The Lemon Fool

MrFoolish wrote:Did I just hear Chris Whitty saying the cases are flat, whilst showing a chart of rapidly rising cases?

I haven't watched the whole thing but perhaps it was a slip of the tongue and he meant to say hospitalisations and deaths? But then again the case numbers have been hovering in the 30,000 to 50,000 range for literally months now, since about 16th July when daily new cases just breached the 50,000 mark. Since then we haven't seen a break-out from that range so I'm not sure it's entirely unreasonable to still categorise the daily cases trend as roughly flat and at an admittedly fairly rocky post-July plateau as opposed to showing signs of another surge upwards. That upward surge might yet happen but personally I don't see it in the data yet.

- Julian

Julian wrote:

MrFoolish wrote:Did I just hear Chris Whitty saying the cases are flat, whilst showing a chart of rapidly rising cases?

I haven't watched the whole thing but perhaps it was a slip of the tongue and he meant to say hospitalisations and deaths? But then again the case numbers have been hovering in the 30,000 to 50,000 range for literally months now, since about 16th July when daily new cases just breached the 50,000 mark. Since then we haven't seen a break-out from that range so I'm not sure it's entirely unreasonable to still categorise the daily cases trend as roughly flat and at an admittedly fairly rocky post-July plateau as opposed to showing signs of another surge upwards. That upward surge might yet happen but personally I don't see it in the data yet.

- Julian

You have to remember which data source that is referencing, it underreports cases as it only counts those who report their symptoms and positive tests.

If you look at the Zoe data then you get a different picture
https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/worrying ... ases-a-day

And the ONS figures are again different.

John

XFool wrote:Let’s not pretend the anti-mask babies would have lasted a minute in the blitz

The Guardian

It’s funny that so many of those who bang on about the ‘war effort’ seem unable to do something minor for the public good

Although ironically I suspect that most of them would have loved to have had a mask to wear during the blitz. A couple of documentaries I have seen have punctured some of the more idealised retelling of the London blitz experience, in particular everyone sleeping in the tube stations where what you can't see on the news reels (obviously!) is what was apparently the absolutely appalling stench from so many people packed into a tight space for hours on end with totally inadequate quite often bucket-based toilet facilities. Yuk!

- Julian

Amazing: I heard Jenny Harries give what sounded to me like a rational opinion on Today this morning and a little advice. Now we have various politicians jumping up and down in righteous indignation.

What she said was perfectly reasonable: that if we want to slow down the spread, we should reduce social contact. To be fair, she wasn't at all suggesting we should "cancel Christmas" or not socialise. In her words she suggested cutting down unecessary social contact " a little" - and this would seem quite rational. This would suggest to me she had in mind going to that family gathering or whatever, but withdrawing in other ways to achieve a reduction of contact overall. (A bit like my diet days making up for indulging days!)

Wouldn't it extraordinary if in return for this mild piece common sense advice she was hounded out of her job?

This was her opinion as a technical professional, as distinct from government policy, and frankly, there is no conflict except from those who try to make it so. Government policy is an amalgam of all the advice plus a dose of what is possible.

Arb.

Arborbridge wrote:Wouldn't it extraordinary if in return for this mild piece common sense advice she was hounded out of her job?

This was her opinion as a technical professional, as distinct from government policy, and frankly, there is no conflict except from those who try to make it so. Government policy is an amalgam of all the advice plus a dose of what is possible.

In the immortal words of Taylor Swift "Haters gonna hate"
If they can get air time by pointing at someone doing the right thing and blowing a raspberry I guess that's what they'll do.

it's a bit sad and frankly a bit worrying if you can be disparaged because your common sense comes across as a bit different to the party line
- some places have re-education camps for that kind of thing; I'm guessing her detractors can rely on the Sun to do it for them (for now)

- sd

servodude wrote:

Arborbridge wrote:Wouldn't it extraordinary if in return for this mild piece common sense advice she was hounded out of her job?

This was her opinion as a technical professional, as distinct from government policy, and frankly, there is no conflict except from those who try to make it so. Government policy is an amalgam of all the advice plus a dose of what is possible.

In the immortal words of Taylor Swift "Haters gonna hate"
If they can get air time by pointing at someone doing the right thing and blowing a raspberry I guess that's what they'll do.

it's a bit sad and frankly a bit worrying if you can be disparaged because your common sense comes across as a bit different to the party line
- some places have re-education camps for that kind of thing; I'm guessing her detractors can rely on the Sun to do it for them (for now)

- sd

It's difficult to make a comment here which isn't political, but I expect there are people who might think that the PM has done it again by speaking out against, and I would say misinterpreting, what Jenny Harries said. She didn't remotely saying anything like "cancel Christmas", or "cancel Christmas get-togethers", (see said it would be helpful to reduce socal contact a little) yet this has been made to as though she was contradicting her ultimate boss when he reacted to the apparent confict of views. I'm undecided when this is meedja stirring or the top man confusing everyone again. Reconciling what the two parties in this said is very easy: blowing out of proportion is also, unfortunately, very easy.

Arb.

Arborbridge wrote:

servodude wrote:

Arborbridge wrote:Wouldn't it extraordinary if in return for this mild piece common sense advice she was hounded out of her job?

This was her opinion as a technical professional, as distinct from government policy, and frankly, there is no conflict except from those who try to make it so. Government policy is an amalgam of all the advice plus a dose of what is possible.

In the immortal words of Taylor Swift "Haters gonna hate"
If they can get air time by pointing at someone doing the right thing and blowing a raspberry I guess that's what they'll do.

it's a bit sad and frankly a bit worrying if you can be disparaged because your common sense comes across as a bit different to the party line
- some places have re-education camps for that kind of thing; I'm guessing her detractors can rely on the Sun to do it for them (for now)

- sd

It's difficult to make a comment here which isn't political, but I expect there are people who might think that the PM has done it again by speaking out against, and I would say misinterpreting, what Jenny Harries said. She didn't remotely saying anything like "cancel Christmas", or "cancel Christmas get-togethers", (see said it would be helpful to reduce socal contact a little) yet this has been made to as though she was contradicting her ultimate boss when he reacted to the apparent confict of views. I'm undecided when this is meedja stirring or the top man confusing everyone again. Reconciling what the two parties in this said is very easy: blowing out of proportion is also, unfortunately, very easy.

Arb.

It strikes me that politics demands binary. Black or white, yes or no, heads or tails, everyone must always do this, or must always do that.

Jenny Harries' message was nuanced which never plays well in politics.

Politicians, media etc generally respond to nuance by translating it back into binary thereby deleting the nuance, and appears to be what's happening here.

Mike4 wrote:

Arborbridge wrote:

servodude wrote:
In the immortal words of Taylor Swift "Haters gonna hate"
If they can get air time by pointing at someone doing the right thing and blowing a raspberry I guess that's what they'll do.

it's a bit sad and frankly a bit worrying if you can be disparaged because your common sense comes across as a bit different to the party line
- some places have re-education camps for that kind of thing; I'm guessing her detractors can rely on the Sun to do it for them (for now)

- sd

It's difficult to make a comment here which isn't political, but I expect there are people who might think that the PM has done it again by speaking out against, and I would say misinterpreting, what Jenny Harries said. She didn't remotely saying anything like "cancel Christmas", or "cancel Christmas get-togethers", (see said it would be helpful to reduce socal contact a little) yet this has been made to as though she was contradicting her ultimate boss when he reacted to the apparent confict of views. I'm undecided when this is meedja stirring or the top man confusing everyone again. Reconciling what the two parties in this said is very easy: blowing out of proportion is also, unfortunately, very easy.

Arb.

It strikes me that politics demands binary. Black or white, yes or no, heads or tails, everyone must always do this, or must always do that.

Jenny Harries' message was nuanced which never plays well in politics.

Politicians, media etc generally respond to nuance by translating it back into binary thereby deleting the nuance, and appears to be what's happening here.

I made a conscientious effort to stay away from politics in my post

I think quite strongly that you shouldn't berate anyone for their objective analysis of a situation; but there's a tranche that equate subjective "opinion" with an analytical professional "opinion'

We see them here regularly with their "that's just like your opinion man" rejoinders; and while I mostly find that offensive because I'm a fan of "The Dude" it's also just boring sub-sixth form trolling cunnery

But apparently it's really popular!?
- seriously George Carlin was right! (About lots... but especially "average people", "words you can't say" .... and "Wyld Stallions!" obviously)

Be excellent to each other
- and if you find your paper of choice being mean to a lady because she made a decent suggestion consider your subscription.... and possibly your values?

-sd

servodude wrote:
Be excellent to each other
- and if you find your paper of choice being mean to a lady because she made a decent suggestion consider your subscription.... and possibly your values?

-sd

Well yes indeed. But the problem here isn't simply a subscription ca\ncellation, but comments made by a top man who could undermine this person't career for his own purposes. Frankly, I'm not sure if this is No.10 briefing, MPs getting uppity about being given advice they don't like by an expert, journos exacerbating, or a combination of all these things.

My main concern is that this technical expert shouldn't be villified for giving an ably reasoned and moderate piece of advice.

Arb.

Arborbridge wrote:Amazing: I heard Jenny Harries give what sounded to me like a rational opinion on Today this morning and a little advice. Now we have various politicians jumping up and down in righteous indignation. ...

I agree with all the outrage here at the reaction from some to what sounded like good common sense advice. I really hope that she doesn't get hounded out of her job.

I didn't hear the interview but one thing I have noticed on BBC2 Newsnight is that when they have someone like a SAGE committee member on the program, either in a one-on-one interview or as a participant in one of those multi-participant video-panel discussions that they sometimes do, they are usually very careful to include a "Dr/Professor X is a member of SAGE/some-other-government-role but is speaking in a personal capacity tonight" disclaimer up front to emphasise that what he/she is saying are personal opinions and not necessarily official government policy/advice. Does the Today program tend to use such disclaimers as appropriate?

Even if such a disclaimer was used it probably wouldn't have stopped all criticism, as servodude said "haters gonna hate", but it wouldn't have done any harm and might have diffused things at least very slightly.

- Julian

servodude wrote:

Arborbridge wrote:Wouldn't it extraordinary if in return for this mild piece common sense advice she was hounded out of her job?

This was her opinion as a technical professional, as distinct from government policy, and frankly, there is no conflict except from those who try to make it so. Government policy is an amalgam of all the advice plus a dose of what is possible.

In the immortal words of Taylor Swift "Haters gonna hate"
If they can get air time by pointing at someone doing the right thing and blowing a raspberry I guess that's what they'll do.
...

Hopefully Jenny Harries will just shake it off.

- Julian

Mike4 wrote:It strikes me that politics demands binary. Black or white, yes or no, heads or tails, everyone must always do this, or must always do that.

Jenny Harries' message was nuanced which never plays well in politics.

Politicians, media etc generally respond to nuance by translating it back into binary thereby deleting the nuance, and appears to be what's happening here.

My private working definition of "Journalism" is: A machine for turning reality into a string* of clichés.

* The word "string" (one dimensional) is not casually chosen.

servodude wrote:

Mike4 wrote:It strikes me that politics demands binary. Black or white, yes or no, heads or tails, everyone must always do this, or must always do that.

Jenny Harries' message was nuanced which never plays well in politics.

Politicians, media etc generally respond to nuance by translating it back into binary thereby deleting the nuance, and appears to be what's happening here.

I made a conscientious effort to stay away from politics in my post

This is the dilemma we get into with discussions on this board. Politics is expressly disallowed here, and yet ultimately how to handle Covid is a political issue. So conversations here typically exhaust what is possible to resolve with just the sciencey bits, and then we have to stop just at the point where we get to the crux of the matter.

It is like trying to write a book using only half the letters of the alphabet.

Lootman wrote:This is the dilemma we get into with discussions on this board.

It is like trying to write a book using only half the letters of the alphabet.

Well somebody once (in fact I believe more than one person!) wrote a book without ever using the letter 'e'. If I remember correctly the one I have in mind was by a French author and, in English, was titled 'Avoid' (or 'A Void').

P.S. Titled: 'A Void'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void

Lootman wrote:

servodude wrote:

Mike4 wrote:It strikes me that politics demands binary. Black or white, yes or no, heads or tails, everyone must always do this, or must always do that.

Jenny Harries' message was nuanced which never plays well in politics.

Politicians, media etc generally respond to nuance by translating it back into binary thereby deleting the nuance, and appears to be what's happening here.

I made a conscientious effort to stay away from politics in my post

This is the dilemma we get into with discussions on this board. Politics is expressly disallowed here, and yet ultimately how to handle Covid is a political issue. So conversations here typically exhaust what is possible to resolve with just the sciencey bits, and then we have to stop just at the point where we get to the crux of the matter.

It is like trying to write a book using only half the letters of the alphabet.

Well I think the 'no politics' rule really means no party politics. I don't think the mods would have any problem with my comment that a scientist's professional opinion will be viewed by politicians through the lens of politics. Which is pretty much your opinion too, I think...

Mike4 wrote:

Lootman wrote:

servodude wrote:I made a conscientious effort to stay away from politics in my post

This is the dilemma we get into with discussions on this board. Politics is expressly disallowed here, and yet ultimately how to handle Covid is a political issue. So conversations here typically exhaust what is possible to resolve with just the sciencey bits, and then we have to stop just at the point where we get to the crux of the matter.

It is like trying to write a book using only half the letters of the alphabet.

Well I think the 'no politics' rule really means no party politics.

Do you? Um...

I'd think that too, or rather that is what I would expect. However...

XFool wrote:Covid-19 variants may not evolve to be less dangerous, says Neil Ferguson

The Guardian

Senior UK scientist says extent of threat posed by Omicron will not be clear until end of year

“Most of the transmission has already happened by the time people get hospitalised,” Ferguson told the Commons science and technology committee. “The virus cares about replicating very fast within the respiratory tract and getting out into the environment. If that happens to kill somebody 10 days later the virus really doesn’t care.”

"The virus cares"?!? Oh Neil what are you doing?
I know what you're trying to say but surely you could have found words that weren't literally false to say them?

-sd