As of yesterday the ONS still had R at 1.2-1.3, it definitely hasn't been that for at least three weeks.
As of yesterday the ONS still had R at 1.2-1.3, it definitely hasn't been that for at least three weeks.
Everything still steeped in a heavy nose of the end times being nigh though. "Appears to be shrinking". It doesn't "appear" to be shrinking. It is shrinking.
They ran a long and tedious article earlier today about why vaccinating the old and vulnerable is not a way out of lockdown too.
That BBC just had the Board of Deputies on condemning that Jewish wedding as if it was a terrorist attack (except they don't normally do that for terrorist attacks).
Vallance walking back Boris on the mortality rate of the new variant is a sight to see.
The press conference tonight was an absolute shambles, particularly from Vallance, who is a twat. You could almost smell the stage management.
How did it go down? I was washing my hair.
Vallance launched into a spiel about the new variant being more deadly, then caveated it with 'The evidence for this is not yet strong', then said that for a 65 year man the risk of death with the old variant was 10 in 1,000 and with the new variant 13 in 1,000, and then said again 'There is a lot of uncertainty around these numbers and we need more work to get a precise handle on it'.
Whitty then tried to convince us that the falling case numbers were meaningless because there was evidence that in people aged 20-30 in some parts of the country, there is evidence they are still rising.
And Boris was a blundering mess who was clearly making a very conscious effort to appear more downcast than usual.
The new variant might kill 13 out of every 1000 60 year old instead of 10 of every 1000 60 year olds. Might. Possibly. Maybe. Potentially.
Edit: what Jimmy said.
All of it, I think, a successful attempt to get the falling R and today's chunky drop in cases as far down the agenda as possible.
It may be a wise strategy, I don't know, but it's a very frustrating one to watch.
It is if there's reason to believe that people are scared and need to remain scared, but I'm really not sure they are scared anymore. Atleast from what I can gauge from my limited human interactions, most people don't even care anymore.
This is good.
He has a very centrist dad / inappropriate approaches to female colleagues sort of a face. Whitty just has the face of a man with no hobbies.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 22-01-2021 at 07:50 PM.
Whitty has got the face of an alcoholic.
A 0.3% increase in mortality if you catch it, and you're in your 60s? Shut everything down. Forever.
Last edited by Yevrah; 22-01-2021 at 08:50 PM.
Also, why is it the UK variant, but not the Chinese virus?
Yes I was giving them far too much credit with my maths fail earlier.
Though I have seen it spun on bedwetting twitter as '30% more deadly'.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 22-01-2021 at 09:06 PM.
How the fuck can 0.3% be span as 30%?
13 deaths is 30% more than 10.
Moronic, but that's how.
I'm still amazed at how 10% of the people in hospital wind up on ventilators. That's barely changed this whole pandemic.
Good work Yev. I'm off out to lick old people.
The BBC went for it immediately, as well. Downgrading it from "50% more deadly!" to "Evidence suggest ..." and now "What we know about the coronavirus variants."
The need to have a soundbite immediately is ruining their ability to report on something that takes fucking ages to be established. Day after day.
It's just downright dishonest. There's nothing to be established. The sample size matters in that comparison. Otherwise, why not scale it up to per 1,000,000,000 people and pretend it's worse than Ebola?
We've had 4 cases overnight in smugville with no obvious source so everything's gone into full existential crisis mode.
Saw a flyer on the trolley bay at the supermarket saying "RESIST THE NEW NORMAL."
It leads to this Telegram group where they're talking about THE GRAND RE-OPENING! Complete with words being capitalised presumably at random their grand scheme to bring the lockdown to its knees seems to be just going about shops handing out leaflets asking them to just open everything up as normal next Saturday.
Also leads to this group: Learning How To Think and the website as well: https://learninghowtothink.net/
It's a great website which asks all the important questions such as "Is The Matrix Losing Control?" and seems to suggest ingesting kerosene and turpentine for medicinal purposes.
It's a shame that the anti-lockdown brigades are all thick as shit mentalists. I'm pretty sure someone with a brain and an analytical approach could drive a bus through the logic of the current approach.
They couldn't, they'd go straight in the crank bin without a hearing.
And, tbf, I don't think it's particularly arguable that if one's aim is to reduce case numbers, the best way to achieve it is via massive restrictions such as these. The debate is more as to whether one's aim should be to reduce case numbers. Given the year we have experienced, I would suggest that at this stage, it definitely should.
The more problematic debate coming down the line is going to be that that some doctors and some influential academics (backed by elements of the left) are going to want to maintain lockdown until zero Covid and possibly beyond, whereas business owners and those in affected professions (backed by elements of the right) are going to want to end lockdown possibly too early. The Prime Minister, and whoever else makes this decision, have a very fine decision to make in probably doing something in between the two.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 23-01-2021 at 12:01 PM.
There's an advert on TalkSport at the moment that says "if you go to a supermarket and use a trolley or basket, it's very likely that the person who used or before you had Covid".
I understand the need drum this into the thicko's heads, but that's clearly a complete lie.
We've gone full lockdown essentially within 12 hours of finding these cases, which, in a way I guess is the right thing to do, but in another, fuuuuuuuck.
Got an email from our main HR person the other day that says we're not expected back in the office until around October at earliest
Turns out he's a little New Zealander @Giggles
The problem the 'lockdown sceptics' have is that they have to play it down, which leads them into wibbling about false positives and then pretending that hospitals are actually empty, because they haven't got the balls/honesty (delete as appropriate) to say that they would rather have had x times more deaths than what we've had to avoid most of it. This is also why they mainly frame things in relation to nice things like mental health and cancer backlogs rather than railing against the biggest upwards wealth transfer in history.
The further we get away from last March's lockdown, the more I realise that was our only real proper go of it.
Lewwis pretending he gives a single shit about upwards wealth transfer. lol.
It doesn't just mean it all goes to Jeff Bezos you mongs. We're going to be paying more taxes for the rest of our lives (which is the least of it for a lot of people), and the 'triple lock' isn't even up for debate.
More taxes is good! (Until the reality of it hits home after you've been arguing for it all your life )
Brisbanes mini lockdown appears to have worked. Thankfully hospitals are back to allowing visitors.
Edit: No masks in hospitals is a bit weird.
Last edited by Queenslander; 24-01-2021 at 03:43 AM.
If I see a single concern tonight about snow leading to lockdown restrictions be broken I'm afraid strapping a bomb and heading down to BBC.
It will lead to fewer people getting tested, fewer testing positive and so they will say that that day's falling numbers are meaningless.
If only we had a metric that would establish what proportion of people tested were positive, to ascertain some basis of comparison.
Maths has failed us here I feel.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55785787
That's one hell of a delayed reaction.