Rods_of_Revolution

I would also recommend this book. I have the original book, which is more of a technical description of the line and its history. This new book is far more story driven and provides an excellent insight into life on and around the railway at Malmesbury. There are also many new images featured, including some reproduced in colour.

Overall it's a worthy companion to the original Wild Swan book and if you're interested in the Malmesbury branch and branchline operations of the era, it's provides many interesting and varied stories and anecdotes.

All the best,

Jack

10 minutes ago, Hobby said:

Only when there's a low exposure risk, though, as the next two slides show. Probably applicable for Aus but not in Europe. 

There is currently a low exposure risk in the UK, the slide says it's applicable to the situation in the UK as of March. The medium exposure risk was applicable to February.

3 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

 

Edit: just found article which sets out the risks better than I can explain (scroll down)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56665517

That article (despite being only a day old) is using the slide which is applicable to February (see bottom right corner). If you go to the source of the slides, you'll find one that is applicable to March, which shows that the blood clots are a greater risk than ICU admissions in the 20-29yr group.

Slide for March:

Source: https://wintoncentre.maths.cam.ac.uk/news/communicating-potential-benefits-and-harms-astra-zeneca-covid-19-vaccine/

4 hours ago, AY Mod said:

Turning that around where is your evidence about the assertions you make about 'most' people?

It's purely anecdotal, but I'm not trying to implement a 'vaccination passport' system based upon it. Where as everyone else seems to believe it's obvious that such a scheme would work, despite the fact their evidence is also speculative and anecdotal.

4 hours ago, AY Mod said:

You've spoken about others; are you also talking about yourself in the third person? Have you been vaccinated or will you be vaccinated when it is offered? That may be a personal question but I think it's relevant so that other readers can understand whether you are 'anti-vax' and why you are making a choice which impacts on the considerations or behaviour of others.

What difference does it make? The argument and the person are two different things. If a stupid man says he believes the sky is blue, his stupidity doesn't change the validity of his statement; and yes I might be a stupid man . I think waiting until the safety and efficacy trials conclude in a couple of year's time and the vaccines are approved in the same manner as every other vaccine we take, is a legitimate way of going about vaccination. The other advantage is once all the data is in and there are several vaccines across the market, the safest and most effective can be chosen. Especially with regards to young people, for whom the threat from Coronavirus is so low, that even small differences in the safety of a particular vaccine can completely change whether the risk outweighs the benefit; which is what we have seen with regards to young people and the AZ vaccine.

The current vaccines are approved for emergency use and whilst the case can be made for emergency use in the old and vulnerable, for healthy young people there is no such emergency. So why shouldn't we take the time to determine the best and most effective vaccines? It could transpire that contracting coronavirus itself might give the best immunity and those who have already had the virus have no need to risk any vaccine at all; we could test for antibodies and T cells before vaccines are considered.

My experience of analysing risk is on the railway in the form of engineering changes. Whilst there are differences between engineering and medicine, the fundementals of analysing risk are no different. I've looked at the data that has been made available for the various vaccines and what I do personally will be based upon that. I'm certainly not going to judge people for wanting to see more data on the vaccines before they decide which vaccine, if any, they want to take. I also won't judge people for defering to the MHRA, FDA, EMA etc, and following the judgement of whichever authority they trust the most. The authorities work in terms of demographics, not individuals, so their recommendations are going to be skewed towards 'one size fits all'. I personally think that each individual taking the time to research the risk as it applies to their individual circumstances, followed by a discussion with their GP who is also aware of their personal circumstances, will produce a better outcome than just following the MHRA, EMA, etc.

We know from history that when medical procedures are mandated by the state, things can end up getting very dark, very quickly. Not always. But there are some truly abysmal acts that have been perpetrated against people under the reasoning that 'the greater good' is more important than the freedoms of the individual. In my opinion the level of changes to our society which are currently being undertaken should involve a lot more scrutiny than an afternoon of chatting in parliament. Let's not forget how many years of debate went into Brexit, and there is still no definitive answer as whether it was/is the right thing to do. 

This is of course just my opinion, albeit based upon the facts at hand.

3 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

Which paper please and what's their source?

The 1 in 10000 for surfrace spread is based on a CDC brief: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html

Refereneces are in included at the bottom of the page.

The 1 in 1000 for outdoor transmission has been reported several places and is based on HPSC data, which suggest only 0.1% of cases were caught outdoors. Whilst it's difficult to actually know where any particular case was caught, it's possible to generalise from the data, which is what has been done.

Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/outdoor-transmission-accounts-for-0-1-of-state-s-covid-19-cases-1.4529036

10 hours ago, Neil said:

 

I'm surprised that there has been resistance to the notion of vaccine passports for pubs, non essential shops and other smaller venues or events. I would have thought that one of the obstacles to a return to something near normal would be public confidence, for every single person at an illegal rave, party of wedding reception there must be hundreds, possibly thousands, who would be extremely wary of returning to busy public spaces. Knowing that you would be mixing only with people who have a very low likelihood of having Covid would boost confidence.

 

Also I need to point out that the vaccine alone won't save lives and avoid hospitalisation, responsible behaviour guided by the best scientific advice is also required. For some time passports may be a part of that. I have a 'friend' who is stubbornly anti vaccine and careless in his behaviour; I won't be mixing with him anytime soon but Joe public who don't know of his idiocy may in the future inadvertently be in close proximity if he's not required to prove his status.

I think you're under estimating public confidence. Everytime I see a popular public space it's packed, with little regard to social distancing, and almost every venue with outdoor facilities is fully booked for the reopening. Most people are chomping at the bit to go and do things that have been illegal for most of the last year. My experience with most of those who were frightened of the virus, is that since being vaccinated they're no longer worried, even if they have only had the first dose; so the psychological effect on the feeling of safety seems to be significant.

You say that the vaccine alone won't save lives, but the government are saying that the vaccine alone has saved over 10,000 lives, plus it wouldn't be much of a vaccine if it required other measures to have any effect. If you're vaccinated then why would you worry about other unvaccinated people, as surely your vaccine protects you?

The only scenario where someone may be worried is if they can't take a vaccine and they're worried about catching Coronavirus from someone who isn't vaccinated. But even then, with heard immunity and the majority of people vaccinated, the risk from Coronavirus would drop to be on par with the hundreds of other viruses and bacteria which can also be fatal to those who cannot be vaccinated.

The above is in addition to my previous point about there being little to no scientific evidence that a vaccine passport would even work. Where are the studies? Where are the estimates of lives saved and hospitalisations reduced under different types of vaccine passport? You say that we should be guided by the best scientific advice, yet I see very little scientific basis for vaccine passports.

This is before we even consider the social, ethical and philosophical issues surrounding such a system.

Regarding people taking the vaccine. I know several people who are waiting until 2023 when the safety and efficacy trials conclude and the vaccine is or isn't approved for market in the UK before they take it. Every other vaccine they have taken has been approved for market, so I don't personally see it as an unreasonable position to take. These are people who have the standard vaccines like the flu jab, as well as giving their kids the MMR vaccine, so they're not against vaccines. They just rather wait until the safety and efficacy trials conclude and the vaccine is fully approved, rather than the temporary emergency authorisation that it currently has. 

Just now, Dunsignalling said:

Covid passports probably won't be widely acceptable (domestically) in the long term but I think they may be necessary to bring enough of us back to supporting the hospitality and live entertainment sectors soon enough to ensure their recovery.

I think 'eat out to help out' showed that very little encouragement is required to get people back to supporting hospitality.

Just now, AY Mod said:

 

All of which, to me, seem to be positive arguments for having the 'passport'. The people who can't* aren't the problem (and we need to help them); it's the ones who won't that are the problem*.

 

* - be vaccinated.

A lot of the unvaccinated are people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, but they can still contract and spread the virus. So they would be required to take tests all the time in order to socialise with the vaccinated. A spur of the moment trip to the cinema or theatre would be off the cards for someone with a compromised immune system. 

16 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

Still flawed, your reasoning is that if people are barred from meeting in the pub they'll meet at each others houses.  If ten unvaccinated people want to meet up then I'd rather they did it in one of their houses rather than in company with many other people at the pub.

Three pubs, each with 30 vaccinated people in and 3 unvaccinated. The chances of those 3 unvaccinated people crossing paths is lower, because there are lots of other people to socialise with, but on this occasion 2 of the unvaccinated cross paths and one gives coronavirus to the other.

However, let's now have three pubs with 30 vaccinated people in, the unvaccinated are not allowed because 'vaccine passports' required. We also have one house party where the 9 unvaccinated have met up. The chances of the unvaccinated crossing paths is now 100%. On this occasion, 1 person with coronavirus has now given it to 4 other people at the house party because they're unvaccinated.

The next day, in both scenarios everyone goes to the supermarket, as it's exempt from the vaccine passport. In the first scenario 2 people with coronavirus got to the supermarket, in the second 'vaccine passport' scenario 4 people go to the supermarket with coronavirus.

Yes, it's simplistic, but it's to illustrate that there are ways 'vaccine passports' could increase the spread. They could also reduce up take in the vaccine due to reactance effect.

So it's not a cut and dry case of 'vaccine passports' are beneficial.

1 minute ago, Taz said:

Or, conversely, it could have the effect of encouraging vaccine uptake. There is a fear that the young (18-30) age group may have a lower uptake of vaccination as they are much less likely to suffer severe illness or death.

Take away their ability to go to the pub or out clubbing and suddenly they have a big incentive to get the jab.

Yes, but we don't know. It's also quite a common reaction for people to resist what they perceive as coercion, so it may decrease the uptake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)

My point is, until we have at least a reasonable cost/benefit analysis done, the legislation shouldn't even be presented to parliament. I haven't seen one estimate for how many lives will be saved or cases of hospitalisation reduced by the 'vaccine passports'. I haven't seen anything beyond a YouGov poll as evidence to suggest whether there will be an increase or decrease in vacine uptake because of it.

11 minutes ago, Nick C said:

 

But you seem to be suggesting that it's a choice of vaccine passport vs freedom - it's not, it's a choice of passport vs lockdown.

 

No it's not. Lockdown is a policy of government. It's also an option to have neither lockdowns or passports.  All the options have costs and benefits that have to be weighed up.

Seasonality is an example of something we can't control, which is why there is no debate about whether we should or should not have seasonality, because it's not a choice.

1 hour ago, Neil said:

 

Now which is safer, unvaccinated people meeting outside or mingling indoors? If infectious they're more likely to spread it indoors if not they're more likely to catch it indoors.

 

I'm sorry but your logic just doesn't hold water.

I didn't mean outside the pub as in the smoking shelter, I meant the unvaccinated meeting outside the pub as in at someone's house. 10 unvaccinated people in one house is going to spread the virus more than 1 unvaccinated person and 30 vaccinated people in a pub. If you make vaccination or tests a requirement to socialise, then more unvaccinated people will probably socialise together and their peer groups will change to reflect this. Obviously it's a simplistic example and it may not pan out that way, the only point I'm making is these things need to be considered before any policy is implemented.

To illustrate my point above:

If you have 1 unvaccinated person in a pub (or cinema etc) with 30 vaccinated people, even if the unvaccinated person has Coronavirus it probably won't spread.

If you have 10 unvaccinated people in someone's home socialising (because they can't go to the pub/cinema), if one person has the Coronavirus, it will spread to 2 or 3 others as none of them are vaccinated.

In both scenarios, everyone is going to the supermarket the next day, only in one scenario there is one person with Coronavirus, the other scenario there are 3 people with Coronavirus.

The vaccination passport will push the unvaccinated to socialise together, this will change how the virus spreads.

This is just one example of how the passport could have unintended consequences. The reality is far more complex, so there should be thorough studies conducted before such a policy is implemented. We have the vaccines, we have summer and we have greater immunity overall, so we have a low risk period to undertake such a study.

3 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

Go on then; how?

Because if unvaccinated people can't go to the pub, they are more likely to socialise together outside of the pub, instead of with their vaccinated mates inside the pub, so the virus will spread more easily between them. They then visit a supermarket, which under current plans is expempt from the 'passport'. They also go home to their families and into their places of work. That's just one vector off the top of my head.

12 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

And whilst we're spending months on gathering data?

People will likely die. But it could turn out that more would have died by implementing the 'passport'. There is a price to pay for due diligence, sometimes that price is in lives.

There's a reason that vaccines are tested on small numbers of people first, whilst the illness they seek to address is killing people in much larger numbers. If you get the policy wrong you can do more harm than good. It's better to take the time to develop robust policies that work long term with an understood and measurable benefit.

What's worse for community transmission, one unvaccinated person mixing with 30 vaccinated people, or 10 unvaccinated people socialising together because they can't go to the pub?

It's questions like these that need to be addressed.

17 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

How many lives have been lost due to ignorance/disregard/selfishness? We don't know but the answer can at least be *some*. If 'certification of status' can reduce the impact of those contributors then that'll do for me.

'Some' is not good enough, it also may not be the case, as there are a lot of sociadynamics involved. There should be proper trials that confirm the efficacy of such a policy, with performance measurable in some way. For example, will such a scheme cause those more likely to carry Coronavirus (unvaccinated) to socialise together more than they would have otherwise? What is the impact of this on the spread of the virus to the community at large? We don't know.

So how many lives will these 'vaccine passports' save? I haven't even seen an estimate. It seems like quite an important piece of information to have before arguing for/against.
 

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

Just a final point - Had a walk the other day with a mate of many years, we were discussing the current pandemic and what would have happened if this had occurred back in "our youth" early 70's - Well we would all have continued as normal, and not have thought much about it - more than likely nothing would have closed, easy to say but the death toll perhaps would have been very high - but again back then was another age !!!!

It's an interesting point. For a start far more people were dying in the 1970s than now, as yearly deaths have dropped quite consistently over the years. People also live much longer, so there are more elderly folks.

If you take the age-standardised mortality rate per 100,000 population for each year from 1942 to today, the mortality rate for 2020 would be placed near the bottom at 68 out 79. If we were to use the 'worse-case' scenario numbers (no lockdown, NHS collapses, etc) and in 2020 500,000 were to have died of COVID-19, that would move 2020 to around 18 out 79. That shows how much lower the mortality rate is compared to past years.

So, how do the early 1970s compare to a 'worst-case' scenario COVID-19 year where 500,000 were to die? Well, the age-standardised mortality rate per 100,000 for a 'worse-case' scenario 2020 would have been 1800-1900. The age-standardised mortality rate per 100,000 for 1973? 1850 per 100,000. So in a 'worst-case' scenario 2020, the age-standardised mortality rate would have been about the same as 1973. The actual age-standardised mortality rate per 100,000 for 2020 was 1043, so much lower than a 'normal' year in the 1970s.

ONS Data here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/12735annualdeathsandmortalityrates1938to2020provisional

I think people tend to under estimate just how many people die in a year. Each year around 0.8% of the population dies. In 2020 that increased to 0.92%. So for every 8 people who died of all causes, COVID-19 aside, there would have been 1 person who died of COVID-19.

Around 450 people die everyday of Cancer. Another 450 die of heart and circulatory diseases. That's each day before the pandemic and each day after. Both of those causes of death can be reduced through simple things like a healthy diet and excercise. Diet and excercise will also reduce the chance of dying of COVID-19. But rather then do something as simple as cutting down on biscuits and cakes, and taking a brisk walk each day, it seems people rather sacrifice their entire way of life, lock themselves in their homes and miss out on spending precious time with their families.

Fear of death and people's attitude towards it, are fascinating indeed.

9 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

By strange I hope you mean atypical.

If you dig into the figures you will find that although the second wave was several times worse than the first it was still a lot less than in the UK.

Several reasons for these figures including the structure of around 16 semi autonomous states. the rise of the AfD, the second wave hitting the older population in the former East German cities very hard and the attitude of a large section of the population to vaccination and the ineffective roll out of the same.

There is still a long way to go, with no doubt some further unexpected twists and turns still to come in many countries.

Bernard

 

Comparisons are also difficult as there is no standard way to record 'a case' or 'a death' with regards to Coronavirus; each country has its own methodology. That's before variables such as demographic and geographic differences are considered. In terms of the number of standard deviations from the normal number of deaths, Germany has done much better than England, not better than Wales or NI though. NI has done suprisingly well, if you look at the Z-Scores, you struggle to even spot the pandemic in the usual noise.

EUROMOMO provide a useful graph tool to compare Z-Scores: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country

Just now, Neil said:

 

I wouldn't be so sure, about half an hour ago on Channel 4 news one of the boffins from the government's sage advisory group said that we will likely experience an increase (rather than a full blown third wave) this summer in July.

From what I've read those worst-case scenario models are based on a theoretical variant appearing with significantly different properties to the current variants; a real 'what if'. None of the SAGE worst-case scenario models have reflected reality yet, so there's little evidence to suggest this one will.

That may be the case if you look at the situation in the UK, but if you look across the World you can find plenty of examples which show the opposite.

This paper is quite interesting: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84092-1

You can find other papers which suggest that they do work, but it's far from settled as to what the effects of lockdowns really are and where they work or don't work. Locking down healthy people in their millions is not something which has been done or really studied before the last year; traditionally it's just been the sick who have been quarantined. There's also the confounding factor that lockdowns cause allsorts of other effects, both long term and short term, so it's difficult to determine the net positive or net negative of such an action.

The data support seasonality being the biggest factor in supressing the virus. If we could have extended last Summer indefinitely, the virus would have remained at those low levels, despite the lax restrictions.

53 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

Yes they do, but it will be interesting to see which is having the greater effect on suppressing cases as lockdown eases.

 

Seasonality will almost certainly have the greatest effect on suppressing cases, with last Summer proving the point, where in England we had many weeks with no substancial increase in the number of excess deaths, in fact the majority of excess mortality over the Summer was likely caused by the heatwave. Summer was also the period with the most lax restrictions.

We can also be quite sure that the immunity within the population from having contracted Coronavirus in 2020 will also act in suppressing the virus to a significant extent, or else the Winter period would have been worse (in terms of standard deviations from the mean, as Winter always has the highest deaths regardless) than the original outbreak in April last year, but it wasn't. The lockdown over Winter was effectively more lax than during April, as evidenced by the Google Mobility data.

Seasonality, followed by immunity either from the virus or vaccines, will be the biggest supressing factors. Lockdowns are the subject of much debate and there are scientific papers which support and deny the correlation with them and a positive outcome, so it's not obvious whether they work or not. Same with face coverings, it's not obvious whether they work or not, based on the various scientific studies available. Transmission indoors seems to be a significant factor, but outdoors the transmission is seemingly very low, so with Summer favouring outdoor activities and good ventilation, this also contributes to the seasonality supression.

6 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

So who's paying for all this then?

 

I'm sure your local heritage railway will be grateful to see you at five o'clock on Sunday to clear the ashpits and shovel a few tons of ballast.

 

Maybe even paint a fence so that John and Joanna Normal can have a nice day out.....

 

 

No wonder many people like me give up. 

Customers are paying for the nice day out, so profits can be used for such improvements. There are also grants available for improving vistor attractions. Or perhaps a fund raiser specifically for the purpose. People are more inclined to visit a railway if the atmosphere is enjoyable and everything is neatly presented, so the time, money and effort that go into such improvements will often be worth while. There are some wonderfully restored and looked after stations in preservation, and it makes a huge difference to the experience. People are more likely to spend money in the cafe if they can sit outside with a nice view, rather than a backdrop of grotty old wagon underframes and rotting woodwork.

All the best,

Jack

5 hours ago, Tim Hall said:

Indeed, virtually all heritage railways have such locos, coaches, wagons cluttering up the sidings, with little prospect of being restored, and spoiling the view for "normals".

I often think that some of these heritage railways should give a bit more thought to 'front of house'. A restaurant for example might have bins, old fridges, cookware, trollies, etc, but they're not stored in the view of the customers; they're out the back behind a screening fence. If sidings are being used to store rusty, broken and tarpaulin covered hulks, I'm sure in many cases a screening fence with some period adverts on or something could be built to hide it.

Cheers,

Jack