Dominic Cummings claims ministers backed herd immunity against Covid

[Eddy Edson]

Looks like Victoria is going back into yet another lockdown.
Just 1.7% of the population is vaccinated!!!! Wow. That is truly appalling.
This isn't over for anyone yet unfortunately.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19...r-lockdown-due-to-recent-virus-cases-12317965

Yep, pain in the butt. 7 day (hopefully) hard lockdown to make sure that contact tracing is ahead of the curve, which so far it seems to be, as usual. Standard playbook here for when the virus leaks out of hotel quarantine, infinitely better than eg months long sort-of lockdowns & lots of people dying & the economy going rancid.

That's 1.7% fully vaccinated. 15%+ have had one shot, accelerating. Maybe this latest little outbreak will induce people to take things more urgently. I was ranting at members of my family yesterday - "Just f'ing get it done!".

But the fed govt has a lot to answer for: UK-quality fed health minister and health bureaucrats saying all year that there was no urgency; denying aeorosl transmission risks in quarantine hotels; terrible messaging around AZ blood clot risks; telling people if they didn't want to take the risk, there was more mRNA coming later in the year.

I've decided that Greg Hunt, our glad-handing little fed health minister, is Matt Hancock minus sex.

 

[pm133]

Yep, pain in the butt. 7 day (hopefully) hard lockdown to make sure that contact tracing is ahead of the curve, which so far it seems to be, as usual. Standard playbook here for when the virus leaks out of hotel quarantine, infinitely better than eg months long sort-of lockdowns & lots of people dying & the economy going rancid.

That's 1.7% fully vaccinated. 15%+ have had one shot, accelerating. Maybe this latest little outbreak will induce people to take things more urgently. I was ranting at members of my family yesterday - "Just f'ing get it done!".

But the fed govt has a lot to answer for: UK-quality fed health minister and health bureaucrats saying all year that there was no urgency; denying aeorosl transmission risks in quarantine hotels; terrible messaging around AZ blood clot risks; telling people if they didn't want to take the risk, there was more mRNA coming later in the year.

I've decided that Greg Hunt, our glad-handing little fed health minister, is Matt Hancock minus sex.

It must be a nightmare running a business under that environment and there's no chance of it ending any time soon at those levels of vaccination. This is just going to go on and on and on.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

This is just going to go on and on and on.

I don't see why. They have exceptionally low levels of infection and an apparently effective test and contact tracing system. Presumably they'll improve the quarantining a bit to make this a bit less likely in the future.

Not great to isolate your country (though they can join with NZ now which presumably makes things a bit better), but I'm not sure it's worse than most places in Europe. If the shutdowns are short and infrequent it's presumably much easier to compensate businesses for them.

They'll want to vaccinate much faster, I'm sure, and that's presumably harder to sell to a population that's not been hit so hard. Even so I'm sure the pace will pick up.

 

[Robin]

I am told that West Oxfordshire has been lost by the conservatives - something almost totally unthinkable

No, not so. I’m in West Oxon, and whilst we re-elected our Lib Dem councillor (because she’s very good on local issues) of the 17 seats up for grabs, Tories took 10, and a mix of others took the rest. With the seats already held on the council that weren't up for election the Tories retain control.
What was more interesting was the Oxfordshire County Council elections. The Tory leader, who stands for Woodstock, lost his seat, and Chipping Norton (home of David Cameron's set) voted a Labour County Councillor in. Our ward voted a Lib Dem in, who is now leader of the Lib/Lab/Green coalition formed on the county council.
I think you are right about people thinking more locally, The
successful candidates in Chipping Norton and in our ward for the County Council were already sitting members of the District Council with a good track record on local issues.

 

[Docb]

Thanks for putting me straight @Robin - was getting my councils mixed up.

I am working with my brother who lives in the area and others on sewage discharge problems and the head of steam they are generating was likely a contributor to the results in the affected areas. I don't know if you are aware but seemingly every sewage works in the area regularly discharges raw sewage into water courses and at least one discharges raw sewage into an open soakaway - little more than an old fashioned cess pit. Getting anybody to take on board the issues and do something about it either in Thames Water (the polluter), Environment Agency (the regulator) or local council is proving to be a real problem. You can get plenty of noise but no action. It will be interesting to see whether the Greens will make any difference.

 

[Robin]

Thanks for putting me straight @Robin - was getting my councils mixed up.

I am working with my brother who lives in the area and others on sewage discharge problems and the head of steam they are generating was likely a contributor to the results in the affected areas. I don't know if you are aware but seemingly every sewage works in the area regularly discharges raw sewage into water courses and at least one discharges raw sewage into an open soakaway - little more than an old fashioned cess pit. Getting anybody to take on board the issues and do something about it either in Thames Water (the polluter), Environment Agency (the regulator) or local council is proving to be a real problem. You can get plenty of noise but no action. It will be interesting to see whether the Greens will make any difference.

There has indeed been a head of steam about sewage discharge into our local river, and plenty of discussion on our local forum. Several locals here seem to be 'on the case.'

 

[Docb]

Wouldn't be the Windrush would it? Or the Glyme? We are looking at the Clanfield works which discharges into a static ditch!

 

[Robin]

Wouldn't be the Windrush would it? Or the Glyme? We are looking at the Clanfield works which discharges into a static ditch!

It’s the Evenlode. It joins the Glyme just before they both flow into the Thames south of Blenheim Palace.
Clanfield is surrounded by ditches isn’t it? Sounds grim.

 

[Eddy Edson]

I don't see why. They have exceptionally low levels of infection and an apparently effective test and contact tracing system. Presumably they'll improve the quarantining a bit to make this a bit less likely in the future.

Not great to isolate your country (though they can join with NZ now which presumably makes things a bit better), but I'm not sure it's worse than most places in Europe. If the shutdowns are short and infrequent it's presumably much easier to compensate businesses for them.

They'll want to vaccinate much faster, I'm sure, and that's presumably harder to sell to a population that's not been hit so hard. Even so I'm sure the pace will pick up.

This is about right.

About 1% of infections in quarantine hotels lead to leaks. Hotels obviously aren't designed as quarantine facilities and maybe you can't get it much below that. One big debate here is over the degree of urgency for constructing purpose-built facilities and staffing them in more remote locations. You have to figure that the risk of a big quarantine leakage & big community spread increases over time; hopefully this latest Melbourne thing isn't that.

One surprising thing has been the lack of apparent impact from closing the borders on the economy etc (obviously, it varies by sector). Things are going great, in comparison to just about everywhere else, and on track compared to how things were before the plague. One thing the fed govt has been good at is firing up the printing press to support businesses and people impacted by lockdowns etc. Of course this isn't sustainable forever but it's working well so far, economically and for promoting compliance.

People generally don't mind being cut off from the world, given that the rest of the world looks like a big plague pit. "We can't open up until everybody gets vaccinated" hasn't been a very compelling message.

Vaccination needs to get better but FWIW we're doing better than our peer group (NZ, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea etc). Hopefully this latest Melbourne thing will give things a push.

Getting thrashed by Pitcairn Island, though:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1397892931739164673

 

[nonethewiser]

See lying sod is still insisting drive to Barnard Castle was to test his eyesight, time to fess up Dom.

 

[Docb]

See lying sod is still insisting drive to Barnard Castle was to test his eyesight, time to fess up Dom.

Dunno about that. Said his test drive was to see if he was functioning well enough for the drive to London the following day, which is fair enough. Why he did not make that clear up front is beyond me. I am sure there is more to the story but the chances of really bottoming it out are negligible.

It's the problem with a half truth... some will see it as a truth and some will see it as a lie. The mire that Hancock is sinking into is because all he only ever tells half truths.

 

[mikeyB]

Whatever mire Hancock is sinking in, deservedly, he won’t get sacked because he’s being set up as the fall guy whenever the official inquiry starts.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Said his test drive was to see if he was functioning well enough for the drive to London the following day,

Which was always the story as far as I understood it. What changed was (I thought) the original trip to his parent's estate which (he now says) was about security concerns with his house in London.