shurlock

Rodney I’m sure there are loads of Rodneys knocking about the toffs and upper middle classes. Pure blue blood that is.

https://www.ft.com/content/9ed7a217-1462-4fba-9329-880dc76a3793?desktop=true&segmentId=d8d3e364-5197-20eb-17cf-2437841d178a#myft:notification:instant-email:content Taken apart like a Duplo train set - Bojo needs his little fwends

Starmer's 'playing a blinder' (or Keir Smarmy PMSL) and the usual suspects and fanatics are getting flustered. I see Nadine Dorries tripped herself up with a botched smear or may be it was the threat of libel action Thank god we have the semblance of an opposition.

Yes he apologised on behalf of the CPS as it’s head. So what? Was he personally involved in the case? The reviewing lawyer who decided not to pursue the allegations? Allegations that the police refused to pursue given how notoriously difficult it is to prosecute historical sexual offences (just ask Boris 'spaffing money up the wall' Johnson and one reason why Starmer recommended the introduction of mandatory reporting that would have required professionals to report suspected child abuse as it occurred or face liability, though the case for mandatory reporting is far from straightforward)? No. The independent review didn’t fault Starmer; to the extent it was critical of any one person, it was the CPS's reviewing lawyer, a rape specialist, for not challenging the police account forcefully enough. Which is fair enough. You might want to educate yourself how the CPS works. It is not a top-down organisation; it is fiercely decentralised and autonomous made up of regional teams each headed up by a crown prosecutor with responsiblity for prosecuting cases locally. Or you might simply want to educate yourself how complex, path dependent organisations work. Don't be so wet behind the ears or such a sheep Baaaalders.

Bingo. Shame Balders that you’re incapable of thinking for yourself beyond rehashing alt-right/left smears or understanding how organisations and the wider legal system work pal. Just need John Worboys now for a full house. Trust another halfwit will be here soon enough to do the honours

Johnson had a mare at PMQs.

Yep. Awful. Doubtless some will be challenging this account.

Unbelievable https://www.itv.com/news/london/2020-05-12/station-ticket-office-worker-dies-with-covid-19-after-being-spat-at/

I didn’t dispute the 0.5% figure per se. I just said it was at the lower bound of the confidence interval. Of course, by the same logic, it could be at the upper bound of 1%. FWIW I believe Whitty also said he estimates it’s closer to 1% or just below (though I’d need to rewatch the presser to corroborate).

Or better still look at meta-analyses that systematically pool and synthesise all published research on the question: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.03.20089854v1.full.pdf Infinitely better than our amateur efforts or cherrypicking studies. Let’s agree to disagree: while it’s not inconceivable, I think your current estimate of 6.4 million is on the high side.

Meta-analysis of the published literature suggests that an IFR (‘mortality rate’ in your words) of 0.5% is at the very low end of the range of estimates. Its probably closer to 0.75% but could be as high as 1%. Needless to say there isn't a single IFR as it will vary from place to place and population to population. More relevantly Chris Whitty (per The Cat and today’s No.10 press conference) suggests that roughly 10% of Londoners have had the virus whereas it is only 4% for the rest of the country. Put together and even accepting the figures will not be entirely up-to-date, that's lower than your quoted 6.4 million. They’re the experts and they’ve seen the data.

Meta-analysis of the published literature suggests that an IFR of 0.5% is at the very low end of the range of estimates. Its probably closer to 0.75% but could be as high as 1%. Needless to say there isn't a single IFR as it will vary from place to place and population to population. More relevantly Chris Whitty (per The Cat and today’s No.10 press conference) suggests that roughly 10% of Londoners have had the virus whereas it is only 4% for the rest of the country (based on serological/antibody testing). Put together that's substantially lower than 6.4m.

Highly unlikely according to recent estimates (based on serological testing).

I assume he meant household.

Whitey's all over the place.

As long as they don't cough or sneeze in your face. Also have to watch out for the loud talkers and the ones incapable of talking without projecting spittle at you...

The private sector has been heavily involved in recent efforts to scale up capacity, particularly the lighthouse labs.

Exactly. Likewise, stay-at-homers may have caught the virus from another household member who had gone to work, used public transport, touched the proverbial door handle etc. In this scenario, many of those infected may not have even left the house at all. Research suggests that this is a critical transmission mechanism: a household member catches the virus outside, brings it back and infects other inhabitants due to the close proximity of living under one roof. It is another reason why the Swedish experience isn’t particularly illuminating given that more than half of all homes in Sweden are made up of one resident -the highest proportion in Europe. This reduces risk in a way that is simply unavailable to many UK households. Frankly given the specific definition and breakdown of the survey categories (nursing home, home, prison, homeless, congregate, assisted living, other), I would have expected the source of admission to be significantly higher among those coming from home. While two-thirds may seem large, it is arguably smaller than the share of the population as a whole. I suspect everyone on this forum would identify themselves as coming from home -as opposed to a nursing home, prison or off the streets. None of this has stopped the furiously hard of thinking on social media from taking these raw findings and asserting the lockdown has been a failure - that somehow it is not safe to stay at home. No all these findings show is how transmissible the virus is and how hard it is to shield those who stay at home. That makes it more, not less important to maintain effective social distancing and ensure we don’t rush out of a lockdown prematurely before community transmission has been meaningfully lowered.

Widely spaced Unless they all miraculously happen to be living together, I see lots of compact groups. Presumably they’ve been sat down for a while and chatting face to face. Either way, it’s moot. There are clear rules to follow unless you’re arrogant or selfish enough to think you’re above them.

I see the OB is tearing its hair out.

My point is more about whether regulators will approve the use of challenge trials which would involve deliberately infecting volunteers with Covid19. Needless to say that raises all kinds of thorny ethical questions. As things stand, the Oxford team is dependent on trial participants having a chance encounter with the virus in the wild in order to demonstrate how effective and safe the vaccine is. And that could take a long time given efforts to bring down the transmission rate in the UK.

To speed things along, I’m sure davefoggy and ilk would happily volunteer to participate in challenge trials if regulators gave them the green light.

Also very interesting. The long-term health consequences -heart, neural and kidney- get lost in the mix and the focus on mortality rates. Even now our understanding of these effects is still patchy. Faced with uncertainty and such asymmetric payoffs, Im a big believer in the precautionary principle. While the aim is to avoid both extremes, its nonetheless preferable to overshoot than undershoot.

Interesting thanks.

Completely agree.