- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
I read it as they are not going to be broadcasting every CV briefing by NS by default. Future broadcasts will be based on editorial merit. All briefings will still be available in streamed format.
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I read it as they are not going to be broadcasting every CV briefing by NS by default. Future broadcasts will be based on editorial merit. All briefings will still be available in streamed format.
oldwheels
Legendary Member
- Location
- Isle of Mull
What does editorial merit mean and who decides? I must confess I never watch them on TV anyway but catch up with them mostly on Twitter. It is the thin end of the wedge I think.
Batch sewage is how the virus was detected at a university dorm asymptomatic outbreak in the US recently and contained.
It's how it was confirmed the virus was in Turin and Milan in December. The same method was being studied here for viability.
deptfordmarmoset
Full time tea drinker
- Location
- Armonmy Way
There's a job for Hancock!
Wobblers
Euthermic
- Location
- Minkowski Space
If you want this thread to be less political why not post on those topics? Surely that's a good deal more constructive than complaining about what other people are saying, which seems rather unlikely to help.
The news from the trial of the Oxford vaccine does not sound good. However, this is a trial involving some 30,000 people. With such a large number, it's inevitable that someone will get ill, for reasons that have nothing to do with the vaccine. This case of transverse mylelitis may or may not be due to the vaccine. We don't know yet - but that's why we run trials. It's too early to tell whether or not this is bad news (though that message appears to be rather slow in getting to the media).
The staggering amount of government debt - well, that's what I'd describe as "buttock-clenchingly terrifying". Obviously it's going to take years - decades - to pay that off. And it's equally obvious that taxes will have to rise and services cut to pay for it. But which taxes and what services?
(last sentence edited to make sense)
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roubaixtuesday
self serving virtue signaller
Positive news on Covid! It's eliminated flu in the southern hemisphere.
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1304076454259380225
Right, now I need to find a positive from Brexit too. I like a challenge! Back in 2024 ish...
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1304076454259380225
Right, now I need to find a positive from Brexit too. I like a challenge! Back in 2024 ish...
classic33
Leg End Member
Not the year 2535?
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
...man is still alive. Woman has survived but arguments about the lockdown of 2020 continue.
deptfordmarmoset
Full time tea drinker
- Location
- Armonmy Way
I had been wondering whether social distancing and face protection would have an effect on flu but decided that schools would be a perfect sandpit for that virus and we have to bring the children home at the end of the day, thus negating much of the flu prevention potential. A propos, I don't think that last year was a heavy flu year anyway, so there may be extra excess deaths to add to the CV-19 toll.
Positives from Brexit. Er, the pound will become a junk currency so the government debt will become much less important (to them that's got their hands on foreign currencies, that is.)
roubaixtuesday
self serving virtue signaller
nickyboy
Norven Mankey
- Location
- You want hills? We got hills
Cos I posted for the first few hundred pages as I felt there was merit in trying to offer information and opinion on a rapidly developing situation. I backed out when this became swamped by those pushing the agenda into a more political direction
FWIW, the issue of the staggering amount of debt and what taxes will have to increase and what services will have to be cut to pay for it is central to the issue of lockdown policy. It's all too easy to push for harder and harder lockdown because the economic impact of this isn't being paid now. It'll be paid long into the future. Maybe if the linkage between "lockdown policy X" and "reduced service in the future Y" we might not be so keen on stricter lockdowns
Fundamental to the whole shebang is whether an effective vaccine can ever be developed. If it can, that's great. But if it can't then the ramifications are huge. If there is a spectrum of vaccine efficacy from useless to perfect I wonder where we will end up? Empirical analysis of past vaccine development isn't very helpful as this vaccine development is resourced several orders of magnitude higher than any previous development
roubaixtuesday
self serving virtue signaller
But that's a political issue. Which you say you don't want on this thread. Very confusing.
nickyboy
Norven Mankey
- Location
- You want hills? We got hills
Thread Content
Big political issues : Good
Petty Political Sniping: Bad
Of course, what I consider to be petty political sniping others may consider to be big political issues on the coronavirus issue
Wobblers
Euthermic
- Location
- Minkowski Space
It's not as simple as no lockdown = no debt.
As @srw pointed out (many, many pages ago!) people were already avoiding public transport, pubs, restaurants and going out back in March even before the lockdown. This unofficial and voluntary lockdown very obviously would have had an economic impact.
Furthermore, allowing the epidemic to run its course without any measure to mitigate it are also with economic consequences, far beyond those concerned with the deaths of approximately 1% of the population. Firstly, it was estimated that up to 20% (IIRC) of the work force would be off sick at the same time, with clear and expensive disruptions to just about every economic activity in the country. There is another, probably more important aspect: CV19 results in significant long lasting and possibly permanent illness in a significant fraction of those who get it. My suspicion is that the long term health impact will not be those who tragically die, but those who are struck down with permanent disabilities requiring expensive ongoing treatment. The costs of supporting hundreds of thousands of such people - who will never work again - will be very large indeed. Perhaps we could frame that as "the number of services we need to reduce in order to avoid lockdown".
Lastly, there is the ethical component - there is another dimension than mere economic utilitarianism. Allowing the avoidable deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and the permanent disability of hundreds of thousands more is not an ethical course of action. Anyone advocating such a course would be roundly condemned - and rightly so.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
1. I think some vital verb clause was cut from the above.
2. It's not easy to predict what the link to future service levels is. If we don't lock down when it's necessary, there will be bigger economic damage than locking down. The difficult problem is deciding which lockdowns are necessary and it looks almost vlike Dominic is flipping coins to decide at the moment!
