Planet Rugby Forum

Raggs wrote:Sorry, you don't get to complain that something is too simple, and too complex.

Sure you can. Complex systems can include overly simple engineering in some parts, while other parts are too complex. This is especially true of scientific systems, where the 'hard part' might be beyond the understanding of developers.

Seneca of the Night wrote:Sherelle provocative as ever:

(I'll post all of this as it's behind paywall but will spoiler it - there's a helluva lot going on in this)

Spoiler: show

[quote]The PM was panicked into abandoning a sensible Covid-19 strategy, and has plunged society into crisis
SHERELLE JACOBS
DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
Follow 26 MARCH 2020 • 7:00AM

Millions will suffer because world leaders have chosen to follow the herd rather than back herd immunity

Boris Johnson risks being flattened by an obsolete ideology crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions

Beyond the slam of lockdown, does one detect the gentle quivering of a Prime Minister who has lost his nerve? What irony that Boris Johnson’s opponents have failed to pick up on this weakness. In their desperation to whip up hysteria against No 10’s “insufficient” coronavirus response, the liberal media has missed what could prove the century’s biggest scoop.

Namely that, faced with the protestations of the London bubble, the PM has jettisoned the only sensible strategy for dealing with the biggest global crisis since the Second World War. To put lockdown in the most cynical terms, the Government has decided to trash the economy rather than expose itself to political criticism. Unless Mr Johnson U-turns, the fallout could be cataclysmic.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the signs that our new Government would not resort to the same clunky damage control as other countries were reasonable. While Italy shooed people into their homes to stem all infections, the UK’s approach seemed more nuanced – getting the most vulnerable to self-isolate, while allowing lower risk people to get infected on a scale that wouldn’t overwhelm the NHS.

Through this “herd immunity” strategy, a resurgence of the virus after it had seemingly peaked would be avoided. Championed by Dominic Cummings, the approach was creepy, clinical and completely correct.

For a flicker, the Government seemed willing to withstand the paroxysms of its opponents and the shivers of its sympathists to take this long-termist course of action. Yes, it gambled on strong assumptions. But with leadership and clever use of numerical probability scale methods – which incidentally helped a clutch of obscure US superforecasters to actually predict Covid-19 – they may have pulled it off.

Instead, No 10 blinked, ditching herd immunity for an Imperial College research paper, which warned that hundreds of thousands could die without immediate, draconian action. It preposterously argued that lockdown may have to continue for as long as 18 months, until a vaccine is found. This despite the fact there is no scientific consensus (a rival paper claims a few weeks of lockdown may be sufficient).

Its recommendations also entail just as many risks and assumptions as the herd immunity strategy. In its assessment that 500,000 could die if the Government did nothing, the paper did not adequately address the question of how many of these victims would die anyway within a short period of something else.

Its modelling may also have underestimated the NHS’s ability to improve its intensive care capacity (the UK has just okayed medical ventilators that could equip the health service with 30,000 machines). Nor does it factor in the non-coronavirus deaths resulting from lockdown, like suicides.

So why has the PM traded in one controversial strategy for another that is, at the very least, equally vulnerable to deep criticism? Because the same old managerial elite dysfunction that got the world into this mess lingers beneath the surface of virtually all governments, like an undiagnosed cancer; this makes it impossible for them to defeat a simple virus, much like a Covid-19 victim with an “underlying illness”.

Thus “doing the right thing at the right time” has proved no match for wails about the need to be seen to be “doing whatever it takes”. And thus Mr Johnson, and other leaders, have ignored the unquantifiable damage of their actions (from the sinking of the world economy to the sacrifice of the global middle class) in order to meet spurious quantifiable targets.

There is, as usual with the Boris-Cummings duumvirate, a twist, though this time it’s of limited comfort. Rumours are aswirl that they are orchestrating herd immunity by stealth. The story goes that everything from low enforcement of lockdown to the dispersal of asymptomatic school children into family homes, is part of the plan. Critics will call this saving face. But, if true, it hits on the curious blind spot of a so-called populist: Mr Johnson’s insecure reluctance to square with the public.

He should pay heed to Trump, who is raring to get America up and running by Easter lest the cure be worst than the disease. Premature perhaps, but at least he is forcing Americans to frankly debate the trade-offs: millions of livelihoods versus thousands of lives.

One can’t help but wonder whether coronavirus is the West’s Berlin Wall moment. Liberal managerialism is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions much in the same way communism did 30 years ago.

In puffing about climate change while ignoring threats like bio-engineered pandemics and nuclear war, UN junketeers, EU sycophants and Westminster charlatans and all the other globalist risk managers have shown themselves to be incapable of prioritising risks.

In blowing up the world economy, they have also shown themselves to be incapable of managing risks without exposing the planet to even greater dangers.

Most chilling of all perhaps, as this pandemic demonstrates, when managerial elites fail, they fall back on soft totalitarianism and the surveillance state to crawl their countries out of the messes they themselves have, through their sheer incompetence, created.

In the long term, total systems change in Britain now looks more inevitable than ever; we may look back on coronavirus as even more of a catalyst than Brexit in time. But for now, Mr Johnson’s short-term choice in coming weeks is clear: back herd immunity or be prepared to fall with the infirm herd of global elites, who will not survive this disgraceful fiasco.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... collapses/[/quote]
f**king idiot.

Sandstorm wrote:

Winnie wrote:

RodneyRegis wrote:Taxable grant for 3 months, 80% of last 3 years up to £2,500

I'll bet a few who are heavily cash based regret cooking the books now

Fudge ‘em

Although having said that, those who kept their taxable profits below £50k artificially will be laughing.

Seneca of the Night wrote:Good question there from the Mail reporter about mental and physical health problems out the back of this - he hasn't answered it yet . . .

There are more pressing tasks. They have to save the people first.
Someone in here, Saint I think, had already said that the NHS are planning.

RodneyRegis wrote:Trading profits up to £50k. Only if majority of income is from self-employment.

Must have a tax return for 2019.

Sounds very generous. Hopefully catches out all the under-reporters.

Gonna be a slew of late submissions on the way...up to 4 weeks to submit late 2019 returns.

It's very generous.

Some of these questions are sly and loaded as anything though.

They are having to build an entire new system on the fly which could take months or years in a very short period of time ffs.

Seneca of the Night wrote:Sherelle provocative as ever:

(I'll post all of this as it's behind paywall but will spoiler it - there's a helluva lot going on in this)

Spoiler: show

[quote]The PM was panicked into abandoning a sensible Covid-19 strategy, and has plunged society into crisis
SHERELLE JACOBS
DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
Follow 26 MARCH 2020 • 7:00AM

Millions will suffer because world leaders have chosen to follow the herd rather than back herd immunity

Boris Johnson risks being flattened by an obsolete ideology crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions

Beyond the slam of lockdown, does one detect the gentle quivering of a Prime Minister who has lost his nerve? What irony that Boris Johnson’s opponents have failed to pick up on this weakness. In their desperation to whip up hysteria against No 10’s “insufficient” coronavirus response, the liberal media has missed what could prove the century’s biggest scoop.

Namely that, faced with the protestations of the London bubble, the PM has jettisoned the only sensible strategy for dealing with the biggest global crisis since the Second World War. To put lockdown in the most cynical terms, the Government has decided to trash the economy rather than expose itself to political criticism. Unless Mr Johnson U-turns, the fallout could be cataclysmic.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the signs that our new Government would not resort to the same clunky damage control as other countries were reasonable. While Italy shooed people into their homes to stem all infections, the UK’s approach seemed more nuanced – getting the most vulnerable to self-isolate, while allowing lower risk people to get infected on a scale that wouldn’t overwhelm the NHS.

Through this “herd immunity” strategy, a resurgence of the virus after it had seemingly peaked would be avoided. Championed by Dominic Cummings, the approach was creepy, clinical and completely correct.

For a flicker, the Government seemed willing to withstand the paroxysms of its opponents and the shivers of its sympathists to take this long-termist course of action. Yes, it gambled on strong assumptions. But with leadership and clever use of numerical probability scale methods – which incidentally helped a clutch of obscure US superforecasters to actually predict Covid-19 – they may have pulled it off.

Instead, No 10 blinked, ditching herd immunity for an Imperial College research paper, which warned that hundreds of thousands could die without immediate, draconian action. It preposterously argued that lockdown may have to continue for as long as 18 months, until a vaccine is found. This despite the fact there is no scientific consensus (a rival paper claims a few weeks of lockdown may be sufficient).

Its recommendations also entail just as many risks and assumptions as the herd immunity strategy. In its assessment that 500,000 could die if the Government did nothing, the paper did not adequately address the question of how many of these victims would die anyway within a short period of something else.

Its modelling may also have underestimated the NHS’s ability to improve its intensive care capacity (the UK has just okayed medical ventilators that could equip the health service with 30,000 machines). Nor does it factor in the non-coronavirus deaths resulting from lockdown, like suicides.

So why has the PM traded in one controversial strategy for another that is, at the very least, equally vulnerable to deep criticism? Because the same old managerial elite dysfunction that got the world into this mess lingers beneath the surface of virtually all governments, like an undiagnosed cancer; this makes it impossible for them to defeat a simple virus, much like a Covid-19 victim with an “underlying illness”.

Thus “doing the right thing at the right time” has proved no match for wails about the need to be seen to be “doing whatever it takes”. And thus Mr Johnson, and other leaders, have ignored the unquantifiable damage of their actions (from the sinking of the world economy to the sacrifice of the global middle class) in order to meet spurious quantifiable targets.

There is, as usual with the Boris-Cummings duumvirate, a twist, though this time it’s of limited comfort. Rumours are aswirl that they are orchestrating herd immunity by stealth. The story goes that everything from low enforcement of lockdown to the dispersal of asymptomatic school children into family homes, is part of the plan. Critics will call this saving face. But, if true, it hits on the curious blind spot of a so-called populist: Mr Johnson’s insecure reluctance to square with the public.

He should pay heed to Trump, who is raring to get America up and running by Easter lest the cure be worst than the disease. Premature perhaps, but at least he is forcing Americans to frankly debate the trade-offs: millions of livelihoods versus thousands of lives.

One can’t help but wonder whether coronavirus is the West’s Berlin Wall moment. Liberal managerialism is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions much in the same way communism did 30 years ago.

In puffing about climate change while ignoring threats like bio-engineered pandemics and nuclear war, UN junketeers, EU sycophants and Westminster charlatans and all the other globalist risk managers have shown themselves to be incapable of prioritising risks.

In blowing up the world economy, they have also shown themselves to be incapable of managing risks without exposing the planet to even greater dangers.

Most chilling of all perhaps, as this pandemic demonstrates, when managerial elites fail, they fall back on soft totalitarianism and the surveillance state to crawl their countries out of the messes they themselves have, through their sheer incompetence, created.

In the long term, total systems change in Britain now looks more inevitable than ever; we may look back on coronavirus as even more of a catalyst than Brexit in time. But for now, Mr Johnson’s short-term choice in coming weeks is clear: back herd immunity or be prepared to fall with the infirm herd of global elites, who will not survive this disgraceful fiasco.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... collapses/[/quote]

Complete and utter rubbish

Wendigo7 wrote:

RodneyRegis wrote:Trading profits up to £50k. Only if majority of income is from self-employment.

Must have a tax return for 2019.

Sounds very generous. Hopefully catches out all the under-reporters.

Gonna be a slew of late submissions on the way...up to 4 weeks to submit late 2019 returns.

It's very generous.

Some of these questions are sly and loaded as anything though.

They are having to build an entire new system on the fly which could take months or years in a very short period of time ffs.

It does seem they are trying to get a 'gotcha' rather than give more clarity. Of course there are holes, its an emergency ffs.

croyals wrote:

Wendigo7 wrote:

RodneyRegis wrote:Trading profits up to £50k. Only if majority of income is from self-employment.

Must have a tax return for 2019.

Sounds very generous. Hopefully catches out all the under-reporters.

Gonna be a slew of late submissions on the way...up to 4 weeks to submit late 2019 returns.

It's very generous.

Some of these questions are sly and loaded as anything though.

They are having to build an entire new system on the fly which could take months or years in a very short period of time ffs.

It does seem they are trying to get a 'gotcha' rather than give more clarity. Of course there are holes, its an emergency ffs.

They're just trying to get answers to questions that affected people want answers to. It's their job.

On the face of it some of the stuff they've said in the past is v generous, only for it to not look anywhere near as good once people have had a chance to examine it. On the face of this, it's an excellent proposal, so well done them.

JM2K6 wrote:

croyals wrote:

Wendigo7 wrote:

RodneyRegis wrote:Trading profits up to £50k. Only if majority of income is from self-employment.

Must have a tax return for 2019.

Sounds very generous. Hopefully catches out all the under-reporters.

Gonna be a slew of late submissions on the way...up to 4 weeks to submit late 2019 returns.

It's very generous.

Some of these questions are sly and loaded as anything though.

They are having to build an entire new system on the fly which could take months or years in a very short period of time ffs.

It does seem they are trying to get a 'gotcha' rather than give more clarity. Of course there are holes, its an emergency ffs.

They're just trying to get answers to questions that affected people want answers to. It's their job.

On the face of it some of the stuff they've said in the past is v generous, only for it to not look anywhere near as good once people have had a chance to examine it. On the face of this, it's an excellent proposal, so well done them.

I'm not convinced they are but I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.

Sorry, if you (are honest and) earn on average over £50k a year over the past 3 years you get nothing?

Duff Paddy wrote:Sorry, if you (are honest and) earn on average over £50k a year over the past 3 years you get nothing?

No, you're only covered up to £50,000 of earnings, same as the rest of us.

Duff Paddy wrote:Sorry, if you (are honest and) earn on average over £50k a year over the past 3 years you get nothing? :shock:

Capped at £50k.

croyals wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Sorry, if you (are honest and) earn on average over £50k a year over the past 3 years you get nothing?

No, you're only covered up to £50,000 of earnings, same as the rest of us.

Ah. Someone I know in the UK is having a melt down over this

Seneca of the Night wrote:

c69 wrote:

Seneca of the Night wrote:Sherelle provocative as ever:

(I'll post all of this as it's behind paywall but will spoiler it - there's a helluva lot going on in this)

Spoiler: show

[quote]The PM was panicked into abandoning a sensible Covid-19 strategy, and has plunged society into crisis
SHERELLE JACOBS
DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
Follow 26 MARCH 2020 • 7:00AM

Millions will suffer because world leaders have chosen to follow the herd rather than back herd immunity

Boris Johnson risks being flattened by an obsolete ideology crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions

Beyond the slam of lockdown, does one detect the gentle quivering of a Prime Minister who has lost his nerve? What irony that Boris Johnson’s opponents have failed to pick up on this weakness. In their desperation to whip up hysteria against No 10’s “insufficient” coronavirus response, the liberal media has missed what could prove the century’s biggest scoop.

Namely that, faced with the protestations of the London bubble, the PM has jettisoned the only sensible strategy for dealing with the biggest global crisis since the Second World War. To put lockdown in the most cynical terms, the Government has decided to trash the economy rather than expose itself to political criticism. Unless Mr Johnson U-turns, the fallout could be cataclysmic.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the signs that our new Government would not resort to the same clunky damage control as other countries were reasonable. While Italy shooed people into their homes to stem all infections, the UK’s approach seemed more nuanced – getting the most vulnerable to self-isolate, while allowing lower risk people to get infected on a scale that wouldn’t overwhelm the NHS.

Through this “herd immunity” strategy, a resurgence of the virus after it had seemingly peaked would be avoided. Championed by Dominic Cummings, the approach was creepy, clinical and completely correct.

For a flicker, the Government seemed willing to withstand the paroxysms of its opponents and the shivers of its sympathists to take this long-termist course of action. Yes, it gambled on strong assumptions. But with leadership and clever use of numerical probability scale methods – which incidentally helped a clutch of obscure US superforecasters to actually predict Covid-19 – they may have pulled it off.

Instead, No 10 blinked, ditching herd immunity for an Imperial College research paper, which warned that hundreds of thousands could die without immediate, draconian action. It preposterously argued that lockdown may have to continue for as long as 18 months, until a vaccine is found. This despite the fact there is no scientific consensus (a rival paper claims a few weeks of lockdown may be sufficient).

Its recommendations also entail just as many risks and assumptions as the herd immunity strategy. In its assessment that 500,000 could die if the Government did nothing, the paper did not adequately address the question of how many of these victims would die anyway within a short period of something else.

Its modelling may also have underestimated the NHS’s ability to improve its intensive care capacity (the UK has just okayed medical ventilators that could equip the health service with 30,000 machines). Nor does it factor in the non-coronavirus deaths resulting from lockdown, like suicides.

So why has the PM traded in one controversial strategy for another that is, at the very least, equally vulnerable to deep criticism? Because the same old managerial elite dysfunction that got the world into this mess lingers beneath the surface of virtually all governments, like an undiagnosed cancer; this makes it impossible for them to defeat a simple virus, much like a Covid-19 victim with an “underlying illness”.

Thus “doing the right thing at the right time” has proved no match for wails about the need to be seen to be “doing whatever it takes”. And thus Mr Johnson, and other leaders, have ignored the unquantifiable damage of their actions (from the sinking of the world economy to the sacrifice of the global middle class) in order to meet spurious quantifiable targets.

There is, as usual with the Boris-Cummings duumvirate, a twist, though this time it’s of limited comfort. Rumours are aswirl that they are orchestrating herd immunity by stealth. The story goes that everything from low enforcement of lockdown to the dispersal of asymptomatic school children into family homes, is part of the plan. Critics will call this saving face. But, if true, it hits on the curious blind spot of a so-called populist: Mr Johnson’s insecure reluctance to square with the public.

He should pay heed to Trump, who is raring to get America up and running by Easter lest the cure be worst than the disease. Premature perhaps, but at least he is forcing Americans to frankly debate the trade-offs: millions of livelihoods versus thousands of lives.

One can’t help but wonder whether coronavirus is the West’s Berlin Wall moment. Liberal managerialism is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions much in the same way communism did 30 years ago.

In puffing about climate change while ignoring threats like bio-engineered pandemics and nuclear war, UN junketeers, EU sycophants and Westminster charlatans and all the other globalist risk managers have shown themselves to be incapable of prioritising risks.

In blowing up the world economy, they have also shown themselves to be incapable of managing risks without exposing the planet to even greater dangers.

Most chilling of all perhaps, as this pandemic demonstrates, when managerial elites fail, they fall back on soft totalitarianism and the surveillance state to crawl their countries out of the messes they themselves have, through their sheer incompetence, created.

In the long term, total systems change in Britain now looks more inevitable than ever; we may look back on coronavirus as even more of a catalyst than Brexit in time. But for now, Mr Johnson’s short-term choice in coming weeks is clear: back herd immunity or be prepared to fall with the infirm herd of global elites, who will not survive this disgraceful fiasco.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... collapses/

So what are Sherrelle's qualifications regarding medicine?

Is that required?[/quote]

I don't think so, but it would be nice if she understood that the same source of data influenced both strategies, that there was no consensus for the original path but at least this one has international support, and that if only a few weeks lockdown is sufficient then great, we'll actually find out sooner rather than later...

Seneca of the Night wrote:

c69 wrote:

Seneca of the Night wrote:Sherelle provocative as ever:

(I'll post all of this as it's behind paywall but will spoiler it - there's a helluva lot going on in this)

Spoiler: show

[quote]The PM was panicked into abandoning a sensible Covid-19 strategy, and has plunged society into crisis
SHERELLE JACOBS
DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
Follow 26 MARCH 2020 • 7:00AM

Millions will suffer because world leaders have chosen to follow the herd rather than back herd immunity

Boris Johnson risks being flattened by an obsolete ideology crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions

Beyond the slam of lockdown, does one detect the gentle quivering of a Prime Minister who has lost his nerve? What irony that Boris Johnson’s opponents have failed to pick up on this weakness. In their desperation to whip up hysteria against No 10’s “insufficient” coronavirus response, the liberal media has missed what could prove the century’s biggest scoop.

Namely that, faced with the protestations of the London bubble, the PM has jettisoned the only sensible strategy for dealing with the biggest global crisis since the Second World War. To put lockdown in the most cynical terms, the Government has decided to trash the economy rather than expose itself to political criticism. Unless Mr Johnson U-turns, the fallout could be cataclysmic.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the signs that our new Government would not resort to the same clunky damage control as other countries were reasonable. While Italy shooed people into their homes to stem all infections, the UK’s approach seemed more nuanced – getting the most vulnerable to self-isolate, while allowing lower risk people to get infected on a scale that wouldn’t overwhelm the NHS.

Through this “herd immunity” strategy, a resurgence of the virus after it had seemingly peaked would be avoided. Championed by Dominic Cummings, the approach was creepy, clinical and completely correct.

For a flicker, the Government seemed willing to withstand the paroxysms of its opponents and the shivers of its sympathists to take this long-termist course of action. Yes, it gambled on strong assumptions. But with leadership and clever use of numerical probability scale methods – which incidentally helped a clutch of obscure US superforecasters to actually predict Covid-19 – they may have pulled it off.

Instead, No 10 blinked, ditching herd immunity for an Imperial College research paper, which warned that hundreds of thousands could die without immediate, draconian action. It preposterously argued that lockdown may have to continue for as long as 18 months, until a vaccine is found. This despite the fact there is no scientific consensus (a rival paper claims a few weeks of lockdown may be sufficient).

Its recommendations also entail just as many risks and assumptions as the herd immunity strategy. In its assessment that 500,000 could die if the Government did nothing, the paper did not adequately address the question of how many of these victims would die anyway within a short period of something else.

Its modelling may also have underestimated the NHS’s ability to improve its intensive care capacity (the UK has just okayed medical ventilators that could equip the health service with 30,000 machines). Nor does it factor in the non-coronavirus deaths resulting from lockdown, like suicides.

So why has the PM traded in one controversial strategy for another that is, at the very least, equally vulnerable to deep criticism? Because the same old managerial elite dysfunction that got the world into this mess lingers beneath the surface of virtually all governments, like an undiagnosed cancer; this makes it impossible for them to defeat a simple virus, much like a Covid-19 victim with an “underlying illness”.

Thus “doing the right thing at the right time” has proved no match for wails about the need to be seen to be “doing whatever it takes”. And thus Mr Johnson, and other leaders, have ignored the unquantifiable damage of their actions (from the sinking of the world economy to the sacrifice of the global middle class) in order to meet spurious quantifiable targets.

There is, as usual with the Boris-Cummings duumvirate, a twist, though this time it’s of limited comfort. Rumours are aswirl that they are orchestrating herd immunity by stealth. The story goes that everything from low enforcement of lockdown to the dispersal of asymptomatic school children into family homes, is part of the plan. Critics will call this saving face. But, if true, it hits on the curious blind spot of a so-called populist: Mr Johnson’s insecure reluctance to square with the public.

He should pay heed to Trump, who is raring to get America up and running by Easter lest the cure be worst than the disease. Premature perhaps, but at least he is forcing Americans to frankly debate the trade-offs: millions of livelihoods versus thousands of lives.

One can’t help but wonder whether coronavirus is the West’s Berlin Wall moment. Liberal managerialism is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions much in the same way communism did 30 years ago.

In puffing about climate change while ignoring threats like bio-engineered pandemics and nuclear war, UN junketeers, EU sycophants and Westminster charlatans and all the other globalist risk managers have shown themselves to be incapable of prioritising risks.

In blowing up the world economy, they have also shown themselves to be incapable of managing risks without exposing the planet to even greater dangers.

Most chilling of all perhaps, as this pandemic demonstrates, when managerial elites fail, they fall back on soft totalitarianism and the surveillance state to crawl their countries out of the messes they themselves have, through their sheer incompetence, created.

In the long term, total systems change in Britain now looks more inevitable than ever; we may look back on coronavirus as even more of a catalyst than Brexit in time. But for now, Mr Johnson’s short-term choice in coming weeks is clear: back herd immunity or be prepared to fall with the infirm herd of global elites, who will not survive this disgraceful fiasco.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... collapses/

So what are Sherrelle's qualifications regarding medicine?

Is that required?[/quote]


Considering her point is social and economics rather irrelevant.

JM2K6 wrote:

Seneca of the Night wrote:

c69 wrote:

Seneca of the Night wrote:Sherelle provocative as ever:

(I'll post all of this as it's behind paywall but will spoiler it - there's a helluva lot going on in this)

Spoiler: show

[quote]The PM was panicked into abandoning a sensible Covid-19 strategy, and has plunged society into crisis
SHERELLE JACOBS
DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
Follow 26 MARCH 2020 • 7:00AM

Millions will suffer because world leaders have chosen to follow the herd rather than back herd immunity

Boris Johnson risks being flattened by an obsolete ideology crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions

Beyond the slam of lockdown, does one detect the gentle quivering of a Prime Minister who has lost his nerve? What irony that Boris Johnson’s opponents have failed to pick up on this weakness. In their desperation to whip up hysteria against No 10’s “insufficient” coronavirus response, the liberal media has missed what could prove the century’s biggest scoop.

Namely that, faced with the protestations of the London bubble, the PM has jettisoned the only sensible strategy for dealing with the biggest global crisis since the Second World War. To put lockdown in the most cynical terms, the Government has decided to trash the economy rather than expose itself to political criticism. Unless Mr Johnson U-turns, the fallout could be cataclysmic.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the signs that our new Government would not resort to the same clunky damage control as other countries were reasonable. While Italy shooed people into their homes to stem all infections, the UK’s approach seemed more nuanced – getting the most vulnerable to self-isolate, while allowing lower risk people to get infected on a scale that wouldn’t overwhelm the NHS.

Through this “herd immunity” strategy, a resurgence of the virus after it had seemingly peaked would be avoided. Championed by Dominic Cummings, the approach was creepy, clinical and completely correct.

For a flicker, the Government seemed willing to withstand the paroxysms of its opponents and the shivers of its sympathists to take this long-termist course of action. Yes, it gambled on strong assumptions. But with leadership and clever use of numerical probability scale methods – which incidentally helped a clutch of obscure US superforecasters to actually predict Covid-19 – they may have pulled it off.

Instead, No 10 blinked, ditching herd immunity for an Imperial College research paper, which warned that hundreds of thousands could die without immediate, draconian action. It preposterously argued that lockdown may have to continue for as long as 18 months, until a vaccine is found. This despite the fact there is no scientific consensus (a rival paper claims a few weeks of lockdown may be sufficient).

Its recommendations also entail just as many risks and assumptions as the herd immunity strategy. In its assessment that 500,000 could die if the Government did nothing, the paper did not adequately address the question of how many of these victims would die anyway within a short period of something else.

Its modelling may also have underestimated the NHS’s ability to improve its intensive care capacity (the UK has just okayed medical ventilators that could equip the health service with 30,000 machines). Nor does it factor in the non-coronavirus deaths resulting from lockdown, like suicides.

So why has the PM traded in one controversial strategy for another that is, at the very least, equally vulnerable to deep criticism? Because the same old managerial elite dysfunction that got the world into this mess lingers beneath the surface of virtually all governments, like an undiagnosed cancer; this makes it impossible for them to defeat a simple virus, much like a Covid-19 victim with an “underlying illness”.

Thus “doing the right thing at the right time” has proved no match for wails about the need to be seen to be “doing whatever it takes”. And thus Mr Johnson, and other leaders, have ignored the unquantifiable damage of their actions (from the sinking of the world economy to the sacrifice of the global middle class) in order to meet spurious quantifiable targets.

There is, as usual with the Boris-Cummings duumvirate, a twist, though this time it’s of limited comfort. Rumours are aswirl that they are orchestrating herd immunity by stealth. The story goes that everything from low enforcement of lockdown to the dispersal of asymptomatic school children into family homes, is part of the plan. Critics will call this saving face. But, if true, it hits on the curious blind spot of a so-called populist: Mr Johnson’s insecure reluctance to square with the public.

He should pay heed to Trump, who is raring to get America up and running by Easter lest the cure be worst than the disease. Premature perhaps, but at least he is forcing Americans to frankly debate the trade-offs: millions of livelihoods versus thousands of lives.

One can’t help but wonder whether coronavirus is the West’s Berlin Wall moment. Liberal managerialism is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions much in the same way communism did 30 years ago.

In puffing about climate change while ignoring threats like bio-engineered pandemics and nuclear war, UN junketeers, EU sycophants and Westminster charlatans and all the other globalist risk managers have shown themselves to be incapable of prioritising risks.

In blowing up the world economy, they have also shown themselves to be incapable of managing risks without exposing the planet to even greater dangers.

Most chilling of all perhaps, as this pandemic demonstrates, when managerial elites fail, they fall back on soft totalitarianism and the surveillance state to crawl their countries out of the messes they themselves have, through their sheer incompetence, created.

In the long term, total systems change in Britain now looks more inevitable than ever; we may look back on coronavirus as even more of a catalyst than Brexit in time. But for now, Mr Johnson’s short-term choice in coming weeks is clear: back herd immunity or be prepared to fall with the infirm herd of global elites, who will not survive this disgraceful fiasco.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... collapses/

So what are Sherrelle's qualifications regarding medicine?

Is that required?

I don't think so, but it would be nice if she understood that the same source of data influenced both strategies, that there was no consensus for the original path but at least this one has international support, and that if only a few weeks lockdown is sufficient then great, we'll actually find out sooner rather than later...[/quote]


No we will find out this winter and next year if it doesn’t return.

eldanielfire wrote:Dickhead learns lesson:



https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/25/attentio ... -12454901/

I wouldn't mind if he wasn't given any health care tbh.

CM11 wrote:Italy refusing to decline. Still in the 600s for deaths and an extra 1,000 cases over yesterday's total.

I suppose they are very much on a decline from an exponential perspective so that's something, I guess.

Less than a thousand off China's 'total' now

If America repeats yesterday's 13,000+ new cases then they will go from Bronze Medal to Gold Medal tonight.

USA! USA!

OptimisticJock wrote:I wouldn't mind if he wasn't given any health care tbh.

"It's self inflicted - just piss off"

Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

fudge

Very sad. And we know is going to get worse over the next two or three weeks.

Stay at home - protect the NHS

I got into a spat with a friend of mine earlier. He's moved to Wales, works entirely from home, has a wife + young kid. Big house, lots of room. He was idly mentioning going to do shopping at Sainsburies for his family, his elderly neighbours, and his old mum. Then mentioned his entire family's had coughs and colds for the last few weeks.

He really got angry when I suggested he was doing the wrong thing by going out and that the rules are there for a very good reason...

Seneca of the Night wrote:I thought I had it this afternoon - 'vice like headache' - most unpleasant. I think it's caffeine withdrawal though.

Could be Telegraph Click Bait syndrome

Are all the civil servants who can't work at the minute getting a full salary or are they capped at £2500 per month like the punters who pay their wages??

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

And expected regarding the low numbers yesterday extending today’s recording time.

Duff Paddy wrote:

Seneca of the Night wrote:I thought I had it this afternoon - 'vice like headache' - most unpleasant. I think it's caffeine withdrawal though.

Could be Telegraph Click Bait syndrome

TBF, I suspect SON is long since immune.

croyals wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Sorry, if you (are honest and) earn on average over £50k a year over the past 3 years you get nothing?

No, you're only covered up to £50,000 of earnings, same as the rest of us.

I thought this was based on profits not earnings

Frodder wrote:

croyals wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Sorry, if you (are honest and) earn on average over £50k a year over the past 3 years you get nothing?

No, you're only covered up to £50,000 of earnings, same as the rest of us.

I thought this was based on profits not earnings

Profits is how it's reported, yes

JM2K6 wrote:I got into a spat with a friend of mine earlier. He's moved to Wales, works entirely from home, has a wife + young kid. Big house, lots of room. He was idly mentioning going to do shopping at Sainsburies for his family, his elderly neighbours, and his old mum. Then mentioned his entire family's had coughs and colds for the last few weeks.

He really got angry when I suggested he was doing the wrong thing by going out and that the rules are there for a very good reason...

Totally agree with you.

I have those symptoms as well - however common sense would say don't go out so I'm working from home.

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

Averaged over the two days looks better.

Seneca of the Night wrote:

bimboman wrote:

Seneca of the Night wrote:

c69 wrote:

Seneca of the Night wrote:Sherelle provocative as ever:

(I'll post all of this as it's behind paywall but will spoiler it - there's a helluva lot going on in this)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... collapses/

So what are Sherrelle's qualifications regarding medicine?

Is that required?

Considering her point is social and economics rather irrelevant.

She's making a very large political and historical point too. I had a quick wade through the comments on this one - over 3,000 and counting. She's kicked off a civil war amongst Telegraph readers.

I'm not surprised telegraph readers aren't a particularly youthful lot and I expect a lot of them have comorbidities. Key thing with the current strategy is buying us more time to test, isolate, find antiviral options etc... We just don't know enough.

CM11 wrote:

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

Averaged over the two days looks better.

True.

Germany still going up fast, maybe not 25% a day fast, but even so. Shows perhaps that even with a widespread tracing effort, it's not always enough to get ahead of it.

New cases the last 24 hours:
USA 10,871
Spain 6,682
Germany 6,323
Italy 6,203
France 3,922
Iran 2,389
UK 2,129
Belgium 1,298
Austria 1,115
Netherlands 1,019
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

CM11 wrote:

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

Averaged over the two days looks better.

Either way one of them was my aunt, sadly.

dinsdale wrote:

CM11 wrote:

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

Averaged over the two days looks better.

Either way one of them was my aunt, sadly.

Sorry to hear that. Condolences. May she rest in peace.

Winnie wrote:

RodneyRegis wrote:Taxable grant for 3 months, 80% of last 3 years up to £2,500

I'll bet a few who are heavily cash based regret cooking the books now

You reap what you sow I guess.

dinsdale wrote:

CM11 wrote:

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

Averaged over the two days looks better.

Either way one of them was my aunt, sadly.

Condolences.

Raggs wrote:

CM11 wrote:

Raggs wrote:Bad numbers for the UK. Increase of over 2000 cases and 115 deaths.

Averaged over the two days looks better.

True.

Germany still going up fast, maybe not 25% a day fast, but even so. Shows perhaps that even with a widespread tracing effort, it's not always enough to get ahead of it.

Cases and deaths in France look grim too.