Coronavirus - the new strain XV

[cooky1257]

Just got back from a GP appt, they operate an online triage system before they will offer a phone consultation or face to face arranged via a phone call to the practice.
There is a long phone message that goes to great lengths to emphasise not to turn up if you have covid symptoms. While I'm in the waiting area some bloke is on his mobile. mask down, telling someone he's just had a positive covid test...FFS

 

[Enfield boy]

If Johnson was a CEO failing this badly I think there's a strong chance shareholders would have forced him out by now.

Sadly as voters we'll have to wait a few years. Let's hope UK PLC doesn't go bust before then.

Sadly, institutional shareholders, pension funds, insurance companies etc are the biggest holders of PLC stocks. The executives all tend to sit on"remuneration panels" to decide what they are each worth and the grift goes on.

 

[gavreid]

NEU accuses Johnson of offering false hope of schools reopening...

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...08bf384c763ae3#block-601179e38f08bf384c763ae3

Worrying patterns emerging in vaccine takeup

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ng-disparities-covid-vaccine-coverage-england

 

[gavreid]

25 308 new cases, 1725 deaths and ... nothing else.

 

[hifinutt]

They even have to pay for their training now, whilst working in hospitals. It's hardly a recipe for encouraging new recruits, given the rewards relative to other careers. I know there's more to it than that, it's not a career you enter for financial gain, but it hurts when they are treated like second class citizens.

Bloody dentists got a pay rise and most weren't even working in lockdown!

yes not sure about the dentists , i saw one not too long ago . the government have relented slightly on bursaries in giving 5000 a year but its not much . might just pay a bit towards your rent. as you say it does not encourage nursing students .

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nursing-students-to-receive-5-000-payment-a-year

 

[hifinutt]

NEU accuses Johnson of offering false hope of schools reopening...

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...08bf384c763ae3#block-601179e38f08bf384c763ae3

Worrying patterns emerging in vaccine takeup

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ng-disparities-covid-vaccine-coverage-england

but the rapid assessment of the deployment revealed vaccine coverage was twice as high among white people than black people in the first five weeks, with 42.5% of white people receiving the jab compared with 20.5% of black people in the group. The vaccination status of south Asian people was also a concern at 29.5%, doctors said.

yes because the area is rampant with anti vax campaigns , very concerning . even citizen khan is trying to persuade them !!!!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-55818988

 

[droodzilla]

25 308 new cases, 1725 deaths and ... nothing else.

I doubt the government care now. Any political risk came with passing 100K and it will soon fade.

Unless the government totally screw up, the death toll is unlikely to pass 200K, so they are home and dry.

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.

 

[gavreid]

I doubt the government care now. Any political risk came with passing 100K and it will soon fade.

Unless the government totally screw up, the death toll is unlikely to pass 200K, so they are home and dry.

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.

I certainly think 150 000 is a reasonable estimate, then you add the death certs and the excess death count so that could take it to 200 k before then end of spring.

The people dying just now are all those who were admitted around Christmas

 

[Seanm]

Disagree. Pretty sure she raises the issue of material support regularly and she certainly does in the article I shared. I share the concern about overemphasising border closures (what could possibly go wrong?) but I don't think she does that (in the article, it's presented as part of a balanced appraisal of the government's mistakes). Whatever, her article is streets ahead of this piece:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/26/why-has-britain-suffered-more-than-100000-covid-deaths

which is content to repeat government talking points (we're a nation of fatties, we'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that pesky new variant...).

Not sure. Material support for isolation gets a mention as part of the testing failure. Borders meanwhile are front and centre:

First, the UK had no border policies in place for months. When introduced, these were lax and unmonitored. Borders are the first line of defence against a novel pathogen and a way to catch new variants and infections before they have a chance to spread. Countries that managed to effectively contain Sars-CoV-2 implemented screenings of new arrivals and 14-day quarantines for those entering the country. Some even restricted travel to national citizens. In March, when the UK went into lockdown, people were instructed to stay home while passengers from any country could arrive at Heathrow and take the tube straight into London without a Covid test. In the summer, we had a window to prevent future infections. Instead, the UK encouraged overseas holidays via “travel corridors” that contributed to the second wave. We paid for summer holidays with winter lockdowns.

It's quite heady stuff. Strictly from a public health perspective, is keeping people out of the country the most important thing right now? Well...what do I know, but seems unlikely, given domestic spread. From a perspective of balancing various social needs, that there's a price to pay for keeping people in or out needs to be acknowledged. From a political perspective...I think it's really, really messed up. Approaching a right wing, authoritarian, xenophobic government with a list of demands and putting "Close the borders!" in red ink at the top - as you say, what could possibly go wrong? Patel: "No! Don't make us restrict movement for the foreseeable! Don't make us build quarantine camps! Anything but that!" They are going to adopt this measure rather than any of the others, in a way that is ineffective and affects only minorities, and they're going to say the left made them do it - and they'll be right.

I'm not saying there's no argument for managing movement but any demands in this regard have to be way down the list, caveated almost out of existence and hedged around with all kinds of conditions and counterarguments, IMO.

I found this short thread thoughtful:

https://twitter.com/HellewellJoel/status/1354450361352859651?s=20

 

[Seanm]

You said it was the outcome the Tories wanted. I inferred from "wanted" that where is we are today is what the Tories wanted. This is not true because there are enough Tory MPs (such as the CRG) calling for early end to 'lockdown' and throwing the schools open.

Well there are Tories and there are Tories. As I say, no-one got everything that they wanted (and it's not over yet, so got to keep the pressure on), but most Tories will be happy enough to be coming out of this polling 40+ without having had to make any serious changes to the way we run society or the economy.

 

[Nick_G]

Incomprehensible idiocy. The important thing there to my mind is the safety of the NHS staff and other patients. If pigshit ignorant morons want to kill themselves and perfectly willing members of their family may as well let Darwinism do its thing.

It's as to be expected in the time of the CHAOS.

 

[mandryka]

I found this short thread thoughtful:

https://twitter.com/HellewellJoel/status/1354450361352859651?s=20

I suppose in those terms the UK is following a mitigation or suppression strategy. But what caught my attention is that the other two pro active strategies -- elimination and exclusion -- both need some serious border control. And by coincidence this morning Jenrick was busy denying that was possible in the UK on Times radio, saying

We're not a country which you can hermetically seal, we may be an island but we rely on imports and exports, freight and hauliers crossing the border every day so there will always be the ability for new variants to enter the country.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13844...uarantines-lockdown-schools-coronavirus-live/

I just don't know enough about these things to comment on what Jenrick said there.

 

[mandryka]

And they would be wrong - as this chart from the FT illustrates - (unsurprisingly) the countries that have done better at controlling covid have taken the smallest economic hit.

Source: https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-global-data/

Yes that's where I think the debate should be focussed.

 

[droodzilla]

Not sure. Material support for isolation gets a mention as part of the testing failure. Borders meanwhile are front and centre:



It's quite heady stuff. Strictly from a public health perspective, is keeping people out of the country the most important thing right now? Well...what do I know, but seems unlikely, given domestic spread. From a perspective of balancing various social needs, that there's a price to pay for keeping people in or out needs to be acknowledged. From a political perspective...I think it's really, really messed up. Approaching a right wing, authoritarian, xenophobic government with a list of demands and putting "Close the borders!" in red ink at the top - as you say, what could possibly go wrong? Patel: "No! Don't make us restrict movement for the foreseeable! Don't make us build quarantine camps! Anything but that!" They are going to adopt this measure rather than any of the others, in a way that is ineffective and affects only minorities, and they're going to say the left made them do it - and they'll be right.

I'm not saying there's no argument for managing movement but any demands in this regard have to be way down the list, caveated almost out of existence and hedged around with all kinds of conditions and counterarguments, IMO.

I found this short thread thoughtful:

https://twitter.com/HellewellJoel/status/1354450361352859651?s=20

I read that bit as a claim about temporal (as opposed to logical) priority. Effective border controls should have been implemented early when (say) the situation in Italy became apparent.

Doing it now looks like locking the stable door after the horse as bolted (if anything we should be protecting other countries by stopping people leaving the UK). I agree that greater emphasis on material support is needed.

 

[clifftaylor]

We have no reason to assume that the virus won't continue to mutate - let's reduce international flights to slow the transmission of any new ones.

 

[billo]

So, The North is to get only 2/3 of it's vaccine doses next week. But strangely it will have no impact on the numbers being jabbed or even the time scale of reaching those in the most vulnerable groups.
It's great when you get "levelled up" by this shower of incompetents.

 

[cooky1257]

So, The North is to get only 2/3 of it's vaccine doses next week. But strangely it will have no impact on the numbers being jabbed or even the time scale of reaching those in the most vulnerable groups.
It's great when you get "levelled up" by this shower of incompetents.

I'm guessing it's because life expectancy is lower up here.....

 

[SteveS1]

Sounds about right.

"Too late to implement a first lockdown. Too timid to sack Dominic Cummings for the Durham safari. Too slow to put a working track-and-trace system in place. Too late to impose a second lockdown that had been recommended by government scientists. Too quick to send people back to work and eat out. Too slow to respond to the Covid variant. Too slow to impose tougher restrictions at Christmas. Too slow to initiate a third lockdown.

The Labour leader could have gone on. Each mistake had cost lives, yet Johnson reserved the right to carry on without learning anything. Or taking responsibility for anything. Why learn lessons now when you can cram them all in together right at the end? Any inquiry could wait until after the vaccination programme had bought him some public goodwill. No matter how many more mistakes he made in the meantime; his run of bad luck had to end sooner or later. Yet again, satire had been undone by the reality. All that’s left for the sketch on days like this is a simple stenography service.

This was Johnson at his most churlish and defensive. A childish refusal to even engage with the questions, let alone answer them. But then that’s the place to which he always psychologically retreats when he’s up against it."

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...s-right-to-carry-on-without-learning-anything

 

[russel]

Worrying...


“The events we choose to remember are the ones that tell the story we want to hear, those that reflect the values we hold today and the country we hope to be: the Magna Carta and Henry VIII, two world wars and one World Cup. The terrible losses that dominated most of Britain’s Second World War story are overwhelmed by the moments of glory that followed. We largely remember 1944–45, not 1939–44.

Kahneman tells the story of an audience member at a question-and-answer session who complained that he had listened to a symphony for 20 glorious minutes only to have the whole experience ruined by a horrible screeching sound at the end. Johnson is betting that the opposite is true today, that he can define the story of Britain’s pandemic based on the memory of its ending, not the bulk of its experience.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/01/uk-pandemic-deaths-100k/617811/

 

[droodzilla]

Worrying...


“The events we choose to remember are the ones that tell the story we want to hear, those that reflect the values we hold today and the country we hope to be: the Magna Carta and Henry VIII, two world wars and one World Cup. The terrible losses that dominated most of Britain’s Second World War story are overwhelmed by the moments of glory that followed. We largely remember 1944–45, not 1939–44.

Kahneman tells the story of an audience member at a question-and-answer session who complained that he had listened to a symphony for 20 glorious minutes only to have the whole experience ruined by a horrible screeching sound at the end. Johnson is betting that the opposite is true today, that he can define the story of Britain’s pandemic based on the memory of its ending, not the bulk of its experience.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/01/uk-pandemic-deaths-100k/617811/

This, from Novara, is in a similar vein:

https://novaramedia.com/2021/01/27/...s-pandemic-response-as-a-triumph-think-again/

Whether it’s WW2, democracy, empire or Thatcher’s ‘medicine’, almost every thread which weaves together Britain’s political common sense is fabricated from falsehoods. Britain’s incapacity for reckoning honestly with its history means self-criticism when it comes to its handling of Covid-19 appears very unlikely. Instead, we should expect the events of the last year to be just one more notch in a record of national self-delusion. A decade from now, this moment may even be heralded as an unlikely success. Think that’s impossible? It’s happened before.

With the Tories holding steady at 40% in the polls and a vaccination bounce to come, I can's see them sustaining political damage anytime soon, if ever.