Day of Chaos 2: a.Covid-19 thread.

[Funt Solo]

Ah - so there's a sense in which (rather than being blundering), the seemingly half-witted response demonstrated by Boris Ltd. might be a deliberate agenda-driven policy that has as its end goal financial gain? (Or, power-gain, which is sort of the same thing.)

I have wondered how they can keep making the same mistake over and over again (of getting the timing of lock-downs almost exactly wrong) without learning from it. It would make more sense if it were deliberate. I'm not sure, though. Couldn't it also just be a lack of nous?

I have wondered if Sweden have been, well, allowing the vulnerable to die. It's certainly been the result of their early policy decisions. And I know that aging populations cost governments money, so it's not as if there's no motive.

Well, they've made 11 billion pounds so far for themselves and their donors, just from being shite at their response to the pandemic.  The next election is four years away, so what consequences are they going to suffer for continuing to be shite?
Actually, that pretty much sums up Naomi Klein's book.  You needn't bother reading it now.

*Sorry that I conflated your earlier point with conspiracy theories - I was thrown by some of the hyperbole. I often get distracted by trees.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Me and the wife both have Covid, feeling rough but still at home and hoping for the best.

Long time no see!  Hope you and your missus have a speedy recovery.

[Old Tankie]

Thanks, we have been affected in different ways, I seem to be doing a bit better than my partner who has a bad cough and terrible fatigue, I completely lost my taste and smell and feel like I've got a bad headache and cold.
We have no idea how we have caught the virus, test and trace has worked well in our case.

[TordelBack]

Me and the wife both have Covid, feeling rough but still at home and hoping for the best.

Good to see you Tankie, very sorry about the circumstances. Sincerely hoping you two blast through it in no time.

[Old Tankie]

Thank you.

[Bolt-01]

Crappy circumstances, but it is great to see your name on the board again!

Hope you both make a speedy recovery.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

There are 'Go' lights Green for entry, Red to remain outside the main Tesco Superstore Doors now. Quite big queues due to Christmas, Covid-19 and I suspect worries over the looming deadline for Brexit. Not much fun standing in the rain yesterday and I probably have to look forward to it again before Friday comes. A lot more people now walk on the roads around here indeed I almost ran into somebody in my car driving home from work. A lot more cyclists as well and I now feel I'm missing something if I don't have mask inside a pocket, ready to be pulled out at a moments notice. Hope everyone's feeling okay, it's a ghastly marathon we're involved in here, and the reports of a new strain of the virus are worrying. Stay safe as you can folksy!

[shaolin_monkey]

Chris Giles, economics editor of the Financial Times, has been working on refining the data with his team since it all started.

84,400 excess deaths in the U.K. alone.

For perspective, 67,100 U.K. civilians died in World War II.

You read that right. More citizens have died in the U.K. in 9 months as a result of the mishandling of this virus, than died in all six years of WWII.

https://twitter.com/chrisgiles_/status/1341365349795721216?s=21


Someone reminded me that this is still less than the 120,000 deaths linked to the welfare reforms of IDS and the Tories.

However, awful as that remains, those deaths are between 2010 and 2017. No doubt they continue to grow, and exceed those reported in the initial findings presented in the BMJ, but those fatalities didn't all happen within one year.

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/11/e017722

[TordelBack]

84,400 excess deaths in the U.K. alone.

For perspective, 67,100 U.K. civilians died in World War II.

This estimate is also the size of Britain's entire regular army (plus marines)*.  Significant demographic differences (opposites?) aside, imagine the impact of the army being completely wiped out in 9 months.


* According to Wikipedia,  at any rate.

[IndigoPrime]

More than one in a thousand dead, many of which were due to how the government mishandled this. And yet the Tories still appear to have a floor of at least 35% (and possibly as high as the low 40s).

[Jim_Campbell]

or perspective, 67,100 U.K. civilians died in World War II.

As I noted a couple of pages back, even the PHE 28-day figure, arguably the least controversial measure, passed that milestone a few days back.

On top of that, recent polling shows 59% of the UK population think the entire PPE/Covid response process has been corrupt. And yet, as IP observes, when you'd expect the Tories' polling to be in the toilet, they'd almost certainly still be in power if there was a general election tomorrow.

[Jim_Campbell]

To add to the festive Covid cheer...

On 8th December, the UK government announced, with much fanfare, that the Covid vaccination programme had begun.

Thirteen days later, they announced that 500,000 doses had been administered.

In order for things to (possibly) be something approximating normal by Christmas 2021, the government needs to vaccinate somewhere near 50M people... and the current vaccine has to be administered twice, meaning that they should be delivering around 250,000 doses per day.

[IndigoPrime]

they'd almost certainly still be in power if there was a general election tomorrow.

In part, because the Tory base is on-side and our electoral system is a shitshow. I do hope at some point, Labour recognises this, gets into power, and enacts electoral reform. At least then, the likelihood of this level of disaster ever happening again is dramatically reduced.

At this point, you do wonder what's required for even fairly moderate English Tories to switch to Labour or the Lib Dems en masse. "Johnson yesterday accidentally nuked Bristol." "We can't blame him—it's really tough being Prime Minister. And besides, I can't stomach the idea of SIR Keir being PM—I've had enough of the elites!" "But your mum lived in Bristol." "She would have wanted it this way."

That all said, a lot now hinges on vaccination. We now know we, for no good reason, paid well over the odds for the vaccine. And there's a reasonable chance they'll fuck up the rollout. Hard to see them coming back from the latter. (But if the vaccine is rolled out at reasonable speed and proves effective, that could be the shield the Tories need to get them through a big chunk of 2021 at the very least.)

[Tjm86]

At this point, you do wonder what's required for even fairly moderate English Tories to switch to Labour or the Lib Dems en masse. "Johnson yesterday accidentally nuked Bristol." "We can't blame him—it's really tough being Prime Minister.

To be fair if he decided to nuke Suffolk he would have my vote!

[Professor Bear]

I note that commentators are starting to ask why the mutant strain of Covid that the government was briefing about in September is only becoming an issue right now, when highlighting it as a "new" threat is only likely to cause unnecessary panic, so while I am a big fan of calling the government response incompetence rather than conspiracy, I think it's probably safe to call this out as the exact same Dead Cat mass-distraction bullshit the Tories have been pulling for at least the last decade (and for which they infamously gave political strategist Linton Crosby a knighthood).

meaning that they should be delivering around 250,000 doses per day.

This vaccination calculator will take your details and calculate how long until you can realistically expect to be vaccinated - though it assumes a rate of 1 million doses a week to make its calculations, so multiply whatever results you get by 4.