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A look at how you should price a bet – politicalbetting.com

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  • 2,082 hospitalisations in England for 28th Dec.

    Figures going to be all over the place with Christmas reporting.

    Why can't the Scots count hospital admissions? They've managed to update everything else.

    Patients in ventilation beds is up a tad, but no higher than it was on about 17 Dec.
  • Competition Update - no change - @Northern_Al cruising to victory

    Boosters reported today: 435,293
    Highest Boosters to date: 968,665 (22/12)
    Nearest estimate: @Northern_Al 963,451
    Next nearest: @MattW (986,000)

    Splendid news. With just one reporting day to go, I'm quietly confident. Yay!!!
    Northerners are the best.
  • jonny83jonny83 Posts: 1,261
    edited December 2021
    dixiedean said:

    Are we still not counting re-infections?

    It looks like in January they will start to add them to the data/be included in the figures:

    Source:

    https://twitter.com/kallmemeg/status/1473584973676527617?t=Jdn9OIByp7FlcFslo8MhGw&s=19

    If they were included in the data right now I would imagine the real figures would be eye watering...
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459

    Competition Update - no change - @Northern_Al cruising to victory

    Boosters reported today: 435,293
    Highest Boosters to date: 968,665 (22/12)
    Nearest estimate: @Northern_Al 963,451
    Next nearest: @MattW (986,000)

    Splendid news. With just one reporting day to go, I'm quietly confident. Yay!!!
    Northerners are the best.
    Never a truer word said.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Competition Update - no change - @Northern_Al cruising to victory

    Boosters reported today: 435,293
    Highest Boosters to date: 968,665 (22/12)
    Nearest estimate: @Northern_Al 963,451
    Next nearest: @MattW (986,000)

    Splendid news. With just one reporting day to go, I'm quietly confident. Yay!!!
    Northerners are the best.
    'Appen.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    My wife has just come in from work and reports Winchester hospital is very quiet.

    Well it’s evening isn’t it? :D
    She was there from 7am, loads of empty beds
    Dashboard stats backup the anecdote.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    IshmaelZ said:

    Competition Update - no change - @Northern_Al cruising to victory

    Boosters reported today: 435,293
    Highest Boosters to date: 968,665 (22/12)
    Nearest estimate: @Northern_Al 963,451
    Next nearest: @MattW (986,000)

    Splendid news. With just one reporting day to go, I'm quietly confident. Yay!!!
    Northerners are the best.
    'Appen.
    Lad.
  • jonny83jonny83 Posts: 1,261
    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Fishing said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    The Crown, The Dig and Queens Gambit are the only things we have enjoyed on Netflix. I assume there must be other things we should take a look at bit if we weren't getting Netflix courtesy of a family freebie I doubt if we'd pay for it.
    Gosh. I disagree. I love Netflix. Knocks the spots off Amazon Prime.

    A few random suggestions off the cuff:

    Series:

    Fargo S1, S2 and S3 (don't bother with S4)
    Top Boy Summerhouse
    Breaking Bad
    Better Call Saul
    Unbelievable
    Godless

    Documentaries:

    Making a Murderer
    Wild Wild Country
    The Confessions killer
    Losers

    All free on Netflix now.
    Better Call Saul - fantastic. Final series in 2022.
    Better Call Saul is good as long as you don't expect it to be like Breaking Bad.
    Better Call Saul is a slow-burning character study. Superb stuff if you have the patience early on.

    Breaking Bad is perfect. I think the best series ever made.
    Spartacus was the best. Of the Golden Age

    They invented a whole new language. And their brilliant star actor (God bless him) died of cancer after the first season. Yet they still persisted, devised a prequel mid-drama, and then ended on a total high

    It was and is a triumph. Close to perfection

    Next, the usual list (of dramas):


    Sopranos
    Breaking Bad
    Battlestar Galactica
    The first series of Gomorrah
    The Killing (Danish original, first season)
    Vikings

    etc

    We are blessed with great TV even as music hurtles to inanity

    I wonder if this is how Edwardians felt as they saw poetry disappear in significance as the novel rose to dominance
    I would put Spiral up there. Especially some of the earlier seasons.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.
  • Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    As Sir Humphrey might say that is a brave decision minister.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    189,000

    meh

    You're better than that. Look at the back fill for the 27th.
    27th is going to be artifically large by specimen date because of people waiting till after christmas to get their PCR.
    No more christmas day in the reported figures now either, which means they'll go up..
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    Burnley are in a bit of bother this season, aren’t they?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Blimey! Coming from you that means a lot. I vividly remember your excellent early works on weekly cycles and hubris!
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Yes, I think you're right.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021

    Burnley are in a bit of bother this season, aren’t they?

    There is only so long you can keep defying gravity as Boris has found out. Having a transfer budget of a couple of Mars Bars for I don't know how many seasons has to eventually catch up with you.
  • Competition Update - no change - @Northern_Al cruising to victory

    Boosters reported today: 435,293
    Highest Boosters to date: 968,665 (22/12)
    Nearest estimate: @Northern_Al 963,451
    Next nearest: @MattW (986,000)

    Splendid news. With just one reporting day to go, I'm quietly confident. Yay!!!
    Northerners are the best.
    Which is why I’m sitting here smugly enjoying my Broadband for the Rural North gigabit broadband despite living in a barn on top of a hill, miles away from the nearest BT cabinet… mind you, was bloody hard work digging in the fibre ducting in 2015…
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,224
    20,554 cases in Ireland

    Lumme
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973

    Burnley are in a bit of bother this season, aren’t they?

    There is only so long you can keep defying gravity as Boris has found out. Having a transfer budget of a couple of Mars Bars for I don't know how many seasons has to eventually catch up with you.
    Yup - looks like this will be the season..
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,569
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,849

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    The first couple of series - where the writer presumably had to rely on research, rather than prejudice - were good - by the time he got to Thatcher his biases were obvious.

    The bit where Queen Mary curtseys to the new queen then looks her straight in the eye is chilling.
    Yes, touch of the 'Michael becomes the Don' scene in the Godfather there.

    And I'll probably be ok on the anti Thatcher bias since I share it. 😁
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Burnley are in a bit of bother this season, aren’t they?

    There is only so long you can keep defying gravity as Boris has found out. Having a transfer budget of a couple of Mars Bars for I don't know how many seasons has to eventually catch up with you.
    Yup - looks like this will be the season..
    Careful, three of their four games in hand are at home.
  • I think my bet on Burnley taking a 2 goal lead isn't going to come in. 😂
  • Burnley are in a bit of bother this season, aren’t they?

    There is only so long you can keep defying gravity as Boris has found out. Having a transfer budget of a couple of Mars Bars for I don't know how many seasons has to eventually catch up with you.
    Yup - looks like this will be the season..
    That been said, Sean Dyche is very impressive manager.

    This is a great extended interview where he talks more about his philosophy rather than just lad done good.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn9WXJBTijE
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    Hang on - Burnley come back on 😂
  • Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
    Wait until you see Charles and myself dealing with someone with Deutsche Bank on their CV.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
    Quite. Everyone knows you should keep quiet about banking with Coutts.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    edited December 2021
    tlg86 said:

    Burnley are in a bit of bother this season, aren’t they?

    There is only so long you can keep defying gravity as Boris has found out. Having a transfer budget of a couple of Mars Bars for I don't know how many seasons has to eventually catch up with you.
    Yup - looks like this will be the season..
    Careful, three of their four games in hand are at home.
    Burnley are such an odd team. Same football style for years. Often forget they’re in the Premier League.

    But I don’t deny that Sean Dyches job there has been absolutely outstanding
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    MattW said:

    FPT:

    rcs1000 said:

    MISTY said:

    Covid hospital-admission stats are looking pretty grim, in fact appreciably worse (or at least showing up slightly earlier) than the much-derided LSHTM model of mid-December.

    https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1476603552193724417/photo/3

    Still, this isn't really a surprise. We knew that Omicron spreads super-fast, and the government took a deliberate decision not to impose tougher restrictions. I still think that was probably the right call, not least because by the time they got round to making a decision it was already too late for restrictions to have much effect.

    Fortunately the triple-boosting looks as though it is working extremely well in avoiding too many of the most serious cases, and of course deaths, but the hit on the NHS is (as I expected) going to be dire over the next couple of weeks, and a lot of people are going to have a nasty bout of illness (albeit mainly the voluntarily unvaxxed).

    What is clear is that the naïve takes on both extremes, ignoring the very real uncertainties and selectively picking snippets of data that supported their preconceptions, were equally irrational.

    In which country are the restrictions having an effect? France? Germany?
    It's pretty hard to argue that restrictions didn't have an effect in Germany:



    As an aside, are you going to withdraw your lie about Gibraltar?
    That German curve is delta not omicron.

    They are still below 40% of new cases being omicron, so we don't really know the impact of German measures on omicron.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/30/germany-may-follow-england-in-cutting-isolation-time-as-omicron-spreads
    1. Just because "Omicron accounted for about 17,000 out of Germany’s almost 43,000 new confirmed cases on Thursday" doesn't mean that Omicron is still below 40% of cases. If Omicron is much milder, and given the much reduced routine testing because of the holiday, there's probably a higher percentage of Omicron cases being missed than Delta.

    2. You can still try and see how fast Omicron is increasing in Germany in the last weeks.
    This
    https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Omikron-Faelle/Omikron-Faelle.html?__blob=publicationFile
    seems to suggest that Omicron cases increased from 0.3 cases per 100,000 in calendar week 48, to 10.2 cases in calendar week 51. I'll leave it to someone else to compare that with the rate of increase at a similar stage of Omicron in a country without any restrictions, but I'm guessing it's going to be slower - and remember Germany has a higher percentage of people without immunity from previous infections.
    The other problem with that Guardian article is that it says schools in Germany are due to go back on the 3rd of January. For most of Germany schools don't restart until the 10th.
    It’s not known as the Grauniad for nothing...
    Probably the usual capital city bias by the out of touch metropolitan elite - I think Berlin schools go back early, along with the rest of the former East Germany.
    Elite?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,053

    My wife has just come in from work and reports Winchester hospital is very quiet.

    As I recall she was reporting that in last winters wave...
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    Leon said:

    20,554 cases in Ireland

    Lumme

    Ouch
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    I don't think we can make any calls on cases until well after Hogmanay - anecdotally, very long delays on PCR results and apparently this is affecting reporting too.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,569
    .

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
    Wait until you see Charles and myself dealing with someone with Deutsche Bank on their CV.
    That’s not snobbery; just common sense.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    Pro_Rata said:

    Is that suboptimal SQL query STILL running?

    How many cases is it finding today to be 2hrs longer than yesterday?

    I've been imagining something like that scene in the Jurassic Park novel where the computer engineer is stunned to find there are more dinosaurs in the park than they expected because they told the computer to only look for the number of dinos they expected to find.
    Many moons ago, I had a nice little earner on a civ eng project (*). Strain gauges had been placed on some buildings around the works, designed to show movements that may be a danger to the buildings. Despite these, one building suffered serious damage due to ground settlement, but the warnings had not triggered.

    Buildings move slightly from natural effects (even expanding with the sun), each gauge has a limit set of a certain amount from a baseline. If the movement is below this, it does not trigger.

    Because I knew someone on the project, was into programming, and was in the area, I was asked to look at it. I found the problem in about half an hour. They were resetting the baseline value for each gauge every day, so the strain could build up a little each day, but not enough to trigger the warnings, but the strain was building up anyway. A very quick fix, much more time to validate it with others, and possibly the largest paycheck I've ever had for such a short period.

    If you plotted the values from the strain gauges on a chart, and it was obvious what was happening. No-one did so, because the computers said everything was fine.

    (*) I started a degree that was partly in civ eng, and this is the only time I used it.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
    I never got to the bottom of whether non-lung but still serious symptoms of Covid (stroke etc) could occur without there being any lung problems.
  • MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Seems justified. If the virus is just a common cold then why bother telling the Government you've got it? There's no legal obligation to log your LFT results or get a PCR test if you don't want to, is there?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    edited December 2021
    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
    It does seem that way yes, Omicron looks like it is an upper respiratory tract virus (nose, throat) while the other COVID variants have been lower respiratory tract viruses (lungs). That's a really welcome development because that will mean fewer patients need serious medical intervention (which we can see in the ventilated patients statistic) and far, far fewer patients will get to the stage of life altering lung or other organ damage/failure. The other reason why Omicron seems to be less severe is because it has given up a significant bit of its ability to enter our critical cells in order to evade immunity. Both of these put together are why the ventilated patients are still at very low levels. Tomorrow's (I think) report will show whether that also extends to ordinary hospital treatment. It should, but there's no guarantees (and it did in South Africa).
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited December 2021
    TimT said:

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
    Quite. Everyone knows you should keep quiet about banking with Coutts.
    I was in the same class at school as the son of the then CEO of Coutts
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Two years ago today.


    We've really been living with this for two years now? I feel like I've wasted my life even more than I already was.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346
    Foxy said:

    My wife has just come in from work and reports Winchester hospital is very quiet.

    As I recall she was reporting that in last winters wave...
    No in Summer 2020
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    Yes people will end up not following the testing and self isolation rules. Unless it is in your interest somehow to follow them. It is naive to think that everyone views this entirely altruistically and that this all about public health. This situation isn't sustainable over the long term.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Eabhal said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
    I never got to the bottom of whether non-lung but still serious symptoms of Covid (stroke etc) could occur without there being any lung problems.
    I don't think we know yet whether the other damage is directly due to COVID or due to the lung damage COVID is/was able to cause.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Eabhal said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
    I never got to the bottom of whether non-lung but still serious symptoms of Covid (stroke etc) could occur without there being any lung problems.
    In theory, yes they can. The reason that COVID has such a very diverse array of potential symptoms is that the ACE-2 receptor to which the virus binds to obtain cell entry is found in abundance on the cell surfaces in nearly every tissue and organ in the body.

    So, if you are infected with COVID, there is the potential for secondary infections in other tissues, resulting in some of these more bizarre symptoms.

    However, I do not know to what extent the probability of these infections of other tissues is a function of viral load in the patient and location of the primary infection.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Eabhal said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
    I never got to the bottom of whether non-lung but still serious symptoms of Covid (stroke etc) could occur without there being any lung problems.
    It’s because Covid can attack lots of your vital organs. Not clear why any one patient progresses as they do. A 90 year old may shake Covid off in days, while a fit, healthy 25 year old can die (albeit rarely).
    With omicron it seems much better at replicating in the bronchial, not the lungs, and that is generally a good thing for the host.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    TimT said:

    Eabhal said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
    I never got to the bottom of whether non-lung but still serious symptoms of Covid (stroke etc) could occur without there being any lung problems.
    In theory, yes they can. The reason that COVID has such a very diverse array of potential symptoms is that the ACE-2 receptor to which the virus binds to obtain cell entry is found in abundance on the cell surfaces in nearly every tissue and organ in the body.

    So, if you are infected with COVID, there is the potential for secondary infections in other tissues, resulting in some of these more bizarre symptoms.

    However, I do not know to what extent the probability of these infections of other tissues is a function of viral load in the patient and location of the primary infection.
    Yes, and one of the major changes with Omicron is that it's now much less good at binding to ACE-2 sites which lends itself to being milder in all areas, not just in the lungs.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    edited December 2021
    There's been a steady fall in deaths from a peak of 173 at the start of Nov to slightly below 100 a day now (Moving averages of course).
    Must have been to the booster rollout as cases have been rising throughout
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited December 2021
    Eabhal said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Isn't that because omicron doesn't get into the lungs?
    Apologies. I've raised this before, and Foxy answered at some length. But I don't speak doctor so didn't quite follow.
    I never got to the bottom of whether non-lung but still serious symptoms of Covid (stroke etc) could occur without there being any lung problems.
    ISTR him saying it wasn't the viral stage, but the inflammatory stage which was the issue. Hence the big time lag between infection and hospitalisation and death.
    But I didn't get if he was therefore saying it was too early to really tell what the inflammatory issues might be with omicron or not.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    The whole Hyde Park Corner sequence is superb. Good timing with the London Bridge article in the Guardian.

    Aberfan was great, too.
    Er?? Could be worded better tbh.
    Aberfan was an utter disaster with 116 children losing their lives just 8 days before our eldest was born in Oct 1966

    We will never forget
    Why would anyone off topic my comment, Aberfan was a very upsetting moment in our lives
    Suspect they hit the wrong button - easy to miss 'like' and hit 'off topic'. Don't take it to heart Big_G, no one thinks of Aberfan without feeling very sad.
    I hope so

    The birth of our son a few days later with all those grieving parents had an emotional effect on us and most new parents at the time
    To be clear Big G, I was observing that the episode on Aberfan was very well done, and had the benefit of bringing it to the attention of my (younger) generation.

    It always strikes me how many people died in heavy industry in the past, the Forth Bridge a local example.
    I had never heard of it before the show. Absolutely tragic.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    Good evening PB

    I'm currently nibbling on a Jacobs cream cracker with some Red Leicester and Stilton and have got a glass of port on the side.

    Can I say I'm having a cheese and wine? :D
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    HYUFD said:

    TimT said:

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
    Quite. Everyone knows you should keep quiet about banking with Coutts.
    I was in the same class at school as the son of the then CEO of Coutts
    But were you really in the same *class* as him...
  • rkrkrk said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    The whole Hyde Park Corner sequence is superb. Good timing with the London Bridge article in the Guardian.

    Aberfan was great, too.
    Er?? Could be worded better tbh.
    Aberfan was an utter disaster with 116 children losing their lives just 8 days before our eldest was born in Oct 1966

    We will never forget
    Why would anyone off topic my comment, Aberfan was a very upsetting moment in our lives
    Suspect they hit the wrong button - easy to miss 'like' and hit 'off topic'. Don't take it to heart Big_G, no one thinks of Aberfan without feeling very sad.
    I hope so

    The birth of our son a few days later with all those grieving parents had an emotional effect on us and most new parents at the time
    To be clear Big G, I was observing that the episode on Aberfan was very well done, and had the benefit of bringing it to the attention of my (younger) generation.

    It always strikes me how many people died in heavy industry in the past, the Forth Bridge a local example.
    I had never heard of it before the show. Absolutely tragic.
    We lived every minute of it and the pain of the bereaved parents at just the moment we became parents for the first time

    We will never forget the images and the pain of so many
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,053
    Leon said:
    It's not true what they say about oysters. I had a dozen once, but only eight of them worked.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited December 2021
    GIN1138 said:

    Good evening PB

    I'm currently nibbling on a Jacobs cream cracker with some Red Leicester and Stilton and have got a glass of port on the side.

    Can I say I'm having a cheese and wine? :D

    Nice to see my advice being taken. But the other bloke's ingredient is missing.

    Even if they did not find enough Covid on the big day.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,053
    GIN1138 said:

    Good evening PB

    I'm currently nibbling on a Jacobs cream cracker with some Red Leicester and Stilton and have got a glass of port on the side.

    Can I say I'm having a cheese and wine? :D

    Sounds like a busy day at work...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited December 2021
    kyf_100 said:

    HYUFD said:

    TimT said:

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
    Quite. Everyone knows you should keep quiet about banking with Coutts.
    I was in the same class at school as the son of the then CEO of Coutts
    But were you really in the same *class* as him...
    Not at that time though no, though my grandfather was chairman of a building society in the 1980s
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,569
    Good Omicron news for hamsters.

    https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1211792/v1
    … we evaluated the ability of multiple B.1.1.529 Omicron isolates to cause infection and disease in immunocompetent and human ACE2 (hACE2) expressing mice and hamsters. Despite modeling and binding data suggesting that B.1.1.529 spike can bind more avidly to murine ACE2, we observed attenuation of infection in 129, C57BL/6, and BALB/c mice as compared with previous SARS-CoV-2 variants, with limited weight loss and lower viral burden in the upper and lower respiratory tracts. Although K18-hACE2 transgenic mice sustained infection in the lungs, these animals did not lose weight. In wild-type and hACE2 transgenic hamsters, lung infection, clinical disease, and pathology with B.1.1.529 also were milder compared to historical isolates or other SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. Overall, experiments from multiple independent laboratories of the SAVE/NIAID network with several different B.1.1.529 isolates demonstrate attenuated lung disease in rodents, which parallels preliminary human clinical data.…
  • MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Probably more people not getting PCR tests because there were none available (and they did not know @FrancisUrquhart's trick of returning at some point in the afternoon because for heaven knows what reason they'd been holding some back).
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    darkage said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.
    Yes people will end up not following the testing and self isolation rules. Unless it is in your interest somehow to follow them. It is naive to think that everyone views this entirely altruistically and that this all about public health. This situation isn't sustainable over the long term.
    If the number of cases is so vast that the available testing capacity can't cope with them, and that mass self-isolation also threatens the provision of essential services, then the whole system will fail - both because people will disregard the rules and the Government will be forced to relax or abandon them. In which case, we need to make sure that the failure happens in a controlled manner.

    If Whitehall has any sense it will be planning a retreat to risk segmentation: prioritising health and care workers and clinically vulnerable people for tests and rationing or withdrawing them from the general population, and trying to defend elderly care homes and the most vulnerable hospital patients (as opposed to attempting to implement full infection control measures with all patients who test positive for the virus.) If the existing rules mean that both healthcare and wider society are unable to cope with the numbers of cases then the rules will have to give.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.

    On the actual data, the ventilated patients stat for England is barely moving while in hospital is way up, this is unlike anything we've seen before. I think we get the incidental admissions report tomorrow, I think that might solve the riddle of why one number is shooting up and the other which until now has been intrinsically linked hasn't moved at all.
    Probably more people not getting PCR tests because there were none available (and they did not know @FrancisUrquhart's trick of returning at some point in the afternoon because for heaven knows what reason they'd been holding some back).
    Its not a "trick" and I think a lot of people are aware of this, as the slots fill up over the course of the next few hours after they release new ones. Today, I think they filled up really quickly. The demand is clearly enormous and the amount of PCR versus theoretical capacity is down.

    The system is creaking at the seams, it going to go pop.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Alistair said:

    Pretty much the only good thing of buying our new build is fibre to the premise. And now Hyperoptic have installed cabling down the street and we can get a second FttP provider!

    You should get both, and then get a proper dual WAN router.
  • Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Link please.
  • pigeon said:

    darkage said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.
    Yes people will end up not following the testing and self isolation rules. Unless it is in your interest somehow to follow them. It is naive to think that everyone views this entirely altruistically and that this all about public health. This situation isn't sustainable over the long term.
    If the number of cases is so vast that the available testing capacity can't cope with them, and that mass self-isolation also threatens the provision of essential services, then the whole system will fail - both because people will disregard the rules and the Government will be forced to relax or abandon them. In which case, we need to make sure that the failure happens in a controlled manner.

    If Whitehall has any sense it will be planning a retreat to risk segmentation: prioritising health and care workers and clinically vulnerable people for tests and rationing or withdrawing them from the general population, and trying to defend elderly care homes and the most vulnerable hospital patients (as opposed to attempting to implement full infection control measures with all patients who test positive for the virus.) If the existing rules mean that both healthcare and wider society are unable to cope with the numbers of cases then the rules will have to give.
    you sound like a let it rip merchant now. Fair enough
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,053
    Pulpstar said:

    There's been a steady fall in deaths from a peak of 173 at the start of Nov to slightly below 100 a day now (Moving averages of course).
    Must have been to the booster rollout as cases have been rising throughout

    Yes, I think that is the boosters.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Does this reflect concern on something you may have done? :o
  • GIN1138 said:

    Good evening PB

    I'm currently nibbling on a Jacobs cream cracker with some Red Leicester and Stilton and have got a glass of port on the side.

    Can I say I'm having a cheese and wine? :D

    Ritz crackers, cheddar and Highland Spring water here.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    Friend of mine was nearly turned down by the chairman of one of those twattish niche banks the other day because he was caught behind in the Eton Winchester match 1979 and didn't walk.
    How very childish of them both
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Does this reflect concern on something you may have done? :o
    It's OK. I think it's beyond the Statute of Limitations.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Link please.
    Grauniad
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited December 2021
    pigeon said:

    darkage said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.
    Yes people will end up not following the testing and self isolation rules. Unless it is in your interest somehow to follow them. It is naive to think that everyone views this entirely altruistically and that this all about public health. This situation isn't sustainable over the long term.
    If the number of cases is so vast that the available testing capacity can't cope with them, and that mass self-isolation also threatens the provision of essential services, then the whole system will fail - both because people will disregard the rules and the Government will be forced to relax or abandon them. In which case, we need to make sure that the failure happens in a controlled manner.

    If Whitehall has any sense it will be planning a retreat to risk segmentation: prioritising health and care workers and clinically vulnerable people for tests and rationing or withdrawing them from the general population, and trying to defend elderly care homes and the most vulnerable hospital patients (as opposed to attempting to implement full infection control measures with all patients who test positive for the virus.) If the existing rules mean that both healthcare and wider society are unable to cope with the numbers of cases then the rules will have to give.
    The obvious quick fix is to drop isolation down to five days, following the recommendation of the American CDC (so respectable science). ETA I wonder if HMG has shot itself in the foot by promising no changes till next year (aka the day after tomorrow).
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,224
    Can't believe I've just seen a blatantly mixed-race couple on a commercial British TV advert

    I know - and I celebrate - the fact that race relations have vastly improved in the UK in recent decades. We are all Brits. But open miscegenation, apparently celebrated in a TV advertisement?

    Thank God it seems to be a rarity. I haven't seen any others. Perhaps it is just a one-off, and no cause for alarm
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957
    Just watched Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch".

    Joy. Utter joy.

    Just the odd throw away idea that makes you realise how brilliant the whole thing is.
  • Now that the British former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted in her sex-trafficking trial, speculation is growing that she may try to cut a deal and become a government witness in any broader investigation into the elite social circle of her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

    Maxwell would be aiming for a reduced sentence by naming powerful names when it comes to others who may be involved in Epstein’s crimes.

    But defense lawyers and sexual-crimes prosecutors have cast doubt on the government’s appetite to strike a bargain. They question whether Maxwell has any vital information the government does not already have, and whether it represents a strategy Maxwell has previously attempted that has failed.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/30/ghislaine-maxwell-sentence-deal-speculation-jeffrey-epstein
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Leon said:

    Can't believe I've just seen a blatantly mixed-race couple on a commercial British TV advert

    I know - and I celebrate - the fact that race relations have vastly improved in the UK in recent decades. We are all Brits. But open miscegenation, apparently celebrated in a TV advertisement?

    Thank God it seems to be a rarity. I haven't seen any others. Perhaps it is just a one-off, and no cause for alarm

    I’m being thick - are you in the wing up here? Wife and I have debated who needs to ‘black up’ to match the now generic advert couple on TV...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Lord Mandelson latest famous name alleged to be in Epstein's black book

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1476615510598946824?s=20
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    Hopefully I've done Allegra proud! :D
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,273
    Leon said:

    Can't believe I've just seen a blatantly mixed-race couple on a commercial British TV advert

    I know - and I celebrate - the fact that race relations have vastly improved in the UK in recent decades. We are all Brits. But open miscegenation, apparently celebrated in a TV advertisement?

    Thank God it seems to be a rarity. I haven't seen any others. Perhaps it is just a one-off, and no cause for alarm

    You are so witty - my god you're funny.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    rcs1000 said:

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Are you famous enough that you need to worry?
    No, he's just realized that he is out of popcorn and that there's probably a run on stocks right now.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    You are obviously not a tabloid journalist, all of whose Christmases are about to come at once.....
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    HYUFD said:

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Lord Mandelson latest famous name alleged to be in Epstein's black book

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1476615510598946824?s=20
    Mandelson? Are we on the same page here?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021
    HYUFD said:

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Lord Mandelson latest famous name alleged to be in Epstein's black book

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1476615510598946824?s=20
    16 numbers for Prince Andrew....obviously very keen to make sure he was contactable at all times.

    We do have to be careful about the "black book", apparently loads of is just wrong info. As a con man, he was constantly fishing for info and details of people, even those he had never met.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    Just watched Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch".

    Joy. Utter joy.

    Just the odd throw away idea that makes you realise how brilliant the whole thing is.


    He is one of the few truly inventive movie makers
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    HYUFD said:

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Lord Mandelson latest famous name alleged to be in Epstein's black book

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1476615510598946824?s=20
    Wasn’t the alleged modus operandi to have influential people to ‘parties’, where they got lucky with attractive young women, who sadly turned out to be under age, and oh dear, there are photos? Would that work with Mandelson?
  • kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    The first couple of series - where the writer presumably had to rely on research, rather than prejudice - were good - by the time he got to Thatcher his biases were obvious.

    The bit where Queen Mary curtseys to the new queen then looks her straight in the eye is chilling.
    And I'll probably be ok on the anti Thatcher bias since I share it. 😁
    Just as long as you don't regard it as history.....
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    That's the sickest and cruellest burn of my life.

    I keep on getting headhunted by BNP Paribas, so I might end up banking with them.

    I'm sure I'll get quite the looks when my debit and credit cards have the initials BNP on them.
    I’m teasing - we always have our training accounts at Lloyd’s - dates from when they bought the black horse logo from us in the 1880s…

  • If anyone says the UK’s 332 reported Covid deaths today are due to the Omicron surge*, that’s a useful sign that you can ignore anything else they say about Covid, ever.

    *They’re not, they’re due to a big reporting backlog over Christmas. No rise in deaths by date of death.


    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1476658725616238597?s=20

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-uk-covid-deaths-hit-25818434
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    You are obviously not a tabloid journalist, all of whose Christmases are about to come at once.....
    I didn't pass the probity test.
  • "If anyone says the UK’s 332 reported Covid deaths today are due to the Omicron surge*, that’s a useful sign that you can ignore anything else they say about Covid, ever."

    *They’re not, they’re due to a big reporting backlog over Christmas. No rise in deaths by date of death.

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1476658725616238597?s=20
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    Friend of mine was nearly turned down by the chairman of one of those twattish niche banks the other day because he was caught behind in the Eton Winchester match 1979 and didn't walk.
    How very childish of them both
    Yeah

    Can't remember name of bank. Began with H.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    Foxy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    There's been a steady fall in deaths from a peak of 173 at the start of Nov to slightly below 100 a day now (Moving averages of course).
    Must have been to the booster rollout as cases have been rising throughout

    Yes, I think that is the boosters.
    Sorry but what about Omicron? Complicated because it seems to be more infectious but CFR in South Africa went through the floor.
  • HYUFD said:

    Oh ****! Maxwell open to cutting a deal to reduce her sentence.

    Lord Mandelson latest famous name alleged to be in Epstein's black book

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1476615510598946824?s=20
    Was Lord Mandelson known for his fondness for attractive *girls*?
    "Oooh! You are awful! But I like you!" :lol:
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
    Do you really bank with NatWest?
    I used to bank with RBS and was upgraded to Coutts.
    I hope you don’t still bank there.

    If you are going for a vanity chequebook at least be classy and work with Childs or Drummonds
    I don't have a chequebook anymore. No point, it is one those areas that is a cause of a lot of frauds and scams.

    I'm with Lloyds Mayfair these days.

    I know, I know, the shame, the shame, but I have to show my working class credentials somehow.
    I banked with Lloyds when I was a teenager 😂
    Banking snobbery is pretty damn sad,.
    It was a jest - I’ve borrowed from Barclays, Portman, and many others over the years, depending on cost.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,273
    TimT said:

    Good to see the 90% mark hit.


    Yes very good. We've been close a couple of times before but the eligibility criteria were grown each time.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    londoneye said:

    pigeon said:

    darkage said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Within the lottery of holiday stats I am willing to stick my neck out and say London has actually peaked.

    Hmm, I wonder how much of that is people not getting PCR tests because they don't want to be bound by the isolation rules this week. Naming no names I know a few people who did it, my wife and I regret reporting our positive results as well given we had no symptoms and we're locked up for a week of our time off that we would otherwise have spent with friends.
    Yes people will end up not following the testing and self isolation rules. Unless it is in your interest somehow to follow them. It is naive to think that everyone views this entirely altruistically and that this all about public health. This situation isn't sustainable over the long term.
    If the number of cases is so vast that the available testing capacity can't cope with them, and that mass self-isolation also threatens the provision of essential services, then the whole system will fail - both because people will disregard the rules and the Government will be forced to relax or abandon them. In which case, we need to make sure that the failure happens in a controlled manner.

    If Whitehall has any sense it will be planning a retreat to risk segmentation: prioritising health and care workers and clinically vulnerable people for tests and rationing or withdrawing them from the general population, and trying to defend elderly care homes and the most vulnerable hospital patients (as opposed to attempting to implement full infection control measures with all patients who test positive for the virus.) If the existing rules mean that both healthcare and wider society are unable to cope with the numbers of cases then the rules will have to give.
    you sound like a let it rip merchant now. Fair enough
    I think that we may no longer have much option. I'm not convinced that a panic hard lockdown will work against Omicron (and anything short of that certainly won't,) and there's precious little appetite left for one either. That's not just a party political problem: I think that when Tony Blair said the people had already been through too much to tolerate another one he was right.

    And that's without even getting into the tremendous vaccine refusal problem: we've heard the pleading on this topic from medics all over the country, so we know what a burden the refusers are - and if you were looking to engineer some kind of major societal rupture then you couldn't do much better than condemning the whole nation to months of house arrest to save the refusers from getting sick.

    Restrictions aren't the way to manage this - especially given that the evolutionary pressure being exerted on this virus to become more transmissible is huge. There will be other variants beyond Omicron, and they'll most likely spread even more easily. We're simply going to have to learn how to manage the burden of this disease without resorting to (increasingly ineffectual) curbs on people's lives.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    They used to say where there's muck there's money but these days they say where there's money there's Mandy ;)
This discussion has been closed.