A former Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, accused Boris Johnson of “giving in” to the government’s scientific advisers when he declared a second lockdown.
Those damn scientific advisors. You can’t turn your back on them for a minute. It’s all just science, science, science.
So what have those pesky scientists done lately?
Some have demonstrated that masks don’t deprive you of oxygen. Yes, they already knew that, but the rumor that they do has a life of its own, so a few of them went ahead and rigged up a clutch of people with portable pulse oximeters (the measure blood oxygen levels), and guess what: They found no signs that any participant was short of oxygen.
In other words, they’re saying you should wear a mask. You’ll still be able to breathe.
Pesky damn know-it-alls.
They’re also developing an overwhelming number of possible vaccines–more than I can keep up with–and identifying existing drugs that hold out the hope of treating Covid well enough to at least prevent hospitalization. But stay strong, people. We mustn’t give in to them. We’re doing just fine by our own ignorant selves.
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We haven’t heard much drum-beating lately about Britain’s world-beating Covid app–the one that was going to save us all–but every so often an article surfaces about what’s gone wrong with it. The latest is that it was set at the wrong sensitivity level, so it missed notifying thousands of people that they’d been in contact with and infected person, and it stayed at that setting for a month. A government source said a “shockingly low” number of people were sent warnings.
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Someone working in Britain’s business secretary’s private office tested positive for Covid and the rest of the office went into isolation. But the business secretary himself, Alok Sharma, went to South Korea and even after he heard of the positive diagnosis held meetings there .
He hadn’t had close contact with the person who tested positive, he said.
They had a meeting four or five days before, the papers say–and people are contagious before symptoms begin.
Sharma hadn’t “been told to isolate by NHS test and trace,” a spokesperson said.
Well, no, I don’t expect he had been. The test and trace system is notoriously nonfunctional.
Sharma tested negative before he left for the trip and again when he arrived, someone the spokesperson said, not mentioning the test’s percentage of false negatives or its inability to pick up pre-symptomatic cases reliably.
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Before England went into lockdown, the universities minister (hands up: who knew Britain had one?) urged university students to stay where they were for the duration of the lockdown. Some uncounted many headed home anyway.
Most of them are taking classes online anyway.
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Michael Gove, the cabinet office minister, and Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, gave out assorted wrong information on what people could and couldn’t do under the new lockdown rules. There’s no point in repeating misinformation, so let’s just say that it hasn’t helped. They apologized very nicely, and in fairness the new lockdown was hauled out of the flatpack so quickly that the government only had time to put half the screws in place. We’ve been asked not to rest heavy objects on it until November 15.
Still, I don’t think they’ll be letting any ministers out on their own for a while.
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The Department for Education has outsourced the work of advising schools on how to handle Covid. Until recently, this was done by clinicians from Public Health England, who advised, did spot checks, followed up, and advised further. Then in September they were replaced with a call center whose workers read from a script. One teacher was told to send thirty-two students home.
Why thirty-two? he asked.
The call handler didn’t know.
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At the end of October, Boris Johnson promised England that we’d have Covid tests we could read ourselves. Better yet, they’d give us a result in ten to fifteen minutes. They’d work on presymptomatic people, asymptomatic people, semisymptomatic dogs, cats in all states of symptomosity, and ham sandwiches–in short, everyone and everything. Including–this being England, a nice cup of tea.
People could be tested, know they were safe, and go on with normal life. And the would still be warm enough to drink.
The government bought 20 million of tests.
Unfortunately, the maker’s website says the tests aren’t meant for people without symptoms and are meant to be read by a health professional.
Step away from that tea, please.
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Just in time to beat lockdown, a couple got married, joined their last names, and became Mr. and Mrs. White-Christmas.
Seriously. Tilly Christmas and Kieran White. I doubt they had any arguments over whose name would come first.
I couldn’t tell that anything had changed when I went out for my run this morning. There seemed to be the same amount of people about in cars and on foot, and they weren’t all on their way to school or out for exercise. I knew I had the right day, because the NHS Covid app no longer tells me that I live in an area of medium risk.
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Interesting.
After some hand-wringing and a great deal of website checking, our village produce stall has decided to continue, since it sells food (and a few other things). It’s outdoors and so as safe as anything is these days. I hope we’re right to do that.
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Did you ever hear of a surgeon or nurse passing out from lack of oxygen while wearing his or her mask? How this crap gets traction is beyond me.
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Oddly enough, no. But I’m sure it happens to them by the thousands and is covered up by a media bent on suppressing the story of the century.
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Here in good old North Norfolk, it didn’t look like there was any lock-down this lunchtime. Had a doctors appointment and the village was fuller than on Christmas Eve. Never mind. I hunker down with a not-tested 😁 cup of green tea (I am sure that makes a difference) and keep watching this Horror-movie called reality. Thanks for keeping us updated 🙋♀️🐝
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Green tea has antioxidants, so it shouldn’t need testing. All will be well.
Unfortunately, we don’t know when yet.
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🤣 hmmm I suggest a world-beating decade 🙋♀️🐝
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Oy vey. I was hoping for something a little shorter than that. I’m not getting any younger, you know.
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Were those tests bought by the Department For Making It Up As We Go Along, by any chance? I hope Mr and Mrs White-Christmas were given a pack of tests as a wedding present, along with a free scientist to explain them. Although I would guess that, as newly-weds, they might not appreciate the idea of a stranger watching them…
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I don’t think a free scientist is part of the pre-lockdown package, although I’m sure the government has a fair number they’d be happy to dispense with so that the department you mentioned can work unimpeded.
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I’m sure they have, though their problem is deciding which ones they want: managing scientists is a bit like herding cats, isn’t it!
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My experience of herding scientists is limited to a sample of one: I was copy editing an article of his, and every time I edited it he rewrote it. And I re-edited it. And he rewrote it. And started working nights so no one could call him. We’d still be going back and forth if the editor I worked for (and the senior scientist he worked under) hadn’t intervened by ringing the bell and sending us each back to our respective corners.
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Which is to say, yes, based on that sample, it is like herding cats.
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He sounds the perfect case study. The government should hire him immediately, especially if he is a friend of one of them.
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I see your argument, but he was a serious scientist (one strike against him) and very concerned with global warming (deeply suspect).. Plus I don’t think any of the key people would know him from a hole in the ground, which is the fatal third strike.
Sorry–baseball metaphor. Highly inappropriate.
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He sounds well qualified, so he’ll never get the job. Your baseball analogy is fine: there are quite a few politicians on both sides of the Atlantic whose heads deserve to make close acquaintance with a baseball bat…
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I’m sure a better person would find a way to argue with that. It’s a shame I’m not a better person.
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Seemed like a plan to me 😉
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Okay, I think that establishes that there are no better people in this conversation.
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A fair assessment!
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The easy to use, be all and end all instant tests makes me thing of Gilda Radner in the early days of Saturday Night Live – never mind.
Congratulations to the White Christmas family.
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I missed most of Saturday Night Live and mostly heard the jokes second hand. Long story. Somehow catching up on it now just seems sad. So–okay, I’ve missed the joke but I’ll take your word for it instead of looking for a clip on YouTube.
The White-Christmas family is going to be sooo sick of that song.
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Thank you, Ellen, for a virtual swag of gems here. ‘… the new lockdown was hauled out of the flatpack so quickly that the government only had time to put half the screws in place.’ ‘Symptomosity’ is now in my lexicon. And finally the White-Christmases. Really, would you hire a business graduate who’d taken a fair time to work out the connection and got married in a bath? There again, I suppose Boris would. Stay safe.
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Ah, well, don’t blame the White-Christmases for the mess Boris Johnson’s made. I’m sure it was a love match and the names were a bonus. And I say that on the basis of no information whatsoever.
Glad I could add to your collection of worthwhile phrases. I’m aware that you’re collecting and do my best to keep ’em coming.
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Country shuts down, country opens up … Country shuts down, country opens up … Country shuts down, country opens up …
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You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out……
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Following the scientists ? Are they mad ? That’s certainly not how it’s done in the Yew Ess of Aaaaay. And we’re number one ! Glad your chaps have come to their senses to ignore them.
We are still on “results pending” Last time it was “hanging chads” – hoping now for “hanging donald” up by you know what parts of his anatomy.
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Follow the scientists? That could get downright creepy. Most of them, I expect, just want to go home at the end of the day without an entire government–or a country, for that matter–tagging along behind them.
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I’ve just been into the office for 1/2 hour because I had to take some files back and print a load of stuff which I can’t manage on my small home printer. Most of the offices in the office block were open as normal, even though they’re all doing the sort of work which *can* be done from home by remote link, and a lot of people are going in full time – whether through their own choice or their employers’, I don’t know.
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Let’s cross our fingers for all of them. It’s hard to take in that something as normal as working in an office is a hazard, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
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Well here in Wales (day 14 of firebreak) I walked to the chemist to put up some medicine and it was noticeably quieter in terms of people on the street, but not totally dead. I can’t compare with the first lockdown as I was confined to my bedroom recovering from a broken leg. Did I mention that I broke my leg earlier this year?
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I followed your blog posts about it, and it sounded horrendous. It’s one way to keep yourself from breaking the lockdown rules, but I do think it was an over-reaction.
Does the firebreak seem to be working?
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Dear Ellen,
you are my very favourite go-to-place for infos on Britain. :-)
It is interesting to see that starting from the new lock down in Britain a wave of panic spreads across the world. Not panic because of the virus but panic because everybody hates the ensuing measures, cutting down on our freedom.
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I do understand the anger and the panic, especially among people who lose their livelihoods. The government’s offering some support, but there are huge gaps in the programs and some people being told to isolate just plain can’t afford to. Some of the anger, though, is concocted, and people end up getting angry at not having the right to freely infect other people. It’s lunacy.
Thanks for the compliment. It’s always nice to hear them.
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It’s hard to tell, the numbers in Merthyr and RCT, Brynmill (here) and Cardiff have stayed very high. There doesnt seem to have been much drop but maybe we should be glad that they haven’t climbed even higher. Two weeks isnt long enough in my opinion.
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Apparently not. And if the kids are still in school–. The science on whether kids transmit the virus is still contradictory, but my money’s on them transmitting it.
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Yes those kids do spread it – an ex-work colleague of mine and her family all caught it from her baby who caught it from his nursery nurse.
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I’ve had a lot of trouble believing that kids wouldn’t. They spread everything else, the generous little darlings.
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Complacency has set in and everyone’s out and about as normal, even the students at Manchester University… they had to kick down barriers that had been erected overnight to barricade them in!
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I can’t help believing that if the powers-that-be would make some minimal effort to get people (in this case, students) on their side instead of just setting up a barrier, they might get a better response.
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Very true, but they wanted them locked down and locked in – not good.
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A lockdown may well be the right thing to do, but there has to be some awareness of people’s needs, and some awareness that they’re dealing with people, not chess pieces. All that seems to be missing here.
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Yes, and the people have had enough.
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Some have. But what’s the alternative. I mean, a competent government, surely, would help–one that could buy the right tests for its massive testing program, for example. But I’d hate to see us go down the route that US has taken of just letting the thing circulate out of control.
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Perhaps they need to hand out more big fines to dissuade people from breaking the restrictions.
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I expect they’ll have to, but I swear a public education campaign would be less combative and might actually make a difference.
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Here in Australia we also have a COVID app. So far it hasn’t detected too many cases. Not sure if there are sensitivity issues like your app over there. Finally the state I am in have come out of lockdown since March. So long but we’re having almost zero cases here – but as a pessimist there will be another wave soon. Hopefully it blows over soon over there.
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Let’s hope you can hold it to zero. Taiwan’s managed for over 200 days. New Zealand seems to be managing. Fingers crossed. It’s good to know that there are places that are returning to normal life.
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Yeah, New Zealand, Singapore and other Asian countries seem to be managing well. We’re heading into summer in Australia, so hopefully we’re good for now. Might be a different story next year but who knows.
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Fingers crossed. From here, at least, you guys look like a success story.
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This is true. Victoria in Australia looks like a success story. Then again our second wave started in a matter of days after a slip up in hotel quarantine management. Hopefully lockdown helps over there.
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I hope so. In large part, it depends on whether it will work with the schools and universities open. They form a big gap.
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Boris should definitely “go with his gut” rather than science. It’s worked so well for us in the US.
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Yeah. The results have been– Um. Indescribable.
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