I hold far more blame for high profile right wing mouthpieces like Laurence Fox and Toby Young (and obviously the long list of failures of government) than random plebs at the park.
How many waves will it take for Britain's lockdown sceptics to finally call it a day? Marina Hyde please log in to view this image You’d have thought the crisis would give them pause. But then, like the government, they have a hard time learning from their mistakes @MarinaHyde Fri 15 Jan 2021 11.13 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email I am agonised to learn that the Daily Telegraph has been censured for a column published last July, in which Toby Young declared that having had a common cold could give people immunity from Covid-19, and that London was “probably approaching” herd immunity. You really can’t say anything these days – and then they go and tell you that you can’t say the things you have said, albeit many months later. Toby’s the journalistic equivalent of an Only God Can Judge Me tattoo, the Galileo of doing opinions for coins, and history will take a very dim view of all the doctors and nurses now lying about their hospitals breaking under the weight of the “second” “wave”, and all the ordinary Britons now lying about having their surgeries “cancelled”. Shame on them. They don’t know the meaning of cancelled. There are different variants of being cancelled doing the rounds, of course, but I think the one where you still get to dispense virological advice in a high-profile column and on TV is definitely the one to catch. It seems to give you complete immunity from meaningful consequences. I very much enjoyed Toby’s recent Newsnight appearance, where he was confronted by Emily Maitlis with his grimly debunked claims that there was never going to be a second spike – and proceeded to deal with this massive, cosmic bollock-drop only parenthetically. Let’s see it in action. “Well – hands up, I got that wrong, Emily – but let’s not forget that was during the summer …” What’s not to love about that split-second concession, the sort of “hands up” that counter-terrorism police will tell you is usually the prelude to some nutter reaching for his next concealed explosive. I now read that Toby has deleted all his tweets from 2020, perhaps because his policy of appeasement of the coronavirus has not worked. This, incidentally, was the precise rearguard action tried by Neville Chamberlain, who is only remembered unfavourably because it turned out there was this one screenshot of him holding this one piece of paper. The subsequent witch-hunt got him cancelled from being prime minister. If I do have one question for the provisional wing of the lockdown sceptics – other than “Have you suffered a recent head trauma?” – it would only be a tiny one. But I can’t help wondering: how do they think the coronavirus is transmitted? Given that its transmission is not affected by lockdown measures (even though it patently and evidentially is), do they believe it spreads by some means other than respiratory droplets and contact? Do you catch it from self-reflection, perhaps, or not having a media platform? If not, could a sympathetic someone try to get the salient facts on Covid transmission inside Toby one way or another, even if they have to be written in crayons on sandpaper and administered as a suppository? Anyway, that’s the freedom of speech news. Now, on to the other great freedoms on which our nation was built: the freedom to control our waters and our borders, and the freedom to carry round a cup of coffee at all times like a security blanket. We’ll deal with the latter first, with the puzzling news that the government is reportedly planning an advertising blitz to warn people that “grabbing a coffee can kill”. In which case, why have they left the coffee shops open? You can’t permit people to do something and then shame them for doing it – though naturally that is what Johnson’s administration has spent all week doing, as part of its drive to blame a tiny minority of rule-breaking individuals for the avoidable scale of the current deaths, as opposed to its own policies from several weeks ago. Then again, why are we even looking for consistency? A government whose most senior personnel have spent years banging on about having control of our borders have been supremely relaxed about letting anyone arrive via airports for many of the most dangerous and significant months of the pandemic. Meanwhile, this morning found Grant Shapps addressing people wondering if they could book a summer holiday: “I’m the last person you should take this advice from … don’t take travel advice from me.” Thanking you, transport secretary. As for the government’s other much-vaunted obsession, control of our waters, the post-Brexit red tape that is currently confining many boats to harbour and leaving unsold fish rotting on the docks suggests Johnson’s triumphant deal for fishermen may be beginning to stink. Indeed, the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations has written furiously to the prime minister and accused him of sacrificing the industry, then lying to both them and the public as to what he had negotiated. “You have tried to present the agreement as a major success,” runs this letter, quoted in the Times, “when it is patently clear that it is not.” I guess “landing a whopper” meant something different to Boris Johnson than it did to your average fisherman, and they couldn’t both be right. Or, as Jacob Rees-Mogg put it to the Commons on Thursday, of the wasted seafood and the claims the industry is now losing a million quid a day: “The key thing is, we’ve got our fish back. They’re now British fish, and they’re better and happier fish for it.” The fishermen seem less so. “It would be much better,” thunders their letter to Johnson, “if you, with humility and honesty, conceded that you tried but failed – rather than implying that you had handed us the keys of our liberation, when you have not.” It WOULD be much better, wouldn’t it? Just as it would be much better if all the Covid grifters took the scale and horror of the second wave crisis we’re currently in the middle of as their cue to stop making entirely debunked claims that they can’t back up. I must admit I did think that the sheer numbers of current deaths, and the overwhelming of the health service by any reasonable yardstick, might give them at least momentary pause. But – how to put this? – hands up, I got that wrong. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
I hear Pfizer are having a refit (probably for expansion) and will cause problems for output of the vaccine. I believe it will hit the EU/other countries more than us as we are using the Oxford one. Cr2p timing for some countries who really need it.
Doctors professional organisations asking for emergency (and temporary) COVID related legislation to give doctors who have to make rationing decisions and by implication not treat some patients, indemnity from being sued. The government is saying that they are already covered by professional insurance. I’m no expert in this stuff but it strikes me that the insurance would cover professional practice, not decisions made as a result of a shortage of resources, which is what the current issue is. Partly caused by improved professional practice from the first wave, which means more patients stay longer in hospital, thus reducing bed space and staff time. In current circumstances I would suggest that the government does whatever it takes to ensure that doctors (and nurses) are not worrying about being sued on top of everything else, whatever the strict legal position is.
Mrs Rangercol has taken a Covid Antigen test which gives a result in 30 minutes and she was negative. Whilst obviously relieved we have no idea how many false results these things produce. Beth?
Yj That's the one I have been mentioning Col. The rapid test. "The UK government’s plans for community testing for covid-19 received a further blow this week when early results from students testing at the University of Birmingham and universities in Scotland showed that tests had a sensitivity of just 3% and that 58% of positive test results were false." When I was asked to provide documentation for the validity of the tests I was running by government agencies, I had to provide sensitivity of over 95%.. 5% is beyond belief
Are negative test results likely to be just as unreliable? She is feeling much better and taught her usual online ballet class this morning.
Oh that is much better Col! "The rate of false negatives — a test that says you don't have the virus when you actually do have the virus — varies depending on how long infection has been present: in one study, the false-negative rate was 20% when testing was performed five days after symptoms began, but much higher (up to 100%) earlier ." So if she is feeling much better...and it is negative and it was 5 days after a possible infection...then she is probably negative. But I think the example shows why I am so disparaging about the rapid test... And why many countries won't accept it . Did I read France is now only taking a PCR test negative for truckers at Dover to enter their country
Just to give you a personal example Col, my sis in law is a nurse and her team were given packs of these to test themselves every 4 days. One of her colleagues felt unwell and did the test. Negative. She repeated the test that afternoon and still negative. She still felt really crap that evening and did a test at work to be sent away. Next day it came back as positive. These tests are really very unreliable at best. I could give you numerous examples that she has told me about.