22nd February - Roadmap out of the pandemic, lifting of restrictions.

[MikeWM]

This very slow reopening is too late for one of the better pubs in Ely, which has decided to give up and be converted into accommodation (though the council are resisting that, so I suppose it may yet survive under a different owner).

Given it didn't have an outside area and didn't serve food, I guess it didn't have much of a chance of survival under the conditions that have been imposed for the last 14 months. A pointless waste.

 

[kez19]

I would argue that the media have exacerbated the mental health situation with their wall-to-wall reporting of sensationalist and depressing stories (on top of depression caused by restrictions).

You said it better than myself but fully agree but on the other just to add it probably had been done on purpose

 

[Cdd89]

Yes strictly speaking it is government policy in response to the pandemic that has incurred debt, rather than the virus itself. Either way stating “the cost of the pandemic” surely captures the essence of the issue. We all know it refers to the borrowing that has taken place

Not quite. If you think there was no other choice but to take the range of actions we did to fight Covid-19, then it is accurate to ascribe the costs to the virus.

If you think there were other choices that could have involved less spending (mainly furlough and T&T), then it is not accurate to ascribe the costs to the virus and instead they must be ascribed to the choice of response.

Naturally many people are keen to imply the former.

 

[DustyBin]

Well yes, this is the Tory party we’re stuck with here. Austerity is in their blood.

Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic budget. One of the tragedies of all of this is that it now won't be delivered.

Whilst I'm a Tory voter I absolutely despise the current lot, won't be voting for them and have absolutely no interest in defending them. I don't however think it's fair to claim "austerity is in their blood". For the record, I'm not a fan of austerity either.

 

[MikeWM]

Not quite. If you think there was no other choice but to take the range of actions we did to fight Covid-19, then it is accurate to ascribe the costs to the virus.

As we did nothing remotely similar in the rather similar pandemics of 1957 or 1968, or indeed in the significantly more serious pandemic of 1918, then there clearly *was* a choice.

Maybe they got it wrong then and we've got it right now, but it is very difficult to see that an arguable case for that, even at this point. With hindsight, I believe that will be even clearer than it is now.

 

[Jamiescott1]

Seychelles reintroduces lockdown with a spike in cases. 30% of cases are in those who've had 2 doses of the vaccine (they have used a lot of the Chinese vaccine though)

Seychelles brings back curbs despite vaccination success

A third of the active cases in the country involve people who have had two vaccine doses.

www.google.com

 

[Watershed]

Seychelles reintroduces lockdown with a spike in cases. 30% of cases are in those who've had 2 doses of the vaccine (they have used a lot of the Chinese vaccine though)

Seychelles brings back curbs despite vaccination success

A third of the active cases in the country involve people who have had two vaccine doses.

www.google.com

If 30% of cases are in those who are fully vaccinated, and 60% are fully vaccinated, then this would tend to suggest that vaccination has been relatively effective, reducing incidence by about 50%, even with the use of the Sinopharm vaccine.

 

[nlogax]

Seychelles reintroduces lockdown with a spike in cases. 30% of cases are in those who've had 2 doses of the vaccine (they have used a lot of the Chinese vaccine though)

These sorts of events make me wonder if once things start opening up we will start to see some countries only allow access for visitors who've received one of a specific list of vaccines that have been approved domestically. The UK hasn't approved Sinovac, the US hasn't approved AZ and so on.

I really hope we don't start to venture down that path.

 

[yorksrob]

It would be useful to know what proportion of the active cases amongst vaccine recipients result in serious illness.

 

[Lampshade]

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/hyndburn-now-highest-infection-rate-20526009



This article articulates that an outbreak at a Hyndburn school has skewed the figures in Lancashire. There is a danger that this could lead to a wider outbreak so worth keeping an eye on and should these cases go down we will see big improvement.

It will be interesting to see the effect of centralised outbreaks on the easing of restrictions as the days progress. In any case, the fact that so many cases are centralised is a good thing so those affected can isolate while we return to normality. Everyone associated with this school can do their 2 weeks while the rest of society goes about their daily business.

What is it with East Lancashire? They dragged the whole county into higher tiers before Christmas, now they're up at the wrong end of the stats again.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

More positively data still all fine and there is a good chance that we will go under 1k patients in English hospitals either today or tomorrow after the Bank Holiday backlog is cleared.

1031 to be precise from todays NHS England number down 61 from yesterday so breaching 1k tomorrow or Friday latest. Admissions have become quite lumpy over last week largely due to an uptick in NW Region and mechanical ventilated patients also static but they tend to be on a long tail.

I should comment here; the costs have not been due to the pandemic but due to the overzealous government response to it.

So many of the things that have been paid for have had little to no impact on the outcome of the waves of infection, yet it is cash that will never be seen again. The eyewatering waste of test and trace, extended furlough due to lockdowns which had negligible benefit, money being pumped into railways not being used, vaccinations for people that probably don't need them, the vanity projects that were nightingales, the huge wastage of advertising, the drop in tax revenue due to both reduced economic activity and ultimate lost jobs... I could go on. This was all caused by government policy, NOT the virus pandemic.

If even a fifth of the cash spent was all ploughed into our NHS right at the start to make it a long term viable world class health service, then yes we might have still had a lot of pain with bad winter of illness, but in the long run we would be set up to deal with it in the future. But instead we have a health system that's arguably worse off and a country mired in debt and division.

Umm the root cause is the pandemic though as without it govt would have never have entertained the magic money tree response that they engaged in. I agree with your view on the waste though and the necessity for much of it but its not strictly correct to say the cash won't be seen again as a good chunk of it has ended up in the pockets of the rich.

 

[Smidster]

1031 to be precise from todays NHS England number down 61 from yesterday so breaching 1k tomorrow or Friday latest. Admissions have become quite lumpy over last week largely due to an uptick in NW Region and mechanical ventilated patients also static but they tend to be on a long tail.

Umm the root cause is the pandemic though as without it govt would have never have entertained the magic money tree response that they engaged in. I agree with your view on the waste though and the necessity for much of it but its not strictly correct to say the cash won't be seen again as a good chunk of it has ended up in the pockets of the rich.

It is somewhat noticeable that the admissions figures seem to have stalled a little at around 100 per day.

While there is lots of crazy conspiracy theories out there about the whole "with / because" argument it would be good to know more about this group - is the vaccine doing its thing and these are people who older and more likely to be sick or what?

It is a bit like with the death stats right at the start - at that point it made sense to include you in the numbers as you probably didn't have time to die of something else. Perhaps we are seeing something similar now

 

[Yew]

There is an awful lot of hyperbolic language being used on this thread. Needless if I say so myself. One aspect that is not being considered in the rhetoric is the effect on hospitals. Any risk to seeing an increase in infection rate also increases the number of people requiring hospitalisation. While the proportion of people who are hospitalised are a small proportion of total infections, they do indeed have a big impact upon hospital capacity. And by hospital capacity, I’m not referring to the Nightingale hospitals, which are a secondary line of defence for NHS trusts, but the capacity to run wards across the permanent Acute hospitals. Indeed it is the impact on hospitals and to prevent them from being overrun that lockdowns were intended to alleviate.

And yet with single digits of deaths been a common sight, we are still under restrictions.

 

[Purple Orange]

And yet with single digits of deaths been a common sight, we are still under restrictions.

Yes we are.

Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic budget. One of the tragedies of all of this is that it now won't be delivered.

Whilst I'm a Tory voter I absolutely despise the current lot, won't be voting for them and have absolutely no interest in defending them. I don't however think it's fair to claim "austerity is in their blood". For the record, I'm not a fan of austerity either.

Forgive me then, with the crop of politicians we have had since Cameron moved in to No. 10 it is sometimes hard to think otherwise. It is often easy to forget that between the centre-right and centre-left there is actually a lot of common ground.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It is somewhat noticeable that the admissions figures seem to have stalled a little at around 100 per day.

While there is lots of crazy conspiracy theories out there about the whole "with / because" argument it would be good to know more about this group - is the vaccine doing its thing and these are people who older and more likely to be sick or what?

It is a bit like with the death stats right at the start - at that point it made sense to include you in the numbers as you probably didn't have time to die of something else. Perhaps we are seeing something similar now

The fundamental point though is the NHS isn't being overwhelmed its being underwhelmed by Covid - the statistics are becoming irrelevant. Why not report the death stats of the other 98% of daily non covid deaths like cancer, heart disease all in the hundreds a day or the deaths on the roads oh no need to mention them as they are acceptable but a few Covid deaths are still governing our existence. Wonder whether the Covid dashboard will disappear after 21st June.

 

[yorkie]

Quite frankly it is absurd that you drew the comparison between my comment about hospital capacity and your leap towards claiming it was about vaccination denial.

I don't think it was "absurd" to fail to interpret "Any risk to seeing an increase in infection rate also increases the number of people requiring hospitalisation." as apparently being in the past tense, but whatever, we are going to have to agree to disagree on that!

 

[bramling]

Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic budget. One of the tragedies of all of this is that it now won't be delivered.

Whilst I'm a Tory voter I absolutely despise the current lot, won't be voting for them and have absolutely no interest in defending them. I don't however think it's fair to claim "austerity is in their blood". For the record, I'm not a fan of austerity either.

I’m rather in the same boat. I generally vote Conservative (though I will always look at what all the parties are doing rather than vote blindly, and *could* be persuaded to vote elsewhere if I felt an alternative party/leader was more competent), however tomorrow I won’t be doing so. I likewise despise this lot, especially Johnson.

The difficulty is we’re in this boat because both major parties have over the last couple of decades flushed themselves clear of pretty much anyone talented, especially for the top-ranking posts. Sooner or later this was going to put the country in deep trouble, as opposed to the gradual decay we’ve seen over many years, and here we are with a major crisis where our political system has been a total shambles.

The problem is there’s no immediate solution - neither party offers much in the way of competence. I’d even vote Labour at the moment if I felt they would be more competent, but all I see there is different rubbish.

I still haven’t decided tomorrow whether it’s going to be a fringe candidate, or spoiled paper.

 

[yorksrob]

Given the weather forecast over the next couple of weeks, now would be a good opportunity to offer a lifeline to hospitality to allow it to open indoors a couple of weeks earlier than the planned date.

However, given that our spineless politicians are largely in the pocket of SAGE, I can't see it happenning.

 

[DustyBin]

I’m rather in the same boat. I generally vote Conservative (though I will always look at what all the parties are doing rather than vote blindly, and *could* be persuaded to vote elsewhere if I felt an alternative party/leader was more competent), however tomorrow I won’t be doing so. I likewise despise this lot, especially Johnson.

The difficulty is we’re in this boat because both major parties have over the last couple of decades flushed themselves clear of pretty much anyone talented, especially for the top-ranking posts. Sooner or later this was going to put the country in deep trouble, as opposed to the gradual decay we’ve seen over many years, and here we are with a major crisis where our political system has been a total shambles.

The problem is there’s no immediate solution - neither party offers much in the way of competence. I’d even vote Labour at the moment if I felt they would be more competent, but all I see there is different rubbish.

I still haven’t decided tomorrow whether it’s going to be a fringe candidate, or spoiled paper.

Interestingly this is exactly where I’m at with all of this. I’m loathed to show support for any of them to be honest!

 

[VauxhallandI]

I have an independent candidate to vote for in the County election and then its going to be a spoiled vote in the Local election as there is only the traditional three parties standing.

Not sure what a spoil is I guess its just a big black cross across the whole page

 

[Yew]

If 30% of cases are in those who are fully vaccinated, and 60% are fully vaccinated, then this would tend to suggest that vaccination has been relatively effective, reducing incidence by about 50%, even with the use of the Sinopharm vaccine.

Isn't the SinoVac only around 50% efficient anyway?


Edit: 50.4% according to the BBC, based on trials in Brazil.

 

[kristiang85]

I’m rather in the same boat. I generally vote Conservative (though I will always look at what all the parties are doing rather than vote blindly, and *could* be persuaded to vote elsewhere if I felt an alternative party/leader was more competent), however tomorrow I won’t be doing so. I likewise despise this lot, especially Johnson.

The difficulty is we’re in this boat because both major parties have over the last couple of decades flushed themselves clear of pretty much anyone talented, especially for the top-ranking posts. Sooner or later this was going to put the country in deep trouble, as opposed to the gradual decay we’ve seen over many years, and here we are with a major crisis where our political system has been a total shambles.

The problem is there’s no immediate solution - neither party offers much in the way of competence. I’d even vote Labour at the moment if I felt they would be more competent, but all I see there is different rubbish.

I still haven’t decided tomorrow whether it’s going to be a fringe candidate, or spoiled paper.

This is pretty much word for word my postion. I generally would vote for who I think most aligns with my interests, which in the past has been conservatives (although I've voted lib dem a couple of times), but I despise the current lot.

I'm off to vote in half an hour and I still have no idea who. It might well be a spoiled ballot for me. The parties get told the reasons if I write them down, don't they? Or is that a myth?

 

[DustyBin]

Not sure what a spoil is I guess its just a big black cross across the whole page

I’m sure you could be a little more ‘imaginative’!

 

[35B]

I’m sure you could be a little more ‘imaginative’!

Just be careful that you don't leave any room for doubt - there's the story of one would be ballot spoiler who drew phalluses in all except one of the boxes, and had it counted for that candidate.

I found writing "NOT FIT FOR OFFICE" in block capitals diagonally across my council election postal ballot last week quite cathartic...

 

[takno]

This is pretty much word for word my postion. I generally would vote for who I think most aligns with my interests, which in the past has been conservatives (although I've voted lib dem a couple of times), but I despise the current lot.

I'm off to vote in half an hour and I still have no idea who. It might well be a spoiled ballot for me. The parties get told the reasons if I write them down, don't they? Or is that a myth?

The spoiled ballots are available for inspection, but unless things are close or the spoiling is genuinely funny then it's questionable whether anybody will cast more than a glance at them.

More importantly, if the vote isn't particularly close and you didn't vote for anyone, then they will likely rightly conclude that it isn't worth trying to appeal to you anyway.

That's not to say that you shouldn't soil your paper, just that if there's a candidate anywhere near your position then it's probably better to vote for them

 

[kristiang85]

The spoiled ballots are available for inspection, but unless things are close or the spoiling is genuinely funny then it's questionable whether anybody will cast more than a glance at them.

More importantly, if the vote isn't particularly close and you didn't vote for anyone, then they will likely rightly conclude that it isn't worth trying to appeal to you anyway.

That's not to say that you shouldn't soil your paper, just that if there's a candidate anywhere near your position then it's probably better to vote for them

Ah OK, that makes sense.

On my doormat yesterday morning was a leaflet for one of our independents, so I might go for them as reading through they seem a sensible independent rather than one of the crazies. It will still be a middle finger to the big parties...

 

[35B]

The spoiled ballots are available for inspection, but unless things are close or the spoiling is genuinely funny then it's questionable whether anybody will cast more than a glance at them.

More importantly, if the vote isn't particularly close and you didn't vote for anyone, then they will likely rightly conclude that it isn't worth trying to appeal to you anyway.

That's not to say that you shouldn't soil your paper, just that if there's a candidate anywhere near your position then it's probably better to vote for them

There's truth in that, and on philosophical grounds I had to be pushed a long way to spoil my ballot rather than pick a "least bad" candidate. But I would always recommend that it's better to cast a ballot - even spoiled - than just sit the election out. If there are enough, then it will give a measurable signal which will be lost by just not voting.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Given the weather forecast over the next couple of weeks, now would be a good opportunity to offer a lifeline to hospitality to allow it to open indoors a couple of weeks earlier than the planned date.

However, given that our spineless politicians are largely in the pocket of SAGE, I can't see it happenning.

Doesn't much of hospitality need a week to prepare, and it's only 7 working days including today until the big day anyway? It's true though, that they could've announced last week a slightly earlier reopening date.

 

[kristiang85]

Doesn't much of hospitality need a week to prepare, and it's only 7 working days including today until the big day anyway? It's true though, that they could've announced last week a slightly earlier reopening date.

I think for ones already open outdoors it's fine, assuming they have the staffing.

But indeed it takes a couple of weeks to prep a closed pub for opening - rehirinf staff, cleaning lines, stocking up beer and kitchen, etc.

Sacha Lord posted the government's evidence last night, and to say its flimsy is an understatement. I hope there is mass legal action by the hospitality industry in some form against the government to get compensation for businesses who have closed.

 

[yorksrob]

Doesn't much of hospitality need a week to prepare, and it's only 7 working days including today until the big day anyway? It's true though, that they could've announced last week a slightly earlier reopening date.

I think for ones already open outdoors it's fine, assuming they have the staffing.

But indeed it takes a couple of weeks to prep a closed pub for opening - rehirinf staff, cleaning lines, stocking up beer and kitchen, etc.

Sacha Lord posted the government's evidence last night, and to say its flimsy is an understatement. I hope there is mass legal action by the hospitality industry in some form against the government to get compensation for businesses who have closed.

Indeed.

I'm just thinking that those that are open outdoors are likely to suffer with the bad weather as is, whilst an announcement now would also allow the others to get an extra weekend of trade.