COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

Brexit really is the gift that keeps giving.

Crikey, I have just been offered my second jab by my GP for tomorrow, which is a shade under six weeks since my first.

My personal pet theory that being among the youngest who can still have the AZ jab could speed things up seems to have some actual real world traction!

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Bets on for an additional 4 weeks at the current (English) level of lockdown to be announced at 6pm?

I’m betting on ‘yes’

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The number of leads and private briefings there have been, no-one will take that best because you’re never going to lose.

The devil will be in the detail - will it be a simple pause, will anything be rolled back temporarily, or is BoJo going to BoBodge a bespoke solution where no-one will understand if they’re breaking the new rules or not?

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I’m changing my answer to ‘yes - via a BoBodge’

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I think watching the briefing, I think all people want is an honest answer from Johnson, Whitty and Valance and not the amount of very sceptical and frankly weird modelling thats been done, which have been wrong.

And for Johnson to stop telling his lap dog Laura Kuenssberg at the BBC, as again it just causes people to get anxious and angry…

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Correct me if I’m wrong, they keep saying four weeks. 19th July is five weeks isn’t it, or am I being stupid? :thinking:

4 weeks from the 21st June :slight_smile: although he has mentioned the 29th July as well :thinking:

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That’s the part I missed, I was thinking it was all from today. I was only half stupid then :laughing:

He said 29th. He also called the uk a company.

I think he’d been on the sherry.

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Oh it definitely seemed like it when he was trying to answer the first public question, about whether uni students will get priority before September :laughing:

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We’ll he’s been to Brussels on a jolly to see his NATO chums, so probably been drinking on the plane :stuck_out_tongue:

He was a bumbling idiot 18 months ago, that period would take its toll on anyone and that’s ignoring him getting covid and nearly dying from it himself.

Not sure what will happen here in Northern Ireland about restrictions without a functioning government

But then did we ever have a functioning government

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Haven’t got for lack of sausages to worry about in the next few weeks, must admit I’ve only half listened to the news about this.

I’m sure the local sausage makers are happy if it doesn’t get resolved

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Whitty and Valance are honest, they’re scientists. (There may be rare times they avoid giving an answer because politics, but they wouldn’t outright lie, and I’d be very surprised if they did.)

Modelling is guessing; educated guessing, but a degree of guessing nonetheless. In the case of Covid, it’s a guess at what would happen (a) if things carry on at their current rate, and (b) certain conditions or assumptions apply. It’s largely b that leads to there being different models. And if models haven’t turned out to be accurate? That doesn’t mean they’re wrong (in the sense that you’re implying deliberately wrong and misleading information has been given), it means that whatever that particular model was modelling didn’t actually happen.

The very nature of modelling means that when you have several models, they can’t all be right. Most will end up being wrong. But when you’re on that side of what you’re modelling, you don’t at that point know which ones will end up being wrong. So you have to balance risks and probabilities to figure out what to do. The evidence could point to a high probability of a high risk outcome, so steps have to be taken; that the subsequent outcome doesn’t hit peak high risk doesn’t mean the decision was wrong. Indeed, “nothing went wrong” may look like actions were needless, but you have to consider the fact that nothing went wrong because those actions were taken (see also: Y2K bug).

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It’s bluster really… the UK signed an agreement that kicked the can down the road and now we’re approaching the time to kick it further or actually deal with the issue.

The various accusations and the concentration on sausages is just for media consumption.

I know. I only buy the local sausages anyway so meh

But the lack of first and deputy first minister will be an issue for covid related stuff if they don’t stop their usual point scoring shenanigans