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Post by Jan on Oct 30, 2020 11:07:33 GMT
Interesting (non-peer-reviewed) paper which rather bizarrely conflates the effects of restaurant visits and rainfall. Of course he wrote the conclusion first which isn't supported by his paper at all and patently isn't true "The notion that there may be a trade-offs between health and the economy is broadly refused by most economic experts – disease containment is considered to be the best policy response" - but with his own salary and job protected he fails to add. He's on TV now saying "The UK saw a massive explosion of cases in a way that was not seen in other countries". Hasn't heard of France apparently.
For those agreeing with his analysis I suppose you also oppose the Culture Recovery Fund grants which are now allowing theatres to re-open ? Keep them permanently closed, right ? For disease containment ?
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Post by olliebean on Oct 30, 2020 11:09:43 GMT
It seems pretty clear looking at the timing of it that the main driver of the big rise in infections was the reopening of schools, colleges, and universities.
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Post by Jan on Oct 30, 2020 11:17:23 GMT
It seems pretty clear looking at the timing of it that the main driver of the big rise in infections was the reopening of schools, colleges, and universities. Colleges/Universities specifically I think, schools to some extent but less so based on the data. He also fails address why allowing the virus to circulate more during August when overall case numbers were very low was a bad thing anyway - he should have also tried to correlate the effect on death/hospitalisation rate which are the real measures. Well, maybe he did and he came up empty. |
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Post by kathryn on Oct 30, 2020 11:58:55 GMT
It's important to remember that "significant" in this context is "statistically significant", meaning probably not attributable to chance variation, rather than "this is why we have a problem today". As the paper itself says, although the infection rate rose a little during the scheme — between 8% and 17% — which is entirely expected if people are mixing more, it dropped back afterwards. It wasn't until September that there was a prolonged rise in the number of infections and it took until the start of October for the rise to become alarming. So yes, Eat Out to Help Out had an effect on the infection rate, but so did many other things in July and August and none of them are the reason we're in the situation we're in right now. A better way of putting it is maybe that all of them are the reason why we're in the situation we're in now? EOTHO helped convince people it was safe to be out and mixing in busy public places. There's a psychological knock-on effect of that - well if it's safe to be eating in a busy restaurant surely it's safe to have my whole family over for a BBQ? And gradually, gradually people's behaviour changed, and infection rates picked up. But, well, this isn't surprising, is it. Everyone was predicting that restriction fatigue would set in and that we'd get a second wave in the autumn/winter. Lots of predictions that we might need rolling lockdown/easing cycles to try and keep infections below the threshold that would cause catastrophic exponential growth and the health service being swamped. |
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Post by olliebean on Oct 30, 2020 14:03:26 GMT
But, well, this isn't surprising, is it. Except to the government, apparently, who seem constantly surprised that what their scientific advisors told them would happen is the exact thing that happens. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2020 14:11:49 GMT
Interesting (non-peer-reviewed) paper which rather bizarrely conflates the effects of restaurant visits and rainfall. Of course he wrote the conclusion first which isn't supported by his paper at all and patently isn't true "The notion that there may be a trade-offs between health and the economy is broadly refused by most economic experts – disease containment is considered to be the best policy response" - but with his own salary and job protected he fails to add. He's on TV now saying "The UK saw a massive explosion of cases in a way that was not seen in other countries". Hasn't heard of France apparently. For those agreeing with his analysis I suppose you also oppose the Culture Recovery Fund grants which are now allowing theatres to re-open ? Keep them permanently closed, right ? For disease containment ? In Britain it rains, quite often. Many restaurants with limited indoor capacity due to social distancing measures expanded to terraces and outside seating. Rain falls, people go indoors. Not that bizarre, imo. |
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Post by Jan on Oct 30, 2020 16:02:13 GMT
Interesting (non-peer-reviewed) paper which rather bizarrely conflates the effects of restaurant visits and rainfall. Of course he wrote the conclusion first which isn't supported by his paper at all and patently isn't true "The notion that there may be a trade-offs between health and the economy is broadly refused by most economic experts – disease containment is considered to be the best policy response" - but with his own salary and job protected he fails to add. He's on TV now saying "The UK saw a massive explosion of cases in a way that was not seen in other countries". Hasn't heard of France apparently. For those agreeing with his analysis I suppose you also oppose the Culture Recovery Fund grants which are now allowing theatres to re-open ? Keep them permanently closed, right ? For disease containment ? In Britain it rains, quite often. Many restaurants with limited indoor capacity due to social distancing measures expanded to terraces and outside seating. Rain falls, people go indoors. Not that bizarre, imo. Rain falls people stay at home - that would have an effect on transmission too wouldn't it ? Did he try to separate that effect from any restaurant effect ? No. Did he check how many of the restaurants in his data (which all came only from OpenTable) had outside tables ? No. Did he correct for the effect rain has in reducing virus transmission in outdoor situations ? No. Rain is just an odd extra variable to throw in there given its effects are far more complex. |
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Post by Jan on Oct 30, 2020 16:04:08 GMT
But, well, this isn't surprising, is it. Except to the government, apparently, who seem constantly surprised that what their scientific advisors told them would happen is the exact thing that happens. Likewise the public who were clearly told by Vallance that an early lockdown in March would lead to a bigger second wave, but many clamoured for it anyway. |
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Post by olliebean on Oct 30, 2020 16:14:05 GMT
Except to the government, apparently, who seem constantly surprised that what their scientific advisors told them would happen is the exact thing that happens. Likewise the public who were clearly told by Vallance that an early lockdown in March would lead to a bigger second wave, but many clamoured for it anyway. We were? I don't recall that at all, and I can't see what the rationale behind it would have been. Hasn't it since been established that the advice the government was receiving at the time was to lock down earlier rather than later? |
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Post by kathryn on Oct 30, 2020 16:40:24 GMT
Except to the government, apparently, who seem constantly surprised that what their scientific advisors told them would happen is the exact thing that happens. Likewise the public who were clearly told by Vallance that an early lockdown in March would lead to a bigger second wave, but many clamoured for it anyway. An earlier lockdown would have saved more lives, without a doubt. The best course of action would have been an even earlier lockdown and an elimination strategy - but we were already past that point by the time lockdowns were starting to be considered by government. It’s not that locking down is not a useful tool - it’s that it is a tool that has to be used skilfully. Good public communication is an essential component and post-Barnard Castle it’s been mixed messages all the way. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2020 16:59:40 GMT
Likewise the public who were clearly told by Vallance that an early lockdown in March would lead to a bigger second wave, but many clamoured for it anyway. We were? I don't recall that at all, and I can't see what the rationale behind it would have been. Hasn't it since been established that the advice the government was receiving at the time was to lock down earlier rather than later? If I recall correctly the government's early fear was that if they had a lockdown too early then people would suffer lockdown fatigue by the time the peak hit, so everybody would be out and about again just at the time when they needed to stay home. It took a week or so to convince them that the disease wasn't going to make the slow progress they initially believed and the peak was approaching far faster than they realised, so they changed the strategy and we had a lockdown in March. |
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Post by Jan on Oct 30, 2020 17:25:14 GMT
Likewise the public who were clearly told by Vallance that an early lockdown in March would lead to a bigger second wave, but many clamoured for it anyway. We were? I don't recall that at all, and I can't see what the rationale behind it would have been. Hasn't it since been established that the advice the government was receiving at the time was to lock down earlier rather than later? Yes we were told. Valance discussed it on one of the TV briefings using the analogy of locking down too early as being like pushing down on a spring which would bounce back. He said we still needed the virus circulating. This is reflected in the13 March Sage minutes: “Sage was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak.” You can see this is true - places which locked down early in the cycle - like the North East and several East European countries have a big second peak. |
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Post by olliebean on Oct 30, 2020 17:32:48 GMT
We were? I don't recall that at all, and I can't see what the rationale behind it would have been. Hasn't it since been established that the advice the government was receiving at the time was to lock down earlier rather than later? If I recall correctly the government's early fear was that if they had a lockdown too early then people would suffer lockdown fatigue by the time the peak hit, so everybody would be out and about again just at the time when they needed to stay home. It took a week or so to convince them that the disease wasn't going to make the slow progress they initially believed and the peak was approaching far faster than they realised, so they changed the strategy and we had a lockdown in March. This was always a nonsense argument. If we'd gone into lockdown earlier, we'd have started it from a better position and wouldn't have needed to stay in it so long, so people would have been less likely to get "lockdown fatigue." The government had other reasons for wanting to delay the lockdown and this was just the excuse they came up with. The same thing is happening now, only this time they don't seem to have even a nonsense excuse for it. |
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Post by olliebean on Oct 30, 2020 19:12:57 GMT
We were? I don't recall that at all, and I can't see what the rationale behind it would have been. Hasn't it since been established that the advice the government was receiving at the time was to lock down earlier rather than later? Yes we were told. Valance discussed it on one of the TV briefings using the analogy of locking down too early as being like pushing down on a spring which would bounce back. He said we still needed the virus circulating. This is reflected in the13 March Sage minutes: “Sage was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak.” You can see this is true - places which locked down early in the cycle - like the North East and several East European countries have a big second peak. OK, I've found the references to this. They were still talking about herd immunity at the time, and Vallance's comments appear to have been made in this context - he explicitly talked about herd immunity in that briefing. It's fairly widely accepted now that pursuing herd immunity without a vaccine will just mean lots more people dying along the way, and it's no longer openly talked about by government (in fact the idea was so discredited that they denied ever having raised it), although I suspect Cummings and Johnson still have it in their sights.
As for your quote from the minutes of the SAGE meeting, the second half of that quote is: "SAGE advises that it is a near certainty that countries such as China, where heavy suppression is underway, will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed." I'm looking at the graph of new infections in China now, and I see not the remotest sign of a second peak. So that seems to have been somewhat less of a certainty than they believed.
By the way, I don't recall, nor can I find any reference to, the North East locking down any earlier than the rest of the country - surely the entire country locked down simultaneously on the 23rd March, or did I miss the news about local lockdowns back then?
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Post by kathryn on Oct 30, 2020 19:19:06 GMT
There were voluntary closures and working from home prior to the 23rd. That might be what was meant.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2020 19:42:41 GMT
As for your quote from the minutes of the SAGE meeting, the second half of that quote is: "SAGE advises that it is a near certainty that countries such as China, where heavy suppression is underway, will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed." I'm looking at the graph of new infections in China now, and I see not the remotest sign of a second peak. So that seems to have been somewhat less of a certainty than they believed. I think what they were getting at with that was that a lockdown will get the infections down but some restrictions will need to be kept on afterwards to maintain that reduced level, which is kind of obvious. If you relax restrictions too far, or if too many people ignore the restrictions, then there must be a second wave (and a third, and a fourth, ...) because the virus hasn't changed its behaviour. But equally, if you have a sufficient level of restrictions and enough people obey them then there can't be a second wave.
(It's true that if we hadn't had a lockdown in March then we wouldn't have seen a second wave, but only because the first wave would have reached everyone and kept going until a vaccine was available.)
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Post by talkingheads on Oct 31, 2020 18:27:16 GMT
I assume Oliver Dowden will have to make a statement after Johnson deigns to grace us with his presence.
I can't see how pantos can go ahead if the cast can't come together to rehearse.
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Post by zahidf on Oct 31, 2020 19:10:34 GMT
I assume Oliver Dowden will have to make a statement after Johnson deigns to grace us with his presence. I can't see how pantos can go ahead if the cast can't come together to rehearse. They can if its for work |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2020 20:52:23 GMT
I assume Oliver Dowden will have to make a statement after Johnson deigns to grace us with his presence. I can't see how pantos can go ahead if the cast can't come together to rehearse. Pretty simple - rehearsing a show is work that can't be done from home, so it is allowed, same as professional sports training. What producers will do about shows that are due to open is another question entirely, but there is nothing legally stopping them preparing to open on or after 2 December. |
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Post by talkingheads on Nov 2, 2020 0:14:58 GMT
This looks like bad news for shows that need to rehearse:
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Post by clair on Nov 2, 2020 14:26:26 GMT
If tv and film are allowed to continue then I don't understand why theatre rehearsals should be stopped - the same rules should apply to both surely?!
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Post by zahidf on Nov 2, 2020 21:29:05 GMT
This looks like bad news for shows that need to rehearse: |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2020 21:42:12 GMT
The ISM rather jumped the gun and badly misinterpreted the announcement then - most people on here realised rehearsals qualified as work that can't be done from home! Surely they should have taken some proper advice before emailing all their members...
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Post by TallPaul on Nov 7, 2020 15:56:53 GMT
More recovery grants have been announced, including £3 million apiece to The Lowry and Canterbury's Marlowe Theatre, £2 million to Opera North and £1.27 million million for Ronnie Scott's.
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Post by n1david on Nov 7, 2020 16:07:10 GMT
More recovery grants have been announced, including £3 million apiece to The Lowry and Canterbury's Marlowe Theatre, £2 million to Opera North and £1.27 million million for Ronnie Scott's. £1.27 million million for Ronnie Scott's sounds generous. |
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