doctors are using it.
No profit in it. Oh dear. We can't use it. We must only recommend vaccines or new 'improved' patented drugs.
Youtube censored Dr Pierre Kory's evidence to the US Senate, including how many lives have needlessly lost
90% of PB users seem to lack the power of critical thinking. Ask why cheap effective treatments get suppressed. Ask again. Sack the people in the NHS who operate this medical corruption, or more likely it's forced on them by corrupt politicians.
The MPs to ask the most awkward questions this year seem to have been David Davis on vitamin D and two Tory backbenchers quizzed Hancock on vaccine deaths. Pathetic ... an official opposition that doesn't oppose, so that the only visible opposition on COVID since March 2020 comes from Tory backbenchers.
I didn't think there was any studies showing Ivermectin had any affect?
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
I reran this using ONS data because NIMS triggers Philip.
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
Bollocks to this analysis.
The UK all but banned Ivermectin, a safe effective drug developed in 1975 - cheap, no pesky patents remaining - that can deal with most COVID-19 cases. (No hospital treatment needed.) The USA has restricted it although many doctors are using it.
No profit in it. Oh dear. We can't use it. We must only recommend vaccines or new 'improved' patented drugs.
Youtube censored Dr Pierre Kory's evidence to the US Senate, including how many lives have needlessly lost
90% of PB users seem to lack the power of critical thinking. Ask why cheap effective treatments get suppressed. Ask again. Sack the people in the NHS who operate this medical corruption, or more likely it's forced on them by corrupt politicians.
The MPs to ask the most awkward questions this year seem to have been David Davis on vitamin D and two Tory backbenchers quizzed Hancock on vaccine deaths. Pathetic ... an official opposition that doesn't oppose, so that the only visible opposition on COVID since March 2020 comes from Tory backbenchers.
I didn't think there was any studies showing Ivermectin had any affect?
I've not followed the debate in any detail to be honest. Seems to be a profound difference of opinion on it iirc.
I have to say it seems a little odd that medical profession is so determined to rule it out, but it is above my pay grade as the saying goes. I have an open mind.
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
I reran this using ONS data because NIMS triggers Philip.
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
Bollocks to this analysis.
The UK all but banned Ivermectin, a safe effective drug developed in 1975 - cheap, no pesky patents remaining - that can deal with most COVID-19 cases. (No hospital treatment needed.) The USA has restricted it although many doctors are using it.
No profit in it. Oh dear. We can't use it. We must only recommend vaccines or new 'improved' patented drugs.
Youtube censored Dr Pierre Kory's evidence to the US Senate, including how many lives have needlessly lost
90% of PB users seem to lack the power of critical thinking. Ask why cheap effective treatments get suppressed. Ask again. Sack the people in the NHS who operate this medical corruption, or more likely it's forced on them by corrupt politicians.
The MPs to ask the most awkward questions this year seem to have been David Davis on vitamin D and two Tory backbenchers quizzed Hancock on vaccine deaths. Pathetic ... an official opposition that doesn't oppose, so that the only visible opposition on COVID since March 2020 comes from Tory backbenchers.
Was it not the Uk which pioneered the use of dexamethasone, a “cheap effective treatment”? I can’t recall its use being suppressed.
Let’s stick with the over 50s as the data is more complete.
In the three weeks between 9th May and 30th May (ref NIMS population data), the proportional increase in first dose vaccination uptake was:
50-59: 1.2% 60-69: 0.7% 70-79: 0.1%
So broadly speaking, uptake will likely settle at 95% for the 70s, something like 91-92% for the 60s and perhaps just shy of 90% for the 50s. Which leaves 1.6 million courageous contrarians aged over 50.
Assume uniform acquired infection of 40% to date across all age groups and that knocks you down to about a million people over 50 with no immunity.
It will be put to the PM that the new variant eventually puts [x%] of these people in hospital. The key will be understanding from those god awful modellers how many at one time. And then politically, what if anything is to be done about it.
This population of a million (plus whatever the 40s cohort settles at (currently 1.6m unvaxxed) risk being the new bed blockers for the next couple of winters, preventing the clearing of the nhs backlog. They are also this government’s voting coalition.
My expectation is no stern words or measures at all will be levelled at them, and it’s then down to how reliable the herd effect is against whatever variant is most prevalent in November on whether we avoid new “non pharmaceutical interventions” this winter. By 2022 the scandal engulfing the government will not be covid deaths but missed cancer diagnoses.
I reran this using ONS data because NIMS triggers Philip.
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
Bollocks to this analysis.
The UK all but banned Ivermectin, a safe effective drug developed in 1975 - cheap, no pesky patents remaining - that can deal with most COVID-19 cases. (No hospital treatment needed.) The USA has restricted it although many doctors are using it.
No profit in it. Oh dear. We can't use it. We must only recommend vaccines or new 'improved' patented drugs.
Youtube censored Dr Pierre Kory's evidence to the US Senate, including how many lives have needlessly lost
90% of PB users seem to lack the power of critical thinking. Ask why cheap effective treatments get suppressed. Ask again. Sack the people in the NHS who operate this medical corruption, or more likely it's forced on them by corrupt politicians.
The MPs to ask the most awkward questions this year seem to have been David Davis on vitamin D and two Tory backbenchers quizzed Hancock on vaccine deaths. Pathetic ... an official opposition that doesn't oppose, so that the only visible opposition on COVID since March 2020 comes from Tory backbenchers.
I didn't think there was any studies showing Ivermectin had any affect?
No.
Also, how come dexamethasone wasn't "banned"?
Or, indeed, the cheap, effective, non-profit AZN vaccine.
(Ok, it's more or less banned now for youngsters, but 'they' missed a trick letting so many oldies get vaccinated without properly filling big-pharma's pockets)
The European Commission has tried to exclude the UK from certain projects in the Horizon research programme on the grounds that, like Russia and China, it is a third country which can't be trusted. France supported it. What conclusions should we draw?
As was suggested the other day, the UK should team up with countries like Switzerland and Israel on things like this, if the EU are going to be so unnecessarily obstructive.
It was me who suggested it!
But I do think it silly for Brexiters like Carlotta to bemoan it; this is “realpolitik” and it’s part of what we signed up for, along with a decline in our trade with the EU.
It’s playing politics with things that should be beyond politics, and a good example of the EU reaching its tentacles into more and more areas. A European science program, including all countries in Europe who want to join, would make much more sense than the EU running things.
It’s the same in areas like aviation (which I know more about than scientific research) - the old JAA was a perfectly serviceable organisation looking after aviation across Europe, until the EU decided to form EASA and mandate EU countries to join. There will be a load of other areas of such scope creep by the EU.
A LAW student who was investigated by a Scottish university for saying women have vaginas and are not as strong as men has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Lisa Keogh, 29, was investigated by Abertay University after classmates complained she had made “offensive” and “discriminatory” remarks at a lecture.
LONDON — EU officials and diplomats are discussing an emergency plan to solve the impasse over the Brexit settlement in Northern Ireland by restricting Ireland’s access to the bloc’s single market for goods.
The idea, which is causing extreme anxiety in Dublin where officials see it as unfair punishment for its neighbor’s decision to Brexit, is meant as a backup plan to solve the conundrum of where to carry out vital checks on goods. These are designed to protect EU countries from food and plant diseases.
That issue was meant to have been solved by the Northern Ireland protocol, a key part of the Brexit deal, but London is resisting implementing this part of the agreement which it claims is unworkable.
In the last week, confronted by these and other inconsistencies, Andersen began to quietly delete his old tweets. 4000 of them. He has now deleted his entire Twitter account
In this subject, one of my mates from uni who works for a very major pharma confirmed my theory - if China had been honest in September about the nature of th lab leak of the virus we would have had vaccines fully trialled by the end of May because PIII would have been on going in the first wave from Feb to April.
He's actually extremely angry about it and has scheduled an internal meeting to present some of his findings and what they, as a major pharma, could do to spot these things earlier to prevent this from happening next time.
A LAW student who was investigated by a Scottish university for saying women have vaginas and are not as strong as men has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Lisa Keogh, 29, was investigated by Abertay University after classmates complained she had made “offensive” and “discriminatory” remarks at a lecture.
Quite right...it was on a course about exactly this issue...not like she was ranting about it in a lectrure on particle physics.
Its like the academic that was reported for saying you will hear a phrase in China all the time, nèi ge. Don't be offended, it is just a common filler word like errh in English...in a lecture about preparing yourself for doing business in China.
The UK’s vaccination programme has broken the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths, and hospitals were reporting fewer and younger patients, according to a senior boss in the NHS.
To me, that's absolutely categoric evidence for opening on 21 June. Hopson has been among the most conservative figures in this pandemic. He is at the frontline. And he thinks it's all over.
Yup, the people asking for extensions are just institutionalised by lockdown. They fear the freedom and change that comes with it. They're so used to this awful new normal that the can't see why the old way was better and are scared of that unknown quantity. I have no issue with that, those people are free to stay home and wear masks all the time. They shouldn't impose that on the rest of us who are happy to take that risk of going out and being free. Freedom necessarily has personal risks. The collective risk from COVID has been eliminated by vaccination.
I have long admired your certainty about various topical issues, but you may want to reconsider or at least caveat the final sentence.
Comments
With NIMS there are 1.67m people over 50 unvaccinated. With ONS it’s 1.54m. Potatoes potartoes. It doesn’t change the modelling the PM will be shown one jot. It will all come down to the plucked from the air assumptions of R with no restrictions, and the hopefully more scientific proportion of unvaxxed liable to be hospitalised.
Because this then guides whether the NHS will be “overwhelmed” or will be able to clear the cancer and heart disease backlog. Personally I think London is going to have to take one for the team and it will be “our guidance is to remain working from home” if you can, while opening up hospitality.
And of course you can honour any person, including the monarch. There's a difference between an honour on a personal level and a stately one.
How is this pass the sickbag? Other than you having a creepy curtain twitching obsession with this couple? If a friend of yours named their newborn daughter after the child's elderly great grandmother and late grandmother would you congratulate your friend or would you grab a sickbag?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics
Good morning #Brussels. From today:
😷 No facemasks needed outdoors
🏋️♂️ Gyms, theatres, casinos open
🍻 Bars & restaurants open indoors & outdoors, till 23:30
💋 Prostitution again allowed
⛪️ Churches open up to 100 ppl
👯♂️ Outdoor events up to 400 ppl
👨👨👧👦 4 guests allowed at home
https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1402483090098819074
He lives there, when not in Strasbourg with the Court of King Caratacus.
To me the interesting thing will be watching what happens with reopening, and at some point the Indian variant, in a low-vax high interaction environment. Fully effective vaccinated is under 20%.
Worth noting that happens with various diseases, changing their form over time. Can make diagnosing historical death causes tricky because sometimes the disease just doesn't exist any more.
If only there were a term for people who take offence on behalf of others, even when the others aren't expressing any offence themselves.
Just one general issue re journals. One of the slight issues is that an increasing part of their revenues and, more importantly, contribution to their growth rates come from China and the Government is very happy to block or punish publications seen as critical. I wouldn't automatically assume scientific journals as being 100% neutral and driven entirely by the science
And, yes, lilibet would be sickbag time in any context.
Given these two things -> it is obviously responsible to consider a delay. And decide when we have more information.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/link-between-covid-cases-and-deaths-has-been-broken-says-senior-nhs-boss
'Ultimately, the introduction of European diseases and lifestyle-related health problems had a devastating and ongoing impact on the Aboriginal people of Victoria.'
To be 'fair', lifestyle changes...... alcohol, clothing for example..... were nearly as bad for the 'natives' as European diseases.
Perpetual Tory rule in Westminster, therefore, works as a ratchet toward Scottish independence, as Tory-hating unionists realise they might prefer anything to ongoing Tory hegemony.
This is another reason why it’s so important we have a viable Opposition. It’s better for the Union.
Keir has flunked it already. He needs to shuffle off.
I feel like a broken record as I explained all of this and how important Scotland was to my mate who is high up in the Labour Party but he didn’t really get it.
God owes you that bungalow.
Although more than 77% of adults have had a first jab and over half have had both across the UK, that still leaves a substantial number who haven't had either - around 12m by my reckoning (plus children, who are also well capable of catching and transmitting the virus).
Now, as Mike says, it's true that at the moment there are few deaths resulting from the virus but too often - and this is another example - policy has been decided on how things are now, not how they would be as a result of the policy.
Suppose we open up with 12m adults unvaccinated, including most under-30s. Then stick 200 young adults into an airless, confined nightclub without any social distancing, masks or the like. If one of the 200 has the virus at the start of the evening, how many will have it by the end? The social life of young adults involves a lot of that random mixing, often in that sort of close proximity. In current circumstances, Freedom Day rules would be an invitation to a very substantial third wave.
Now, if it was just under-30s - who seemingly have a high resistance to the virus - perhaps that would be tolerable but of course it wouldn't. Most under-50s have had only one jab and with millions of cases swirling around the country, there'd be many leaking up into those partially-protected older age groups with greater vulnerability (there'd also be cases among unvaccinated anti-vaxxers but, frankly, that's their fault and their problem).
Until we have at least one dose offered to all over-18s, I really don't see how we can go back to status quo ante rules. The capacity for uncontrolled transmission is just too great.
And that goes for foreign travel too. Leave aside that most countries would ban Brits from entering if there was a third wave of the scale described above. One problem last summer (interestingly not experienced that much in the UK but certainly elsewhere in Europe) was that people went to countries with low rates but mixed there with people from countries with high rates - and set off new waves all over. The vaccines can control that to a degree but the risks, including of new variants remains.
Finally, a point on social solidarity. The young - both adults and children - suffered appallingly in this epidemic, through lost education, jobs, incomes, savings and so on. They did so despite the virus posing little risk to them personally. They might well have asked "why should have put up with these restrictions when they hurt me so much for so little personal benefit?". The answer was, of course, that society needs to look after everyone, as best it can. So now in reverse. Those who've had both jabs can damn well put up with the restrictions for a little longer until the young, who've sacrificed so much for their elders, have had their turn.
One for Leon to start conspiring about
Cases on May 1st should be compared to hospital admissions on May 11th and deaths on May 21st.
Then compare to cases on June 1st, hospital admissions on Hune 11th, and deaths on June 21st.
Admittedly, it's challenging to compare these with the June figures without a time machine, but that's precisely why we need more data.
Students from University engage in freedom of speech to oppose the monarchy"
"No, not like that!"
The culture war is a lie, a made up fiction designed as a political football, it is not about any actual issue.
If someone who owns land wants to build on it, they should be able to do so, since its their land. If someone who owns land wants to sell it to someone who wants to develop the land then they should be able to do so, its their land.
I also think if you want land near your home not to be developed then you should be able to buy that land and refuse to develop it. Since it will be your land, so your choice.
I'm not sure why you find a free market and free choice so objectionable and scary. What do you have against freedom to choose?
Or Occam's razor says just stoopid.
I'm far from convinced that Delta is that much more transmissable. it's notable that Bedford's vaccination rates are some way below the national average. We have to question whether the greater transmission of Delta is because of the virus or because of the people who have it. Are they acting differently from other parts of the country, or from those who don't? Are they following rules and guidance to the same extent - and so on? Are their vaccination rates the same, or higher, or lower, than the areas and groups not suffering outbreaks?
The question underlying all this is why, when Delta is also found in other countries, has its outbreak in the UK grown far faster than elsewhere?
Now, there are tricky issues surrounding the asking of these questions, which is why they probably won't be asked and are even less likely to be answered honestly and openly. All the same, I can't help but think that the governments assumptions about transmission are not looking at the whole picture and, hence, flawed.
Still, as it turns out, it might be for the best.
No way public will accept locking down for refusers.
Maybe I am wrong, but I reckon that no one I know will do it or at least if they do it will be under extreme duress and I don't see them recruiting enough police for that.
https://twitter.com/paul_lever/status/1402556716856840193?s=20
If this is becoming a question of individual safety, the government needs to come clean about that. But up to now the mantra has been "protect the NHS". As far as I'm concerned, once the threat to the NHS has gone, then this is over.
@talkRADIO
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56m
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber says he will risk arrest in order to fully reopen his theatres.
Barrister and fellow peer Baroness Helena Kennedy says "If he's looking for a good lawyer, I'm here."
How many of the world's top 50 Universities are in the UK and Switzerland and other non-EU European countries?
How many are in the EU?
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1402558391923392513?s=20
The UK all but banned Ivermectin, a safe effective drug developed in 1975 - cheap, no pesky patents remaining - that can deal with most COVID-19 cases. (No hospital treatment needed.) The USA has restricted it although many doctors are using it.
No profit in it. Oh dear. We can't use it. We must only recommend vaccines or new 'improved' patented drugs.
Youtube censored Dr Pierre Kory's evidence to the US Senate, including how many lives have needlessly lost
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/youtube-removes-dr-pierre-korys-senate-testimony/.
90% of PB users seem to lack the power of critical thinking. Ask why cheap effective treatments get suppressed. Ask again. Sack the people in the NHS who operate this medical corruption, or more likely it's forced on them by corrupt politicians.
The MPs to ask the most awkward questions this year seem to have been David Davis on vitamin D and two Tory backbenchers quizzed Hancock on vaccine deaths. Pathetic ... an official opposition that doesn't oppose, so that the only visible opposition on COVID since March 2020 comes from Tory backbenchers.
But I do think it silly for Brexiters like Carlotta to bemoan it; this is “realpolitik” and it’s part of what we signed up for, along with a decline in our trade with the EU.
The EU's '#VaccinePassport' legislation has been agreed and will take effect 1 July.
The certificate will show vax status, negative tests & prior diagnosis.
All EU countries must accept it, but how they use it is up to them. They cannot block an unvaccinated citizen from entry.
This legislation doesn't impact non-EU citizens. But there's an understanding among EU countries that they'll start letting in vaccinated people from key countries like US & UK
Problem is, those countries don't have vaccine passports. US only has easily forgeable slips of paper
https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1402522827966881792
Depending of course on who is defining 'ideal'!
Equally one could say that if the Native Australians are now getting access to the same medicines and other support as the immigrants that if it's only now, then there's not a lot for the immigrants to be proud of.
https://twitter.com/lucymanning/status/1402562186992619521
"No, that's just a f--- up," source says.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1402561653925990400?s=20
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
‘Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.’
Note the author’s name. K G Andersen
At the end of January, in a private email to Fauci, Andersen gave his personal opinion the virus was potentially engineered
So maybe he just changed his mind interim? Or maybe not. Or maybe he changed his mind that same day
‘1/ Ruh-ro!
@K_G_Andersen has even more ‘splaining to do.
Remember, Kristian warned Anthony Fauci on Jan. 31 that #SARSCoV2 might be “engineered.”
But that’s not what he said publicly THE SAME DAY. When @TomCottonAR raised a potential lab leak, Kristian quickly jumped in...’
https://twitter.com/alexberenson/status/1401670033231781891?s=21
In the last week, confronted by these and other inconsistencies, Andersen began to quietly delete his old tweets. 4000 of them. He has now deleted his entire Twitter account
Also, how come dexamethasone wasn't "banned"?
https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/
I've not followed the debate in any detail to be honest. Seems to be a profound difference of opinion on it iirc.
I have to say it seems a little odd that medical profession is so determined to rule it out, but it is above my pay grade as the saying goes. I have an open mind.
(Ok, it's more or less banned now for youngsters, but 'they' missed a trick letting so many oldies get vaccinated without properly filling big-pharma's pockets)
It’s the same in areas like aviation (which I know more about than scientific research) - the old JAA was a perfectly serviceable organisation looking after aviation across Europe, until the EU decided to form EASA and mandate EU countries to join. There will be a load of other areas of such scope creep by the EU.
Lisa Keogh, 29, was investigated by Abertay University after classmates complained she had made “offensive” and “discriminatory” remarks at a lecture.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19359567.abertay-university-student-lisa-keogh-cleared-investigated-saying-women-vaginas/?ref=twtrec
He's actually extremely angry about it and has scheduled an internal meeting to present some of his findings and what they, as a major pharma, could do to spot these things earlier to prevent this from happening next time.
Its like the academic that was reported for saying you will hear a phrase in China all the time, nèi ge. Don't be offended, it is just a common filler word like errh in English...in a lecture about preparing yourself for doing business in China.