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UK Politics - You can't correct a mistake, if you don't admit it was a mistake


Which Tyler

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Love Actually notwithstanding, I'm sure this is in part keeping with the tradition of the US flexing its muscles and re-establishing itself in the 'special relationship'. Biden's Irish roots + the bipartisan support for the Good Friday agreement in the US makes it an easy place to make a stand.

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That how I like my man Joe. Just like my Whiskey: Irish.

Yes, could'Ve made that joke with coffee. But since I really don't like coffee, so why spoil a perfectly fine whiskey?

I am waiting for the Brexit brigade to be in equal measures surprised and outraged by Irish Joe Biden's remark.

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7 hours ago, Werthead said:

Looks like reopening on 21 June will be delayed or watered down from a full reopening to some rules remaining in place.

The current trajectory does not look good, with a higher rate of hospitalisation than expected given the success of the vaccine rollout. Deaths have so far not risen in line, but given the significant lag, that might still be coming. There'll be questions here over what's going on if hospitalisations and deaths start rising given the promised effectiveness of the vaccine on the Delta variant, which is now dominant in the UK. Particularly concerning is early data suggesting that the Delta variant is not particularly slowed by a single vaccine dose, and even after two it appears to be more dangerous than the prior variants.

Meanwhile, the USA has told Britain to stop fucking around and come to an agreement with the EU, in its capacity as guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement. It's not a formal demarche (reprimand), but it's not far off.

As far as I can tell, the Delta variant is scarcely impacting on people who are double-vaccinated. 

IMHO, the data are pointing, as Chris Hopson has pointed out, to the vaccination programme being a success.  Over the past four weeks, case numbers have risen by 180%, admissions by 50%, hospitalisations by 18%. That would suggest that the link between cases and hospital admissions is weakening, and that those who are admitted are less likely to be seriously ill than in the previous two waves (and coming from the younger age groups).

 

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3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

As far as I can tell, the Delta variant is scarcely impacting on people who are double-vaccinated. 

IMHO, the data are pointing, as Chris Hopson has pointed out, to the vaccination programme being a success.  Over the past four weeks, case numbers have risen by 180%, admissions by 50%, hospitalisations by 18%. That would suggest that the link between cases and hospital admissions is weakening, and that those who are admitted are less likely to be seriously ill than in the previous two waves.

 

Also worth mentioning deaths have been barely reaching double digits during that time ( some days there are zero deaths) and don’t appear to be rising. 

Im now certain there will be at least  a 2 week delay to reopening. 

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6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

As far as I can tell, the Delta variant is scarcely impacting on people who are double-vaccinated. 

IMHO, the data are pointing, as Chris Hopson has pointed out, to the vaccination programme being a success.  Over the past four weeks, case numbers have risen by 180%, admissions by 50%, hospitalisations by 18%. That would suggest that the link between cases and hospital admissions is weakening, and that those who are admitted are less likely to be seriously ill than in the previous two waves (and coming from the younger age groups).

We have a few anecdotal quotes from doctors that ‘barely any’ of those in hospital / dying are fully vaccinated, but I’d love to see accurate stats on that. I think vaccine hesitancy is around 9% in the UK (a few different figures floating around for that), running the numbers would surely account for a lot of those people? 

The threat of hospitals overrunning is really the only metric that counts now. If that doesn’t happen, or doesn’t look like happening, we should proceed. I know it’s a tough one to judge though, when exactly that might happen. I also have to keep reminding myself that this time around, the question is ‘shall we open up’ when all the other times cases have been rising it’s been ‘shall we lockdown again’.

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6 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

We have a few anecdotal quotes from doctors that ‘barely any’ of those in hospital / dying are fully vaccinated, but I’d love to see accurate stats on that. I think vaccine hesitancy is around 9% in the UK (a few different figures floating around for that), running the numbers would surely account for a lot of those people? 

The threat of hospitals overrunning is really the only metric that counts now. If that doesn’t happen, or doesn’t look like happening, we should proceed. I know it’s a tough one to judge though, when exactly that might happen. I also have to keep reminding myself that this time around, the question is ‘shall we open up’ when all the other times cases have been rising it’s been ‘shall we lockdown again’.

We are going to find out. The number of cases of the delta variant is rising exponentially, with, as you say, the only choice coming up being as to whether or not the UK opens up and increases the exponential factor. We seem to have basically accepted that the variant is going to be allowed to burn through the whole country. So in a month or two we will have some very good stats. (Assuming that the NHS does not break under the strain.)

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13 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

We have a few anecdotal quotes from doctors that ‘barely any’ of those in hospital / dying are fully vaccinated, but I’d love to see accurate stats on that. I think vaccine hesitancy is around 9% in the UK (a few different figures floating around for that), running the numbers would surely account for a lot of those people?

The latest (7 days old so there might be new data soon) can be seen on page 12 here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/991343/Variants_of_Concern_VOC_Technical_Briefing_14.pdf

Looking at overnight admissions (seems the most relevant for hospital capacity) 7 out of 137 were fully vaccinated which seems to suggest the vaccines are doing a good job in that regard.

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24 minutes ago, A wilding said:

We are going to find out. The number of cases of the delta variant is rising exponentially, with, as you say, the only choice coming up being as to whether or not the UK opens up and increases the exponential factor. We seem to have basically accepted that the variant is going to be allowed to burn through the whole country. So in a month or two we will have some very good stats. (Assuming that the NHS does not break under the strain.)

I think one has to accept that (a) new variants will appear and (b) case numbers will rise whenever lockdown ends.  I think it's better to be facing this outbreak in the warmest months in the year, than going back into lockdown, only to find we're facing a new wave in the Autumn.  

35 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

We have a few anecdotal quotes from doctors that ‘barely any’ of those in hospital / dying are fully vaccinated, but I’d love to see accurate stats on that. I think vaccine hesitancy is around 9% in the UK (a few different figures floating around for that), running the numbers would surely account for a lot of those people? 

The threat of hospitals overrunning is really the only metric that counts now. If that doesn’t happen, or doesn’t look like happening, we should proceed. I know it’s a tough one to judge though, when exactly that might happen. I also have to keep reminding myself that this time around, the question is ‘shall we open up’ when all the other times cases have been rising it’s been ‘shall we lockdown again’.

I think, without vaccinations, the pressure for a third lockdown would be immense.

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28 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

That looks scary, but is it not more to do with that variant replacing the others as the dominant one very quickly? The actual number of new cases doesn’t rise anything like that steeply.

EDIT: here it is:

 

And, hospitalisations have been growing at nothing like that rate.  There seems little sign that people who have received both vaccines, the vast majority of Groups 1 - 9, who are the groups vulnerable to this virus, are in any danger.

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23 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

This graph shows quite well how far off hospital admissions are from the peaks (but of course, those peaks were too high so that shouldn’t be viewed as the limit):

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions

My concern is that if the end of full lockdown is pushed back by four weeks, in practice, it won't end until well into 2022.  There will always be a reason to extend it.  In four weeks time, most young people will not have been double vaccinated, so we wait till they've been double vaccinated;  then we have to worry about the schools and universities coming back; then, those vaccinated will need their boosters;   then, we're running into the Autumn, so there will be a seasonal rise in Covid cases;  then, we're into winter, and it's 24 hours to save the NHS. Then, no doubt, there will be a new variant.

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47 minutes ago, Bale's Bald Spot said:

Hospitalisations are low, which is good, but giving the virus every chance to mutate and beat the vaccines doesn't seem like the best approach.

Yeah I agree with this. It seems pretty crazy that we're going back to the "let it rum amok through the population" strategy - as you mention the more it spreads the more it's likely to mutate into a new variant and get better at beating the vaccines.

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47 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

Don't really care at this point. Nearly everything is open as normal right now. The only thing that's not happening that I do really is live gigs.

I was thinking the same, that I don't think it's going to make the slightest difference to me whether it was on the 21st or 4 weeks later since I wasn't planning to do any of the extra things that would be allowed.

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