Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
An alternative meme that was entirely plausible yes and which Sweden is still working with. Quite right to follow the science not headless chickens.
The reason to lockdown was fear the NHS would be overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed. Job done.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
Brexit was a success and the NHS was protected. Job done on both issues.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
But we are only so far into all this. Possibly only at the beginning, rather than near the middle or end.
As the Swedish expert said: come back in a year and we'll see.
If we have full employment and there is a prior need for fruit-pickers etc. Plus we're going to have best part of a million more people in the [police, NHS etc.
Where are all these people going to come from?
I doubt we’ll have full employment after this virus. Form filling will probably be better paid and certainly less strenuous than working in the fields.
There will be more public service employees than in the old Soviet Union.
On testing: Last week Cologne university hospital put out a public appeal for people to come and get tested, you don't need a referral just come by. They said they can do 700 swabs a day but were now only doing 120. Another Cologne lab was doing 4000 tests a day a few weeks back, I don't know how many they are doing now, but I'm assuming the numbers of tests is generally falling.
Obviously, there are a lot more new cases happening in the UK compared to Germany, but it might be that the UK finally has enough capacity when it no longer needs it (it would certainly have helped a few weeks ago). If there is spare capacity I would be testing everyone - residents, staff, anyone else - in care homes.
At this point if the number of positive tests continues to fall, it's probably more important to get new kinds of blood tests working (and a contact tracing app!), than worrying too much about the numbers of PCR tests happening.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
That the Liverpool vs Athletico Madrid (11th March), Bath Half (15th March) and Cheltenham festivals (16th-19th March) were allowed to go ahead is an absolute disgrace.
Yes - those white males out enjoying themselves - how dare they.
You continue to behave like a complete prat. That fixture which involved 3000 fans travelling from a highly infected region is now seen as a particular spreader of the virus, which is one of the principle reasons that Liverpool is a hotspot for coronavirus deaths.
If only there was a large supranational institution we could join to avoid such red tape.
So much for the party of business. The problem with becoming the party of fuck business instead let's listen to gammon and morons is that the gammon will be dead relatively soon and the morons aren't as stupid as you think.
Politics is cyclical. A future decade plus of the Tories being out of power may not be that far away is fuck business really is their policy.
This is the reason I am no longer a member of the Conservative in Name Only Party. No deal Brexit is the ultimate statement of "fuck business". I will never vote Conservative while The Clown and his bunch of low-rent sycophants are running the party. I would happily "suffer" a moderate Labour government under SKS to get rid of this bunch of idiots and economic vandals.
The Tories won a higher voteshare amongst skilled working class C2s at the last general election than upper middle class ABs for the first time.
It is not so much 'fuck business' as putting controlling immigration and regaining sovereignty, delivering Brexit and ending ECJ jurisdiction over the demands of big business
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
An alternative meme that was entirely plausible yes and which Sweden is still working with. Quite right to follow the science not headless chickens.
The reason to lockdown was fear the NHS would be overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed. Job done.
If we have full employment and there is a prior need for fruit-pickers etc. Plus we're going to have best part of a million more people in the [police, NHS etc.
Where are all these people going to come from?
BA, Ryanair, Rolls Royce, Airbus, etc, there will be queues of them desperate to pick fruit , fill in forms, etc.
People all had their own reasons for voting to leave Malc.
We haven't even properly left yet. We've still got that shit show at the fuck factory to look forward to.
There are winners and losers in every big change. The big Brexit winners are bureaucrats, hedge fund managers (not so coincidentally the main funders of all things Brexit and Tory), Putin, Trump and above all, Johnson himself.
Lawyers will do very well, too. Lots of legal compliance opportunities - and plenty of disputes.
Opportunities for lawyers in compliance issues but presumably less contract work as trade and investment diminishes.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
An alternative meme that was entirely plausible yes and which Sweden is still working with. Quite right to follow the science not headless chickens.
The reason to lockdown was fear the NHS would be overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed. Job done.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
Belgium, Spain and Italy all have a higher death rate per head than the UK
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Incontrovertibly true.
Nothing to do with 'benefit of hindsight' either. Many voices were telling Boris to pull his finger out.
That the Liverpool vs Athletico Madrid (11th March), Bath Half (15th March) and Cheltenham festivals (16th-19th March) were allowed to go ahead is an absolute disgrace.
Atletico Madrid is the one I might agree with, primarily because of the influx of people from what at the time was a country with higher prevalence of the virus. Liverpool did have an early spike in cases, although that might have been a coincidence. The other two events will have been just mixing up people from low-risk areas, and in any case I think many people would have travelled anyway. Cheltenham is largely about drinking anyway and Bath is a nice place to spend a weekend even if you don't have a race to run. Whereas we could have simply banned people from coming here from Spain.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
From where we are now it makes sense to keep up with the lockdown for another couple of week IMO while rolling out the new tests until the cases are under control and then ease off the lockdown with a massive track and trace service.
If we can do that we can hopefully get back to normalish by June and have some summer. If we ease off now we will likely end up with this dragging on all year.
I know people are desperate for an easy solution to this, but sometimes there are no easy solutions.
On any reasonable assessment, there are still at the very least 25,000 new cases a day in the UK. Tracing will help, but it can't come close to curbing that level of transmission.
We are not going to get back to anything like normal until either there is a vaccine or so many people have had it that it stops spreading.
25k now maybe but that is falling. If we have another couple of weeks of lockdown plus continue having a hundred thousand tests per day then that number will come down. With contact tracing and testing it should be possible to contain that then.
Is that a 100K real tests or a Hancock 100K.
Same thing.
Some here are acting as if postcards have been counted not tests. 🙄
If the scientists are saying that the real R is around 0.7 and each cycle is 4 days, then the next 24 days, until last week in May, should see real underlying cases at 1/8 of current levels. If we can drive the real R down further by the testing done this month, for instance, by tackling spread in care homes where R is likely to be greater (it is tempting to view care homes as essentially isolated and community R as the important thing but, even setting aside that you disregard the humanity of that by considering things like that in such a utilitarian way, even a locked down care home is not hermetically sealed from the community around it and can act as a reservoir of infection, and guarding the front door will suck up testing capacity).
The other thing is that releasing lock down can't be all or nothing. By June the weather will assist in keeping R below 1 (with R low, this comes into play more) even as interactions increase, but by September / October when that changes again, test, track, trace, isolate will need to be working very well indeed, and we can't rule out that we will need another adjustment on the social distancing tiller to suppress over the full 6 months of winter or until enough vaccines are onstream.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
But we are only so far into all this. Possibly only at the beginning, rather than near the middle or end.
As the Swedish expert said: come back in a year and we'll see.
If analysis is not suffixed by the words SO FAR, it is safe to be ignored.
Take Italy - opening up today - where the poorer, highly densely packed in places, half of the country has had far, far fewer cases than the north...
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
I don't know many people who won't download the app. I think it will have very high take up.
If we have full employment and there is a prior need for fruit-pickers etc. Plus we're going to have best part of a million more people in the [police, NHS etc.
Where are all these people going to come from?
I doubt we’ll have full employment after this virus. Form filling will probably be better paid and certainly less strenuous than working in the fields.
There will be more public service employees than in the old Soviet Union.
Psychiatric wards for those believing the sun does not shine out of BJ's boxers or that we were not always at war with Eastasia (Chinese sector), or indeed the EU.
From where we are now it makes sense to keep up with the lockdown for another couple of week IMO while rolling out the new tests until the cases are under control and then ease off the lockdown with a massive track and trace service.
If we can do that we can hopefully get back to normalish by June and have some summer. If we ease off now we will likely end up with this dragging on all year.
I know people are desperate for an easy solution to this, but sometimes there are no easy solutions.
On any reasonable assessment, there are still at the very least 25,000 new cases a day in the UK. Tracing will help, but it can't come close to curbing that level of transmission.
We are not going to get back to anything like normal until either there is a vaccine or so many people have had it that it stops spreading.
25k now maybe but that is falling. If we have another couple of weeks of lockdown plus continue having a hundred thousand tests per day then that number will come down. With contact tracing and testing it should be possible to contain that then.
Is that a 100K real tests or a Hancock 100K.
Same thing.
Some here are acting as if postcards have been counted not tests. 🙄
If the scientists are saying that the real R is around 0.7 and each cycle is 4 days, then the next 24 days, until last week in May, should see real underlying cases at 1/8 of current levels. If we can drive the real R down further by the testing done this month, for instance, by tackling spread in care homes where R is likely to be greater (it is tempting to view care homes as essentially isolated and community R as the important thing but, even setting aside that you disregard the humanity of that by considering things like that in such a utilitarian way, even a locked down care home is not hermetically sealed from the community around it and can act as a reservoir of infection, and guarding the front door will suck up testing capacity).
The other thing is that releasing lock down can't be all or nothing. By June the weather will assist in keeping R below 1 (with R low, this comes into play more) even as interactions increase, but by September / October when that changes again, test, track, trace, isolate will need to be working very well indeed, and we can't rule out that we will need another adjustment on the social distancing tiller to suppress over the full 6 months of winter or until enough vaccines are onstream.
How do you know the weather assists in reducing R?
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
If only there was a large supranational institution we could join to avoid such red tape.
So much for the party of business. The problem with becoming the party of fuck business instead let's listen to gammon and morons is that the gammon will be dead relatively soon and the morons aren't as stupid as you think.
Politics is cyclical. A future decade plus of the Tories being out of power may not be that far away is fuck business really is their policy.
This is the reason I am no longer a member of the Conservative in Name Only Party. No deal Brexit is the ultimate statement of "fuck business". I will never vote Conservative while The Clown and his bunch of low-rent sycophants are running the party. I would happily "suffer" a moderate Labour government under SKS to get rid of this bunch of idiots and economic vandals.
The Tories won higher voteshare amongst skilled working class C2s at the last general election than upper middle class ABs for the first time.
It is not so much 'fuck business' as putting controlling immigration and regaining sovereignty, delivering Brexit and ending ECJ jurisdiction over the demands of big business
We already had sovereignty otherwise, as I get tired of informing the uninformed, we would not have been able to have a referendum. That is a fact. What is perhaps is more of an opinion that will need to be proved in the future is that the only reason most "C2s" voted Tory was because they were repulsed by the prospect of PM Corbyn, rather than out of love of either the Tories or the Clown, or "getting Brexit done". The latter of which was only a high priority to the most swivelly of the swivel-eyed.
BORIS Johnson has told how he leapt on to his hospital bed wearing only his boxer shorts just two hours after leaving intensive care — to “clap like crazy” for the NHS.
Yes he really was close to death right enough
There might be a clue in the part that says "after"
The clue is in hospital bed you halfwit, he was only in ICU a few days, so between being fit going in and being able to bounce about bed in his boxers a few days later he was nearly dead. He needs to get a grip on his lies, tripping over himself with contradicting fibs. Lying chancer.
Surely Johnson himself believes his own mythology that he practically rose from the dead, and maybe he did feel like he was dying. The doctors I know who actually work in intensive care are not impressed: 3 nights in intensive care and not put on a ventilator doesn't sound like almost dying to them.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Surely freedom of movement will end, it is a specific EU thing and we're longer in it. The existence of "settled status" shows that. Allowing people from other countries to live and work here under various conditions is simply immigration policy. I'm happy with allowing anyone to come here if they can work and not be a burden on the state, are prepared to avoid committing crimes and learn English (or Welsh etc) .
If we have full employment and there is a prior need for fruit-pickers etc. Plus we're going to have best part of a million more people in the [police, NHS etc.
Where are all these people going to come from?
I doubt we’ll have full employment after this virus. Form filling will probably be better paid and certainly less strenuous than working in the fields.
There will be more public service employees than in the old Soviet Union.
Psychiatric wards for those believing the sun does not shine out of BJ's boxers or that we were not always at war with Eastasia (Chinese sector), or indeed the EU.
While Boris Derangement Syndrome does seem a real affliction for some here I don't think anyone's proposed they get treated at a psychiatric ward.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
An alternative meme that was entirely plausible yes and which Sweden is still working with. Quite right to follow the science not headless chickens.
The reason to lockdown was fear the NHS would be overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed. Job done.
Mission accomplished !
Bro-in-law has been told he can't start treatment for his recently diagnosed Alzheimers until the Memory Clinic where it was diagnosed has re-opened. He's been told what treatment is recommended, and TBH, we can hear on the phone that there's a bit more deterioration. Is that what we mean by 'not overwhelmed'?
If we have full employment and there is a prior need for fruit-pickers etc. Plus we're going to have best part of a million more people in the [police, NHS etc.
Where are all these people going to come from?
I doubt we’ll have full employment after this virus. Form filling will probably be better paid and certainly less strenuous than working in the fields.
There will be more public service employees than in the old Soviet Union.
Psychiatric wards for those believing the sun does not shine out of BJ's boxers or that we were not always at war with Eastasia (Chinese sector), or indeed the EU.
15 minute chest x-rays for those caught not clapping on a Thursday.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Surely freedom of movement will end, it is a specific EU thing and we're longer in it. The existence of "settled status" shows that. Allowing people from other countries to live and work here under various conditions is simply immigration policy. I'm happy with allowing anyone to come here if they can work and not be a burden on the state, are prepared to avoid committing crimes and learn English (or Welsh etc) .
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Funny this absurd meme by Remainers that his new deal was supposedly both "worse" from their perspective and "a surrender" while Leavers are happy with it.
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
We need an echo chamber possibly PB 2 for remainers to whine their heads off in perpetuity. I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
If only there was a large supranational institution we could join to avoid such red tape.
So much for the party of business. The problem with becoming the party of fuck business instead let's listen to gammon and morons is that the gammon will be dead relatively soon and the morons aren't as stupid as you think.
Politics is cyclical. A future decade plus of the Tories being out of power may not be that far away is fuck business really is their policy.
This is the reason I am no longer a member of the Conservative in Name Only Party. No deal Brexit is the ultimate statement of "fuck business". I will never vote Conservative while The Clown and his bunch of low-rent sycophants are running the party. I would happily "suffer" a moderate Labour government under SKS to get rid of this bunch of idiots and economic vandals.
The Tories won higher voteshare amongst skilled working class C2s at the last general election than upper middle class ABs for the first time.
It is not so much 'fuck business' as putting controlling immigration and regaining sovereignty, delivering Brexit and ending ECJ jurisdiction over the demands of big business
We already had sovereignty otherwise, as I get tired of informing the uninformed, we would not have been able to have a referendum. That is a fact. What is perhaps is more of an opinion that will need to be proved in the future is that the only reason most "C2s" voted Tory was because they were repulsed by the prospect of PM Corbyn, rather than out of love of either the Tories or the Clown, or "getting Brexit done". The latter of which was only a high priority to the most swivelly of the swivel-eyed.
No, ABs voted Tory mainly to stop Corbyn as they mostly voted Remain.
C2s voted Tory not just to stop Corbyn but also because they were ideologically committed to Brexit, most of them having voted Leave and wanted to regain sovereignty and end free movement.
Hence working class marginal seats in the North and Midlands and Wales voted for Boris and the Tories over Corbyn in 2019 but not for May and the Tories over Corbyn in 2017
If we have full employment and there is a prior need for fruit-pickers etc. Plus we're going to have best part of a million more people in the [police, NHS etc.
Where are all these people going to come from?
I doubt we’ll have full employment after this virus. Form filling will probably be better paid and certainly less strenuous than working in the fields.
There will be more public service employees than in the old Soviet Union.
Psychiatric wards for those believing the sun does not shine out of BJ's boxers or that we were not always at war with Eastasia (Chinese sector), or indeed the EU.
While Boris Derangement Syndrome does seem a real affliction for some here I don't think anyone's proposed they get treated at a psychiatric ward.
Not until Obsessive Compulsive Fawning becomes a recognised condition anyway.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
If we have full employment and there is a prior need for fruit-pickers etc. Plus we're going to have best part of a million more people in the [police, NHS etc.
Where are all these people going to come from?
I doubt we’ll have full employment after this virus. Form filling will probably be better paid and certainly less strenuous than working in the fields.
There will be more public service employees than in the old Soviet Union.
Psychiatric wards for those believing the sun does not shine out of BJ's boxers or that we were not always at war with Eastasia (Chinese sector), or indeed the EU.
While Boris Derangement Syndrome does seem a real affliction for some here I don't think anyone's proposed they get treated at a psychiatric ward.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
To be effective, the deal has to be that you only get to leave your house if you switch on the app and follow quarantine rules.
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses. At the moment we can easily accept the trade off instead of mass death but there comes a non theoretical point when the price gets too high.
BORIS Johnson has told how he leapt on to his hospital bed wearing only his boxer shorts just two hours after leaving intensive care — to “clap like crazy” for the NHS.
Yes he really was close to death right enough
There might be a clue in the part that says "after"
The clue is in hospital bed you halfwit, he was only in ICU a few days, so between being fit going in and being able to bounce about bed in his boxers a few days later he was nearly dead. He needs to get a grip on his lies, tripping over himself with contradicting fibs. Lying chancer.
Surely Johnson himself believes his own mythology that he practically rose from the dead, and maybe he did feel like he was dying. The doctors I know who actually work in intensive care are not impressed: 3 nights in intensive care and not put on a ventilator doesn't sound like almost dying to them.
Exactly as I have been saying and for him to then claim he was also bouncing about the bed clapping like crazy is just further proof that he is a fake. Hard to believe the Tory groupies on here that are so taken in with the liar.
We need an echo chamber possibly PB 2 for remainers to whine their heads off in perpetuity. I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
I'll let you into a wee secret, neither does whining about whining about Brexit.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Funny this absurd meme by Remainers that his new deal was supposedly both "worse" from their perspective and "a surrender" while Leavers are happy with it.
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
We will see if you are so smug next year when we are on WTO and things get grimmer. Boris will only have covid excuse for so long.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Sounds like Starmer is keeping the Single Market option open. His strategy seems to be 'Let's not mention Brexit". Either it will blow over or it will go pear shaped, at which point people will be looking for alternatives.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
To be effective, the deal has to be that you only get to leave your house if you switch on the app and follow quarantine rules.
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses. At the moment we can easily accept the trade off instead of mass death but there comes a non theoretical point when the price gets too high.
I agree that there is an irrationality to the objections to this when you consider the current loss of freedom caused by the lockdown. But data always seems to light up the alarm in a way that physical restrictions don’t.
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses.
Are we ? I was out the house on about 5 essential trips last week. You're allowed to go to a place of work if you can't work from home either. And the grocery shops too, even B&Q now.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
Belgium, Spain and Italy all have a higher death rate per head than the UK
Oh, that is OK then! Aside from the fact that those countries are almost certainly further through the curve, take it from someone that has been involved in healthcare all their career, our response has been very badly managed. Crucial time was lost through your hero resting on his lazy fat arse when he should have been taking action and the Secretary of state for Health wasting his time indulging in PR stunts for James Dyson and JCB. We had the opportunity to learn from what was happening elsewhere and squandered that advantage. The only administrations that are more negligent are led by the Chinese Communist Party and Donald Disinfectant Trump.
If the scientists are saying that the real R is around 0.7 and each cycle is 4 days, then the next 24 days, until last week in May, should see real underlying cases at 1/8 of current levels. If we can drive the real R down further by the testing done this month, for instance, by tackling spread in care homes where R is likely to be greater (it is tempting to view care homes as essentially isolated and community R as the important thing but, even setting aside that you disregard the humanity of that by considering things like that in such a utilitarian way, even a locked down care home is not hermetically sealed from the community around it and can act as a reservoir of infection, and guarding the front door will suck up testing capacity).
I think you're broadly right and judging from the rapid progress being made in other countries there are now indeed grounds for optimism that combined with effective tracing mechanisms the virus can be contained to very low levels, notwithstanding the lower rate of decline from a higher base in the UK. In the UK, it does also seem that the pace of decline in the wider community is being disguised by the impact of care homes on the headline figures. Although the way the virus has been allowed to jeopardise the lives of the most vulnerable in care homes is to be deplored, it does at least mean that much of the virus is located in small clusters with the potential for it to be more effectively contained outside of those clusters. If the shortages of PPE and testing issues in those homes could be resolved quickly then there's the potential to tackle the virus there as well.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Funny this absurd meme by Remainers that his new deal was supposedly both "worse" from their perspective and "a surrender" while Leavers are happy with it.
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
We will see if you are so smug next year when we are on WTO and things get grimmer. Boris will only have covid excuse for so long.
How will we be on WTO next year when we surrendered to the EU according to your previous comment?
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Sounds like Starmer is keeping the Single Market option open. His strategy seems to be 'Let's not mention Brexit". Either it will blow over or it will go pear shaped, at which point people will be looking for alternatives.
Yes, the next general election looks like continued hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or rejoin the single market with Starmer and the LDs and SNP
The Cheltenham thing is a complete red herring created by people who don't like others enjoying themselves. Around 60000 there each day (I was one of them) primarily in the open air.
Compare that with the daily number using the underground.
We found no substantial increase in the likelihood of a positive test for Covid-19 or in the risk of severe Covid-19 among patients who tested positive in association with five common classes of antihypertensive medications.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Funny this absurd meme by Remainers that his new deal was supposedly both "worse" from their perspective and "a surrender" while Leavers are happy with it.
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
Can you tell us what positive changes Boris got from May's previous crap deal. We know he dumped NI but rest was just May's crap surrender deal.
“We are really early in this disease,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Research Institute. “If this were a baseball game, it would be the second inning and there’s no reason to think that by the ninth inning the rest of the world that looks now like it hasn’t been affected won’t become like other places.”
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Surely freedom of movement will end, it is a specific EU thing and we're longer in it. The existence of "settled status" shows that. Allowing people from other countries to live and work here under various conditions is simply immigration policy. I'm happy with allowing anyone to come here if they can work and not be a burden on the state, are prepared to avoid committing crimes and learn English (or Welsh etc) .
It will only end when we exit transition.
Yes I realise that but it's in less than 8 months. Stsrmer won't be in power. So he won't be able to make it continue. He could argue we could attempt to reaccession to it I suppose.
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses.
Are we ? I was out the house on about 5 essential trips last week. You're allowed to go to a place of work if you can't work from home either. And the grocery shops too, even B&Q now.
"During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse."
That's the law right now. You don't think that's a huge infringement of personal liberty?
(To be clear, I think it's a necessary infringement to avoid mass death. But extraordinary nonetheless)
Really genuinely bemused that people are still obsessing about Brexit when you see the economic challenges we are facing in the next 12-24 months. To call any alleged effects a rounding error would be to massively overstate its significance.
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
The Cheltenham thing is a complete red herring created by people who don't like others enjoying themselves. Around 60000 there each day (I was one of them) primarily in the open air.
Compare that with the daily number using the underground.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Funny this absurd meme by Remainers that his new deal was supposedly both "worse" from their perspective and "a surrender" while Leavers are happy with it.
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
Can you tell us what positive changes Boris got from May's previous crap deal. We know he dumped NI but rest was just May's crap surrender deal.
1: No backstop. 2: The future of NI was devolved to Stormont and can be democratically determined by Stormont.
I am pleased with both of those. Big changes from May's crap surrender deal.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
Belgium, Spain and Italy all have a higher death rate per head than the UK
Oh, that is OK then! Aside from the fact that those countries are almost certainly further through the curve, take it from someone that has been involved in healthcare all their career, our response has been very badly managed. Crucial time was lost through your hero resting on his lazy fat arse when he should have been taking action and the Secretary of state for Health wasting his time indulging in PR stunts for James Dyson and JCB. We had the opportunity to learn from what was happening elsewhere and squandered that advantage. The only administrations that are more negligent are led by the Chinese Communist Party and Donald Disinfectant Trump.
You think Spain did a good job?
You Might want to take a less jaundiced look at which countries did well
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
In the absence of a vaccine, herd immunity is still the only viable option. All that’s changed is how we get there.
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses.
Are we ? I was out the house on about 5 essential trips last week. You're allowed to go to a place of work if you can't work from home either. And the grocery shops too, even B&Q now.
"During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse."
That's the law right now. You don't think that's a huge infringement of personal liberty?
(To be clear, I think it's a necessary infringement to avoid mass death. But extraordinary nonetheless)
Yes but you said barred from leaving your house !
The recent complaining has got me wondering just how many non essential trips the average person made, particularly people retired... More than me is the conclusion.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
That the Liverpool vs Athletico Madrid (11th March), Bath Half (15th March) and Cheltenham festivals (16th-19th March) were allowed to go ahead is an absolute disgrace.
Yes - those white males out enjoying themselves - how dare they.
You continue to behave like a complete prat. That fixture which involved 3000 fans travelling from a highly infected region is now seen as a particular spreader of the virus, which is one of the principle reasons that Liverpool is a hotspot for coronavirus deaths.
Plenty of evidence out there saying outdoor transmission is rare.
Meanwhile the tubes and trains were rammed with people being in close contact for tens of minutes in confined spaces.
But "totemic sports target" I guess gets more clicks.
Exactly.
I have no doubt that any particular sports events (footie, Ch*lt*nh*m, etc) contributed to some degree, although as you say outside events seem to have had a lower transmission risk.
Meanwhile, there will have been spikes from the railways, the tube in London, pubs, clubs, bowls matches, choir rehearsals, and birthday parties.
To separate out sports events from that all is just absurd.
The country was not in lockdown until March 23rd. Any and all events, or as we call it - life - will have contributed to the overall numbers we are seeing now.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
I don't know many people who won't download the app. I think it will have very high take up.
I certainly won'tplus a lot of over 55's who don't have smart phones, plus all the people who have a version of android too old for the app to run on. Plus all the people that will turn blue tooth off when they realise what a battery drain it is. I would be surprised if its over 50% coverage personally
The Cheltenham thing is a complete red herring created by people who don't like others enjoying themselves. Around 60000 there each day (I was one of them) primarily in the open air.
Compare that with the daily number using the underground.
No, the Cheltenham thing is a complete red herring created by CCHQ to distract attention from Boris watching the rugby at Twickers three days earlier.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
Belgium, Spain and Italy all have a higher death rate per head than the UK
Oh, that is OK then! Aside from the fact that those countries are almost certainly further through the curve, take it from someone that has been involved in healthcare all their career, our response has been very badly managed. Crucial time was lost through your hero resting on his lazy fat arse when he should have been taking action and the Secretary of state for Health wasting his time indulging in PR stunts for James Dyson and JCB. We had the opportunity to learn from what was happening elsewhere and squandered that advantage. The only administrations that are more negligent are led by the Chinese Communist Party and Donald Disinfectant Trump.
You think Spain did a good job?
You Might want to take a less jaundiced look at which countries did well
I think the point is that the UK is right up there with less than a handful of other countries that have also done a lousy job to date.
Spain (and Italy) at least have the excuse that they were in the first wave. We watched them and failed to use the warning to act in time.
"Ministers were made “fully aware” by intelligence agencies that China had covered up the true scale of the Covid-19 outbreak, it was claimed on Sunday night, raising questions over Britain’s decision to delay the lockdown.
The Government in Westminster was told “not to believe Beijing’s claims” from the outset and to treat the information coming out of China with scepticism, The Telegraph understands. A senior, former MI6 official said the intelligence agencies knew what was “really happening” in China and passed that information to ministers." (£)
"Ministers were made “fully aware” by intelligence agencies that China had covered up the true scale of the Covid-19 outbreak, it was claimed on Sunday night, raising questions over Britain’s decision to delay the lockdown.
The Government in Westminster was told “not to believe Beijing’s claims” from the outset and to treat the information coming out of China with scepticism, The Telegraph understands. A senior, former MI6 official said the intelligence agencies knew what was “really happening” in China and passed that information to ministers." (£)
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
The issues with such an app are these:-
1. What is done with the information collected? 2. Who has access to it and what can they use it for? Not just information-sharing within the public sector but whether it is sold to private companies for private gain. 3. What are the controls on its use and how can we trust them? 4. How long is the information is held for and is it deleted once no longer needed? 5. The security of the app ie ensuring that it does not make hacking of other personal information / systems easier.
Similar issues arise with the Coronavirus Regulations - very oppressive legislation, passed in days. We need to keep a very close eye on them to make sure that they are repealed at the earliest possible time. Power grabs by authorities have a tendency to stay far beyond their sell by date, if we are not careful.
If only there was a large supranational institution we could join to avoid such red tape.
So much for the party of business. The problem with becoming the party of fuck business instead let's listen to gammon and morons is that the gammon will be dead relatively soon and the morons aren't as stupid as you think.
Politics is cyclical. A future decade plus of the Tories being out of power may not be that far away is fuck business really is their policy.
This is the reason I am no longer a member of the Conservative in Name Only Party. No deal Brexit is the ultimate statement of "fuck business". I will never vote Conservative while The Clown and his bunch of low-rent sycophants are running the party. I would happily "suffer" a moderate Labour government under SKS to get rid of this bunch of idiots and economic vandals.
The Tories won higher voteshare amongst skilled working class C2s at the last general election than upper middle class ABs for the first time.
It is not so much 'fuck business' as putting controlling immigration and regaining sovereignty, delivering Brexit and ending ECJ jurisdiction over the demands of big business
We already had sovereignty otherwise, as I get tired of informing the uninformed, we would not have been able to have a referendum. That is a fact. What is perhaps is more of an opinion that will need to be proved in the future is that the only reason most "C2s" voted Tory was because they were repulsed by the prospect of PM Corbyn, rather than out of love of either the Tories or the Clown, or "getting Brexit done". The latter of which was only a high priority to the most swivelly of the swivel-eyed.
No, ABs voted Tory mainly to stop Corbyn as they mostly voted Remain.
C2s voted Tory not just to stop Corbyn but also because they were ideologically committed to Brexit, most of them having voted Leave and wanted to regain sovereignty and end free movement.
Hence working class marginal seats in the North and Midlands and Wales voted for Boris and the Tories over Corbyn in 2019 but not for May and the Tories over Corbyn in 2017
We will see, when it is a choice between a credible LoTO with a Labour badge who worked his bollocks off to reach one the highest legal positions in the land and a bullshitting, lazy, entitled polemicist with a Tory badge. When I was an activist it was apparent that large numbers of voters vote on instinct at a GE as to who would make the best/worst PM and support the party that they led. The only reason Corbyn did OK against May was because no one thought he was a threat. The 2019 victory for the Tories was an anti-Corbyn election. Simples.
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses.
Are we ? I was out the house on about 5 essential trips last week. You're allowed to go to a place of work if you can't work from home either. And the grocery shops too, even B&Q now.
"During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse."
That's the law right now. You don't think that's a huge infringement of personal liberty?
(To be clear, I think it's a necessary infringement to avoid mass death. But extraordinary nonetheless)
Of course it is a massive but necessary infringement. But slightly less of one that people, police and media think. Police tend to think that the list of 13 examples in the section are the limit of what is lawful, but the section says no such thing. 'Reasonable excuse' means roughly 'good purpose' or 'sensible reason' so for example a family member, friend or neighbour has child care issues because of work, illness or other sensible reason the law does not say 'let the children wander the streets unattended' it says 'go and help look after them.'
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
To be effective, the deal has to be that you only get to leave your house if you switch on the app and follow quarantine rules.
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses. At the moment we can easily accept the trade off instead of mass death but there comes a non theoretical point when the price gets too high.
I agree that there is an irrationality to the objections to this when you consider the current loss of freedom caused by the lockdown. But data always seems to light up the alarm in a way that physical restrictions don’t.
Maybe its because sane people realise there is a limit to the time they can confine the nation whereas when they get tracking apps on our phones its a measure that will stay in perpetuity.
We need an echo chamber possibly PB 2 for remainers to whine their heads off in perpetuity. I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
I'll let you into a wee secret, neither does whining about whining about Brexit.
Its not a wee secret. Its remainers who lost whining about it. Brexiteers are very happy with the outcome.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
In the absence of a vaccine, herd immunity is still the only viable option. All that’s changed is how we get there.
Or we just live with the risk.
"Herd immunity" isn't a meaningful concept outwith a vaccine programme. In an otherwise unmitigated Covid-19 epidemic it means an above 80% infection rate.
Really genuinely bemused that people are still obsessing about Brexit when you see the economic challenges we are facing in the next 12-24 months. To call any alleged effects a rounding error would be to massively overstate its significance.
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
Brexit is a state of mind. It's a state of mind that says insularity is to be preferred to cooperation, that blind certainty is to be preferred to nuance, that prejudice is to be pandered to rather than confronted.
The government is going to add yet more disruption and chaos at the end of a terrible year because there are more votes in fomenting the worst instincts of the public rather than in bringing it together. It may result in further hardship, economic disorder and even deaths, but that's ok because Leavers have this visceral hatred of the EU, which means that even a pandemic cannot be allowed to deny them this gratifcation.
Brexit will have a much longer lasting chronic effect on Britain than Covid-19 for as long as Leavers keep progressively self-radicalising.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Funny this absurd meme by Remainers that his new deal was supposedly both "worse" from their perspective and "a surrender" while Leavers are happy with it.
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
We will see if you are so smug next year when we are on WTO and things get grimmer. Boris will only have covid excuse for so long.
How will we be on WTO next year when we surrendered to the EU according to your previous comment?
Boris agreed to the EU leaving terms, he is desperate for hard Brexit and so we will be on WTO next year, it is simple to understand. Moronic thinking that EU 27 countries desperately need England is pretty stupid all round.
“We are really early in this disease,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Research Institute. “If this were a baseball game, it would be the second inning and there’s no reason to think that by the ninth inning the rest of the world that looks now like it hasn’t been affected won’t become like other places.”
Yes that struck me too - if the second wave is worse than the first (as happened with the Kentucky Spanish Flu then those who have struggled in the first wave might fare better in the second - assuming they've learned lessons.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Surely freedom of movement will end, it is a specific EU thing and we're longer in it. The existence of "settled status" shows that. Allowing people from other countries to live and work here under various conditions is simply immigration policy. I'm happy with allowing anyone to come here if they can work and not be a burden on the state, are prepared to avoid committing crimes and learn English (or Welsh etc) .
It will only end when we exit transition.
Yes I realise that but it's in less than 8 months. Stsrmer won't be in power. So he won't be able to make it continue. He could argue we could attempt to reaccession to it I suppose.
Yes, so we shall be out of EU/out of free movement. If Starmer wants to go into the next election with a pledge for us to allow uncontrolled immigration from EU countries then it will be interesting to see how that policy pans out!
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
In the absence of a vaccine, herd immunity is still the only viable option. All that’s changed is how we get there.
Or we just live with the risk.
"Herd immunity" isn't a meaningful concept outwith a vaccine programme. In an otherwise unmitigated Covid-19 epidemic it means an above 80% infection rate.
So the question is how do you get there without serious cases overloading health care services.
fwiw I did some spatial analysis of the small area (MSOA) Covid-19 data.
Lived density (population within 3km) is the utterly dominant factor. demography once you factor in lived density is pretty much a wash. Which makes sense demography can only be a second order factor driving something else. The virus doesn't give a stuff how rich you are, it will all be latent risk (genetics, health) and behavioural.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
That the Liverpool vs Athletico Madrid (11th March), Bath Half (15th March) and Cheltenham festivals (16th-19th March) were allowed to go ahead is an absolute disgrace.
Yes - those white males out enjoying themselves - how dare they.
You continue to behave like a complete prat. That fixture which involved 3000 fans travelling from a highly infected region is now seen as a particular spreader of the virus, which is one of the principle reasons that Liverpool is a hotspot for coronavirus deaths.
Plenty of evidence out there saying outdoor transmission is rare.
Meanwhile the tubes and trains were rammed with people being in close contact for tens of minutes in confined spaces.
But "totemic sports target" I guess gets more clicks.
Exactly.
I have no doubt that any particular sports events (footie, Ch*lt*nh*m, etc) contributed to some degree, although as you say outside events seem to have had a lower transmission risk.
Meanwhile, there will have been spikes from the railways, the tube in London, pubs, clubs, bowls matches, choir rehearsals, and birthday parties.
To separate out sports events from that all is just absurd.
The country was not in lockdown until March 23rd. Any and all events, or as we call it - life - will have contributed to the overall numbers we are seeing now.
Completely agreed. Either we were meant to lockdown or we weren't. Complaining about sports events when millions were using trains is like blaming weight gain on the fact that you ate an olive snack - while you were eating a three course meal each night washed down with alcohol.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Sounds like Starmer is keeping the Single Market option open. His strategy seems to be 'Let's not mention Brexit". Either it will blow over or it will go pear shaped, at which point people will be looking for alternatives.
Yes, the next general election looks like continued hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or rejoin the single market with Starmer and the LDs and SNP
Which will be one of the reasons, "Boris" as you so lovingly refer to him as, will lose. The main reason will be that Starmer is not Corbyn or "Boris". And Bozo will be grateful, because he will have got the badge that he so longed to have, but he will no longer have to find ways to dodge the hard work
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Sounds like Starmer is keeping the Single Market option open. His strategy seems to be 'Let's not mention Brexit". Either it will blow over or it will go pear shaped, at which point people will be looking for alternatives.
Yes, the next general election looks like continued hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or rejoin the single market with Starmer and the LDs and SNP
Which will be one of the reasons, "Boris" as you so lovingly refer to him as, will lose. The main reason will be that Starmer is not Corbyn or "Boris". And Bozo will be grateful, because he will have got the badge that he so longed to have, but he will no longer have to find ways to dodge the hard work
Meanwhile in the real world Boris has already won. If Labour wins after 14 years of Tory governments then so be it.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
And one really wonders how many people are going to self-isolate for a fortnight because an app tells them they have been close to someone who thinks they may have some symptoms.
This is an attempt at a magic easy solution to a problem that has no easy solutions.
From where we are now it makes sense to keep up with the lockdown for another couple of week IMO while rolling out the new tests until the cases are under control and then ease off the lockdown with a massive track and trace service.
If we can do that we can hopefully get back to normalish by June and have some summer. If we ease off now we will likely end up with this dragging on all year.
I know people are desperate for an easy solution to this, but sometimes there are no easy solutions.
On any reasonable assessment, there are still at the very least 25,000 new cases a day in the UK. Tracing will help, but it can't come close to curbing that level of transmission.
We are not going to get back to anything like normal until either there is a vaccine or so many people have had it that it stops spreading.
25k now maybe but that is falling. If we have another couple of weeks of lockdown plus continue having a hundred thousand tests per day then that number will come down. With contact tracing and testing it should be possible to contain that then.
Is that a 100K real tests or a Hancock 100K.
Same thing.
Some here are acting as if postcards have been counted not tests. 🙄
If the scientists are saying that the real R is around 0.7 and each cycle is 4 days, then the next 24 days, until last week in May, should see real underlying cases at 1/8 of current levels. If we can drive the real R down further by the testing done this month, for instance, by tackling spread in care homes where R is likely to be greater (it is tempting to view care homes as essentially isolated and community R as the important thing but, even setting aside that you disregard the humanity of that by considering things like that in such a utilitarian way, even a locked down care home is not hermetically sealed from the community around it and can act as a reservoir of infection, and guarding the front door will suck up testing capacity).
The other thing is that releasing lock down can't be all or nothing. By June the weather will assist in keeping R below 1 (with R low, this comes into play more) even as interactions increase, but by September / October when that changes again, test, track, trace, isolate will need to be working very well indeed, and we can't rule out that we will need another adjustment on the social distancing tiller to suppress over the full 6 months of winter or until enough vaccines are onstream.
How do you know the weather assists in reducing R?
Just looking at maps. South of Spain Vs North of Spain, South of Italy Vs North of Italy and SW coasts, SW England, Hokkaido Vs Honshu, Atlantic France Vs North of France, the direction of greatest spread from main population centres,
It's less perfect for, say, Portugal where major population centres are coastal, second wave in Singapore (though hot/humid rainforesty is the second place seasonal flu thrives), Brazil.
I'm not sure on the sensitivity here (the difference between 5° and 30° weather suppresses R for seasonal flu by around 3x). The difference may well be much less for COVID, but the mechanisms of transmission are common to flu, and I'm pretty certain from the global numbers that there is some effect, even if not enough to make a large difference to a pandemic outbreak.
Really genuinely bemused that people are still obsessing about Brexit when you see the economic challenges we are facing in the next 12-24 months. To call any alleged effects a rounding error would be to massively overstate its significance.
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
Was only a matter of time before Tories started using that excuse. Brexit will cost UK far more than Covid in the long run.
We need an echo chamber possibly PB 2 for remainers to whine their heads off in perpetuity. I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
I'll let you into a wee secret, neither does whining about whining about Brexit.
Its not a wee secret. Its remainers who lost whining about it. Brexiteers are very happy with the outcome.
Mr. Meeks, thanks for telling me what my mindset is, and that of millions of other Britons.
Do I have any other opinions I need to know about, or is that it?
All the people who were insisting before the referendum that Britain could leave the EU and trade with it on the exact same terms are now insisting that you can only have Brexit if you nuke Brussels and leave it a smouldering ruin. Until they stop that path to extremism, Britain is going to continue to shrivel and decline to irrelevance.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
With Priti Patel in charge that "counter-terrorism" strand could get quite interesting.
We need an echo chamber possibly PB 2 for remainers to whine their heads off in perpetuity. I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
I'll let you into a wee secret, neither does whining about whining about Brexit.
Its not a wee secret. Its remainers who lost whining about it. Brexiteers are very happy with the outcome.
Mr. Meeks, thanks for telling me what my mindset is, and that of millions of other Britons.
Do I have any other opinions I need to know about, or is that it?
All the people who were insisting before the referendum that Britain could leave the EU and trade with it on the exact same terms are now insisting that you can only have Brexit if you nuke Brussels and leave it a smouldering ruin. Until they stop that path to extremism, Britain is going to continue to shrivel and decline to irrelevance.
Comments
The reason to lockdown was fear the NHS would be overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed. Job done.
As the Swedish expert said: come back in a year and we'll see.
Last week Cologne university hospital put out a public appeal for people to come and get tested, you don't need a referral just come by. They said they can do 700 swabs a day but were now only doing 120.
Another Cologne lab was doing 4000 tests a day a few weeks back, I don't know how many they are doing now, but I'm assuming the numbers of tests is generally falling.
Obviously, there are a lot more new cases happening in the UK compared to Germany, but it might be that the UK finally has enough capacity when it no longer needs it (it would certainly have helped a few weeks ago). If there is spare capacity I would be testing everyone - residents, staff, anyone else - in care homes.
At this point if the number of positive tests continues to fall, it's probably more important to get new kinds of blood tests working (and a contact tracing app!), than worrying too much about the numbers of PCR tests happening.
Plenty of evidence out there saying outdoor transmission is rare.
Meanwhile the tubes and trains were rammed with people being in close contact for tens of minutes in confined spaces.
But "totemic sports target" I guess gets more clicks.
It is not so much 'fuck business' as putting controlling immigration and regaining sovereignty, delivering Brexit and ending ECJ jurisdiction over the demands of big business
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
The other thing is that releasing lock down can't be all or nothing. By June the weather will assist in keeping R below 1 (with R low, this comes into play more) even as interactions increase, but by September / October when that changes again, test, track, trace, isolate will need to be working very well indeed, and we can't rule out that we will need another adjustment on the social distancing tiller to suppress over the full 6 months of winter or until enough vaccines are onstream.
Take Italy - opening up today - where the poorer, highly densely packed in places, half of the country has had far, far fewer cases than the north...
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
Is that what we mean by 'not overwhelmed'?
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
C2s voted Tory not just to stop Corbyn but also because they were ideologically committed to Brexit, most of them having voted Leave and wanted to regain sovereignty and end free movement.
Hence working class marginal seats in the North and Midlands and Wales voted for Boris and the Tories over Corbyn in 2019 but not for May and the Tories over Corbyn in 2017
But there are massive personal liberty infringements with all of this, starting with the astonishing fact that we are currently barred from leaving our houses. At the moment we can easily accept the trade off instead of mass death but there comes a non theoretical point when the price gets too high.
I was out the house on about 5 essential trips last week. You're allowed to go to a place of work if you can't work from home either. And the grocery shops too, even B&Q now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/world/asia/coronavirus-spread-where-why.html
Compare that with the daily number using the underground.
We found no substantial increase in the likelihood of a positive test for Covid-19 or in the risk of severe Covid-19 among patients who tested positive in association with five common classes of antihypertensive medications.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2008975?query=featured_coronavirus
That's the law right now. You don't think that's a huge infringement of personal liberty?
(To be clear, I think it's a necessary infringement to avoid mass death. But extraordinary nonetheless)
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
2: The future of NI was devolved to Stormont and can be democratically determined by Stormont.
I am pleased with both of those. Big changes from May's crap surrender deal.
You Might want to take a less jaundiced look at which countries did well
https://twitter.com/hughweber/status/1256731692611571712?s=20
Or we just live with the risk.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/03/coronavirus-knocks-putins-popularity-russia/
The recent complaining has got me wondering just how many non essential trips the average person made, particularly people retired...
More than me is the conclusion.
I have no doubt that any particular sports events (footie, Ch*lt*nh*m, etc) contributed to some degree, although as you say outside events seem to have had a lower transmission risk.
Meanwhile, there will have been spikes from the railways, the tube in London, pubs, clubs, bowls matches, choir rehearsals, and birthday parties.
To separate out sports events from that all is just absurd.
The country was not in lockdown until March 23rd. Any and all events, or as we call it - life - will have contributed to the overall numbers we are seeing now.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
Spain (and Italy) at least have the excuse that they were in the first wave. We watched them and failed to use the warning to act in time.
The Government in Westminster was told “not to believe Beijing’s claims” from the outset and to treat the information coming out of China with scepticism, The Telegraph understands. A senior, former MI6 official said the intelligence agencies knew what was “really happening” in China and passed that information to ministers." (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/03/ministers-fully-aware-china-covering-extent-coronavirus-outbreak/
1. What is done with the information collected?
2. Who has access to it and what can they use it for? Not just information-sharing within the public sector but whether it is sold to private companies for private gain.
3. What are the controls on its use and how can we trust them?
4. How long is the information is held for and is it deleted once no longer needed?
5. The security of the app ie ensuring that it does not make hacking of other personal information / systems easier.
Similar issues arise with the Coronavirus Regulations - very oppressive legislation, passed in days. We need to keep a very close eye on them to make sure that they are repealed at the earliest possible time. Power grabs by authorities have a tendency to stay far beyond their sell by date, if we are not careful.
Could explain why my employer doesn't think we will be back in office before late summer.
Personally I think those of us who work from tall buildings will be just as concerned about the lifts.
I am also hearing about an increasing number of businesses asking staff to accept reductions in salary
The government is going to add yet more disruption and chaos at the end of a terrible year because there are more votes in fomenting the worst instincts of the public rather than in bringing it together. It may result in further hardship, economic disorder and even deaths, but that's ok because Leavers have this visceral hatred of the EU, which means that even a pandemic cannot be allowed to deny them this gratifcation.
Brexit will have a much longer lasting chronic effect on Britain than Covid-19 for as long as Leavers keep progressively self-radicalising.
https://twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1256898073328041984?s=20
Lived density (population within 3km) is the utterly dominant factor. demography once you factor in lived density is pretty much a wash. Which makes sense demography can only be a second order factor driving something else. The virus doesn't give a stuff how rich you are, it will all be latent risk (genetics, health) and behavioural.
Oh, and no hot spot in Cheltenham :-)
Do I have any other opinions I need to know about, or is that it?
This is an attempt at a magic easy solution to a problem that has no easy solutions.
It's less perfect for, say, Portugal where major population centres are coastal, second wave in Singapore (though hot/humid rainforesty is the second place seasonal flu thrives), Brazil.
I'm not sure on the sensitivity here (the difference between 5° and 30° weather suppresses R for seasonal flu by around 3x). The difference may well be much less for COVID, but the mechanisms of transmission are common to flu, and I'm pretty certain from the global numbers that there is some effect, even if not enough to make a large difference to a pandemic outbreak.
You can lead a hoor to culture etc.
I've been fond of hawk moths since encountering an elephant hawk moth as a child. Impressive beasts.