They're Racist and We Know It - A UK Politics Thread

[Fragile Bird]

The funniest thing I heard this morning was an American commentator say the US would likely follow a similar pattern of Delta spreading and then “burning out”, because the US and UK vaccination numbers were similar. 

Oh really? In the UK, 68.6% of the population with one dose, 54.9% fully vaccinated. In the US, 56.4% with one dose, 48.8% with 2. That’s a more than 20% difference in one dose and almost 20% in fully vaccinated.

I have a suspicion the biggest factor in the rise and fall across the UK and the EU was football.

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Fewer cases.

Yep.

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Fewer tests.

Not really, I think I read they were down 9% on last month (much fewer kids doing then at school I suppose), nothing like enough time explain a 50% drop in a week.

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

People deleting app.

I still don’t see how that would lead to fewer cases. Any effect from the app would show up in testing figures, so maybe we can attribute a little to the 9%? Of course, one rather obvious explanation is that the app just … works. As it was supposed to. A lot of people were isolating around the time figures started dropping.

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

School holidays.

This is my pick for the biggest factor, although even then, it fell off pretty quickly after all schools broke up, not really enough time for that to filter through. 

[DaveSumm]

Also, this is interesting: over half of Covid hospitalisations tested positive after admission. It could imply that a lot of patients simply discovered they had Covid when they were in for something else entirely, but, it also doesn’t rule out that they were there for symptoms which were caused by Covid, but they just didn’t know it. Still, over half is a lot.

[williamjm]

52 minutes ago, L'oiseau français said:

The funniest thing I heard this morning was an American commentator say the US would likely follow a similar pattern of Delta spreading and then “burning out”, because the US and UK vaccination numbers were similar. 

Oh really? In the UK, 68.6% of the population with one dose, 54.9% fully vaccinated. In the US, 56.4% with one dose, 48.8% with 2. That’s a more than 20% difference in one dose and almost 20% in fully vaccinated.

Another major factor that could make it worse would be that the vaccination coverage is fairly uniform across different regions of the UK, but from what I've heard that's definitely not the case in the US where there are big differences across the country.

[Heartofice]

23 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Also, this is interesting: over half of Covid hospitalisations tested positive after admission. It could imply that a lot of patients simply discovered they had Covid when they were in for something else entirely, but, it also doesn’t rule out that they were there for symptoms which were caused by Covid, but they just didn’t know it. Still, over half is a lot.

This has been quite a deceptive headline from what I’ve seen. All it meant was that quite a few people were getting positive tests after being admitted to hospital, but is being used as a story that people are catching the virus in hospital. 

[The Anti-Targ]

raining on the parade a bit, but this time last year daily case numbers were in the hundreds. There is a long way to go yet, and a U-shaped curve is not out of the question, like the end of last year.

[Heartofice]

6 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

raining on the parade a bit, but this time last year daily case numbers were in the hundreds. There is a long way to go yet, and a U-shaped curve is not out of the question, like the end of last year.

Think this is the first time that numbers have fallen dramatically without there being a hard lockdown introduced, which is the big difference.

Cases rose so high in the first place because we came out of lockdown over a month ago, we’ve just been fiddling at the edges ever since. 
 

Plus vaccinations have changed the landscape dramatically in terms of deaths and hospitalisations 

[BigFatCoward]

Just now, Heartofice said:

 

Plus vaccinations have changed the landscape dramatically in terms of deaths and hospitalisations 

I do wish it was easier to find out the vaccination status of people who are dying. If 95% of people who are dying are those who have chosen not to have the vaccine I'd like to know. 

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

I do wish it was easier to find out the vaccination status of people who are dying. If 95% of people who are dying are those who have chosen not to have the vaccine I'd like to know. 

I’m not sure it matters too much. There are always going to be some amount of people who are double jabbed who will die from the virus, especially if you are talking about elderly vulnerable people. 
 

What really matter is that deaths are dramatically lower than previous waves

[DaveSumm]

7 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I do wish it was easier to find out the vaccination status of people who are dying. If 95% of people who are dying are those who have chosen not to have the vaccine I'd like to know. 

Numbers for the status are out there (that 60% figure that got fumbled) but as to whether those people are voluntarily not vaccinated I don’t know. 

[Pebble thats Stubby]

2 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Numbers for the status are out there (that 60% figure that got fumbled) but as to whether those people are voluntarily not vaccinated I don’t know. 

I think that was hospitalisations not deaths.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Wert tagged this on Twitter.

A compilation (accompanied by Queen) of public safety information films put out by the government, shown on TV and in schools to warn of various perils. 
They’d never be able to show this stuff now! No wonder parents in the 90’s were generally ok with their kids sitting in playing video games.

https://mobile.twitter.com/scarredforlife2/status/1419954481236688910?s=21

As a kid (aged 3) I did the medicine one ie downed a bottle of Calpol (paracetamol).

[The Anti-Targ]

17 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Fewer cases. Fewer tests. People deleting app. School holidays.

All plausible reasons for the drop. 

Let's hope it's the former. 

Testing has dropped by 44% since freedom day, according to one set of figures I've seen. Trump wasn't wrong when he said if you test less you won't find as much. He was just wrong that it's a good idea to test less.

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Testing has dropped by 44% since freedom day, according to one set of figures I've seen. Trump wasn't wrong when he said if you test less you won't find as much. He was just wrong that it's a good idea to test less.

Scroll down to the graph:

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing

It’s dropped a touch, but not 44% and nowhere near enough to explain the current drop in positive cases.

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Testing has dropped by 44% since freedom day, according to one set of figures I've seen. Trump wasn't wrong when he said if you test less you won't find as much. He was just wrong that it's a good idea to test less.

yeah interested to know where you are pulling this figure from

[DaveSumm]

Ignore the inevitable ‘cases back up again’ headlines, they’re down 37% on this day last week. 

[maarsen]

I just saw on CBC news that Britain has allowed visitors from the US, and the EU to enter without quarantine if fully vaccinated, but Canada is excluded. Reasons?

 

[Spockydog]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

yeah interested to know where you are pulling this figure from

I'd be interested to see some reliable stats on number of tests conducted. 'Cos I'm worried all we're seeing here is speculation mixed in with wishful thinking. I tried that link that Dave shared, but it's all gobbledygook to my ill-educated ass.

I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but something doesn't feel right about this supposed drop in cases.

 

 

[Spockydog]

53 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I just saw on CBC news that Britain has allowed visitors from the US, and the EU to enter without quarantine if fully vaccinated, but Canada is excluded. Reasons?

 

According to Laura Kuenssberg, the idea fell out of Boris Johnson's bunghole when he was on the shitter the other morning.

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

I just saw on CBC news that Britain has allowed visitors from the US, and the EU to enter without quarantine if fully vaccinated, but Canada is excluded. Reasons?

 

Because it’s about the UK travel industry and Canada probably isn’t a big enough market for the UK government to have prioritised sorting out the technicalities involved yet I’d imagine.