COVID19

[Digby]

Should get the results of the PCR later today.

And whether another business should be funded by the taxpayer seems a different thing to whether Branson should also be heading off into space.

Really? He owns both Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Galactic. Back in March 2020, he declared that all Virgin Atlantic staff needed to take 8 weeks unpaid holiday because of the pandemic (thankfully averted with the invention of government sponsored furlough). He then successfully lobbied for a £500 million bailout from the government because otherwise "his business would go under." Yet he as the owner of Virgin Atlantic clearly has surplus capital, not just in terms of going into space, but in terms of having a personal wealth of £3.8bn from profits from his businesses. Surely the way capitalism is *supposed* to work is that he is then responsible for using that profit that he's stockpiled away during the good years to deal with unexpected event and unprofitable periods, not leech off the government (which, as a citizen of the British Virgin Islands, he no longer even contributes any personal tax to)?

Puja

There are two potential lines of criticism here it seems and then I'm not quite sure what the intended solution is. That the businesses with the same (partial) ownership should cross subsidise, or the (partial) owner of a businesses should utilise some/all private wealth before seeking public monies. And both of those even overlooking existing legislation could have some very unintended consequences if just rolled out across society.

Fwiw I'm with Aristotle (so this is hardly new thinking) on the hoarding side of things when it comes to money in a capital system, that it doesn't benefit society to have the super rich stash their cash away and it'd be better getting reinvested into the business. But that looks something we could/should be addressing ahead of and separately to something like furlough in a pandemic. The named businesses are almost certainly different entities and one or more either qualifies for support or doesn't, that an owner is rich and/or has different businesses interests isn't relevant, partly it just isn't, and partly deciding on what the rules should be and then trying to enact them would be very tricky

[morepork]

Jeff Bezos is doing a space run too next week in a craft that looks like a giant cock. A cock in a cock. Fights against the unionisation of his workers and flogs them like a mother fucker, but it will be worth it to see him thrust into space for a few minutes (he has a $28 000 000-paying guest to help cover the petrol).

[Son of Mathonwy]

42,302 new cases and 49 deaths today, and this is before they relax the restrictions.

Boris is obviously worried that Italy might take our 'worst Covid deaths in Europe' crown.

[fivepointer]

Cases up 27%
Deaths up 42%
Hospitalisations up 53%

The trajectory will only be going upwards for the next few weeks at least.

Meanwhile the Govt throws up its hands, abandons any pretence of trying to manage the pandemic and says its over to you. Do please try and be sensible.

[morepork]

I assume you can expect things to really take off around 2 weeks post-Wendyball crowds?

[Which Tyler]

I assume you can expect things to really take off around 2 weeks post-Wendyball crowds?

[Digby]

Perhaps this is an isolated example, but with the other people in family testing positive for Covid and naming us as contacts the number of contacts from the test/tracking girls and boys has at this point risen to 0. Granted with everyone in the house testing positive we do now have to just isolate but it does suggest either a very lax system, or numbers are too high to adequately track with resources on hand, or both


ETA - we were named as possible 2nd point of contact, having just checked with Mum who was the named 1st point of contact she hasn't been contacted either. either the system isn't working as intended, or there are some very weird intentions

[Digby]

Just chatting to a mate this morning who's on the verge of tears I think it'd be fair to say, certainly very hacked off. As per government advice they moved office operations into the EU (France in this instance) in order to continue business across the EU, and they basically picked somewhere a little south of Paris to have the tunnel connection.

In France, or so they're telling me, if you've had one jab and you've had Covid you're being considered fully vaccinated, if true either the data is in to show that's all fine or it's some sort of desperate rationing programme. Given staff recently moving to France weren't too happy about this they'd sorted to bring them back and get them jabbed in the UK for the 2nd dose if needed, and now they might struggle to get anyone back from France as France has gone dark amber. Still it could be worse, they could have picked Germany (poor blighters)

[morepork]

Just chatting to a mate this morning who's on the verge of tears I think it'd be fair to say, certainly very hacked off. As per government advice they moved office operations into the EU (France in this instance) in order to continue business across the EU, and they basically picked somewhere a little south of Paris to have the tunnel connection.

In France, or so they're telling me, if you've had one jab and you've had Covid you're being considered fully vaccinated, if true either the data is in to show that's all fine or it's some sort of desperate rationing programme. Given staff recently moving to France weren't too happy about this they'd sorted to bring them back and get them jabbed in the UK for the 2nd dose if needed, and now they might struggle to get anyone back from France as France has gone dark amber. Still it could be worse, they could have picked Germany (poor blighters)

There is no such fucking data. You're saying drones have been moved across borders with the primary aim of "business", with the public health factor secondary to "business"?

[Digby]

Just chatting to a mate this morning who's on the verge of tears I think it'd be fair to say, certainly very hacked off. As per government advice they moved office operations into the EU (France in this instance) in order to continue business across the EU, and they basically picked somewhere a little south of Paris to have the tunnel connection.

In France, or so they're telling me, if you've had one jab and you've had Covid you're being considered fully vaccinated, if true either the data is in to show that's all fine or it's some sort of desperate rationing programme. Given staff recently moving to France weren't too happy about this they'd sorted to bring them back and get them jabbed in the UK for the 2nd dose if needed, and now they might struggle to get anyone back from France as France has gone dark amber. Still it could be worse, they could have picked Germany (poor blighters)

There is no such fucking data. You're saying drones have been moved across borders with the primary aim of "business", with the public health factor secondary to "business"?

Yes people have moved, that happens. We're looking to limit movement and quarantine where possible, in this instance quarantine should be possible, with food lorry drivers not so much is my guess, I know quarantine happened with the staff we've seen move to Germany at our place, I don't know if it happened in this instance, but nowhere is fully locked down, food for instance isn't being teleported anywhere.

These drones will be fairly well paid drones, and the company was happy to pay for them to transit again just to get them a second jab. I don't know if it's required because I don't know if France is actually rationing in the manner of saying one infection + one vaccine is sufficient, that itself may prove false. But basically business isn't separate to life it's part of it, if we're going to cut back vastly more such only essential goods can be sold and moved in transit we're going to explode the debt levels even more, vastly more.

I know the business moving people wouldn't have wanted to do it, it costs a lot of money if nothing else, but Brexit is the gift which keeps on taking

[morepork]

Yes people have moved, that happens. It shouldn't.

one infection + one vaccine is sufficient. It's not.

food for instance isn't being teleported anywhere. That's just glib bollocks.

But basically business isn't separate to life it's part of it, if we're going to cut back vastly more such only essential goods can be sold and moved in transit we're going to explode the debt levels even more, vastly more. Then why host exacerbate the triage by by imposing such bullshit half-measures?



The scientific illiteracy of government the world over bodes ill for any supply chain, be that affected by a virus or by the climate. We can all see it coming but no one has the balls to look after people while the storm is weathered and deal with it first time around. Not even open for debate any more.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

A tale.

I am double jabbed. I went to Wimbledon Championships a week and a day ago. I got pinged yesterday after I'd walked into the office (which is very socially distanced), so I walked back home. And now I'm self isolating. there's pretty much zero chance I'm infected as I've had 2 negative lateral flow tests, but I can't take my son to school or otherwise leave the house. Thankfully I stop at 2359 on Monday and I'm able to work from home. Thankfully I've been able to farm the boy out to relatives and there's even a good chance he'll make it in to school on Monday.

So why the tale? For me this is not a problem. But an equally double-jabbed friend is in the middle of a trial and about to cross examine a defendant. And I'm thinking of my own cases which are vulnerable to pings (real and imaginary) with the inevitable delays of possibly a year for rape victims. At the same time we're opening up and letting the virus rip. It seems utterly bizarre to me to be most cautious where there's least risk and least cautious where there's greatest.

[morepork]

Again, I cannot fathom the logic behind triaging seropostive indivduals when a vaccine is designed to make an individual seropositive. Its ridiculous.

[Digby]

Yes people have moved, that happens. It shouldn't.

one infection + one vaccine is sufficient. It's not.

food for instance isn't being teleported anywhere. That's just glib bollocks.

But basically business isn't separate to life it's part of it, if we're going to cut back vastly more such only essential goods can be sold and moved in transit we're going to explode the debt levels even more, vastly more. Then why host exacerbate the triage by by imposing such bullshit half-measures?



The scientific illiteracy of government the world over bodes ill for any supply chain, be that affected by a virus or by the climate. We can all see it coming but no one has the balls to look after people while the storm is weathered and deal with it first time around. Not even open for debate any more.

People shouldn't move is a hard thing to deliver in practice. I suspect for the firm in question they'd simply lose business without being able to relocate staff, we certainly were faced with the same situation.

I'd agree in advance one vaccine + an infection isn't sufficient, but that would only be a guess on my part, and anyway I don't set health policy even for my household never mind France

Back to the point, either we have people over, whether to Europe or elsewhere, or we let them go from firms adding to the number of unemployed with the hope they find new work somewhere else. The move we can have them enact and then do a full quarantine, whereas letting them go creates a problem down the line if over and over businesses are faced with problems that their only out is to reduce investment and let staff go, or somehow society provides much, much more support to have people stay on a much broader lockdown

I don't know what the additional cost would be of a much fuller lockdown, but it would be enormously more expensive than anything done so far. I know there's some modern economic thinking led by the likes of Stephanie Kelton that you can just print money, but even if you believe her claims (and I don't in full, even if she's outstanding in her field and very interesting with it) it hardly applies to every country, so there remains the flip side of debt, unemployment and the problems associated with that and you can't just glibly ignore that.

I wouldn't fwiw have allowed crowds at Wimbledon, or the Euros, of the F1, or Queens, I wouldn't have allowed the Lions to tour SA. I would require masks in public settings and I'd be much more restrictive on numbers in a public space than we are being, and I'd maintain some stringent office and public transport controls, and where people do move insist on quarantine. But, some people do need to move around some of the time, the obvious being emergency care, military, food chain, pharmaceuticals, energy, comms, transport and so on, granted fintech is down the line, but it's a huge chunk of the economy and tax revenue. I don't think I'd be allowing travel for holiday, but that's without considering how one supports the tourism industry, other than if people quarantine

[morepork]

The UK has never enacted a full lock down, and this is why you are dealing with these middling measures in seeming perpetuity. You can eliminate and vaccinate and deal with it, but you cant have these half-arsed economic points as a substitute if you chose not to do that. You want to stretch your health infrastructure like a rubber band indefinitely, then dont be surprised if it snaps. If it does snap, your economy will fall. There is an order of priority here, with all variables, including economic and social free-dums wholly and completely a function of the health variable.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

The UK has never enacted a full lock down, and this is why you are dealing with these middling measures in seeming perpetuity. You can eliminate and vaccinate and deal with it, but you cant have these half-arsed economic points as a substitute if you chose not to do that. You want to stretch your health infrastructure like a rubber band indefinitely, then dont be surprised if it snaps. If it does snap, your economy will fall. There is an order of priority here, with all variables, including economic and social free-dums wholly and completely a function of the health variable.

Our government has got literally every decision wrong except for buying a shit tonne of vaccine. Literally every single decision. Any time I think of it it makes me extremely angry.

[Which Tyler]

So.... Javid, Sunak and Johnson were all in a meeting with each other yesterday; whilst Javid was suffering with Covid.

But they don't have to self-isolate because they're taking part in a new daily-testing trial that didn't exist until yesterday - a trial with 2 participants by any chance?


I see not problem with the messaging here, that can't be solved with a 3-word slogan. how about "Fuck Off Peasants"?

[fivepointer]

Great messaging there. People who do get pinged now just might say "sod it, if those in Govt cannot follow the rules then why should I"
That is if they still have the app turned on....

[Digby]

The UK has never enacted a full lock down, and this is why you are dealing with these middling measures in seeming perpetuity. You can eliminate and vaccinate and deal with it, but you cant have these half-arsed economic points as a substitute if you chose not to do that. You want to stretch your health infrastructure like a rubber band indefinitely, then dont be surprised if it snaps. If it does snap, your economy will fall. There is an order of priority here, with all variables, including economic and social free-dums wholly and completely a function of the health variable.

Where has enacted a full lock down, and actually what do you mean by full lockdown? I'll be astonished if anyone has put a full lockdown in place

If you do want to shutdown wider areas of society, be if fintech, be it the music or sport industry, you need a plan on how to pay for it, else you'll be looking at a financial crash that makes the 2008 effort look like a joke, if you want a lockdown that impacts food and basic infrastructure I do wonder if you wouldn't just get a breakdown of society with riots that would make a mockery of any keep your distance notions. I suspect everyone is accepting of some movement of people, and then there's actually a discussion to be had around how many move, how public and work spaces function, whether mask wearing should be obligatory (and what sort of mask)

Here in the UK I think we need much more support in place for those being told to isolate, especially such it helps those on lower wages who'd be more inclined to ignore isolation requirements because it's a more direct impediment to putting food on the table, we should be encouraging much more working from home still, we should be doing more to ventilate work spaces, we should have been much more cautious on how we started to open up the economy and schools programme, we do seem to have rushed too many things too early, we should have been much more cautious on allowing holidays to come back. I'm not sold however that we cannot have people move to Europe to live, or to here to live, providing there's testing and proper quarantine in place, if it's to fill work or study requirements. That we allowed more freedom of movement with India for longer because of Brexit is incredibly stupid, but it's a government of no talent, just ignorance, venality and laziness, they're far too inclined to rule according to the situation they want not what the reality is.

[Puja]

Well, who could've foreseen this coming: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/57844406

We talk about the Lions being a farce, but at least they've got a half a chance of the test matches happening with the bubbles they're keeping. I don't see any way the Olympics won't be absolutely risible. Could be some fun underdogs unexpectedly medalling due to half the competitors dropping out.

Puja

[Digby]

I'll be astonished if all the rugby players (and support staff) are keeping to the bubbles. Actually I'd be astonished to find the bubbles are good enough to begin with

[Which Tyler]

https://www.skysports.com/rugby-union/n ... uth-africa

Georgia coach on ventilator with Covid-19 in South Africa
South Africa’s second Test match against Georgia in Johannesburg on Friday was cancelled because of Covid-19 infections in both camps.

The Georgia Rugby Union says its national team coach has serious lung damage from Covid-19 and has been put on a ventilator in hospital in South Africa.

Levan Maisashvili was one of six members of the Georgian touring party to test positive for the virus after playing against South Africa on July 2 in Pretoria as part of a series organised to help the world champion Springboks prepare for the British and Irish Lions tour.

article continues...

[Puja]

I'll be astonished if all the rugby players (and support staff) are keeping to the bubbles. Actually I'd be astonished to find the bubbles are good enough to begin with

What I found interesting was the relative lack of COVID withdrawals from the football. I think there was only that Scottish player and the two English players he talked to. Whether it's a case that their protocols somehow kept them safe despite schlepping all over Europe, or whether they didn't test as thoroughly, or they deliberately suppressed results to avoid tarnishing the sacred kevball, I don't know.

Puja

[Puja]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57885175

New hated word - "pingdemic". Implies that the COVID app is somehow malfunctioning and causing problems by contacting too many people when, in fact, it's just *functioning* as designed and the reason it's contacting lots more people to say they've had contact with someone with COVID is because there's recently a lot more cases of COVID.

The current theory appears to go that because vaccines make COVID less deadly, more cases is *fine*, because they're just going to be mild. Quite apart from the furious shoving under the bus of any lung-damaged or immuno-compromised people for whom any COVID won't be fine, it's more than a little bit concerning that we're happy to give this virus a huge breeding ground for it to mutate within. It might be that the government gamble is correct and that COVID can be contained by the vaccines and the great god economy can be placated without risk. I suspect that by October at the latest, we'll have the Epsilon variant and be back in lockdown again.

I really hope I'm wrong.

Puja

[Puja]

Also, I was the only person wearing a mask at the school drop-off this morning, which is a crowded area of people, that is admittedly outside, but one in which there is *literally* no downside to wearing a mask. Why would you not wear one when there is absolutely no advantage to not doing so?

Puja