"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
Erhh, the 'stay at home' orders which was you do not leave your home for anything that was non-essential i.e. not meeting other people. And you had a lot of these over the 2 year period. And consistent banning of mass gatherings
The problem the UK got into was trying to have this silly tiering system. It was have your cake and eat it, but I doubt it did very much at all as the UK isn't a big place and so it was easy to travel 20-30 minutes. And then this well you can meet people but rule of 6, except for insert long list of exceptions....
UK biggest mistakes, furlong went on far far too long and once we had vaccines we should have been much more proactive to get back to normal.
We never had any restrictions on meeting friends in our own homes. There may have been recommendations not to leave one's pod, but there were never any legal restriction on whom one might spend one's time with.
I very much tend to the view that we seriously overreacted to Covid but I think it is fair to say that the mortality rate from it in the US does not have much to commend it.
I've posted numbers before, but there's no doubt that the States that did best were those with modest restrictions.
Those with no restriction tended to see extreme swings as everyone locked themselves down, following by everyone assuming there was no problem. While those States with the most severe restrictions (New York) had serious negative consequences.
Places like Florida probably made the right call where they tried to get things open especially in a state where most people spend a lot of time outdoors. Of course it is difficult to make assessments on the effectiveness of those policies when the populations had big differences in vaccinations rates.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
Erhh, the 'stay at home' orders which was you do not leave your home for anything that was non-essential i.e. not meeting other people. And you had a lot of these over the 2 year period. And consistent banning of mass gatherings
The problem the UK got into was trying to have this silly tiering system. It was have your cake and eat it, but I doubt it did very much at all as the UK isn't a big place and so it was easy to travel 20-30 minutes. And then this well you can meet people but rule of 6, except for insert long list of exceptions....
UK biggest mistakes, furlong went on far far too long and once we had vaccines we should have been much more proactive to get back to normal.
We never had any restrictions on meeting friends in our own homes. There may have been recommendations not to leave one's pod, but there were never any legal restriction on whom one might spend one's time with.
That is a little bit of playing with semantics. If you are ordered to shelter in place and not leave you house, by implication you aren't to be mixing. And you had more weeks of that overall than the UK. If you have a lockdown down don't need a "rule of 6". The UK got in a mess because we kept trying to fudge it and so got things like that.
I disagree: there's a big difference between advice (even if strongly worded) and law with threats of punishment.
There were never any legal restrictions on my kids playing with our neighbours. There were never any restrictions on me going to the beach and meeting with friends.
Sure: restaraunts and bars were shut for periods - particularly for inside dining - but after June/July 2020, the legal restrictions (beyons masks) were fairly modest.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
Erhh, the 'stay at home' orders which was you do not leave your home for anything that was non-essential i.e. not meeting other people. And you had a lot of these over the 2 year period. And consistent banning of mass gatherings
The problem the UK got into was trying to have this silly tiering system. It was have your cake and eat it, but I doubt it did very much at all as the UK isn't a big place and so it was easy to travel 20-30 minutes. And then this well you can meet people but rule of 6, except for insert long list of exceptions....
UK biggest mistakes, furlong went on far far too long and once we had vaccines we should have been much more proactive to get back to normal.
We never had any restrictions on meeting friends in our own homes. There may have been recommendations not to leave one's pod, but there were never any legal restriction on whom one might spend one's time with.
I very much tend to the view that we seriously overreacted to Covid but I think it is fair to say that the mortality rate from it in the US does not have much to commend it.
I've posted numbers before, but there's no doubt that the States that did best were those with modest restrictions.
Those with no restriction tended to see extreme swings as everyone locked themselves down, following by everyone assuming there was no problem. While those States with the most severe restrictions (New York) had serious negative consequences.
Isn't that mixing cause and effect?
Obviously closely packed citties like NYC with public transport, massive daily mixing of people, overcrowded housing and deprivation are more vulnerable to pandemic infectious disease than Hicksville Idaho?
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
I know this is pure Centrist Dad, but the right space to be in was "restrictions on mixing, but as little full lockdown as possible". Avoid lockdowns by not having a high and growing caseload that can only be managed by a lockdown.
Pretty much the exact opposite of what happened here, unfortunately. Thank goodness for the vaccine boffins.
We did also have a problem where the public given half a yard went mental, then when it was too late started screaming but but but lock us down again cases are too high. but I better have that one last big night out before the restriction comes in.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
You really do need to caveat your last sentence with your first. We knew much more in 2021 than we did in 2020 (and had started the vaccine rollout). But that does not mean what we did in early and mid 2020 was in any way stupid, or even unnecessary.
There was an article in late 2020 from an epidemiologist saying how 'lucky' we had been with Covid-19; it very easily could have been much worse. And whilst later strains were worse (and many people forget that with their hinsightism), they still were nowhere near as bad as they could have been.
And in 2020, we did not know it was not as bad as it could be. And many of the signs were that it was.
As I said, I would cut policymakers in 2020 a lot of slack.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
I know this is pure Centrist Dad, but the right space to be in was "restrictions on mixing, but as little full lockdown as possible". Avoid lockdowns by not having a high and growing caseload that can only be managed by a lockdown.
Pretty much the exact opposite of what happened here, unfortunately. Thank goodness for the vaccine boffins.
Unfortunately, online (but not on here...) there seems to be a strong correlation between the anti-vax nut jobs and the anti-lockdown / anti-mask nutjobs. The fact they've got prominence in power (e.g. RFK Jr) bodes very poorly for the future.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
In Britain in particular there were lots of research projects to look at how Covid spread, what interventions would have the most impact, and there was a lot of evidence available from looking at different countries. It seemed as though very little of that information was used when implementing restrictions and guidance.
In terms of lessons learned I feel that the most important lesson - the importance of ventilation and filtration for reducing the airborne spread of a virus - is being completely ignored.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
Erhh, the 'stay at home' orders which was you do not leave your home for anything that was non-essential i.e. not meeting other people. And you had a lot of these over the 2 year period. And consistent banning of mass gatherings
The problem the UK got into was trying to have this silly tiering system. It was have your cake and eat it, but I doubt it did very much at all as the UK isn't a big place and so it was easy to travel 20-30 minutes. And then this well you can meet people but rule of 6, except for insert long list of exceptions....
UK biggest mistakes, furlong went on far far too long and once we had vaccines we should have been much more proactive to get back to normal.
We never had any restrictions on meeting friends in our own homes. There may have been recommendations not to leave one's pod, but there were never any legal restriction on whom one might spend one's time with.
I very much tend to the view that we seriously overreacted to Covid but I think it is fair to say that the mortality rate from it in the US does not have much to commend it.
I've posted numbers before, but there's no doubt that the States that did best were those with modest restrictions.
Those with no restriction tended to see extreme swings as everyone locked themselves down, following by everyone assuming there was no problem. While those States with the most severe restrictions (New York) had serious negative consequences.
I'm sorry I've missed that and would like a link if you have one. The US is an obvious testing petri dish for different techniques.
I have friends who are involved in our Covid inquiry who wander from being smug about the money to being in despair about the approach. I fear we are going to get nonsense like, oh we should have shut down a week or so sooner or isn't it terrible people were allowed out to the shops with very little examination of whether any of it made any difference, whether the cost of what we did was prohibitive and whether the damage to children's education and socialisation was so beyond any risk that they faced that it should never have started.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
Erhh, the 'stay at home' orders which was you do not leave your home for anything that was non-essential i.e. not meeting other people. And you had a lot of these over the 2 year period. And consistent banning of mass gatherings
The problem the UK got into was trying to have this silly tiering system. It was have your cake and eat it, but I doubt it did very much at all as the UK isn't a big place and so it was easy to travel 20-30 minutes. And then this well you can meet people but rule of 6, except for insert long list of exceptions....
UK biggest mistakes, furlong went on far far too long and once we had vaccines we should have been much more proactive to get back to normal.
We never had any restrictions on meeting friends in our own homes. There may have been recommendations not to leave one's pod, but there were never any legal restriction on whom one might spend one's time with.
I very much tend to the view that we seriously overreacted to Covid but I think it is fair to say that the mortality rate from it in the US does not have much to commend it.
I've posted numbers before, but there's no doubt that the States that did best were those with modest restrictions.
Those with no restriction tended to see extreme swings as everyone locked themselves down, following by everyone assuming there was no problem. While those States with the most severe restrictions (New York) had serious negative consequences.
At the time people were clamouring for us to follow Sweden and others with lighter regulation and the media were obsessing about how the likes of New Zealand were the gold standard.
We had the absurd Independent Sage demanding more and more austere measures. They’d have us all wearing masks today no doubt.
The press reporting was poor. The press conferences pointless gotchas.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
You really do need to caveat your last sentence with your first. We knew much more in 2021 than we did in 2020 (and had started the vaccine rollout). But that does not mean what we did in early and mid 2020 was in any way stupid, or even unnecessary.
There was an article in late 2020 from an epidemiologist saying how 'lucky' we had been with Covid-19; it very easily could have been much worse. And whilst later strains were worse (and many people forget that with their hinsightism), they still were nowhere near as bad as they could have been.
And in 2020, we did not know it was not as bad as it could be. And many of the signs were that it was.
As I said, I would cut policymakers in 2020 a lot of slack.
I still have that absurd brass key on my keyring they were giving away at the time.
@JournalistJill Friends and I just discussing who will play who in the dramatisation of Peggie V Fife. So far we have Anna Maxwell Martin as Naomi C, Miranda Hart as Kate Searle and Brian Blessed as Dr Upton.
More seriously, as much as ITV could do very well from such a drama, I think they'd find it tough to cast as most big names wouldn't want anything to do with it.
Surely they could use Brendon O'Carroll for Beth Upton. This would have the very considerable public benefit of not making him available for another series of Mrs Brown's boys.
Would it be over simplistic to think that if Farage believes that a Reform government can cut crime in half, then his policy would be to have fewer prison places, not more?
I suppose the point is (i) you need to jail more people now to get crime down over the term of a government, so you need the places now even if you won't in four years; and (ii) you can repurpose the places as crime falls, either giving terms of imprisonment for less serious offences or for things like holding asylum seekers.
I mean, it's all obvious bollocks anyway, and the "halving crime" thing is plucked out of thin air. But presumably that's the argument.
I don't actually think it would be particularly hard to reduce crime significantly.
I don't think it requires some radical reshaping or our criminal justice system. I think it merely requires us to fund the police, lawyers and courts properly. So that people are more likely to get caught, prosecuted and punished.
It merely requires us to fund xxx properly. I don’t want to pay any more tax.
There’s the unsquared circle, folks.
Red if they stopped the huge amount of waste , pandering to crap and minorities and general fan dancers there would be plenty cash. Too many passengers in the public bodies and pandering to fcukwits. In a private company you have no choice when skint , improve productivity or shed people or both. Public it is add another shedload of bodies or borrow money for waste
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
In Britain in particular there were lots of research projects to look at how Covid spread, what interventions would have the most impact, and there was a lot of evidence available from looking at different countries. It seemed as though very little of that information was used when implementing restrictions and guidance.
In terms of lessons learned I feel that the most important lesson - the importance of ventilation and filtration for reducing the airborne spread of a virus - is being completely ignored.
It's not as if there aren't other airborne viruses that still cause problems in schools and hospitals.
Air filtration must have a payback time in months, just in reducing staff sickness;
but then we go back to the @RochdalePioneers point that government can't/won't spend now to profit later, even if "later" is barely a year or two away.
I am not going to survive that. That's not going to work. I am moving from "I don't like this government" to "I will vote for anybody who will throw it out".
I thought you were in the 'old people are overprioritised' camp?
I don't think it matters what camp I'm in. Not everybody has a massive pension and like it or lump it I will be at least partly reliant on the state pension in my old age. We are not talking about disquiet about a political stance I disapprove of, we are talking about having to sell my flat or not being able to eat healthily. Due to some bad decisions I had some bite-lip prolonged periods of not-enough-money some decades ago and it took a lot of time and effort to crawl out of it. I really was not expecting to be plunged back into it by a Labour government that has catastrophically forgotten how to govern, and I won't have the resilience of my earlier years at 68.
There should be some state pension support at 68, more than 25%. I am not convinced it should still be 100% however. There should of course also be support for people who need it under pension age too.
Will be suggesting putting pensioners down at 65 on here shortly. Unbelievable hatred of pensioners, are the majority test tube babies and as heartless and greedy as they make out.
Would it be over simplistic to think that if Farage believes that a Reform government can cut crime in half, then his policy would be to have fewer prison places, not more?
Farage is planning to make a lot of current crimes legal.
Its the easy way to cut crime.
Whereas the Sultana Party will make currant crimes legal.
I am not going to survive that. That's not going to work. I am moving from "I don't like this government" to "I will vote for anybody who will throw it out".
I thought you were in the 'old people are overprioritised' camp?
I don't think it matters what camp I'm in. Not everybody has a massive pension and like it or lump it I will be at least partly reliant on the state pension in my old age. We are not talking about disquiet about a political stance I disapprove of, we are talking about having to sell my flat or not being able to eat healthily. Due to some bad decisions I had some bite-lip prolonged periods of not-enough-money some decades ago and it took a lot of time and effort to crawl out of it. I really was not expecting to be plunged back into it by a Labour government that has catastrophically forgotten how to govern, and I won't have the resilience of my earlier years at 68.
There should be some state pension support at 68, more than 25%. I am not convinced it should still be 100% however. There should of course also be support for people who need it under pension age too.
Will be suggesting putting pensioners down at 65 on here shortly. Unbelievable hatred of pensioners, are the majority test tube babies and as heartless and greedy as they make out.
Nowhere near as heartless and greedy as those who paid for their parents to have stingy pensions but now expect their children to pay for them to have more generous ones.
@JournalistJill Friends and I just discussing who will play who in the dramatisation of Peggie V Fife. So far we have Anna Maxwell Martin as Naomi C, Miranda Hart as Kate Searle and Brian Blessed as Dr Upton.
More seriously, as much as ITV could do very well from such a drama, I think they'd find it tough to cast as most big names wouldn't want anything to do with it.
Tangentially I am currently rewatching all the modern Dr Who from Eccleston onwards. The other night I watched David Tennant saying something like good old JK Rowling (it was in the Shakespeare Code). I chuckled as there is no way on earth that he would say that line now.
I’m finding the lack of coverage of what will be a landmark case from the MSM striking. You just know that the BBC, for instance, is chock full of people who think Sandie Peggie is indeed a massive bigot and should be sacked. The latest testimony has people suggesting a woman leaving a woman’s changing room when a man was present is “escalation” and “misbehaviour”. They are deluded.
A ridiculous story about Cherie Blair getting a 60% discount on designer clothes when she and Tony travelled abroad when he was PM. Don't the BBC realise that the designers would have given her the clothes for free or indeed have paid her to wear them? Are the BBC really so out of touch? I doubt the British public are.
It’s from the release from national archives. Cherie Blair received £46k of discount on about £70k of clothes and it was decided at first not to release/declare. The Blair’s paid off a chunk of the discount to avoid it having to be declared after discussions.
I posted this morning that the PM and partner should receive a large grant to be spent on clothes by British designers as a showcase however the story is factual whether you like it or not.
The grifters should be like the rest of us and buy their own clothes , they are all loaded by the time they get to the top of the greasy pole and for sure don't need freebies apart from the fact that they are greedy, grasping, entitled barstewards
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
You really do need to caveat your last sentence with your first. We knew much more in 2021 than we did in 2020 (and had started the vaccine rollout). But that does not mean what we did in early and mid 2020 was in any way stupid, or even unnecessary.
There was an article in late 2020 from an epidemiologist saying how 'lucky' we had been with Covid-19; it very easily could have been much worse. And whilst later strains were worse (and many people forget that with their hinsightism), they still were nowhere near as bad as they could have been.
And in 2020, we did not know it was not as bad as it could be. And many of the signs were that it was.
Mortality rates of up to 5% were considered in the early days. Even with all the restrictions and then the vaccines role out in the U.K. we had several hundreds of thousands dead from covid, not all of them expiring in their nineties, their last cigarette on their lips. My belief if the mistake was when we had the vaccines coming not to say to people - last stretch now folks, big push to get the numbers down while we vaccinate the vulnerable. Instead we tried to have Christmas!
And I also think the PTB were very slow to change advice when our knowledge changed. That it wasn’t a droplet spreader but aerosol in the main was not really ever reflected in the advice.
Whatever your view of asylum seekers being housed in hotels this clearly is an awful way to treat visitors to our country.
Guests who have travelled, in some cases halfway around the world, have turned up today and been refused entry as Britannia are now housing asylum seekers and they were unaware of this.
It is hard to believe how fcuked up this country is, unlimited billions to squander on illegals and chancers but restricting help to local people as they claim we are skint. Colluding with the bent justice system so they can sneak 34K illegals because they are incompetent arses into the bargain. People in tyhe UK are perfectly happy to have these clowns tramp all over them and do nothing about it , just swap one set of blue monkeys for red monkeys.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
You really do need to caveat your last sentence with your first. We knew much more in 2021 than we did in 2020 (and had started the vaccine rollout). But that does not mean what we did in early and mid 2020 was in any way stupid, or even unnecessary.
There was an article in late 2020 from an epidemiologist saying how 'lucky' we had been with Covid-19; it very easily could have been much worse. And whilst later strains were worse (and many people forget that with their hinsightism), they still were nowhere near as bad as they could have been.
And in 2020, we did not know it was not as bad as it could be. And many of the signs were that it was.
Mortality rates of up to 5% were considered in the early days. Even with all the restrictions and then the vaccines role out in the U.K. we had several hundreds of thousands dead from covid, not all of them expiring in their nineties, their last cigarette on their lips. My belief if the mistake was when we had the vaccines coming not to say to people - last stretch now folks, big push to get the numbers down while we vaccinate the vulnerable. Instead we tried to have Christmas!
And I also think the PTB were very slow to change advice when our knowledge changed. That it wasn’t a droplet spreader but aerosol in the main was not really ever reflected in the advice.
It's remarkably easy, of course, to be wise after the event!
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the UK (and many European countries) were far too cautious. There were plenty of high return, low impact measures that would have had 90% of the benefits of the lockdowns, with 10% of t costs
I consider myself very lucky to have been in California, where there were never any restrictions on meeting people. The only thing they got won't here (IMHO) was keeping the schools shut for too long.
At what point were we 'too cautious' ? In March 2020, or in late 2021?
Applying 'hindsight' to March 2020 is stupid, and potentially dangerous in the future. We had very little knowledge about the virus, and even how it spread (remember all the washing hands stuff?). If the virus had been a little bit different, the 'caution' might not have been enough.
Later on, (say) in late 2021? Sure, too cautious is certainly arguable, and I'd agree. But in March or April 2020, caution was wise.
The problem is this talk of us having dealt with it wrong at first will come back to haunt us when there is another pandemic. We got 'lucky' with Covid, which could have been a much worse illness that the awful one it turned out to be. And if the lesson we have erroneously learnt from Covid is that we don't need to be so cautious, that will hurt us next time.
I agree that for the initial lockdown it is very easy to be wise with hindsight. And I would cut policymakers a lot of slack.
But for 2021, we should have known that R fell at at a very similar rate with less stringent restrictions based on the experiences of other countries. We also knew that some of the most vulnerable had already been vaccinated, and another chunk of the population had some immunity via previous infection.
I'm not one of these loons that's suggesting no restrictions or that lockdown didn't work. Restrictions were needed, and lockdowns did work.
But you could achieve 90% of the benefits of lockdowns for a fraction of the human cost.
You really do need to caveat your last sentence with your first. We knew much more in 2021 than we did in 2020 (and had started the vaccine rollout). But that does not mean what we did in early and mid 2020 was in any way stupid, or even unnecessary.
There was an article in late 2020 from an epidemiologist saying how 'lucky' we had been with Covid-19; it very easily could have been much worse. And whilst later strains were worse (and many people forget that with their hinsightism), they still were nowhere near as bad as they could have been.
And in 2020, we did not know it was not as bad as it could be. And many of the signs were that it was.
Mortality rates of up to 5% were considered in the early days. Even with all the restrictions and then the vaccines role out in the U.K. we had several hundreds of thousands dead from covid, not all of them expiring in their nineties, their last cigarette on their lips. My belief if the mistake was when we had the vaccines coming not to say to people - last stretch now folks, big push to get the numbers down while we vaccinate the vulnerable. Instead we tried to have Christmas!
And I also think the PTB were very slow to change advice when our knowledge changed. That it wasn’t a droplet spreader but aerosol in the main was not really ever reflected in the advice.
It's remarkably easy, of course, to be wise after the event!
It’s also easy to forget many people were wise during the event but shouted down by loons like Independent Sage.
@JournalistJill Friends and I just discussing who will play who in the dramatisation of Peggie V Fife. So far we have Anna Maxwell Martin as Naomi C, Miranda Hart as Kate Searle and Brian Blessed as Dr Upton.
More seriously, as much as ITV could do very well from such a drama, I think they'd find it tough to cast as most big names wouldn't want anything to do with it.
I assumed, as they suggested "Brian Blessed as Dr Upton", that they were being satiric.
I think this is a big improvement on the Ian Levine stuff some of which I watched on holiday.
Also an improvement on the telesnaps and the cartoons.
Agreed. If they were able to redo the whole of the Troughton missing episodes with that they would be eminently watchable. There are imperfections but then that's true of the original recordings given their age.
I’d be very happy with the missing Troughtons and Hartnells to this standard.
It’s amazing how the tech has improved in a few years. I suspect in a couple of years the Beeb may, given their policy of old wine in new bottles when it comes to Dr Who, release AI versions on DVD especially where there are full telesnaps
Quite how they’d do Massacre or Space Pirates, for example, I’m not sure.
They're a bit parsimonious when it comes to animations. Weren't some of the later ones done using CGI a bit rubbish? And then they stopped. So I assume if there are AI animations they'll be done by fans until the concept is proved, then the Beeb will step in and do it on the cheap.
I think this is a big improvement on the Ian Levine stuff some of which I watched on holiday.
Also an improvement on the telesnaps and the cartoons.
Agreed. If they were able to redo the whole of the Troughton missing episodes with that they would be eminently watchable. There are imperfections but then that's true of the original recordings given their age.
I’d be very happy with the missing Troughtons and Hartnells to this standard.
It’s amazing how the tech has improved in a few years. I suspect in a couple of years the Beeb may, given their policy of old wine in new bottles when it comes to Dr Who, release AI versions on DVD especially where there are full telesnaps
Quite how they’d do Massacre or Space Pirates, for example, I’m not sure.
They're a bit parsimonious when it comes to animations. Weren't some of the later ones done using CGI a bit rubbish? And then they stopped. So I assume if there are AI animations they'll be done by fans until the concept is proved, then the Beeb will step in and do it on the cheap.
Comments
Caused it.
There were never any legal restrictions on my kids playing with our neighbours. There were never any restrictions on me going to the beach and meeting with friends.
Sure: restaraunts and bars were shut for periods - particularly for inside dining - but after June/July 2020, the legal restrictions (beyons masks) were fairly modest.
Obviously closely packed citties like NYC with public transport, massive daily mixing of people, overcrowded housing and deprivation are more vulnerable to pandemic infectious disease than Hicksville Idaho?
NEW THREAD
In terms of lessons learned I feel that the most important lesson - the importance of ventilation and filtration for reducing the airborne spread of a virus - is being completely ignored.
I have friends who are involved in our Covid inquiry who wander from being smug about the money to being in despair about the approach. I fear we are going to get nonsense like, oh we should have shut down a week or so sooner or isn't it terrible people were allowed out to the shops with very little examination of whether any of it made any difference, whether the cost of what we did was prohibitive and whether the damage to children's education and socialisation was so beyond any risk that they faced that it should never have started.
We had the absurd Independent Sage demanding more and more austere measures. They’d have us all wearing masks today no doubt.
The press reporting was poor. The press conferences pointless gotchas.
Looks a bit like a knuckle duster
https://www.kichindia.com/product/product_detail/kich-multipurpose-smart-access-anti-microbial-brass-covid-safety-key-cok175s
Public it is add another shedload of bodies or borrow money for waste
Air filtration must have a payback time in months, just in reducing staff sickness;
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-buy-air-purifier-covid-cleaning-unit-dyson-camfil/
but then we go back to the @RochdalePioneers point that government can't/won't spend now to profit later, even if "later" is barely a year or two away.
I’m finding the lack of coverage of what will be a landmark case from the MSM striking. You just know that the BBC, for instance, is chock full of people who think Sandie Peggie is indeed a massive bigot and should be sacked. The latest testimony has people suggesting a woman leaving a woman’s changing room when a man was present is “escalation” and “misbehaviour”. They are deluded.
And I also think the PTB were very slow to change advice when our knowledge changed. That it wasn’t a droplet spreader but aerosol in the main was not really ever reflected in the advice.
Incidentally, if we are talking DW animations, I assume we all remember this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCQS6WTKoiE
Ian Levine has done them all via AI. He has a team doing it.