More good news. Unless there is a data issue, 693 positive tests from 232,086* is a very good thing. People seem to have forgotten that the next opening up is not today, but July 4th for England. The new cases should hopefully be even lower by then. Maybe fewer than 500 a day on average by then?
* Caveat - no idea how many people were tested to give the 693, which is not really on in 2020. However we do seem to be getting on top of this.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
Those of us who followed the tip and watched “This House” a few weeks ago now have a vivid picture of what was happening in Parliament at that time. One big difference to more recent Parliaments was the large number of bye-elections that Labour had to fight, often due to the death of the sitting MP.
Several of those by elections could have been avoided - ie Workington in Nvember 1976 following the elevation of Fred Peart to the Peerage - Stechford March 1977 and Ashfield 1977 as a result of Roy Jenkins and David Marquand departing for Brussels. Had Callaghan not made those byelections necessary, their subsequent losses would have been averted and his Government survived a bit longer. To that extent, the Vote of Confidence defeat in late March 1979 was self-inflicted.
The numbers of positives have fallen off a cliff the last few days.
It looks rather like there was a temporary plateau cos of new cases found by track and trace. That would fit with other data on admissions and 111, which were dropping even as cases stagnated.
On test numbers: there seems to be a new rather large surveillance (60k today) effort going on atm, using the spare testing capacity (total antigen capacity is 201k).
Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said there had been 959 Covid-19 deaths out of 18million people in that age range in England and Wales so far.
But more than 80 per cent of these victims had pre-existing health conditions that make the viral disease far more deadly than it otherwise would be.
Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.
Which would be useful if it was the case that if you don't actually die, you don't have any other negative effects.
You don't get ill enough to go to hospital, and you certainly don't end up in ICU. You definitely don't get any lingering effect.
Except: you do. The numbers are harder to find, but it looks like the odds of someone in their thirties being hospitalised is about half that of someone in their eighties, the chance of being in intensive care about a sixth - but your chances of actually dying are far less (around a fiftieth or less).
All numbers within a factor of two either way (so somewhere between "as likely" and "a quarter as likely" to need hospitalisation, for example).
(Even forgetting the issue of passing it on to others who aren't as fortunate. Taking risks for oneself is fine; taking them for others whether they want you to do so or not is a bit less fine).
Loads of people who keep saying "Yes, other people need to have restrictions, but not me, not me, not me," seem to gloss over both those elements. I've come to the conclusion that they manage to make themselves actually believe that there's no risk to themselves being outside of any restrictions. Understandably - when you want to believe something enough, the human mind can rationalise, cherrypick, focus, gloss over, emphasise - anything it takes to believe in something it really wants to be true.
No the Lincoln project is very much the old Bush GOP, hugely rejected by the Republican support, still overwhelmingly behind Trump. Most of the US death figures have been in Democrat run states, overwhelmingly so. Blaming Trump on this is not by any means the whole picture. Where I would agree is while I expect Trump may pull through, very good bet he could lose the Senate.
Agreed, the Republican establishment despise Trump and want him to lose but they wanted him to lose in 2016 too, hence you had the likes of Bush Snr voting for Hillary and Romney voting to impeach Trump and now Colin Powell and Cindy McCain and John Bolton saying they will vote for Biden or want Trump defeated.
However it is not them who are the key swing voters in this election but rustbelt white working class Democrats who swung behind Trump and gave him victory in key states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan Biden must win back to be elected
Whoever wins Florida will probably prevail. That maybe crucially is GOP governed, most of the other swing states are not and seem very keen on holding back the economic re-opening. A big problem for Trump possibly as he gave the shut down the green light. A choice he may regret now.
The Florida re-opening has gone so well hasn't it?
Yes very well. What are you reading. Florida is a big success story, keep the vulnerable away from CCP virus. It is who get's this not how many do.
I'll keep that one for a few days, daily record infections every day now - 5,500 today alone, lots more younger cases including the death of a 17 year old. Hospitals beginning to reach saturation point. Let's see if his nerve holds and the visitors keep coming.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
That will come. But it will cause serious arguments when people can't travel freely to countries such as India:
Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said there had been 959 Covid-19 deaths out of 18million people in that age range in England and Wales so far.
But more than 80 per cent of these victims had pre-existing health conditions that make the viral disease far more deadly than it otherwise would be.
Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.
Which would be useful if it was the case that if you don't actually die, you don't have any other negative effects.
You don't get ill enough to go to hospital, and you certainly don't end up in ICU. You definitely don't get any lingering effect.
Except: you do. The numbers are harder to find, but it looks like the odds of someone in their thirties being hospitalised is about half that of someone in their eighties, the chance of being in intensive care about a sixth - but your chances of actually dying are far less (around a fiftieth or less).
All numbers within a factor of two either way (so somewhere between "as likely" and "a quarter as likely" to need hospitalisation, for example).
(Even forgetting the issue of passing it on to others who aren't as fortunate. Taking risks for oneself is fine; taking them for others whether they want you to do so or not is a bit less fine).
Loads of people who keep saying "Yes, other people need to have restrictions, but not me, not me, not me," seem to gloss over both those elements. I've come to the conclusion that they manage to make themselves actually believe that there's no risk to themselves being outside of any restrictions. Understandably - when you want to believe something enough, the human mind can rationalise, cherrypick, focus, gloss over, emphasise - anything it takes to believe in something it really wants to be true.
Well said Andy.
You will no doubt be pleased to know Mrs PtP is expected to make a full recovery with no long-term harm done, but it's been nearly a month since she first showed symptoms and we are being told it may may another month before she is 100% ok. Meanwhile it is seriously disrupting what passes for a normal life between us.
Believe me, you do NOT want this bug, even if it is not terminal.
I think the big visible stuff like the protests have far less of an effect than the aggregate behaviour of the population vis a vis people heading into dubiously socially distanced bars as seems to have happened in certain US states. I mean it obviously must be the case when you think about it but the media can't show a picture of a million people tightly packed into bars at once like it can a big crowd at a Trump rally* or a Black Lives Marxist protest.
My wife is very good friends with an ER doctor in Georgia, and things are looking really ugly there too. She (the doctor, not my wife) is pulling her hair out about the Governor has basically said "don't worry about it!", when he should have said "we're reopening, but take these sensible precautions."
If a public body states that it is implementing a policy such as removing plaques for people with racist views then can legal action be taken to force a judicial review as to whether it has been correctly and consistently applied? If so there could be some fun down the line.
If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it.
Or would you prefer that we all cower in our homes for the next year ?
There's a long way to go to get 60% having had Covid-19 which should give some herd immunity. Also with a two week incubation period and exponential growth of infection it's not easy to control the rate. The NHS could still be overwhelmed if we get this wrong.
R of 1.01 and R of 3 are both exponential but the time scale is very different.
And we don't need to get anywhere near 60% to get some herd immunity.
Now we can either open up society a bit more over the summer and build some more herd immunity or we can cower in our homes for the next year.
But we're not stopping social distancing or track and trace or handwashing or social isolating for the most vulnerable are we.
But we still have to make the choice of slowly opening up the economy and society or of cowering in our homes.
And its the former which has been happening for two months and it has been successful.
Meanwhile herd immunity is slowly but steadily building and so making the more vulnerable people safer.
You've changed your tune. "If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it." You only build herd immunity if social distancing is failing and people are getting the virus and if that is happening we won't know how badly that is happening for two weeks - and depending on the value of 'R' that could be building exponentially. I seem to have missed your estimate of a good value for herd immunity, if not 60% then what?
20% seems to have produced significant herd immunity in London for example but some is gained at lower levels than that.
And herd immunity continues to slowly build.
Perhaps that is why the number of infections continues to fall at the same time as the economy and society have been opening up.
Now do you want to people to cower in their homes for the next year with all the resulting damage to the economy, society and people's physical and mental wellbeing ?
* Caveat - no idea how many people were tested to give the 693, which is not really on in 2020. However we do seem to be getting on top of this.
It's about 100k diagnostic: everybody in pillar 1 seems to get double-tested now so that's 23k>46k (might as well, there's plenty spare capacity), and a smallish chunk of mailed tests don't get returned. Then on top of that 100k there are 35k antibody, and 61k surveillance.
Test data is the norm rather than total people btw. A few countries, Italy and India notably, produce both, but most you just get a lump test number, and you have to assume based on stage of epidemic how many people that represents (1/person when capacity is strained, 2 when lots spare).
Another huge number of new C-19 cases in Florida today - 5,511. Fortunately for Floridians very few die from the virus - only 41 new deaths recorded.
So not too bad, eh?
Florida is jammed full of oldies. Wonder what is going on? Are they all hiding away?
Georgia deaths are starting to plummet even as positive tests soar.
There's a big lag between getting diagnosed with the disease any dying.
That's self-evidently the case, Robert, but my heavy-handed sarcasm was fuelled by the suspicion that a lot of deaths are being miscategorised, probably for political reasons.
Anybody know what Cummings' civil service revolution actually means in practice?
I've read all the 'hard rain' stuff in the papers and I still can't work it out.
Something along these lines...
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it I saw a black branch with blood that kept dripping I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleeding I saw a white ladder all covered with water I saw ten-thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
Before my time. But I've heard so much about the exotic (and rip) Plato and her incredible lonely call for Trump in 2016. Is it all complete bollox?
My calculation on latest data. R for England 0.94. Cases slowly declining. Halving every eleven weeks. R for London 0.76. Halving every two and a half weeks. A little tick up for London in latest data but R is still comfortably below 1.
Finland is relaxing its travel restrictions to and from other countries: countries with fewer than 8 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants over the past 14 days qualify as destinations or origins for travellers from or to Finland. At the moment 20 countries qualify including Germany, France and Italy, though not the UK which the Finns say has 25.2 new infections per 100,000 people over the past fortnight.
Another huge number of new C-19 cases in Florida today - 5,511. Fortunately for Floridians very few die from the virus - only 41 new deaths recorded.
So not too bad, eh?
Florida is jammed full of oldies. Wonder what is going on? Are they all hiding away?
Georgia deaths are starting to plummet even as positive tests soar.
There's a big lag between getting diagnosed with the disease any dying.
Another thing Doctors now know to be much more cautious before putting people on a mechanical ventilator and also for people to lie on their stomach. There's the remdisivir advance and probably a number of other small ones in the treatment too. So the death rate from the virus should have dropped for equal prevalence compared to prior.
Another huge number of new C-19 cases in Florida today - 5,511. Fortunately for Floridians very few die from the virus - only 41 new deaths recorded.
So not too bad, eh?
Florida is jammed full of oldies. Wonder what is going on? Are they all hiding away?
Georgia deaths are starting to plummet even as positive tests soar.
There's a big lag between getting diagnosed with the disease any dying.
Another thing Doctors now know to be much more cautious before putting people on a mechanical ventilator and also for people to lie on their stomach. There's the remdisivir advance and probably a number of other small ones in the treatment too. So the death rate from the virus should have dropped for equal prevalence compared to prior.
Pulpstar is smart. Pulpstar makes more money betting on politics than I do.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
She wanted a Trump win, but forecast a Clinton win.
I'm not sure she "wanted" a Trump win - but consistently (and bravely) argued that his chances were being under-rated - to much derision. As you say, in the end, she thought Clinton would carry it, but then so did everyone else.....
Another huge number of new C-19 cases in Florida today - 5,511. Fortunately for Floridians very few die from the virus - only 41 new deaths recorded.
So not too bad, eh?
Florida is jammed full of oldies. Wonder what is going on? Are they all hiding away?
Georgia deaths are starting to plummet even as positive tests soar.
There's a big lag between getting diagnosed with the disease any dying.
That's self-evidently the case, Robert, but my heavy-handed sarcasm was fuelled by the suspicion that a lot of deaths are being miscategorised, probably for political reasons.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Certainly Trump's net (dis)approval ratings, which were already poor, are now worse than they have been at any time since January 2019. They roughly mirror those of Carter and GHW Bush five months before the elections they lost. They're well behind those of any president who won re-election.
Anyone who predicts that Trump will win at this point is a fool. That doesn't mean that there are no value bets to be had at long odds, but value bets are a very different thing to believing that something is more likely than not to happen.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily. Two points you miss, never under-estimate the big man and Biden is no Reagan or Clinton. Oh and there may be a slight suspicion the polls are a teensy bit biased. Yougov and Ipsos forget it, been wrong too often both sides of the pond. Some of the less moneyed polls are much closer, seek and you may find.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily.
But that's not what should terrify Trump. You see, in 2016, Ms Clinton's best RCP average was just 46.2%. Her lead was because people said they wouldn't vote for Trump, not that they would vote for Ms Clinton.
This time round Biden is getting 51.1% in the RCP poll of polls. So, President Trump doesn't just need to persuade the unpersuaded. He needs Biden supporters to switch.
Rubbish, Nottingham1969 has alternative facts, Trumpy said he came back from 14% behind so it must be right. Anything else is fake news.
Another huge number of new C-19 cases in Florida today - 5,511. Fortunately for Floridians very few die from the virus - only 41 new deaths recorded.
So not too bad, eh?
Florida is jammed full of oldies. Wonder what is going on? Are they all hiding away?
Georgia deaths are starting to plummet even as positive tests soar.
There's a big lag between getting diagnosed with the disease any dying.
That's self-evidently the case, Robert, but my heavy-handed sarcasm was fuelled by the suspicion that a lot of deaths are being miscategorised, probably for political reasons.
Am I too cynical?
It's genuinely weird. For Scotland's data if you take last week's positive test figure and divide it by a constant you get today's death figure. The correlation is pretty precise and has been for the last couple of months.
For Georgia there is no connection between tests and deaths.
Anybody know what Cummings' civil service revolution actually means in practice?
I've read all the 'hard rain' stuff in the papers and I still can't work it out.
If you say C++ is better than Python you get fired from a space canon?
If you have a spare month, Dom's blog is pretty open about what he thinks should happen.
As much as I've been able to digest it, what he would like is:
1. A smaller room with fewer people in it. Fewer ministries, fewer ministers, so the top team can work faster.
2. A different mix of skills. Lots more people who get numbers, who get things like exponential growth. Physicists. Lots of physicists.
3. More focus on the things that really matter.
Now, some of that might be desirable. I'm all for more opportunities for physicists. We rock, especially those of us with an awareness of issues in government and politics. And it was his model for very successful campaigns in 2016 and 2019.
It's hard to make it work to run a country, though. In many walks of life, laser-like focus on a small number of issues is a recipe for success. In government, where a thousand issues crop up daily, and any of them might blow up catastrophically, it's hard-to-impossible to make that work.
Hence Dom's apparent frustration at the moment. He has the national steering wheel, and it's only loosely connected to anything useful. He hasn't been able to stop the UK having a pretty disastrous response to Covid. If only he could manage everything, it should have been so much better... (That controversial job ad from the start of the year, https://dominiccummings.com/category/my-essay-some-thoughts-on-education-and/, speaks of that frustration which I think is sincere). Where I think Dom is wrong is in thinking that his approach is going to make things better, rather than worse.
Voters for Biden definitely aren't voting for the actual 78 year old man that's standing. More of a vote for an idealised America in the voter's eye. That's what carried Trump in 2016, "MAGA" and it's what will win it for Biden in 2020.
Silent majority. Quieter life. Bit of moderation and manners back in the White House.
"Trump? Yeah, it's been quite a ride, but not for another 4 years. Enough," says the silent majority.
My wife is very good friends with an ER doctor in Georgia, and things are looking really ugly there too. She (the doctor, not my wife) is pulling her hair out about the Governor has basically said "don't worry about it!", when he should have said "we're reopening, but take these sensible precautions."
I get the idea that some Americans don't want to be advised, let alone told, to do anything ... "I'm not letting any politician tell me to wash my hands" ... sort of thing.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
She wanted a Trump win, but forecast a Clinton win.
I'm not sure she "wanted" a Trump win - but consistently (and bravely) argued that his chances were being under-rated - to much derision. As you say, in the end, she thought Clinton would carry it, but then so did everyone else.....
Yes but that's what needs noting, not a false recollection.
I dont support scrapping departments as a rule, but I do wonder if they are as essential as we think, at least as separate entities. Given how common manifestos promise to create new ones it feels like a game of branding and ensuring senior jobs
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
Before my time. But I've heard so much about the exotic (and rip) Plato and her incredible lonely call for Trump in 2016. Is it all complete bollox?
Yes. Plato's claim to fame was linking to alt right sites supporting Trump "to give us a different perspective on what was going on". Some of the sites were nasty and Plato got some grief for that. Some suspected, possibly without justification, that Plato had some sympathy with those sites. Nevertheless she predicted that Clinton would win - but we shouldn't be complacent about that. Fair enough.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
She wanted a Trump win, but forecast a Clinton win.
I'm not sure she "wanted" a Trump win - but consistently (and bravely) argued that his chances were being under-rated - to much derision. As you say, in the end, she thought Clinton would carry it, but then so did everyone else.....
AFAIR the derision came from the endless conspiracy nonsense she used to come up with from the wackier end of the alt-right websites and worse.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
She wanted a Trump win, but forecast a Clinton win.
I'm not sure she "wanted" a Trump win - but consistently (and bravely) argued that his chances were being under-rated - to much derision. As you say, in the end, she thought Clinton would carry it, but then so did everyone else.....
AFAIR the derision came from the endless conspiracy nonsense she used to come up with from the wackier end of the alt-right websites and worse.
Yes, and she was a pain for anybody trying to bet because you had to check a lot of this stuff out to make sure it was wacky, and that just ate up so much time.
Comments
* Caveat - no idea how many people were tested to give the 693, which is not really on in 2020. However we do seem to be getting on top of this.
On test numbers: there seems to be a new rather large surveillance (60k today) effort going on atm, using the spare testing capacity (total antigen capacity is 201k).
You don't get ill enough to go to hospital, and you certainly don't end up in ICU. You definitely don't get any lingering effect.
Except: you do. The numbers are harder to find, but it looks like the odds of someone in their thirties being hospitalised is about half that of someone in their eighties, the chance of being in intensive care about a sixth - but your chances of actually dying are far less (around a fiftieth or less).
All numbers within a factor of two either way (so somewhere between "as likely" and "a quarter as likely" to need hospitalisation, for example).
(Even forgetting the issue of passing it on to others who aren't as fortunate. Taking risks for oneself is fine; taking them for others whether they want you to do so or not is a bit less fine).
Loads of people who keep saying "Yes, other people need to have restrictions, but not me, not me, not me," seem to gloss over both those elements. I've come to the conclusion that they manage to make themselves actually believe that there's no risk to themselves being outside of any restrictions. Understandably - when you want to believe something enough, the human mind can rationalise, cherrypick, focus, gloss over, emphasise - anything it takes to believe in something it really wants to be true.
I've read all the 'hard rain' stuff in the papers and I still can't work it out.
Big drop.
England regional cases by specimen date -
Worked for Farage.
You will no doubt be pleased to know Mrs PtP is expected to make a full recovery with no long-term harm done, but it's been nearly a month since she first showed symptoms and we are being told it may may another month before she is 100% ok. Meanwhile it is seriously disrupting what passes for a normal life between us.
Believe me, you do NOT want this bug, even if it is not terminal.
I mean it obviously must be the case when you think about it but the media can't show a picture of a million people tightly packed into bars at once like it can a big crowd at a Trump rally* or a Black Lives Marxist protest.
*Not so big this time round
From 8th of April to now
And herd immunity continues to slowly build.
Perhaps that is why the number of infections continues to fall at the same time as the economy and society have been opening up.
Now do you want to people to cower in their homes for the next year with all the resulting damage to the economy, society and people's physical and mental wellbeing ?
Test data is the norm rather than total people btw. A few countries, Italy and India notably, produce both, but most you just get a lump test number, and you have to assume based on stage of epidemic how many people that represents (1/person when capacity is strained, 2 when lots spare).
I had thought we were about to see deaths rise due to the fall in deaths leveling off as cases rose but deaths ahve started to fall again
Am I too cynical?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept dripping
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleeding
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten-thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
R for England 0.94. Cases slowly declining. Halving every eleven weeks.
R for London 0.76. Halving every two and a half weeks.
A little tick up for London in latest data but R is still comfortably below 1.
Doctors now know to be much more cautious before putting people on a mechanical ventilator and also for people to lie on their stomach. There's the remdisivir advance and probably a number of other small ones in the treatment too.
So the death rate from the virus should have dropped for equal prevalence compared to prior.
But 41 is about 0.8% of 5,511 so not unrealistic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpzd-eIdy7o&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1LoV4Yg5sSIpORAsb148KSAbwf1sniufQENknj5cC9DNiGGq1TZCOLsGc
For Georgia there is no connection between tests and deaths.
If its the young and healthy then few will subsequently die.
And its certainly possible that the old and vulnerable are shielding while the young and healthy are 'out and about'.
As much as I've been able to digest it, what he would like is:
1. A smaller room with fewer people in it. Fewer ministries, fewer ministers, so the top team can work faster.
2. A different mix of skills. Lots more people who get numbers, who get things like exponential growth. Physicists. Lots of physicists.
3. More focus on the things that really matter.
Now, some of that might be desirable. I'm all for more opportunities for physicists. We rock, especially those of us with an awareness of issues in government and politics. And it was his model for very successful campaigns in 2016 and 2019.
It's hard to make it work to run a country, though. In many walks of life, laser-like focus on a small number of issues is a recipe for success. In government, where a thousand issues crop up daily, and any of them might blow up catastrophically, it's hard-to-impossible to make that work.
Hence Dom's apparent frustration at the moment. He has the national steering wheel, and it's only loosely connected to anything useful. He hasn't been able to stop the UK having a pretty disastrous response to Covid. If only he could manage everything, it should have been so much better...
(That controversial job ad from the start of the year, https://dominiccummings.com/category/my-essay-some-thoughts-on-education-and/, speaks of that frustration which I think is sincere). Where I think Dom is wrong is in thinking that his approach is going to make things better, rather than worse.
This thread is over... over... over...
"Trump? Yeah, it's been quite a ride, but not for another 4 years. Enough," says the silent majority.
If they weren't so silent.
MAKE SHIT HAPPEN! - or some such.
Or is that too Matt Hancocky?
My Little Pony Fans Are Ready to Admit They Have a Nazi Problem
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/my-little-pony-nazi-4chan-black-lives-matter/613348/
Tough choices.