June 21st

Agree that the absolute positive in this is to review those efficacy figures after 2 doses based on real world live data.

 

As leader of the opposition, he has more than his own constituents to be concerned with.

 

His job is not to automatically take an opposing stance to whatever the government of the day proposes, his job is to represent the interests of his constituents and the country.

 

The role of the Official Opposition is to question and scrutinise the work of the Government, something which many believe he isn't doing. There's no scrutiny, he doesn't question. in my opinion of course.

 

They are scrutinising the government in the commons daily. Problem is no one is seeing it, the media aren't reporting on it. Jon Ashcroft yesterday squarely blamed the spread of the Delta variant on lax border controls and Johnson's wish to visit Indian for a cosy up with Modi.
No one at the press conference raised this issue, mainly due to the supposed journalists being cherry picked.

Labour shadow cabinet are always trying to get on telly, unlike the actual cabinet.
They're being muffled by the media, and when they do get onto channel 4 or BBC they are attacked due to rules around impartiality.
Like it's Labour's mess for all of this. Folk are upset at the government but still vote for them 11 years on. I'd call that brainwashing.

I'm no Labour cheerleader, I'd prefer Starmer to mix fire with fire and really go for these clowns. However once these restrictions are lifted and furlough is removed what have the Tories got to crow about?
Folk will undoubtedly then start to look in closer detail at their failings on Covid and Brexit. Then Starmer can put on his capt hindsight hat and explain to the nation that like Brian Clough he was right all along and that these charlatans aren't fit to govern.

Here's hoping.

 

I’m no Starmer fan, but Is it not the case that, and especially earlier in the pandemic, he and his party were constantly accused of political point scoring when questioning the stats such of the number of tests that were actually done and how they were counted? Where PPE contracts were going, etc, etc, Why the PM’s Chief Adviser did what he did. Also, Why his Cabinet Ministers were called out for things like bullying, trying to and succeeding in many cases in procuring contracts that involved family and friends and generally breaking the Ministerial Code. Many of us have been angry for a long while at the actions, antics of a lying govt. Of the things that will come out of this Pandemic, I truly hope that up there is the general realisation of the British Public of what an incompetent, cheating, lying set of Charlatans of a govt we have.

 

The resurgence in both hospitalisations and deaths is dominated by those that have received two doses of the vaccine, comprising around 60% and 70% of the wave respectively. This can be attributed to the high levels of uptake in the most at-risk age groups, such that immunisation failures account for more serious illness than unvaccinated individuals.

 

Never give up mate.

Never accept this. It's far too important.

 

I'm content that the government and the opposition, having received advice from the Chief Scientist and the Chief Medical Officer, both think further caution at this stage is advisable. Have I scrutinized the data? No. In this instance, I'm happy to rely on their judgement. Whether you are is a matter for you. But there is nothing either you or I can do about it either way.

 

It’s the relationship between cases and hospitalisations that’s the worry. The vaccine is helping, but there’s not quite the level that’s needed right now.

Hospitalisations are low right now, but cases are also low, so the relationship between them isn’t much better than at any other point in the pandemic

My opinion is that cases are likely low because people are not having symptoms and so are not getting tested. So in reality the relationship between hospitalisations and cases is far better than it seems. That’s purely conjecture though so I can understand why they wouldn’t make decisions based on something like that. Especially when they’ve stupidly committed to not going back on any of this relaxing of restrictions.

 

As you say cases are most likely under-reported due to the need to self isolate and lose money and the low severity of symptoms for the vast majority, especially now that this new variant is so severe that the most common symptom is a bit of a runny nose.

The thing is though, as I've asked time and time again, and to be fair to you you've tried to answer it, what happens if the link isn't broken? If the vaccine essentially doesn't work? We have to decide to either end the restrictions anyway or they become permanent. What we have at the moment is basically a trial of permanent restrictions.

 

I really don't think it's something worth worrying about honestly. There's absolutely no chance these restrictions will be permanent. There just isn't.

The vaccines won't be completely ineffective, there's just a chance they're not as effective as first hoped. That doesn't mean a return to restrictions, but it makes sense to get more people vaccinated, either by one dose or two. The good thing is that signs are pointing to the single dose being more effective than initially thought.

As I've said before, if it was up to me the restrictions would be lifting as planned on the 21st, however I wouldn't have kneecapped myself into being overly cautious by promising that there would be no return to restrictions.

 

The resurgence in both hospitalisations and deaths is dominated by those that have received two doses of the vaccine, comprising around 60% and 70% of the wave respectively. This can be attributed to the high levels of uptake in the most at-risk age groups, such that immunisation failures account for more serious illness than unvaccinated individuals.

 

You've quoted that twice now DEETEE - just to be clear - that's taken from this report

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ing_of_easing_roadmap_step_2_restrictions.pdf

This was an attempt to model the impact on infections over the course of the roadmap. You'll find the quote on page 10, para 32 - with an explanation of what it actually means on page 18, para 55 and 56.

It doesn't mean the vaccines don't work. Here's full fact's view

https://fullfact.org/online/third-wave-model-vaccine/

 

Testing about 7% of the population a week, less than 1% positivity.

 

It's not just about the raw numbers of cases and hospitalisations but the direction of travel - and that is upwards. Opening up would accelerate this further and risk having to go backwards to more restrictions.

And on testing, it is about positivity rates - if we are testing a lot more this week than last week and positivity is staying the same then that suggests we are finding a lot more cases. If we are testing more and positivity is rising - it suggests we are finding more - but there's a lot more out there.

btw - I don't trust this government - but I do trust the epidemiologists (although I like to check their workings )