Dido Harding

[Cpl654321]

What is the actual point of her. She's in the news again today saying there was no way to know these new variants are coming. What?? Plenty of scientists were saying just that before it happened.

Why has she not been sacked yet. It's infuriating.

Kent in September had very low prevalence...

Winter Kent in September had very prevalence. The mutation still happened. We are now dealing with the consequences. I am not sure what you are trying to say here? The more cases there are in a country, the more chance a virus has to mutate just as the more cases there are the more chances it has to transmit?

The jury is actually still out on whether the mutation happened here, in Ashford or elsewhere, or it is just that we picked it up because our genome mapping is more extensive. However the perfect conditions were in place in September for it to mutate or transmit. Prevalence was actually fairly low in Kent as a whole but was higher and already rising in the Medway towns mirroring what was happening on the other side of the estuary. Although it has now been established that this variant is more transmissible behaviour certainly played a part in what happened next. October and November are traditional times for the people living in towns along that estuary to go "up west" in the run up to Christmas, and they did, whatever tier they were in. Shopping streets and entertainment areas were rammed, traffic at a standstill and with schools still open the virus did run, the big spikes in infection rates in those eastern boroughs came directly after those crowded shopping scenes. On here northerners were questioning why London was still open and attributing it to privilege but here in London it didn't feel like privilege, it felt like were being left in the way, again.

I still find it really baffling on here that so many posters point to other European countries and say “well, we’ve done just as badly as them on death rates” as if that somehow makes it OK. We’ve had 50K deaths just since November. Yes, partly driven by the new variant but mostly driven by the failure to act in September when prevalence was clearly rising, which was the time to take decisive action. They dithered and fannied around with tiers, all while test and trace was still proving to be ineffective even with lower numbers, and now here we are

whether the mutation happened here
aiui there is evidence of convergent evolution....certain mutations/configurations being inherent to the virus, etc

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/mps-urge-test-and-trace-chief-to-prove-system-curbs-spread-of-covid

I am not sure what you are trying to say here? The more cases there are in a country, the more chance a virus has to mutate just as the more cases there are the more chances it has to transmit?

I was trying to pre-empt another favourite line of Independent Sage - “the mutation happened here because UK had high prevalence and COVID was ripping through the population”. Of course, it is yet another inaccuracy.

winter That is a pretty sweeping statement about what Scientists are saying about the complicated reality that is still in the process of being understood. I doubt very much that a Scientist said that without a lot of context. As well as sheer numbers, compromised immune systems also favour mutation. As a country the level of cases did make a mutation more likely, somewhere. Certainly a lot less likely in a country with very few cases. That is the law of probability. so it is true to that extent. However in an individual case, and the Ashford case may or may not be patient zero, a compromised immune system may also be a factor. That is why the scientists are raising the alarm about delaying the second vaccine dose. Vaccinating a cohort of immune compromised (by age if not illness) and then leaving the vaccine to decline whilst they are still exposed to the high number of cases in the UK might favour the development of vaccine resistant mutation. Enough is not known yet about the impact of delaying (though there seems to be promising data on the Oxford Vaccination)

www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/why-new-coronavirus-variants-suddenly-arose-in-uk-and-south-africa/

Having a go at Scientists because they are still in the normal scientific process of establishing consensus on emerging evidence is a bit

To go back to Dido, let's hope she gets better at planning for uncertainty........

mouldygrapes
We’ve had 50K deaths just since November

Germany had 10,000 Covid deaths at the end of October - 60,000 deaths now.

IloveJKRowling
I saw Christina Pagel (Prof at UCL) say that among countries with more than 10 million we have the worst death rate.

30 December 2020 -
^ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s coronavirus death toll is probably considerably higher than reported, statistics bureau ISTAT said
in an analysis pointing to thousands of fatalities that have not been officially attributed to COVID-19.^

www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-italy-casualties/study-suggests-italys-covid-19-death-toll-is-higher-than-reported-idUKKBN2941W8?edition-redirect=uk

Emilyontmoor
missing out that he [Dominic Cummings] is widely reported to be the author of the herd immunity strategy in the first place (he wrote about pandemics in his blogs and about mathematical modelling and herd immunity as early as 2013).

Your link has flimsy evidence for that claim;

There is a page on the mathematics of pandemic modelling and "herd immunity" in a long essay written on the education system in 2013, but no references to coronaviruses.

Have you read the essay yourself? What did it say?

11 March 2020 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that up to 70% of the country's population - some 58 million people - could contract the coronavirus.

Mrs Merkel made the stark prediction at a news conference... alongside Health Minister Jens Spahn.

She said since there was no known cure, the focus would fall on slowing the spread of the virus. "It's about winning time," she explained.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51835856

Have you read the essay yourself? What did it say?
Yes but life's too short, it's in the article.

However as a historian I think the evidence not just in that article is far from flimsy given how the government's actions manifested themselves during his reign of terror.

I really hope there is a public enquiry whilst being realistic about the chances given this government's Teflon strategy. It will be good to see Dom and his useful idiots held fully accountable.

Emilyontmoor
To go back to Dido, let's hope she gets better at planning for uncertainty........

From your latest link;

among the Kent cases, scientists found a large cluster that was remarkably different, with a total of 23 mutations arising without prior notice and faster than anyone expected.

"That's a very striking and unusual finding."

After a year of closely tracking these mutations, scientists know that most don’t do anything noteworthy. Some are even harmful to the virus’s ability to multiply.

I've got to say I simply don't understand how anyone who's lived through the last year in the UK can be an apologist for the government, unless they're in the pay of the government.

Even if they've done marginally less badly than we think and other countries have had marginally more deaths, it's still a dismal record - like the post upthread saying actually Germany only have half the number of new infections than us... I mean what the actual fuck? That's still dire.

And a lot of the successes have been in spite of instead of because of the government (e.g. all the NHS staff who are cancelling leave, working extra hours to get through the crisis).

Captain Tom was great, but surely we're missing the bigger picture? In what supposedly first world country is healthcare so routinely underfunded that they need an 100 yr old man to fundraise for them? Surely the fact he felt he had to do this at all is a damning indictment.

Captain Tom was great, but surely we're missing the bigger picture?
that was the whole point of promoting Captain Tom...anything to distract us from the wider picture!

@Clavinova - did you also see the question I asked - why does pointing to other European countries who have done badly justify our death toll? Does it make it OK “cos look at Germany” or “Italy have done XY or Z”?

mouldygrapes
did you also see the question I asked - why does pointing to other European countries who have done badly justify our death toll? Does it make it OK “cos look at Germany” or “Italy have done XY or Z”?

Why do the experts/politicians say; 'look at Germany/South Korea - we should be doing what they are doing'? Apparently Keir Starmer and Jonathan Ashworth want a track and trace system like South Korea;

In South Korea, authorities use data-surveillance techniques to get around the problem of people being unwilling to disclose—or unable to recall—close contacts. “We need to double-check,” says Daejoong Lee at the South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance. A law passed in response to an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015 allows authorities to use data from credit cards, mobile phones and closed-circuit television to trace a person’s movements and identify others they might have exposed to the virus. Information about cases is published online, an approach that allowed the country to avoid broad lockdowns and “worked very well”, says Lee.

Clav Did you actually cut and paste from an article that described the detailed monitoring of virus mutations (something that actually might be "world beating") and the research response, a manifestation of the detailed planning that has gone into the scientific response to mutations to try to justify Dido not planning for an "unexpected" mutation? That is some mental gymnastics even for you.

Every successful business these days does something called Benchmarking. You search the world for examples of best practise, not necessarily the entire package of strategy and tactics but the things that would work for your business. I am glad some of our politicians are urging that we do that because Johnson saying "We have much to learn from the response of other countries to the pandemic" instead of "We couldn't have done more" and describing every balls up as "world beating" is on his past record never going to happen. You on the other hand do a reverse of benchmarking, "Look how shit is is elsewhere, therefore we are amazing, even Dido"

JK It's a measure of how far the Overton window has shifted not just away from what used to be normalised values but even the value of truth itself. Clav shuffles these boards cutting and pasting with the same tangential arguments that avoid tackling the reality head on with the zeal of an Evangelical, and the same credulity.

@Clavinova it’s been pointed out upthread that Germany’s test and trace had an excellent start and that they’ve overall done better than us at containing outbreaks. 40k less deaths is not to be sniffed at? And Labour were looking at Germany last year as to their t&t response, yet you’re citing recent data? Not comparing the same thing.

And South Korea have done much better than us overall - less than 1500 deaths? As a country who had dealt with previous SARS epidemics, why wouldn’t we look to them for ways to manage?

Emilyontmoor

You can be as condescending as you like but that doesn't negate the fact that I have disproved quite a few false facts on this thread today.

mouldygrapes
And South Korea have done much better than us overall - less than 1500 deaths? As a country who had dealt with previous SARS epidemics, why wouldn’t we look to them for ways to manage?

Yes - hopefully Priti Patel can copy some ideas from South Korea and other Asian countries for future pandemics - without Labour bleating on about human rights and data protection.

Clav

I thought you said Labour wanted us to have a system like South Korea? If so why would they be “bleating” about anything?
I also have no idea where your reference is from

I thought you said Labour wanted us to have a system like South Korea? If so why would they be “bleating” about anything?

They 'name-drop' South Korea frequently - that doesn't mean they actually want to copy the same strategies - usual point scoring.

Although -

In Moscow, a network of 100,000 cameras equipped with facial recognition technology are being used to make sure anyone placed under quarantine stays off the streets.

Russia is not the only country to enlist high-tech surveillance amid the coronavirus pandemic, raising questions about how states balance civil liberties with the need to control the virus.

South Korea has been using surveillance cameras, mobile phone location data and credit card records to track movements of coronavirus patients.

www.france24.com/en/20200324-100-000-cameras-moscow-uses-facial-recognition-to-enforce-quarantine

Just a point of order. Captain Tom's fundraising for NHS Together is not funding for "the NHS". The money does not go on treatment or equipment. The focus of Charities Together is the comfort and wellbeing of staff and patients. So, extra to anything that may be funded by the taxpayer, or any other focused fundraising exercise.

Yes - hopefully Priti Patel can copy some ideas from South Korea and other Asian countries for future pandemics - without Labour bleating on about human rights and data protection

Oh i didn't realise we had a Labour Govt?

If only Mr Johnson had implemented the universal flights quarantine thet Labour called for on the 4th of january? instead of a partial quarantine from the 145th February.

15th Feb

Riiight. First Labour (in your words) want a track and trace system like South Korea, then they don’t, it’s just point scoring. 🙄

To be fair, the only people influencing the PM is the CRG (covid recovery group), headed by the extreme right wing of the Conservative party.

MPs like Steve Baker.

“I am sorry to have to say this again and as bluntly as this: it is imperative you equip the Chief Whip today with your opinion that debate will become about the PM’s leadership if the Government does not set out a clear plan for when our full freedoms will be restored, with a guarantee that this strategy will not be used again next winter.”