Category: Politics

Firstly the stats. In parts of Essex I have looked at the infection rate is over 1000 per 100000. That is 1 in a hundred infected in the last 7 days. Surely a complete lockdown is required immediately. Travel should be heavily restricted as we have seen that a fair % of people ignoring all restrictions. On the spot £1000 fine or seizing car to a pound. harsh but necessary. In other areas restrictions need to be maintained, but at a lower level with the proviso that they could be increased with no notice.Winscombe, Langford and Blagdon have 6 cases or rate of 71/100000. A few miles away the rate is 449 – Wedmore and Mark. so restrictions need to be maintained as people travel!

Table was messed up before so I have revised it

	27.09	23.10	5.11	19.11	5.12	19.12	22.12
North Somerset	31	79	177	304	142	134	153
Cornwall	20	29	47	90	25	44	66
Bristol	46	228	350	480	168	137	153
Chelmsford	41	68	91	150	109	431	597
Exeter	283	175	128	168	102	96	117
Braintree	42	60	58	109	104	462	582
Plymouth	30	116	150	225	63	72	92
IoW	10	24	41	78	29	28	71
Liverpool	516	568	330	276	97	103	138
Manchester		458	466	372	175	175	173
Sunderland	274	297	309	412	161	151	155
Newcastle	445	298	284	449	156	160	152
Swansea			397	231	368	756	747
Cardiff			301	156	247	629	678
Glasgow			286	275	147	148	146
Aberdeen			41	58	61	142	158
Belfast			317	213	109	114	140
Newry			199	118	113	218	244
Sandford							82
West Bodmin							0
Lostwithiel							55

Basically everywhere is up or the same as 3 days ago. Three days! Bungling Boris and Hapless Hancock and other cast members of the governments winter pantomime have know about this new strain for weeks, the figures have been ballistic for many days.

I do wonder about a certain level of herd immunity in the north as they have had high numbers for weeks. But increases in South East and South Wales are a bit scary. And Cornwall and IoW jumping up (from a very low base mind). Bristol and North Somerset go down a tier and numbers go up! Well f*** me, that was a surprise, especially with a new strain of the virus spreading.

Just resign and be satisfied with being one of the worst PM’s ever, and there have been a few!

Parliament is located in Tier 4 – no travel in or out? If there is a Brexit agreement it will need to be voted on by Parliament. Err ‘Houston we have a problem’ situation? The Houses of Parliament are a potential fire hazard. It would seem to be a no brainer to use this current crisis for a bit of sensible geography/econmomics.

Relocation to the Midlands/.North would seem obvious. Using a dedicated (non-hackable? zoom type link surely most debates could be done on line. I guess face to face meetings will be needed sometimes, but surely not all the time. Savings on expenses could be huge.

Wentworth Woodhouse would seem like a grand location with 250.000 sq.ft of rooms it is similar in size to HoP. But if not a new bespoke building would seem sensible. Jobs created in building, transport links and the add ons.

Why are the ejits who run Education (if only) surprised that there are predictions for a surge in Covid numbers. After all it is the government who made the fatal decision to reduce restrictions over Christmas. They also have had access to data about growing infection rates amongst school students. I am fed up with people saying that this unprecedented pandemic is throwing curve balls. Yes it was unprecedented and there is some leeway in excusing incompetence back in March/April. However the last 6 months have produced a litany of bad decisions whose consequences should have been foreseen.

So teachers have to prepare lessons for remote learning, to teach those exam classes that are in school together with those vulnerable children. And organise testing. Even if the Army or volunteers are roped in to help, it is still the school that has to organise it. And they will probably give a contract to Serco to provide the tests! I am not sure I would want a random stranger poking things up my Childs nose and throat! The tests are also not particularly effective, some say it is better than nothing; but it might give false results, a negative test might give false confidence, and the accuracy is said to be about 50% Will they all be verified – which normally takes a while. On a phone in I heard someone complaining about left wing union snowflakes whom should just get on with helping the nation in this pandemic – my response would be that maybe all lorries should have loads of 100 tonnes?

But perhaps more than anything I would ask Mr Williamson and his sidekick Gibbs, why this was not planned for during the summer? This WAS predicted.

So a prediction. There will be a surge in January and some schools will be shut in some areas. This will result in discussions about exams in England. Someone will have a bright idea that test, track and then isolate could work really well if administered via a school. And proper testing of those who need it rather than a politically motivated mass testing. Are Cornwall, Isle of Wight, etc. also included?

All countries in Europe are suffering. This is a true statement. But look closer. We have had about 3 times as many deaths as Germany. We are about on par with Italy. Everyone is struggling, but most are taking more stringent measures than us.

So Nick Gibb threatens Greenwich and Islington with prosecution for advising schools to shut. Maybe he sees himself as a General Haig figure? Surely each council should be able to make their own decisions – if not popular the councillors can be voted out next time. I think that is called democracy?

I am fascinated by statistics – ever since failing the statistics part of my A Level Maths!

Nice detailed maps

I was thinking about why a c-b a for Covid restrictions would not be valid.

So firstly a look at costs of a lockdown. presumably an economic figure can be calculated with reasonable accuracy (Unemployment and welfare costs plus loss of tax income). Add on reduced tax from firms with reduced capacity (e.g. Airlines). I am sure this is a considerable cost. Then there is the social cost of isolation and measures on mental welfare. And the benefits of a lockdown are much more difficult to calculate – lower costs for NHS. Maybe some small environmental gains. I would calculate the cost of Tier 3 for the whole nation at about £40 billion (back of an envelope).

Costs of opening up economy. Economically it is probably fairer to calculate the reduction in economic costs as there will still be restrictions. Costs of increased pressure on NHS and reduced capacity for other things can probably be calculated – I have no idea of the cost a covid patient per day? Or the economic cost of a death at different ages, or the impacts of long covid. Just as lockdown creates mental health problems, the converse is also true with people being worried about being outside with lack of observance of safety rules. The social cost of deaths is also un-quantifiable. From what we hqve4 seen so far it would seem that any opening up of the economy will be met with a strict lockdown soon after.

Whilst the economic impacts maybe retrieved in the long term, the social costs cannot. Which leads to the final point. Vaccines are on their way – so probably 4/5 months more of restrictions before a return to some sort of normality.

But also remember that the more we intrude into the natural world, the more likely it is that further virus outbreaks will occur (AIDS, SARS, BIRD FLU, etc.).

Maybe it is time to increase the aid budget in an attempt to reduce the discrepancies in wealth between countries. This would reduce the population explosion in Africa and South Asia. In turn this would reduce the environmental pressure on habitats. We should also invest in using our land more sustainably. I feel a new post coming on!