So thumbs up for managing to be super spreaders to a population that’s at the top of the charts for COVID death.
Thumbs up for both the Unis acting so fast at containing the problem. They shouldn’t have been in the position of dealing with this in the first place, and got a lot of stick because of so many students not being able to get out and about even to shop… but they acted fast.
but they acted fast.
TBH Kelvin, this is entirely a foreseeable disaster that shouldn't have happened. Manchester, like most Universities though rely on students taking up accommodation (and the fees they generate), and Manchester in particular, fearing it's huge numbers of foreign students would stay away in droves, promised them all face to face teaching...then changed it's mind to all online teaching, and then changed it's mind back again...
It's been a absolute **** up from start to finish.
It’s been a absolute **** up from start to finish.
With Gavin Williamson in charge of the department of Education, its a mystery as to why it all keeps going wrong
BREAKING: People from Covid-19 hotspots across the UK will be banned from entering Wales
Theres a very good reason for that...
😀
BREAKING: People from Covid-19 hotspots across the UK will be banned from entering Wales
Not easily enforced, but M Drakeford must have been dreading doing that, not because it's not the right thing to do, but because Plaid and the Indie movement are always looking for way to emphasise/establish a border between England and Wales.
He was pretty much forced into doing it, Westminster have basically told him to **** off and deal with the problem himself. I rally can't argue with it either as there are large parts of Wales that pretty much avoided the first wave and are going into the second with very few cases and are well prepared. Having a load of tourists turning up from high risk areas would put all of that in jeopardy.
Yep, I get the impression Boris is starting to lose it. Back in March, International Crisis, pretty much everyone put politics aside for a bit and got on with it, they might not have agreed with him at every turn, but they did.
It's been cluster **** after cluster **** since, it must have hurt for all his very many enemies to leave open goals, but not anymore. Wales, Scotland and NI all know we need a circuit break of some kind if we want to stand any chance of avoiding going back to where we were in March and April, SAGE know it, Labour know it, you'd assumed the Lib Dems do too.
Boris being Boris doesn't though, he thinks some right of centre rhetoric about upper lips, pulling up socks or ****ing 'Dunkirk Spirit' will save the day and he'll manage to let us all spend money, work and keep our kids educated like nothing happened AND avoid deaths, but it won't.
Based on reading what Experts are saying now, the chances are he's missed the chance for a circuit break and he's got two options, another Lock down for everyone and another massive round of financial bailout to avoid a depression, OR months of Shielding for anyone vulnerable until the vaccine arrives, and let the rest of take our chances. Neither of which is very compatible with Boris' version of Tory doctrine.
I suspect he'll do neither, and when the death rate sky rockets again, he'll try to blame us for it. He might even face a Motion of No Confidence, from his own party, maybe this time, they might be able to find a grown-up to take over.
The major problem for Boris - entirely of his own making - is that he's spent the last 4 years pandering to the absolute headbangers on the far right of his party. The Brexiteer fruit loops.
But you can't pacify these people. They're insane. But he's dependent on them.
And if theres one thing they believe in even more than Brexit it's their god-given right to do what the ****ing hell they like with no interference from anybody, particularly the government. So they didn't even believe there should have been any form of lockdown in the first place. They're certainly not going to entertain the idea of a 'circuit breaker'. They also believe they shouldn't have to wear masks or have any other restrictions placed on them either. And as for financial packages? If thousands of small businesses go bust, so what? It doesn't effect them. Let the market decide.
So, as with Brexit, a small cabal of absolute loony tunes are now once again dictating government policy. And thats very, very bad news for all of us, because it means theres absolutely no way a coward like Johnson will face them down and do what needs to be done
I'm finding it just the tiniest bit reassuring that Trump, Brosis' lovecrush, appears to be heading for a resounding fail in the forthcoming US elections. Sadly it's a while yet until we get a chance to do the same for Borsis.
I think I'd have more respect for him now if it put his hands up and said, "hey, ok so you can't all be wrong, lets work together and go for said circuit breaker"
I know it's easy to pick a shot from a sequence or video to subtly make a point but the shot on the front page of the BBC news site accompanying the article about PMQs gives the impression he (Johnson) just hasn't a clue what's hit him or what he should do.
The rabid right might say that's just the BBC but even the right wing press run with similar images as if they actually struggle to find any shot that makes him look vaguely ministerial or authoritative.
I think I’d have more respect for him now if it put his hands up and said, “hey, ok so you can’t all be wrong, lets work together and go for said circuit breaker”
That would rely on him admitting that he was wrong so sadly we'll get the usual response which will be to double down, bluff and bluster and then we get the worst of all worlds.
Yay, leadership!
Not seen PMQs yet, but there are no good choices here. There should however be decisive action. The dilemma is that we see a full lockdown controls spread. Reopening of limited social contacts appears to still maintain some control. Adding schools into the mix and up goes transmission. Keeping education open is an objective. It would have helped to have stated that all measures are to taken to try and ensure this objective. Be it closure of other leisure, targetted prospective testing. Everything.
We don't know what combination of distancing and contact restrictions leads to control. We do know that the current level leads to slower (but still log-linear) growth than in March. I'm not a vocal lockdowner or a skeptic, just data-driven. We don't have a full picture, but since schools are closing for at least a week, it does make sense to double down on this coming break at the very least, since I am sure there will be some synergy.
Continuous small policy changes will just cloud the picture. I mean, 10PM curfew, seriously? As a percentage of all daily contacts?
Needs a Tory with some balls to push a vote of no confidence in him, take over and sat "we've cocked up, we need to start again'.
Won't happen, obviously. No idea what I was thinking....
I hate to be the bearer of good news but if you check out the graph at the bottom of this page:
Older people seem to be looking after themselves a bit better which is good news for the hospitals. The overall trend is up for the country as a whole but in some regions the recent exponential rise has stopped.
Which suggests a balance between the level of economic activity allowed and infection rates has been found.
Any comparable figures for the UK? I know we shouldn't compare but the UK is looking for measures that work without stopping the economy dead. Persuading the elderly and vulnerable to look after themslelves (a TV advertising campaign with a granny that ends up in hospital has been very visible here) while letting the young remain active within reason (I know that's a hard limit to define) seems to be working in some regions - but not everywhere.
If people can be nudged into voting for Brexit surely they can be nudged into keeping granny out of hospital.
137 more deaths today, seems to me like deaths have doubled in a week then, likely to do that for at least 2 more.
We learned from March that even if we locked down fully now it will take 2-3 weeks for peak deaths.
But we aren’t so it seems BoJos new social care policy is to just kill them all off.🤬
You tell an entire region that you’re shutting down all their pubs for an indefinite period, but not straight away, in a few days time, then you wonder why they all take that opportunity to go out and have a party?
I just don’t understand it.
I think it's more to do with folks just being morons and generally not giving a toss
See our first minister asking people from Scotland not to travel to Blackpool on a coach for a jolly as an example..
See our first minister asking people from Scotland not to travel to Blackpool on a coach for a jolly as an example..
Is that not just general advice anyway?
Hey everyone, don't go to Blackpool! Not cos of Covid, it's just shit!
Is that not just general advice anyway?
Hey everyone, don’t go to Blackpool! Not cos of Covid, it’s just shit!
🙂
I did think similar. I can think of no worse holiday than a coach trip to Blackpool!
Blackpool:
https://reken1.bandcamp.com/track/reken-where-im-from-produced-by-karlow-mixed-and-mastered-by-seek
I’m curious as to what any so called ‘circuit breaker’ would actually achieve. All of these lockdown measures merely kick the problem further down the road - they change nothing fundamentally. When you re-open society cases just increase again.
Unless you’re planning to lock down until there’s a vaccine then you have just delayed deaths. Even the scientists who produced today’s widely touted paper suggesting a circuit breaker could save several thousand lives admitted this on Radio 4 this morning,
The only exception to this is countries that have taken a super hard line on lockdown and immigration, like New Zealand, but these are outliers that don’t have anywhere near the population of the connectivity of major economies.
It’s funny that repeating the same actions again and again and expecting different results used to be regarded as a sign of madness, yet during this situation it seems to be a widely used policy.
JP
I’m curious as to what any so called ‘circuit breaker’ would actually achieve
Slow the increase and allow the nhs to cope. Deaths have doubled in a week, if it does that for another 3 we have 1000+ a day. If we can knock it back that rate of increase shouldnt happen, enables us to keep tweaking to find the point at which it doesnt explode, if we do nothing we are screwed.
It’s funny that repeating the same actions again and again and expecting different results used to be regarded as a sign of madness
JP
Erm...
Curfew for big French towns. I expect to see trains out of them crammed with party goers on a Friday evening heading to places where partying is still allowed. Shit, that's where I live and they can get here in a few hours on the TGV. No curfew in Bordeaux and it's just over 2h from Paris on the TGV or anywhere on the north coast.
Once again it'll be interesting to follow the reality and note the perverse effects of the measures and whether there's a net benefit. Closing bars early means people have private parties in cramped flats where there is no obligatory distancing. Preventing private parties in one place transfers them to another, maybe.
Next measure, ban weekend travel? Ban sleep overs. It's becoming a game of cat and mouse.
Excellent speech, M. Macron, all the right noises and crystal clear, but I'm not sure enough people were listening. And some who were aren't going to like it, we have enough hospital beds but do we have enough CRS?
then you have just delayed deaths
All public health measures are just seeking to delay deaths. We have the extra sting here that this virus is new, and buying us time is essential to avoid thousands (upon thousands) of extra early deaths as result of not having yet learnt enough about it to intervene successfully. People getting ill this month will die, when catching the same virus next summer would not result in death due to more effective treatment. And then you have the problem of hospital resources... too many people seriously ill at once, and rationing beds and care will mean many premature deaths that could be avoided if less people are ill at once. You should understand this by now. Go back and read the thread pages from back in the spring.
Circuit break is still a poor analogy - re-setting the switches and if we are lucky changing the fuse doesn't really get to the problem causing the short. It buys a bit of time at best but isnt going to stop the light going out again and again over the winter. The underlying issue for me is still Team Boris trying to fight a pandemic purely on free market shrink the state ideology.
I wonder how this will play out with more people actually having had it. Will they continue to play by the rules knowing it's unlikely they will be affected again.
Daughter had it last week, she's 16 in student accommodation in Manchester. Everyone in her flat has had it (all positive tests), 3 have stuck rigidly to the quarantine, food delivered in etc., the other 2 high tailed it home on the train, daughter is fuming. She was pretty rough last week, lots of being sick and fatigue,no temperature, cough or loss of smell. No symptoms since last Friday and quarantine expired yesterday although all 3 apps gave different quarantine periods despite them all being tested at the same time in the same place. Unite Students have been pretty good supporting them, better than university owned accommodation. All seem fine now a week on, but then they are all young, slim and very healthy being full time dance students.
I’m curious as to what any so called ‘circuit breaker’ would actually achieve
Aside from the keeping the health service running at not over-capacity, there is the longer term goal of reduced overall mortality. Treatments and prophylaxis are coming, and these will protect and spare life (one might be a vaccine).
If you think in logarithms, then the epidemic grows and falls in a straight line - each circuit breaker is like the tooth on a saw - and area under the line is total deaths. Keeping them low till the cavalry arrive is a reason. Immunity will blunt the teeth on the saw a bit too. We are looking for evidence of curvature in new cases/admissions. It's not easy to spot as immunity levels are so low.
Cases go up.. circuit break: cases go down again. Cases go up.. repeat as necessary so that NHS doesn’t get overwhelmed and fewer people die. Keep this going until vaccines & improved treatment are available.
jjprestidge
Free MemberI’m curious as to what any so called ‘circuit breaker’ would actually achieve. All of these lockdown measures merely kick the problem further down the road – they change nothing fundamentally. When you re-open society cases just increase again.
It can seem like that but not really. High incidence in the population means every little bit you creep above R=1 creates a ton of cases. (which is why it's so frustrating that people obsess about the R number in isolation and that it's come to define how many people think and talk about it) Low incidence means that you need to go incredibly wrong to create the same number of cases. The current level of restrictions could have worked well, had we not already got so much of it in the community, but just keeping it at a fairly stable, high level just meant we were perfectly primed to lose control again and when we did, it happened faster than we could handle.
Put it another way, the more of it is out there, the more careful you have to be, to achieve the exact same result. The period between starting to see a spike and acting means more people infected which means bigger actions needed. Absolutely everything about this works better with less reservoir of infection in the population. It's why losing control is such a bad thing. If you get the amount of cases low then you can go to an orgy and have less chance of catching the virus than you do right now just going to a supermarket.
If the final goal was herd immunity, then it'd be right to say we're only slowing it down. It isn't though, or hopefully not, because we don't even know if that's mathematically possible. (ps, a confirmed fatality from a second Covid infection was confirmed this week; unclear whether or not the patient had fully recovered from the first, but it was a different strain so certainly 2 episodes of covid in one person)
I agree immunity levels are low but perhaps already high enough to slow spread in places hardset hit first time around. In France that's eastern France. In this second wave the east of France is doing very well - two explanations, people who suffered most are likely to take the threat more seriously and be more respectful of measures, and or the number of people with immunity is slowing the spread.
In this second wave the east of France is doing very well – two explanations, people who suffered most are likely to take the threat more seriously and be more respectful of measures, and or the number of people with immunity is slowing the spread.
Or it's just burnt through the accessible susceptible for now. Same level as precautions but those who are going to catch it and suffer badly have done.
I’m curious as to what any so called ‘circuit breaker’ would actually achieve. All of these lockdown measures merely kick the problem further down the road – they change nothing fundamentally. When you re-open society cases just increase again.
Unless you’re planning to lock down until there’s a vaccine then you have just delayed deaths. Even the scientists who produced today’s widely touted paper suggesting a circuit breaker could save several thousand lives admitted this on Radio 4 this morning,
Circuit breaker as they're describing it, nowhere near the impact it would have had 3 weeks ago. In March, this was considered the central strategy, sequential phases of tightening then loosening restrictions. With the goal of preventing overrun in the NHS and delaying excess deaths until better treatment was available and more informed restrictions could be applied. I'm still questioning the logic of waiting until overrun is nearly guaranteed then bringing the restrictions.
or the number of people with immunity is slowing the spread.
If it is unrestricted log-linear growth, there is no impact of immunity. The shallower slope is due to behavioral changes. If there has been an intervention, like a short lockdown or other restrictions, then deviations will also be noted after a time. UK hospital admissions are most definitely log-linear at the moment 🙁
two explanations, people who suffered most are likely to take the threat more seriously and be more respectful of measures, and or the number of people with immunity is slowing the spread.
That seems pretty logical to me. When it's an abstract you're not going to take it as seriously as when it touches you personally. I think in general vulnerable people are going to be living far more cautiously.
It's very human that worst hit areas would react best- same reason that countries with recent experience of epidemics mostly reacted faster, things were more real. If you're in some area that was spared the worst first time round you're far more likely to go "nobody who I know got it". If your gran died last time you're more likely to punch someone who says "yeah but it only kills 1%..."
Nice work if you can get it...
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1316408570242568198?s=20
Thankfully they're worth every penny as they're doing such a great job
World-beating!
When do the daily briefings start again? Why do we expect the public to buy into the importance of the ongoing and new measures without them…? And when does the government start accepting that TTI doesn’t work unless those told to isolate get proper support to do so? And where hospitality has been all but shut down for the winter, where is the help for those workers?
The answers to none of those questions will be arriving any time soon. Channel 4 news are saying that the media collectively are now considering protesting outside Downing Street at the governments refusal to engage with them on any meaningful level. Theres now a complete bunker mentality. Boris is hiding in the fridge again.
In the meantime 'The Government' are today giving the leaders of every area that is threatened with going into Tier 3 restrictions a whole half an hour on the phone to one of Doms lackeys to plead their case.
Something that could potentially decimate their economies and has enormous long-term implications for their entire communities and that's the level of consultation on offer.
When all evidence is pointing to more decision making, especially on T&T, being devolved to local level, instead we get more dictats from Westminster
We might as well be living in a dictatorship
And where hospitality has been all but shut down for the winter, where is the help for those workers?
There is none. They are putting ideology over the lives and health and well being of the country. If they want people to lock down and isolate themselves, they need to protect their jobs and incomes, and the businesses that provide those, and they won't do it because they're religiously sticking to the lie that they can't afford it. Labour need to show some balls on this too and start calling for a UBI. It's the only workable solution.
When do the daily briefings start again?
When Allegra Stratton is in post? That would be the dodgers charter approach allowing Boris to sit there knowing accountability has successfully been avoided again.
* me!
Boris's cowardice knows no bounds. This is truly beyond belief. All the London MP's have just been informed that they're being moved into tier 2 via a phone call with...
Helen Whately! HELEN *ING WHATELY
A woman who is intellectually bested by the furniture around her and has all the gravitas of a cotton bud
She is now about to inform Lancashire and Greater Manchester what fate awaits them
Thats like them getting the work experience kid to come and let you know that they've got your test results back and you've got terminal cancer
Unbelievable!
TBH Binners, nobody in cabinet is any better than her (very low bar!) and at least it was a minister rather than “No10 adviser”. I’m more disgusted by the £1.5million contractor salary for T&T.
Could be worse, could have been Boris himself.