HSTEd
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2011
- Messages
- 16,722
Call it a rail forum worship and squeeze in under religious guidance or call it a support group helping people recover from lack of train trips
The Church of the Sacred Semaphore?
Call it a rail forum worship and squeeze in under religious guidance or call it a support group helping people recover from lack of train trips
The Church of the Sacred Semaphore?
Or perhaps the Church of St Pacer, with holy relics such as a bus seat?
Does the presiding priest squeal as he/she takes a sharp turn?Or perhaps the Church of St Pacer, with holy relics such as a bus seat?
Does the presiding priest squeal as he/she takes a sharp turn?
Does the presiding priest squeal as he/she takes a sharp turn?
Be prepared for tougher restrictions if cases rise after lockdown is eased, warns government scientist
The country must be prepared for more tougher restrictions if infections rise once lockdown is gradually eased, a government scientist has warned.
Professor Andrew Hayward of the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) told Sky News falling infection rates meant lockdown has worked, but warned "we have still got a long way to go".
"I think the fear is if you unlock too quickly, if you start from a reasonably high baseline, then it can get up to high levels that much quicker than if you let it go down to much lower levels before you start to relax," he said.
He said the modelling shows that "if you gradually release from March through to July and then you just let go and went completely back to normal, then we could still be looking at the high tens of thousands of deaths in that scenario".
"So I think what we'll see is a relaxation, but not back to complete normality, but we are going to need to be driven by the figures," he said.
"Whilst none of us want this to be reversible we do need to be prepared that if those figures aren't showing what we hope, that we may need to tighten up again while the vaccines continue to be rolled out."
From the Sky News website
Dear oh dear oh dear. It doesn't require me really to rundown all that is wrong with what this bloke is saying! How an earth some of these people got jobs as professors/scientists beggars belief, it really does.
I had just read that and nearly spat my coffee out.From the Sky News website
Dear oh dear oh dear. It doesn't require me really to rundown all that is wrong with what this bloke is saying! How an earth some of these people got jobs as professors/scientists beggars belief, it really does.
Problem is, the metric used to calculate deaths is deaths after 28 days of a positive test.I had just read that and nearly spat my coffee out.
"Tens of thousands of deaths". Hang on, by July, I am anticipating every adult in the UK will have been offered at least one dose of the jab. The vaccine is proven to be extremely effective at preventing deaths, hospitalisations and severe illness.
So where are the tens of thousands of deaths coming from?
I think Professor Andrew Hayward needs to get back in his shoebox and politely zip his lips closed.
From the Sky News website
Professor Andrew Hayward of the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) told Sky News falling infection rates meant lockdown has worked
Isn't it the end of August / September they are aiming for?"Tens of thousands of deaths". Hang on, by July, I am anticipating every adult in the UK will have been offered at least one dose of the jab. The vaccine is proven to be extremely effective at preventing deaths, hospitalisations and severe illness.
If the vaccine works, cases may rise but hospitalisations and deaths won't, so there's no need for any restrictions.Hopefully because of the vaccine (at the very least all specifically vulnerable people should have got a vaccine by May as is planned) we won't see a repeat of that. But somebody saying if we do, then we may need restrictions again, surely that isn't a shock to anyone?
I'll be honest I don't understand the outrage above.
Isn't it just obvious?
If we remove restrictions and cases, hospitalisations and deaths increase, then it may be needed to reintroduce some restrictions.
That isn't surprising to anyone surely?
Hopefully because of the vaccine we won't see that increase and so won't reintroduce restrictions, but we don't know that yet.
This is what I was saying in another comment about needing the base policy on actual data rather than just setting a date and sticking to it no matter what. Policy must be informed by what is going on at the time, which we can't possibly know for sure until closer to that time.
Isn't it just obvious?
If we remove restrictions and cases, hospitalisations and deaths increase, then it may be needed to reintroduce some restrictions.
That isn't surprising to anyone surely?
That statement isn't true. The specifically vulnerable have already been vaccinated. Being in a priority group at the lower end doesn't make you vulnerable, it means you have a higher risk relative to youngsters which is totally different.Hopefully because of the vaccine (at the very least all specifically vulnerable people should have got a vaccine by May as is planned) we won't see a repeat of that.
A "faulty metric" that happens to capture the reality pretty well, with 90%+ of deaths by that measure having Covid as the primary cause of death on the death certificate.Problem is, the metric used to calculate deaths is deaths after 28 days of a positive test.
This means, if we open up and let the virus spread (as we should), COVID deaths will seem to soar (actually people are just catching it and dying from natural causes, but it’ll be reported as a COVID death due to the metric we use to count deaths)
A rise in deaths very well could extend restrictions (due to a faulty metric). I hope this doesn’t happen, but it’s how deaths are counted in this country.
So what you seem to be saying is we constantly have to wait and see so people's mental wellbeing and being able to live a normal life can wait indefinitely?A "faulty metric" that happens to capture the reality pretty well, with 90%+ of deaths by that measure having Covid as the primary cause of death on the death certificate.
Meanwhile, I'm with @WelshBluebird in taking the view that his assumptions are based on the plans for vaccination, not the best case scenarios for vaccination. Given the track record here over the last year, I'd go with an analysis that sees the risk of exponential increase from a high base as worth taking seriously because liable to cause significant illness and death within the remaining non-immune population.
A "faulty metric" that happens to capture the reality pretty well, with 90%+ of deaths by that measure having Covid as the primary cause of death on the death certificate.
Meanwhile, I'm with @WelshBluebird in taking the view that his assumptions are based on the plans for vaccination, not the best case scenarios for vaccination. Given the track record here over the last year, I'd go with an analysis that sees the risk of exponential increase from a high base as worth taking seriously because liable to cause significant illness and death within the remaining non-immune population.
We're not on a quest to stop all death though, nor to prevent anyone from feeling unwell ever. We must weigh these against the harms that the measures to control them cause.A "faulty metric" that happens to capture the reality pretty well, with 90%+ of deaths by that measure having Covid as the primary cause of death on the death certificate.
Meanwhile, I'm with @WelshBluebird in taking the view that his assumptions are based on the plans for vaccination, not the best case scenarios for vaccination. Given the track record here over the last year, I'd go with an analysis that sees the risk of exponential increase from a high base as worth taking seriously because liable to cause significant illness and death within the remaining non-immune population.
That isn’t correct.I mean things like masks and social distancing came in before Boris even agreed to let parliament vote on stuff retrospectively.
Also incorrect. All of the various regulations under discussion have expiration dates. The current regulations which impose a prohibition on leaving home without reasonable excuse expire on 31 March 2021.That means there is nothing in law about when it will end, what conditions would need to be met and so on.
I think this would be quite sensible and something worth sticking with. Particularly with working remotely an option in many cases.At least we wouldn't have to put up with the idiots who drag themselves into the office despite being full of flu and end up infecting multiple people who will then end up having to take time off themselves. In that case one person who could have stayed at home for a few days has ended up causing several people to have to stay at home for a few days. I've had to deal with that on teams in work before where instead of just one person taking sick leave you've had several having to because that one person didn't.
Of course, I don't expect (nor want) a rule that means you have to stay home if you are ill. But I do hope that this will make people more aware that if they are ill, then maybe spreading that illness around isn't a great idea if it can be avoided. For some jobs maybe work from home for a day or two if you are sneezing all over the place several times a minute, and for others where being ill is actually grounds to not be in work (e.g. kitchen staff) I hope those rules are actually more tightly followed by managers who before this would bully staff to come in despite being ill.
Some people seem to think we areWe're not on a quest to stop all death though, nor to prevent anyone from feeling unwell ever. We must weigh these against the harms that the measures to control them cause.
That is rather pedantically correct - but if contemporaneous government policy is for the lockdown or requirement to remain home to continue, they will simply make new Regulations extending those restrictions.Also incorrect. All of the various regulations under discussion have expiration dates. The current regulations which impose a prohibition on leaving home without reasonable excuse expire on 31 March 2021.
Johnson’s road map out of lockdown next week should set out a clear, numerical link between the state of the epidemic and the lifting or imposing of restrictions, according to the report published today by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Thanks for sharing that, and yes I agree, especially at the bottom! Will we ever get to 0-10 cases per 100k? It doesn't seem possible!I don't necessarily agree that these thresholds are right - but at least people would know exactly what to expect, and where we might be heading.
I wouldn't reject the whole report just because you dislike the author! Unfortunately it does peddle the zero-Covid agenda, but the principle of defined alert levels with numerical data to justify changes is a sound one IMO.If we go off that table, then we will never have a restriction-free life again. COVID cannot be eradicated. No respiratory disease has ever been eradicated. It will just be included in the repertoire of coronavirsues in general circulation that we will call 'the cold'.
But then again I hope the government won't take advice from an organisation named after the man who sold us a pointless war based on dodgy dossiers.... but given the parallels between COVID policy and Iraq policy I'm not so sure.
If we remove restrictions and cases, hospitalisations and deaths increase, then it may be needed to reintroduce some restrictions.
That isn't surprising to anyone surely?
Hopefully because of the vaccine we won't see that increase and so won't reintroduce restrictions, but we don't know that yet.
This is what I was saying in another comment about needing the base policy on actual data rather than just setting a date and sticking to it no matter what. Policy must be informed by what is going on at the time, which we can't possibly know for sure until closer to that time.
Isn't it the end of August / September they are aiming for?
And in terms of deaths, given that during Janaury, most days had more than 1000 deaths, it doesn't take many days like that to add up to "tens of thousands". So yeah it sounds scary but thats the reality of the virus in this country during the last just over a month. Hopefully because of the vaccine (at the very least all specifically vulnerable people should have got a vaccine by May as is planned) we won't see a repeat of that. But somebody saying if we do, then we may need restrictions again, surely that isn't a shock to anyone?
It also reaches the conclusion that lockdown easing cannot be irreversible (which is hardly a surprise given the current 'zero Covid' policy), but the criteria are the important thing here:
Ok, but replace case rates with hospitalisation numbers and suddenly it's a much more useful tool.The use of case rates is utterly depressing to see, particularly as with the vaccines they become increasingly irrelevant and dissociated to the actual important metrics
That is rather pedantically correct - but if contemporaneous government policy is for the lockdown or requirement to remain home to continue, they will simply make new Regulations extending those restrictions.
I don't think anyone should be fooled into thinking that any of this will end just because the legislation is currently set to expire on a certain date.
@joncombe also make the entirely valid point that whilst the legislation has a (theoretical) expiration date, nowhere in law, let alone in policy, has the government published the exact criteria it is using to assess the level of restrictions that should apply.
Today's Times contains an article discussing a report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which suggests criteria for the different alert levels and, accordingly, the restrictions that should apply:
It also reaches the conclusion that lockdown easing cannot be irreversible (which is hardly a surprise given the current 'zero Covid' policy), but the criteria are the important thing here:
View attachment 91013
I think the light blue indicates thresholds at which you would move up a level, and dark blue shows when you would move down. I think they've mixed up "R less than 1" and "R more than 1" for level 5.
I don't necessarily agree that these thresholds are the right ones - but at least people would know exactly what to expect, and where we might be heading. For example, would be likely to move to alert level 4 within weeks rather than months, as the current weekly cases are about 160 per 100k, and decreasing at about a quarter per week.
I wouldn't reject the whole report just because you dislike the author! Unfortunately it does peddle the zero-Covid agenda, but the principle of defined alert levels with numerical data to justify changes is a sound one IMO.