Coronavirus

[Old Grumpy]

[+Pedant]The data presented were impressive[-Pedant]. I agree. Except I couldn't see the bottom part of the slides because of the BBC's "breaking news" banner.

OG

[Serial_Apologist]

[+Pedant]The data presented were impressive[-Pedant]. I agree. Except I couldn't see the bottom part of the slides because of the BBC's "breaking news" banner.

OG

Obviously a new variation on their habit of crushing closing film credits to announce future programmes.

[muzzer]

I’ve just ordered two sets of dumbbells and a hefty kettlebell online. Which my undergrad self would have read in the same way as ‘colourless green ideas dream furiously’. But having made a considerably smaller financial investment. Jiminy this sg1tshow is depressing.

[Dave2002]

[+Pedant]The data presented were impressive[-Pedant]. I agree. Except I couldn't see the bottom part of the slides because of the BBC's "breaking news" banner.

Well spotted. Howver, one could argue that it wasn't the data that were impressive, but the presentation, analysis and discussion about them, which would give rise to another different sentence.

[Nick Armstrong]

Any chance of some parliamentary scrutiny , accountability, whatever it was we used to call these things ?

I think Parliament has to vote for the measures on Wednesday before they can come into effect, no?

[teamsaint]

I think Parliament has to vote for the measures on Wednesday before they can come into effect, no?

So it seems.

[Anastasius]

I think Parliament has to vote for the measures on Wednesday before they can come into effect, no?

A rather pointless exercise, though, wouldn't you say? It's a given that the vote will go through...even though that silly man, Duncan-Smith is trying to mess things up. Trouble is that, as before, Dithery Daisy aka Boris the Clown should have locked down in September when the scientists were telling him to.

[cloughie]

So it seems.

Announcing shutting down on Thursday now and debating on Wednesday seems a strange timetable and is thereva vote on it and will it be binding? Will Scottish, Welsh and NI MPs be voting on something which does not apply in their constituency? Mind you, as Labour wanted a lockdown a month ago are unlikely to vote against now. However I would have thought it a priority to debate it on Monday and a good clarification of the rules be done so that all of us know exactly what is and is not allowed - limitation on who can travel where and for what is, I would have thought, a major factor in limiting spread from area to area. The half-term influx of visitors to Cornwall will have done no f@vours in keeping the R number down but overall seeing figures for the whole SW really egion does not give a fair picture fo the areas within the region bearing in mind the geographical size stretching from Bishop’s Rock to Tewkesbury - Tewkesbury being near to Gretna than Penzance! The major concern however I think is that a Covid spread would quickly overwhelm the NHS as the RCH has been on black alert for stretches in winter for the past few years!

[Beresford]

The hope is that the model which predicts exponential growth is not sufficiently accurate to represent the reality which emerges. There is nothing incorrect about exponential growth - if that is the reality.

Many aggregate things in nature grow exponentially and decay exponentially; IIRC the process is akin to Input/ Storage /Output, a simple form of Transfer Function.
So the number of deaths etc won't keep rising exponentially for ever. But how the total input can be characterised or measured is hard to see in this case.

[DracoM]

But deep in all this lockdown fiasco is the ongoing disaster in the track and trace system.
Without that T and T system actually working, we will back in this in January.
EVERYONE knows this and all the BJ boast about it eg 'world-beating' / moonshot guff etcetc is deeply worrying in its determination to be childishly 'positive' and thus to downplay a reality he [And Dom C] MUST have known far, far earlier.

[Nick Armstrong]

A rather pointless exercise, though, wouldn't you say? It's a given that the vote will go through.

Not sure that makes it pointless, though I agree it’s pretty certain to go through. It changes it from a government diktat to something approved by the country’s elected representatives. (Not sure, like cloughie, why they are waiting till Wednesday, mind you)

that silly man, Duncan-Smith

Something of an understatement there! “Raving maniac” might be a better phrase for the individual who this morning berates the government for “giving in to the scientific advisers”

[Simon B]

Something of an understatement there! “Raving maniac” might be a better phrase for the individual who this morning berates the government for “giving in to the scientific advisers”

Brilliant, isn't it? Presumably he thinks that when a jury convicts they are "giving in to the evidence"...

Satire is dead etc etc.

[oddoneout]

Brilliant, isn't it? Presumably he thinks that when a jury convicts they are "giving in to the evidence"...

Satire is dead etc etc.

Satire has now become straight reportage where matters politic are concerned, as many BTL commenters have remarked about John Crace's column in the Guardian.

[johnb]

The half-term influx of visitors to Cornwall will have done no f@vours in keeping the R number down but overall seeing figures for the whole SW really egion does not give a fair picture fo the areas within the region bearing in mind the geographical size stretching from Bishop’s Rock to Tewkesbury - Tewkesbury being near to Gretna than Penzance! The major concern however I think is that a Covid spread would quickly overwhelm the NHS as the RCH has been on black alert for stretches in winter for the past few years!

Far and away the most significant hotspot in the South West is the Bristol-South Gloucestershire-Bath region where the infection levels were originally driven by students and they still dominate infection numbers in some areas.

In Bath you have the "Widcombe, Bathwick Hill & Claverton Down" MSOA area with 830 cs/100k (Bath University).

The South Gloucestershire figures are dominated by the "Frenchay & Great Stoke" on the outskirts of Bristol, with 939 cs/100k (University of the West of England).

In Bristol itself, Bristol University students accounted for half the cases a couple of weeks ago. They turbocharged the previous gradual rise in infections amongst the general population. Covid-19 is now widespread in the community and increasing at a worrying rate (despite the vacuous assurances of the Mayor).

If you go back a couple of weeks, in many regions across the country you could see where the universities were situated just by looking for the infection hotspots on the Dashboard map of cases by MSOA.

So why are universities being excluded from the lockdown?

[Frances_iom]

So why are universities being excluded from the lockdown?

because they don't want the infectious little darlings to return home - maybe all the decision makers being Oxbridge they assume other universities can keep their students corralled in student accommodation on campus