Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

Pret A Manger founder reacts badly to the news that autumn & winter together last 6 months. And demands that the rules are reviewed each week, each hour. Personally I doubt hourly data will be available or make a difference, and I dread to think what will happen if someone tells him how many hours autumn & winter comprise of.

Pret Founder Julian Metcalfe Blasts Boris Johnson's 'Churchillian Nonsense'

The businessman demanded that new lockdown rules are reviewed "each week, each hour".

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

“The talk of six months is criminal,” he said. “We’re losing thousands upon thousands of jobs. How long can this continue.”

Also contains other criticisms of Johnson.

 

[Wilf]

Pret A Manger founder reacts badly to the news that autumn & winter together last 6 months. And demands that the rules are reviewed each week, each hour. Personally I doubt hourly data will be available or make a difference, and I dread to think what will happen if someone tells him how many hours autumn & winter comprise of.

Pret Founder Julian Metcalfe Blasts Boris Johnson's 'Churchillian Nonsense'

The businessman demanded that new lockdown rules are reviewed "each week, each hour".

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Maybe if he whines enough, Johnson will fine workers who bring their own sarnies into work.

 

[William of Walworth]

Maybe if he whines enough, Johnson will fine workers who bring their own sarnies into work.

I know it's a pisstake , but .....

if anything like that was ever suggested in reality!

In my case, I'm more likely to bring salads (+ fruit), but I have no choice -- the usually excellent salad bar at work is indefinitely closed (helping yourself with shared spoons obviously isn't a great idea) .

 

[killer b]

But they've repeatedly ignored the behavioural science. I find it harder to see any new rules being especially and/or honestly driven by any insight into social behaviour, at this stage, as a consequence - particularly in the context of those rules being obviously shite in the grand scheme of things.

Dunno about that - much of the criticism I've read has suggested they were driven too much by the behavioural scientists and not enough by the science scientists.

 

[mauvais]

Dunno about that - much of the criticism I've read has suggested they were driven too much by the behavioural scientists and not enough by the science scientists.

A Member Of Sage Has Claimed The “Trivial” 10pm Curfew Will Have Little Impact On Slowing Coronavirus Infections

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Sage advisory group, has said the impact on the 10pm curfew will be trivial as he warned current measures d...

www.politicshome.com

Meanwhile, The Times suggests that other scientific advisers have also warned that the 10pm curfew will have little effect.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) reportedly did not model the effect of a 10pm curfew, and the behavioural science sub-group was also not consulted on the change.

Key members of the committee are said to have told the government there is no evidence that the curfew would be effective.

 

[Cid]

I think there has been two campaigns for the behaviour boys here, the government managed to nudge people into locking down before the government felt forced to and did that well.

They've then attempted to "nudge" people back into softly going to work while maintaining distance and other measures however they wildly underestimated the extent to which social distancing and other protective measures would collapse and how quickly it would collapse.

We won't know for sure though until the inevitable 20 year inquiry nears an end and the biographies start coming out though.

Problem is that they didn’t do it well. Maybe they think they did, which might explain a lot of the problems they’re having. But Italy passed 100 deaths in a day on the 8th of March. And Cheltenham festival started on the 10th. It was a mess... of course you can say that independent actions at that time were a result of nudging. But when your nudge looks pretty similar to what people might do anyway in the face of a potential catastrophe... well you’re basically post-rationalising. And clearly the effect of waiting until that point was an abject failure in terms of impact on the country.

 

[killer b]

A Member Of Sage Has Claimed The “Trivial” 10pm Curfew Will Have Little Impact On Slowing Coronavirus Infections

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Sage advisory group, has said the impact on the 10pm curfew will be trivial as he warned current measures d...

www.politicshome.com

Everyone loved John Edmunds now he's critical of the government... I remember the olden days when he was out on the media rounds in March, defending herd immunity as a policy.

 

[killer b]

(fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)

 

[Steel Icarus]

(fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)

For modest read utterly ineffectual. The dam has over 6000 holes and a very limited supply of brave little Dutch boys.

 

[Cid]

(fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)

Sure, but it becomes - again - a question of implementation and actual effect. We don’t know exactly what the government were presented with, what filters it passed through, and what interpretation they took. And they in turn don’t know how that will play out stochastically. The basic science might say ‘this caused Y effect in Belgian, so we would expect a range between X and y here’, probably with a load of caveats attached. That predictive element only holds up if the implementation is done in a way that maximises the effect and combines it properly with other measures. If the initial advice has been affected by e.g political influence from the back benches, contradictory letters, business interests etc, then you may end up with a watered down version whose actual effects are far less than the advice suggested.

 

[kabbes]

I’d be cautious about saying the government are following “behavioural science”. The area used by this government is one strand of social psychology that takes an uncritical stance on the nature of power structures and social context, restricting itself to a neoliberal application of group dynamics on a small scale. It engenders plenty of criticism within the wider academic field. That’s why you get the likes of Reicher trying to advise SAGE but saying he’s not being listened to — the government simply aren’t interested in what the wider field has to say about the more critical stances of social psychology. They just want to boil it down to individuals-being-influenced, not the more complex web of humans-as-relationships .

 

[chilango]

Libertarian Paternalism is what they like to call it.

 

[two sheds]

I’d be cautious about saying the government are following “behavioural science”. The area used by this government is one strand of social psychology that takes an uncritical stance on the nature of power structures and social context, restricting itself to a neoliberal application of group dynamics on a small scale. It engenders plenty of criticism within the wider academic field. That’s why you get the likes of Reicher trying to advise SAGE but saying he’s not being listened to — the government simply aren’t interested in what the wider field has to say about the more critical stances of social psychology. They just want to boil it down to individuals-being-influenced, not the more complex web of humans-as-relationships .

Another excellent post

 

[pesh]

(fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)

yeah, it might push up off-licence and cocaine sales a bit i suppose.

 

[kabbes]

Libertarian Paternalism is what they like to call it.

I think of the nudge unit as being weaponised social psychology. The deliberate aim is to bolster and advance a neoliberal ideology, which is done by enacting processes that make people look inwards rather than outwards for both the causes and solutions to their problems. This is internalised until any other approach becomes literally unthinkable. They are the front line of an ideological war. Which means that paying attention only to those guys during a crisis like this is like ignoring the scientists working in epidemiology or immunology or trying to develop microbiological controls and instead just talking to those who develop biological weapons for a living. Sure, they’ll have some insight. But you’re really missing the information that’s kind of the key to developing a solution.

 

[killer b]

Just to be clear: I'm not saying the government are 'following behavioural science' only that's it's been criticised previously for doing this too much. And I'm not saying that closing the pubs early will solve the problem - just saying that the idea it'll do nothing - when it will clearly both reduce the opportunities for human contact and dampen demand for pubs in general - is nonsense. It won't be enough. But it won't be nothing. That's all.

 

[Orang Utan]

A staff member has an iPhone and couldn’t download the app
(Also, dunno about anywhere else but no printing is allowed in our libraries at the moment)

Apparently if you have an iPhone the app will only work if you have IOS 13.5 or above, so if your phone is over 6 years old, it ain’t gonna work

 

[cupid_stunt]

Apparently if you have an iPhone the app will only work if you have IOS 13.5 or above, so if your phone is over 6 years old, it ain’t gonna work

There's a new thread covering today's launch of the app here: NHS Covid 19 App

 

[Cid]

Just to be clear: I'm not saying the government are 'following behavioural science' only that's it's been criticised previously for doing this too much.

Really? From what I recall a substantial amount of criticism has come from the broader social science community.

And I'm not saying that closing the pubs early will solve the problem - just saying that the idea it'll do nothing - when it will clearly both reduce the opportunities for human contact and dampen demand for pubs in general - is nonsense. It won't be enough. But it won't be nothing. That's all.

But again we’re talking humans here. Are they going to go home and quietly tuck themselves into bed after closing time? This stuff is very hard to get a handle on at the best of times.

 

[killer b]

But again we’re talking humans here. Are they going to go home and quietly tuck themselves into bed after closing time? This stuff is very hard to get a handle on at the best of times.

Some of them won't, but many will.

There was a widespread expectation at the start of lockdown earlier in the year that the british people just wouldn't observe it. But - on the whole - they did. While there's been a distinct drop in trust in the government since then which could move the dial a little against observance, why would it be any different with this?

 

[killer b]

It's just the flipside of Johnson's bollocks about the british people being too freedom loving to stand for harsher restrictions. It's nonsense.

 

[strung out]

Some of them won't, but many will.

There was a widespread expectation at the start of lockdown earlier in the year that the british people just wouldn't observe it. But - on the whole - they did. While there's been a distinct drop in trust in the government since then which could move the dial a little against observance, why would it be any different with this?

See also face masks. There were people on here saying that the masks in shops rule/law would be widely ignored and quietly withdrawn, but there's been 90%+ compliance in every shop I've been in since the rule was introduced, as opposed to probably less than 10% compliance beforehand.

 

[Steel Icarus]

My fear is the main demographic who give the least fucks about following the rules or being careful are the ones who unlike March-August are now back in massive numbers to crowded environments, which apparently will be last to close.

 

[SpookyFrank]

(fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)

It'll get the staff home and in their beds at a reasonable hour, which is not nothing.

 

[SpookyFrank]

My fear is the main demographic who give the least fucks about following the rules or being careful are the ones who unlike March-August are now back in massive numbers to crowded environments, which apparently will be last to close.

Assuming 'young people' is the group you're referring to as giving the least fucks, I'd have to see you working out on that point.

 

[Orang Utan]

I think it’s a myth that the dontgiveafucks are limited to a specific age range.

 

[Cid]

It's just the flipside of Johnson's bollocks about the british people being too freedom loving to stand for harsher restrictions. It's nonsense.

It’s not that at all... We’re talking about possible over reliance on a specific and limited set of rules, applied in a very different situation from early lockdown. I’m not saying people won’t do it, I’m saying that relying entirely on them doing it to a sufficient standard is a huge risk... and also reliant on the assumptions made in setting out that rule being correct.

 

[StoneRoad]

Maybe people should have to book, in advance, for pubs in the same way as they do for eateries ?
(*with confirmation sent by a text reply with an activation code).

Second maybe - perhaps because of the when "booze in brain out" syndrome that reduces inhibitions (ie breaks down social distancing) we should only serve alcohol to those eating meals.

I'm not going out for either food or booze over the winter period. Actually, make that until I have immunity via vaccination.

 

[Johnny Doe]

Just to be clear: I'm not saying the government are 'following behavioural science' only that's it's been criticised previously for doing this too much. And I'm not saying that closing the pubs early will solve the problem - just saying that the idea it'll do nothing - when it will clearly both reduce the opportunities for human contact and dampen demand for pubs in general - is nonsense. It won't be enough. But it won't be nothing. That's all.

Really? From what I recall a substantial amount of criticism has come from the broader social science community.
But again we’re talking humans here. Are they going to go home and quietly tuck themselves into bed after closing time? This stuff is very hard to get a handle on at the best of times.

To answer both of these these, it will have an effect because it will put some people off some visits to the pub. For instance, some people go to the pub to watch football matches, some of which now start at 8.15. If you are going to get kicked out with 15 mins of the big game to go, you may as well go to the offy and then stream it at home.

 

[Badgers]

To answer both of these these, it will have an effect because it will put some people off some visits to the pub. For instance, some people go to the pub to watch football matches, some of which now start at 8.15. If you are going to get kicked out with 15 mins of the big game to go, you may as well go to the offy and then stream it at home.

The footy times have been rearranged