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.

More to the point, it seems that they did do what they were meant to do and were, rather suddenly, told to stop...

Jesuis, I agree it is all very curious, puzzling, suspicious and worrying.

I often say to DH that I can’t believe our government can be this incompetent. He believes that’s all it is. I think it’s far more complicated than that. Someone has been meddling. Of course scientific advice has been ignored or cherry picked. But there’s more to it than that. It’s concerning.

Bozo didn't believe it was a problem until late March

Clearly that's not true;

www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/mar/12/trumps-travel-ban-wont-have-much-impact-on-spread-of-coronavirus-says-rishi-sunak-live-news

I believe he took advice from his chief scientists.

“it is entirely normal and proper for COBRA to be chaired by the relevant Secretary of State”

I have already quoted from the Independent Swine Flu Review and Exercise Cygnus to show that it is normal and proper.

(by Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health)

Wiki says he is a member of the Labour Party.

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

Indeed, e.g. Germany has about 9 land borders with other countries, very difficult to close off thousands of kilometers of entry points

BJ squandered 2 priceless advantages the UK had:

• Being an island with clear, comparatively few points of mass entry compared to other countries

• and being an island and so far West meaning that the UK epidemic was delayed 2-3 weeks compared to several other European countries
  So we had similar countries to watch and learn from, what they did, what worked and what didn't

I originally expected the UK with those advantages

• also a wealth of top scientists, research labs, major pharmaceutical companies etc - to be one of the most successful countries at handling this crisis

Big disappointment
I should have known better

"I have already quoted"

You can only quote blindly;
you don't seem think for yourself, or look back at what has happened in recent history

It is normal in lesser matters, not a major emergency

• and the reason it was mentioned in that report is that even for Swine Flu, there were eyebrows raised at the PM then not chairing COBR

And of course, BJ is now chairing COBR - because he finally realises it is an emergency
He just realised far too late and wasted about 6 weeks

"Wiki says he is a member of the Labour Party"

So we'll ignore anything an expert who is a member of the Tory party says too ?

The norm is to take a 5 year average Clav.
Not to mention the current 5 year average include the influenza vaccine failure of 2017/18 that many people try to use to 'show' how covid isn't that bad.

From the Dr John Ashton link;

"Having been patronised on BBC Question Time on 12 March by the Government’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Steve Barclay, and ridiculed by political supporters of the Government."

I watched that programme - the keenest supporter of the Government that evening was the SNP MP. The SNP and Labour (and the Lib Dems?) had backed the Government's course of action at cross-party talks earlier in the day.

Not to mention the current 5 year average include the influenza vaccine failure of 2017/18 that many people try to use to 'show' how covid isn't that bad.

An average over the last two years with a high number of deaths will be greater than an average over five years, if there were fewer deaths four or five years ago.

When we compare to the 2017 / 2018 flu season, Germany actually has much lower deaths in 2020
it is only compared to the 5-year average that we see a 3% increase

2017/2018 was a "freak year"

That is why the FT actually shows in grey the separate curves for the years,
rather than an average that would be distorted by 1 year

"The SNP and Labour (and the Lib Dems?) had backed the Government's course of action at cross-party talks earlier in the day. "

The other parties rallied round and supported the government once it finally agreed on lockdown.
That's being responsible, supporting the obvious best course for the country, even when it's done late

That does not mean that the other parties all agreed with the earlier herd immunity policy, or wasting 6 weeks

So we'll ignore anything an expert who is a member of the Tory party says too?

Apparently his son is called “Fabian Che", or "Che" for short - after the Fabian Society and Che Guevara.

Clav, I do appreciate that AuldAlliance and ClashCityRocker are easily confused if you have taken so many drugs that a Scottish connection and the Bay City Rollers blur into a random tartan/linguistic/musical haze.

I'm still interested in your views on why, when the UK has such a busy airport, it didn't quarantine incomers once the news and warnings from Italy were so dire.

And still isn't doing so, despite what looks like a high death toll, comparisons with other countries aside.

Fucking huge mistakes were made in France, just to shoot that squirrel before it flits across our screens. I am curious about the ones that may - or, apparently, may not -have been made in the UK.

I know he's a nutcase, but I wish this could be one of the times that the stopped clock is right:

Trump says coronavirus will go away without vaccine - but shows no evidence

The US president said a little earlier at his event with Republican lawmakers in Washington that coronavirus “will go away without a vaccine”.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/may/08/coronavirus-us-live-trump-michael-flynn-california-new-york-reopen-cuomo-latest-news-updates?page=with:block-5eb5b61b8f08c0a2409ba6cb#block-5eb5b61b8f08c0a2409ba6cb

That does not mean that the other parties all agreed with the earlier herd immunity policy

The SNP MP was in full agreement with the Government's early course of action.

Interesting about Germany and influenza bigchoc. I hadn't been aware how hard it had hit there.

A few weeks ago ONS hadn't shown much in the way of excess death. Many people on social media and even a small way here heralded this as a proof that lockdown was over reactionary despite the fact that hospital deaths were rising and hadn't hit the 900s at that point (at that point there were only 106 hospital deaths in total). Now excess death data is showing higher than the five year average including 2017/18 and they comparison is 'wrong'. It's something I've been waiting for oddly.

I'm still interested in your views on why, when the UK has such a busy airport, it didn't quarantine incomers once the news and warnings from Italy were so dire.

Without knowing how many incomers were involved I can't really answer that question.

"That does not mean that the other parties all agreed with the earlier herd immunity policy"

We don't know if his party did
As with the bitter division now in the Tory party over lockdown, there are often differences within a party
I can't remember NS saying she agreed with wasting 6 weeks

"The SNP MP was in full agreement with the Government's early course of action. "

I don't even know if he agreed with the previous delay or not, since I can't access the program from abroad

Ohlookhekickedtheball 2017/2018 was a heavy flu year in Germany
You can see more clearly here, red line 2020:

How come the Tory "fuck business" party has suddenly started having worries over the economy ? They really aren't the sharpest tools are they ? Make your minds up chaps.

Re the FT data set
diseases and ageing do not reset on 1st January
the winder flu / death season starts in about November
and I've seen data that shows a much lower death rate than normal late last year
so the true test would be a rolling 12 month average

Yes there have been shed loads of excess deaths
but graph starting points are a notorious way of manipulating data sets
cold fusion /Fleishmann was a case in point

You can only quote blindly; you don't seem think for yourself, or look back at what has happened in recent history.
It is normal in lesser matters, not a major emergency,

Exercise Cygnus (2016) assumed 200-400,000 deaths - the PM didn't chair the COBRA meetings in the exercise (four meetings).

I can't access the program from abroad

The other parties were invited to cross-party talks (Boris Johnson HOC 11th March) - the SNP MP who appeared on Question Time the following evening was quite insistent (to Dr Ashton) that his party were fully behind the Government's plan - 'herd immunity' if you want to call it that although I'm not sure if that's exactly what they meant.

Utterly fascinating

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-52577141

Yet another squeeze on the car ...

Clavinova, you didn't actually answer my question, but I suppose if you are being a pedant, mid March was the first time Bozo publicly admitted it was a "crisis" which didn't evoke a crisis response from him until late March. That's like leaving your hand over the flame for a day before pulling it out in pandemic terms. You must be able to see that thousands of infections and deaths have occurred due to the disease spreading in that small window alone?

So, to re-phrase and out of curiosity, why do you think we have the highest mortality rate from COVID in the EU?

Germany 20 Feb:

"While the world is living in fear of coronavirus, Germany has been dealing with a wave of winter flu cases that has resulted in a total of almost 80,000 cases."

"Around half of these cases were confirmed within the past two weeks, according to the Germany's federal disease control agency."

"A report issued by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin found 130 people have died as a result of the flu this season, while almost 13,300 have been hospitalized. A total of 79,263 cases have been recorded since autumn.The RKI estimates that 10 milllion visits to doctors in Germany were caused by the flu during the serious wave in the winter of 2017-2018."

"The number of recorded influenza cases within Germany this season exceeds the global infection toll of coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, which currently stands at roughly 75,000 people.The total number of recorded deaths stood at 2,118, as of Wednesday."

www.dw.com/en/massive-flu-wave-grips-germany/a-52445643