New lockdown in England, including school closures, announced by Johnson, 4/1/21

[yorksrob]

I'm very sceptical about the tier system. It will just be the same Northern urban areas that get clobbered.

 

[bramling]

Is that the same Hunt that brutally cut the NHS/ITU beds and drove many doctors and nurses away from the NHS?
If anyone has made this mess worse than it could have been...

I seem to remember Whitty made that point to him at a committee meeting a few months ago. The infamous “ill tempered Whitty exchange”.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Feb 2021 ==

I'm very sceptical about the tier system. It will just be the same Northern urban areas that get clobbered.

The tier system is pointless. Pretty much everywhere has been a “hotspot” at one time or other through this, areas which didn’t get so badly affected first time round got it later, and vice versa, and the new improved version 2.0 seems to have gone the same way.

The only areas which seem to have fared better are those which are heavily rural and with older populations, so the likes of the south-west, Powys, et cetera. No doubt the make-up of these areas has helped improve the effectiveness of shielding.

Tiers are just a stick to beat people with - “obey the rules or your tier raises”. This then of course encourages people to get embroiled in bickering, with each other over perceived “rule breaches”, and between areas when localities feel harder done by. Whilst people are busy bickering over rules and tiers they are conveniently not blaming Boris.

The local elections in May offer a slight opportunity to punish the current crop of politicians, one which I intend to utilise. I’m certainly going to be very active between now and then encouraging others to do same. At this point I feel unable to vote for *any* of the usual parties.

 

[Bertie the bus]

I'm very sceptical about the tier system. It will just be the same Northern urban areas that get clobbered.

Tiers are a reasonable policy if used correctly but they weren’t. The two main problems were areas went up the tiers but it seemed nigh on impossible to move down, unless you were Liverpool and cooperated with a government PR stunt, and as is often the case it was a London centric policy. When the problem was in the North, London was free to carry on as near normal but once it was London that had the problem the whole country was closed down.

 

[yorksrob]

I seem to remember Whitty made that point to him at a committee meeting a few months ago. The infamous “ill tempered Whitty exchange”.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Feb 2021 ==



The tier system is pointless. Pretty much everywhere has been a “hotspot” at one time or other through this, areas which didn’t get so badly affected first time round got it later, and vice versa, and the new improved version 2.0 seems to have gone the same way.

The only areas which seem to have fared better are those which are heavily rural and with older populations, so the likes of the south-west, Powys, et cetera. No doubt the make-up of these areas has helped improve the effectiveness of shielding.

Tiers are just a stick to beat people with - “obey the rules or your tier raises”. This then of course encourages people to get embroiled in bickering, with each other over perceived “rule breaches”, and between areas when localities feel harder done by. Whilst people are busy bickering over rules and tiers they are conveniently not blaming Boris.

Tiers are a reasonable policy if used correctly but they weren’t. The two main problems were areas went up the tiers but it seemed nigh on impossible to move down, unless you were Liverpool and cooperated with a government PR stunt, and as is often the case it was a London centric policy. When the problem was in the North, London was free to carry on as near normal but once it was London that had the problem the whole country was closed down.

Spot on.

 

[bengley]

The tier system can F off.

Many parts of the north west have been in isolation for months now because of this system, despite infection rates being less serious than some areas elsewhere for a lot of the time.

All the tiers do is make people travel to areas with a lower tier to go to the pub or for a meal (which was perfectly legal)

 

[DB]

All the tiers do is make people travel to areas with a lower tier to go to the pub or for a meal (which was perfectly legal)

Yep, true- I'm in a town on the edge of what was a Tier 2 area for a while with two tier 3 areas nearby, and it was quite notieceable that a lot of people were coming from over the borders (which I don't have a problem with, although the locktivists probably do!).

 

[Philip]

I'm very sceptical about the tier system. It will just be the same Northern urban areas that get clobbered.

Tiers are a reasonable policy if used correctly but they weren’t. The two main problems were areas went up the tiers but it seemed nigh on impossible to move down, unless you were Liverpool and cooperated with a government PR stunt, and as is often the case it was a London centric policy. When the problem was in the North, London was free to carry on as near normal but once it was London that had the problem the whole country was closed down.

I don't want to see regional-based tiers. But it frustrates me to see most of the country (including urban areas like Birmingham, Liverpool and London) now seeing rapid decline in cases, whereas 'the northern towns and cities' (specifically Greater Manchester, East Lancashire, Leeds and West Yorkshire) are seeing a much slower decrease, levelling off in some areas.

Why is this? These areas had higher case numbers throughout late Summer and Autumn as well, so in a way it's not surprising they have had more restrictions since July than the rest of the country has had.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The tier system can F off.

Many parts of the north west have been in isolation for months now because of this system, despite infection rates being less serious than some areas elsewhere for a lot of the time.

All the tiers do is make people travel to areas with a lower tier to go to the pub or for a meal (which was perfectly legal)

Tier system was well designed but govt didn't apply the rules that went with it and as a results its now discredited as a result. Anyhow the fundamental problem has always been majority of transmission takes place in a domestic environment and all this faffing about at the periphery with hospitality and sports grounds is so they can seen to being doing something tangible.

 

[HSTEd]

Tiers don't make sense when someone can pass through three or four in half an hour in a car.

 

[yorksrob]

I don't want to see regional-based tiers. But it frustrates me to see most of the country (including urban areas like Birmingham, Liverpool and London) now seeing rapid decline in cases, whereas 'the northern towns and cities' (specifically Greater Manchester, East Lancashire, Leeds and West Yorkshire) are seeing a much slower decrease, levelling off in some areas.

Why is this? These areas had higher case numbers throughout late Summer and Autumn as well, so in a way it's not surprising they have had more restrictions since July than the rest of the country has had.

At the start of this year when the rest of the country had rapidly rising rates, Yorkshire had some of the lowest rates in the country, yet we were still forced into lockdown.

 

[takno]

Tier system was well designed but govt didn't apply the rules that went with it and as a results its now discredited as a result. Anyhow the fundamental problem has always been majority of transmission takes place in a domestic environment and all this faffing about at the periphery with hospitality and sports grounds is so they can seen to being doing something tangible.

Most of the rules that tiers apply are completely pointless because they don't affect schools or homes. The tiers also have baked in the idea that spread is primarily geographical in blatant disregard of how many people travel outside of their locality, and how little different groups of people mix within the locality. They are a waste of time from the ground upwards.

The fact that the movement through levels was all done politically didn't help, but it made no fundamental difference to the fact that they were a meaningless bureaucratic layer on top of a selection of utterly pathetic "interventions" which seem designed from the ground up to inconvenience people without impacting on the disease's spread.

 

[Philip]

At the start of this year when the rest of the country had rapidly rising rates, Yorkshire had some of the lowest rates in the country, yet we were still forced into lockdown.

Yes, but Yorkshire has barely reduced since the start of the year and now many areas in the South and Midlands are nearly at the same level, but continuing to see cases falling off a cliff. Why is the same not happening in these areas of the North?

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, but Yorkshire has barely reduced since the start of the year and now many areas in the South and Midlands are nearly at the same level, but continuing to see cases falling off a cliff. Why is the same not happening in these areas of the North?

But we'll likely end up shoved in a higher tier with no justification.

No, the tiers are pointless.

 

[DB]

Tier system was well designed but govt didn't apply the rules that went with it and as a results its now discredited as a result. Anyhow the fundamental problem has always been majority of transmission takes place in a domestic environment and all this faffing about at the periphery with hospitality and sports grounds is so they can seen to being doing something tangible.

I don't agree - the tier system mostly hammered types of businesses where there was little or no evidence of any significant transmission anyway.

 

[yorksrob]

I don't agree - the tier system mostly hammered types of businesses where there was little or no evidence of any significant transmission anyway.

True indeed. I can remember when it started, the official feedback was:

"The tier three restrictions seemed to work, while tier 2 was a mixed bag, working in some places but not others".

Then when the tier 3 restrictions had to be portrayed as so much more effective than tier 2, this morphed into:

"Tier 3 restrictions made a difference to transmission, ehereas tiers 1 and 2 didn't"

 

[bramling]

Tier system was well designed but govt didn't apply the rules that went with it and as a results its now discredited as a result. Anyhow the fundamental problem has always been majority of transmission takes place in a domestic environment and all this faffing about at the periphery with hospitality and sports grounds is so they can seen to being doing something tangible.

Yes in the case I know at work which has claimed two lives (so far) the initial source of infection was inside a hospital, and further transmission was domestic.

As you say, rather than face up to this reality, much easier to allow people to believe that places like non-essential shops are death traps or someone on an open-air station platform is a toxic germ granny murderer.

 

[Mills444]

Yep far easier to blame on the people then face up to the reality, that once again the government and NHS have f'd up.

 

[DB]

Yep far easier to blame on the people then face up to the reality, that once again the government and NHS have f'd up.

Or that much of it was unavoidable - the usual human exceptionalism is at play here. The reality is that there is no correlation across the world between the measures taken and the outcome - there are countries which have imposed fewer measures but had better outcomes. A lot of it seems down to the demographics and the general health of the population.

 

[PHILIPE]

Neighbouring Tiers on the English/Welsh borders on different levels with pubs open one side but not the other resulted in Hereford's pubs trying to ascertain where a lot of people had come from and refused to serve the "visitors".

 

[bramling]

Or that much of it was unavoidable - the usual human exceptionalism is at play here. The reality is that there is no correlation across the world between the measures taken and the outcome - there are countries which have imposed fewer measures but had better outcomes. A lot of it seems down to the demographics and the general health of the population.

The trouble is that accepting this reality means accepting that the NHS isn’t immortal, and this seems to be a problem for some people. I don’t get why some people go so misty-eyed over the NHS.

To be honest, from what I’m hearing regarding the two people I mentioned who have sadly died recently, the care they received from the NHS was indifferent at best. One was apparently dumped in a room, given an oxygen mask and essentially left to die with a nurse putting their head round the door every couple of hours.

 

[317 forever]

Indeed, this really has got to be the very last lockdown now. No more of this nonsense happening again and the devastating impacts it will have on the economy and mental health of millions. Absolutely has to be the VERY last lockdown now.

Given that we now have vaccines available, with others in the process of gaining approval, I am optimistic that lockdowns like these should not be necessary again. Furthermore, sad as these Covid deaths are, the death figures are fewer than might have been expected as "ordinary flu" has barely even arisen this winter.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

As you say, rather than face up to this reality, much easier to allow people to believe that places like non-essential shops are death traps or someone on an open-air station platform is a toxic germ granny murderer.

Trouble is people are judging this on what they can see not what they can't and like an iceberg most of the problem is hidden

 

[bramling]

Trouble is people are judging this on what they can see not what they can't and like an iceberg most of the problem is hidden

Very nicely put. Of course the government is happy to allow people to go on with this, in fact at times encouraging it, as it moves the spotlight off other issues like transmission in hospital settings.

It’s much easier to blame things on a load of teenagers having a house party than admit that transmission inside the NHS is a major problem.

 

[packermac]

The trouble is that accepting this reality means accepting that the NHS isn’t immortal, and this seems to be a problem for some people. I don’t get why some people go so misty-eyed over the NHS.

To be honest, from what I’m hearing regarding the two people I mentioned who have sadly died recently, the care they received from the NHS was indifferent at best. One was apparently dumped in a room, given an oxygen mask and essentially left to die with a nurse putting their head round the door every couple of hours.

People get "misty eyed" as you put it because it is healthcare basically free at source. We pay nearly £400 per month for healthcare for two of us, does not cover all occurrences and even when you are ill like, all insurance companies they tray and find all ways not to pay out.
Non NHS Covid hospital treatment would be eye wateringly expensive.

 

[XAM2175]

To be honest, from what I’m hearing regarding the two people I mentioned who have sadly died recently, the care they received from the NHS was indifferent at best. One was apparently dumped in a room, given an oxygen mask and essentially left to die with a nurse putting their head round the door every couple of hours.

I don't want to diminish how much of a distressing experience this must have been for all involved, but I do think the present circumstances are not the best indicators of how the service performs in more "ordinary" circumstances.

 

[tommy2215]

Its interesting how despite all the new much more transmissible variants, cases in the UK, South Africa, most of the EU, the US, India and others are falling, in some cases very rapidly. In India, public heath experts were expecting the virus to surge in January; instead the exact opposite happened. Assuming they are reliable, Worldometer shows that since January 12th the 7 day global case average has fallen from 742k cases to under 500k. 1) Why are the media not reporting this? 2) Despite the new variants, the widespread falls coupled with increased vaccinations makes it look like the end of the pandemic looks like is indeed in sight, and we are going a bit over the top with regards to the variants.

 

[brad465]

Its interesting how despite all the new much more transmissible variants, cases in the UK, South Africa, most of the EU, the US, India and others are falling, in some cases very rapidly. In India, public heath experts were expecting the virus to surge in January; instead the exact opposite happened. Assuming they are reliable, Worldometer shows that since January 12th the 7 day global case average has fallen from 742k cases to under 500k. 1) Why are the media not reporting this? 2) Despite the new variants, the widespread falls coupled with increased vaccinations makes it look like the end of the pandemic looks like is indeed in sight, and we are going a bit over the top with regards to the variants.

Yes I've been seeing that as well. The media probably isn't reporting it because it's not so much in the way of bad news. However, even though this is good news from a global perspective, it's not very thorough/significant yet: deaths worldwide are only just starting to fall given the lag, active cases hasn't started falling yet either, but will no doubt do so soon. The surge worldwide does appear to correlate perfectly with the Northern Hemisphere winter, which holds the majority of the world population and much of the Europe, the US and parts of east Asia all saw increases as a result that are now coming down. Fast forward to the end of February and I can see the global picture being significantly better.

 

[Tracked]

Just been on a shopping trip to Morrison's, they've got a new ruling on the self service machines saying only one person can be at each machine. As usual there's no enforcement of social distancing in the rest of the store. It's one of these things where you think it's probably a good idea given the situation, but then wonder why they've waited 11 months to introduce it as cases are declining and people are being vaccinated. The other thing was that 2nd person in the three lots of people I saw being told about this was going and standing the other side of the aisle to the exit from the self service machines, so instead of packing shopping with someone in their support bubble they were standing with strangers and being passed by other strangers leaving the shop (there isn't enough space to apply the two metre rule properly either).

The queuing to get in is supposedly still on, though I've never seen it happening when I've been past.

Not sure if it's the same at their other stores, but this one brought back the queuing system (the Trolley/Handbasket queues version) in the shop for about a fortnight last September, abandoning it before we went into Tier 3 and the new Lockdowns ...

 

[brad465]

Some more good stats coming in today, with 12 million the total of first vaccine doses now, and only 373 reported deaths (down from 587 on the same day last week). Looking at how the deaths' graph is shaping in comparison to the hospital occupancy one, I do think the vaccine being targeted at those most at risk of death is having an effect now, as the deaths' graph is falling more rapidly (down 23.3% over last 7 days, compared to hospital admissions being down 19.7%):

UKHSA data dashboard

Showing public health data across England

coronavirus.data.gov.uk

 

[bramling]

Just been on a shopping trip to Morrison's, they've got a new ruling on the self service machines saying only one person can be at each machine. As usual there's no enforcement of social distancing in the rest of the store. It's one of these things where you think it's probably a good idea given the situation, but then wonder why they've waited 11 months to introduce it as cases are declining and people are being vaccinated. The other thing was that 2nd person in the three lots of people I saw being told about this was going and standing the other side of the aisle to the exit from the self service machines, so instead of packing shopping with someone in their support bubble they were standing with strangers and being passed by other strangers leaving the shop (there isn't enough space to apply the two metre rule properly either).

The queuing to get in is supposedly still on, though I've never seen it happening when I've been past.

Not sure if it's the same at their other stores, but this one brought back the queuing system (the Trolley/Handbasket queues version) in the shop for about a fortnight last September, abandoning it before we went into Tier 3 and the new Lockdowns ...

I got told off about that in a Tesco’s (in Wales, not my local) last year. It’s quite bizarre.