Now the vaccines are being rolled out at some speed surely we are owed a proposed timetable to remove restrictions? The experts have always wanted long lock downs and have always seemed to rely on mass vaccination as their answer. It has been hard work getting them to take adaptation and safety measures seriously as a way of re opening more businesses, and even difficult to get results from tests and trials of various treatments to cut the death rate and the severity of the bad cases.
This week has been about securing sufficient deliveries of vaccine and sorting out arrangements to get the inoculations done. There have been debates about the relative role of GPs, pharmacies, hospitals and large temporary centres. The system seems to favour large facilities capable of carrying out many procedures, and favours NHS leadership. Letâs hope it goes well.
Meanwhile damage is being done to many small businesses and the economy has declined again. the Chancellor resists all requests to give more temporary help to businesses .
I am pressing for more measures to support the economy and a clearer path back to work.
January 16, 2021
I understand there are now 30 published papers showing lockdowns don’t curb the virus, and as you have earlier pointed out the six worst affected countries per capita are European ones which have locked down hard. This is outside my field so I don’t know the reasons, but could it be lockdowns and depriving people of sunlight (admittedly not no pertinent in January!) have caused more harm than good?
January 16, 2021
As Sir John points out “the system…favours NHS leadership”. So what could possibly go wrong?
From the outset the declared objective was “Save the NHS”. The implication was that the economy can go to hell. Mission accomplished.
January 16, 2021
They went for the smokers and now they’re after the drinkers. Stopping drinkers congregating will stop rebellion by the masses. Banning demonstrating due to social distancing is designed to prevent a re run of France,s yellow vest protests.
January 16, 2021
YES, this has always been about the NHS, NOT so much about the Coronas virus and it still is!
January 16, 2021
‘Corona’
January 16, 2021
“Published papers” can say what they like.
The stats show the actual picture.
Relaxing safeguards results in a rapid, exponential flare-up of cases and of deaths – just look at Ireland.
Re-imposing them sees the figures fall after the expected lag.
When enough have been vaccinated to have a measurable impact is the time to review the position.
This is a nasty, highly infectious virus.
January 16, 2021
You have quite clearly not been looking at the data. Or perhaps you don’t understand it.
There is no way, literally no way out of lockdown without abandoning mass PCR testing of asymptomatic people.
January 16, 2021
This is a nasty, highly infectious virus.
……but which is worse? the virus itself or a PM totally out of his depth ?
January 16, 2021
How many?
Zorro
January 16, 2021
Good grief. A posting from Martin that I agree with. Sound stuff.
January 17, 2021
And me Jon. Even if we left it to the youngesters to mix in anyway they want to we will be in trouble as too many still live with elderly relatives.
January 17, 2021
Also my reaction.
January 16, 2021
We all know the stats on Covid ‘cases’ and Covid deaths’ are so heavily manipulated, Martin, that they have lost all credibility to anyone who has the slightest enquiring brain.
The non-manipulated data for 111, 999, GPs and A&E (the syndromatic data) do not support the error-prone PCR mass-testing data that drives the Covid cases/deaths; and the gross mis-attribution of deaths ‘with’ than ‘of’ Covid, whereby anyone who has a positive Covid-test, even a false positive, but no symptoms, and is hit by a bus 27 days later is still recorded as a Covid ‘Death’.
The syndromatic data suggest that there is little difference this year from any other year’s respiratory infections. (See the writings of Dr Clare Craig). The rest of the Covid ‘deaths’ is just Government propaganda to justify the false crisis and need for the stupid and criminal intervention of ‘Lockdown’.
January 16, 2021
Ian
You cannot get an answer as we do not have two countries side-by-side, one in lock down and the other not. Therefore you will not get any meaningful comparison, so you cannot prove or disprove. In such cases it is better to go with what you do know.
For example. We know it affects those that are elderly and / or with serious health problems. We know that children are more likely to spread the disease through contact with other children and not show symptoms, putting at risk those that do. The most sensible solution, which I believe our kind host advocates, it to protect those that at high risk and allow the rest of us to continue our lives. The problem is, when there are higher number of admissions to hospital our wonderful, world class NHS (/sarc) cannot cope due to poor funding (ie money not well spent), bureaucracy, lack of beds per head of population and public sector workers going sick on full pay creating staff shortages.
Sorry for the length of reply.
January 16, 2021
Nail, head, hit
January 16, 2021
Lockdowns (even if obeyed) do not do very much to suppress the virus but worse still they cause far more damage to health and the economy (with further knock on health damage resulting). The policy makes no sense any basis.
All cause deaths in Sweden (with no enforced lockdown) in 2017+2018 (with no Covid) actually slightly exceed deaths in 2019+2020 with Covid).
January 16, 2021
I sympathise with your point of view, as I am sure many do, but you are plain wrong on this.
I happen to know someone in government who happens to share your beliefs (as I used to).
However, he found himself confronted with the simple graph showing that hospitals would be overwhelmed in a couple of weeks and was forced to accept lockdown recommendations through gritted teeth.
I am sure as someone who appreciates science that you fully understand the concept of exponential growth. The problem is not the severity of the virus but the speed of transmission. Yes, the virus is not greatly more deadly than flu, but if we had not locked down we would currently not have a functioning NHS which is not a option any politician can make.
January 16, 2021
Exactly. It has never been about the fatalities but the treatment. If Covid killed those who it was going to kill quickly and without mess we would not be locked down.
January 17, 2021
The NHS is largely not functioning now. We have over five million people waiting for routine operations. If we destroy the economy how will healthcare be funded? Outside the March to May period where we had over 60,000 excess deaths the rest of the year had all causes death that were 3.1% above the five year average which is entirely normal (England and Wales). This with a higher population and a fairly low past five years figure. Economic damage kills people too.
January 17, 2021
Trust but verify.
If someone showed me a graph I would ask how they came buy such information.
This virus was known about in late 2019 / early 2020. He was shown this information months later. If he acted sooner by closing the airports and ports to all except for trade he would have bought more time.
The virus as long peaked. So why continue with the failed lock downs ?
January 17, 2021
Exactly right. Nobody is saying that our NHS is perfect but we still can’t let the virus get so out of control that they cannot manage. It is not the fault of the doctors and nurses who have to work in our hospitals and certainly not fair on them to overload hospitals if it can be helped. Do we want to see people left to die in ambulances or on the streets? God knows what the answer is but lets just hope vaccination gets us back to some kind of normality. I’m fed up with everyone saying its all made up. I can just imagine the moaning if our government were as strict as some of these Asian countries have been. That would be wrong too. They can’t win.
January 16, 2021
They know that the virus spreads virulently within households if they are kept together – so now you know the purpose of ‘lockdown’…. It does not spread easily outside – that is why they are trying to limit people getting fresh air. Just need to look objectively at what they are doing, what it achieves, and how it flies in the face of all previous pandemic theory over the last 100 years….
zorro
January 16, 2021
Apparently there is no Vit D from sunlight if the sun’s angle from horizon is less than 40 deg, or thereabouts. Polar bears’ livers are good to eat though for Vit.D if you can find any in the shops.
January 17, 2021
Surely where polar bears live it nearly always is?
January 16, 2021
Good morning.
Oh, but Sir John, didn’t you know ? This virus is so clever, so cunning that you could put a bushy tail on it and call it a fox. For this virus can, believe it or not, mutate ! So we will have to be constantly vaccinated, and at great cost, to keep the virus at bay much like we do with the flu jabs. Nice work if you can get it đ
We have gone from saving the NHS to flattening the Sombrero, to controlling the virus, and now to this. Very clever when you think about it. The experts (in behavioural science) have led us along a breadcrumb trail. Every so often they lay down a goal (piece of bread) for us to meet only to offer us another along a path. A path that leads to this.
Soon we will not be able to access services without a vaccine passport or, international identity card. They will, over time, demand more information on such a passport, such as DNA, fingerprints and so on. We are to be controlled and herded for our own good to fight a disease little worse than a bad case of the flu.
Welcome to dystopia.
January 16, 2021
I had a vaccination passport in the sixties and later, for international travel. The personal information you allude to is only a problem if misused. In dealing with criminality it can be very effective. Legislate to cover its use, misuse, and accessability.
January 16, 2021
Did you choose to, or were you made to ? If you chose NOT to have it, were you to be denied State provided services such as the NHS ?
January 16, 2021
It is about ten times worse than flu.
That is why hospitals are being overwhelmed, and why, even with the control measures involved, about 100,000 have been killed by it to date.
The mutations are from countries such as the UK and Brazil, which let the disease run wild, not from Aus, NZ etc.
January 16, 2021
A wild guess…..the more infections the more chances of mutations happening. Simple science. China is trying to say the virus started in UK…..
January 16, 2021
You wonât be wanting to âunlockâ then?
Ever?
January 19, 2021
It is about ten times worse than flu.
—-
I just had it and the flu is 10 times worse.
January 16, 2021
Absolutely correct. I like Mr Redwood as I believe him to be an honourable politician but his refusal to even discuss the sinister nature of what we are seeing leaves me fearful.
This bastardised, technocratic State has an agenda and that agenda does not involved freedom in any form
We’re gonna need a 1989 all over again
When freedom becomes more important than a free-lunch (which is the only card the two main vile parties ever play around GE time), and it will, then the Tory and Marxist Labour parties are dead to be replaced by a party that champions those issues that MONEY cannot buy
January 16, 2021
Do you carry a mobile phone with you, use Google or Facebook regularly?
If so you are already living in the Dystopia you seem to fear so much – except that it’s Mark Zuckerberg and his chums that are watching you, not our government (who seem to struggle with anything IT related that exceeds the Excel file limit.)
January 16, 2021
+1
January 16, 2021
Mark,
I am still lost what a vaccine passport achieves. The “experts” say people will still transmit the virus after having one. So what is the point other than to control people?
January 16, 2021
Agreed 100% – -but think how much it will cost – billions transferred from the poor scared to death “please jab me” people – to the already VERY rich.
“We HAVE to tax you to keep you safe “
January 16, 2021
+1
January 16, 2021
Well said. You can see this, I can see this, and others too. Yet our kind host supposedly can’t.
Sir John, please could you either set out your rationale for trusting the government and the relevant state instruments or, better still, accept that their is no reasonable basis for trusting them, and follow through with the necessary action? ‘Dystopia’ might sound like hyperbole, but it isn’t. I’m sure given the time you’ve known Mark B that you recognise he is not prone to hyperbole.
January 16, 2021
I fully agree and am in some doubt as to the medical effects of lock downs and (yes) masks.
We need to remember that we are in a tiny minority. People are scared because they look at the telly and are bombarded by constant streams of experts saying we are all going to die horribly by strangulation. Add in the occasional middle aged hero struggling for breath under a spaghetti of breathing apparatus, a crying nurse and a smug political face and – Bingo!
January 16, 2021
You will hear and see those that you describe but, you will not hear of the many thousands who have come through this nasty virus. I had someone from this very parish (Sharon) who had the virus along with her husband. I believe they are pulling through. And I am sure there are many more like them.
January 16, 2021
People are terrified of dying because the modern, secular world has killed off God and the power of prayer (God who inspired traditional Christian Europe to establish our Parliament back in The Middle Ages, as well as our Judiciary, Oxford, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, Guilds, great art like that of Fra Angelico, and later great music by Bach and Mozart, beautiful cities such as Salzburg – the focus on FAMILY, WORK ETHIC + PATRIOTISM.
There’s nothing wrong being a bit scared of death (only a lunatic isn’t) but not to be terrified. So I encourage people to encourage people to say: The Lord’s Prayer. This is what our brave soldiers would so often have done during WW2 and so were able to fight the war overall with good cheer and go into battle brave and strong.
January 16, 2021
Btw, I was rushed to hospital with suspected heart attack – very scary (so I know a bit what deathbed experience is like).
But as soon as I began to pray The Lord’s Prayer (and more), I experienced a great peace and joy – even able to cheerfully exchange some humour with the nurse in the ambulance.
Not because of me – but because The Almighty (Christ) was infusing me with grace for that particular challenge. But we have to ask for that grace.
January 16, 2021
we should carry a bible with us at all times.
January 16, 2021
Faith in the nailed god always bolsters them! So I suppose it does no harm despite the lies
January 16, 2021
He can infuse me with the winning lottery numbers, then I might think he’s real.
January 16, 2021
Peace.
January 16, 2021
The totalitarian tiptoe, boiling the frog, call it what you want, it still leads to the same end….
zorro
January 16, 2021
Agreed. Until we halt the influence of public health “experts” whose sole aim seems to be to destroy our economy and control society through fear-mongering, we are doomed to living in dystopia. Plus, of course, we need to root out the malign influence of identity politics in our institutions and get back to debating in a free and open way all the challenges we face as a democratic nation in the 21st century.
January 16, 2021
“Vaccination passports” (proof of vaccination against certain diseases) are already a requirement when travelling to/from certain parts of the world.
Even within countries, it can be a requirement. For example, for a child to gain admission to the public school system in the US state of Florida, it is a requirement to show proof of certain vaccinations.
January 17, 2021
But that is down to CHOICE. If you do not wish to have it, you do not have it and do not go there. What you and everyone fails to see is, this is going to be mandatory. This country is my home. Where am I going to live when I am denied State run services that I have, and continue to pay for ? Where is the CHOICE.
CHOICE being a fundamental Conservative principle.
January 17, 2021
Please read the last paragraph I wrote again. Is that choice, or is that mandatory?
It has been standard fare to do this in the UK in the past. I remember getting my BCG jab at school along with everyone else in my year.
January 16, 2021
+1
January 16, 2021
I’m not concerned at all. You have to carry ID on you in Spain and probably many other countries already.
January 17, 2021
This isn’t Spain or any other country. This is England.
January 16, 2021
Mark B
“Soon we will not be able to access services without a vaccine passport or, international identity card. They will, over time, demand more information on such a passport, such as DNA, fingerprints and so on. We are to be controlled and herded for our own good to fight a disease little worse than a bad case of the flu.
Welcome to dystopia.”
=========
Yep, that’s about the size of it. And they think we’re too stupid to see it coming.
January 17, 2021
You nailed it indeed: âweâre too stupidâ.
January 16, 2021
…Soon we will not be able to access services without a vaccine passport or, international identity card….
I had a letter this morning that contains this:
‘When you have your Covid-19 vaccine, you will get a credit-sized NHS Wales immunisation card.’!
January 17, 2021
Cheers mate.
Now I wonder why they would go to all the trouble and expense of issuing that ?
đ
January 17, 2021
Well you’ll be one of the first to moan when you want to travel abroad and need some kind of proof that you’ve been vaccinated and then find you haven’t got it. What a fuss over nothing. I will gladly carry one if it means I can live my life as I see fit. Everyone’s going on about the data base for criminals being lost but can’t see the benefits of some form of ID card.
January 16, 2021
Please keep pressing them.
They always seem to find a new excuse to continue Lockdowns.
January 16, 2021
And they will keep on doing so as long as đ continue to swallow the narrative.
This is NOT how any civilised society deals with a virus.
LOOK at what they have done to us!!
January 16, 2021
Sadly all we get from the media is Covid Hysteria.
The Telegraph and Spectator have dropped any Lockdown Scepticism they might have once had.
January 16, 2021
From Simon Dolan on GAB social Media
Venezuela. A warning of just how quickly countries can fall.
1992 3rd richest country in the hemisphere
2001 Voted for Socialist President
2004 Private healthcare completely socialised
2007 All Higher Education becomes free
2009 Private ownership of guns banned
2012 Bernie Sanders praises their leadership
2014 Opposition Leaders imprisoned
2016 Food and healthcare shortages widespread
2017 Constitution and elections suspended
2019 People starving on the streets
2020 Massive exodus of Venezuelans fleeing repression and shortages is the largest migration crisis in recent Latin American history
January 17, 2021
Yes, the Monroe Doctrine did its stuff again.
January 16, 2021
At least those with interruption insurance will get help now. For some however it will have come too late. I think many of us would like to know when some kind of normality will come back. With the new variants it seems like things are getting worse at the moment. I know of 7 people now that have contracted the virus and all but one have had very minor symptoms. No worse than a mild cold or a touch of flu. Once the peak has been reached e must get back to life.
January 16, 2021
That is 7 more than me.
January 16, 2021
Where do you live – in a wild desolate spot?
We know several people in the immediate area, a few quite badly affected.
A sister of a son-in-law (brought it back from foreign skiing in March) has a bad case of long-Covid. Disturbing neurological damage, now has driving ban etc. This is not to be trivialised.
January 17, 2021
I live in a village in the W Midlands. I wasn’t trying to say that it’s not serious and indeed only last night I heard of someone who is expected to die. I was just saying that once the peak has been reached then lets try to get back to normal. I am not trivialising anything. If you read my posts today you will see that.
January 16, 2021
A car salesman, a school girl, a woman in our village and someone that worked in a school and brought it back home to infect 3 others.
January 17, 2021
Out of a population of . . . . ?
January 16, 2021
The few people I know with the virus all have hospital as the vector for infection.
This is what happens when the hospitals become overwhelmed – they become the main source for the infection. Those visors and masks the staff wear won’t protect them in virus loaded wards.
January 16, 2021
Our daughter and two of her children have had the Covid virus. Whilst unwell it was NOT serious. It’s clear that its the elderly, 70 plus and those with other underlying problems or obesity that are at risk. That should be managed. I think we’re all being shutdown to prevent the hospitals being overwhelmed. I have the upmost respect for Health workers, my wife being a retired nurse, but just what’s happening to other treatments at this time? All other health care appears to have stopped apart from A&E? Why are the stats on age and other underlying causes being hidden from us?
WHO worldwide statistics confirm the above on line.
January 16, 2021
If you have to insure for legal or mortgage reasons I take a high excess unless I think it is a rather higher than normal risk for some reason unknown to the insurers.
January 16, 2021
The idea that everyone with interruption insurance will be paid out is somewhat fanciful. Insurance is based on risk. An insurer insures you against interruption of business if, for example, your business premises burn down – or flood – or your computer systems are hacked and all your data is stolen.
What it doesn’t do – what it can’t do unless insurance premiums are astronomical and, therefore, not affordable – is pay out if everyone’s building burns down on the same day. Why people think the insurance industry can suddenly act as though it takes on total risk is beyond me.
If 10 million people aged 20 took out 100k of life insurance and all died the next day, do you think the insurers could pay out?
January 17, 2021
Supreme court has ruled that they must be paid out.
January 16, 2021
The experts are largely composed of Marxist sympathisers who are quite happy to junk the economy.
We need some political leadership, not Boris hiding behind the 2 Ronnies.
The same goes for Northern Ireland and these channel taxis.
January 16, 2021
Yes indeed, social media footprint of many of the supposed experts reveals many are straightforward Stalinist or worse. We have a real problem that, like our teacher training colleges, the corridors these people inhabit seem to be dominated with lefty views. If it was not the virus they would have found another excuse to disrupt the norms of life. Layered on top of a lot of our supposedly more right wing politicians being open doors immigration nutcases… It’s not looking good for the decent people of the country.
January 16, 2021
Looking fine from where I am. But then I havenât the weight of unfounded conspiracy theories on my shoulders.
You keep spouting tosh about communists etc. Try living under a real communist regime where half your neighbours would be spying on you for the State.
You conveniently forget that you wouldnât even be able to air these views without being arrested/potentially sent for re-education, unable to get a job etc.
So much for your communist state boleaux.
Maybe your tin foil hat to protect you from the rays the Government are beaming, isnât working.
January 17, 2021
But NHS whisle blowers, for instance, are prevented from getting another job, and “compromise agreements” which keep them quiet on the threat of ruinous financial penalties risking their house and pension.
You either have not looked or don’t care.
We are not a liberal democracy, we do not have a balance between public and private sector, we have nothing like a meritocracy, we do have animal farm like state resources allocation corruption going on, etc.
January 16, 2021
Looking at some very scary bodies that âindependentlyâ advise the idiot government I would say that …
THERE IS A FIFTH COLUMN THAT DOES NOT WANT THIS TO END!!
Or is that the govt. too? The govt. wants it to continue?
On and on and on……
January 16, 2021
Ian Wragg
Your comment seems to be heading down the Avenue of stating the obvious.
I fear that time is not going to help the situation, too many of the peoples real concerns have to be dealt with very quickly the excuses are getting rather thin.
January 16, 2021
The Great Reset in Action
January 16, 2021
Indeed. No one asking how our CO2 footprint during shutdown should have reversed all this climate emergency and impacted our weather /climate worldwide……………oh, it hasn’t. Well, well.
January 16, 2021
Indeed Professor John Edmunds already briefing to the media that to get rid of lockdown at the end of February would be a ‘disaster’. Why don’t these people give their advice to the government and shut up instead of creating mood music….
zorro
January 16, 2021
And then if he didnât you be whinging about censorship and coverups.
January 16, 2021
And if I read correctly and understood, the independent SAGE body ( or are they all the same outfit?) is saying that even 100% jab take up rate will still mean masks and social distancing.
January 16, 2021
+1
January 16, 2021
Well said.
We need short (and medium / long-term) plan.
January 16, 2021
Johnson does not do strategy. He does knee jerk reaction to people shouting at him. Clueless and without courage.
I thought that was obvious from his last capitulation to EU agreeing a subservient association agreement. Totally gutless.
January 16, 2021
@Hope
Yes. Strategy is a special skill that is not the same as academic brilliance. And usually has to be honed by experience such as working in Business Strategy or something. The PM has no business experience. He’s a good wordsmith – and would make a great speech writer for a Prime Minister – but this is completely different to actually being the Prime Minister.
January 16, 2021
Mind you, in fairness to Boris, he’s doing way better than President Macron 1) France failed to working on vaccine 2) Rate of Covid vaccination is one of worst in Europe.
Also, in fairness to the British PM, he might have side we don’t know about – a focused side behind all the vague stuff, I don’t know – maybe not. Only his colleagues in government and Parliament would really be able to say.
January 16, 2021
Hope, +1
January 16, 2021
We donât need an unlock plan. When the death rate falls due to vaccination, as it likely will by late February, the population will unlock. Government wonât be able to stop that if it tries.
Mass infection will sweep through the younger age groups post lockdown before they get their chance for a vaccine. We could have herd immunity by summer and frankly need it to avoid lockdown next winter.
January 16, 2021
Dear Freeborn–I agree with you entirely, certainly with your first paragraph. All this clamour for pretended clarity and some sort of pure invention of a plan is what people might wish for but what has that got to do with anything? The situation bears comparison with the one Wellington faced at Waterloo, where his plan when asked was to beat the French. He had little ability to be sure as to exactly how, never mind how long it would take. We have to struggle through without popularity for a while yet.
January 16, 2021
The problem with your thinking is hospitalisations and “saving the NHS”.
The younger generation may not die in great numbers and their chance of hospitalisation per capita is low but there are so many of them (and so many of them are of an ethicity which seems to succumb more) that our hospitals will still be full in the Winter(s).
Without full population vaccination by next Winter we will all be locked up again by fear and authoritarians saving our tax provided NHS.
January 16, 2021
The population may well unlock but the shops and pubs it wants to go to will be closed down if they try to unlock.
January 16, 2021
Not if they all do – check out Italy
Zorro
January 16, 2021
Italy has form on ignoring rules. Not so much here which is why we had to get out of the level playing field EU
January 17, 2021
Are we now Italians? đ
January 16, 2021
That was the plan all along – with fingers crossed
January 16, 2021
Death rate at home consistently above five year average since last March. No mention of deaths because illnesses not treated and people too scared to go for treatment. Figures of death at homes Not even compared to genuine virus deaths. Brady MP has asked consistently for cost benefit analysis whether lock downs are worth it. Govt legislation makes it clear none provided. David Warburton MP highlights the point.
Perhaps Victoria Prentice was too busy clearing up after her festivities, even though Johnson “inhumanly “cancelled a Christmas!
January 17, 2021
So they’ll all be hanging around outside the locked-up pubs, cinemas, and football grounds then, will they?
January 16, 2021
The Chancellor is sensibly resisting open-ended spending commitments.
He sensibly focuses support on businesses with a viable future and/or where the burden on the state from a collapse is greater than the cost of support.
Much more can be done for all businesses through reduction of red tape.
How about getting rid of GDPR? A massive bureaucracy. An enormous waste of time clicking on pop up cookie requests. Busy people have to ignore all small print or waste hours every week reading it all. Just get rid of it.
January 16, 2021
The chancellor is useless. He has supported the lazy inefficient parts of the economy, but destroyed and offered no help to many of the most productive parts of the economy. He has carried out mass transfer of wealth from the productive innovators to the apparatchiks.
January 16, 2021
Indeed. All the public sector working from home. A review is needed post lockdown to see if they are any longer needed. Paper carriers doing non jobs, whilst spending their days browsing the internet, dreaming up wheezes to regulate and make us fill out useless forms, risk assessments, health and safety assessments etc. Paying hundreds of pounds in rates to pay for our bins to be emptied. Most of the rest is not needed.
January 16, 2021
Gdpr like all legislation inconveniences the law abiding while merely giving anyone who routinely ignores rules pause for thought.
It could be simply rewritten as a code of good practice detailing what is permissable with the ICO investigating complaints.
January 16, 2021
Indeed but they are still increasing red tape massively it is certainly not reducing.
January 16, 2021
A ‘timetable’? No – but the pre-conditions for regions to move back down that tiering ladder need to be known by the government, mayors/council leaders and the public. People respond well to a challenge but only if they know what they need to do and what the carrot is. When restrictions are eased, the government needs to keep up its public health advertising.
Regarding air travel, the tightening of restrictions is bad news but I’ll support it for now. But Grant Shapps needs to recognise the damage this will cause and already be PLANNING for getting us back to something like normal. I’ll ask my boring question again: how many air-travellers have passed an IR camera at Immigration?
P.S. And I see that there is some talk about the use of gloves as a means of reducing infections. I’ll make a prediction: that this will soon become NHS advice. And then every ex-warrior, remembering his Cold War ‘NBC’ training, will be asking why it has taken government a year or so to adopt a glaringly obvious hygiene measure. Well, it’s Saturday, – so my gloves need to go into the wash.
January 16, 2021
Those conditions should be measured by post code too.
A London or city wide tier is punitive when a small area is causing the spike.
January 16, 2021
Then remembering that their has never been a case for ‘face coverings’, they just create a false sense of security. They don’t ever at any stage protect the wearer, they just inhibit the distance the virus gets to travel from the wearer.
If the Government was actually serious about protection it would have been N95 masks and protective gloves all around. Hospitals are now realising that their so-called surgical masks don’t at any stage protect their staff – the virus is smaller than the air passages in the mask.
@Sea_Warrior it sounds like you were also thrown in the teargas chamber just for the experiance
Although it all puts on a good show when you haven’t a clue
January 16, 2021
Errr, so they protect other people who are outside the distance.
January 16, 2021
I have been wearing face masks since March and so far I have contracted two cold viruses! So much for face-masks!
January 16, 2021
Every time I wear mine for a protracted period I get sore throat and blocked sinuses.
However when travelling on public transport I would voluntarily wear one. Don’t see the need in shops where my exposure to people and their’s to me is fleeting
January 17, 2021
We carry many of our our own cold viruses with us which can resurge at any time.
All the countries which have succeeded in suppressing this plague have made masks central.
January 16, 2021
The virus cannot enter through your skin unless you have an open wound, unlike some biological and chemical weapons, and even then the viral load would need to be fairly large, so gloves will not do a lot. Washing your hands keeping them out of our mouth and eyes is sufficient.
January 16, 2021
Should be, your mouth eyes and nose is sufficient.
January 16, 2021
I notice a lot of pushy people in the NHS have had themselves vacinated ahead of the official priority sequence. It has descended into a real animal farm nightmare, once again showing the NHS at its absolute worst.
It feels like I live in a communist superstate, all the jobs going to the public sector, a lot of state rationed resources, and lots of corrupt queue jumping going on.
January 16, 2021
It appears that the NHS admin have put themselves ahead of the surgeons in some cases, as you’d expect.
January 16, 2021
Actually, Arts graduates like NHS admin and other civil servants have no useful skills so they are totally dispensable.
January 16, 2021
yep and the cleaners on the covid wards are still at the back of the queue
January 16, 2021
My partner works in the NHS and her and her colleagues are certainly not pushy queue jumping. They are higher risk and considered essential to be protected because of the job they do.
Unless you have evidence donât spread fake news just to support your own one eyed view.
January 16, 2021
I have evidence, indeed they proudly announce it on twitter.
January 16, 2021
Have you visited the iron curtain countries before it came down or later, seen the Berlin death strip, the economic depravation, the need to queue, shops with almost zero fresh produce in, hard currency outlets with all the things we take for granted only available to party apparatchiks.
Go to the broken down bars in Budapest, now tourist attractions but once the condition of much of Communist Hungary etc.
From your comments I guess not. Well I have and I know you are churning out utter rubbish.
January 16, 2021
Iain Gill
“…and lots of corrupt queue jumping going on.”
==========
Yes it’s disgraceful Iain. If it were down to me I’d counter the problem with the village stocks.
January 16, 2021
But but but but the NHS will collapse without valued staff to push paper
January 16, 2021
+1
January 16, 2021
@Iain
“It feels like I live in a communist superstate” Only feels like!
January 16, 2021
It is not difficult to figure out who would have been the pigs! Mr Jones is the economy stupid!
January 16, 2021
It surely does make sense for NHS (patient facing) staff to be vaccinated early to protect them and patients and keep them working. Assuming it is effective and sufficiently safe (as it does seem to be so far thank goodness).
It would also save many lives to vaccinate men at a slightly younger age than women in priority order as they are far higher risk. But it seems the JCVI âexpertsâ and ministers just prefer more people to die (or perhaps they really are just too daft to see this?).
January 16, 2021
NHS director level people have been vaccinated, who are more or less completely working from home anyway.
Regardless that you think front line staff should be the head of the queue that is not what the official sequence says, which they are ignoring when they vacinate their mates. And even then a lot more consultants are getting vacinated than cleaners on the covid wards, some are very much more equal.
January 16, 2021
Surely the BAME community has been identified as having the highest risk? On the basis of your argument shouldnât they get it first/early on?
Strangely they never get mentioned by correspondents.
January 17, 2021
Indeed Men are nearly twice as at risk as women and some BAME seem to be higher risk too. Logically they should be done at a slightly lower age than others to maximise protection benefit for a give number of vaccine shots.
January 16, 2021
Keep up the good work, Sir John. It would be nice to see the UK leading the way to something sensible for a change!
January 16, 2021
Indeed leading the way to something sensible. So lets have unlocking the country, cheap on demand energy, easy hire and fire, a bonfire of red tape, abandoning climate alarmism and the war on plant food, a much smaller state sector, real & fair competition in banking, housing, health care & education and far lower & simpler taxes please. Just for a start.
January 16, 2021
“The system seems to favour large facilities capable of carrying out many procedures, and favours NHS leadership. Letâs hope it goes well.”
Herding thousands of people into a larger single location seems a bit daft to me.
It would surely be safer to have fewer people at thousands of smaller facilities?
January 16, 2021
Yes but logistically getting the vaccine to thousands of outlets and donât forget the need for freezers to keep one of the vaccines frozen?
It is also about control. A nimble successful alternative to big clunk NHS is a threat them.
January 16, 2021
Indeed, I am surprised that these super sites have not been used to argue against some of the lockdown measures. Sauce for the goose and all that.
January 16, 2021
I would prefer a drive through system. Stay in your car, window open, shot in the arm and off. It seems to be working for other countries. Instead we see the elderly queuing outside in very cold weather. Those that have cars would prefer to use them.
January 16, 2021
+1
January 16, 2021
People sometimes pass out though shortly after a vaccine, itâs a condition canât remember what it is called. Been known to suffer myself a couple of times once at school when walking back from the TB jab I just fainted in front of everyone in the queue, they thought Iâd died and freaked out đ.
January 16, 2021
a great idea – lets send all the older, vulnerable people miles and miles to stand around in queues in winter, with the changing mutations wafting around…..
January 16, 2021
Yes
…and I’d like to hear about why the government is not doing something to establish the idea from our host that indoor places need to be well aired…
We now have to queue in the freezing cold to go into supermarkets with stagnant air where the virus is bound to collect – we have to walk around in a polluted environment, after first being chilled and made susceptible to catching this damned virus. What is going on? Certainly not logical planning.
Are they trying to kill us off quickly? You just couldn’t think of a better way to do it! IS THIS Insanity, treachery or just inept planning?
January 16, 2021
+1
January 16, 2021
For goodness sake, nobody is talking about going miles. I just think local areas could be used if available. Elderly here are turning down travelling and waiting for vaccine centers to be set up which will be a few more weeks yet. I just hope this isn’t making the wait for others to get vaccinated even longer.
January 16, 2021
A woman and her husband, unable to get a bus or taxi and not trusting themselves to drive on icy hilly roads, walked 5 miles to the place where she had an appointment for her jab. They tried the phone several times, there was no answer from the place. Reaching there after 90 minutes walking a person said that nobody to give the injection had turned up and all was cancelled. So they walked the 5 miles back home. BOTH pensioners. Not had an apology or anything. If they had slipped and broken bones they would have got a blasting for going out in the bad weather.
January 17, 2021
Oh No! I wonder how she was informed about her appointment? When the place was closed why werenât calls made to all the patients?
January 17, 2021
A location not a million miles from us was doing the vaccinations and were over 2 weeks down the line with them when suddenly the Government expected them to stop the second jab. A tiny location was expected to ring 2000 elderly or vulnerable people to cancel the second appointment. They decided it was impossible, so continue doing them. The chaos as instructed doesn’t bear thinking about.
January 16, 2021
â Herding thousands of people into a larger single location seems a bit daft to meâ
Two out of the three vaccines require refrigeration at minus 70 degrees or colder and thatâs only practical at big centres… they are also significantly more effective than the Oxford vaccine so you want to use all the doses we can get.
Ordinary pharmacy and doctor distribution is practical for the Oxford vaccine so weâre also using the normal channels.
January 16, 2021
NHS leadership to date from acquiring PHE, involving smaller labs to help, testing, itâs in the pocket of big pharma rolling out tests that the professionals will tell you are inconsistent with a high margin of error, having to be forced to move from a 9 – 5 mindset to roll out the vaccine etc.
Why would anyone continue to trust them? Their Stalinist centralised approach has not worked.
I wonder if there is a quid pro quo developing? When the inevitable post pandemic questions start to be asked, they keep Borisâs skeletons quiet in return for his silence.
I remain convinced Cummings departure was partly due to losing a power battle to hold the NHâs to account. Your comment worryingly tells me that nothing will change.
January 16, 2021
The key is the effectiveness of the vaccine and the speed at which the vaccination programme is rolled out. To date the omens are good, I get mine next week for instance. If it is proving effective then the release from restriction should apply to those who have been vaccinated. A litmus paper would be the appearance of Covid among NHS vaccinated staff or its none appearance.
By all means have a programme for a return to normal activity but it must be bullet proof. No more of the shambolic reception to the arrival of Covid we have suffered to date. Like todays realisation that it enters the UK by plane from highly infected areas, combined with the knowledge that statistics from most sources in the World are meaningless, they are what they want you to believe.
A Covid vaccination passport is an essential to anyone’s return to normal life. Without it you are tbe child in the back of the holiday car constantly asking when we will arrive at our destination. Bite the imagined bullet and stipulate it as a legal requirement to any interaction with other unrelated citizens, getting on the tube for instance.
January 16, 2021
We do need a re-open plan. Businesses should never have closed in the first place. Maybe night clubs stay closed a while longer, but the local book shop, DIY shop NO!
Shops that Iâve been into have all tried hard to prevent the spread of infection.
Looked at logically – the government forced businesses to close – pardon!
People supporting the lockdowns and wanting more, really do need to wake up. We can all be careful with our health and stay home when ill and once the elderly and vulnerable have been vaccinated we just need to cautiously get back to normal.
Meeting friends and family should be down to the individuals to decide, not the government.
January 16, 2021
I can’t see that a timetable will do much use, because it will be amended almost immediately due to numbers being different than expected in the plan.
January 16, 2021
So Boris has shut-down air travel to England. Well done, if he had done this last March we wouldn’t be in the mess we are.
January 17, 2021
If he had done it last March he would have been crucified then. He would have been accused of sacrificing the airline industry and many other industries and acting to early. I can just see the BBC lining up the people to complain that little Johnny is stuck in Thailand and so on. Dammed either way. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
January 16, 2021
An UNLOCK plan – great idea but far much to expect from our own deep state.
The thinking isn’t there – The will to return to the old normal is not there — Now that ministers have tasted the power to control the masses, will they let go?
January 16, 2021
It would appear that Covid 19 kills the usual flu virus. Certainly no figures on flu deaths are being publicised as is normal at this time of year.
January 16, 2021
most flu events happen due to transmission. Reduce people moving around, going to work in air-con offices, trains/buses, school children cheek by jowl, sporting events shoulder to shoulder – just perhaps this is why transmission and flu is far lighter than you might expect?
January 16, 2021
A familiar diary refrain n’est-ce pas?
How many waves will it take for Britain’s lockdown sceptics to finally call it a day? Youâd have thought the crisis would give them pause. But then, like the government, they have a hard time learning from their mistakes, [âŠ] I am agonised to learn that the Daily Telegraph has been censured for a column published last July, in which Toby Young declared that having had a common cold could give people immunity from Covid-19, and that London was âprobably approachingâ herd immunity. (Marina Hyde: Guardian.)
At least Moggie says British fish are happy not being caught in British waters. A shoal of Cod have been spotted on the twelve mile limit giving the finger, sorry, the fin, to them Frenchie’s. đ
January 16, 2021
But there is a plan John, it is to gradually release the tiers by number, we have all been told this many times, from 4 to three, then from three to two Etc Etc.. We simply have not been given a start date.
The reason for no start date or even a clue of a date, is that the media will crucify the Government if they do not stick to the guess, because that is what it would be at the moment.
Rest assured I am not in favour of complete lockdowns, far too many businesses are being crucified financially because of it, in particular the self employed and very small businesses, but because such people will not voluntarily commit themselves to debt or bankruptcy, and because a percentage of the population will not use common sense and isolate themselves when they know they are in the vulnerable group it was deemed necessary, and we are where are.
January 16, 2021
Yes fully agree and in addition we need to make sure that we have unlocked ourselves from the EU
January 16, 2021
Indeed and fully, including Northern Ireland too.
January 16, 2021
The experts have not wanted a âlong lockdownâ. They simply wanted a lockdown extensive enough to stop the virus – as happened in New Zealand and across the Far East. These places listened to the experts and are now not only largely Covid free, they also have far lower death tolls and their economies are open.
Our government did not listen to the experts. It listened to the same people who brought us Brexit (rotting fish), and we are now known worldwide as Plague Island.
January 16, 2021
you decided that worldwide refers to UK as plague island. Such fantastical nonsense. You thought you were clever to come up with daft term – – but nobody uses it.
Sorry to disappoint you.
January 16, 2021
New Zealand and the Far East also stopped entry into their country.
They pursued a zero virus strategy rather than a control virus strategy.
I would like to have seen your response to us shutting the borders and patrolling them last March and forcing arrivals into guarded quarantine*.
*Which in hindsight would have been a much cheaper and less disruptive solution.
January 16, 2021
“…we are known worldwide as Plague Island.” Andy
NO WE ARE NOT!
How/why did such a bare-faced lie become approved by the moderator?
January 16, 2021
Andy
Define ‘experts’
The problem is Boris Johnson acting on advice from so-called experts instead of anyone with 1/2 Oz (14.175 g for you) of common sense.
Then again I suppose he can have someone else to blame when it all goes wrong.
BTW covid has nothing to do with brexit.
January 16, 2021
There is no correlation between lockdown and damage from the virus. Peru and Belgium both locked down hard and were badly hit. In the US, three of the hardest hit states have been NY CA and NJ, all of which did hard lockdowns. Some of the states, such as Florida, which locked down less have fared better. Japan hasnât had much lockdown but has fared relatively well.
We will not know for at least a year, when overall excess deaths can be measured, where and why this has hit hardest. There are likely all sorts of other reasons, such as existing immunity (and probably obesity) which are likely to explain much.
January 16, 2021
Wow, it is surprising that anyone wants to come here. Yet they fly in all day, every day. Some even risk their lives crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world in rubber dinghies – to get to ‘plague island’. Clearly anyone making that crossing needs to be immediately certified as insane when they land.
Presumably there is a mass exodus from ‘plague island’? Are you packed?
January 16, 2021
If we are known worldwide as a âplague islandâ a cute term a NY journalist labelled us with in December, then why are so many people bothered around the world bothered if we cut off travel corridors, why is it taking Grant Shapps four weeks to close down the airports and ports to passengers? Just who is insisting on coming to âplague islandâ Andy?
France had a bigger number of covid + test cases per % of people tested, they test a lot less than us so will have a lower number but of those they did test they had 17% more, yet they cut off the travel to France on 23rd December without a glance, if this wasnât political then what was it. So few of those transport workers were covid+ it was embarrassing to have stalled all those drivers from their Christmas celebrations with their families.
January 16, 2021
NHS Leadership?
For such a large logistical operation would it not be better to utilise the wealth of experience this country has in disaster relief both military and civil expertise?
That will leave the NHS leadership to concentrate on the job in hand the sick and the drying across the nation.
Horses for courses comes to mind.
January 16, 2021
It is a psychological wrench to realise that the human rights destruction that the Govt and its advisers/controllers have carried out is based on bad statistics and the other BS. This is something all of us, including the compliant MPS need to go through with urgency. I made the mistake for many months last year believing the Govt was acting out of good intention, lack of knowledge, fear, incompetence etc. It comes with a shock when one looks at the data and finds that these explanations are not possible.
In looking at England and Wales mortality I noted here http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/01/12/recovering-from-the-virus/#comment-1202367 that,
When the data is smoothed to estimate an expected value then 1/7/19 to 30/6/20 is pretty much the same above expected value as 7/18 to 6/19 is below expected value.
For me this indicates, as horrible and impersonal as this is to write, that an inventory of vulnerable had built up and any newish virus would have had the same effect. This still leaves a serious argument about there should have been investment in improving care/hospital capacity, underlying health etc. as a response to the background situation, but the situation existed irrespective of covid19. Moreover since by mid-year last year (virus season end), the mortality had reached about expected + below expected from previous year and not higher (presumably because the virus started to hit late in the virus season) then one could expect vulnerable population would still exist in the following season i.e. now as we are seeing.
The Govt must not be allowed to create a situation where the destruction of human rights can be switched on off on the basis of bad stats and BS. It certainly need to be questioned whether resources should be directed to overpriced seasonal prophylactics (that are being pitched as vaccines) rather than enabling the population to improve its underlying mental and physical health. The Govtâs position of removing liberty and democracy, favouring institutionalised untimely overpriced seasonal prophylactics (are these really vaccines?) and harming underlying health is bad, very bad.
January 16, 2021
I don’t think we should demand a timetable for removal of restrictions, but I think we could reasonably expect to be told what criteria will be taken into consideration.
I would take the results of the weekly ONS surveys of Covid infection levels in the general population as the primary criterion – not the rate at which new cases are being diagnosed, or the rate at which infected people are being hospitalised, or the rate at which they are dying with/from it.
There should come a point at which the incidence of the infection is so low that life can return to normal and the occasional isolated cases which still appear can be dealt with speedily and efficiently to prevent any wider spread and without putting undue pressure on the NHS. It might make sense to set up permanent isolation hospitals to take Covid cases, rather than mixing them in with other patients in general hospitals; there used to be such hospitals for smallpox patients, in fact there was one near here.
What we must avoid is repetition of the mistakes made last summer which contributed to the difficulties we are in now. In the simplest terms if there was no Covid virus in the country then there would be no mutations and so no new strains appearing to cause us fresh problems, and conversely the more virus there is left around in the population the more likely that it will evolve into a worse form.
January 17, 2021
They shut down all the cottage hospitals which would have been great as isolation hospitals. We are now all having to attend larger establishments..
January 17, 2021
One third of them have been closed in the last 10 years.
January 16, 2021
Having a ‘plan’? Having an idea were to go next if and when a proper way is found around this ever mutating enemy is all well and good, but being real about it – broadcasting it serves no purpose.
At this moment in time still not knowing, only hoping, for a satisfactory outcome then broadcasting plans for afterwards just gives ammunition to our appalling MsM to keep destroying this country.
January 16, 2021
Go for it!
People badly need reassurance. Round here in the Fens, they are very worried indeed and, yes, frightened too.
The vaccine helps a lot. But the decision to go against advice and just administer one shot has not helped. Also the EU is messing around with Belgian vaccine production too. My family who live in Abu Dhabi have already had the Chinese Beijing vaccination – two 50 year olds and one university student.
You are doing the right thing in planning for the end of lock down, just remember you (and I) are in a tiny minority at the moment.
January 16, 2021
The Chinese vaccination (Sinovac) appears to provide the lowest efficacy.
Researchers in Brazil reported that CoronaVac, developed by Beijing-based Sinovac, was 50.4% effective at preventing severe and mild COVID-19 in late-stage trials. Thatâs significantly lower than the 90% efficacies of several leading vaccines.
January 16, 2021
A timetable would be nice.
Crucially we need a definition of victory.
Deaths below X ?
Hospital admissions below Y ?
We need to know now what exactly we are trying to achieve.
BTW SAGE will never discharge itself, it will keep on until it is stopped, as any organisation does. So waiting for them to say it’s all over isn’t an option.
January 17, 2021
It’s supposed to be permanent: the ‘E’ stands for emergencies of whatever nature.
January 16, 2021
In Italy, the restaurants are reopening in spite of what the government dictates/ The ‘lockdown’ ends when people no longer comply. They intend to keep us ‘locked down’ until July (with a suitable excuse) and then they will return to tiering and then ‘lockdown’ again next winter.
This is what they intend – it is up to the British people whether they keep falling for it. They must be very boiled frogs by now. I think that the surveys showing ‘vaccine hesitancy’ rates among different races are very illuminating and interesting that they are only hitting the media now….
zorro
January 16, 2021
This is what I think. They have no intention of ending this, just releasing the pressure enough to let us breath the, applying it at a later date. Johnson has gone AWOL from his post and responsibilities.
January 16, 2021
Seems to be a good site for sensible discussions!
January 16, 2021
We are supposed to be having local elections soon.
Would it not be practical to equip every polling station with a supply of this vaccine and someone from the locality who knows how to give a subcutaneous or intra-muscular jab? I have had so many done to me, that I could easily do it.
Unless of course the authorities are worried about the consequences of taking it, which might put a different slant on the procedure.
I realise that this won’t get everyone, as the whole country is not going to the polls, but it must be not far from 50%, and it would also encourage people to vote, so two birds, one….
January 16, 2021
a good idea but consider the messaging – you can only vote if you are vaccinated
January 16, 2021
If you encourage more people to vote do you get a better winning candidate (or a worse one) ? I suspect you might get one more to the big government, tax, borrow, waste or buy votes left on average.
January 16, 2021
I admire your optimism. I will be astonished if the local elections take place.
Stand by for massive council tax rises. Any increase in the state pension will be taken by the council tax rise.
January 16, 2021
A sensible and timely proposal Sir John but are we expecting too much from a Government that has only just realized some eleven months too late that seriously restricting travellers arriving by air is appropriate and necessary?
If plans are now to be made, can they include coping with future resurgences and recognizing we may have to live with this or similar viruses for years and years so lockdowns on scale ought not to be part of the response?
January 16, 2021
Further point.
Expect SAGE to big up the importance of any new strain discovered – there will continue to be a constant stream of them-if only to keep themselves in being.
January 16, 2021
This is what they intend â it is up to the British people whether they keep falling for it.
…
The CDC Vaccine Adverse Reporting shows hundreds have died and tens of thousands had side effects. How can I persuade my frail old mother the ONS Stats prove its all a lie when she trusts the TV so much?
January 16, 2021
Redwood is flapping his Libertarian wings in a vacuum. The country supports strictly enforced lockdowns for as long as it takes and has no time for magic rabbits or hats . I agree with the country .
Similarly the reality of Brexit is colliding with Brexit voters who wanted more money , less immigration and everything . In reality Johnson is set to allow more immigration from India , it is already growing fast . The protection of employment conditions is already being eroded, there is less money , a lot less .
The economic logic of Brexit if there is any is ultra Globalisation on steroids , the Brexit voter wanted the reverse . Something will give ; soon I hope
January 16, 2021
I have heard, from a hospital office manager for what that may be worth, that many of the patients are from ‘at risk’ groups (elderly, underlying conditions, etc.) who have tested positive, shown non-severe symptoms (leading to precautionary admission) and are well enough to go home but protocols don’t permit this . . . so they are basically not ill and are just bedblockers. If that’s true then it’s a big contrast to the “overwhelmed with seriously ill patients” MSM stories.
January 17, 2021
So our doctors and nurses are liars then? I’m fed up with this type of ignorant comment.
January 16, 2021
“The system seems to favour large facilities capable of carrying out many procedures, and favours NHS leadership. Letâs hope it goes well.”
Was this written with tongue in cheek Sir John?
As usual with the NHS “Management” they want to keep it all in house. If it was opened up to all Surgeries, Pharmacies and even care homes which have qualified nursing staff using the British vaccine which is so much more practical than the German of US one’s and leave the NHS to try to organise the big centres which can manage the overpriced German one matters would run at speed.
January 16, 2021
These are my calculations on the conditions for a return to normality; I believe they are correct, but if anybody thinks otherwise then they can point out the errors.
According the last ONS release about 2% of our local population is infected.
Therefore if I go out and about and encounter 10 people at random the chance that none of them is infected will be 0.98 raised to the power of 10 = 82%.
But if I encounter 100 people it will be 0.98 raised to the power of 100 = only 13%.
And if I encounter 1000 people it will be 0.98 raised to the power of 1000, which works out to zero, as close as makes no difference.
(If that seems unlikely multiply 0.13 by itself 10 times, the answer is 0.000000001.)
In other words, if somebody’s daily activities involved encounters with 100 random people – on pavements, on public transport, in his workplace, in shops and bars and restaurants – then at a 2% infection rate he would have a 13% chance of getting through the day without meeting any infected person. However if he repeated the same daily round for a working week of 5 days then the chance that he would not encounter any infected person during the week would drop to a mere 0.004%.
And if his daily round involved encounters with 1000 people there is only a small chance that he would get through the first morning without meeting an infected person.
None of that is to say that he would be certain to catch the disease, because that depends on how close he came to the other people and for how long, whether they are wearing face coverings, whether it was outside or inside. and with what ventilation, etc.
But it gives some idea of how far we are from a “normal” situation where we could safely throng and mix closely together and physically touch each other without fear, as we have always been accustomed to do and want to be able to do again.
And in fact even if the ONS survey found that only 1 person in 10,o00 was infected with the virus – 0.01%, compared to 2% now – there would still only be a 90% chance that you could encounter 1000 people at random without any of them being infected.
If you want to be able to go out and casually mix with 1000 random people with no more than a 1% chance that any of them is carrying the virus then you will need the ONS to report that the incidence of infection has fallen to 1 in 100,000 or lower, which could mean that none of their 200,000 samples tested positive for Covid-19 any longer.
January 16, 2021
@dennis I think you have fallen into the lottery gambler’s trap of assuming that entries are cumulative. You start again with each interaction. And your calculations make no account for transmission rate.
If one in 50 people have the virus but only 20 minute close contact has a 20% chance of transmission your calculations are meaningless.
January 17, 2021
My calculations are not intended to estimate transmission rates, just the probability that all the people one encounters in a given excursion will be free of the infection. To return to the previous kind of normal life we will need to drive the rate of infection so low that we no longer have to worry about the risk of mixing with infected people if we make a trip to a concert, say, or a football match.
The entries are cumulative, as you put it, because if you go out and encounter a first person then at present the chance they are free of infection is (1.00 – 0.02) = 0.98; the chance that a second person you encounter is free of infection is the same, 0.98; and so the chance that both are free of infection is 0.98 x 0.98 = 0.96; and so forth.
Obviously it is not the case that you can meet up with as many people as you like confident that is always only a 2% chance that one of them is infected, it must multiply up as the group expands.
January 16, 2021
Dennis
Not enough people understand compound mathematics and how that multiplies risk, and that is why we are where we are.
If the idea is to control the virus, then the Government released the controls too early during the Summer, thus when the second wave came it multiplied fast, because we were not starting from either Zero or even a very low base line as we did with the first phase.
In time we will have the benefit and effect of a vaccine, but no sensible release should be made until we are at the point of herd immunity, certainly for those over 60 years of age.
January 17, 2021
It is surprising, but apparently even when the incidence of the virus had been reduced to 0.03% in July that was still not low enough to prevent it coming back once restrictions were lifted.
January 16, 2021
I have a hunch that, provided daily hospitalisations and deaths are clearly on their way down by the end of February, people will simply take the law into their own hands and ignore restrictions.
You would do well to remember how prohibition broke down in the States, with people taking their own booze to restaurants in open contempt of the law.
January 16, 2021
It won’t be the middle classes who can so productively work from home who lead the rebellion Lindley. They are enjoying their bread making. If only they could get their kids into school
January 17, 2021
A curious analogy: people taking their own booze to restaurants were potentially only âaffectingâ themselves with not much impact on their neighbours. People getting out of the present restrictions might be snitched by their neighbours, an occurence you have clearly ignored in the assumptions leading to your âhunchâ.
January 16, 2021
Then perhaps there shouldn’t have been so many MPs choosing to follow the party line and vote for these enormously damaging and ruinous lockdowns. Talking about an escape plan now is shutting the stable door. We all know that lockdowns are utterly pointless – you can’t hide from a virus.
It’s been said many times, by people far better informed than I, that the only people who have been pro-lockdown are those who are unaffected, know where their next pay cheque is coming from, who are comfortably ensconced in a comfortable, secure and well-financed lifestyle.
They know who they are.
January 16, 2021
An old marketing trick.
Pretend an item is in short supply to increase demand!!
January 16, 2021
SAGE donât want to raise the lockdown. The government will do what SAGE says. So no point pressing the government for a plan.
January 16, 2021
SAGA says jump and this government asks how high
January 17, 2021
Sage says jump, the Government says ‘how? Please explain SAGE Prof what we should do’.
January 16, 2021
The PCR test is an amplification tool. It replicates genetic material in order to study it. The lower the virus concentration in the sample, the more cycles are needed to achieve a positive result. If you use the PCR test at high cycles, ie over 35, (we are currently using 45), it will multiply the shreds of DNA found so that almost everyone who has been in contact with a coronavirus will test positive for significant amounts. If you dial the number of cycles down, very few.
The government can make the number of âcasesâ fall any time it wants, by using the PCR test at lower cycles. The reverse is, also, of course, the case.
January 16, 2021
At the start we did not know if a therapeutic to prevent serious illness when caught or a vaccine to prevent catching it (or getting too ill) would be the solution. I think the government did well to bet big on both approaches, it has been disappointed that the therapeutics have not made a massive difference (the news yesterday of the results of the plasma trials) but the bet on buying big on unknown vaccines has paid off.
One mystery which you have previously mentioned as to why some European countries (Belgium, Czechia and the UK for example) have done so badly remains to be solved. Personally I actually agree that we need to tread carefully in rowing back on the NPIs – perhaps being a bit too optimistic last year when starting to row back in the run-up to Christmas (especially in London) got us into this current mess.
January 16, 2021
“I am pressing for more measures to support the economy and a clearer path back to work. ”
You are wasting your time. Be honest with yourself (if not with us): When was the last time the government actually did what you asked them to?
It’s time to send a letter to Graham Brady, I think – and do it OPENLY. It’s the only language the PM understands. How many are required to trigger an election?
January 16, 2021
This âHoward Hughes Governmentâ canât hack it. We need a change, somebody who is not allergic to the world and does not feel it incumbent on him to save all humanity from living in it will do. Even better if they prefer to beat Sinn Fein and retain NI and constrain the outrageous exploitation of our fishing grounds.
January 16, 2021
Government need to show extraordinary evidence that the NET effect of lockdown is beneficial before ever imposing it on the population again. And there must be safeguards to ensure all our freedoms are returned and never trampled on again in this untransparent way.
January 17, 2021
Net effect of lockdown? in terms of ÂŁ value? So are you going to define a scale of how much a human life is? Or more accurately how much the life of a Prime Minister, a Minister, a MP, a Lord or Lady, a NHS doctor, nurse, a policeman, a journalist, a shop attendant, a teacher, a (SAGE or not) scientist, … (I guess by now you must have seen the pattern) is? How much the life of a contributor to this blog is?
Good luck with establishing such a scale specially in a âtransparentâ way.
January 16, 2021
The Economists with their lack of medical knowledge did not support a lockdown of international passenger travel in February of 2019. They even now do not support a strict control and policing of quarantine for arrivals entering the country.
They ( the economic world) are the major factor in creating the economic mess the country is in now, and now shift the blame onto lockdowns and the medical world trying to overcome the damage caused to the economy by them in the name of the economy.
I am sure the virus would have crept in through the cracks but we left the door wide open for a major virial invasion in the name of protecting the economy first. The airlines and travel business was more important than the High Street which was in a bad way due to the non-tax paying internet supply business before the virus.
Perhaps the Economists can predict the next new variant import arriving unchecked at our UK open door.
PS. the vaccines come from the medical world which is trying to dig us out of the mess the Economists created in the first place together with the NHS overload.
January 16, 2021
Immigrants donât see lockdown
BBC reporting 36 people in 2 boats intercepted today crossing channel
Just love the wording âinterceptedâ âŠthey mean escorted
When is this government going to stop this ?
January 16, 2021
Ah yes, here we go, John Edmunds of SAGE âlifting restrictions at the end of February would be a disasterâ. Thatâs that then. End of debate. Boris will meekly follow.
How come these people are allowed to talk to the newspapers and offer up their own opinions ? Arenât they bound by collective responsibility ?
January 16, 2021
I do feel the GOV needs a clear plan for re-opening the economy. The Stats show its people over 70 who are the most likely to pass away due directly or indirectly through Covid. It this this vulnerable section of the population that need to be shielded through lock-down restrictions.
3.5 million – probably 4m have Covid up to 100,000 have died, however over 80% are over 70, so its makes better focus to shield this age group.
Personally I feel all 60 years and over should be subjected to being allowed out for 2 hours a day to go to the local shops then back home and stay there. Many countries have adopted this approach eg Spain and France amongst others.
Protecting the NHS is part of a Conservative Manifesto pledge, and no political party is going to take on the NHS and survive the wrath of the general public so I see no point in moaning about it.
January 16, 2021
Donât you wonder too if this isnât all just being saved up for Bidenâs inauguration so that he can be the saviour delivering thousands and millions of the vaccinations ordered and ready to go and then the green light will also just go on for the rest of us.
If Boris had the will heâd just get a massive priority on now vaccinating all the at risk groups day and evening to cut down on hospital admissions if they are the people going in to hospital with it and are causing the rest of us to be locked down for months on end.
Youâve have got to wonder if we are as Andy says above known as âplague islandâ around the World just why are other Countries flying in here at all and why havenât they stopped passenger travel from the UK, it all seems very odd. I truly hope that we have now stopped Incoming travel especially with all of these Indian festivals with nearly a million people taking place this week.
January 16, 2021
You are very confused. The UK *already* has a hundred million doses of the Oxford/AZ vaccine on order and being delivered. The UK has vaccinated more of its residents than the rest of the EU combined.
Meanwhile the US has a vaccine crisis because Pfizer has serious production delays, and so does the Eu becasue they signed up for the delayed Pfizer vaccine.
How could Biden possibly be a saviour for the UK? It makes absolutely no sense.
January 17, 2021
a-tracey
I never read, Andy’s musings as, from what others have been saying about him he seems quite a disturbed individual. Why live in a country whose people you openly despise ? So I would not take anything he writes seriously as he just wants attention.
January 16, 2021
I see the police national computer has had a “Massive irretrievable data loss”, the parody of “The Thick of It” alive and well in real life right here right now.
Where are the backups?
The British state really is completely and utterly useless.
January 17, 2021
This is a bit unbelievable Iain, even small businesses are checked up on to make sure Back Ups of data are kept off site. It is a normal business requirement and one many insurers demand as do certifiers.
How this can be Patelâs fault is unbelievable, unless she specifically instructed them to switch off the back ups which should have been in place long before she was in power then the people responsible are the heads of IT.
January 17, 2021
The Operations (Systems) person responsible for such a negligent error, (one person able to take the delete option without senior approval! ) should be the fall guy. How on earth you can blame Ms Patel?
January 17, 2021
I wonder what would have been the reaction if that had happened on Labour’s watch?
Or the PPE shambles?
Or any of now countless utter fiascoes?
January 17, 2021
And no one will be held accountable or sacked.
January 16, 2021
The comments this morning are very confused. The effect of the lockdown on the economy is one issue. The effect of the lockdown on Covid transmission is another issue. They are *different* issues.
JR is the competent person here to pursue the effect on the economy. I would just say that we could alleviate economic damage a bit if we were more discriminating about who were were trying to protect and how we were protecting them. I would guess we could open up the economy a bit more if we protected the old a bit more firmly, and the rest of the population a bit less, and kept them apart. Just my guess..
But on the transmission front, I don’t think there is really a discussion to be had. We got the numbers down last year with a lockdown, then we got the predicted second wave, and then over Christmas we had a widespread relaxation and flouting of the lockdown and here we are at over a thousand deaths a day. And, FWIW, the RIO, is also experiencing a serious post-Christmas spike, as is Germany.
I think you would have to be a blind man not to notice that there is a close correlation between relaxing/flouting the lockdown – not to mention the new variant with its higher R-value – and increasing numbers of new cases and deaths.
The people nattering on about Worldwide conspiracies and tyranny are really making complete fools of themselves.
January 17, 2021
+1
January 17, 2021
Different issues perhaps, but inextricably linked most definitely. Hence why they must be discussed together.
January 17, 2021
Lockdown is popular despite those who ignore it. Many view such people as the “non-survivors” in Darwinism terms.
If you want to make traction with anti-lockdown views, I suggest you ask yourself (or “selves”):
1. Why is it popular?
2. What can we offer (outside of lockdown) that gives people the same as whatever they like about lockdown?
The instant answer to 1 is to suggest that people would like to continue to live. However, I suspect there are other factors afoot, such as WFH. Many people now realise how awful their rat-on-a-treadmill existence was prior to March ’20 and would like to avoid returning to it any time soon.
On that basis, your suggestions should include, perhaps, a long-term right to WFH in some shape or form. Not mandatory (since some people prefer to work in an office), but a right to work at home where that is feasible for the role.
There are great benefits for society: less congestion, ease of transportation of goods (many of which should be transported for most of their journey by rail anyway, if the economics were right). And of course, more free time for individuals, less stress and tiredness, more family time.
For companies, they would require less (very expensive) office space and parking facilities. For government, less transport infrastructure – the list goes on.
Doing that also means that the lockdown can be eased without a sudden lurch into 100% of the population being crammed into roads, trains and buses again (with the inherent risks that contact with other people brings of another surge in infections) – those who like WFH can do so, easing the path to “normality”, even if it’s a “new normality”.
Understand the motivations –> formulate proposals.
January 18, 2021
Asking people to voluntarily delay vaccination until later in the year if they know they have already had the virus should speed up the process especially in urban areas with previous high infection rates.
The criteria could be a positive PCR test and typical symptoms. The evidence is that re-infection rates are low and that a successful recovery from infection provides for at least a similar level of protection as a vaccine.
Everyone who suspects they possibly have had been infected could be antibody tested. This would free up supplies of vaccine for those with a greater need to be immunised.