Brexit, for once some facts.

[Nev]

I hope and pray that they can continue this well.

The coronavirus slayer! How Kerala's rock star health minister helped save it from Covid-19
Laura Spinney

KK Shailaja has been hailed as the reason a state of 35 million people has only lost four to the virus. Here’s how the former teacher did it
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/the-coronavirus-slayer-how-keralas-rock-star-health-minister-helped-save-it-from-covid-19

Interesting to see she had a science background. Merkle too has science qualifications and experience and also has people from an engineering background in her senior administration. I have read that several of the leaders or senior decision makers in the Asian countries that have done well also have similar types of background.

This may be just a coincidence but I suspect its not. Its all very well have scientific advisors but if you don't have a maths, science or engineering background you are not going to fully appreciate what these experts are telling you.

I don't know but I wonder if any of our cabinet members have a science or engineering background. The senior members seem to come from law, PR, journalism and business backgrounds. I would think these are not the best backgrounds to be dealing with a pandemic.

 

[oyster]

Interesting to see she had a science background. Merkle too has science qualifications and experience and also has people from an engineering background in her senior administration. I have read that several of the leaders or senior decision makers in the Asian countries that have done well also have similar types of background.

This may be just a coincidence but I suspect its not. Its all very well have scientific advisors but if you don't have a maths, science or engineering background you are not going to fully appreciate what these experts are telling you.

I don't know but I wonder if any of our cabinet members have a science or engineering background. The senior members seem to come from law, PR, journalism and business backgrounds. I would think these are not the best backgrounds to be dealing with a pandemic.

You can see their lack of science every minute of every day.

Even the way they speak of pushing "the R number" down. The R number comes down if you manage to reduce the rate of infection. In itself, it is just a way of expressing the rate of infection. Targetting infection, with the result of a reduced R number, is reasonable.

 

[Barry Shittpeas]

Interesting to see she had a science background. Merkle too has science qualifications and experience and also has people from an engineering background in her senior administration. I have read that several of the leaders or senior decision makers in the Asian countries that have done well also have similar types of background.

This may be just a coincidence but I suspect its not. Its all very well have scientific advisors but if you don't have a maths, science or engineering background you are not going to fully appreciate what these experts are telling you.

I don't know but I wonder if any of our cabinet members have a science or engineering background. The senior members seem to come from law, PR, journalism and business backgrounds. I would think these are not the best backgrounds to be dealing with a pandemic.

Science background? What use is that? Science and engineering is For people with dirty hands.

Our two main players are trained in classics and philosophy with backgrounds in housing markets and journalism. What better qualities for dealing with a biological pandemic. The Infection and death data confirms this.

 

[Woosh]

Science background? What use is that? Science and engineering is For people with dirty hands.

she (KK Shailaja) was only a science teacher. No dirty hands, but still understands scientific reasoning.
On the other hand, Johnson and Cummings learned only about past glories of the Greeks and Anglo Saxons.

 

[Danidl]

As someone with a science background... The following should be required reading , I cannot download load it. unfortunately I cannot download it....
Stability of SARS-CoV-2 on environmental surfaces and in human excreta

 

[oyster]

As someone with a science background... The following should be required reading , I cannot download load it. unfortunately I cannot download it....
Stability of SARS-CoV-2 on environmental surfaces and in human excreta

This gets the full PDF:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.07.20094805v1.full.pdf

Oh sh**, someone's taking the pi**.

I certainly would not wish to use public toilets at present. Though that is not the focus of the paper.

 

[sjpt]

she (KK Shailaja) was only a science teacher. No dirty hands, but still understands scientific reasoning.

Our chemistry teachers got dirty hands, one had worked in explosives during the war. When we heard a big bang from the labs the question was always 'Is that Mr Fisher making an interesting demonstration, or Mr King making a mistake?'.

 

[flecc]

If Labour's leaders insist on socialism at any cost, then Labour won't get very far for the foreseeable future.

1) The Tories under Johnson have given us socialism now, even before Covid-19 popped up giving handouts, nationalising Northern Rail and threatening more to come.

2) Starmer is a committed socialist, always has been and strongly supported Corbyn's left wing policies. He was named Keir after our first Labour socialist, Keir Hardie.

As ever in here as elsewhere, there are far too many short memories, far too many influenced unduly by the media.
.

 

[flecc]

The true explanation is that there are a vast number who look at their possessions and utterly disregarding that they are up to their eyes in debt imagine themselves elevated into the ranks of small time capitalists, where they do not belong, understand what that means or what responsibility to society comes with it.

In the USA it's called The American Dream, great for a tiny number but for far too many ending up with misery akin to the devastation and despair that is Detroit.
.

 

[flecc]

Our two main players are trained in classics and philosophy with backgrounds in housing markets and journalism. What better qualities for dealing with a biological pandemic. The Infection and death data confirms this.

The irony is that they've been struggling with supplies of PPE, but they studied PPE at university. In that world it stands for Philosophy, Politics and Economics, initials that have come back to haunt them.
.

 

[Danidl]

This gets the full PDF:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.07.20094805v1.full.pdf

Oh sh**, someone's taking the pi**.

I certainly would not wish to use public toilets at present. Though that is not the focus of the paper.

Thanks. For some reason I could read the preprint but not download.
For people unprepared to read the whole thing, there is a table of graphs showing the reduction in viral intensity as a function of time on different surfaces . In general the intensity drops a 100 fold in an hour, but residual viable particles remain upwards of 160 hours, or a week later . They suggest that there are a few Half lives present ..a short one, causing the rapid decline, and a longer one, allowing some activity over days . Of particular worry .and Oyster refers to it is that the rapid decay in the first few hours , is SUPPRESSED for viruses in urine or feces so it remains virulent for longer
Organic material, .. paper ,cloth are better than synthetics ..plastics , in reducing virus viability and metal is the poorest choice

 

[Nev]

2) Starmer is a committed socialist, always has been and strongly supported Corbyn's left wing policies.

I quite liked most of Corbys policies and as a person I thought he was genuine and really believed in the things he said. I did not think he was a very good leader, I did not think he was particularly competent. I have watched most PM questions that he took part in and when you consider he was up against May he made a very poor job of it.

I do not need the media to tell me what to think about him I could see for myself how he dealt with pressure either on the Wednesday afternoons, or in interviews with people like Andrew Neil, and he did not inspire confidence.

I also think he has to shoulder some of the blame when it comes to the Brexit referendum. Remain lost by just a few percentage points, if he had really put his heart into campaigning we would still be in the EU. He just went through the motions as he did not want to upset some of the people in his party. To lead is to choose all through the Brexit mess he sat on the fence.

If Starmer had been he leader during the referendum I am fairly sure we would still be in the EU.

 

[Woosh]

To lead is to choose all through the Brexit mess he sat on the fence.

well said.

 

[flecc]

I also think he has to shoulder some of the blame when it comes to the Brexit referendum. Remain lost by just a few percentage points, if he had really put his heart into campaigning we would still be in the EU. He just went through the motions as he did not want to upset some of the people in his party. To lead is to choose all through the Brexit mess he sat on the fence.

If Starmer had been he leader during the referendum I am fairly sure we would still be in the EU.

I do agree with these two parts.

But I still preferred Corbyn's quiet way of simply answering questions when being interviewed, rather than the retaliatory point scoring or the bluster we usually get. And the political use of Twitter I strongly dislike and am saddened that Starmer has descended to it.
.

 

[Nev]

And the political use of Twitter I strongly dislike and am saddened that Starmer has descended to it.

I don't use Twitter but I think a lot of young people do, so I suppose Starmers advisors will have told him he needs to go down that route because I'm sure that's what DC will be doing for Boris.

 

[Nev]

Thanks. For some reason I could read the preprint but not download.
For people unprepared to read the whole thing, there is a table of graphs showing the reduction in viral intensity as a function of time on different surfaces . In general the intensity drops a 100 fold in an hour, but residual viable particles remain upwards of 160 hours, or a week later . They suggest that there are a few Half lives present ..a short one, causing the rapid decline, and a longer one, allowing some activity over days . Of particular worry .and Oyster refers to it is that the rapid decay in the first few hours , is SUPPRESSED for viruses in urine or feces so it remains virulent for longer
Organic material, .. paper ,cloth are better than synthetics ..plastics , in reducing virus viability and metal is the poorest choice

This was very interesting, but I was hoping it might have mentioned the effect of sunlight on the virus. When we have packages delivered (wife loves ordering rubbish from Amazon lol). I leave them out for several hours in the sun, turning them over half way to get all the package exposed. I do the same thing with letters, still wash my hands after handling the letters or packages etc, but I am wondering does the sun light kill the virus or am I wasting my time doing this?

 

[oyster]

I do agree with these two parts.

But I still preferred Corbyn's quiet way of simply answering questions when being interviewed, rather than the retaliatory point scoring or the bluster we usually get. And the political use of Twitter I strongly dislike and am saddened that Starmer has descended to it.
.

Putting Starmer's letter somewhere accessible was right and sensible. I don't like twitter, but I accept it might have been the best place - though I suggest posting on a Labour party site and then mentioning on twitter might be a better approach. (Perhaps he did that as well? I have not checked.)

I do find it amusing that DC's media manipulation might be getting turned against the tories.

 

[daveboy]

He might be Kier Starmer now.....Watch the media start to refer to him as Sir Kier Starmer
when the election campaign starts.

 

[oyster]

Did someone say that they would be out to get Kier (or Sir Kier - I don't care)?

Health minister Nadine Dorries deletes tweet sharing anti-Starmer smear

Labour has expressed alarm after a series of Conservative MPs, including a minister, shared a video tweeted by a hard-right Twitter account which falsely claimed Sir Keir Starmer obstructed the targeting of grooming gang victims when he led the Crown Prosecution Service.
The tweeted video was shared by Nadine Dorries, who is now a junior health minister, as well as Telford MP Lucy Allan and Maria Caulfield, who represents Lewes. All expressed alarm at what the video purported to show, with Dorries calling it “revealing”.

 

[flecc]

He might be Kier Starmer now.....Watch the media start to refer to him as Sir Kier Starmer
when the election campaign starts.

Maybe. It worked the other way round for Sir Alec Douglas Home, they soon dropped the Sir after he was appointed PM.
.