Coronavirus (2021) thread

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Summerbuzz said:
Do you rate them? If Whitty was my GP I'd probably dump him. Repeats the same reasoning and assumption several times, using slightly dafter and more childish language every time. I feel we never get to the hard facts of why he makes an assumption. No specificity. 'We think' is not terribly reassuring. They could be clearer, more transparent about it. He's quite patronising in fact. Old school GP stuff. Beige.
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To be fair this is literally how scientists talk. Unless they're 100% certain of something, and that is rare in science, never mind with something like this, they won't use anything other than non-committal language.
 
Summerbuzz said:
Do you rate them? If Whitty was my GP I'd probably dump him. Repeats the same reasoning and assumption several times, using slightly dafter and more childish language every time. I feel we never get to the hard facts of why he makes an assumption. No specificity. 'We think' is not terribly reassuring. They could be clearer, more transparent about it. He's quite patronising in fact. Old school GP stuff. Beige.
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He is trying to make it easier for lay people to understand , he has to dumb down to do that

I trust him
 
twosips said:
The science doesn't even say it. The science basically says its a small theory with 'considerable remaining uncertainty'. I don't think they should mention it until they know more. It's irresponsible.
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If it's in the public domain from Israel sources, then they're going to be asked. They might as well address it head on, and definitely not hide.

One man's 'significant possibility' is another's "small probability". People will understand different things, whatever they say.
 
twosips said:
To be fair this is literally how scientists talk. Unless they're 100% certain of something, and that is rare in science, never mind with something like this, they won't use anything other than non-committal language.
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No, in that context, it's good. But if someone asks you a specific question, as was done with the second jab bit, you can lay out very broadly what the range of uncertainty is and what the factors involved are. What leads you to your conclusion. He just repeated what they'd say before, and said it repeatedly. Waste of time.

Yes, they have communicate plainly. And they don't. They do the old school thing, dilute the message and repeat a few friendly phrases. If the entire briefing can't be reduced to a page of concise information and messaging, then I am missing something. And I'm not. What they give us is effectively a bunch of badly edited pages, repetitive, unclear. The whole thing is sort of blurred into a grey smudge with a few warmly delivered messages. It's not transparent enough. People don't trust the government? Can't imagine why. They are dreadful communicators. They are relying on the psychological messaging that they are trustworthy to carry the day. It's not a universal thing, many people just won't feel that way. And people like me were raised and educated to look straight past those signals and find the substance message. It's an outdated communication style. It's back because people got sick of what we got as a replacement. But it's less effective in communicating with the whole. It's just a preferred option for a segment of the population. It will lead to a more divided public. We needed something new. A move towards neutrally delivered, extremely concise and literal factual messaging. The soft, warm bits can be dealt with almost seperately.

We're going backwards. Seriously. This obsession with comms was lead by the politicians who were learning about the public, and they saw they love to blame the press. But it's about the public. Nothing wrong whatsoever with learning about them. But the political answer we were given was short sighted. It's taking advantage of the existence of a preference. But unless the whole is addressed, this will not work well for this country. Trust in politicians will continue to fall heavily. Because the models of communication that have been implemented are extremely regressive. Continuous use of focus groups to find reactions to messages leads us into a rut. They are modelling how group dynamics form in response to a given statement. It's a perfect recipe to learn how to repeatedly trigger certain unconcious biases and dynamics that form in that context. The real forward step will come when they throw the question - the whole thing - at the focus groups, and ask them to work it out. The dynamics then are very different. Then they will learn something we can all use. All we are doing now is effectively learning how to repeat old mistakes in a predictable fashion. The predictability is what they like. That's how they stay one step ahead. But take a step back and it's clear we're just retreading the same circle, over and over.
 
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twosips said:
The science doesn't even say it. The science basically says its a small theory with 'considerable remaining uncertainty'. I don't think they should mention it until they know more. It's irresponsible.
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At this stage we are still learning about covid , it is not a small theory , several sources are saying the same , they have to make it clear as we go along as it important that we carry on sticking to the rules , they cant hide stuff because it is not good news
 
England hospital patient data is tracking up again but not by much.

Ventilators though had a bigger rise - 120 in the day - and now at their highest ever level of 3727

North West shared in this rising by 5 to 417 - well above the number at the peak in the April wave.

Indeed every region is up past that number now.

As they are with patient numbers - which in total in England today rose by 177 to 33, 412.

The only two regions which had patient numbers rise today were the North West - up just 28 to 4325. And the South East which rose a lot today - 354 - to 5387.
 
Invisible Man's Bandage said:
400,000 vaccinations in the last 24 hours is the good news story today.
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Whilst Drakeford and his Welsh fucking cronies have decided to prioritise jobs over lives.. they are making the drugs they have last until they get more supplies.. they don’t want “vaccinators sitting around with no work” words from Drakeford’s own lips live on TV

Fucking scandalous and makes me sorry that we moved to North Wales.. SWMBO is on the highly vulnerable list yet she’s heard fuck all.. not good news as she may be referred for some chemo soon..
 
kaz7 said:
We wouldnt have wasted so much money giving his mates bumper contracts , for the other thread anyway , we will never know who would be better but we know he is not a leader for a crisis
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if you or anyone thinks corbyn, Abbott and Mcdonell would be fit to lead this I give up. It would be truly terrifying. Anyway as you say political thread.

it was quite an intense briefing tonight. Quite tense times. Another weekend in and hopefully small steps with the vaccine.
 
carlosthejackal said:
A sky high death rate in the middle of January , was Christmas and a turkey dinner really worth it?
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No, definitely not.

Thankfully, my work were great and allowed me two weeks off before Christmas so I could isolate meaning I could go to my parents on Christmas Day.

But, unless everybody had done that and we’d had a two-week proper circuit breaker, I think Christmas should have been “cancelled”.
 
Dick Drayford has opened his secret supply cupboard. Mother in law gets her jab on Monday. Relief shown by my wife is incredible (although she is still awaiting hers)
 
This new variant being more deadly. Presumably an accident of nature as it gains no evolutionary advantage killing off your host after you settle in.

Of course, this is a virus and obviously not a rational intelligent species that understands ecology and balance and would never wreck the home where it hopes to live by destroying other species around it and despoiling that home just because it can more easily do other stuff that way.

As humans we can see the folly of anything doing that and we would ....

um - oh yes. Right.
 
My mother in law has just phoned my wife to tell her about receiving the jab today. She is 78 and lives on her own in North Cumbria. She had the Pfizer vaccine at Wigton Hospital, it was very well organised and interestingly she didn't have to be observed for 15 minutes afterwards and was straight out. All they said was if she felt unwell she should take paracetamol. She's home and feeling fine though.
 
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