Coronavirus

[Fellbeast]

Its so true to form that the current government are trying to pass some blame for their "less than ideal" covid strategy, and the recent covid caused exam debacle, on Public Health England and Ofqual respectively. According to the Times, the government appeared completely unaware (until June) that they have always had direct control over Public Health England and, regarding the algorithm, the Education secretary Gavin Williamson actually asked Ofqual to develop it for exams in March, even though Ofqual publicly explained the trade offs that had to be made in doing this algorithm in June, with the key problems of this all identified by the Education Select committee in July. They just keep on promising 'world beating', delivering anything but and then trying to infer blame on anyone other than themselves for their own crapness. I get the feeling that the tories might soon start losing patience with Boris and Dominic

[Derby Tup]

Boris will be gone by next summer

[Dave_Mole]

I’d be interested to know if Belgium adopted the PHE policy of counting deaths as Covid if they’d ever been infected. It still seems incredible.

News stories here and here.


Japan: different culture, including regular mask wearing. No need for a lockdown as people did what they were told. Even so, large increase in cases in mid-March and effective "lockdown" which people obeyed without needing to enforce. Unlike here.

New Zealand: if it's not linked to the global transport infrastructure how do 4 million tourists get there every year?

https://hectordrummond.com/2020/08/1...topher-bowyer/

shows a lot of pretty graphs. Sorry, but I'm not going to take seriously someone whose blog includes a section on "Health Fascism". There's a comment about excess deaths now being below the average. Which could be accounted for by the vulnerable having already succumbed to corona: if the elderly/vulnerable died because of the virus, they're not going to die again of natural causes a few weeks later.

[Witton Park]

I'll leave you be. It's quite tedious having made an effort with someone who won't take seriously info put together from ONS data, but quite happy to use gossip about what Johnson or Cummings may or may not have considered behind the scenes and at the same times defends the use of New Zealand as an example of good practice despite having previously acknowledged it's "entirely different to ours".

4 million tourists? Multiply that by 10 for the UK for starters. I think you'll find international business travel is of even higher proportion and they don't have much in terms of transitioning travellers.
It's akin to comparing Bristol with Penzance.

[Stagger]

Boris will be gone by next summer

Possibly but only to be replaced by another knob!!!

[Dave_Mole]

defends the use of New Zealand as an example of good practice despite having previously acknowledged it's "entirely different to ours".

I was merely pointing out the way things have gone. You seem to have taken exception to it. I also pointed to Belgium, Japan and Sweden. All different countries, all different results of various approaches to lockdowns. I was responding to your use of Sweden as a comparison with the UK. I haven't said that any of them is better or worse than the other, just that comparisons are very difficult to make.

who won't take seriously info put together from ONS data,

it's called being critical.
The first paragraph of the article says "the use of this data to make graphs is not an endorsement of the accuracy of the data"!
Hector Drummond writes for Conservative Woman and has repeatedly called C19 "bad flu", lockdown "house arrest" and death rate figures "fiction".
So no, I'm not going to take anything he publishes on his blog at face value.

[Muddy Retriever]

Hector Drummond writes for Conservative Woman and has repeadedly called C19 "bad flu", lockdown "house arrest" and death rate figures "fiction".
So no, I'm not going to take anyhthing he publishes on his blog at face value.

Some of the death rate figures churned out by PHE until modified recently were fiction.

[Witton Park]

Some of the death rate figures churned out by PHE until modified recently were fiction.

I had a few disagreements with Hector on Twitter back in the early stages, but when I look back he was pretty much bang on.

[Dave_Mole]

Hector on Twitter

It's a great alternative to the Daily Mail.

[Witton Park]

It's a great alternative to the Daily Mail.

I'm sure you would know better than I would