RandoEFC

What's weird is we came out of lockdown at the end of May and lived normal life aside from stringent border restrictions for 7 months and it hardly got any attention, back into lockdown for less than 4 weeks and now it's national news that we're out of it again.

Yeah very lucky for us, we were only back in lockdown for the last few weeks but it felt insanely hard compared to the first longer lockdown. It's hard to know why really but it does make you realise why so many people in the UK bend the rules having been living under some sort of restriction for almost a year.

I actually clearly said that I didn't know much of the ins and outs of the fishing industry, and I still don't. I am however aware of the stuff that makes the news: Before Brexit, fishermen never drove to London in their trucks to protest about their difficulties in exporting fish. The Leave campaign held up fishing as one of the flagship industries that would benefit from leaving the EU. After leaving the EU, fishermen drove to London in their trucks to protest about their difficulties in exporting fish. Being aware that it was held up as a flagship industry by prominent Leavers and knowing the exact issues to which they were looking to make improvements are two different things. I hope that clarifies this point. I mean, you're making a bit of an assumption here, I believe this is the first time we've spoken. I have cares for other people in general, no more or less than most do, particularly when something bad has happened to them, and this is the first time I can remember the fishing industry specifically being given the shaft, even if I think and hope it's not going to be so bad in the longer term. The problem is, this all started because you fell foul of the exact accusation you're currently levelling at me. Your initial post was essentially "why should I care about this lost investment if I don't live there": I just don't share this world view, I think it's a shame those jobs won't be created in the UK, but it's not all bad I suppose, they'll be created elsewhere, and you could argue that they won't miss something that they never had in the first place. I think you'd be upset though if you were looking for a job, and people elsewhere in the country had voted for a party or a policy that prevented a company from being able to create jobs in your area, and then their response to the news story was similar to yours. This is good, hopefully we can get off on a better foot next time. Personally, I've had my fill for today though.

Yes I know what the word means thanks. I have empathy for people whose situations have got worse. I'm aware of their plight now because it's all over the news and they've felt the need to actually protest about it. Having sympathy for someone after something bad happens to them usually comes after it happens, not before. Shouldn't really need explaining. I even said I think there might be benefits of Brexit in the long run but I'm sure you'll discredit that as my objective opinion and focus on the facts of what's actually happened in real life so far. I agree that it's ironic for fishing to be probably the biggest negative story of Brexit one month in. I prefer the words "example" or "evidence" over "weapon" though. This is a debate (of sorts), not a war. Crack on then. Today is literally the best day for pro-Brexit "bragging rights" since the referendum yet all you're interested in is trying and failing to make me look silly over fishing, which has objectively been one of the biggest and most public harms done by Brexit so far when it was supposed to be a slam dunk for leaving. Are you actually trying to prove my point? It's getting difficult to tell. Your first response came to Gonzo and the story about a cheese company expressing factual, objective downsides of leaving the single market and you essentially dismissed it as boring and started talking about the "crying" over Brexit. But please tell me more about how you're happy to chat away about it like an adult. Christ alive.

Firstly, this doesn't make any sense. Secondly, if life is so much better now that we've left, what is there to be sanctimonious about? No I wasn't crying for the fishing industry because I knew next to nothing about it, but I can admit that, unlike several prominent Brexiters, who spent the best part of a decade using fishing as one of their flagship Brexit winners but were nowhere to be seen when, less than a month after the transition period ended, fishermen from across the country drove their trucks to London to protest about all the wasted fish they were unable to sell because it's harder to export them to European buyers now. Now I actually think when things settle down and they've had time to adjust, the fishing industry might hopefully see some benefit from the Brexit deal, but it's not a great start. In the meantime, a Brexit voter accusing someone else of using the fishing industry as a weapon might want to look a bit closer at the people who convinced him or her to vote for it in the first place. I do buy into the view that people on both sides of the divide here need to stop relitigating the debate and scoring points against each other but you've shown from pretty early on with all of this talk of crying that you're not interested. I'm more than willing to have an intelligent debate on the pros and cons of being inside or outside the EU with people who voted to Leave. However it remains true that some (far from all) people who voted for Brexit are more interested in the fact that they "won" than they are in being empathetic towards the people who have been hit by it and moving on to point out the reasons why overall/in the long term it will still be better for the UK. Take Brexit out of it, responding "cry me a river" to people who are worried for their livelihoods and how they're going to put food on the table for their kids is just bang out of order really isn't it.

Is there a book with all of these catchphrases for Brexiters to use whenever they get challenged for laughing off the fact that what they voted for is making other people's lives worse? This one doesn't even work either. If Brexit is so great then a. why are people crying about it and b. why do people like you not like it being talked about? I'm not "crying" over Brexit, but I still think it was a bad idea and it does make me angry when I read about people across the UK struggling because of it, and then the people voting for it showing a complete lack of empathy for those its impacted after voting for it to happen. If you voted for Brexit because you thought it would make life better for your compatriots then surely you should be the one crying about the British fishing industry and Cheshire Cheese and those who need to import wine from Europe seeing their businesses decimated overnight because of it?

I love how Brexiters defence of their great project stopped becoming "things are going to be so much better" about 5 minutes after the referendum result and now they just point out the things that they can say "at least it isn't that much worse" or more often now, simply "I don't care if it doesn't affect me". I sincerely hope it doesn't affect the jobs of you, your kids or your grandkids. This vaccines debacle must be like four Christmases come at once for Brexiters, because that's how many Christmases have passed since the referendum before something that actually demonstrates one benefit, in exceptional circumstances, of leaving the EU.

Are there actually any arguments against making it a legal requirement to link any social media account to your actual identity instead of just an email address? It wouldn't be as simple as it sounds by any means. My account on Twitter has no indication of my name on it, and lots of people like to have accounts like that, I totally get it. But people are going online and saying things that would get them prosecuted for hate speech if they did it in person. We should be happy to link our identities to any social media accounts on the condition that the company would only disclose them to authorities in aid of law enforcement to stop stuff like this being so easy to get away with.

Best man ever.

Yeah I read something similar but far from reliable. Mad five minutes appears to be over. How is it still January?

Are they convinced of that though or are they just annoyed that they've taken a poor course of action in procuring vaccines and done this to save face? They don't have to do anything if there's nothing they can do. They've deliberately targeted the UK because of one UK-based company's debatable misdemeanors. All they've achieved here is making themselves look reckless and spiteful and taken an unnecessary pop at the UK, it now sounds like they're already going to backtrack on it by tomorrow. It's just daft, I'm pro-EU absolutely but part of that is admitting its faults. From a Brexit point of view this is intensely irritating because they're out in force tonight. They've waited 5 years for a shred of actual evidence to support leaving Europe and tonight they've had the catch of the day delivered into their lap whereas if the EU just leave us to it, we can eventually learn our mistake.

The evidence that AstraZeneca has acted improperly is inconclusive at best. The evidence that the actual UK has done anything that warrants the EU effectively imposing trade sanctions on the UK is as far as I know non-existent. And Macron is peddling misinformation. If Trump came out with that we'd be slaughtering him for it. This is coming from someone who thinks Brexit is utter stupidity on every level and that until this point the EU had acted with nothing but statesmanship and respect towards the future relationship while our lot acted like spoilt babies.

What the fuck is going on with the EU? Even if the AstraZeneca contract says what they seem to believe in says, what is the point in this hostility? Macron must know that he's misrepresenting the evidence as well. Imagine acting like this and making the incompetent man-baby in Downing Street look like the adult in this.

This is why international cooperation is so important in the vaccine rollout and the richest countries with the most resources should recognise that it's in their interest too if the whole "love thy neighbour" thing isn't enough. Every transmission of the virus increases the risk of mutation and you don't want one coming back that resists these vaccines. I don't think it's likely to become an issue but if one strain is already 40% resistant to this vaccine it shows you that the risk is there.

Not that I've seen yet but only had a quick look.

That's fine. They are correct that the evidence isn't there either way but it annoys me how much more emphasis there should have been on why. Is there any evidence that the effectiveness is likely to be different in that age group?

Unless I'm being stupid, drawing conclusions from a sample size that small and overriding the whole sample. In fact, the infection rate is lower in the over 65s with the vaccine than in the younger group. Ironically, their confidence interval come from the quirk of the placebo group's infection rates being lower than you'd expect for reasons we don't know. This is just bad maths. If the over 65 group is important enough of a demographic to treat as separate to the rest of the sample (I don't know whether they should or shouldn't be because I'm a mathematician not a virologist), they should have made sure that they had a lot more of them in the treatment group and the placebo group. Unless I'm missing something, that part of their trial just isn't fit for purpose.

Do you know where the 8% comes from? I saw one theory that the Germans had seen that only 8% of the sample were over 65s and misread this as the vaccine only being 8% effective in this age group, that level of mathematical illiteracy seems completely farfetched to me though. I saw a more likely suggestion that they were worried because the lower bound of the 95% confidence interval of the vaccines effectiveness is 8% in that age group, which makes more sense. It's conceivable that the vaccine is highly effective in that age group but a small sample size of over 65s leads to a broad confidence interval. Having a confidence interval from 8% effectiveness to 98% wouldn't necessarily mean that this evens out at a most likely actual effectiveness at 53% in the middle. The effectiveness could be something like 80% but obviously the upper end of your confidence interval can't go over 100% so this theory sort of became what I assumed. As for the AstraZeneca stuff, I haven't read up much on the stuff you mention but I don't really see what's in it for them to prioritise the UK over the EU if they can avoid it, unless there's interference from the government, but I don't really think there is, I might be wrong. There does surely come a point though where the UK and EU have to cooperate over where the supply should go as it shouldn't really be for a private company to make that decision when it's a question of global health. I do find this an odd decision from Germany though unless they know something others don't. Fair enough if there's a lack of rock solid evidence for that age group but the doubts seem to be a bit of a storm in a teacup when it has been approved elsewhere and the UK have been getting on with it without any known issues although admittedly it's early days. Hopefully none of it is actually political, I'm sure more will come out soon.

This is quite the decision. I still don't know whether this story is one of people in high places not understanding statistics, sample sizes and confidence intervals, one of the countries who have approved the AZ vaccine taking a calculated risk, or one of, god forbid, the start of an utterly mental phase of vaccine wars. I don't like where the story is going. I could be completely wrong because I know what the media are like in the UK and I might have nowhere near all of the facts, but it does seem to be a case of the UK taking a risk by ordering the AZ vaccine early while the EU were conservative and are now forced to wait. I think some of the stuff that's come out of some EU figures over the past few days isn't the best look for them. Thankfully for now our government figures are staying out of it when you fear that they'll try to mark this as a Brexit success.

Makes sense. I'm really not liking this underlying UK vs EU dynamic that's seems to be bubbling just under the surface. It's horrible in a scenario like this where you can't really blame anyone for looking out for their own interests first, when in an ideal world you'd look to vaccinate the most vulnerable first globally before working your way down the categories. It is unfair on people in other countries who are getting their vaccine after someone with the same risk factor in the UK because of when the government signed the contracts but then again, if you go down that route you could say it's unfair on the UK population that they've had the worst protection from their government in Europe so at the end of the day you can't get past the luck factor of having your health depend on governments who may or may not deliver the goods. What I can't get past is the Brexit brigade hamming up the Vaccine World Cup angle because it's offering them a rare and surprise opportunity for a "victory" over the EU which they're desperate for in the face of Brexit going pretty badly so far. Farage even accused the EU of "exposing themselves as nationalists" over the talk of protectionism over vaccine produced in Europe. I don't agree with them doing that but the irony of Farage, the spearhead of a nationalist movement, calling the European Union, a union of several different nations, "nationalists" is probably the bloodiest murder of satire yet. Hopefully we build a massive syringe to operate as a launcher and fire him into the sun as soon as possible. Using Europe's struggles to start vaccinating their population against this horrible virus as an anti-EU land grab has to be pretty much as low as they've sunk so far.

I have some sympathy for the UK government in a lot of the elements of their handling of the past 12 months. For example, they've been copping a lot of flack for the first late lockdown, they called it wrong here but the SAGE minutes show that actually, they were at least following one of the scientifically verified viewpoints. It's important not to bash every little thing that they did wrong and concentrate on the real big hitters. Border Control - failure to put in place any sort of sufficient quarantine until the summer when the air bridge stuff started. Dominic Cummings - it'll be incredibly difficult to prove what the impact of this story was on lockdown compliance as even if you asked people directly, it's incredibly hard for them to really understand and explain why they stopped taking lockdown restrictions as seriously. The worst part about this looking back is at the time at least it felt like Cummings was indispensable to the government as they tried to finish off their Brexit strategy but it turns out that calling Johnson's missus names was enough to give him the boot. Test and Trace / General Cronyism - don't really have to explain this. The vaccine rollout is Exhibit A of why the NHS, or at least companies with established or relevant expertise in PPE, contact tracing, etc. etc. are a better choice during a national crisis than firms in irrelevant sectors with links to the ruling political party. Christmas - probably the single biggest fuck up that has led to the most deaths, telling people they could have 5 days of freedom for Christmas against all sense and science before pulling the plug at the last minute. Cue thousands of people fleeing Tier 4 areas overnight before new restrictions came in and delivering the mutated variant to every corner of the country in one fell swoop. There's so, so much more that are almost up there. Eat Out to Help Out is up there along with the dallying over the November lockdown and spending all Autumn changing the rules for the tier system, announcing at one of the press conferences that the strictest restrictions (Tier 3 at the time) weren't strict enough to suppress the virus, schools in general all the way through the winter, and this is just the stuff that drove infections and deaths through the roof. After that you get into the free school meals stuff, planning to cut universal credit mid-pandemic, the brinksmanship over the Brexit deal in the middle of a pandemic and the farcical exam results algorithm. Not been the best year has it and it's disingenuous of him to pretend that the government have done everything they can to preserve life when actually they've done a lot of stuff that's tried to balance economic damage and loss of life, which is necessary to an extent but the chaotic inconsistencies and rule changes have left us with the worst of both worlds. At least he said today that he takes full responsibility for everything the government has done which is an acknowledgement of sorts that they've made mistakes. This shouldn't be a notable positive but it is at least a step in the right direction, and at least the vaccination program has been successful so far.

Immigration has nothing to do with this pandemic. For every immigrant that enters a country these days you've probably got 1000 people visiting or returning for/from work or holiday trips. We're way past this sort of thing.

Yeah like I say I never found the root of the conflict and it wasn't covered nationally as far as I saw so was just wondering if anyone else had the details.