steve
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Post by steve on Jan 10, 2022 8:38:44 GMT
JIB
As usual you have jumped in with your normal apparent inability to read.
Sweden's response has largely been as a result of individual action, of course they have also applied proven sound public hygiene measures, reference to 2020 dont apply to the last eight months.
Sweden has recorded more cases the increase hasn't actually been on the same scale as the uk, omicron is clearly highly transmissible.
There has been no indication at all of increased severity or deaths.Sweden
Average death rate is two a day , equivalent to 13 in the uk.
Sweden isn't any less crowded than its neighbouring Scandinavian states, actually has far larger cities and yet has half the number of cases of its neighbour Denmark, despite twice the population and one tenth the death rate of Denmark or Norway, a situation that has applied for months.
Before posting I like to do a bit of research in order to establish If a suggestion can be validated by available data, which In this case it clearly can.
Doesn't need preconceptions about what's the right of wrong approach just facts and figures.
If you are going to leap in to contradict do a bit of research first.
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Post by moby on Jan 10, 2022 8:46:16 GMT
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 8:46:42 GMT
" Lord Frost called yesterday for Boris Johnson to rediscover his enthusiasm for ‘free markets, free debate and low taxes’"
DM
"Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen has called on the Prime Minister to 'focus' and deliver on promises of investment, jobs, and progress for areas such as Teesside.
Mr Houchen said Mr Johnson must make it his New Year’s resolution to redouble and refocus the Government’s work to 'level up' the UK."
Teeside Live.
"The prime minister is going to have to choose a side"
Times Leader.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 8:49:34 GMT
"A YouGov survey of 1,744 adults on Thursday and Friday suggested that 86 per cent expected their cost of living to increase this year, rising to more than 90 per cent among Conservative voters. Some 67 per cent of voters said they were worried about rising prices and 59 per cent backed using tax revenue to limit the rise in gas and electricity bills expected when the energy price cap is reviewed in April.
This rises to 66 per cent among Tory voters, who appear keener on taxpayer subsidies than Labour voters, driven by strong support among the over-65s. Perhaps the most concerning finding for Downing Street was that 33 per cent said they expected their fuel bills “to increase by more than I can afford in the year ahead”.
Times
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 10, 2022 8:50:15 GMT
Comparisons with Sweden and the UK are not very useful. Much more realistic to compare them with their nearest nordic neighbours, in which they have done very much worse in terms of deaths per capita
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 10, 2022 8:55:08 GMT
The fiasco of Austalia banning Novak Djokovic from enetering the country continues.
The Australian government has withdrawn its case against his entry to the country. It would appear he complied with entry requirmenets and was properly granted a visa to enter on medical grounds, it seems because he recently had covid. Judge ordered he be released and his visa restored within 30 minutes (now expired).
It remains unclear what is happening. Government has stated it may use its right to simply ban him from the country. Where this gets messy is that he seems to have complied with the rules and been granted a visa properly under those rules, but then the federal government felt his entry ought not to have been allowed because it seemed to contradict their policy. Whereas it was just another example that many of these regulations are somewhat arbitrary.
Very politically embarassing for them.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 8:56:40 GMT
" Corbyn plans own party for next election" Times  |
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 10, 2022 8:57:17 GMT
Neil
Read my post mate I compared Sweden to Norway and Denmark where over the last 8 months Sweden's performance has been better. For example Sweden has seen around 500 deaths from covid in the last six months, Denmark with half the population has seen 800.
All the Nordic countries have had far lower death rates than the uk which In the same period recorded 25000 deaths with or because of covid.
No one is disputing that in 2020 Sweden had a severe outbreak where because of public health failures more people than necessary died.
But that was then this is now.
Incidentally I agree comparisons with the UK in terms of outcome aren't particularly helpful, but comparisons in terms of response are I think valid and reflect on political decisions.
I suppose to be pedantic you could at a push compare Sweden to Scotland where death rates from covid now are around twenty times higher pro rata , but again I don't think the comparison entirely valid.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 10, 2022 8:57:17 GMT
Update on Omicron and the idea of reducng isolation times: www.niid.go.jp/niid/en/2019-ncov-e/10884-covid19-66-en.htmlA study from Japan (caution, small sample size of 21) that shows with Omicron, peak viral shedding occurs at 3-6 days following symptoms, with high viral loads still found at 7-9 days, and not shedding after day 10. This contrasts with previous variants, where the highest lod was just before or at the point of first symptoms and declining rapidly thereafter. So, if you want to prolonge the outbreak, hospitalise and kill more people, and create more economic damage, reduce the isolation period to 5 days. Simples. This morning news reported government is to introduce daily testing in critical workplaces. This pretty much summarises why testing has failed to suppress covid. Government reckons to suppress it you need to test daily, some 70 million tests. We are doing 1.5 million or about 2% of the total necessary. When the policy of testing to suppress covid was introduced we were maybe doing 1/30 of even that. It didnt work. No surprise at all.
If you are doing an insignificant amount of testing, then it will not make a significant difference to the epidemic, which is what was found by two successive parliamentary investigations.
As to the point above, its nice to know when viral load is highest, but that doesnt tell us when it is lower but still sufficient to infect others. If an infected person whose viral load is too low to be detectable by testing (absolutley the case, especially using lateral flow tests) goes about their business and spreads covid...then it doesnt matter if you isolate them for ten days after that load becomes detectable because they already spread it before it was. Even testing every single day is likely to not be enough to stop spread because the tests are not sensitive enough. We know they arent: the US rejected tests used in the Uk for exactly this reason.
There has been some fundamentally poor thinking about how to manage covid. The epidemic and risk to weaker individuals will never end until enough people become sufficiently immune. The obvious way to do that has always been to catch covid if you are in a safe group. In two years this has been going on, many more people will have moved from the safe group to aan unsafe one. By keeping this going for two years we have extended the period of risk. We turned a crisis ino a disaster.
In any case, I suspect that 5 day isolation is as daft an idea as stopping free LFTs. If you believe covid can spread anyway from people with low viral loads, then the whole testing sceme is pointless. If you believe it cannot spread from low viral load people or at least does so much less, then it would make sense to only isolate people with high load. Every scientist accepts the isolation scheme is not perfect, and there is a tradeoff between isolating healthy people and harming society, and isolating infected ones to stop spread. It will always make sense to decide where that cutoff of risk/benefit lies, and cannot be described as daft idea to set that threshold.
Whether you should isolate for 10 days, or 20, or 5, or none at all is the debate to be had.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 10, 2022 9:03:32 GMT
Andy Rosindell, the Tory MP who is demanding the BBC signs off every night with the national anthem, has form. He demanded exactly this 5 years ago in 2016. BBC newsnight's response is in the clip. How times change. I can't see the bruised, beaten and cowed BBC doing this now after 5 years of right wing culture wars. Our independent broadcaster is no more. And before posters tell me that the BBC is indescribably woke and leftie, listen to all the voices on the left, including me, who think that the current BBC is nothing but a Tory mouthpiece. In truth the BBC is between a rock and a hard place, and has lost the confidence it had before to stand up to all comers. A shadow of its former self. www.indy100.com/news/tory-national-anthem-bbc-newsnight-b1989169 Amen to that. I don't use any BBC news source anymore, haven't for years but I used to be an avid follower of and believer in the BBC. The only reason I'll visit the news website now is to see what the govt want the masses to be told. Used to listen to Radio 4 every morning most of my adult life until about 3 years ago when I realised Today was mutating into Daily Mail news. Radio 3 and CBeebies (both of which remain brilliant) are the only things I value from the BBC now and frankly are the only things that keep me from not paying the licence fee. Even the comedy is a shadow of it's former self. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 10, 2022 9:05:07 GMT
Neil Read my post mate I compared Sweden to Norway and Denmark where over the last 8 months Sweden's performance has been better. For example Sweden has seen around 500 deaths from covid in the last six months, Denmark with half the population has seen 800. All the Nordic countries have had far lower death rates than the uk which In the same period recorded 25000 deaths with or because of covid. No one is disputing that in 2020 Sweden had a severe outbreak where because of public health failures more people than necessary died. But that was then this is now. Not sure of the point in just looking at particular times of the epidemic. Let's look at the whole picture Sweden has had three times the deaths per capita as Denmark, more than 6 times the per capita deaths of Norway. If this is what success looks like I will give it a miss Also worth remembering Sweden have introduced many more restrictions since the start of the pandemic. Perhaps shows they have learned their lesson |
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Post by alec on Jan 10, 2022 9:05:26 GMT
tancred - "Please!! We have to learn to live with Covid. We can't shut down the country just because there is another strain around - there may be hundreds of strains still to come. The government is done with Covid, and rightly so, because people need to take their own precautions instead of relying on the government to manage their lives for them. " Look to history for your guide, and then you may post more intelligent comments. What did we do when faced with previous disease? Let's have a look at cholera, a killer disease that regularly swept through urban populations in early Victorian times Did we 'learn to live with it' and was the government ever 'done with' cholera? ['Eat your heart out', tw]. No - the absolute reverse. Firstly, science identified the vectors of transmission, which in this case was sewage contaminated water supplies. The government passed the Cholera Morbus Prevention Act in 1832, followed by the Public Health Act 1848 and the Health Act 1875. Local authorities spent the equivalent of billions of pounds on sewers and clean water supplies. We revolutionized the service infrastructure of the built evironment and established legally binding regulation on industry. We no longer suffer from cholera, and the UK became the dominant global economy in the Victorian age, partly due to the fact that our superior living conditions enabled better health and thus greater economic efficiency. That's what living with a disease entails. It the case of covid, it's more complex than ensuring clean water supplies, as it is airborne. We need an airborne transmission reduction plan. In the short term, that means reducd indoor contacts where we can, on a periodic basis, as waves hit. The government needs to ban cloth masks and mandate FFP2 or equivalent in public spaces. In Germany, they have been giving out free FFP2 masks for a year now, including special childrens versions. The public needs to be trained how to wear and fit masks. Then, we need to revolutionize our approach to indoor air quality. HEPA filters are proven to substantially eliminate virus particles, and CO2 monitors serve as an effective proxy measurement for infection levels. Government needs to mandate investment in safe air. In Japan, hospitality businesses are advertising their CO2 levels with public monitors visible on the street, like we have hygeine ratings in restaurants. We'll probably start seeing individual CO2 monitors so we choose where to go, where to sit etc. Legislation to define the duties of building managers - just like the cholera response - would be ideal. Schoolchildren in technology classes are already building DIY air cleaners from household items for £90 - £200 following some excellent work posted online by ventilation engineers, with industry tested designs available free online. The government needs to work with these initiatives instead of walking away. We need to take infections seriously, with support for isolation, and the public needs to be trained in risk assessment and management. Vaccines will play a role, but on their own are insufficient, and over reliance on them as a 'Big Bang' solution risks antigenic sin. Endemicity is a long haul grind, and we need to prepare for that. Many western governments want a respond and forget approach, dumping all the future responsibility onto citizens, but that cannot work, because it needs collective action, directed from the centre. The coronavirus OC43 took around a century to become mild, so even if that does happen with covid, it could be decades away - or it might never happen. Few yet understand that an endemic infection doesn't mean a lesser disease or a mess severe illness - it just means you need to be on your gaurd constantly, because the virus is always going to be with us. There is good news though - all of these measures also apply to other airborne diseases, like colds and killer flu, and many of the less serious but irritating illnesses like norovirus could be durtailed if people stopped the daft western idea of struggling into work when you feel like sh!t. Get this right, and we could end up much healthier, much more economically efficient, because would could greatly limit a whole range of airborne illnesses. I think we w That's what living with covid means. This 'we must learn to live with covid' rubbish is just yet more people hooked on the drug of hopium. We've got to wean ourselves off this and start putting in the hard graft.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 9:08:34 GMT
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Post by steamdrivenandy on Jan 10, 2022 9:16:55 GMT
barbara Edward Colston was a philanthropist and major contributor to Bristol civic life. He was also a slave trader who regarded people as commodities. His statue should have been removed from the Bristol harbour side decades ago, his contributions to Bristol culture would have remained. I wonder if those complaining about the verdict because they consider somehow this is an example of " woke" society, would have been equally vociferous if it had been a statue of Jimmy Saville that had been chucked in the river. I would guess that most people object to the tearing down of an established piece of the local streetscene without the permission of the local authority and/or owner. Until the issue was raised I suspect most people had little idea of who or what the statue represented. Most objections to the verdict aren't based upon the politics (?) of who it was, but on the desecration of the locality without relevant permission. Hacking down all the streetlights because you don't like light pollution. |
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Post by tancred on Jan 10, 2022 9:22:25 GMT
" Lord Frost called yesterday for Boris Johnson to rediscover his enthusiasm for ‘free markets, free debate and low taxes’" DM "Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen has called on the Prime Minister to 'focus' and deliver on promises of investment, jobs, and progress for areas such as Teesside. Mr Houchen said Mr Johnson must make it his New Year’s resolution to redouble and refocus the Government’s work to 'level up' the UK." Teeside Live. "The prime minister is going to have to choose a side" Times Leader. Frost is a stinging insect. He is an unelected bureaucrat with no legitimate authority other than that which comes from the very person that he is 'stinging'. |
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 10, 2022 9:25:37 GMT
See thon wee smiley face at the end of my comment? I never notice those silly yellow blobs. I did agitate against them on the old site years ago. They are the feeblest form of irony, indicative of the unconfident inexpressiveness of of the posters who use them. Hey, come on Robbie, loosen up a bit. I'm a big emoji fan. Some are genuinely amusing, most largely meaningless. They're an exceptionally good way of taking the piss too I find. No more, no less. I like what you write in the main, and the way you write it too quite often, but you have a tendency to allow your inner curmudgeon to stray into earnestness and pompous censure. On your bad days, with your writing strewn with gratuitous literary references, I occasionally forward excerpts to Private Eye for Pseuds Corner consideration. They haven't used one yet, disappointingly. 🎩👯💃 |
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 10, 2022 9:26:28 GMT
" Corbyn plans own party for next election" Times |
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Post by tancred on Jan 10, 2022 9:26:39 GMT
tancred If you get offended by being responded to in the tone that you choose to adopt to others, better to desist yourself. IIRC, Anthony banned you from UKPR for the intemperate nature of your comments. However, since you seem to be reluctant to do other than make lazy assumptions from your own limited experience, here's a starting point for a basic understanding of the main Irish political parties - where they originated, and how they have developed. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland#Political_partiesThe sarcasm came from you and I responded in kind. Anyway, I am well aware of how to use Wikipedia, so your sarcasm was pointless. I was asking to elicit an intelligent response, obviously this can't be expected from you! |
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 10, 2022 9:27:05 GMT
" Corbyn plans own party for next election" Times Has he got enough money for all the lost deposits?? |
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Post by robert on Jan 10, 2022 9:27:43 GMT
On the BBC, didn't Anthony used to say that when they are attacked from both the left and the right, then they have probably got it about right? As someone said, they are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. From my perspective, the BBC does seem to be institutionally left wing, certainly in its comedy output but also news interviews, but the latter could in part stem from the fact that we have had a Tory govt for a decade. Having said that, Blair always got an easy ride, no doubt due to his pet rottweiller Campbell. Many newsreaders/interviewers make it all too obvious where their sympathies lie eg The Maitless monologue. Working for a public service broadcaster, they should be neutral. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 10, 2022 9:27:50 GMT
colin the same BBC that is terrified of reporting on Brexit outcomes so just pretends it's not happening?.... Or rather than reporting the event when a govt minister is accused of something untoward instead begins reporting of it by starting with their rebuttal rather the original accusations. The same BBC that slavishly (and in my opinion sometimes dangerously) supports the govt on almost everything Covid but doesn't extend the same support to the Welsh government on the Wales news site if their policies are in conflict? Listen I've been following the BBC all my life and for most of that time I trusted it. That trust is now totally broken. Is it me who has changed or the BBC?
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Post by robert on Jan 10, 2022 9:30:25 GMT
" Corbyn plans own party for next election" Times In whose garden? |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 10, 2022 9:30:38 GMT
robert I'm not saying that the BBC is institutionally, ideologically left or right wing. As Barbara said it's become terrified of offending those in power and their supposed new constituency.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 10, 2022 9:31:18 GMT
Has he got enough money for all the lost deposits?? I think this could be good news for Labour, lance the boil |
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Post by steamdrivenandy on Jan 10, 2022 9:31:33 GMT
JIB As usual you have jumped in with your normal apparent inability to read. Sweden's response has largely been as a result of individual action, of course they have also applied proven sound public hygiene measures, reference to 2020 dont apply to the last eight months. Sweden has recorded more cases the increase hasn't actually been on the same scale as the uk, omicron is clearly highly transmissible. There has been no indication at all of increased severity or deaths.Sweden Average death rate is two a day , equivalent to 13 in the uk. Sweden isn't any less crowded than its neighbouring Scandinavian states, actually has far larger cities and yet has half the number of cases of its neighbour Denmark, despite twice the population and one tenth the death rate of Denmark or Norway, a situation that has applied for months. Before posting I like to do a bit of research in order to establish If a suggestion can be validated by available data, which In this case it clearly can. Doesn't need preconceptions about what's the right of wrong approach just facts and figures. If you are going to leap in to contradict do a bit of research first. The suggestion appears to be that individual action, based on common sense, leads to better outcomes than governmental restrictions. Surely those individual actions should be taking place anyway and any Governmental restrictions are in addition to such precautions and because they're incremental should lead to better outcomes? So have the UK population not been applying the common sense Swedish type precautions, which means our common psyche is different and not as dependable as the Swedes, which has driven more governmental restrictions. Or have we been applying the same personal precautions as the Swedes but with worse outcomes, which again requires more governmental restrictions to try and improve outcomes? Or have the additional government restrictions not acted incrementally but have actively worsened outcomes. In which case how do those additional governmental restrictions actually raise transmission, hospitalisation and death? |
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Post by tancred on Jan 10, 2022 9:33:09 GMT
Andy Rosindell, the Tory MP who is demanding the BBC signs off every night with the national anthem, has form. He demanded exactly this 5 years ago in 2016. BBC newsnight's response is in the clip. How times change. I can't see the bruised, beaten and cowed BBC doing this now after 5 years of right wing culture wars. Our independent broadcaster is no more. And before posters tell me that the BBC is indescribably woke and leftie, listen to all the voices on the left, including me, who think that the current BBC is nothing but a Tory mouthpiece. In truth the BBC is between a rock and a hard place, and has lost the confidence it had before to stand up to all comers. A shadow of its former self. www.indy100.com/news/tory-national-anthem-bbc-newsnight-b1989169The BBC is definitely a government mouthpiece now. Once Brexit was enacted, any criticism has effectively been banned. |
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Post by tancred on Jan 10, 2022 9:35:54 GMT
Thanks for your helpful reply. Shame that some people on the board prefer to seek conflict instead. Seems to me that Fine Gael is more of a liberal party and Fianna Fail more of a traditional conservative party, but differences are minor. Basically they are both centrist parties. |
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Post by tancred on Jan 10, 2022 9:38:22 GMT
robert I'm not saying that the BBC is institutionally, ideologically left or right wing. As Barbara said it's become terrified of offending those in power and their supposed new constituency. I can understand this, but in the past the BBC was much more pugnacious and challenging of whatever government was in power at the time. I recall that in the days of Thatcher the BBC was VERY critical of many of her policies. Now it seems more like Radio Moscow in 1981! |
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Post by steamdrivenandy on Jan 10, 2022 9:44:29 GMT
On the BBC, didn't Anthony used to say that when they are attacked from both the left and the right, then they have probably got it about right? As someone said, they are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. From my perspective, the BBC does seem to be institutionally left wing, certainly in its comedy output but also news interviews, but the latter could in part stem from the fact that we have had a Tory govt for a decade. Having said that, Blair always got an easy ride, no doubt due to his pet rottweiller Campbell. Many newsreaders/interviewers make it all too obvious where their sympathies lie eg The Maitless monologue. Working for a public service broadcaster, they should be neutral. As professionals their broadcasts should be neutral, but as people they shouldn't be politically neutered. From stuff I've seen and heard about the BBC they go to exceeding lengths to try and keep a balance and that often means upsetting both L and R. I'm not sure that the bias towards government trope is borne out in reality or just an anti-ROC thread that's been introduced by the LOC. Thinking back I don't remember the feeling that the BBC's income stream was under threat from government, say in administrations of the '70's and '80's. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 9:50:43 GMT
colin the same BBC that is terrified of reporting on Brexit outcomes so just pretends it's not happening?.... Or rather than reporting the event when a govt minister is accused of something untoward instead begins reporting of it by starting with their rebuttal rather the original accusations. The same BBC that slavishly (and in my opinion sometimes dangerously) supports the govt on almost everything Covid but doesn't extend the same support to the Welsh government on the Wales news site if their policies are in conflict? Listen I've been following the BBC all my life and for most of that time I trusted it. That trust is now totally broken. Is it me who has changed or the BBC? I was just drawing your attention the wider public opinion as professionally measured. As robert says when they are attacked from left and right they probably have it about right. You and I can exchange opinions -but they are both politically biased.-eg i was interested in your @"Even the comedy is a shadow of it's former self." If "its former self" was the one I now try to avoid, then that was unapologetically left wing. |
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