VinnieK

The closer we get to 2021, the more I'm starting to think we should have a moratorium on the cursed-2020 notion, if only because it's going to break our hearts when if 2021 is the same or even worse.

Cake then. At least I can say that I died as I lived: making stupid decisions in an easily avoidable situation.

Ok. Does the cake at least taste nice? I don't want my last moments on earth to be filled with indifference towards a bland bit of battenberg.

Cake...wait...is it poisoned?

I do have a Ph. D and already know a few medics, but the comparative levels of our qualifications have never really come up that much—largely because such a comparison is actually pretty facile when you consider the differing nature of the training (on-going, in the case of medics) and focus (incredibly narrow, in the case of Ph. D's) of each. Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not denigrating Rachel Glover's expertise, but that's a different matter and one of experience and a skill-set that's been built up over years. As I say, I just found the simple comparison of a Ph. D, on its own, and a medical degree a bit silly and cringe-inducing because of that.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, one of the last tweets was about getting such harassment—something along the lines of how she and people doing similar work should face some kind of Nuremberg-style trial. I suppose it completely makes sense to the kind of histrionic apocalypse-junkies who think we're now living in a police state.

Last I read, Rachel Glover was also receiving a fair bit of abuse online from those who don't believe in the seriousness of the pandemic or have an axe to grind concerning the measures taken to contain it, which may be responsible or play a part in the disappearance of her twitter account. The comment about being a 'real' doctor was self-defeating and a bit cringe-inducing though.

I've tried, but I just can't! When I listen to 'Train of Thought' I think, "hey, that sounds a bit like Death", and then I just wish I was listening to them instead. On the electronic side, I have a similar relationship with Autechre and Aphex Twin. I'll listen, because I feel obliged to and will appreciate it, but halfway through I'll invariably think " 'kin 'ell, wish I was listening to a bit of Orbital right around now". Don't know what it is, but I've just got a block as far as they're concerned. It might be the case that when it comes to metal, I'd like experimentation to move away from the already hyper-technical sound into something more visceral, like earlyish Napalm Death or Carcass, or something more theatrically silly like Arcturus's La Masquerade Infernale.

For me, it's Starless. But everyone says that...

It's almost certainly a deficiency on my part, but I could never get into Dream Theatre. I don't know if it's just that their stuff sounds over-produced (to me), but they always sound like they're a bit too much on the sterile side of prog-rock/metal. Then again, that might just be a consequence of coming to it from an early-90s metal background where the whole technical/vituoso playing thing was so prevalent that slapping some wilfully exotic time signatures can seem like it's over-egging the pudding a bit. But yes, to echo The Teapot's post, nifty video! Sure the gig will go down well.

Just what I was going to ask! More Frippertronics please.

Economies of scale isn't really outdated - it's still an observable and pretty well understood phenomenon. The problem is that those who bang on about it the most as if it were some magic justification for amalgamating this, that, and the other forget (or, more likely were never aware of) the fact that there are also dyseconomies of scale.

I thought magic beans had been rebranded as disruptive legume tech, so as to better demonstrate how they're causing us to totally rethink beans and the way they're used?

This misses a couple of important points about the survey. The first is that, as Island Global Research themselves report, the sample for BAME respondents is small, consisting of just 87 people. That means that, were this a random sample (which it isn't), there would be some pretty hefty confidence intervals around that figure. The second is that BAME typically excludes anyone who is white, but plenty of white people in the British Isles can consider themselves to be victims of racism, i.e. Eastern Europeans, Irish Travellers, etc. A further point is that there's no useful breakdown of how the two groups answered: it may be the case that a majority of the BAME respondents who reported a perception of racism did so for the two higher categories, while white respondents by and large reported lower categories, in which case the analysis would have to be a lot more nuanced than "Look! White people think it's a bigger problem than Black, Asian, etc., respondents do!" That alone should act as a caution against leaping to (or insinuating) a particular conclusion about racism on the Island and how it is perceived. Then there's the fact that accurately investigating the actual prevalence and degree of racism and racist attitudes in a society is notoriously difficult and probably requires much more subtle and sophisticated techniques than Island Global Research were able to employ (which, to be fair, they more or less admit in the introduction). It's not really buried though. The result is right there on the page dealing with the Isle of Man, clear enough to see for anyone capable of adding three numbers together. It's not like they consigned the figure to a passing mention within a dense wall of text in section 5.6 of Appendix F.

My instinct is that he is probably partly right in a few places, but not the whole thing and even then possibly not for the right reasons. I'd be interested to know what comes out of what's happening in France at the moment, as I believe that their ITUs are under pressure at the moment.

Will have a proper watch later, but something about his reasoning seems a bit fishy. There are lots and lots and lots of charts, but the arguments largely seem like they hinge on possibly superficial similarities of graph shapes, a tendency to focus purely on deaths and ignore the ventilator/ICU cases, and a running and potentially fallacious comparison with Sweden. I'd be more convinced if he'd presented evidence that any kind of effort to control for variables across comparisons had been implemented, but I can't find any indication that this is the case. Also, the value of some of the evidence to the point being made is debatable. For instance, the "16 Possible Factors for Sweden’s High COVID Death Rate among the Nordics" is actually written by three economists, for an economics journal, and an awful lot of the reasons in it are couched in very vague language (with more than a few starting "Sweden may" or "Sweden might"). That's not to rubbish the paper, but the emphasis the guy puts on it as a key result is suspiciously disproportionate. I may well be wrong, but my first impression is that this looks to be built on a process of joining the dots between a whole big sack of cherry-picked evidence. But maybe he's right, in which case I'll enthusiastically bookmark "how to fix my heart disease" from him, just in case.

There are still vulnerable people out there, but there are also still restrictions in place which may be what's currently limiting transmission to those people. With total easing, that protection is no longer in place and you run the risk of ending up right back where you started and having to go through another full lock down. It should also be noted that the category 'vulnerable people' is not limited to the very old either: people with diabetes are also at risk, and the increased risk of suffering from a severe form of the disease starts at around 40 and gradually increases with age. That seems a bit weak to me. In that scenario, all that over-emphasizing the danger now would achieve is to prompt people to ask why more wasn't done to begin with and why more still isn't being done now—which is exactly the criticisms I'm hearing coming out of England. It would be far easier for Boris use the same reasoning you've employed to declare everything is now sunshine and puppies and use that to vindicate their course of action. Of course, the hospitals might be a bit miffed, but we can always spin their objections as coming from doctors trying to scare us into buying them fancy new scrubs and cool ventilators to play with.

Again, it's not just about death rates; for instance, France's hospitals have only just issued a warning about their intensive care units being under pressure after experiencing another spike in cases. Also, a lot of those factors you list are still in place: people who were vulnerable before COVID-19 are just as vulnerable now, and present the risk of hospitalizations surging in the same way as before if the virus is allowed to circulate freely among the population again. Finally cases vs. death rates isn't anywhere near the full story, since a large number of other factors like the age and health profile of those infected also plays a huge part in determining how severe the impact is. If those being infected are primarily young, then of course death rates and hospitalizations aren't going to rise as significantly as they did when things first kicked off. I don't know if COVID-19 is much less dangerous than we first thought, or if it has become much less lethal, though I hope that is the case. Two things I do know though are The circumstances today in the UK are still far from normal and so caution should be exercised when using these as an argument concerning the threat the virus poses. The saving face/justifying policy explanation for the government continuing with social restrictions makes little sense when: a) the most common criticism of the UK government that I've heard is they've cocked things up by being too lax and erratic in imposing restrictions; b) they could so easily market themselves as the saviours of Britain by declaring that everything's fine now and lifting restrictions.

Which might not say as much as it may first seem to, since there are still plenty of restrictions in place in the UK and people are still generally exercising a fair bit of caution in how they go about their daily business.

Surely it's not just about the true mortality, which still seems fairly high, but also the pretty high number of hospitalizations that resulted from infection. It's only a few months since hospitals all over the world were running out of oxygen due to the additional demands placed on them.

OK, but in that case the supposed 'lie' looks like it both causes the problem and then excuses the governments from blame. Wouldn't it be much, much easier for them just to say "hello scum! Everything's fine now, so start working again and get back to your horrible little lives"?

To what end? Do the fiendish lizard people own shares in companies producing masks and hand sanitizer or something?

Things do still seem to be pretty grim in a lot of England. Even aside from the restrictions and measures that still affect people's lives, the anxiety and worry a lot of people are suffering from is noticeable everywhere, not to mention the fear that their area is going to be subjected to a local lockdown.

Protecting the NHS was the most immediate goal to begin with because the virus has been circulating in the populace and becoming established for a while, so there was a danger it could get completely out of control within a relatively short amount of time. I imagine that now there are other considerations that are more immediate, such as the economic and social damage another lockdown could cause and the need to keep the virus at bay/under control. The easiest way to address these is to stop the virus getting a foothold from which it can transmitting through the community. My guess is that the focus on the infection rate in the UK is aimed at limiting the risk of getting a whole bunch of infections on the Island, which in turn limits the probability that a few will slip through the net and create multiple points from which the virus can start spreading again. Basically, there seems to be two options: allow more freedom at the border, but keep some social distancing measures in place indefinitely and/or impose temporary local lockdowns; and have more restrictions at the border, but benefit from limited to no social distancing measures or internal restrictions.

I think that part is worth emphasising and elaborating on to highlight those who are not so much scared of them or their loved ones getting the virus, but frightened of what a second lockdown would mean for them in terms of social isolation, the emotional strain of lockdown, and the potential impact on their finances. Moreover, aside from the practical risks and the question of to what extent their worries are or are not justified, the psychological benefit of the border restrictions shouldn't be under estimated or ignored. On purely selfish level, I'd love to see the borders completely open, but I appreciate the risks and the legitimate fears and anxieties others have so am pretty content with things as they are. I'm probably being unfair here, but, excluding those who work in tourism, catering, and other industries directly affected by the border controls, a lot of the more zealous opposition to border restrictions seems like its rooted more in abstract ideological principle and/or a cargo-cult mentality towards the economic benefits of unfettered travel than a genuine or considered concern for the Island.