Brexit, for once some facts.

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,128
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Technically, I'm not sure that a PM absolutely has to be an MP. Maybe things have changes since Lord Salisbury?
True. The most recent was Alec Douglas-Home who was brought from the House of Lords to be Tory PM from 1963 to 1964, succeeding Harold Macmillan.

There have been a number of others in earlier years.
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guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
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Yep, I think we, ve all read that forecast... Its the accepted wisdom of current thinking... Let's wait and see what happens.
And I think rather than Omicron being weaker(which by reports it is for infecting lungs) it's more a case of us being better prepared physiologically, either through past infection or vaccines.
It's widely publicised SA has past Delta infection rates around 72% and with vaccine rates around 25%...That is being put forward as an explanation to their low Omicron hospitalisation and death rates. I suspect our high vaccination rates, especially so with 3rd shot (and immuno suppressed now being called for their 4th),coupled with Omicron less virilence towards the lungs will see us with similarly low hospitalisations, even with high infection rates.
Boris will claim that's his booster programme, SA will tell us "we told you"...
Boris could easily end up more popular than ever... Let's wait and see... Nobody actually knows...
But don't write Boris off... Its at least 3 years to an election. He is a clever, slippery character and may well have timed his "emergency*announcement to perfection. (an emergency announcement needed to say we are doing feck all, rather odd or is it manouvering. I suspect the latter with Witty being able to almost contradict Boris. It's all for a reason.They know something we do not.)

And, amazingly, the Guardian hasn't seen through it. They are pushing "still no hard evidence Omicron is milder". That is playing straight into Boris' hands. There is evidence it is milder to lungs. Quite a lot, but for the Tory rouse to work we all have to be convinced Omicron poses far more danger. (which, it might but I somehow doubt it)... The more frightening we assume Omicron is, the more kudos Tories and specifically Boris will get, when, well, its bad, but not that bad, because Boris' boosters saved the day. (They did over a million yesterday)
Several weeks ago, I predicted that hospitalisations would become high enough for the government to consider a lockdown before Christmas, but I was wrong... Maybe the "Sight" of such a comprehensively ugly set of mutations, will spur T-cells to recognise and remember Omicron and it's ilk for longer, leading to a cessation of the wave in mid-January.


 
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Nev

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 1, 2018
1,507
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North Wales
I just watched the latest vid from Dr. John Campbell, all the data coming out of SA regarding the Omicron variant is still very encouraging. They are several weeks ahead of us with this new version and they are seeing far less hospitalizations than they did with pervious waves.

I know we should not take for granted what has happened there will happen here but I can't really see a good reason for it being very different. I know we have an older population but we have a very high percentage of the population who have had two jabs and huge amounts of people are getting the booster every day.

I think as Woosh posted, a bigger problem for us may well be the amount of people who are going to be off work isolating due to Omicron. Do you folks think it might be a good idea to reduce the isolation days down from 10 to 7?

I suppose there is always the worry that this variant takes longer than pervious versions to make people ill enough to require hospital treatment and that in say a couple of weeks we might see this effect in SA but lets hope that's not the case.

Our daily cases seem to have leveled off at around 90k per day, I wonder if this is down to the fact an awful lot of people have modified their behavior prior to Xmas. They want to make sure they don't catch the virus and spoil their Xmas, but after that they might not be so careful, and cases will start to raise again.
 
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guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,246
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Some organ in my chest objected to whisky coffees - those many bottles may become condiments. I ran out of raw garlic three days ago, but Iceland are delivering some tomorrow... It was a crisp -1C early this morning, when I went out for a slow jog. Despite having had nothing to eat for 18 hours, I didn't feel hungry. Discovered my right hip had seized up a little since my last slow run a few weeks ago. I managed 42 minutes of slow jogging, but stopped immediately after I felt a faint but sharp twinge in my chest, then walked slowly for about a mile. A terrible error, was turning onto what serves as the High Street; I actually bought something from Greggs for the first time in years - cheese pasty to replace depleted cholesterol, sugar saturated cream chocolate eclair just because. Then I slow ambled another mile home in shame, to feast upon said purchased poison. My pulse pressure was 58 and 51! Aaaaarrrgghhh! This will not do at all! Let's see if losing this final stubborn 1.5 stones, combined with (very careful, irregular) slow jogging, raw garlic daily, intermittent fasting, and an embarassment of beans, gets my pulse pressure down... I really shouldn't have binged for weeks on pizza and roast chicken, but it's much more convenient to just throw something in the oven, wrapped or covered something else, than cook a healthy meal. I'm switching back to sprouting beans...

Lol, Iceland have just this minute sent me a partial Paypal refund, because they're out of chicken breasts. Good job too.
 
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guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,246
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That worked out well, didn't it?
Well, it didn't kill me. 'Twas a mere faint twinge, but I didn't like the feel... I decided to stop dead, in case I stopped dead.
 
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guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,246
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My reply was to flecc re AD-H.

I might have said exactly the same to you, but it wasn't intended. :)
Lol, I had no idea what was going on, I can't see Flecc's reflections.
 

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