Lockdown’s Last Lingerings - (Covid since L2 ended)

[Torper]

21 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

I agree Mike. What I gleaned from most was that the Borders area had 95 cases per 100,000 pop and they were observing restrictions, but the main population in the central belt weren't, so they felt they were being punished for others failures. The main reason for the negtive comments about the daily briefings was that the areas where it really matters the population weren't taking any notice.

 

Maybe they were just a little bit smug,  Current figures for the Borders is 440 cases per 100,000, with 508 new cases last week, which is an increase of 323 on the previous week.   That compares with 328 per 100,000 for hotspot Glasgow City and 243 for Edinburgh.  Perhaps the good people of the Borders themselves should have listened just a little bit harder to Ms Sturgeon rather than suggesting that the populations elsewhere weren't taking any notice.

 

DT. 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Torper

[Nearholmer]

That’s not a bad message for anyone, anywhere from what I can work out.

 

The popular story of this pandemic, heard from where I sit in the southern half of England goes as follows:

 

- Chinese problem; won’t come here;

 

-Italian problem; won’t come here;

 

- London problem; won’t come here;

 

- Up-North problem; won’t come here;

 

- Welsh problem; won’t come here;

 

- XYZ Town about fifteen miles away problem; won’t come here;

 

- Ah ...... um ....... er ....

 

With, at each stage, an implied moral superiority about ‘here’.

[Neil]

There are three pertinent, interesting and worrying pieces in today's Guardian.

 

Vaccine manufacturing capacity.

 

Political pressure for early lifting of restrictions.

 

From the frontline, a paramedics story.

 

My recommendation would be that you read the paramedics story first as it sets the scene for the other two.

 

 

[rockershovel]

Political pressure to lift restrictions early? Well, of course. The economic damage is enormous. People are being presented with the likelihood, even certainty of losing their livelihoods, on the promise of being sheltered from a virus which infects less than one in a thousand, and four out of five who contract it show no symptoms. 

 

There’s a balance point there, and it’s not stable. As the economic devastation spreads, as it surely will; as companies and businesses collapse as jobs disappear, as the furlough scheme peters out and people’s incomes cease, the balance point will shift relentlessly. 

 

[Bernard Lamb]

17 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Political pressure to lift restrictions early? Well, of course. The economic damage is enormous. People are being presented with the likelihood, even certainty of losing their livelihoods, on the promise of being sheltered from a virus which infects less than one in a thousand, and four out of five who contract it show no symptoms. 

 

There’s a balance point there, and it’s not stable. As the economic devastation spreads, as it surely will; as companies and businesses collapse as jobs disappear, as the furlough scheme peters out and people’s incomes cease, the balance point will shift relentlessly. 

 

But how ever bad the economy gets it will bounce back.

If you are dead you will not.

Bernard

[Nearholmer]

37 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

which infects less than one in a thousand,

Currently, there are multiple places with case rates c1000/100k.week, or put another way 1% of the population are copping it each week, and nationally, so far, somewhere probably 10-15% of the population have had it or have got it, so that figure is seriously out.

Here is the official estimate of the % of the population infected at particular dates, not cumulative.

 

 

But, I do agree that (a) it’s all about balance, and (b) it’s a dynamic balance, heavy on the health-protection side currently, but a massive weight on the other side too.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Sophia NSE]

At one point near the end of last year Hastings had the lowest rate in the entire country. Within a couple of weeks we were among the worst. Today a woman was arrested for holding a large exercise group on the seafront with no social distancing whatsoever. Clearly some people believe that rules don't apply to them...

[phil-b259]

52 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Political pressure to lift restrictions early? Well, of course. The economic damage is enormous. People are being presented with the likelihood, even certainty of losing their livelihoods, on the promise of being sheltered from a virus which infects less than one in a thousand, and four out of five who contract it show no symptoms. 

 

There’s a balance point there, and it’s not stable. As the economic devastation spreads, as it surely will; as companies and businesses collapse as jobs disappear, as the furlough scheme peters out and people’s incomes cease, the balance point will shift relentlessly. 

 

 

 

What part of "the NHS is struggling to cope" do you not understand!

 

Perhaps you should get in touch with Lawrence Fox....  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/covid-laurence-fox-nurse-nhs-social-distancing-b1764104.html

 

In NI they are even having to stop ALL urgent cancer care because of the number of Covid cases. That is quite likely to mean people with cancer will not be dealt with in time and some may die from it! If Covid hospital admissions continue to rise then much the same will happen elsewhere.

 

Yes thats right people are potentially dieing of cancer because of an unwillingness to engage in a Lockdown (or keep to its rules) early enough because its hurting business.

 

Now I know that life has a price - road safety schemes for a start usually include it in their calculations as to whether the scheme is affordable or not - but we have a moral obligation to try and keep people alive, not make money.

 

The stats don't lie - we are in a much worse situation than last March when the first lockdown happened so I have very little time for whinges about money. If you and others are suffering then the Government needs to do more to manage that aspect of the crisis, not let up on Lockdown.

 

As Beranrd says If you are dead thats it - if you are alive then at least you have a chance of rebuilding your life after Covid. I know which one I find more appealing, not just for me, but also for the country at large....

 

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by phil-b259

[Neil]

43 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Political pressure to lift restrictions early? Well, of course. The economic damage is enormous. People are being presented with the likelihood, even certainty of losing their livelihoods, on the promise of being sheltered from a virus which infects less than one in a thousand, and four out of five who contract it show no symptoms. 

 

There’s a balance point there, and it’s not stable. As the economic devastation spreads, as it surely will; as companies and businesses collapse as jobs disappear, as the furlough scheme peters out and people’s incomes cease, the balance point will shift relentlessly. 

 

 

But we know that more social mixing means more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths. Now no one would press for this if they thought it would be themselves or their loved ones who suffered, so we reach the conclusion that they realise that there will be more deaths but they aren't troubled because they believe that the bad outcomes will happen to someone else. That's pretty appalling in my book.  

[phil-b259]

2 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

But we know that more social mixing means more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths. Now no one would press for this if they thought it would be themselves or their loved ones who suffered, so we reach the conclusion that they realise that there will be more deaths but they aren't troubled because they believe that the bad outcomes will happen to someone else. That's pretty appalling in my book.  

 

The 'I'm all right Jack and screw everyone else" attitude is not something to be proud of. Its one of the more negative themes which underpins right wing politics or hard nosed capitalism. Regrettably we have seen it become far more prevalent in recent decades as we import more and more ideas from a certain ex colony across the Atlantic...

 

There is of course a balance to be struck, as personal freedoms are important in a democracy, but I fear UK society has got the balance wrong compared to the likes of scandanavia...

[rockershovel]

35 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Currently, there are multiple places with case rates c1000/100k.week, or put another way 1% of the population are copping it each week, and nationally, so far, somewhere probably 10-15% of the population have had it or have got it, so that figure is seriously out.

Here is the official estimate of the % of the population infected at particular dates, not cumulative.

 

 

But, I do agree that (a) it’s all about balance, and (b) it’s a dynamic balance, heavy on the health-protection side currently, but a massive weight on the other side too.

 

But that’s not the whole point, is it? Four cases out of five, are reported as asymptomatic. Tesco shelf stackers, parcel sorters and construction workers alike, are working not because they are heroes, but because they are not covered by the furlough scheme, because SSP is totally inadequate, because they cannot afford not to work. That’s the reality of this for many people, the pressures on their daily lives are insurmountable. 

 

The only case I know from personal experience told me as much, in so many words; he kept his shop open because he has a family to provide for, and no one was offering a viable alternative. He was convalescent for about three weeks, and his business partner kept it going, and now he is back because it is simply not feasible to close. He would never reopen. 

 

We are rapidly approaching the point where a very high proportion of businesses, particularly ones with relatively high fixed overheads or limited reserves, have exhausted their cash reserves. We are approaching the end of the  financial year, a time when many businesses have to make their peace with their lenders for the coming year; the furlough scheme is running down; the business rate relief may, or may not be renewed; protections against eviction (and rent arrears are enormous, and growing) may, or may not be renewed.

 

That’s the point of balance; when a sufficient number of people are faced with the measurable prospect of unsustainable debt, homelessness, bankruptcy, loss of livelihood, for the sake of avoiding something they have probably avoided for months, and will probably go on avoiding. 

 

[Nearholmer]

Its sometimes worth separating things into two boxes:

 

- the direct negative impacts of the virus (deaths, serious illnesses, almost certainly some chronic illness, mental affects of anguish, grief and fear,  etc.); 

 

- the negative impacts of precautions against the virus (overall depression of economic activity, large numbers of individual economic catastrophes, damaged educations, damaged mental health through isolation etc.)

 

Which box one puts deferred medical treatment, and the consequent misery and in some cases deaths, into, is moot, but they probably fall under the "precautions" heading, in that if no attempt was made to treat people with the virus, thereby avoiding hospital-overload, they wouldn't occur.

 

Of course, the two sets of negatives aren't truly in isolated boxes, they interplay to at least some degree. 

 

And, what might be called "moral judgements" come into play too - there are some things that a 'civilised society' deems beyond the pale (but which are beginning now to edge from nightmare into fact).

 

It's not morally bankrupt to explore the balance of harms between the virus and precautions against it, in fact its the only way to find the least worst course of action.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Just now, rockershovel said:

But that’s not the whole point, is it?

 

Rocker

 

The figure you cited was out by a factor of at least ten - don't you think it would be a good idea to correct it, in case anyone is daft enough to believe it?

 

K

[phil-b259]

6 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

But that’s not the whole point, is it? Four cases out of five, are reported as asymptomatic. Tesco shelf stackers, parcel sorters and construction workers alike, are working not because they are heroes, but because they are not covered by the furlough scheme, because SSP is totally inadequate, because they cannot afford not to work. That’s the reality of this for many people, the pressures on their daily lives are insurmountable. 

 

The only case I know from personal experience told me as much, in so many words; he kept his shop open because he has a family to provide for, and no one was offering a viable alternative. He was convalescent for about three weeks, and his business partner kept it going, and now he is back because it is simply not feasible to close. He would never reopen. 

 

We are rapidly approaching the point where a very high proportion of businesses, particularly ones with relatively high fixed overheads or limited reserves, have exhausted their cash reserves. We are approaching the end of the  financial year, a time when many businesses have to make their peace with their lenders for the coming year; the furlough scheme is running down; the business rate relief may, or may not be renewed; protections against eviction (and rent arrears are enormous, and growing) may, or may not be renewed.

 

That’s the point of balance; when a sufficient number of people are faced with the measurable prospect of unsustainable debt, homelessness, bankruptcy, loss of livelihood, for the sake of avoiding something they have probably avoided for months, and will probably go on avoiding. 

 

 

All of which says the Governments support package needs tweaking / expanding - NOT easing Lockdown restrictions any time soon.

 

If decent progress is made on vaccination then around Easter is the likely time to start easing up on restrictions, not before!

[stewartingram]

Anyone watch the briefing earlier? One statement from Boris stands out to me.

On being asked about the non-believers  (tbh I forget the exact wording of the question), his answer was that they should "grow up". Never a truer statement in my view!

[rockershovel]

2 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

All of which says the Governments support package needs tweaking / expanding - NOT easing Lockdown restrictions any time soon.

 

If decent progress is made on vaccination then around Easter is the likely time to start easing up on restrictions, not before!

 

There comes a point at which things simply cannot be sustained. There are significant pressures building up in the system, and they will continue to increase at an increasing rate. If the situation continues beyond the end if the financial year, the game will change. It must, because the circumstances will change. 

 

My best assessment is that the government are banking on delivering a sufficient number of vaccinations, to allow them to claim justification to ease (but not end) restrictions at the end of the present emergency powers, at the end of March. 

 

Serious infection rates are not distributed equally; they aren’t anything like close to that. There are a number of well-known focuses of infection, particularly of infection requiring hospitalisation. The problem is, where the curves cross, and figures start to drop rapidly?  

[Nearholmer]

FWIW, which is probably next to nothing, IMO the potential long-term macro-economic impact of precautions against the virus is often overstated/overestimated.

 

Why? Because most of the economic "hit" has been on the services sector, the primary economic function of which is to act as a means of exchange, a process of exchange which has to a fair extent been replaced by multiple support schemes. The "hit" to the underlying extractive, agriculture, manufacturing, a large part of distribution etc sectors, which tend to be heavily capitalised, are far harder to protect, and terribly difficult to recover, has been less. And, the services sector is known for its ability to grow and contract fairly rapidly, in a somewhat souffle-like manner.

 

So, the pure-economic recovery ought not to be massively prolonged - the souffle can inflate fast.

 

Which isn't to trivialise the social impact of a depression in services, which impacts vast numbers of individuals very sharply indeed, or to ignore the social function of the services sector, which is to keep a lot of people busy, thereby avoiding social unrest, a load of mental harms from feeling valueless etc.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Nearholmer

[cessna152towser]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

XYZ Town about fifteen miles away problem; won’t come here;

So true.    When Scottish Borders was on level one restrictions and had seen very little coronovirus for some time, I committed myself to a temp bus driving job.

The job just finished in the nick of time on 31st December, allowing me to lock down, as virus cases have escalated rapidly here in the past couple of weeks.

I'll be 70 next birthday and wife is a cancer and pneumonia survivor so we'll be adhering strictly to the lockdown.

Back to driving model trains instead of full size buses.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by cessna152towser

[rockershovel]

10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

FWIW, which is probably next to nothing, IMO the potential long-term macro-economic impact of precautions against the virus is often overstated/overestimated.

 

Why? Because most of the economic "hit" has been on the services sector, the primary economic function of which is to act as a means of exchange, a process of exchange which has to a fair extent been replaced by multiple support schemes. The "hit" to the underlying extractive, agriculture, manufacturing, a large part of distribution etc sectors, which tend to be heavily capitalised, are far harder to protect, and terribly difficult to recover, has been less. And, the services sector is known for its ability to grow and contract fairly rapidly, in a somewhat souffle-like manner.

 

So, the pure-economic recovery ought not to be massively prolonged - the souffle can inflate fast.

 

Which isn't to trivialise the social impact of a depression in services, which impacts vast numbers of individuals very sharply indeed, or to ignore the social function of the services sector, which is to keep a lot of people busy, thereby avoiding social unrest, a load of mental harms from feeling valueless etc.

 

I agree. One thing about doing contract work, as I do; you become sensitive to the underlying trends. You don’t survive, otherwise. There is an obvious agenda to reopen large sectors of the construction industry, for one thing; the procurement and enabling phase is already under way. I’ve postponed my retirement (again) in that expectation... and I haven’t been significantly wrong about the likely course of events, so far. 

 

The shift to WFH and remote working will become established. I’m now getting regular enquiries for it, and the attractions are obvious, if you have the right experience and skills. It improves productivity, by eliminating commuting and office costs, and also contributes materially to resolving the crisis surrounding gross earnings v taxable expenses for at least some categories of worker. 

 

I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the drop in traffic precipitates a significant realignment in the Rail sector, by allowing problematical contracts to be surrendered and a significant degree of de-facto renationalisation to take place, without being called any such thing. 

 

There is undoubtedly a crisis coming in Higher Education. 

 

The Conservatives clearly feel that promising to reduce immigration is a vote winner, they’ve been doing it for long enough. Now we have a situation in which the incoming traffic has very substantially reduced, they can substantially reduce numbers whilst stridently denying doing any such thing (should they so wish). 

 

Look back at the figures. The current peak, the “second  wave” was predicted long ago, it was a fairly obvious piece of epidemiology. Let’s see what develops. 

[chris p bacon]

55 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

All of which says the Governments support package needs tweaking / expanding

 

What support package ? Some (myself included) have had nothing.  I listen to some who moan about only getting XX% on furlough and think you have no idea.

[LBRJ]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The 'I'm all right Jack and screw everyone else" attitude is not something to be proud of. Its one of the more negative themes which underpins right wing politics or hard nosed capitalism. Regrettably we have seen it become far more prevalent in recent decades as we import more and more ideas from a certain ex colony across the Atlantic...

 

There is of course a balance to be struck, as personal freedoms are important in a democracy, but I fear UK society has got the balance wrong compared to the likes of scandanavia...

 

I assume you meant to add "In My Opinion" to that little bit of outright politics that crept in there?

[black and decker boy]

Info from a medical friend tonight, old strain transmission within same household with a +ve case was around 20%. Transmission rate in same household with new variant near 100%

No wonder numbers keep rising even though lockdown & tier 4

Our friends radiology teams are being redeployed from next week due to the severity / impact on NHS

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

for the sake of avoiding something they have probably avoided for months, and will probably go on avoiding. 

This is where getting the numbers wrong as in your earlier post causes such a problem - it creates that misleading impression.

 

If the virus is allowed even fairly free rein, people will very definitely not “probably go on avoiding” it - on the contrary each individual very probably would be exposed to it, and surprisingly quickly, within months rather than years.

 

Of course, the affect of that would depend on progress with effective vaccination, but if the foot came off the lockdown pedal too far, too soon it would lead to very prolonged hospital overload, a high plateau of cases. The ‘fatality threshold’ would inevitably drop, so that some of the people who get badly ill (10-20% of cases?) but are currently saved by treatment simply wouldn’t get saved*.

 

That’s why Prof Whitty talks about some level of precautions needing to drag on into next winter - he wants to save as many people as he can from it. Whether the more libertarian MPs who clamour for early release from lockdown are too thick to understand it (one or two are, I think), so addicted to their own libertarian rhetoric that they can’t stop it, or are making cool, conscious balances in their minds, is hard to tell.

 

Personally, I think the government has hell’s own job striking the balance, and possibly haven’t got the mental capacity to do so effectively.

 

*The "dangerous age" would probably cease to be 70yo+, 'cos people at that age would have been vaccinated early, and it would creep down, into the 60-70yo (currently c3% probability of death if we catch it, maybe would rise to 6%+) and the overweight, smokers etc at even younger ages.

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Nearholmer

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

But how ever bad the economy gets it will bounce back.

If you are dead you will not.

Bernard

You only have to look at some of the conditions and treatment of lower paid (usually) employees by employers to realise money is worth more than human life.

[black and decker boy]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

But that’s not the whole point, is it? Four cases out of five, are reported as asymptomatic. Tesco shelf stackers, parcel sorters and construction workers alike, are working not because they are heroes, but because they are not covered by the furlough scheme, because SSP is totally inadequate, because they cannot afford not to work. That’s the reality of this for many people, the pressures on their daily lives are insurmountable. 

Just to correct you, construction is not excluded from furlough. We and similar companies have had people on furlough. It might be harder for the very small SME / self employed workers but those on PAYE can access it.

 

construction is able to carry on as its mostly outdoor work, mostly mechanised and so social distancing is pretty easy to create & maintain. It’s also not possible to build something out of bricks / concrete / tarmac over Zoom.

 

I have run 4 site projects since March 2020 with no issues.