Boris announcement- November. Does he know something?

[Yetiyoga]

Not sure if this has been suggested. We are supposed to find out next week about how successful the Oxford vaccine has gone aren't we? Do you think Boris Johnson knows the result and that is why he thinks we could be back to normal by November / Christmas? Or am I being naive/ too optimistic?
I just can't see 'normal' by Christmas as things are currently. And I'm fairly relaxed about it all.
I have a first niece / nephew due late October so it would mean the world to be able to meet them this year.

Oh gosh...i started this thread after a sleepy thought and now it is 8 pages in and sounds quite heated.
Is it worth me catching up? I haven't had a chance so far!

@Clavinova

Keir Starmer frequently refers to South Korea's track and trace policy, without actually saying what he would like us to copy;

"South Korea is also enforcing a law that grants the government wide authority to access data: CCTV footage, GPS tracking data from phones and cars, credit card transactions, immigration entry information, and other personal details of people confirmed to have an infectious disease."

Johnson isn't copying any aspect of other countries track and trace programs, ours is uniquely poor.
Johnson even told Starmer, twice, over 2 days that NO country had a working TnT App, even a German Govt minister had a chuckle at Johnsons lack of basic knowledge,

Johnson makes this country a laughing stock, he is completely out of his depth but i think you know this Clav.

@labrinthloafer

Apologies I read it wrong 😬 everyone is entitled to their own opinions I do think the government have screwed up but I don't think it should all be blamed on Boris

BJ has contradicted Vallance and Whitty with this 'social distancing can be done away with'. That's not what they think, they have said they expect it to be around for a while. He's just winging it, trying to sound optimistic and trying to get people to get out there spending. The shops are still quiet and it's not just because people are wary of the virus. They are being frugal with their money because they are worried about finances and job security. He doesn't know what he's on about. You only have to look back to previous statements he's made to see that.

@AlphaJura

BJ has contradicted Vallance and Whitty with this 'social distancing can be done away with'. That's not what they think, they have said they expect it to be around for a while. He's just winging it, trying to sound optimistic and trying to get people to get out there spending. The shops are still quiet and it's not just because people are wary of the virus. They are being frugal with their money because they are worried about finances and job security. He doesn't know what he's on about. You only have to look back to previous statements he's made to see that.

It is ok then saying that but so many people losing their jobs , Whitty and Vallance are getting a monthly wage a lot of people are not ... I think just SD and look after your family

I remember him saying jauntily that we'd send the virus packing in 12 weeks.

If everyone had followed guidance/rules, then we probably would have done!

jasjas1973
Johnson isn't copying any aspect of other countries track and trace programs

Yes, we made a U-turn on our app like the Germans, albeit later than they did;

"Germany has U-turned on building a centralized COVID-19 contacts tracing app—and will instead adopt a decentralized architecture.The change of tack by the German government marks a major blow to a homegrown standardization effort, called PEPP-PT, that had been aggressively backing centralization."

ours is uniquely poor

"The Dutch tracing app 'soap opera."
euobserver.com/opinion/148265

"Bahrain, Kuwait and Norway have rolled out some of the most invasive COVID-19 contact tracing apps around the world, putting the privacy and security of hundreds of thousands of people at risk, an Amnesty International investigation reveals."

“The Norwegian app was highly invasive and the decision to go back to the drawing board is the right one."

"The centralized model of France’s contact-tracing app combined with the lack of transparency over how data is stored raises questions as to whether the users’ information could be deanonymized."

“Governments across the world need to press pause on rolling out flawed or excessively intrusive contact tracing apps that fail to protect human rights."

www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/bahrain-kuwait-norway-contact-tracing-apps-danger-for-privacy/

Johnson even told Starmer, twice, over 2 days that NO country had a working TnT App, even a German Govt minister had a chuckle at Johnson's lack of basic knowledge

How successful was the German app in June when BJ said that? And now?
"The app's developers, Deutsche Telekom and SAP, say it will be several more weeks before it has a "roaming function..."

2nd July -
"So far the [German] app does not work on some older mobile phones.Users need to have at least an iPhone 6s or an Android 6."

"And not everyone is so convinced about the app actually working."

3rd July:
“There isn’t a single country in the world to date that would be able to point to an app and say:‘That was a game changer,’” Stephanie Hare, an independent technology researcher, told CNBC."

www.cnbc.com/2020/07/03/why-coronavirus-contact-tracing-apps-havent-been-a-game-changer.html

[quote DebLou47]@labrinthloafer

Apologies I read it wrong 😬 everyone is entitled to their own opinions I do think the government have screwed up but I don't think it should all be blamed on Boris [/quote]
I understand, I do that when I read fast . We can agree to disagree on Johnson!

@user1497207191

I remember him saying jauntily that we'd send the virus packing in 12 weeks.

If everyone had followed guidance/rules, then we probably would have done!

If the PM was bothered about people following rules he'd have sacked Cummings.

Twelve weeks was never realistic. Although more possible if he hadn't waited so long in the first place

Clav - Hancock has had to call Apple and apologise after saying they stopped the UK app from working.

Apps, in themselves are not "Game changers" BUT they are part of an overall solution.

All apps are evolving.... whatever they do.... the UK has no app on the horizon, probably next year. how far will the German app have developed by then?

Apologies I read it wrong 😬 everyone is entitled to their own opinions I do think the government have screwed up but I don't think it should all be blamed on Boris

He is the PM, the buck stops with him, that's how it works, he is ultimately responsible.

jasjas1973
Hancock has had to call Apple and apologise after saying they stopped the UK app from working.

Did France have similar problems?

"France attacked Apple for not helping to build its contact-tracing app."

www.businessinsider.com/france-attacks-apple-contact-tracing-app-2020-5?r=US&IR=T

For anyone interested in watching the select conmittee that was broadcast the other day, I also just found out that they are on BBC iPlayer if you search Select Committee, as well as on YouTube etc. Perhaps they were always on there but I've only just seen them pop up, they are quite interesting as a way to see behind the headlines.

I worry about people saying they support Boris. Everyone I know who votes, or who has voted, Conservative is hugely critical of Boris' handling of the pandemic.
They don't understand how anyone looking at the numbers could be supportive of Boris. To them, it just seems an illogical position to take and they consider it very damaging to the Conservatives if people pretend Boris is doing well rather than criticising him and taking steps to challenge his leadership. With a comfortable majority, this is the perfect time to admit Boris has failed and that the Conservatives do have better candidates that could scrape back some dignity on the world stage.

we have the worst death rates in europe, nearly the highest in the world and people think boris handled it well?

do you understand that those figures are bad not good?

we are an island country, a first world country, and we had more warning than other countries. i dont get why youre defending him at all.

Belguim does not really have the highest death per capita, it just counts very accurately unlike the uk. Belguim has the widest count as it includes test, death certicates and suspected cases and it no is the same as its excess deaths, unlike the uk which has goverment figures 45,000 and excess deaths as 65000.

@AnneOfQueenSables

I worry about people saying they support Boris. Everyone I know who votes, or who has voted, Conservative is hugely critical of Boris' handling of the pandemic. They don't understand how anyone looking at the numbers could be supportive of Boris. To them, it just seems an illogical position to take and they consider it very damaging to the Conservatives if people pretend Boris is doing well rather than criticising him and taking steps to challenge his leadership. With a comfortable majority, this is the perfect time to admit Boris has failed and that the Conservatives do have better candidates that could scrape back some dignity on the world stage.

There are many comments in the media about unhappiness in the party, both parliamentary and wider. Surely they will be discussing replacing, the party is usually pretty hardheaded. No one else will want it before Brexit though as that will be a shit show.

Some of the party management seems very strange, they do seem happy to burn a lot of bridges.

No one else will want it before Brexit though as that will be a shit show
Yy I think there is a degree of 'let Boris take all the disasters'. I understand the party's position. I don't understand the ordinary posters pretending he's doing well ...

@AnneOfQueenSables I agree, it is so clear that he is handling it badly both in terms of the actual pandemic and his personal image.

From the opposition's point of view - especially in Scotland - they will presumably be happy for him to stay.

@labyrinthloafer. I agree. I must be missing something in this perceived "success."
Many in his own party had grave concerns about his capabilities even before this series of almighty cock-ups. They have been proved to be correct. His "Churchillian" ambitions will be cut short and he will go down in history as one of the worst leaders ever inflicted on this country.

Latest on vaccines - UK gov have options on more than one which seems sensible.

Gavin Williamson has said a vaccine program will not be in place until after winter which confirms that Johnson’s hopes for November ‘normality’ is not because a vaccine is about to be rolled out.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53469269

Kate Bingham, the chair of the government's Vaccine Taskforce, said: "The fact that we have so many promising candidates already shows the unprecedented pace at which we are moving.But I urge against being complacent or over optimistic.The fact remains we may never get a vaccine and if we do get one, we have to be prepared that it may not be a vaccine which prevents getting the virus, but rather one that reduces symptoms."

Other countries were ordering vaccines from other companies weeks ago.
But at least they started to do so now.

Perhaps a little more promising is a new potential treatment:

The drug SNG001 has been found to prevent Covid-19 becoming more severe in around 79 per cent of cases, the Southampton-based biotech Synairgen has said
The treatment uses a protein called an interferon beta which coronavirus patients inhale directly into their lungs via a nebuliser, where it provokes an immune response

Synairgen is yet to publish data from the trial, but indicated that the results were "very significant"

@Mumratheevergiving they are also saying there is hope for a vaccine by the end of the year?! I think he was talking just about the Oxford one?

I worry about people saying they support Boris

Equally I worry about posters who think;
"Johnson makes this country a laughing stock"

I can certainly be critical of some decisions (with the benefit of hindsight) but I can see that many governments have made similar decisions and/or have encountered similar problems, e.g. problems developing a working tracing app.

And what is the point of Keir Starmer and others continually 'name dropping' countries such as South Korea when clearly we cannot implement half of the decisions South Korea have made without an uproar over government powers and privacy.

Singapore is being mentioned as well;
"a Labour spokesman said: “If you want other examples, Singapore has launched an app, South Korea has also got an app. So there are a number of countries that are far, far ahead of us.”

What a brilliant idea from Labour - let's copy Singapore and keep a close eye on those pesky migrants;

"Singapore's TraceTogether Tokens are the latest effort to tackle Covid-19 with tech.Singapore's TraceTogether Tokens are the latest effort to tackle Covid-19 with tech. But they have also reignited a privacy debate."

"The wearable devices complement the island's existing contact-tracing app, to identify people who might have been infected by those who have tested positive for the virus."

"The first to receive the devices are thousands of vulnerable elderly people who don't own smartphones."

"To do so, they had to provide their national ID and phone numbers - TraceTogether app users recently had to start doing likewise."

"It is voluntary for everyone except migrant workers living in dorms, who account for the majority of Singapore's 44,000-plus infections."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53146360

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