No. The restrictions were lifted staggered and not all at once and R stayed below 1 for months.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
The mistake was having holidays during a pandemic reseeding the virus from Spain all across the UK again.
Printable View
No. The restrictions were lifted staggered and not all at once and R stayed below 1 for months.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
The mistake was having holidays during a pandemic reseeding the virus from Spain all across the UK again.
Test & Trace here was a joke.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
I had an alert two months ago. I opened up the app from the alert. The information on what the alert was supposed to be indicating was missing entirely. I came out of the app, went back in to try to reload the alert, and it crashed.
My sister who is a deputy head of an inner-city primary school in London had to disable the app along with other teachers at the school. The app kept alerting, but would not say which child (if any) was infected or provide any other pertinent information. The alerting became nothing more than an annoyance.
So it was certainly World-Beating. No one else made such a crap system.
Data privacy was extremely high because of Apple/Google policies. They tried to build one that was less private but Apple and Google refused to facilitate it. Saying which child was infected was literally not how Apple and Google designed it to work.
Interestingly test and trace last week got through to 92.6% of contacts. Don't hear so much about the percentages now that they're like that.
Interesting to see now how different countries are setting out their stall for the vaccine rollout.
Macron has set an ambitious target of getting a million vaccines out by 31/1
Boris has set an ambitious target of getting 14 million out by 14/2.
Be interesting to see how or whether those are reached.
Incorrect. There was a massive easing of important restrictions all at once starting July 4, followed by messages (back to work) & policies (eat out to help out) that greatly facilitated community transmission. R is crude and often misleading measure when dealing with covid, in general because of the extreme heterogeneity in transmission, and in the UK's case in particular because of testing & tracing issues. It is almost certain that, at times when R seemed to be be just below 1, there were a number of important regions where it was at or above 1. Lifting a restriction on peeking out through your window one day and then lifting a restriction on hanging out at a packed pub the next day might look like a staggered approach, but it's not in any meaningful sense—hence the criticism from and concern among the govt's advisors, which was reported in the recent Times article.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
No doubt that was a mistake—precipitated in part by the govt's messaging—but plainly misleading to describe it as "the" mistake.Quote:
The mistake was having holidays during a pandemic reseeding the virus from Spain all across the UK again.
Incorrect. The restrictions were phased out and mostly through the whole of June and July. 4 July was the restrictions on some hospitality and was over a month after the restrictions on non essential shops and nearly a month before the restrictions on indoor gyms and nail salons etc. The lifting of restrictions was spread over multiple months.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
I think the blame game is part of the problem. Why would any one think that plan would work, no one has been ok with that level of intrusion. Did people rely to heavily on it being the end all solution to contact tracing? Since we mentioned schools over here when an infection was reported the admin would quarantine those who had contact and alert the rest of the school, without violating privacy or HIPAA. But of course this being florida "contact" meant only those that sat next to the infected for a class period. They ignored hallways, who used the desk the next period and teachers were never considered as a possible contact or spreader. So of course we ended up getting the calls at least once a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
No that was never the primary element of contact tracing, so it wasn't the end all solution. The primary element was and always has been manual contact tracing. The app is only meant to be supplementary so eg if you don't know who you've been near as they're a stranger then it pings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Our daughter's school have taken this very seriously. They have divided the school into year group bubbles and this there is no mingling at all. When I drop the girls off in the morning and pick them up they go in via different entrances, they use different classrooms, they even have different segregated playgrounds now. Everything that can be has been segregated to keep them apart.
We have twice been told that they need to isolate. Once for my youngest in Reception class barely into the school year so she then had to stay off for a fortnight, then for our eldest in Year Two we got the message for her on the first day of the Christmas holidays meaning she needed to self isolate until the 25th ironically - the only thing that affected though was we didn't take her to the shops since we were already not planning on meeting anyone during the holidays.
This is a roundabout way of restating my claim that there was a massive easing of important restrictions on July 4. Restaurants, bars, pubs and cafés are very important from a transmission perspective; gyms and nail salons are less important—more important than peeking out the window, granted, but not as important as the other categories.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
There has to be a date when hospitality is allowed to resume trade. It wasn't done all at once with the other relaxations like sport, or gyms, or religious services, or non essential shopping. It was done separately from other things as another step. Not the all at once you claimed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Short of keeping them shut forever, or opening only half at once (which would be worse for social distancing as everyone crams into the ones allowed to open) I'm not sure practically how you would want it done differently.
What else would you want? Bars with a name beginning A to J can open, the rest remain shut? So all the punters go to those bars?
It is truly astounding how difficult it seems to be for you to read and parse sentences in their entirety. If I say "massive easing" and "important restrictions" and "all at once", you're supposed to be able to understand that all three parts matter; examples of slight easing of relatively unimportant restrictions later on have no bearing on the initial claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Here are some ways:Quote:
Short of keeping them shut forever, or opening only half at once (which would be worse for social distancing as everyone crams into the ones allowed to open) I'm not sure practically how you would want it done differently.
What else would you want? Bars with a name beginning A to J can open, the rest remain shut? So all the punters go to those bars?
- only permit outdoor service
- only permit table service
- restrict total number of patrons
- restrict size of each party
- mandate 2m distance
- restrict hours for table service
- keep bars closed
- keep cinemas, museums and theme parks closed
- not encourage people to eat at restaurants with massive financial incentives and powerful messaging
Why you chose not to spend even ten seconds trying to answer this question before trotting out that inane straw man is honestly beyond me.
Yes and many of those were done. :rolleyes:
The eat out scheme was about encouraging responsible behaviour too. Sitting down for a meal socially distanced, not cramming into a crowded bar. Many bars reoriented themselves to be more food led and more socially distanced as a result.
Hospitality needs trade and needs cash. Getting people to sit down and have a meal then leave is better than encouraging drunks to go on pub crawls.
As for bars there is no real distinction in licensing between a bar and a restaurant. Hence why when the government did try and say only with a meal for Tier 3 the media went crazy over Scotch Eggs. Because any bar can start serving meals and now it is a restaurant - there is no difference in licensing terms! Licensing is about the ability to serve alcohol, not the ability to serve food. You try to define what is a bar and what defines it needing to be closed.
Nightclubs were made to stay closed.
Please give me a list showing which of those measures were mandatory shortly after the July 4 easing of regulations.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
It encouraged very large numbers of people to do something that greatly increases risk of transmission: hanging out indoors with people outside your immediate bubble—frequently in poorly ventilated venues—for a long period of time, obv. without masks. There was minimal social distancing, but, even if there had been, it would've been nearly as dangerous. This foolish policy made a substantial contribution to sustaining community transmission all over England.Quote:
The eat out scheme was about encouraging responsible behaviour too. Sitting down for a meal socially distanced
You'll have to weigh these purported gains against the negative economic impact and the cost in lives lost and people saddled with disability due. You could probably have just given that money—and more—to businesses, and still come out far ahead.Quote:
Hospitality needs trade and needs cash. Getting people to sit down and have a meal then leave is better than encouraging drunks to go on pub crawls.
You don't have to; you can simply state that physically distanced table service for food is all right in the restaurant area of an establishment, while hanging out at the bar—or just drinking alcohol—is not. You can also restrict group size, maximum number of patrons, and opening hours, mandate outdoor dining. All measures would have a much greater impact on bars than on restaurants.Quote:
As for bars there is no real distinction in licensing between a bar and a restaurant. Hence why when the government did try and say only with a meal for Tier 3 the media went crazy over Scotch Eggs. Because any bar can start serving meals and now it is a restaurant - there is no difference in licensing terms! Licensing is about the ability to serve alcohol, not the ability to serve food. You try to define what is a bar and what defines it needing to be closed.
There is no legal distinction between "restaurant area" and "bar area". The two are one and the same for many venues. Easy enough for a venue to say all of its area is now a restaurant area.
Telling people they have to be seated deals with that as well as anything else can.
Here I am, reading arguments about all the aspects of the UK response, realising over there they handled almost every aspect worse... Seriously, the criticism on the UK test and trace program may be valid, but over here it was essentially stopped for a while because they were overwhelmed. The app worked (no missing info at least), but in my case my friend got sick on Monday evening, tested Tuesday, results on Wednesday, and then I got the app notification on Thursday morning. Of course I was already informed since it was a friend, but that was some delay. And since back then test and trace was essentially overwhelmed, I was never contacted beyond the app notification. And since test capacity was limited, I was never tested as I didn't have symptoms (only asked to stay inside for 10 days, which I did). The instructions on what to do were clear at least, i suppose.
.. though on the bright side, closing all non essential stores in December seems to have had some effect as the numbers are dropping for positive tests, and hospitals did not reach capacity while the numbers appear to have peaked.
From memory are you Dutch? The Dutch response does seem to have been a bit odd recently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
I certainly can't comprehend what they're thinking regarding vaccinations. The UK is likely to have done at least 2 million before the Dutch have done even their first. :confused:
Yep, Dutch.
I think I posted before about the vaccination fuckup here, but long story short, they planned on wrong assumptions, and ignored signals that the assumptions were incorrect, and only far too late changed their plans.
The good news is that, with the UK smashing the vaccine rollout race, international comparisons are -back-, baby!
I'm struggling to think what sort of assumptions could be that badly wrong they couldn't be fixed before next week, short of not having bought the freezers.
Its nearly a month now since the UK approved the vaccine, that should have indicated to the Dutch they could be getting some soon you would have thought?
Afaict they hadn't sorted out the logistics for the Pfizer vaccine, instead focusing on getting the AZN vaccine out through regular flu vaccination system.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Sure, so you can mandate seated eating at a table, with 2m distance, small parties and small total number of patrons, with restricted hours, etc, etc. Clearly you could've answered your question yourself. Now, which of the measures I listed in my previous post were mandated shortly after the restrictions were lifted on July 4?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Seated at a table I believe was the guidance at the time yes, distanced at '1m+' was there too, as was having a reduced number of patrons due to social distancing is another. So 3 off the top of my head.
From your others outdoor serving was allowed from before 4 July (for "takeaway") so was also staggered from the other loosenings.
Not restricted hours earlier on as the idea was to have social distancing so cramming people into reduced hours makes that counter-productive in theory. That changed later on as people were staying in and not following the rules in later hours - but that got widely condemned by many for the same reason that it was cramming people into the same time window making distancing harder.
If only. As usual privacy fetishism played a role. Another problem is that there simply is no central agency with the necessary authority. Usually decentralized works great. Turns out that it's not so great if you need quick responses. The discussion is mostly about who should vaccinate whom. There was a serious discussion if you could have hospitals jabbing their own staff. It was kind of surreal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
I've been exposed :\
But I'm getting paid time off till Monday
Same, just got the notification through the app. A little surprised about the date, only was near one person that day and it wasn't her.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
1,325 Covid-19 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours in the UK. The highest yet.
Incredible. Heartbreaking. Completely out of control.
Georgia hit 10k cases for the first time. Students returning to campus in a week.
The UK will now require a negative covid test to enter the country, a mere 344 days after the first UK case.
You'd be doing the world a favor if you required an exit test instead.
New York mucking distribution up in spectacular fashion.
Georgia is vaccinating 12k people per day. Which is far below New York's pathetic rate.
What do you expect from a blue state . . .Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
:o
Georgia has administered 135,605 first doses (1.3% of the population), accounting for 23% of total first doses shipped
New York has administered 200,000 first doses (1.0% of the population), accounting for 17% of total first doses shipped
Meanwhile Texas...
Texas has administered 541,512 first doses (1.9% of the population), accounting for 36% of total first doses shipped
Not sure where you're getting your numbers from. NYC alone administered 170k vaccines (NYC has a smaller population than Georgia). The rest of New York State has administered even more.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01...-get-a-vaccine
TX is slightly behind NY both wrt % of population vaccinated and wrt % of doses administered:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ine-doses.html
https://time.com/collection/coronavi...cines-updates/Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The info they're drawing on hasn't been updated for several days wrt NY. NY has administered > 540k doses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Vaccine figures updated. Going to be going daily, not sure if that's from today. 2.6 million doses given out so far across 2.3 million people.
Twitter Link
The Welsh are the only ones disproportionately very slow. No idea why. Welsh government is Labour and Liberal Democrat ran, hopefully they can catch up soon.
Click through for thread that will definitely make you happy I would not lie to you :) :) :)
Twitter Link