Have you ever seen an ex service person who actually fought in the war indulge in such rhetoric?
None from WWII but I know plenty of people who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, NI etc and not a single one ever says anything to glorify what the did in any way whatsoever. The ones that do like to talk up war as something heroic almost always have never seen front line duty or were holed up back in the safety of base doing menial jobs. War is not a game and is definitely not something to be made light of. People who do are complete and utter ****s IMO and I put Boris in that category.
“Past the peak” … does the PM mean new cases, or deaths? In either case, which numbers is he using? How do our testing and reporting strategies feed into that? What’s the lag? Soundbite without any explanation. What a pro. Hopefully his poor sidekicks will fill in the gaps next…
Play the video… [ I need to catch my breath. ]
New hospital admissions and total number in critical care coming down (says sidekick no1).
“Beginning to see” a decrease in number of deaths, he adds (presumably meaning deaths with Covid19 diagnosis).
Questions from the public taken by PM… no answer to the first one about visitors to Cornwall.
[ journalists wait while he waffles ]
Tricky question about suicides.
[ more waffle ]
The FT have an article on excess deaths.
https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c
Edit, there’s a paragraph in there noting a region of Ecuador has over 10k higher than a normal year.
Excess deaths, and comparison to other countries, isn’t going to make this briefing… although I expect a journalist will try and get it in…
[ journalists still waiting to ask questions while waffle goes on ]
Peston asks the big questions…
Johnson can only really answer by referring to excess deaths, and, rightly, says that only looking back can they be properly compared between countries. Good answer. “Wait and see”. Well handled.
Side steps question about austerity to reduce deficit after crisis has passed. Says he doesn’t like the word “austerity”.
The FT have an article on excess deaths.
Bizarre set of graphs doesn't include Scotland or NI? I'd have thought the data was easily available.
Blimey, Johnson’s answer about face coverings also spot on. I need a sit down… he’s knocking the Q&A with journalists out of the park… he should drop the public questions… they were probably designed to protect his ministers not him from hard questions (and follow up challenges) anyway.
Are we watching the same briefing??
Which of his answers to questions from the media do you think he fluffed?
[ I think he sidestepped the austerity one, which he really needed further challenging on … ]
I’d have thought the data was easily available.
Much harder to find. And not presented in the same way, so very challenging actually. England and Wales data is served on a plate and journalists do not need to even analyze the data (I do though).
Tired, how confident are you about the “past the peak” top line claim from the briefing?
Very - they would not have said it otherwise. All data points to all regions now being past the peak. Be that hospital occupancy, daily deaths...
Reported mortality above is necessarily delayed due to the official nature of death registrations. But one can use a model to infer what is missing and estimate the area under the incidence curve on the way down. I showed earlier that from April 17th, with an 11-day half-life (strong assumption from the global model, not just UK), and peak incidence of about 1000 (including nursing homes, excluding Scotland), that gives up to an additional 16,000 deaths to come in England and Wales. Hence under 50,000 excess E&W deaths would be good news.
I just didn’t recognise the competitive element you seemed to be suggesting by ‘knocked out of the park’
I’m more than a bit concerned that while hospital peak clearly has been passed, people kept in homes (care homes and own homes) to carry on dying in possibly increasing rather than decreasing numbers. Hard to measure that at the moment, as increased testing and more correct reporting in good time now coming into play can’t fix holes in the data in recent weeks. Don’t think the true peak will be identified ‘till analysing total extra deaths looking back later this year.
Edit:
You’ve since edited your post to add this Tired, which helps address my fear a bit:
Reported mortality above is necessarily delayed due to the official nature of death registrations. But one can use a model to infer what is missing and estimate the area under the incidence curve on the way down.
Sounds promising.
‘knocked out of the park’
So my language is what you don’t like? I felt that he answered most of the questions from journalists in a reasonably succinct, careful, nuanced and accurate manner. None of which I expected.
One can use the daily COVID data to predict the trend in excess deaths from the lagged official data. If I have some time, I'll do that. But the reporting delay for deaths means you have at least another 10 days to hear the bad news.
So my language is what you don’t like? I
Pretty much in this instance I got a different impression of what you meant, certainly not
succinct, careful, nuanced and accurate manner.
I pointed out that he waffled for most of the briefing, but his replies to journalists impressed me. Trust me, I’m no fan of his, but I can say when I think he’s doing well, I’m not completely blinded by the fact that I think he’s the wrong man in the wrong job and at the worst time.
One can use the daily COVID data to predict the trend in excess deaths from the lagged official data.
That would be great. I know we can’t know for sure for a while, but some confidence that those being hit by this virus outside the NHS hospital system is also past the peak in terms of new cases and/or deaths would be reassuring.
The horrible liar "Johnson" Johnson doing his usual vacant waffling. Doesn't like "austerity"? Strange how he was happy to vote for it all those years, when it suited him. "Too soon" to compare with other countries? And yet other countries will be "looking at our success".
How are we doing setting up guillotines at street corners? Can't come soon enough.
We haven't got the societal/fiscal safety net that a developed country like ours should have so.....
Brilliant British Boris Beats Bug and Breeds Brilliant Bouncing Baby Boy to Boot!!!
And we will lift lockdown come what may, because we are ****ed if we don't.
The political priority was to avoid a massive death rate at the first peak and desensitise us enough to be willing to risk it get Britain Back to Work.
They may get lucky, they may not. But don't let's pretend this has been an announcement made solely on public health grounds.
colleagues today who are finally getting a break from COVID wards saying that in ITU its nurses that are the bottleneck, enough ventilators but having to take nurses from rest of hospital because theres not enough ITU ones
this is where the NHS faces problems, they cant reopen other areas without the nurses & deaths are rising from non-covid causes without those other clinics open, but lots of patients still in ITU
they feel they are past peak for now, but care homes are not
anagallis_arvensis
MemberThe funny thing about Seadogs note is that its most likely to be him that needs to be protected from the virus infested british public!!
Indeed. The person who I believe posted the note is still trying to help his wife run her business from home.
This has meant at least 4-5 deliery vans coming to their house today, and insufficient social distancing between said knobber and the drivers on multiple occasions.
Some people are dicks seadog, don't let it ruin your time back at home!
Once I’m over the jet lag I plan to skip down the street in full “enjoying my 1 hour of state sanctioned exercise per day” mental well being mode.
Order the frozen sausages now...
Reading this I'm so, so glad that we don't have a US-style health system:
How can you have a system where nurses are being sent home right now?!?
Can you imagine the outcry here if the various NHS trusts sent medical staff home and furloughed them! Absolute madness.
We have had much fewer cases than expected here in Aus and all elective surgeries were stopped. My sister is a nurse and had to take annual leave, bank nurses had no work. They have now opened up some elective surgeries an are going to gradually start easing restrictions. Teaching from home sucks
“enjoying my 1 hour of state sanctioned exercise per day”
there is no time limit on exercise.
How can you have a system where nurses are being sent home right now?!?
A friend of mine is a nurse at a facility that does electives. Hip replacements and other outpatient stuff. They had her on leave for a week while they re-jigged to setup to support the nearest major hospital with minor emergency. She's been in and out a few days for training, and she's on again for a few days next week, but because the demand hadn't been too high on the hospital they're supporting, and patient throughput is significantly lower anyway ( they can't move them through as quickly as normal because they have to assume everyone's infected, which means bringing them in and out of surgery takes an hour instead of 15 minutes ), they're seeing less patients, so there's just not the requirement for her. She's probably done 10 days in 5 weeks. She could be redeployed, but other hospitals aren't doing non essential stuff either, so actually things aren't so different here.
We do have small units of police who are there to take on the dirtier jobs, provide some properly trained muscles. I think they are TAU, tactical aid units.
From yesterday (I'm being careful of my time online as 4 weeks of no meaningful social interaction is apparently my limit and I'm off out for mandated exercise again soon).
That was my observation too, they are a small unit (one force proudly pictured around 8 chaps by a van). My worry is that their normal mode of operating is not being encouraged (policing by consent) the public order approach is being applied by their superiors instead of public health. I will be more than happy if it works out for us all but compelling people will lead to the thin blue line getting itself into trouble.
Edit
@seadog You can go out more than once per day if it's for health reasons, you will need to justify this to the appointed person (council officers are not appointed people for this purpose) as you need a reasonable excuse for being away from your residence.
I've just been advised that we will be standing our temporary ICU down today and relocating the anesthetic machines that were to used as vents back to the theatres for a Monday start on electives.
Means a busy but welcome few days ahead for us re-configuring machines but it will be good to get back to some kind of normality
Anyone see Newsnight last night? particularly the piece on South Africa.
They had their first case the same time as us, a week in they had more cases than us, they implemented lockdown 10 days before us.
South Africa current deaths from CV19 - 103
They are restarting their economy now. They have 30,000 community health workers to help with contact tracing. We don't. Under austerity rules we couldn't afford them so we sacked them all off.
The South Africans know there's a bumpy road ahead and do fear it could get worse. Though I guess this is what happens when you stop looking at graphs from Italy and Spain and instead look at graphs from South Korea and challenge yourself to better than them.
Kenya, Similar timeline to us, only they implemented their lockdown 2 weeks before us I think.
Kenya current CV19 deaths - 17
people kept in homes (care homes and own homes) to carry on dying in possibly increasing rather than decreasing numbers.
We are still not past it all there by my reckoning. The lad has an insight to some of the homes in Bristol and had just changed job as the pandemic was called. He's been seconded elsewhere as his new job is in respite and that's not currently happening. He may be moving again and a couple of the homes suggested have COVID cases in situ and just diagnosed. The clients there are either dementia patients or have learning disabilities and social distancing and isolation are nigh on impossible to maintain. Throw in a severe shortage of appropriate PPE and there's scope for more unhappiness in the care sector.
Is anyone surprised by this? I know it can be down to a number of reasons but it's still quite an eye-opener.
South Africa current deaths from CV19 – 103
Kenya current CV19 deaths – 17
I think I'd like to see details of how those figures are compiled before basing anything on them.
Botswana's claiming 23 confirmed cases, 5 recovered and 1 death. This does rather contrast with the way HIV tore up the road from Gaborone to Francistown. I hope they're right but have my doubts.
Anyone see Newsnight last night? particularly the piece on South Africa.
They had their first case the same time as us, a week in they had more cases than us, they implemented lockdown 10 days before us.
South Africa current deaths from CV19 – 103
They are restarting their economy now. They have 30,000 community health workers to help with contact tracing. We don’t. Under austerity rules we couldn’t afford them so we sacked them all off.
They banned the sale of alcohol for the duration of lockdown though.
They banned the sale of alcohol for the duration of lockdown though.
Ah well f*** that then
They banned the sale of alcohol for the duration of lockdown though.
Try that here and the whole country would be in flames within hours
bruneep
Subscriber“enjoying my 1 hour of state sanctioned exercise per day”
there is no time limit on exercise
I was pretty riled at the start of a week to get an all-staff email from someone in senior management that said in the intro something like 'I hope you are getting your allowed 1/2hr of exercise a day while its sunny.' No wonder people are getting confused if large institutions are getting the basic rules wrong!
Local radio traffic report this morning stated that you can only travel to work if you're a key worker.
So much confusion out there
Well, who'd have thunk it?
COVID-19 death rate in deprived areas in England double that of better off places: ONS
So, when Boris hails the governments 'success' he really means it. It's all going rather well. Getting rid of a disproportionally larger number those frightful poor people while increasing their chances at the next election.
