Westminstenders: Following the EU lead

[RedToothBrush]

Coronavirus poses a particularly Irish shaped question. How the UK responds to Irish plans for ending lockdown and whether Arlene continues to back an all Ireland plan will be fascinating to watch and see justified regardless of which way we go.

The UK for all its new found independence is looking very closely to the success / failure of EU strategies before making our own plan public. Mainly because we've yet to write one.

Johnson hasn't led much. He's delegated. Yet he gets all the praise for doing the sum total of fuck all and never being the bad guy. There always another fall guy to blame.

Economically we are stuffed and promises of a very quick bounce back don't look likely based on public confidence and willingness to return to places like pubs restaurants and shops.

Our ability to adapt to new conditions at short notice has been tested and businesses can not afford to do this again soon.

This is the background to which we go into talks. Both sides need an extension to serve their best interests. Johnson is determined to cut our nose of to spite our face for the sake of his legacy and to keep those paying the back handers and dodging tax happy.

Semi crossed posts with honeysuckle yes you’ve understood me perfectly, that’s exactly what I was trying to communicate.

pedant mode on....It was true in 1973 too....pedant mode off

This is the first one I can recall being phrased like this. Maybe the Beeb are finally beginning to publicly acknowledge the reality of Brexit in their reporting.

Or perhaps it's the BBC's way of disguising the fact that the UK death toll is the highest in Europe.

Louise

EEC->EC->EU ?

Fairy nuff.

Fog in channel. Continent cut off.

(likely apocryphal, since we've engaged pedant mode. )

You are missing the ECSC DGR.
As in "terrible weather they are having in the European Coal and Steel Community". 😂😂😂

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/public-health-directors-take-charge-covid-19-testing-care-homes

You are missing the ECSC DGR.

(hangs head in shame)

Mind you, that could all change if we win the upcoming case in the International Court, and reclaim the trademark "Europe", thus forcing the EU to rebrand as the Post Laurasian Minority Landmass Union Which, as Farage presciently noted, would "piss on their strawberries"

"Made in UK ?"
"Fuck off, mate. Made in Europe. Never mind the quality, feel the width."

Or perhaps it's the BBC's way of disguising the fact that the UK death toll is the highest in Europe.

Possibly not - or at least we won't know for some months yet.

Channel 4 Fact Check 6th May:

"Spanish regions including Catalonia and Madrid have started to publish their own stats to take account of probable coronavirus deaths.These figures suggest the overall death toll in Spain could be much higher than the national government has so far announced."

"The Spanish government has defended its approach on the grounds that it is in line with World Health Organisation guidance, and says suspected deaths should be analysed at a later stage."

"Meanwhile in France, the official tally includes hospital deaths and those who died in care homes (whether they were tested for covid or not). But unlike the UK, the national figure does not include people who died at home. French commentators have described the lack of data on these deaths as a “timebomb”.The government plans to add them to the official stats in June."

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-does-the-uk-have-the-highest-coronavirus-death-toll-in-europe

5th May -

"Italy's coronavirus death toll much higher than reported, statistics agency says."

www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-05/italy-coronavirus-death-toll-much-higher-than-reported-istat/12214396

The official UK figures that are announced every day include hospitals and care homes

However, I thought only the ONS included all UK deaths, at home etc

Did I miss something ?

The FT has been estimating "excess" deaths from ONS for the UK and official stats from other countries

John Burn-Murdoch@jburnmurdoch (FT stats geek)

we’ve updated our excess mortality tracker, the gold-standard measure for Covid deaths, allowing like-for-like comparisons btwn countries

UK had 43,000 more deaths than usual in March & April vs 22,000 reported Covid deaths at the time

Many experts across the world have been saying it is these "excess" deaths,
the extra deaths above the average of previous years,
that show the full toll around the world

This is because some countries include only hospital deaths, as the Uk used to;
some include deaths at care home and other institutions e.g. UK (now), Germany, France, Irland

Then e.g. Belgium will include COVID as the cause of death even without a test, of the doctors suspects it,
whereas almost all other countries require a test, before or after death

In the US and countries in Europe & Asia, the UK figures are being reported with horror by commentators;

much criticism of BJ missing the early COBR meetings, criticism of Uk government decisions.
Criticism of BJ's Churchillian fantasies, by longterm admirers of the actual Churchill

It would be helpful if the FT were more specific than 'versus recent years' - are they comparing like with like? Quickly looking at total number of deaths per year in the UK (including Scotland) - 570,000 people died in 2014, 616,000 people died in 2018.

Also the deaths the government say are only positive tests - so patient maybe in hospital, have all the clinical signs of Covid - but not had a positive test . We know there is not only a problem with getting tests in care homes etc, but also with false negatives.

So excess deaths is really the best measure available.

The norm is to take a 5 year average Clav.

much criticism of BJ missing the early COBR meetings

Exercise Cygnus didn't mention the PM attending early COBR meetings - there were chaired by the Secretary of State for Health and the Minister for the Cabinet Office. The WHO didn't announce COVID-19 as a pandemic until 12th March.

The norm is to take a 5 year average Clav

Is it the norm in other countries? The FT is unnecessarily vague in the link.

Are you suggesting he was not aware of what was happening overseas?

Your ability to find excuses for him knows no bounds

The FT creates the graphs from the ONS or equivalent in each country, overlaying data for total deaths 2020 with deaths of previous years

If you look closely, there are several grey curves on each country's graph
These are the curves of total deaths for the previous years

The red curve is 2020, which for most countries shows a peak, size indicated by the shaded area underneath

*Are you suggesting he was not aware of what was happening overseas?

I read the 'leaked' Exercise Cygnus report published by the Guardian - the PM did not chair the early meetings even though the 2016 exercise assumed a worst case scenario of 200 - 400,000 deaths.

It has been argued that the PM should have chaired all the COBRA meetings but this is not correct. From the Independent Swine Flu Review;

"The committee, and the structures that support it (frequently referred to as COBRA in the media), are the UK government’s dedicated crisis management mechanism. While the Home Secretary is the default chair, and the Prime Minister may chair in the most serious of crises, the committee is usually chaired by the lead minister for the type of emergency in question. In the event of an influenza pandemic, the committee would therefore normally be chaired by the Secretary of State for Health."

John Burn-Murdoch@jburnmurdoch (FT stats geek)

Here’s the UK.

7 regions have excess deaths above 50%.

The utility of the "how many regions" measure is that it shows whether a country managed to contain its outbreak in one broad area, as Italy & China did.

Bad outbreaks in multiple regions suggest action was taken too late.

When people ask why UK deaths are not falling more quickly, it seems to be that although deaths in hospitals are falling,

deaths in care homes and at home are still rising
Care homes have been a serious problem in most countries - carnage everywhere

The government presumably has a target for daily deaths and new cases, before it decides it is safe to relax lockdown

Raab, Hancock & co seem to have added BJ to those in the Cabinet who want to keep lockdown for longer
vs Sunak and a few others who want to gamble more and prioritise the economy

@Copperas thank you for posting! Dd is actually very interested in medicine - has picked up a lot of weird patches from my degree which she comes out with at times! Yes, they had her on a typing course at school which she enjoys far more than writing, but she hasn't been designated a laptop as the school haven't deemed her needy enough. It's very encouraging to hear your experience though and well done for your DS! Dd has a huge vocab too and got a 87% on her most recent reading comprehension, it's literally just the writing that sends her down. It's as if she forgets words in the rush to get them out and weirdly she can spell some quite long words but will then put "how" instead of "who" etc. I might try asking her to type something instead tomorrow, thanks for the idea

This is a very good message about the VE day celebrations.

Some posters will not like it, because it doesn't big up England.

It pisses me off because we did have the opportunity to be one of the countries who handled it well.

We are an island; we could have closed borders much more easily than some of our European counterparts.

And we started off well; both in York and in Brighton, track and trace was proven to work.

We saw what was happening elsewhere and proceeded to...take no precautions whatsoever, bar hand washing. The country had pretty much locked down itself before the government did.

We will have to wait and see whether we are the 'worst in Europe' as there is still a long way to go yet with this pandemic.

But we had the chance to be one of the best in Europe - advance warning, geographical situation etc.