It’s likely that we can expect some form of additional measures in place across most of the north at some point in the near future. That might be social restrictions, reintroduction of shielding or travel restrictions. Not hopeful for where I live, Sheffield, based on latest numbers.

In the case of the government from the start they have not only been not leading the target but are actively aiming behind it.

I picture our brave leaders as more the moving target than then hunter, ‘guided by the science’ and running in a straight line Prometheus-stylee as the virus crashes down over them.

It just feels a bit too bitty on the geographical coverage for restrictions. I suspect we are the point where a fast application of restrictions is needed to avoid displacement into adjoining areas. Less circuit breakers and more cutting some fire breaks in very quickly.

I read on Twitter this morning that there hasn’t been a Cobra meeting since May 10th.

Welsh first minister made a start lunch and said the last time he managed to speak to PM was 20-somethingth May and that none of the devolved governments have managed to speak to UK govt this week despite the testing fiasco being centralised.

I’d like to say it beggars belief but sadly…

I suspect we are the point where a fast application of restrictions is needed to avoid displacement into adjoining areas.

I live in one of those (Craven, next to Keighley, Bradford, Pendle, Harrogate). Too late to avoid overspill, according to the figures I’ve seen. Of course, knowing this lot, all the pubs in every surrounding town will get shut down but ours will be left open. With hilarious consequences.

I read on Twitter this morning that there hasn’t been a Cobra meeting since May 10th.

That’s correct. We have a PM in name only… can’t have a Cobra meeting again, because of the negative PR that came from him not attending past ones… so the answer is not to have any. It’s not just the public they have stopped talking to… it’s all the key stakeholders across the UK.

@kelvin – I think we’re going back to where we were before the Liberation of rural Calderdale on Sept 2nd

No mixing of households outside support bubbles

I picked up on the no mixing (in home/gardens)… I just can’t find out if that’s for all of Calderdale, or when it starts, or if it includes the changes to public transport use coming in elsewhere, etc… good job we have the daily briefings to keep us all in the loop…

I picture our brave leaders as more the moving target than then hunter, ‘guided by the science’ and running in a straight line Prometheus-stylee as the virus crashes down over them.

I’m sure there is a fridge somewhere they can all hide in.
But to be honest… what “crashing down on them”, it’s not them it crashes down on.

Everyone in Eton got tested and retested.

Without any restrictions I just see Cumbria becoming refuge of choice from the NE and Lancs. It seems a bit daft not to have restrictions otherwise it’s the the life raft of normality that everyone grabs onto and drags under.

Johnny Mercer MP is a bit of a twonk, to put it mildly, but I do like his style on occasion.

Without people like you.

Stop being a selfish c**t, and put on a mask. https://t.co/BQPScfr5rp

— Johnny Mercer (@JohnnyMercerUK) September 12, 2020

For once i fully agree agree with johnny mercer, and if you feel the need to write your twitter bio title as Professor Dr Sir James Delignpole OM QC then you are indeed a grade A **** who suffers from low self confidence

I just can’t find out if that’s for all of Calderdale, or when it starts

FROM SEPTEMBER 22 (Tuesday) MEETINGS IN PRIVATE HOMES OR GARDENS IN CALDERDALE WILL BE BANNED

Obviously massively disappointing – I am going to write a more complete update on local and national restrictions later tonight.

Schools and offices will remain open as things stand.

— Josh Fenton-Glynn (@JoshFG) September 18, 2020

How did we win Waterloo? By working together, following orders, and closely cooperating with our neighbours and allies for the common good.

What a ****.

It’s likely that we can expect some form of additional measures in place across most of the north at some point in the near future. That might be social restrictions, reintroduction of shielding or travel restrictions. Not hopeful for where I live, Sheffield, based on latest numbers.

Our CEO was under considerable pressure to re-open the office (central Manchester). Some initial work was done on it, investigating the layout that would be required, mitigation measures like perspex screens etc but he pulled it about a week ago, sensing these sort of extra lockdowns.

In a call with him today, he said it was the right move. We’re working perfectly well from home, meetings are good and productive, everything is being done on time so the only real “need” to go back was the social aspect.

But with so many of the staff living in areas affected by the extra restrictions, it’d look bloody stupid if we then went “yeah, come into the office!”. We’ve got a draft paper predicting savings of about £120,000 / year if we move most of our working to remote.

Without any restrictions I just see Cumbria becoming refuge of choice from the NE and Lancs. It seems a bit daft not to have restrictions otherwise it’s the the life raft of normality that everyone grabs onto and drags under.

Aye. I’m thinking it’s time we closed the border.

Without any restrictions I just see Cumbria becoming refuge of choice from the NE and Lancs.

You won’t be welcome as they’ve been spitting feathers about visitors for months. They have a lot of elderly residents and lots of NIMBYs too.

Aye. I’m thinking it’s time we closed the border.

Having just seen the advice is don’t meet in public venues I might have been hasty on Cumbria. Could be just rural Northumberland and Durham get swamped.

Today’s IndieSage:

Testing is not for early discharge of quarantine duty. It was not planned as such and capacity was not built for it. Hence when everyone sees this as their get out of (self-imposed home) jail card, it is not surprising that the system can’t cope.

Agreed in part, but isn’t it predictable that when faced with quarantine, people would try to avoid it. Surely a way around that would be to increase quarantine enforcement – so getting a test wouldn’t make any difference. But there are predictable events like school bubbling and workplace outbreaks where increased test capacity HAS to have been predicted, no? I know you’ve made logical suggestions like pooling tests for school bubbles, has anything like that been implemented? Align these things with a lack of support for people when they can’t get a test and there’ll be increased demand and more people taking a risk.

Hospital admissions now doubling every eight days – if uninterrupted, will lead to similar levels as in March/April by the second week of October.

Quote from IndieSAGE just now: “We’re falling off the edge of the knife, now”.

The logic isn’t there, as of 14 Sept.

Kirklees – 71 per 100k
Calderdale – 52 per 100k
Bradford – 88 per 100k

Leeds – 71 per 100k

Yet Leeds escapes the lockdown, they must have some good MPs lobbying.

Yet Leeds escapes the lockdown, they must have some good MPs lobbying.

Maybe just good relations between the council and the government

Leeds Chief Exec worked on test and trace

Can’t argue with the hole in finances point he makes.

Leeds – 71 per 100k

It would be worth knowing the age break down of those testing positive in those areas… although simple comparable indices are good for a quick understanding about where to increase control measures, I would hope that far more went into the decision making process. Again, a competent communicator should be explaining this to us in the daily briefings.

Can’t get my head around why Blackpool is exempt when fylde and wyre are included. Geographically that makes no sense. I live and work in Blackpool, but a 5 minute walk can put me in fylde or wyre. We have family in fylde, my daughter goes to school in fylde, we have friends in wyre, my work colleagues are from all three areas. It’s such a compact area that to differentiate them is completely illogical (to me anyway.)

I would hope that far more went into the decision making process.

Leeds has been on the watch list for a while due to increased community infection.

For once i fully agree agree with johnny mercer, and if you feel the need to write your twitter bio title as Professor Dr Sir James Delignpole OM QC then you are indeed a grade A **** who suffers from low self confidence

As far as I can tell… he’s a Journalist who claims to be “a member of probably the most discriminated-against subsection in the whole of British society—the white, middle-aged, public-school-and-Oxbridge educated middle-class male” with an expensive education, but not a Professor, he’s not a Sit, he hasn’t been awarded a OM and he’s not a QC, it took him 6 years to finish Uni, but he doesn’t appear to be a Doctor either. He’s a chippy 2nd Generation new-money heir who’d love to be upper class, but they don’t want him.

Here’s an odd ‘stat’ I’ve just read on Twitter, retweeted by Prof Karol Skiora.

“if you test 1000 people at random, latest ONS figures estimate 1 will have the virus. But with an FPR of 0.8%, you’d expect to find 8 false positives – so 9 in total, only one of which actually has the virus”.

How acurate do we think the statement is? Obviously we’re not testing 1000 random people and I don’t know if there’s a 0.8% chance of a false positive, but it’s interesting, there’s such a mad rush to test at the moment, partly panic, partly because it’s cold / flu season and partly because employers / schools are demanding tests from so many people who don’t have the classic symptoms. Maybe we’re closer to ‘random testing’ than we think?

How acurate do we think the statement is?

He is taking about a figure not arrived at directly by testing alone, so from there on his comments about testing abnormalities not being present in that figure make little sense to me. Far more context required to understand the point, I suspect.

Your follow on point makes even less sense to me… the current testing programme doesn’t suddenly start to look like a random one because a few people think they may be asymptomatic carriers, and want to check.

The FPR is estimated with uncertainty from a finite number of previous samples. The ONS calculation uses Bayesian statistics to propagate that prior uncertainty into predictions of the posterior probability given the additional 1000 samples. Tests outside the ONS cross-sectional survey aren’t random.

Can’t get my head around why Blackpool is exempt

As I understand it, Lancashire County Council have asked Gov to intervene and legislate for new lockdown. Blackpool is a Unitary Authority and isn’t part of LCC.

The population of Blackpool are so full of STD’s, Blue WKD and heroin that they would simply brush off Covid

As I understand it, Lancashire County Council have asked Gov to intervene and legislate for new lockdown. Blackpool is a Unitary Authority and isn’t part of LCC.

That would explain it! Geographically though, it’s bloomin ludicrous!!

The population of Blackpool are so full of STD’s, Blue WKD and heroin that they would simply brush off Covid

I tend not to suffer too much with colds to be honest 🤔💉

Maybe cheesy chips give you immunity?

Cheesy chips?!? Hungy now!

Bets on when the next Cobra meeting will be…?

@binners – that’s just the scary B&B landladies

Bets on when the next Cobra meeting will be…?

2023

Would Tired or another capable of an educated/model/informed estimate, like to suggest when London will see a return of the social restrictions or firmer lockdown we are now seeing imposed on large parts of the North and Wales? I am slightly baffled as to why numbers here are currently lowish. London’s make up meant it led the country by a week or more in phase 1, and I’m not seeing loads of adherence to the rules tbh, it feels like people are bored of it all. Baffled that we aren’t climbing just as fast as elsewhere tbh.

Our two little ones go here.
A load of the teachers thought it was a good idea to go to a baby shower party organised by a former colleague just back from the middle east and they’ve become ill and tested positive and so the school is now closed. **** idiots.

Would Tired or another capable of an educated/model/informed estimate, like to suggest when London will see a return of the social restrictions or firmer lockdown we are now seeing imposed on large parts of the North and Wales?

It’s not just the science though is it – political considerations are also fairly important. Lock down London and suddenly this isn’t just “rural unkempt northerners” being confined to their coops for their own good, it’s an actual happening sh*tshow; and the most compelling evidence that the government has completed f*cked it.

So it’ll lock down too late, again…