No, I don't think phones come into it. You're just supposed to use two plastic beakers or old soup cans connected by a bit of string.

Incidentally, if anyone doesn't know why our death rate's so appalling: the government's priority was to protect NHS intensive-care units from overload. That is, of course, their priority at all times, and if you've had any recent dealings with the currently underfunded NHS you'll know what that means. It means that vulnerable and often elderly patients are shovelled out to 'care homes' at the earliest possible moment, to release beds. And the goverment ordered that this should be done even if the patients still had Covid symptoms. (Because the government cares only about headlines and appearances, and not about lives.) So the disease is ravaging care homes like wildfire, and the numbers, the worst in the world except for Spain's, are not dropping as they are in other countries.

And the government is now easing certain lockdown conditions, for the sake of headlines, even though the experts' tests which have to be met before that can take place have not in fact been met. You vote a morally oblivious narcissist like Johnson into No.10 and this is what happens. People die. A lot of people die.

Situation is really worrying. Lockdown is being relaxed and it's too clearly far too early. The experts are obviously very worried about it and even the government alert system is still on 4.

Policing the relaxation would be impossible even without cummings which is making it worse. I hope I'm wrong but we appear to be heading straight back into the storm.

Of course we are. The current level of deaths (7 day average) is greater than when we entered lock down. The government can talk as much as it wants about safe distances, but it's irrelevant if commuters have to return to work on overcrowded trains.

Most of the country will get this at some point, unless it disappears during summer and a vaccine is available to everyone in record time.

I thought it was already accepted that bojo, sorry I mean cummings, is still going for herd immunity... they just needed the correct framing.

because trends are irrelevant

I loved that we have a five level system and immediately declared that we are between levels three and four. Just make it a six level system.

There's no plausible deniability if you do that. Why would this circus want clearly defined targets when they operate in fuzzy bullshit as an MO?

Aka the German model.

On this point, Twatter have summarised the minutes from the SAGE meetings in Feb/March, and... jfc.

The herd immunity discussion is missing the point (as per usual I have to say). There is as serious danger we are heading into another emergency. Maybe lesser than the first one but maybe not.

Some of us have a choice and hopefully there's enough of us to keep R under control despite the government but so many are not going to have a choice about going back to work and so many are just going to chose to do stupid things.

There is a reason why contact tracing would no longer be useful.

It's nearly June and I seriously doubt we can do it even now. Maybe in a few weeks time if we're very lucky.

no scientific cover for this dangerous government approach either

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52849691

You're not risking anything if you stick to the rules and can work from home, if you do get it however, you can inform the authorities of your whereabouts as best you can.

But in a week where how little regards Cummings has shown for "infecting friends, colleagues and elderly relatives", you really think you've hit the right note there? JFC....

These are minutes from February and March, so when we were in single digit infections.

I think the lifting of restrictions is based on casual observation rather than science. Aside from countries with strict lockdowns, as far as I am aware there have been no signs of second waves in countries that have opened schools, bars, etc.

Considering the need to get the economy moving, and the scientific advice received thus far, this decision is defendable but I agree it's a political gamble.

Whatever, neither point explains why people are going to be more motivated to spite Cummings than infect their families with covid.

There were already a significant number of infectious people spreading it with and R of ~5 and no way to identify them until many more were infected. There was then no way to identify the vast majority of those newly infect people and so on. That was despite the fact we had been contract tracing up to that point.

Other countries are seeing problems, even South Korea. But we are in way worse place regarding infections and we have an unproven contact tracing system (to put it politely).

Tragically I'm finding the same people who didn't want to lockdown in the first place and then blamed the government for delaying it, are now demanding an easing of the lockdown with a very good chance they will soon be blaming the government for easing it too quickly. Not referring to you but the people I was persuading to start locking down in early march - I think it's a common theme though.

Fine, but the point is that when we had <10 infections, SAGE were advising suppression measures would be ineffective and likely just cause a second wave.

As far as South Korea goes, I covered that point when referring to non-lockdown countries.

I travel to work on the train and very uncomfortable for about 2 weeks before we actually locked down, thought we should have locked down sooner, and was relieved when it came in.

It appears to me there is a non-zero chance the lockdown measures were announced to divert from Cummings - why on earth announce an easing of social measures before the weekend when they are only going to be implemented from Monday?

BJ should have announced it Sunday/Monday night in the same style he did when locking down. My local supermarket was rammed yesterday, presumably with people who had just been paid their monthly salary buying food and drink for parties at the weekend, at least judging on how empty the alcohol shelves were.

Yes they were advising there would be a point where it would be ineffective because it was getting worse even with those measures. That's the problem when it's growing so fast - once it's past the ability to contain it's too late to pull back without drastic action. People can argue about exactly where that point was but without lockdown it was just a matter of days.

edit: I'm also not sure where you get this <10. Do you mean <10 confirmed cases? If so, that would just be the tip of the iceberg.

Most were relived when it came in but 2 weeks earlier very few wanted to know. It was like stirring mud to get anyone take it very seriously. In reality we needed to lock down much earlier while we could still contact trace

I agree, The Cummings scandal has been a real disaster. Hapless Hancock has probably more of a disaster but we could have done without another one.

To clarify, it appears that when there were just a handful of cases in the UK, SAGE were advising the government that suppression would not be effective. We had fewer than 10 (confirmed) cases in the UK up until 23rd Feb.

Ok but the actual number of cases would have been vastly greater and we had no means of controlling that with contact tracing. The advice on that seems solid to me. So it came down to far more drastic action and then the question was whether a lockdown could be imposed against the will of the population. I dont see anyway that could have been done.

Which just leaves an inspirational leader persuading the population of the urgency of the situation. My view is that that should have been tried and would have needed some form of coalition government. There's a bit of a tragedy for boris here because he would have loved to have been seen as a Churchillian hero. He actually had the rare opportunity to do it but it was way beyond him.

We were doing contact tracing though - this was part of the "contain" strategy outlined by SAGE. I think it's arguable at this stage the actual number of cases would have been "vastly greater", especially as the first cases in the UK appear to have been in November/December. Either way, Germany managed contact tracing from a similar starting point.

Good point. I suspect that if Starmer had been leader this would have been a greater possibility.

Yes that was my point. We were doing contact tracing but it wasn't enough. And once not enough, it rapidly becomes pointless unless you can control the spread as well

Germany was well ahead of us in every respect.


I'd agree that if Boris had had a clue then KS being in place as leader could have helped. But Boris didn't have that clue so it's moot.

I'll accept 'ignoring the point' as a criticism, although it's obviously on purpose.

We will see what happens down south but as the papers are saying, it is a huge gamble and a political one at that. Imagine announcing this a few days early just to deflect attention from your unelected senior advisor breaking his own rules and you not having the stones to sack him. Or being so utterly out of your depth that you can't function without him.

If this is what we get with cummings driving, I can only imagine how bad boris would be on his own.

I also have major data protection concerns about this app and will not be using it when it's released. I also have a number of concerns over the design of the app. Manual contact tracing, fine, other than that, they are not getting my data.

Agreed. Can't blame JC for this one.

Wasn't suggesting JC couldn't have have been just as good if he was the labour leader but he was effectively history at this point.

another science advisor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52857820