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If uniform national swing (UNS) applies then the Tories will make it three by-election wins out of t

So far we have not had any opinion polls on the next two Westminster by-elections – Chesham & Amersham (June 17th) and Batley & Spen (July 1st) but in each case the Tories are firm odds-on favourites in the betting.
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If we don't see more than UNS in the Lib Dem vote then we will be back wondering if the liberty bird is once again a dead parrot. I think we will.
The American vaccine rollout has slowed down as they've ran out of people to vaccinate. We're about to do the same, all over 18s are due to be eligible for vaccines by later this week and in many areas that's already the case. Near to me there are vaccine centres where all over 18s can walk in, no appointment necessary, to get a Pfizer jab.
Once its eligible to everyone, then until we open it to children the NHS will begin to run out of people to jab. Plus as first doses drop towards zero we're about to hit the point where the scheduled second jabs will fall off a cliff to about 100k to 200k per day too.
Its great that our vaccine curve hasn't slowed down yet unlike the USA, but by next we'll reach the point in the curve were Israel's doses rapidly ground to a halt.
"Being vaccinated will not be a pre-condition to travel. All EU citizens have a fundamental right to free movement in the EU and this applies regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. The same principle applies to the rights of non-EU nationals staying or residing in the EU Member States and who have the right to travel to other Member States."
...which presumably includes British citizens on holiday, who if unvaccinated hopefully will be able to get tested by EU-compliant agencies in Britain but if that's not sorted out then on arrival at Calais, Rotterdam, Orly, or wherever.
UAE has today opened up vaccines to people stuck here and overstaying visas, tourists will be next - at which point half of Russia and Africa will probably turn up!
We've got the highest rate of any major nation on the planet, we haven't seen a slowdown in vaccinations and our rollout is nearly finished. It finishes (by metric of offering it to everybody) this week which will be about 6 weeks ahead of schedule.
It seems some people want there to be an acceleration, when in fact a slowdown is due and its good we've not hit it yet.
In 4 weeks time, we should have another 10-14m extra doses in arms.
To achieve that, without the 4 weeks, we would have needed to be vaccinating about twice as fast over the previous 4 weeks. That seems a pretty tall order.
The increase in infections in the week leading up to yesterday is 740%..
Bad news for Best Men, who are at risk of trying to get off with an ugly bridesmaid.
Can people just walk up to you in the street and aggressively hurl abuse at you, right before a policeman’s eyes, and not be apprehended or warned?
Cons 42 (+1)
Lab 35 (+2)
LD 9
Green 5 (-1)
My view is the latter. But it is not an informed view.
Is it perhaps slightly demeaning to refer to the candidate in B&S namelessly as "Jo Cox's sister" ?
I am sure there is more to Kim Leadbetter than her sororal relationship.
Interestingly too we're now past the point where we've overtaken the timegap on the slowdown of first doses.
19/4 (eight weeks ago) we only did 99k first doses.
For a few weeks before then we did less than 100k per day.
For most of the time since then we did around 130k per day.
So for every day we do a quarter of a million second doses now, we'll be doing two days worth of first doses.
So we're either going to need to keep shrinking the timegap between first and second, or there's inevitably going be a massive slowdown in eligible second doses, just as we are running out of first doses being possible.
We know they are very very effective against hospitalisation and death. They are less so against transmitting the virus.
Is it worth my trying to re-book?
While it's probably an anomaly you can see (assuming things are similar elsewhere) why we aren't opening up on Monday.
I brilliantly reearched piece....aside from draftkings itself, contained in that article, it looks like some premier league clubs and other sports have taken money from the Triads and other shady groups.
They are effectively - all countries are, now - playing a race between virus and vaccination.
One country I don’t get is Japan.
They maintained low rates seemingly without too much effort. Elderly population, too.
It is surprisingly hard to work out the transmission numbers, it seems.
It is certainly in Spain - with community transmission in Madrid. The Spanish data overall is good but I think the July and August tourist rush both internal and external is a real danger - there are many millions (me included) who will not be second jabbed before the end of July and most of the 60-70 age group are awaiting second jabs of AZN. Meanwhile they are just starting on the under 40s so there is a huge pool of younger people who will head to the beaches largely unjabbed in the next few weeks.
Hence I stuck with my 11-week, after work slot.
Also, i found huge availability, that wasn't there 2 weeks ago. It was as if the system was trying to give me every possible option to get done. 2 weeks ago, it was my local hub or a 2hr drive and it was you have to come on a particular day.
When i rebooked yesterday, it was literally come any day, any time, and if you don't want to local hub, here is a load of other close options.
I was done in 3 weeks with this system.
It's well possible the national system with it's rigid time system is going to allocate the doses far more sparsely toward the back end of the rollout than a system of direct texts from HAs would.
99% of deaths were from JCVI 1-9
All of JCVI 1-9 have been offered 2 jabs.
2 jabs is 98% effective.
So the risk of death has effectively been reduced by 97% already (0.99*0.98) even ignoring those who are not in 1-9 that have been jabbed already.
That's already happened today. Its pure cowardice to not be opening up already and destruction of livelihoods that are viable today.
Hopefully someone with large losses but deep pockets will sue the GC.
I have just checked, it looks like the Triad owned betting company has a UK licence.....
a lot of the football shirt sponsors for betting companies don't, it is another "scam", whereby when a uk citizen goes to the site, they get bounced to a white labelled site that is actually run by a semi-legit operator, but the Far Eastern clients go to that site and they get an illegal gambling site run by these shady people.
However it seems 12bet has a proper uk gambling licence....owned by by a man the FBI say is one of the top men in the Triads.
8 weeks ago very few first jabs were done, plus we're already (unofficially) doing first jabs on all over 18s and will officially be doing them by the end of the week.
If there's more supply than there are eligible people to be jabbed then there'll be plenty of availability but a slowdown in jabs done.
As at May 31, a total of 449 local cases of infection involve a variant of concern. They comprise:
• 428 people infected with the Delta variant;
• Seven people infected with the Alpha variant, first detected in Britain;
• Nine people infected with the Beta variant, first detected in South Africa; and
• Five people infected with the Gamma variant, first detected in Brazil.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/550-cases-of-delta-variant-in-spore-at-end-may
https://twitter.com/BrunoBrussels/status/1404806492470005767?s=20
So, Mrs Truss, fancy a trip to Bern?
If it's not Delta in Israel, then we'd probably need a higher percentage vaccinated here, as Delta is more transmissible and also slightly reduces the vaccine effectiveness.
Potentially there’s some betting value there, if punters read across from one result to the other.
With the UK's depth of sequencing and transparency it does mean the world has an ascertainment issue - the variants which have an impact on the UK's COVID trajectory will (currently) be the best understood. This comes hand in hand with... knowing stuff......
......For non UK Readers - it is really worth using the UK to understand Delta and have a strategy/plan that works for your country, as it is pretty likely that you will have to navigate this variant as well.
Meanwhile Ursula announces a new EU certificate to allow travel to return to normal in the EU....
Thread: https://twitter.com/ewanbirney/status/1404747317626949636?s=20
Which doesn’t make the conclusion necessarily wrong, of course; just the hypothesis.
With the coronavirus pandemic fading, the EU has new rules on how to move around the bloc.
https://www.politico.eu/article/faq-how-to-travel-in-europe-this-summer-coronavirus-restrictions-digital-covid-certificate/
If you start with 5% new variant (growing at R=1.5) and 95% old variant (shrinking at R=0.9), you don't get to see much. The overall number of cases continues to decline. Just not quite as fast as before.
(Every 1000 cases becomes 930 in one week. 880 in two weeks. 860 in three weeks. 870 in four weeks (and you go, "Oh, it's levelled off. Not a problem, it's really low". But now, those 870 are 250 new variant and 620 old variant)
In five weeks, it's 940. In six, it's 1070, and you've gone back up past where you were (with 570 new variant cases and 500 old variant; new variant has overtaken the old one and you're at take-off).
In seven, it's 1310; in 8, it's 1690; in 9, it's 2290; in 10, it's 3214, and growing fast. 90% of cases are new variant.
That's exactly what happened in countries over winter who were behind us with Alpha taking over.
Of course, they know it this time; most countries are saying that they're banking on vaccinating fast enough to see off the take-off point.
They (in general) are just rather happier with a higher background level of Covid than the UK is.
The mail seems to veer from lock me down harder and faster, to 10 mins later, running pieces saying why are the government locking down so hard, what about my uman rights.