Honey Honey

This is a positive sign. Starmer's QC approach in the crisis is landing well with swing voters and even some quarters of the conservative backing press. This latest is an indication that he's coming to be considered a threat. The early weeks he was palmed off as being boring and a candidate of continuity remain to enough of a degree that he wasn't taken seriously. The crisis is a chance to build a reputation outside of the polarised world that came before it.

South Korea have now tested 24000 people linked to the nightclub spread of coronavirus. Finding 120 infected. This is impressive track and trace.

Sweden's epidemiologists took the view early on that they needed to flatten the curve until a vaccine came along and in case a vaccine did not come along. That take was common in the west, including the UK. Lockdown's occurred for fear of health care services not fear of life. The result of lockdown in some countries is that they now believe they can suppress the virus until it no longer exists, without needing to achieve herd immunity. Swedish scientists insist this isn't possible in a globalised world. We are all at a cross roads now. Do you suppress the virus to kick it out of your country (South Korea, New Zealand) or do you slowly allow the population to get infected until herd immunity is achieved (Sweden). This is where the latest estimates that only 5% of France and Spain, 11% of Madrid having had the virus means allowing further infection could take the death toll for those countries into the hundreds of thousands without a vaccine.

Suppose key will be antibody test? If you are testing for who has it right now that will give different reading. There have been random community tests in England which have led them to believe current R in London is a lower than elsewhere in the country.

Both France and Spain have released models suggesting only 5% of their populations have had COVID. 11% in Madrid. Note that UK estimates from different models are higher, 20% London, 12% England. Suppression or vaccine the only option in that circumstance.

It is highly unlikely to be any of this. Largely due to the scale in reality, but also as a lot of that is just bad anthropology. Much of the problem does seem to be in the delivery.

We don't have anyone here to argue otherwise. This website has low diversity of thought. But what I'm hearing from some and seeing in the data is that a lot of people don't think it is ambiguous at all. One thing I've heard is a blame on the media for confusing people a d whipping up a frenzy, saying if you go on the actual government website it's clear what the rules are. The data does suggest some possible degree of reaction based on a sprectrun of nanny state to libertarian.

The latest polling is suggesting that the outcry against and support for the latest lockdown changes are drawn on former political grounds. The country is split down the middle. I've certainly been hearing offline a few people who don't think there's anything wrong with what was said or the slogan. Perhaps the split is between those who think you need rules for everything and those who prefer to make their own judgments and risk assessments.

I recommended we move it to outside local jurisdiction, somewhere like Wales

I've been invited to a BBQ There are people out there who have never really stuck to the rules, they made their own rules up based on their own risk assessment and now lockdown is easing they are pushing that boundary further.

I'd like to know what data suggests to relax lockdown in the North East? Sunderland, Gateshead, Middlesbrough and South Tyneside have more cases per 100k population than anywhere else in England. London was 2-4 weeks ahead of the North East so should relaxation be the same time? Is it that cases and deaths in the last couple of weeks have been down to care homes and hospitals? What is the R and new cases when excluding hospitals and care homes?

Who can go back to work tomorrow then? I've got no idea what's going on.

Meanwhile in South Korea they eased some restrictions, allowed bars and night clubs to open. Someone with COVID who was asymptomatic at the time and didn't know went into 5 night clubs. 3 days later the symptoms showed up. Through track and trace they have now found 40 COVID cases spread in these night clubs and the number is rising. All bars and night clubs have been ordered to shut again for 30 days. If your goal is 0 cases then constant lockdowns until a vaccine is inevitable.

This period is key. Over half those sampled didn't have an opinion of him 3 weeks ago. It will be interesting to see the shift in the polling in two weeks. His early favourability and trust ratings will be decided by his COVID response. An absolute political gift right now.

Online news businesses make money via people clicking, sharing and promoting. The Daily Mail uses opposition to its advantage. They use the sharers and argubly the sharers use them for their own online end goal themselves. The Daily Mail makes a financial killing off a mass of people who think they're doing a good thing by "exposing" some bullshit to the world whilst not realising they actually enable it to exist. No longer do you need someone loyal popping to the newsagent every morning to buy a copy in order to have a business. The retweeters are the newsagent and clickers the readership. Removing the need to part with a 20 pence piece in exchange for the words, the Daily Mail, through its online iteration, has found a way to make money out of people who rant and rave against them. You can write absolute shite and make thousands of pounds off the actions of people who oppose what you wrote and they're all non the wiser. The Daily Mail must laugh behind closed doors at the online "bothered". Starmer is off to a strong start. Looks promising. In a funny way fortunate that he starts during COVID. His style and approach so far has been good. Intelligent. Methodical. Professional. Key to that good start is that the crisis has meant not needing to talk about anything else. Topics where Labour are divided gone. Where Labour are beaten gone. Only a few here and there are left still managing to slip the word Brexit into a COVID-19 opinion. These people are self destructive to the Labour and left wing cause. The stronger Starmer can get before politics goes back to topics the better Labour will be for it.

Whilst the clickbait quick opinions are laughter and head in hands because they've immediately assumed it is Daily Mail making shit up, the article itself is actually about academic research at the University of Reading. It is the academic trained in health discourse who makes the assumption that German media discourse is not in the same vein as the UK because of words coined during the Nazi period being a no go. As well as citing work by a German academic to support that claim. Still, 19 likes for Reading University and the academic work versus 19000 likes for laughing at the Daily Mail. I feel quite bad for the academic that her work is being taken to be laughed at.

A hottake of suppositions solely baked in one article of a rumoured sentence said by a spad.

We'll get a public inquiry but manslaughter charges would be an insane precedent to set. Who would ever become a civil servant if you could easily go to jail for being incompetent. The "government" is not just 26 MP's infested by 3 who were part of Vote Leave. It's hundreds of civil servants and Spads. You can't actually expect 26 people to know everything there is to know.

Ex WHO Director Click for thread

How do you know what is going on in the UK if you can't see Piers Morgan's tweets?

An adult would be the bigger person and not mention the tone. Still, it's not as big a deal as being made out, just looks like we are returning to our ordinary day to day Westminster. There's plenty to push the government on but it needs to be good quality. I suppose it's good for social media shares among the converted.

The same argument occurs now from some of the technocrats who think we shouldn't have locked down. So fixated on their way being correct they accuse the opposite view of being the victim of panic and outside influence. It may well be the case to some degree. However once something becomes a political matter the philosophy should be to open it up to diverse opinions as to allow the actual decision makers to be exposed to all views and subsequently responsible for their decision. With the technocrats kept in secret the politicians can and will blame the technocrats and not take any great responsibility for consequences of the technocrat advice they took. The political system of responsibility then doesn't work. UK last minute switch has a lot to do with the technocrats not being able to successfully defend their stance when exposed to experts outside the technocrat circle.

Saying there's no testing strategy gave him something to talk about. If you are going to hold someone to account you can't give them cheap easy wins by getting your own argument wrongly worded like that. I can see what Hancock meant by tone and he hit back. That's why I said in my original post that I see two teenagers. It looked like the exchange of teenagers masquerading as adults. Hancock has spent the last 6 weeks facing loaded questions from journalists that no one would answer directly. It's no good politicians doing the same gotcha nonsense.

Don't think there's much difference between Hancock and every government I've known at every stage in their power cycle after about 3 months of being elected. Khan didn't do very well there. Poor gotcha questions and the line saying there has been no testing strategy played right into his hands. If Hancock is to be held to account it needs to be a lot better than that.

It'll be a failure if the analysis of the UK late lockdown is driven by the concept of "exceptionalism" rather than a lack of transparency in technocracy. We only locked down once they had to air their research and conclusions and they could be openly scrutinised. They were allowed to get away with not doing that for too long. A level of trust was placed in them that might not have been with better open debate. When technocrats lock away they remove outside knowledge and input. Experts who aren't part of the inner circle are shut out. They remove outside pressure which is what people who support technocracies want. Those of scientific background who oppose the lockdown often blame public and media pressure for it coming about. Make no mistake, some nations technocrats backed lockdown and so get away with their lack of transparency but you can see even there more minor decisions which are questionable and they are expected to take it.