Reorte

Probably not. Certainly not in the case of those who think it's all some bonkers conspiracy, that'll just reinforce their view. AFAICT there's reasonably broad support for the idea for international travel, but considerably less for having to have one to be graciously allowed to do ordinary activities.

Easing from today - that's not going to have a measureable effect on the R number yet! It's been clear that cases have just about levelled at the same number for the last few weeks (I've not seen any explanations offered, and too many reports seem to rely on older data for some reason - yes, they may be more absolutely accurate but it seems that the recent case numbers always track pretty well). The cases plateau has been going on for long enough now that it would probably start showing up in the deaths figure by now, and there's no sign of that yet, which suggests the vaccination programme is having a real positive effect.

I never said anything about instant, or the transmission being eliminated entirely, please don't put words in my mouth. But if the body can deal with a disease before it really gets established then it's almost as good as. The whole point is that vaccines can make very significant difference to how infectious someone is (in some cases to the point where it may be pretty much close to zero), just as your immune system does normally so you don't keep re-catching the same cold that's going around. If that wasn't the case we'd still be living with smallpox. It looks like Covid vaccines aren't quite that powerful but it also looks like they still have a fairly significant impact on transmission, which makes sense if your immune system can deal with it before it really gets well established.

Ever Gridlocked?

If that's how vaccines behaved we'd still have smallpox, and vaccines have effectively eliminated various other diseases locally, if not worldwide. In theory it's possible to eliminate a virus via vaccination, as that demonstrated. There are actually two diseases that have been completely eradicated, smallpox and rinderpest, the latter a disease of cattle. So whatever the reasons for some possible and others not I think the claim that vaccines only prevent or reduce bad outcomes is overly pessimistic. And I believe the evidence to date does suggest a reduction, if not to zero, of transmissibility with covid-19 vaccines. edit: which the post just above this one has already pointed out!

I think the production output is certainly a question it's reasonable to expect answers to. Clearly there are difficulties being experienced, and some level of those is to be expected. What isn't at all clear to me, and probably most commentators, is whether the levels of difficulties being experienced are excessive, few, or par for the course for this sort of production. I'll defend AZ because most of the attacks appear to be on the assumption that they're excessive, and that greater efforts could've reasonably been made to prevent them, and I don't believe that the critics mostly have any good reason for assuming that is the case. I'm also left wondering whether there was a situation that went something along the lines of "We'll be able to produce this amount if everything goes perfectly, which it almost probably won't." Under the circumstances is it better to strike a deal for the amount you have confidence can be produced, or to order more knowing that you probably won't get it all by whatever date? I'd go for the latter, because that's the one that'll get more jabs in arms quicker, which is more important than getting a much lower but more predictable amount.

Can hardly blame them for thinking it's a mistake, when they've just come in for abuse and heavyweight criticism (mostly to cover the mistakes of others) whilst their competitors are making a fortune. Congratulations AZ critics, you've demonstrated no good deed goes unpunished and that come the next pandemic no-one is going to want to help develop and produce a vaccine to be available to be produced around the world at the lowest practical cost. Bravo.

I don't know how much of a tidal variation there is (certainly won't be much at the Med end, although this is much closer to the Gulf of Suez) but that could be due to the tide if the picture was taken at low tide and it had run aground at high tide. There's the recently-opened parallel channel further north on the canal, are there any plans to duplicate the entire canal (and might there be new ones being drawn up if not)?

The bow appears to be rather buried in the sand.

3-link couplings and no continuous braking will certainly produce an incomplete stop. Not really relevant to an announcement on a modern passenger train though (and that's really stretching the definition of "modern.")

My local tip is just around the corner from the Buxton Water bottling plant. Often think about that when I see it on the shelves.

What, upset, scare, intimidate or frighten children instead of letting them do whatever they feel like so you don't "harm" them?

A lot of places are getting rather clogged up due to Covid restrictions slowing things down. Different places also seem to have very different rules. My local tip is just turn up as normal, although they're keeping the numbers in it down; I've been twice this year, once had to queue for about half an hour, once went straight in as usual. Normally the staff will help people unload, which they're not doing now, which will also slow things down a bit.

That said we also hear quite a bit about the South African and Brazilian variants.

No, but some have shut because they were badly managed rather than fundamentally unviable. I'm sure we've all seen it often enough, a change of management and a once-thriving decent pub is soon a rarely-visited dive (and occasionally a more cheery example of the reverse).

Maybe everyone else knows about this, but I've just got an error message when trying to post in a different thread (post seems to have appeared anyway) - "Euston we have a problem" Congratulations to whoever thought that one up!

It might've made a difference. My mum got rather angry when she saw some teenagers drop a half-eaten portion of chips out of a car window and reported it to the police. She was a bit surprised that the police took her seriously, and she later got a call to say they'd been around to a house and given them (well, the car owner anyway) an earful, with the result of furious parents (furious at their daughter, not the police).

This was pretty close to me: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-56054724 As it says though it's not an obvious fly tipping spot, because although there's a road near the top it's still going to be a ridiculous effort to lug them up from there.

Big pile of rubbish bags appeared in a layby near me over the weekend... Am I getting (even more) grumpy as I get older or is the litter problem getting worse? It's never been great in my lifetime. At any rate it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see that there are a lot of people who really couldn't care less about the world they live in. Some might in abstract, academic terms but don't seem to in the actual reality.

Agreed, building an expensive stretch of railway "just in case" hardly sounds like a good use of resources. It has to have a good case for use all the time. If the complete Okephampton route still existed (even in a reduced form from its heyday) it would maybe be a good reason to keep it open if it was threatened with closure but we're past that unfortuantely.

Oops on their part - thought that was the whole point of the way billing works, so that rather than just having a meter reading and paying whatever that says, which as you say would be much more in winter, you pay roughly the same over the year (overpay in summer, underpay in winter).

Yet not all people can have one even if they want. I don't want one so the problems don't bother me, but there's no real mobile reception in my house, and when the replacement meter was being fitted I was told that for some reason smart meters keep tripping the model of consumer unit I've got (I hadn't heard that one before!) Nothing's changed to stop me viewing them as a solution looking for a problem, stemming from thinking "got to be more high tech, that's better innit?", and nor has my dislike for more than the absolute minimum practically necessary recording and monitoring diluted in the slightest.

I think it might be longer than that - I had my electricity meter replaced last year (with an ordinary non-smart one), the guy doing it said the previous one was from the 70s.

There's a wide range of different opinions between feeling invincible and feeling vulnerable. I don't feel invincible but the risks to someone in my age group and health are low enough that they won't sway my opinions towards being more cautious for my own sake (I'd never set foot outdoors otherwise). Note I said for my own sake, I'll be cautious for others.

That's a good reason for making sure the corridor remains available but I don't see how it influences a Plymouth - Tavistock link (a route that was very busy and congested by road once you hit the outskirts of Plymouth when I was going to school that way in the early 90s, heaven knows what it's like now).