RugbyRebels

cashead wrote:Well, we jut kicked the shit out of COVID for a second time.

cashead wrote:

Puja wrote:

cashead wrote:Well, we jut kicked the shit out of COVID for a second time.

Shit, how did you manage that? Did you have a special licence that included Microsoft Publisher or something?!

Puja

Regional lockdown, in this case Auckland, while reinstating the mandatory basic public health measures across the country (facemasks on public transport, constant reminders to wash hands for 20 seconds, mandatory social distancing, etc). There was also a significant upswing in the use of the COVID tracer app, which made contact tracing fairly successful - the rest was to basically interview, test and quarantine people who were exposed as they were detected. The key thing is that the 2-week lockdown cut off the virus' ability to spread, so the number of confirmed cases in the community was fairly low this time around. This meant that the virus wasn't able to spread much further beyond the one cluster (creatively named "The Auckland August Cluster"), which capped off at 179 cases - it didn't help that it ended up spreading significantly via a church, but despite numbers, was also fairly well-contained.

The only other "outbreak" was a staff member at a hotel where people arriving into the country are doing their mandatory isolation managed to get infected, probably through surface transmission (the public health staff were able to trace it back to a person in mandatory isolation that was in quarantine, but the infected staff member and the person in question never came into contact at any point).

Auckland has just now gone into Level 1 alert down from the Level 2 alert we've been at for about a month, and we've just gone through an entire infection cycle without a single community case detected.

Sandydragon wrote:Apparently there is serious consideration for a 2-3 week circuit break over half term. FFS if this is correct then make the frigging call and let people sort out holiday plans early. I don’t object on principle to a circuit break, the situation is looking like it will be needed, but please spare us another last minute faff.

morepork wrote:Shat the bed is a phrase that comes to mind.

Is the testing and tracing in any way functioning there?

Which Tyler wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... e-54535481

Almost as idiotic as it was preictable

Digby wrote:Not sure what to make of Keir breaking with government policy. He needs to add rather more than lets end up at the same place two weeks later to try and justify saying he's going with the scientists rather than the government

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:Not sure what to make of Keir breaking with government policy. He needs to add rather more than lets end up at the same place two weeks later to try and justify saying he's going with the scientists rather than the government

It wouldn't be the same place though - if you look at what Israel's circuit-breaker lockdown accomplished, it made a massive difference in the spread and could allow us to get back in control of the thing again.

Puja

Digby wrote:

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:Not sure what to make of Keir breaking with government policy. He needs to add rather more than lets end up at the same place two weeks later to try and justify saying he's going with the scientists rather than the government

It wouldn't be the same place though - if you look at what Israel's circuit-breaker lockdown accomplished, it made a massive difference in the spread and could allow us to get back in control of the thing again.

Puja

If I thought 2 weeks would be enough to get the numbers down sufficiently and get track and trace actually working fine, but I'm not buying that for a moment so the plan needs some additions. I'm not saying he's wrong or I'm without sympathy for what is a difficult decision to separate from government policy, but he does need to go further, as is it's just a political trap for Boris which is elegantly framed and useful to Keir, it's just not especially useful to the country.

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:

Puja wrote:
It wouldn't be the same place though - if you look at what Israel's circuit-breaker lockdown accomplished, it made a massive difference in the spread and could allow us to get back in control of the thing again.

Puja

If I thought 2 weeks would be enough to get the numbers down sufficiently and get track and trace actually working fine, but I'm not buying that for a moment so the plan needs some additions. I'm not saying he's wrong or I'm without sympathy for what is a difficult decision to separate from government policy, but he does need to go further, as is it's just a political trap for Boris which is elegantly framed and useful to Keir, it's just not especially useful to the country.

2 weeks is pretty much the perfect length of time though. If you say it's complete lockdown, combined with the schools being shut over half-term, then you stand a chance of getting full public buy-in over a short 2 weeks. And if you can do that, then you've denied the virus 95% of its transmission vectors for the same period of time that it normally takes between infection and recovery/getting to a stage where you can't transmit it. You'd have a large number of cases currently present having a R rate of zero as they'd be having it at home, away from anyone else.

Will it solve all the problems? Course not. Would 4 weeks or 6 weeks be better? Definitely. Do I think there's a chance in hell of people obeying a lockdown for that long, given the behaviour of people in power and the terrible communication? Not even slightly. Two weeks would make a massive difference and would stand a chance of actually being stuck to.

Puja

Digby wrote:

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:
If I thought 2 weeks would be enough to get the numbers down sufficiently and get track and trace actually working fine, but I'm not buying that for a moment so the plan needs some additions. I'm not saying he's wrong or I'm without sympathy for what is a difficult decision to separate from government policy, but he does need to go further, as is it's just a political trap for Boris which is elegantly framed and useful to Keir, it's just not especially useful to the country.

2 weeks is pretty much the perfect length of time though. If you say it's complete lockdown, combined with the schools being shut over half-term, then you stand a chance of getting full public buy-in over a short 2 weeks. And if you can do that, then you've denied the virus 95% of its transmission vectors for the same period of time that it normally takes between infection and recovery/getting to a stage where you can't transmit it. You'd have a large number of cases currently present having a R rate of zero as they'd be having it at home, away from anyone else.

Will it solve all the problems? Course not. Would 4 weeks or 6 weeks be better? Definitely. Do I think there's a chance in hell of people obeying a lockdown for that long, given the behaviour of people in power and the terrible communication? Not even slightly. Two weeks would make a massive difference and would stand a chance of actually being stuck to.

Puja

I think we're too late to get away with just a two week correction. And even then they'd still need a track and trace programme that could and would work. The delay would be helpful, but it's not enough, and it's not enough to warrant the major political parties splitting their messaging during a pandemic

Puja wrote:Is it the job of the Opposition to cleave to government messaging in a pandemic, even when said government appears to have made no effort at cross-party involvement? If there was a coalition or if there were cross-bench working parties or some kind of attempt to work as a whole parliament on a national emergency, then I'd agree that a united front was called for, but Boris appears to be treating this as government business for the governing party. That's his right with the majority he has, of course, but I don't think you can then chide the Leader of the Opposition for critiquing government plans and holding them to account.

Digby wrote:It's not the job of the opposition to support the government ever, but there are good reasons why one wouldn't want to confuse the messaging during a pandemic. Again I have some sympathy with the position Starmer has found himself in with a government being some mix of delusional and pissed in their response, but given he's split I think he needs to add more detail.

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Digby wrote:It's not the job of the opposition to support the government ever, but there are good reasons why one wouldn't want to confuse the messaging during a pandemic. Again I have some sympathy with the position Starmer has found himself in with a government being some mix of delusional and pissed in their response, but given he's split I think he needs to add more detail.

How much detail are you looking for here? Since Labour aren't in power, more detail is pointless (and in fact a distraction and potentially a political liability).

Digby wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Digby wrote:It's not the job of the opposition to support the government ever, but there are good reasons why one wouldn't want to confuse the messaging during a pandemic. Again I have some sympathy with the position Starmer has found himself in with a government being some mix of delusional and pissed in their response, but given he's split I think he needs to add more detail.

How much detail are you looking for here? Since Labour aren't in power, more detail is pointless (and in fact a distraction and potentially a political liability).

He's already creating the distraction and liability by separating the official opposition from the government, not unreasonably so for many but either way it's a big step. And given the cases were only starting to rise in the North when we came out of the national lockdown (or when the South looked good to come out of lockdown) it doesn't look much like a 2 week circuit break is doing enough for a large area of the country beyond being a delaying tactic, so what will the delay allow for, especially when saying track and trace will be in place looks pie in the sky.

There's a school of thought it's appropriate or at least sufficient for Starmer to merely set out a major difference in policy during a pandemic and leave it at that, it's not a line of thinking I'd share.

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Digby wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote: How much detail are you looking for here? Since Labour aren't in power, more detail is pointless (and in fact a distraction and potentially a political liability).

He's already creating the distraction and liability by separating the official opposition from the government, not unreasonably so for many but either way it's a big step. And given the cases were only starting to rise in the North when we came out of the national lockdown (or when the South looked good to come out of lockdown) it doesn't look much like a 2 week circuit break is doing enough for a large area of the country beyond being a delaying tactic, so what will the delay allow for, especially when saying track and trace will be in place looks pie in the sky.

There's a school of thought it's appropriate or at least sufficient for Starmer to merely set out a major difference in policy during a pandemic and leave it at that, it's not a line of thinking I'd share.

I mean any detail could be used as a distraction from his main point, which is to follow Sage's advice and have a short lockdown. Political liability as in any detailed point he made could be attacked in isolation.

But I'm still not understanding what details you want him to come up with. He doesn't have Sage, he's not at Cobra, he doesn't have the department of Health, how can he give a detailed plan?

Digby wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Digby wrote:
He's already creating the distraction and liability by separating the official opposition from the government, not unreasonably so for many but either way it's a big step. And given the cases were only starting to rise in the North when we came out of the national lockdown (or when the South looked good to come out of lockdown) it doesn't look much like a 2 week circuit break is doing enough for a large area of the country beyond being a delaying tactic, so what will the delay allow for, especially when saying track and trace will be in place looks pie in the sky.

There's a school of thought it's appropriate or at least sufficient for Starmer to merely set out a major difference in policy during a pandemic and leave it at that, it's not a line of thinking I'd share.

I mean any detail could be used as a distraction from his main point, which is to follow Sage's advice and have a short lockdown. Political liability as in any detailed point he made could be attacked in isolation.

But I'm still not understanding what details you want him to come up with. He doesn't have Sage, he's not at Cobra, he doesn't have the department of Health, how can he give a detailed plan?

I didn't ask for a detailed plan, simply more detail.

So what happens if the R number doesn't drop inside 2 weeks because it's already too prevalent in certain communities and given lockdowns take seemingly much longer to take effect than virus spread in 'normal' conditions? How much more lockdown above tier 2/3? What will happen to track and trace and other services to reap any benefits of the circuit break?...

If he's got no answers to any of that fine, but at that point don't set out the commencement of an entirely different policy during a pandemic. He's not a bloke down the pub venting, he's the leader of the official opposition and what he says matters