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Coronavirus - the new strain XXII

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With different decisions made by the government then there would have been fewer excess deaths. Johnson made his choices and the result is that over the past 6 months we have the highest number of Covid deaths out of all the major European countries. There never has been a right answer, as noone could know what it is, but Johnson has continually provided the wrong decisions.


To be fair to iSage, they have discussed the privileged / disadvantaged divide w.r.t. Covid outcomes and said that things needed to be done to improve the outcomes for the disadvantaged through payments to be off work for sickness / isolation etc. I have not seen anyone (iSage or on PFM) say that these demands were infantile or absurd and I very much support them as things that needed to be done. But Johnson knew better and so they did not happen, i.e. we should be railing at the government not at iSage or people on PFM (unless they really think that Boris is making the right decisions).

With different decisions there would have been fewer excess deaths so far. It isn't dismissiveness to acknowledge modelling that shows more excess deaths in winter and spring as a result of opening up later, owing to seasonal effects, behavioural effects, waning immunity etc. I've always been agnostic about when to open up - how would I know? - but this was never an unreasonable or unsupported argument, and it doesn't look any more unreasonable now, given what's happening in Europe. I’m less and less persuaded by comparisons with other countries but the fact is that as we head into a difficult winter U.K. cases are declining while those in Europe are climbing, and given the UK's other weaknesses how much worse might it be here now, relative to say Germany, had we taken their path?

As for Johnson and his decisions, f*** him, there's no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I suspect that since the January lockdown decision-making has been largely out of his hands. Since then policy has not been obviously batshit or evil and pretending that it has been has distracted from more grounded and rational criticisms.

iSage might *acknowledge* inequalities and longer-term measures but they are never the focus of their campaign (and as far as I'm aware they've never acknowledged inequalities with regards to the costs and benefits of lockdown). Gav routinely calls my focus on work, sick pay and health/social care funding "infantile leftism" and I'm assuming iSage have made a similar assessment, because the focus has all been on short term, media-friendly measures. It's well worth railing at iSage because they have absolutely destroyed public debate around covid and effectively shielded the government at every turn. They continue to flood the zone with shit, and their prescriptions are reliably *worse* than the government's actual approach!
 
They continue to flood the zone with shit. I dare say a few members think this with regards to certain posters ramblings on here.
 
They continue to flood the zone with shit. I dare say a few members think this with regards to certain posters ramblings on here.
There's an ignore list: put me on it and there'll be more room for your own interesting reflections.
 
Can someone explain to me why SAGE might have thought it was a good idea to introduce pre-departure tests for people coming to the UK. I mean, I can see it might mean there would be less omicron and other variants introduced, but omicron is presumably all over the shop already and will grow. How significant would pre-departure test be? And what are the disadvantages of these tests?

It's really hard for me to get a view on the sorts of claims which Downing Street make. I mean, when they say they've made a balanced judgement, how am I supposed to know whether they have decided correctly? The papers are useless as far as I can see.

Still IMO their track record is pretty good this year, so I guess I trust Downing Street on COVID at the mo.
 
Still IMO their track record is pretty good this year, so I guess I trust Downing Street on COVID at the mo.

Contradicting Jenny Harries in public. The Sun's headline 'One Grinch is Determined to Kill Britain's Festive Spirit - Dr Jenny Harries' all in a days work for the oaf but the damage is done...
 
Contradicting Jenny Harries in public. The Sun's headline 'One Grinch is Determined to Kill Britain's Festive Spirit - Jenny Harries' all in a days work for the oaf but the damage is done...

Jenny Harries has been caught talking crap before. She’s a liability.
 
Here is the list of local authority areas in England where the cases have been identified

Barnet – 2

Bexley – 1

Brentwood – 1

Buckinghamshire – 1

Camden – 2

Haringey – 1

Lancaster – 1

Lewisham – 2

Liverpool – 1

Newham - 1

North Norfolk – 1

Nottingham – 1

South Cambridgeshire – 1

Sutton – 1

Three Rivers – 1

Wandsworth – 1

Westminster - 3

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...08d4d8978b3c57#block-61a795d88f08d4d8978b3c57
 
Here is the list of local authority areas in England where the cases have been identified

Barnet – 2

Bexley – 1

Brentwood – 1

Buckinghamshire – 1


Lancaster – 1

Lewisham – 2

Liverpool – 1

Newham - 1

North Norfolk – 1

Nottingham – 1

South Cambridgeshire – 1

Sutton – 1

Three Rivers – 1

Wandsworth – 1

Westminster - 3

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...08d4d8978b3c57#block-61a795d88f08d4d8978b3c57

Or to put in another way:

Brentwood – 1
Buckinghamshire – 1
Lancaster – 1
London - 15
Liverpool – 1
North Norfolk – 1
Nottingham – 1
South Cambridgeshire – 1

So 2/3 of cases in London so far.
 
Or to put in another way:

Brentwood – 1
Buckinghamshire – 1
Lancaster – 1
London - 15
Liverpool – 1
North Norfolk – 1
Nottingham – 1
South Cambridgeshire – 1

So 2/3 of cases in London so far.

I've got a suspicion that London will show up first as it's had very low case numbers for a long time (presumably because of the high number of previous infections).

A doctor who is one of the first people in the world to become infected with the Omicron variant says he believes he caught the virus when he was in London for a major medical conference attended by more than 1,200 health professionals. [He was triple jabbed.]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-he-caught-omicron-variant-of-covid-in-london
 
Looks like the 10 or 11 people who have its here in Scotland were infected at Cop 26.

Seemingly none of them traveled outside Scotland and all of them attended an 'event' 11 days ago.
 
With different decisions there would have been fewer excess deaths so far. It isn't dismissiveness to acknowledge modelling that shows more excess deaths in winter and spring as a result of opening up later, owing to seasonal effects, behavioural effects, waning immunity etc. I've always been agnostic about when to open up - how would I know? - but this was never an unreasonable or unsupported argument, and it doesn't look any more unreasonable now, given what's happening in Europe. I’m less and less persuaded by comparisons with other countries but the fact is that as we head into a difficult winter U.K. cases are declining while those in Europe are climbing, and given the UK's other weaknesses how much worse might it be here now, relative to say Germany, had we taken their path?
A lot depends on the quality of the statistical modelling. I have to admit to having expected universities to work together with the NHS data and modelling groups to develop better statistical models, whereby the likely distributions of certain characteristics can be determined (e.g. effectiveness of masks in a country, effectiveness of WFH, effectiveness of being able to take time of work when sick etc) but this has not been borne out.

I still feel that delaying the surge until spring next spring (maybe parts of Europe will achieve that), will have allowed more time for people to be vaccinated, possibly with improved vaccines and for further development of treatments, with improved and less intrusive NPIS in place, whilst not keeping the NHS at saturation. By saturation I mean that the NHS has capacity to reduce its waiting list in many other areas, which it has struggled to do due to Covid (staff off sick, staff treating Covid patients, staff leaving the profession due to the pressure, extra procedures to deal with Covid).

But I would not rule out that the modelling predictions may have been in the ball park and the decision ultimately for the government was to have the excess deaths now or later.


As for Johnson and his decisions, f*** him, there's no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I suspect that since the January lockdown decision-making has been largely out of his hands. Since then policy has not been obviously batshit or evil and pretending that it has been has distracted from more grounded and rational criticisms.
His delays in 2020 (at the start and from September onwards) did result in a lot of excess deaths (could be up to 50k). In 2021, I would agree that his decisions were not batshit or evil. However, I still feel that my comments above are valid in terms of delaying the surge.

iSage might *acknowledge* inequalities and longer-term measures but they are never the focus of their campaign (and as far as I'm aware they've never acknowledged inequalities with regards to the costs and benefits of lockdown). Gav routinely calls my focus on work, sick pay and health/social care funding "infantile leftism" and I'm assuming iSage have made a similar assessment, because the focus has all been on short term, media-friendly measures. It's well worth railing at iSage because they have absolutely destroyed public debate around covid and effectively shielded the government at every turn. They continue to flood the zone with shit, and their prescriptions are reliably *worse* than the government's actual approach!
My mistake re "infantile leftism" on PFM. I can list and have listed areas where I think iSage are at fault, but I still think that they have informed by bringing many areas to the attention of people that have been watching their presentations. The data analysis is good and supports the wider use of data in the pandemic. Their recommendations have generally been quite soft and not dealt clearly with some of the areas that I think are important. But I still think that they are an asset, so we will have to continue to disagree on that!
 
But I would not rule out that the modelling predictions may have been in the ball park and the decision ultimately for the government was to have the excess deaths now or later.

They didn't include boosters at the time as it wasn't clear that they would be necessary before Delta became dominant. Nevertheless, it's clear that boosters are saving lives in the older and vulnerable groups already, lives that we can't regain from the past (not yet anyway ;)).
 
This sickens me to my stomach. My frail elderly FiL had to spend his last Christmas without his family round him while we obeyed restrictions.

dmjR89l.jpg


is this leadership?
 
Covid-19 variants may not evolve to be less dangerous, says Neil Ferguson
Senior UK scientist says extent of threat posed by Omicron will not be clear until end of year

“Most of the transmission has already happened by the time people get hospitalised,” Ferguson told the Commons science and technology committee. “The virus cares about replicating very fast within the respiratory tract and getting out into the environment. If that happens to kill somebody 10 days later the virus really doesn’t care.”

His comments came as minutes from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) revealed that the experts urged UK ministers last week to take “early and robust actions” to limit the transmission of the Omicron variant.

The scientists noted that firm data was not yet available but early analysis of the variant provided “sufficiently worrying signals” for them to recommend “early and robust actions to prevent introduction and onward transmission”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...on-may-not-evolve-less-danger-time-nervtag-uk
 
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