Loose meat
Well-Known Member
New data relevant to NHS capacity >>>
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
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Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Feel like some sort of killjoy reporting this, but still:
www.theguardian.com
‘Devastating’: WHO scientist condemns Euro 2020 final over Covid risk
WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, says event likely to have spurred Covid-19 transmission
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Whitty's Still Drawing His Salary Variant
bimble
floofy
elbows
Well-Known Member
He used it because Jonathan Van-Tam (deputy CMO) said it in a press conference last year at a time when really quite large numbers of people were paying attention to the regular press conferences. And he said it back then in the same context of some impending relaxation of rules. And the press ran with it at the time because compared to the droning from the likes of Whitty or Vallance, Van-Tams language was considered to have greater resonance with people, to be more memorable etc.
government is "encouraging" businesses to require and check vaccine certification.
but still no news on when those of us who got our jabs in clinical trials will have that shown in the app. they seem to have not mentioned it entirely since saying they were looking into it months ago.
I'll end up dropping out the trial (for follow up blood tests monitoring) and go for an unnecessary second set of NHS jabs if the alternative is being housebound.
but still no news on when those of us who got our jabs in clinical trials will have that shown in the app. they seem to have not mentioned it entirely since saying they were looking into it months ago.
I'll end up dropping out the trial (for follow up blood tests monitoring) and go for an unnecessary second set of NHS jabs if the alternative is being housebound.
I really don't think we should be expecting bouncers to check vaccine status. It's bad enough for them having to look out for fake proof of age, but at least there's decades of experience on that.
How does anyone think they'll cope with spotting fakes if someone claims to have received the vaccine abroad?
Surely it makes more sense to look at the herd as a whole, not individuals. And judge either it's safe enough to open events on that. Rather than try to filter the people coming into to skew away from the average.
How does anyone think they'll cope with spotting fakes if someone claims to have received the vaccine abroad?
Surely it makes more sense to look at the herd as a whole, not individuals. And judge either it's safe enough to open events on that. Rather than try to filter the people coming into to skew away from the average.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
I assume the primary aim of this is to encourage vaccine takeup now.
elbows
Well-Known Member
There are various debates about timing that I wont go into detail about until I've seen the latest modelling that came out today.
I've moaned about Whitty for a long time.
He says a lot of sensible things that are important to say in these press conferences, but there are some big problem areas which are mostly caused by:
The nature of his job, which includes having to sell the chosen government approach to people
His old-school orthodox establishment attitude towards many things, and the limited extent to which he has modified these to cope with the realities of this pandemic.
Very much including his sense of balancing different risks, which is based on both the aforementioned attitudes and the nature of his job, but also because of having the make judgements based on the actual realistic capacity of various systems.
These things combine into results and certain utterances that I find to be a bit ugly at times like this, during the relaxation phases. So yes he is not telling the whole story with the dates issue, and offered a narrow characterisation of it.
I also need to look at what the letter from the various royal colleges of medicine that he mentioned actually said, because he worded it to make it sound like they were agreeing with the governments chosen approach. If that turns out to not exactly be the case, more people are going to lower their opinion of him.
I will probably mention him again shortly when talking about some other things said at todays press conference.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Its unfortunate that most offices have spent the last 50 years making themselves into as closed systems as possible really
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yes and there was even a bit of 'maybe you want to get a jab because you want to go on holiday' in there somewhere today.
sure there is discussion to have, or have had, about timing. Problem is the government doesn't want that conversation. They are just arguing a fallacy of perfection, misrepresenting the opposing argument as being based on that notion. But that's a kind of straw man
Oh and the pics of Heathrow Terminal 5 are exasperating. The reception desk to Dante's viral inferno. Loads of staff off sick/isolating
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
It's all a bit of a jolly jape for him.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Todays press conference was very much a continuation of the themes and mood music established at last weeks press conference.
It remained awkward and suitably absurd, because it is no stretch at all to give it either of the following titles, with the majority of the words being direct quotes and the rest being what was meant but could not quite be said.
"Carry On Being Steady" - said directly by Whitty. Not likely one of the more popular Carry On films.
"it will only work as a fourth step if people dont actually do it" - the first part of this was said by Johnson and I simply replaced the ending to more bluntly spell out the underlying message taken to its logical conclusion.
It remained awkward and suitably absurd, because it is no stretch at all to give it either of the following titles, with the majority of the words being direct quotes and the rest being what was meant but could not quite be said.
"Carry On Being Steady" - said directly by Whitty. Not likely one of the more popular Carry On films.
"it will only work as a fourth step if people dont actually do it" - the first part of this was said by Johnson and I simply replaced the ending to more bluntly spell out the underlying message taken to its logical conclusion.
The trial I'm on (Janssen / ENSEMBLE2) has sent out letters to use as proof of vaccination until trial jabs get linked up with the app. Whoever's running your trial should be able to do the same if you ask? (Bit crap that you've not had any info though)
bimble
floofy
Might be a small sample but of the vaccine refusers that I know , it would need to be something very real -real threat or solid carrot - to make them change their minds, they won’t be tricked by some idea that bouncers are going to be be able to tell if they did a rapid flow test correctly or whatever they’re not actually that stupid.
LeytonCatLady
Well-Known Member
Yep. Unfair on bouncers/bar staff, and also discriminatory against those who can't have the jab for medical reasons, unless they plan to make an exception in that case. Even then, I'd be concerned about how they'd deal with that. People shouldn't have to carry proof of their personal medical history to say "This is why I can't be vaccinated" to non-medical people.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
It's for those double jabbed OR have a recent negative rapid flow test, which can easily be faked, so totally pointless.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
It's just bullshit, to nudge more younger people to get the jab.
elbows
Well-Known Member
A couple of other press conference notes.
Whitty is especially poor at including ventilation in his list of things people should be paying attention to. JVT was one of the first to go on about that properly in press conferences, but he isnt usually at the Johnson ones, and on this occasion it was Vallance that had to counter Whittys omission by going on about adequately ventilating businesses etc.
As expected they continue not to answer journalists questions about peak detail, or about what sort of trigger points would force government to impose new restrictions.
We did get Vallance talking about population immunity because he was asked about herd immunity. His answer was OK but incomplete. For example he did mention the benefits that build up gradually, a continuum of improvement, that is relevant before before actual thresholds for full herd immunity are reached. He did point out that R impacts on the calculations for what level of immunity would be needed to hit herd immunity threshold, but he did not explicitly point out that a variant like Delta with higher natural R potential therefore made that percentage higher (eg these days we tend to hear 85% given, it used to be lower when this stuff was first talked about with the original strain of virus). He did mention that population pockets of unvaccinated people can affect the picture.
Last week Johnson seemed to misspeak at one point about what ages of people would be vaccinated by a certain date. This time they have simplified their language about how many will be vaccinated, they are going for a 'two thirds of adults double vaccinated and every adult offered a single dose' line.
It is always useful when Whitty points out things like 'if three quarters of vaccinated people cant pass it on, that means a quarter can still pass it on'. So I liked all that stuff and the emphasis on going slowly, I just start to moan because he mixed that stuff in with claims that the government are going slowly in a way that all sorts of professionals approve of.
Whitty is especially poor at including ventilation in his list of things people should be paying attention to. JVT was one of the first to go on about that properly in press conferences, but he isnt usually at the Johnson ones, and on this occasion it was Vallance that had to counter Whittys omission by going on about adequately ventilating businesses etc.
As expected they continue not to answer journalists questions about peak detail, or about what sort of trigger points would force government to impose new restrictions.
We did get Vallance talking about population immunity because he was asked about herd immunity. His answer was OK but incomplete. For example he did mention the benefits that build up gradually, a continuum of improvement, that is relevant before before actual thresholds for full herd immunity are reached. He did point out that R impacts on the calculations for what level of immunity would be needed to hit herd immunity threshold, but he did not explicitly point out that a variant like Delta with higher natural R potential therefore made that percentage higher (eg these days we tend to hear 85% given, it used to be lower when this stuff was first talked about with the original strain of virus). He did mention that population pockets of unvaccinated people can affect the picture.
Last week Johnson seemed to misspeak at one point about what ages of people would be vaccinated by a certain date. This time they have simplified their language about how many will be vaccinated, they are going for a 'two thirds of adults double vaccinated and every adult offered a single dose' line.
It is always useful when Whitty points out things like 'if three quarters of vaccinated people cant pass it on, that means a quarter can still pass it on'. So I liked all that stuff and the emphasis on going slowly, I just start to moan because he mixed that stuff in with claims that the government are going slowly in a way that all sorts of professionals approve of.
bimble
floofy
Mask Wearing 'Optional' For MPs But Compulsory For Parliament Staff
Exclusive: 'Literally one rule for them..' staffer complains.
MPs can choose if they wear masks or not, but staff in parliament must keep wearing them.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Read this today and now feel justified in not disinfecting my shopping and only washing my hands before eating and after using the loo (though have been using hand sanitiser at work, but have been doing that for years):
www.theguardian.com
Hygiene theatre: how excessive cleaning gives us a false sense of security
Covid-19 is a mainly airborne disease. So does our endless disinfecting and hand sanitising serve any purpose – or could it be worse than useless?
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
I'm a nose-picker so I have to wash my hands more 
My shopping quarantine queue is a lot shorter than it was...
My shopping quarantine queue is a lot shorter than it was...
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Exactly
elbows
Well-Known Member
Oh I forgot to mention the other detail in the press conference that people should keep in mind is when it was said that previously peaks were caused by intervention (eg things that have been called lockdown) which meant the peak timing was about the same everywhere. And since they arent intending to apply the same breakes this time, they are expecting wider variation in peak timing for different regions etc.
There are still some things that different regions will have in common, so I dont know quite how big the differences will be. Certainly the timing of the upward side of the curve is varying per place and per region, ans school holiday timing also varies. So its quite likely that when looking for the peaks, I will be doing it per region as well as for nations as a whole.
There are still some things that different regions will have in common, so I dont know quite how big the differences will be. Certainly the timing of the upward side of the curve is varying per place and per region, ans school holiday timing also varies. So its quite likely that when looking for the peaks, I will be doing it per region as well as for nations as a whole.
thanks for the reminder. I thought I was supposed to have a letter after the 2nd shot, but it's never come. will chase them up.
but the point of the NHS app is it's official and not so easily fakeable. anyone with 5 mins and a copy of Word can sort out a letter. so if the government tells people to accept that then why even bother?
but now that you mention it -
I missed the lateral flow test point in Javid's announcement.
faking one of those is as easy as scanning the QR code at home and ticking the box for negative. it's entirely done on the honour system.
going to give up trying to understand what the government actually means to achieve
elbows
Well-Known Member
I've now got as far as reading the latest SAGE minutes that have been published, from a 7th July meeting.
They arent very long, and I will have to resist the urge to quote too many different bits. But of note:
Yeah they didnt discuss it because they largely restrain themselves to scenarios that the government has indicated are actually on the table at that time. But deliberately stating that they did not discuss these options is quit a statement in itself, designed to draw attention to this gaping hole.
One of the new areas where the modelling ranges are limited enough that they can fish some good news out of them is in regards deaths:
A lot of what I havent quoted deals with things that were central themes in this weeks press conference, stuff about how if this step and peoples return to normal behaviours is done slowly, the number of hospitalisations etc will be less. SAGE are also more explicit about the impact of masks etc:
SAGE are not in love with the current approach. They fulfil their duties by restricting themselves to the options that have been up for discussion within the confines of the shitty limits the government have set, but its still apparent that even within this limited territory, there is much they can find fault with in the governments choice of balancing act.
They arent very long, and I will have to resist the urge to quote too many different bits. But of note:
Yeah they didnt discuss it because they largely restrain themselves to scenarios that the government has indicated are actually on the table at that time. But deliberately stating that they did not discuss these options is quit a statement in itself, designed to draw attention to this gaping hole.
My bold. I know we've discussed this before but its always worth pointing out that SAGE are drawing attention to this risk too. The next point is also related:
One of the new areas where the modelling ranges are limited enough that they can fish some good news out of them is in regards deaths:
A lot of what I havent quoted deals with things that were central themes in this weeks press conference, stuff about how if this step and peoples return to normal behaviours is done slowly, the number of hospitalisations etc will be less. SAGE are also more explicit about the impact of masks etc:
SAGE are not in love with the current approach. They fulfil their duties by restricting themselves to the options that have been up for discussion within the confines of the shitty limits the government have set, but its still apparent that even within this limited territory, there is much they can find fault with in the governments choice of balancing act.
Chilli.s
mingling jets and statuettes
I'd not lift of the gas at all
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