birch-chorley

Hard if they are complete idiots, the vaccine lasts over 48 hours at normal frozen temperature 1 central storage facility could service 95% of the countries population within a 3 hour drive, that still leaves 45 hours for a GP practice or Hospital to get them into peoples arms We have had millions of doses arrive in the U.K. (21 trucks worth), yet only vaccinated 500k in 2 weeks. They talked about 5m injections being made in December, at the time they knew full well about the temperature issue It’s yet another cock and balls job no doubt

Why not It’s the most important info Only reason they wouldn’t report it is if they are making a pigs dick of it

This is as important as the daily death rate and cases for me They should be coming out each day saying how many have been vaccinated, where they are up to in the priority, how many they expect to get done in the next, week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks etc They talked about doing at least 1m a week at the start with millions getting sorted this side of Xmas. With only 500k done in 2 weeks it feels like they are well behind with what they said Edit... if it’s lack of vaccines then fair enough, seems odd that we only got 500k on the first delivery though when they talked about millions

Seem to recall something on this early doors back in March Basically, viruses that make you very ill, make you very ill, so your likely to be laid up somewhere rather than interacting with people. Less severe viruses are less severe so multiple quicker as the host is out an about spreading it

Of course they do Less so than working age people, who in turn matter less than kids That’s according to the Department of Health’s usually cost / benefit analysis , when it comes to deciding where to invest their budget (in a normal year)

GDP has held up relatively well, three times better than ours has

Looking at the numbers again I think we will finish up on circa 90k with likely restrictions over the coming weeks. Add say 30k on if they let it go and banged us all in tier 1 from now on All depends on how fast they roll out the vaccine really, if 15m were vaccinated this week then the deaths would grind to a halt and we would finish on little over 70k deaths, granted that’s not happening this week Get the first 5m done and you can expect half the deaths as the most vulnerable carry a bigger share of the risk They normally vaccinate 5m a month for Winter flu (1 dose), throwing the kitchen sink at it they should be able to mobilise to get at least 5m people done in January (both doses)

All have done better than we have, by a long chalk But then again, they all got on top of it before it was a problem Had any of those countries found themselves in our position, I doubt any of those countries would accept a double digit GDP decline, they would in all likelihood balance the economic damage with an acceptable number of deaths Even if we opened up fully now, we wouldn’t end up on more than 100k deaths, given we have a vaccine that’s started to be rolled out. This whole thing was about stopping the NHS being overrun first and foremost. 15m get vaccinated and 99% of that risk is done. The most vulnerable 5m get vaccinated and 50% of that risk has gone, should be there by end of January (I hope) Anyone who thinks we will shut things down until Easter (inc building sites, manufacturing, schools etc) is a complete moon man We will manage an acceptable number of deaths whilst stoping the NHS from being overrun

Are they wavering council tax on second homes then? Would seem very strange to ban people from living in their second homes but still expecting them to pay tax on it

First proper mention of the new strain was this week, yet it’s been about for ages hasn't it? (September anyway) I think the government might have overplayed the ‘new strain’ talk in order to save face over cancelling Xmas (after being so bold at PMQ’s 48 hours earlier! Now the borders are shut it’s backfired big style (if my suspicions are correct)

Should have brought move over last week you Wally

Get her on here We need someone who isn’t afraid to say what they think

I’ve got a pizza stone / setting on our cooker, absolutely brilliant Fucked about making dough for a bit but found a pre bought product that’s superb, Northern Dough company available in all good supermarket freezers Seriously hard to beat the quality of them, cost next to nothing to make as well

Had a bash at spread betting on stock market moves Made a few quid and thought it was the future Then got burnt It’s never as easy to call when your putting cash down as it is when you have no skin in the game

The most vulnerable 5m account for half the risk to the NHS, top 15m vulnerable 99% of the risk Should be able to vaccinate those top 5m by the end of January if we throw the kitchen sink at it February should be much better for the NHS, March even more so, I’d be expecting most places in Tier 2 or 1 back end of February Lets not forget, with everything shut for large parts of the next two weeks it’s not far off lockdown 1, should act as a fire-brake to help January

That would be hysterical if you ask me If you shut schools etc from now until the vulnerable have been vaccinated how many lives are you going to save? A few thousand How many lives will closing all businesses save, a few thousand more? Fucking education up for 15m young people and making millions more unemployed (likely long term) is too high a price to pay to save a few thousand 81 year olds IMO (81 on average) Half a million have had a vaccine, slow start but the risk to the NHS should start to rapidly reduce over the coming weeks

Aye, Looks that way All things being equal, I’d like to have thought that schools, supermarkets, building sites etc being shut would have off set it The data on this new strain etc puts a nail in the coffin though sadly

Thoroughly depressing

That’s fair enough then I was of the impression it was £25k which seemed a right piss take

I’m not sure how you can pay off all this debt without reducing your spending Big tax rises being talked about (20% tax turning to 25% & 40% tax turning to 45%) that still won’t be enough (whilst reducing disposable increasing unemployment). We already tax close to 40% of GDP anyway Beyond that you have to cut your cloth according to the money you have coming in. Services will have to be cut at some point if we look to pay the debt down

To be fair, all the government needs to do is publish the formula that calculates the Tiers, they must have one, they don't sit down with a bingo machine ffs. Why not just publish it so it’s black and white? To be fair, I’m pretty sure folk from Bolton etc weren’t supposed to travel out of the area when it all kicked off again a couple of months back. These regional travel bans aren't new are they? Sure Wales had something similar Sky news had a piece on last night looking at hospital admissions / capacity, plenty hospitals in the North got hammered and have come out the other side of their local peak. You look at that with R numbers and some of the regions in the North look to have very similar figures in Tier 3 as places in the South East had two weeks back in Tier 2, it’s fair enough to question that Just publish the formula and put it to bed

The UNICEF stunt was more about PR than anything else, £25k??? They should either put up some proper funding or shut up IMO To be fair, following the 2008 crash, all 3 major parties put forward austerity agendas. Their wasn’t a great deal between all 3 plans, Gordon Brown wanted to do it over a longer period (he got my vote), Cameron over 1 term (which quickly got pushed back when it was found to be too severe). I recall Cameron et all saying we needed to cut further or end up like Greece, well we are now in three times as much debt as we were then The Covid economic crisis in the U.K. will make 2008 look like a Tea Party. The tax rises will be severe and they will impact disposable income, the industries that will feel the force of that are the ones who are currently being clobbered (hospitality etc). That’s not going to bode well for getting all of the unemployed back into work People won’t like it but key public services are going to see some proper cuts this time, way beyond what we saw over the last 10 years (NHS budget growing by 15% but still being classed as a cut etc)

Just reading a piece in The Times about systemic racism in gardening... Countryfile presenter James Wong digs in over ‘gardening racism’ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/countryfile-presenter-james-wong-digs-in-over-gardening-racism-9pbl3wfwr All to do with the term native when used to talk about plants Apparently ‘U.K. gardening culture has racism baked in to its DNA’ - gardeners are going to be taking the knee at the Chelsea Flower Show next year, fuck me

Over 5m students that would only end up at £25bn a year, not sure where the other £15bn is going Assuming it must be central administration, building schools and probably pensions for retired teachers

Nespresso Vertuo is really good if you like bug coffees and you don’t want to fick about topping up an espresso with hot water from the kettle Works out more expensive than bean to cup but you can easily switch between 1 coffee and another with pod. My Mrs goes strong, I’m on a milder blend, sometimes Decaf etc - Much harder work to switch with B2C