Silver Fox

Wel I could take this off-topic very quick if I was to reply to that

So, this post left intentionally blank.

Misco60

Rishi Sunak (the UK's chancellor of the exchequer) is on Sophy Ridge’s programme on Sky at the moment.

He was asked whether the government’s roadmap could be accelerated if the data is better than anticipated, and he said that the dates announced in the roadmap are the earliest possible.

It seems that the government is determined to lift the lockdown cautiously and will not give in to demands by the CRG that they move more quickly.

paulaf

As a retired successful accountant I would never have got away with explaining to my CEO I would only update our business models for bad data not good data. But then most of these politicians have never worked in industry.

13901

For once, well done.

IAN-UK

I'd guess we are all interested in updates on the vaccine programme and how it enhances the positive results of lockdown in terms of infections, hospital admissions and bed occupancy, and deaths.

The question is whether those updates should drive changes to the government's plans to lift the social and economic restrictions on our lives. Given the limited time frame of those plans and the fluctuation in values reported in updates, it would be daft to start tweaking the milestones on good news: if for no other reason than there would be a relentless ratchet on positive change.

Far better we arrive at the final milestone in a better state than was expected, rather than stumble over it a few weeks early into a new catastrophe.

DaveS

It is a pretty broad list. I would certainly be covered by some of its provisions. It is no wonder my local school reached its limit very quickly.

lhrsfo

And to hell with all the extra premature deaths from depression and other poverty related conditions which such a policy will entail.

The job of Government is to make judgment calls on competing demands. This one has abrogated that responsibility, listening only to SAGE which has no brief to report on the societal or economic downsides to a policy of lockdown at all costs.

IAN-UK

I bet your boss would be equally unforgiving if you updated your business models only to accommodate favourable data. And that's the danger of listening to the frothy-mouthed of the CRG and accommodating their whims.

...and I'm not so sure your boss would thank you for marginal revisions to a short-term business plan, where implementation of he changes would be costly and failure devastating.

corporate-wage-slave

Formally, I don't think anyone had any specific idea as to what exactly the vaccines would do, what success would look like, beyond a general hope to cut the death rate and prevent the NHS from being ovewhelmed, now and in the future. The reason being is that the clinical trials produced a whole load of data, based entirely on whether vaccines would reduce the likelihood of having a positive Covid test result after the vaccine. In it is now blindingly obvious that this is merely a helpful by product, what we really want is to prevent people from getting poorly, going to hospital, dying. These were not directly in the clinical trials, but recent data is giving this huge comfort factor at the top end of expectations. There was no expectation of transmission being arrested by vaccines, but thankfully it is now demonstrated.

But I can disclose one stark fact, shared with ministers yesterday, which has sent around a very pleasant shock to everyone: as of Saturday morning there wasn't a single person in ICU in England with Covid who was over 85 years old. The first time in 11 months.

The pressure we should be putting on our elected representatives is nothing to do with lockdown, it should be about speeding up vaccinations.

paulaf

As I said retired (very early) successful CFO.

KARFA

I think any reasonable person would agree a model should be updated with new data regardless of whether it is good or bad.

If by end of March deaths were heading back up and hospitalisations spiking again, then of course the relaxation of lockdown should be postponed. Why shouldn’t that principle apply both ways?

I am still trying to understand whether the data showing better progress than expected resulting from the vaccine?

paulaf

Good news about ICU. So that won't be factored into the models about vaccines stopping some tranmission if zero affect was assumed.

PxC

I’ve come to terms with accepting the roadmap is in a decent ballpark now. Could it/do I think it could go faster? Yes. But after listening to my mother and her friends (baselessly) judge and gossip about it (festivals.. THIS YEAR!?), given how the media have scared everyone to death, how labour always warn/push for stricter measures, how the narrative is Boris ignores the scientists, if we can get to a place of zero rules by June with the majority on board, and even sage saying no masks or distancing, I can handle it.

I do have one question as to what I’m missing. I had my vaccine last week and with the 11 week delay and couple of weeks on top, I wouldn’t be eligible as a vaccine passport until June. Given the rules will all be going by then anyway, what is the need for the constant debates about whether they can be used for hospitality/events (in the U.K.)? It would be a very small amount of people for a very small amount of time. For clarity I’m talking domestic U.K. vaccine cert/passport here, not foreign travel.

In case anyone’s interested, just did some sums. Assuming an average of 500k vaccines a day, assuming 85% take up then all willing adults will be double dosed before the end of July.

IAN-UK

Perhaps we've been lazy about what we mean. OK, perhaps I'm lazy one

Updating models is a trivial matter. The concern here is whether a consequent change in the model output should drive a shift in policy.



Something missing there, but I'm guessing you are as interested as I am in the contribution of vaccine vs that of the lockdown to success in combatting the disease. As we are (hopefully) not going to get a chance to isolate those inputs in separately run trials under the same conditions, we may be left only with a comparison between the impact of earlier lockdowns and this lockdown+vaccine.

Silver Fox

The only thing you are not allowed to do is let people die of covid. Anything else is fair game. Every year 78k die of smoking and smoking related illnesses. Presumably that overwhelms the NHS to a certain degree but I don't see that being banned. And they have a choice. Second hand smokers don't.

After June 21st everything back to normal, spike or no spike. ~1% of the population are likely to die of this and of that ~1%, ~10% have no co-morbidities. I think I am in that latter group, I try to be, I make an effort with fitness and diet, so sorry all of you that can't be bothered, Almost all the vulnerable have been vaccinated, including my mother who has almost all the co-morbidities on the list (she's not overweight is the only one she is missing) who wants her life back "come what may". I am sorry for the people that have had project fear rammed down their throats and are damaged beyond repair by this, but the sooner we get back to normal the better. And never again. This was not ebola.