[Link]

*Cough* Boris whispers from the side of his mouth to Hancock.
"Let's move the goalposts again'

Here's a suggestion? Maybe hold onto the 100 million extra doses you were going to donate to poorer countries?

Edited by Jimenez (15 Jun 2021 10.44pm)

Pro USA & Israel

Ooh saucer of milk for the old tart. Rather brave and saucy. You probably walk with a crayon up your &rse.

I’ve read the text and none of those numbers should influence someone in power to damage the country and ruin people now and in the future. Further it mentions most of those complaining have health problems in deprived areas, which I expect many have brought upon themselves through drinking and smoking and eating excessive amounts of Sh1t lazy food. Should we ruin everyone else who isn’t a comfortable work from homer and probably other working class strugglers working in industries relying on socialising? No, definitely not. This protection of everyone is unrealistic and punishing responsible people and those who are actually going to get the country out of this by being useful, productive and working. I haven’t heard of one person ‘suffering’ from long Covid and I think I’m beginning to learn why. I suspect a lot are either shirkers or the obese types who moan if someone lurks within 2 metres of them or doesn’t wear a mask leaving the pub during their 8th drink and 15th fag in the pub.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (15 Jun 2021 11.46pm)

COYP

But does long covid still exist as an anticipated outcome now that most people are vaccinated or is it only really affecting those who caught a serious dose of the virus pre vaccine?

Post viral syndromes occur with a lot of viruses, glandular fever being a prime example. Depending on the severity of the initial dose the symptoms of glandular fever and the impact upon the liver can recur for many years. However a smaller dose means many recover after the initial illness.

In short, it would make sense that in the future, long covid is unlikely to be the threat that it was at the start of the pandemic.

I indicated up the thread the issue of race related conflict caused by a perception of those more likely to get the bug being less likely to have the jab. I was unsure of a solution.

Could compulsory vaccs for care home workers where those of colour are also disproportionately represented be a cheeky way around the issue?

Extending that to the NHS would also be effective in this way.

(Obvs, they would also be effective in other ways)

Cummings has just posted a load of info on his substack

[Link]

Well worth a read. Particular highlights for me...

No10 and Hancock are seeking to rewrite history:
They are trying to ‘memory-hole’ the original Q1 2020 debacle. The reality of the ‘optimal single peak strategy’ with herd immunity by September is in SAGE documents, COBR documents and was briefed by Hancock, CSA, CMO and No10 press office at the time and SAGE members explained it on TV. The reality is reflected in many emails/WhatsApps. Covid was the biggest crisis faced by Westminster since WWII. The No10/Hancock line now is as if No10 had said in summer 1940, ‘yes, our appeasement plan A was a great success on Hitler as you can all see, we didn’t need any Plan B, appeasement then fight them on the beaches was the original plan’.

D. The PM’s defence of Hancock sends an unmistakeable signal across the system: a Secretary of State will be rewarded despite repeated incompetence and dishonesty and the government machine will seek to rewrite history in Orwellian fashion because the PM thinks it in his personal interests to do so. Any decent person in Westminster ought to be appalled by this behaviour.

This is why even on 18 March, a SAGE member emailed me, the Cabinet Secretary and Hancock’s Permanent Secretary saying we would look back on SAGE discussions as ‘a strange dream’ because lockdown had not even been discussed: ‘Literally all the models assume that there will be a full-blown epidemic, and its just a matter of how much it can be drawn out, compressed, or the herd immunity directed to one section or another of the population’ because thinking was based on assumptions (no test-trace, population won’t listen to tough rules, reinfection from abroad etc) and ‘Once you take these assumptions for granted, the only paths that exist are to achieve herd immunity’. But, he rightly said, suppression should be considered partly because the imminent collapse of the NHS was so horrific and because ‘prior models and assumptions are WRONG [emphasis in original]. We could do this, ie a total lockdown. We’ll look back on it like a strange dream, but we could – and should – do it.’

Also bear in mind: Hancock’s appalling prioritisation of gaming the lobby worked to a large extent 2020-1. When you will do anything for tomorrow’s papers, this earns you favours that are repaid when you fail. This sort of deep incentive problem is central to Westminster’s performance.

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When I had a separate meeting with officials on PPE supplies, I heard the following terrible news, flatly contradicting Hancock: we won’t get most of our PPE deliveries until long after the April peak.

Me: Why?

Official: That’s how long it takes to ship.

Me [extreme sinking feeling]: What do you mean ‘ship’, surely we’re flying everything now?

Official: No, that’s against the [procurement] rules, we ship everything because it’s much cheaper.

Me (close to the most angry/appalled I was in 18 months): After this meeting, call the airlines, tell them we’re hiring their planes, their entire business is dead so you’ll be able to get a great deal, get officials figuring out where the nearest airfields are in China to the factories with our stuff, then fly the planes to those airfields, collect our stuff, fly it back, and tell everybody we’re flying stuff in an emergency not shipping it…

Official: Umm, will you get the Private Office to put that in writing. [A standard comment in such meetings.]

Me: Yes the PM will take full legal responsibility.

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Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

Me too, it is commonly used to describe an unspecific mode of delivery.