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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » WH2020: Punters still not fully convinced that it’ll be Trump

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited May 2020 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » WH2020: Punters still not fully convinced that it’ll be Trump v Biden

The chart shows the latest betting on who will be the next President in Betfair’s now £30m market. The amount that’s been gambled so far is by far a record this far out but the interesting thing is that the uncertainty that still remains over who is going to be heading the ticket for either side.

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
  • DeClareDeClare Posts: 483
    I'm laying Trump rather than backing Biden
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    Except walking away will be a disaster whatever Boris fanboys say
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    FPT:

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    I've made this point before about the schools, only I'm not so sure in most cases that it will mean part-time working for parents. It'll most likely mean parents slung out of work and replaced by people without childcare responsibilities. It is not as if there won't be plenty of surplus labour available.

    Unless this thing is somehow over, or close to it, by September then stay-at-home Mummies (because it will mostly be women who fall victim to this issue) are due to make a major comeback this Autumn.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited May 2020

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    What evidence do you have that the EU isn't expecting us to walk away?

    As I've said multiple times before the only reason for talks to avoid being blamed when the talks fall apart.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    How are you defining walking away?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Any evidence of that - every school I know is working with the 2m rule and trying to work out what to do.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,732

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    I was never convinced of the rationale for partially shutting schools in the first place.

    But I’m more worried right now that even if schools reopen parents won’t send their children in. What do we do then? Prosecute? Wouldn’t look good, nor would it be cheap. Set learning online? But if for them, why not others? Build elastic classrooms, dining facilities and more toilets to enforce social distancing?

    I’m not a member of the NEU, but they are quite right to say there are more questions than answers out there right now. I don’t know if they’re asking the right questions, but at least they are not offering a free ride.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    eek said:

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    What evidence do you have that the EU isn't expecting us to walk away?

    As I've said multiple times before the only reason for talks to avoid being blamed when the talks fall apart.
    Barnier's already in retreat on fishing. He knows he's on dodgy grounds and can't defend it, he's entirely stopped trying to defend his attempts to get our sovereign waters completely now. It was intriguing in Barnier's letter that there are 0 (zero) references to the EU's demands for access to our sovereign fishing waters.

    There's been a number of media reports recently that Barnier was preparing to give up on demanding that and the fact that he hasn't even referenced it in the letter whereas Frost did certainly seems to indicate that. Barnier seems to know full well he's lost that battle and is moving on to other areas.

    Its different negotiating with a government that is willing and able to simply walk away if need be, not like May's mess. Barnier could lay down the law to May because he knew that his allies like Grieve would prevent us walking away. Now he's in very difficult terrain and he's struggling to get us to concede in the same way.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Pulpstar said:

    Recently home from work and just catching up on the news of zero new Covid diagnoses in London in a 24-hour period.

    It is also more than a week since Boris Johnson dumped the Stay Home message and started encouraging people to go back to work. One is therefore entitled to wonder what has happened to the much-feared disease spike caused by passengers allegedly cramming back into buses and the Tube, going back into workplaces, and spending as much time as they please enjoying sunny parks. Indeed, if this continues to fail to materialise for very much longer then it'll be the best news since this whole miserable saga began.

    I also wonder if it might be possible - just possible - that, as contagious as it is, this disease finds it a lot more difficult to infect some people than others. If a substantial fraction of the population is quite simply resistant to Covid - something that would be very hard to prove, given that a scientific study of such a possible phenomenon could only be conducted by trying to deliberately infect a group of volunteers - then this would correspondingly reduce the numbers of people who would need to have contracted the illness and developed antibodies, before at least some degree of collective immunity develops in the population as a whole.

    Yes, I know - another notion for the "too good to be true" collection. But I'm not sure what the alternative explanation for new infections having crashed to nil in a densely-packed city of nearly nine million people could be.

    Perhaps the virus is mutating ?
    The pre-existing immunity has been mentioned and it would help explain quite some of the behaviour of the virus. It is surely possible that some or many people will not catch it, or just shrug it off. Possibly from related common cold corona virus exposure. Who knows. The initial studies of confined environments (Diamond Princess etc) lend some credence to this. It's now looking much less likely that there is an iceberg of those who have had it asymptomatically. but maybe a lot will just never allow the virus to take hold and thus won't show antibodies, but also won't become ill.
    The decline around the world, with all kinds of different levels and types of lockdowns all look a bit similar, and maybe this is why.
    And thus community transmission is interrupted and cases steadily decline - all our lockdowns and other interventions just make it happen a bit faster than it otherwise would. And the disease ultimately fades away. It would be nice to think so. I don't know about anyone else but I'm not looking forward to a socially distanced Christmas.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,732

    eek said:

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    What evidence do you have that the EU isn't expecting us to walk away?

    As I've said multiple times before the only reason for talks to avoid being blamed when the talks fall apart.
    Barnier's already in retreat on fishing. He knows he's on dodgy grounds and can't defend it, he's entirely stopped trying to defend his attempts to get our sovereign waters completely now. It was intriguing in Barnier's letter that there are 0 (zero) references to the EU's demands for access to our sovereign fishing waters.
    This will be a net loss to the EU.

    No, I will not put my coat on, it’s too bloody hot.
  • FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    Except walking away will be a disaster whatever Boris fanboys say
    Johnson knows it too.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    edited May 2020
    Don't know if this has already been posted and discussed, but some interesting breakdowns on positions between GOP, Dems and true Independents, particularly when it comes to blame for COVID.

    Some really depressing numbers in there, particularly on how the Independent voting intention breaks

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/20/voters-divided-over-coronavirus-cnbcchange-research-poll-finds.html
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,009

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,732
    edited May 2020
    I misread that tweet at first, and was baffled at the heartlessness of a government that would give immigrant workers indefinite leave to remain only if they died. After all, it would be moot by then.

    Then I realised the indefinite leave part referred to families.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,732
    edited May 2020

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    But that won’t work if we have multiple year groups back in. The only way it can happen it is if there are spare classrooms and teachers to use.

    If that’s in place in September it’s going to be very, very difficult.
  • AndrewAndrew Posts: 2,900
    edited May 2020
    Seems the testing increase was driven by the expansion of testing eligibility to basically anyone who wants one. Pillar2 was 118k tests alone - might be this spikes for a few days then drops back a bit, who knows.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,606
    Andrew said:

    Seems the testing increase was driven by the expansion of testing eligibility to basically anyone who wants one. Pillar2 was 118k tests alone.

    It seems that the government is using opening up testing, to push testing capacity *usage*.

    I will be very interested when the eventual enquiry is done, to find out who was pushing back against increasing capacity.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    ydoethur said:

    I misread that tweet at first, and was baffled at the heartlessness of a government that would give immigrant workers indefinite leave to remain only if they died. After all, it would be moot by then.

    Then I realised the indefinite leave part referred to families.
    Permission to be buried here if you die? Bloody tories...
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "London records no new coronavirus cases for full 24 hour period"

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-cases-london-figures-decline-phe-a4446336.html
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    Quite right too. Periclean, even:

    ἔργῳ οἱ θαπτόμενοι τὰ μὲν ἤδη κεκόσμηνται, τὰ δὲ αὐτῶν τοὺς παῖδας τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦδε δημοσίᾳ ἡ πόλις μέχρι ἥβης θρέψει, ὠφέλιμον στέφανον τοῖσδέ τε καὶ τοῖς λειπομένοις τῶν τοιῶνδε ἀγώνων προτιθεῖσα· ἆθλα γὰρ οἷς κεῖται ἀρετῆς μέγιστα, τοῖς δὲ καὶ ἄνδρες ἄριστοι πολιτεύουσιν.

    Thuc.2.46

    '... those who are buried have already been honoured in deed, and as for their children, the state shall nurture them henceforth at public expense until adulthood, offering a beneficial prize both for these men and for those they have left behind after such struggles as theirs. For where the rewards for virtue are greatest, there are the finest men enlisted in the service of the state'.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,910
    FPT

    ydoethur said:

    Flying is going to get worse (and probably a lot more expensive...)

    https://twitter.com/DaveWallsworth/status/1263144671947227138?s=20

    Production of the A380 ceased permanently some time ago

    Not viable even before covid
    The A380 is the Sinclair C5 of aviation.

    Discuss.
    No, it wasn't. It isa perfectly sensible product, of itself.

    It is too big - bit like the hyper sized oil tankers that were tried a while back.

    The C5 was shit product that also had essentially no demand.
    No. of A380s built compared to no. of Boeing 777s?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,558
    (FPT)

    Flying is going to get worse (and probably a lot more expensive...)

    https://twitter.com/DaveWallsworth/status/1263144671947227138?s=20

    Production of the A380 ceased permanently some time ago

    Not viable even before covid
    Shortsighted.
    It’s the one aircraft large enough to allow social distancing.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    FPT

    ydoethur said:

    Flying is going to get worse (and probably a lot more expensive...)

    https://twitter.com/DaveWallsworth/status/1263144671947227138?s=20

    Production of the A380 ceased permanently some time ago

    Not viable even before covid
    The A380 is the Sinclair C5 of aviation.

    Discuss.
    No, it wasn't. It isa perfectly sensible product, of itself.

    It is too big - bit like the hyper sized oil tankers that were tried a while back.

    The C5 was shit product that also had essentially no demand.
    No. of A380s built compared to no. of Boeing 777s?
    242 vs 1634
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,558
    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,880
    My tip, you can lay Hilary Clinton at 28 on betfair to be popular vote winner.
    No way there is a 3-4% chance of Biden dropping out, Clinton being chosen, Clinton winning popular vote.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,847
    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,670
    eek said:

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    What evidence do you have that the EU isn't expecting us to walk away?

    As I've said multiple times before the only reason for talks to avoid being blamed when the talks fall apart.
    I would love to know what these cards are, all jokers I think.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    rkrkrk said:

    My tip, you can lay Hilary Clinton at 28 on betfair to be popular vote winner.
    No way there is a 3-4% chance of Biden dropping out, Clinton being chosen, Clinton winning popular vote.

    That is a cracking annualised return, but I raise you laying for VP all of Michelle Obama (16-20), Hillary Clinton (36-40), and Barack Obama (100) for a combined return of around 8-10% in less time.

    We should have an occasional PB thread about the best return possible in a given period (say 6 months) with a negligible risk.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
    Ah yes, all the ambience of an operating theatre. Amazing that some entrepreneur didn’t come up with that idea before.

  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited May 2020
    Exposure Notification API launches to support public health agencies
    https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/apple-google-exposure-notification-api-launches/

    NHSX better get their skates on.

    One thing I noted is that the API now requires Android 6.0 (API level 23) rather than the earlier version's requirement of Android 5.0 (API level 21).
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited May 2020

    Quite right too. Periclean, even:

    ἔργῳ οἱ θαπτόμενοι τὰ μὲν ἤδη κεκόσμηνται, τὰ δὲ αὐτῶν τοὺς παῖδας τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦδε δημοσίᾳ ἡ πόλις μέχρι ἥβης θρέψει, ὠφέλιμον στέφανον τοῖσδέ τε καὶ τοῖς λειπομένοις τῶν τοιῶνδε ἀγώνων προτιθεῖσα· ἆθλα γὰρ οἷς κεῖται ἀρετῆς μέγιστα, τοῖς δὲ καὶ ἄνδρες ἄριστοι πολιτεύουσιν.

    Thuc.2.46

    '... those who are buried have already been honoured in deed, and as for their children, the state shall nurture them henceforth at public expense until adulthood, offering a beneficial prize both for these men and for those they have left behind after such struggles as theirs. For where the rewards for virtue are greatest, there are the finest men enlisted in the service of the state'.
    There is one politician who rates Thucydides as the greatest writer on politics ever. You are Denis Healey AICMFP. :wink:
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    Quite right too. Periclean, even:

    ἔργῳ οἱ θαπτόμενοι τὰ μὲν ἤδη κεκόσμηνται, τὰ δὲ αὐτῶν τοὺς παῖδας τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦδε δημοσίᾳ ἡ πόλις μέχρι ἥβης θρέψει, ὠφέλιμον στέφανον τοῖσδέ τε καὶ τοῖς λειπομένοις τῶν τοιῶνδε ἀγώνων προτιθεῖσα· ἆθλα γὰρ οἷς κεῖται ἀρετῆς μέγιστα, τοῖς δὲ καὶ ἄνδρες ἄριστοι πολιτεύουσιν.

    Thuc.2.46

    '... those who are buried have already been honoured in deed, and as for their children, the state shall nurture them henceforth at public expense until adulthood, offering a beneficial prize both for these men and for those they have left behind after such struggles as theirs. For where the rewards for virtue are greatest, there are the finest men enlisted in the service of the state'.
    There is one politician who rates Thucydides as the greatest writer on politics ever. You are Denis Healey AICMFP. :wink:
    I was never a communist, and my eyebrows are mediocre, but I do have at least some things in common with good old Denis.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    malcolmg said:

    eek said:

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    What evidence do you have that the EU isn't expecting us to walk away?

    As I've said multiple times before the only reason for talks to avoid being blamed when the talks fall apart.
    I would love to know what these cards are, all jokers I think.
    We don't hold a set of Jokers, it's a single Joker, Master Bun the Bakers Son,a Pokemon collectors card, the top trump card that always loses and the missing card from an Uno game
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    glw said:

    Exposure Notification API launches to support public health agencies
    https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/apple-google-exposure-notification-api-launches/

    NHSX better get their skates on.

    One thing I noted is that the API now requires Android 6.0 (API level 23) rather than the earlier version's requirement of Android 5.0 (API level 21).

    That's going to rule out a lot of android phones that were never upgraded by their manufacturer, At least Apple have an all or nothing approach due to their limited range.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    Quite right too. Periclean, even:

    ἔργῳ οἱ θαπτόμενοι τὰ μὲν ἤδη κεκόσμηνται, τὰ δὲ αὐτῶν τοὺς παῖδας τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦδε δημοσίᾳ ἡ πόλις μέχρι ἥβης θρέψει, ὠφέλιμον στέφανον τοῖσδέ τε καὶ τοῖς λειπομένοις τῶν τοιῶνδε ἀγώνων προτιθεῖσα· ἆθλα γὰρ οἷς κεῖται ἀρετῆς μέγιστα, τοῖς δὲ καὶ ἄνδρες ἄριστοι πολιτεύουσιν.

    Thuc.2.46

    '... those who are buried have already been honoured in deed, and as for their children, the state shall nurture them henceforth at public expense until adulthood, offering a beneficial prize both for these men and for those they have left behind after such struggles as theirs. For where the rewards for virtue are greatest, there are the finest men enlisted in the service of the state'.
    There is one politician who rates Thucydides as the greatest writer on politics ever. You are Denis Healey AICMFP. :wink:
    I was never a communist, and my eyebrows are mediocre, but I do have at least some things in common with good old Denis.
    Were you the beach master at Anzio?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    eek said:

    malcolmg said:

    eek said:

    FPT

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    I think if we end up walking away then in the battle of public opinion the UK government has easily won this round over Barnier.

    Quoting chapter and verse what they're looking for, why its been deemed acceptable before and to whom was a stroke of genius. Barnier stammering that the UK can't get the same without a reason is going to impress nobody neutral.
    Why should Barnier care about UK public opinion, or to put it differently, why is UK public opinion more important than EU27 public opinion?
    Because the EU don't want us to walk away and the government is prepared to do so.

    The UK holds the cards.
    What evidence do you have that the EU isn't expecting us to walk away?

    As I've said multiple times before the only reason for talks to avoid being blamed when the talks fall apart.
    I would love to know what these cards are, all jokers I think.
    We don't hold a set of Jokers, it's a single Joker, Master Bun the Bakers Son,a Pokemon collectors card, the top trump card that always loses and the missing card from an Uno game
    All the cards, as David Davis said.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited May 2020
    eek said:

    glw said:

    Exposure Notification API launches to support public health agencies
    https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/apple-google-exposure-notification-api-launches/

    NHSX better get their skates on.

    One thing I noted is that the API now requires Android 6.0 (API level 23) rather than the earlier version's requirement of Android 5.0 (API level 21).

    That's going to rule out a lot of android phones that were never upgraded by their manufacturer, At least Apple have an all or nothing approach due to their limited range.
    6.0 covers 85% of devices using the Play Store, 5.0 takes you to 95%, so it's lower but still the vast majority of Android phones using Google's services. AFAIK the NHSX app still requires Android 8.0, which only covers about 60% of devices.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,847
    Quincel said:

    rkrkrk said:

    My tip, you can lay Hilary Clinton at 28 on betfair to be popular vote winner.
    No way there is a 3-4% chance of Biden dropping out, Clinton being chosen, Clinton winning popular vote.

    That is a cracking annualised return, but I raise you laying for VP all of Michelle Obama (16-20), Hillary Clinton (36-40), and Barack Obama (100) for a combined return of around 8-10% in less time.

    We should have an occasional PB thread about the best return possible in a given period (say 6 months) with a negligible risk.
    However if you do that for big money akin to what you might put into a bank saver you have to factor in Betfair Paddy credit risk. They are not covered under the deposit protection scheme.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,558
    Canada's top doctor advises use of 'nonmedical' masks as provinces reopen
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/20/canada-non-medical-masks-provinces-reopen-271008
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    You aren't expected to eat the food, only to look at it.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    TimT said:

    FPT

    ydoethur said:

    Flying is going to get worse (and probably a lot more expensive...)

    https://twitter.com/DaveWallsworth/status/1263144671947227138?s=20

    Production of the A380 ceased permanently some time ago

    Not viable even before covid
    The A380 is the Sinclair C5 of aviation.

    Discuss.
    No, it wasn't. It isa perfectly sensible product, of itself.

    It is too big - bit like the hyper sized oil tankers that were tried a while back.

    The C5 was shit product that also had essentially no demand.
    No. of A380s built compared to no. of Boeing 777s?
    242 vs 1634
    I'm amazed the gap is so small, I'd have guessed at least ten times as many 777s
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,847
    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
    Ah yes, all the ambience of an operating theatre. Amazing that some entrepreneur didn’t come up with that idea before.
    Somebody sort of did. Damien Hirst at the peak of britpop 90s opened a restaurant in Notting Hill called Pharmacy. You ate surrounded by all white decor and glass shelves full of bottles of pills. There was cool and there was ubercool - and then there was this place. I loved it. Went bust in less than a year.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    glw said:

    eek said:

    glw said:

    Exposure Notification API launches to support public health agencies
    https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/apple-google-exposure-notification-api-launches/

    NHSX better get their skates on.

    One thing I noted is that the API now requires Android 6.0 (API level 23) rather than the earlier version's requirement of Android 5.0 (API level 21).

    That's going to rule out a lot of android phones that were never upgraded by their manufacturer, At least Apple have an all or nothing approach due to their limited range.
    6.0 covers 85% of devices using the Play Store, 5.0 takes you to 95%, so it's lower but still the vast majority of Android phones using Google's services. AFAIK the NHSX app still requires Android 8.0, which only covers about 60% of devices.
    Hmmm... It's not going to run on my Huawei Mate XS
  • AndrewAndrew Posts: 2,900
    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Liquidised and through a straw.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    edited May 2020
    Cyclefree said:

    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
    Yeah - why let the prospect of a few hundred thousand people dying stand in the way of socialising? Especially when it's mainly useless old people who will die, not the ones socialising. The cost of caring for all those old people was cramping our style far too much even before all this fuss.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
    Ah yes, all the ambience of an operating theatre. Amazing that some entrepreneur didn’t come up with that idea before.
    Somebody sort of did. Damien Hirst at the peak of britpop 90s opened a restaurant in Notting Hill called Pharmacy. You ate surrounded by all white decor and glass shelves full of bottles of pills. There was cool and there was ubercool - and then there was this place. I loved it. Went bust in less than a year.
    Goldman Sachs did a Phantom Menace party there.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Evening all :)

    The glorious weather notwithstanding, it seems my mask isn't keeping the pollen at bay and sneezing with a mask on doesn't end well.

    Dowden had the rare good fortune of having nothing negative or downbeat to say and it's amazing how easy Press Conferences are when the news is all good. It won't do him any harm in the pecking order and I wonder if he will move up the Cabinet at the next re-shuffle.

    Flash Services and Manufacturing PMI numbers due tomorrow morning which may be of interest though the financial markets seem willing to ignore all bad news currently - there seems a belief the recovery will be swift thought what that is based on I'm not sure.

    This caught my eye from one of the countries which has arguably been most successful in responding to covid-19:

    https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0520/1139468-world-coronavirus/

    I imagine Sunak and some on here might not approve but the notion of extra public holidays and a shorter working week to get people to travel and spend in the UK doesn't seem the most fanciful.

    2020- the summer of the great "staycation" - the summer that never ends.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    edited May 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    "London records no new coronavirus cases for full 24 hour period"

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-cases-london-figures-decline-phe-a4446336.html

    ?

    How is it that the number of confirmed cases in London reported today was 50 more than yesterday, then? And that the daily number of new cases has been around 80 a day over the past few days?
  • ukpaulukpaul Posts: 649

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    Isn't it 2 metres for secondary but not primary?
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Chris said:

    Cyclefree said:

    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
    Yeah - why let the prospect of a few hundred thousand people dying stand in the way of socialising? Especially when it's mainly useless old people who will die, not the ones socialising. The cost of caring for all those old people was cramping our style far too much even before all this fuss.
    Thus proving @Cyclefree right. Some people are not thinking straight about risk.

    We do not all need to spend the rest of eternity sealed in individual concrete tombs to prevent a total massacre of everybody over the age of 65.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    The glorious weather notwithstanding, it seems my mask isn't keeping the pollen at bay and sneezing with a mask on doesn't end well.

    Dowden had the rare good fortune of having nothing negative or downbeat to say and it's amazing how easy Press Conferences are when the news is all good. It won't do him any harm in the pecking order and I wonder if he will move up the Cabinet at the next re-shuffle.

    Flash Services and Manufacturing PMI numbers due tomorrow morning which may be of interest though the financial markets seem willing to ignore all bad news currently - there seems a belief the recovery will be swift thought what that is based on I'm not sure.

    This caught my eye from one of the countries which has arguably been most successful in responding to covid-19:

    https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0520/1139468-world-coronavirus/

    I imagine Sunak and some on here might not approve but the notion of extra public holidays and a shorter working week to get people to travel and spend in the UK doesn't seem the most fanciful.

    2020- the summer of the great "staycation" - the summer that never ends.

    For anyone interested the 'expectations' on those PMIs are

    Manufacturing around 37
    Services around 24
    Composite around 26

    My gut reaction is those look toppy, but I'm the arch pessimist.


  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008

    Chris said:

    Cyclefree said:

    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
    Yeah - why let the prospect of a few hundred thousand people dying stand in the way of socialising? Especially when it's mainly useless old people who will die, not the ones socialising. The cost of caring for all those old people was cramping our style far too much even before all this fuss.
    Thus proving @Cyclefree right.
    I was being sarcastic, you moron.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-52742519

    Devon's beaches "like August" now so wtf are they going to be like in August?
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    The glorious weather notwithstanding, it seems my mask isn't keeping the pollen at bay and sneezing with a mask on doesn't end well.

    Dowden had the rare good fortune of having nothing negative or downbeat to say and it's amazing how easy Press Conferences are when the news is all good. It won't do him any harm in the pecking order and I wonder if he will move up the Cabinet at the next re-shuffle.

    Flash Services and Manufacturing PMI numbers due tomorrow morning which may be of interest though the financial markets seem willing to ignore all bad news currently - there seems a belief the recovery will be swift thought what that is based on I'm not sure.

    This caught my eye from one of the countries which has arguably been most successful in responding to covid-19:

    https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0520/1139468-world-coronavirus/

    I imagine Sunak and some on here might not approve but the notion of extra public holidays and a shorter working week to get people to travel and spend in the UK doesn't seem the most fanciful.

    2020- the summer of the great "staycation" - the summer that never ends.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-52742519

    Devon's beaches "like August" now so wtf are they going to be like in August? I am praying for rubbish weather.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,009
    ukpaul said:

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    Isn't it 2 metres for secondary but not primary?
    Nope
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    Chris said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "London records no new coronavirus cases for full 24 hour period"

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-cases-london-figures-decline-phe-a4446336.html

    ?

    How is it that the number of confirmed cases in London reported today was 50 more than yesterday, then? And that the daily number of new cases has been around 80 a day over the past few days?
    Ah. Reading a little further, it says "no new cases" was because of a technical glitch over the weekend.

    Not that that explains why the report gives credence to the nonsense about a claim based on modelling that the infection rate in London is only a couple of dozen a day - when even the official figure is much higher than that, and the antibody testing indicates that the official figure is still a severe underestimate.

    We seem to have politicians, modellers and journalists vying to show who can talk most nonsense.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    I complemented teachers I never posted crap about them and did you read the bloody advice yourself? The bloody advice as you said it confirmed what I bloody said.

    We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
    Ah yes, all the ambience of an operating theatre. Amazing that some entrepreneur didn’t come up with that idea before.
    Somebody sort of did. Damien Hirst at the peak of britpop 90s opened a restaurant in Notting Hill called Pharmacy. You ate surrounded by all white decor and glass shelves full of bottles of pills. There was cool and there was ubercool - and then there was this place. I loved it. Went bust in less than a year.
    You surprise me!

  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,009

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    I complemented teachers I never posted crap about them and did you read the bloody advice yourself? The bloody advice as you said it confirmed what I bloody said.

    We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account.
    "2m distancing doesn't apply in schools" except for the schools covered by this guidance which is all of them.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    The glorious weather notwithstanding, it seems my mask isn't keeping the pollen at bay and sneezing with a mask on doesn't end well.

    Dowden had the rare good fortune of having nothing negative or downbeat to say and it's amazing how easy Press Conferences are when the news is all good. It won't do him any harm in the pecking order and I wonder if he will move up the Cabinet at the next re-shuffle.

    Flash Services and Manufacturing PMI numbers due tomorrow morning which may be of interest though the financial markets seem willing to ignore all bad news currently - there seems a belief the recovery will be swift thought what that is based on I'm not sure.

    This caught my eye from one of the countries which has arguably been most successful in responding to covid-19:

    https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0520/1139468-world-coronavirus/

    I imagine Sunak and some on here might not approve but the notion of extra public holidays and a shorter working week to get people to travel and spend in the UK doesn't seem the most fanciful.

    2020- the summer of the great "staycation" - the summer that never ends.

    For anyone interested the 'expectations' on those PMIs are

    Manufacturing around 37
    Services around 24
    Composite around 26

    My gut reaction is those look toppy, but I'm the arch pessimist.


    PMIs are based on a month on month comparison, or at least they're meant to be. In theory, as long as May was even a bit better than April then the index should be over 50, even if the level of activity is still way below normal in May. In practice that's not how PMI respondents seem to fill in the surveys, at least not in the West, so I doubt if the PMIs are anywhere near 50, but I think they should be materially higher than in April (and equally, I wouldn't read too much into that).
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited May 2020

    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?

    Republicans are going to open up the Ukraine Biden stuff again, and attack the original basis for the Russia investigation, and claim Biden is China's candidate. It will be 99% BS.

    Meanwhile Trump is repeatedly firing Inspectors General to keep them from investigating his probably criminal behaviour.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    The former deputy leader of the SNP, Jim Sillars.

    "Scots are now locked in a woke chamber: virtue signalling, pandering to perceived victimhood, punishing any who assert biological fact, placing a halter of criminality on free thought when articulated by speech, abandoning common sense. It is all there in the Scottish government’s hate crime and public order bill. From the towering height of the Enlightenment, the Scottish nation’s leaders have fallen to a low where intellectual rigour is not only an unknown concept, but can put those who practice it in the clink."

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/beware-scotland-s-hate-crime-bill
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Cyclefree said:

    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
    Yeah - why let the prospect of a few hundred thousand people dying stand in the way of socialising? Especially when it's mainly useless old people who will die, not the ones socialising. The cost of caring for all those old people was cramping our style far too much even before all this fuss.
    Thus proving @Cyclefree right.
    I was being sarcastic, you moron.
    Well fuck you you sarcastic cunt
  • AndrewAndrew Posts: 2,900

    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?

    Should be fairly easy to turn it onto the economy, which sounds like it'll be in the crapper by election day.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Chris said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "London records no new coronavirus cases for full 24 hour period"

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-cases-london-figures-decline-phe-a4446336.html

    ?

    How is it that the number of confirmed cases in London reported today was 50 more than yesterday, then? And that the daily number of new cases has been around 80 a day over the past few days?
    Someone needs to inform the Evening Standard if they've got it wrong.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    I complemented teachers I never posted crap about them and did you read the bloody advice yourself? The bloody advice as you said it confirmed what I bloody said.

    We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account.
    "2m distancing doesn't apply in schools" except for the schools covered by this guidance which is all of them.
    The guidance literally says the 2m distancing can't apply to young children so alternative guidance does. Exactly as I said.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited May 2020
    Channel 4 News surprised to find that no-one in Copenhagen is wearing a face mask.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    Andrew said:

    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?

    Should be fairly easy to turn it onto the economy, which sounds like it'll be in the crapper by election day.
    CBO predicts a second quarter drop of 38% on an annualised basis.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    edited May 2020
    Cyclefree said:

    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
    Yes, did you see my earlier response to your and NigelB's comments?

    Edit Previous thread at 07:58
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    This is a joke now. Total lockdown meltdown around my little patch. Three sets of neighbours having barbecue or drinks on the lawn with family and friends (none of whom normally live there).

    This is great. Weather fantastic. School out. Work cancelled for weeks. Etc etc.

    Meanwhile the economy collapses and we enter the Covid Depression.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,847
    rcs1000 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
    Ah yes, all the ambience of an operating theatre. Amazing that some entrepreneur didn’t come up with that idea before.
    Somebody sort of did. Damien Hirst at the peak of britpop 90s opened a restaurant in Notting Hill called Pharmacy. You ate surrounded by all white decor and glass shelves full of bottles of pills. There was cool and there was ubercool - and then there was this place. I loved it. Went bust in less than a year.
    Goldman Sachs did a Phantom Menace party there.
    Not so cool that night then.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008

    Chris said:

    Cyclefree said:

    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
    Yeah - why let the prospect of a few hundred thousand people dying stand in the way of socialising? Especially when it's mainly useless old people who will die, not the ones socialising. The cost of caring for all those old people was cramping our style far too much even before all this fuss.
    Thus proving @Cyclefree right. Some people are not thinking straight about risk.
    .
    No, but seriously, if - given the fact that 60,000-70,000 are estimated to have died as a result of around 10% of the population having been infected - you have trouble with seeing that hundreds of thousands are going to die if we prioritise "socialising" over preventing the spread of the virus, then you're hardly in a position to lecture people about the evaluation of risk!
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
    Ah yes, all the ambience of an operating theatre. Amazing that some entrepreneur didn’t come up with that idea before.
    Somebody sort of did. Damien Hirst at the peak of britpop 90s opened a restaurant in Notting Hill called Pharmacy. You ate surrounded by all white decor and glass shelves full of bottles of pills. There was cool and there was ubercool - and then there was this place. I loved it. Went bust in less than a year.
    You surprise me!

    But he sold the fittings for £11 million.
    https://artdaily.cc/news/11351/Damien-Hirst-s-Pharmacy-Sells-For-11-1-Million
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,009
    For absolute clarity for the small

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    I complemented teachers I never posted crap about them and did you read the bloody advice yourself? The bloody advice as you said it confirmed what I bloody said.

    We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account.
    "2m distancing doesn't apply in schools" except for the schools covered by this guidance which is all of them.
    The guidance literally says the 2m distancing can't apply to young children so alternative guidance does. Exactly as I said.
    Mate you said it doesn't apply in schools. They accept it can't be maintained with the tiddlers but even reception classes have to be split to seat them 2m apart. Same 2m apart seating in high schools.

    If 2m doesn't apply why are they being sat 2m apart and being taught part time in classes cut in size to allow 2m spacing?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,847
    glw said:

    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?

    Republicans are going to open up the Ukraine Biden stuff again, and attack the original basis for the Russia investigation, and claim Biden is China's candidate. It will be 99% BS.

    Meanwhile Trump is repeatedly firing Inspectors General to keep them from investigating his probably criminal behaviour.
    I think this upcoming election is existential for America as not just leader of the free world but part of it.
  • fox327fox327 Posts: 363
    edited May 2020
    Some news about a Chinese COVID vaccine: experiments on monkeys showed that when exposed after vaccination they had no detectable virus in their respiratory tracts a week later (if I understand this correctly), whereas the equivalent experiment for the Oxford vaccine did not show this. Thus the monkeys with the Chinese vaccine were not sick, but they were also not infectious.

    I hope that the government is prepared for the possibility that the most effective vaccine against COVID will be developed overseas, possibly in China.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    glw said:

    Andrew said:

    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?

    Should be fairly easy to turn it onto the economy, which sounds like it'll be in the crapper by election day.
    CBO predicts a second quarter drop of 38% on an annualised basis.
    Annualised GDP numbers have always been stupid.

    It will also result in journalists (who should know better) saying things like "Germany's economy, which contracted 9% in the quarter did better than the US which fell 38%".

    NO YOU MORON. THE GERMAN NUMBER IS A QUARTERLY CHANGE. THE US NUMBER IS AN ANNUALISED CHANGE - IE FOUR TIMES LARGER.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    Andy_JS said:

    Chris said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "London records no new coronavirus cases for full 24 hour period"

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-cases-london-figures-decline-phe-a4446336.html

    ?

    How is it that the number of confirmed cases in London reported today was 50 more than yesterday, then? And that the daily number of new cases has been around 80 a day over the past few days?
    Someone needs to inform the Evening Standard if they've got it wrong.
    Well, yes, the start of the article is ridiculously misleading.

    But if you'd read more than the first sentence of the article before rushing here to quote it, you'd have known that.

    I wouldn't mind so much if people weren't so sensitive when it's pointed out they're behaving moronically.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,847
    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well you know what they say - a restaurant is all about the ambience.
    Ah yes, all the ambience of an operating theatre. Amazing that some entrepreneur didn’t come up with that idea before.
    Somebody sort of did. Damien Hirst at the peak of britpop 90s opened a restaurant in Notting Hill called Pharmacy. You ate surrounded by all white decor and glass shelves full of bottles of pills. There was cool and there was ubercool - and then there was this place. I loved it. Went bust in less than a year.
    You surprise me!
    Did you not go there?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741


    For anyone interested the 'expectations' on those PMIs are

    Manufacturing around 37
    Services around 24
    Composite around 26

    My gut reaction is those look toppy, but I'm the arch pessimist.

    PMIs are based on a month on month comparison, or at least they're meant to be. In theory, as long as May was even a bit better than April then the index should be over 50, even if the level of activity is still way below normal in May. In practice that's not how PMI respondents seem to fill in the surveys, at least not in the West, so I doubt if the PMIs are anywhere near 50, but I think they should be materially higher than in April (and equally, I wouldn't read too much into that).
    I suspect that's not how the index actually functions but no one seems very clear and that may make interpreting the figure tomorrow "interesting".

    Irish consumer sentiment rebounded from its April low but still a long way from March. I believe March was 77.3, April 42.6, May 52.3 - whether this is of any relevance I don't know.

  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    For absolute clarity for the small

    The criticism over schools is bizarre. The key consideration is 2m social distancing. Which practically speaking means kids are going back part time. Which practically speaking means their working parents can only go back part time. Schools are open to keyworkers, lessons are being set online, students are being spoken to on the phone and via email. The idea teachers are sat with their feet up refusing to "go back to work" is just dumb.

    So, that 2m distancing. Until it gets completely removed our kids are not going back to school - not full time normal school. You need to set aside the 1st June hysteria and start looking at the start of the new academic year. If 2m spacing remains in place, schools remain part time things for kids and with it employment for their parents. Permanently. Until its dropped. Even 1m with mandatory masks like in South Korea means part time schooling and with it part time employment. Pitiful whining about teachers from some doesn't change this rather large problem...

    2m social distancing doesn't apply in schools, like in many other locales. The schools will be using alternative methods to do social distancing like "bubbles" which have been demonstrated in schools overseas already.

    I have every respect for teachers and I strongly suspect almost all teachers will be more than happy to be back teaching their pupils. I believe teachers go into teaching to help children not play politics.
    Simply incorrect . Schools are being required to set their school up to maintain 2m distancing - smaller classes, desks set apart. They accept that it can't be strictly maintained, but the majority of time it should be. Hence part time schooling at best.

    Read the bloody advice before posting crap about teachers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings
    I complemented teachers I never posted crap about them and did you read the bloody advice yourself? The bloody advice as you said it confirmed what I bloody said.

    We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account.
    "2m distancing doesn't apply in schools" except for the schools covered by this guidance which is all of them.
    The guidance literally says the 2m distancing can't apply to young children so alternative guidance does. Exactly as I said.
    Mate you said it doesn't apply in schools. They accept it can't be maintained with the tiddlers but even reception classes have to be split to seat them 2m apart. Same 2m apart seating in high schools.

    If 2m doesn't apply why are they being sat 2m apart and being taught part time in classes cut in size to allow 2m spacing?
    2m guidance where possible is being stuck to of course but where it isn't then alternative solutions like bubbles of children are being implemented instead. Exactly like I said.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    edited May 2020
    fox327 said:

    Some news about a Chinese COVID vaccine: experiments on monkeys showed that when exposed after vaccination they had no detectable virus in their respiratory tracts a week later (if I understand this correctly), whereas the equivalent experiment for the Oxford vaccine did not show this. Thus the monkeys with the Chinese vaccine were not sick, but they were also not infectious.

    I hope that the government is prepared for the possibility that the most effective vaccine against COVID will be developed overseas, possibly in China.

    Hmm. I may be wrong, but I think someone criticised that comparison on the basis that the virus was introduced directly into the lung in the Chinese study, bypassing the parts of the respiratory tract tested for the virus in the Oxford study.

  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    kinabalu said:

    glw said:

    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?

    Republicans are going to open up the Ukraine Biden stuff again, and attack the original basis for the Russia investigation, and claim Biden is China's candidate. It will be 99% BS.

    Meanwhile Trump is repeatedly firing Inspectors General to keep them from investigating his probably criminal behaviour.
    I think this upcoming election is existential for America as not just leader of the free world but part of it.
    Only if Trump has control of senate and house. If not he's constrained, by y' know, democracy.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    This is a joke now. Total lockdown meltdown around my little patch. Three sets of neighbours having barbecue or drinks on the lawn with family and friends (none of whom normally live there).

    This is great. Weather fantastic. School out. Work cancelled for weeks. Etc etc.

    Meanwhile the economy collapses and we enter the Covid Depression.

    Some of this sort of thing is inevitable. The lockdown has been going on for about two months now, and expecting the whole population to keep away from family and friends indefinitely was never a realistic notion.

    The longer such prohibitions exist, the more people will lose patience, or discipline, or get desperate, and break them. Especially if the households concerned consist only of members who are at very low risk (which is essentially everyone under 50 apart from those who are clinically vulnerable.)

    The Government has the power to shutter businesses quite easily, but we're not a police state. There is very little it can do to forcibly separate private citizens. We'll all simply have to hope that these kinds of interactions don't make a massive difference to the rate of transmission of the illness or significantly increase the exposure of more vulnerable groups.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    rcs1000 said:

    glw said:

    Andrew said:

    I see Trump is aggressively attacking China again to deflect blame.

    This election is going to be hijacked into a who is toughest on China event. Can Biden make it about anything else?

    Should be fairly easy to turn it onto the economy, which sounds like it'll be in the crapper by election day.
    CBO predicts a second quarter drop of 38% on an annualised basis.
    Annualised GDP numbers have always been stupid.

    It will also result in journalists (who should know better) saying things like "Germany's economy, which contracted 9% in the quarter did better than the US which fell 38%".

    NO YOU MORON. THE GERMAN NUMBER IS A QUARTERLY CHANGE. THE US NUMBER IS AN ANNUALISED CHANGE - IE FOUR TIMES LARGER.
    I agree that they are stupid, I'm just reporting what they said.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    edited May 2020

    "There is no automatic entitlement to any benefits that the EU may have offered or granted in other contexts and circumstances to other, often very different, partners."

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1263118957944483842

    Along with the inevitable tit-for-tat, Barnier makes two interesting points in that letter, in my view.

    First that the only precedent for the agreement is the Political Declaration, not any other deals that the EU has made in the past, as Gove and Frost claim. Barnier clearly interprets the PD to his advantage, but he's right on the principle. The UK and Johnson in particular signed up to the PD as the negotiating brief.

    Secondly that the Level Playing Field protections are a two way street. The UK is protected as well. He doesn't say this, generally the weaker party sign treaties for protection. Which is precisely why Trump is tearing up treaties.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Chris said:


    No, but seriously, if - given the fact that 60,000-70,000 are estimated to have died as a result of around 10% of the population having been infected - you have trouble with seeing that hundreds of thousands are going to die if we prioritise "socialising" over preventing the spread of the virus, then you're hardly in a position to lecture people about the evaluation of risk!

    I would put the Covid-19 death toll between 50,000-55,000 currently in the UK. If you model a 1% fatality rate that would assume 5-5.5 million cases in the UK so about 7.5% of the population.

    That would imply roughly 20 unreported cases for every reported case based on 250,000 actual cases which I've always thought was in the right area.

    The mortality rate for those aged 60 or over is about 4% while for those under 60 it's more like 0.33% based on those case numbers.

    We are still a long way from a true picture - it's all supposition looking at numbers who have had very mild symptoms let alone the asymptomatic.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    This is a joke now. Total lockdown meltdown around my little patch. Three sets of neighbours having barbecue or drinks on the lawn with family and friends (none of whom normally live there).

    This is great. Weather fantastic. School out. Work cancelled for weeks. Etc etc.

    Meanwhile the economy collapses and we enter the Covid Depression.

    Some of this sort of thing is inevitable. The lockdown has been going on for about two months now, and expecting the whole population to keep away from family and friends indefinitely was never a realistic notion.

    The longer such prohibitions exist, the more people will lose patience, or discipline, or get desperate, and break them. Especially if the households concerned consist only of members who are at very low risk (which is essentially everyone under 50 apart from those who are clinically vulnerable.)

    The Government has the power to shutter businesses quite easily, but we're not a police state. There is very little it can do to forcibly separate private citizens. We'll all simply have to hope that these kinds of interactions don't make a massive difference to the rate of transmission of the illness or significantly increase the exposure of more vulnerable groups.
    some people questioning why its not safe to work or travel, but its safe to sun yourself on furlough on the beach at the taxpayers expense


  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    I wonder if the BBC Evening News (and I gather CH4 too) leading on the Rolls Royce job losses will start to focus minds about returning to work?
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    If masks have to be worn inside restaurants in Spain, how do the customers eat their food?

    Well.....

    https://twitter.com/gad_media/status/1262774854035607554
    I see that you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re eating or drinking or have something like asthma.

    So this requirement is less than it seems in practice.

    Or where social distancing of >2m is possible if I read it correctly
    Yes - but you will have to shout loudly at people to make yourself heard thus presumably spreading any germs you have more widely and effectively than if you were close to them and speaking in a normal way.

    It’s utter balls, frankly. Trying to socialise in such a way under penalty of enforcement is ludicrous. We really are not thinking straight about risk nor are we learning the lessons from our forefathers who did have to live with such risks - and much more recently than many realise.
    Yes, did you see my earlier response to your and NigelB's comments?

    Edit Previous thread at 07:58
    I did, thank you. Very interesting.
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