elbows
Well-Known Member
Good data for vaccines impact and the India variant
In the non-vaccination era we also saw rises in younger age groups first, so I avoid putting two and two together for now.
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
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In the non-vaccination era we also saw rises in younger age groups first, so I avoid putting two and two together for now.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Yeah, and if he'd talked about that then fair enough on some level. But I saw him on a few different reports just saying he's against them with no qualification about better funding/not working as well as national ones. What he said is going to feed into any 'no more lockdowns' dynamic unless he's very careful.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Some of this BBC article chimes pretty well with things I've drawn attention to recently, including the Warwick modelling and the awful lag between testing and genomic analysis results.
Indian variant: Second jabs could be brought forward to tackle rise
Local restrictions have also not been ruled out in areas worst affected by the Indian variant.
www.bbc.co.uk
elbows
Well-Known Member
He wasnt careful last time so I expect nothing else this time. He is a disgrace to public health.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I suppose I should be grateful that he is one of the only high profile figures who somehow managed to make disgusting priorities and a dangerous misunderstanding of the required public health measures look like a reasonable, champion of the people, stance. I hope there is a local government module in the public inquiry that will expose his folly, but I have my doubts.
Some of this BBC article chimes pretty well with things I've drawn attention to recently, including the Warwick modelling and the awful lag between testing and genomic analysis results.
Indian variant: Second jabs could be brought forward to tackle rise
Local restrictions have also not been ruled out in areas worst affected by the Indian variant.www.bbc.co.uk
As we're talking abiout Burnham, it's worth a mention of this from that story :
BBC said:
Aside from Burnham's other, more publicised shite (
),, does that specific point aboout targetting more vaccines have any merit I wonder? 
I'm inclined to think 'not a bad iidea' myself, given how (over
)-stockpiled the UK Government is with vaccines.Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
It seems to my non-expert eye that the surge vaccination has to be worth trying at least, because there isn't really much potential risk there from what I can see. What's the worst case outcome? Some slightly younger people get vaccinated in those areas at the expense of some mid-30s people being marginally later elsewhere. When the aim is maximum vaccination and you're not talking about the exceptionally vulnerable then that doesn't seem a big problem.
elbows
Well-Known Member
As we're talking abiout Burnham, it's worth a mention of this from that story :
Aside from Burnham's other, more publicised shite (
I'm inclined to think 'not a bad iidea' myself, given how (over
They dont release detailed supply info but the presumption is that the UK has not been overburdened with actual stock of vaccines at any point so far - all the headlines about how many gazillion doses we have are about how many we have ordered, not how many are actually on hand right now.
This was demonstrated quite vividly by the fact that the failure of a shipment of AZ vaccines from India to arrive in the county on schedule caused them to have to rework the rollout timing for most of April.
As for whether accelerating the vaccine rollout in very specific, targetted ways makes sense, its a mixed picture. Since supply for all is not available, it inevitably comes at the expense of the timing of others being vacinated.
And more broadly I would add this stuff to a long list of responses to outbreaks of concern throughout the pandemic which have some merits, but which are not expected to actually make the sort of crucial difference that would truly fix the situation.
Right now I would say I have various unknowns and doubts about quite how bad the implications of the India strain spreading and showing signs of becoming the dominant strain are. But I can easily go as far as to say that the slow, feeble response to the situation strongly mirrors the sort of massive fuckups we've seen repeatedly so far in this pandemic. Being seen to be doing something, but half-arsing things in a manner that pretty much ensures failure. Too many things that need to be done are still resisted and considered unthinkable. And the timing almost guarantees failure, because there is too much lag in our surveillance - the picture the numbers are giving us is weeks out of date by the time we hear about it, so highly localised containment repeatedly ends up resembling a 'horse already bolted' situation.
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Supine
Newt Member
I'm inclined to think 'not a bad iidea' myself, given how (over
The gov isn’t over-stocked with vaccines, it has over ordered. Diverting vaccines here will slow down their rollout somewhere else.
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
I really think it is untenable to expect northern urban areas to endure a repeat of last year - months of grinding covid restrictions while the rest of the country gets back to normal and looks the other way. I think Burnham is dead right to argue that. What the alternative is I'm not so sure but the surge vaccination idea is at least worth trying.
Yes, my bad
-- apologies, because I kind of knew that already really I was (correctly) corrected by elbows about that 'overstocked' nonsense of mine
, in his excellent post.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yes I ranted about Sacha Lord again recently because he was associated with some fucking 'lets accelerate the opening of hospitality' court case that the judge wasnt impressed by.
In a sensible world the idiotic things these people came out with when the second wave was taking hold should be enough to disqualify their comments now, in response to the Indian variant, from being taken seriously. But thats not how it seems to work so I have had plenty to rant about this week. I doubt I will persist for that long, this battle may drag on for quite some time and I will get burnt out by it.
There is a greater chance they wont be 100% wrong this time, as current state of vaccinations is better than nothing, but there is still a fair chance that people will end up learning the hard way what the limitations of that progress are. I think I've been boring on about the risks of people getting the wrong idea about the universality of vaccine protection, and how much pandemic weight vaccinations can reasonably be expected to carry, almost since the first doses were going into arms. I was hoping a practical demonstration of these limits could be avoided. Maybe it still will. I wouldnt bet on it from what I've heard this week.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Its something of a red herring in several ways:
Burnham is a local leader so he tunes his message to fighting the spectre of local lockdowns, but the logic and stance he uses are mostly the same as anti-national lockdown rhetoric. If he was a national leader then he would either have to craft a totally different stance, or be anti-lockdown full stop, under which circumstances the virus would eventually have eaten his stance.
And then there is the reality of this new variant and how it will spread. Our picture is out of date and I would expect that actually the India variant is already a national problem, its just a question of how long it takes for data to prove that to all concerned. And if prevalence levels stay below a certain level then the required national response may remain less obvious. Leaving variants aside, the expectation for this phase of the pandemic is that the varying nature of communities, jobs, housing, poverty and levels of vaccine uptake in different places will create a messy picture where some places avoid big problems and others suffer. Dull papers have been written about this, which I will link to later once I've had time to find one. This sort of picture should ring a bell, we've been here before. And with that prior learning in mind we have to consider that that picture doesnt always stay true, there are thresholds beyond which things more obviously become a widespread, national problem once more. This should be familiar, and its important to take note of it at this stage because we've seen things dressed up as local problems with local measures before, only for them to repeatedly be behind the curve, too little, too late - the sort of situation where the real story is not about the places that are under new restrictions, but all the places that arent, and how they repidly catch up with the hotspots as a result.
elbows
Well-Known Member
To put it another way in regards Burnham, his pandemic instincts and priorities are worryingly similar to Johnsons, except Burnham has the added luxury of not needing to make the sort of emergency response national decisions that made Johnson the pandemic king of u-turns. This is demonstrated by Burnhams ability to have taken such idiotic stances before without suffering the sort of pandemic reputational damage that have been inflicted on Johnson in waves.
When Johnson has dragged his heels, modelling exerceises have sometimes been performed which demonstrated how many more deaths stemmed from lockdowns being introduced late rather than with more optimal timing. Burnham has avoided similar analysis but theres no reason in my book why he should - I consider him partly to blame for a portion of second wave deaths in the Greater Manchester area.
When Johnson has dragged his heels, modelling exerceises have sometimes been performed which demonstrated how many more deaths stemmed from lockdowns being introduced late rather than with more optimal timing. Burnham has avoided similar analysis but theres no reason in my book why he should - I consider him partly to blame for a portion of second wave deaths in the Greater Manchester area.
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
He's made a few statements I've disagreed with (particularly on pubs - he seems to have poor grasp of the science on covid transmission) - but fundamentally last year he was trying to get the resources to make that Greater Manchester lockdown work (and of course failed, but appeared like a hero for trying). As someone who has now been under some form of restrictions for ten months and absolutely dreading a repeat of last year I'm glad he's making the case that you just can't do half arsed local lockdowns any more.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Blah blah 'caution' blah blah 'vigilence' blah 'not our fault if things fuck up' blah.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yes despite my ranting I do understand your position on that. I was in favour of most of the stuff being done at the national level when the resurgence came at the end of last summer/early autumn, because the regional approach was just inviting everywhere to become just as bad, and because the national authorities could half-arse the support side of things even more when they werent imposing restrictions on the whole country. And also because of the effect on morale of the people in the affected areas, the destruction of powerful illusions about us 'all being in this together', etc. Pointlessly playing for time in a manner that benefited nobody in the end, pain for little gain. Everyone taking the pain early and in a more intense but shorter manner would probably have been better than the shit we actually got.
Unfortunately the sum of what Burnham said at the time left me thoroughly unconvinced that he was just seeking the right support and wanted to make a decent local lockdown work. He said far too much that tried to downplay how bad things were and what the potential for a second wave was. If I'd been a director of public health serving under him at the time I would have resigned on principal. He appears incapable of getting his head around epidemic dynamics, and plenty of what he said encouraged non-compliance and unacceptable delays to restrictions when they were needed most.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yeah I expect the usual mix of some reasonable bits and a load of bollocks, and more playing for time. I suppose I dont rule out a new u-turn, which would also offer clues about how bad they think things are, but its reasonable to think that even if they eventually reach that point, it wont be today. We've not been very proactive in this pandemic, and the vaccine programme will tempt Johnson & co to push their luck even further this time.
I'll commentate on the press conference this evening but if its just the usual stuff then my commentary will be mercifully brief.
Amazingly shit timing again given we are currently in a phase where these sorts of graphics appear on the BBC website. A pandemic of awkward juxtapositions.
I'm not really convinced that you need to wear a mask if you dont have a nose or mouth.
bimble
floofy
that is one of the saddest public info graphics i have ever seen.
The information just doesn't exist to answer these below questions that the NHS wants answering about the indian variant is that right?
www.theguardian.com
The information just doesn't exist to answer these below questions that the NHS wants answering about the indian variant is that right?
UK Covid: second vaccine doses accelerated as Indian variant threatens easing – as it happened
Prime minister announces acceleration of vaccination programme as Indian variant threatens June lockdown easing
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
The sodding City of sodding Glasgow will doffing remain in sodding Level sodding 3 of sodding coronavirus restrictions, for one sodding more sodding week and until sodding Monday 24th of sodding May.
This sodding means no sodding travel sodding in and sodding out of sodding Glasgow is sodding allowed for the next sodding week, unless sodding travel is sodding necessary.
This sodding means no sodding travel sodding in and sodding out of sodding Glasgow is sodding allowed for the next sodding week, unless sodding travel is sodding necessary.
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
Just read this. Half an hour after we got home from spending the day in Glasgow
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
You be fine I’m sure.Just read this. Half an hour after we got home from spending the day in Glasgow
Threshers_Flail
Well-Known Member
Sacha Lord, an absolute cunt. He owns The Warehouse Project so is obvs dead keen on us going to plague raves so he can make his £££.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Modelling isnt a totally reliable guide but its the sort of guide those services are used to having to rely on. I already went on about Warwick Uni modelling of scenarios with a new variant with various increases in transmissibility, so an updated version of that using a transmission estimate for the India strain will offer some clues. Modelling per region can also be done to give some sense of which areas may face pressure first. Various unknowns including some timing unknowns will still exist in this picture, but as a rough guide its much better than nothing.
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