Brexit, for once some facts.

oyster

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Nov 7, 2017
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Seems particularly ridiculous of Johnson praising Peppa when, no time at all ago, we were treated to many stories about pig shooting.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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It has cost the 2% who have died quite a lot . It will probably cost perhaps 5% more with long covid or linked chronic illnesses a lot into the future .... that is what i meant by expensive. Moreover being an early adopter of the" what doent kill you makes you strong ", policy the death rate for early adopters was up at the 6% level. Improvements in hospital care and treatment has improved over the longer term , reducing the mortality rates
You just aren't getting it, despite clear explanation.

Once again.

Yes we in London suffered more from the early hit, but as the official data clearly shows, it paid off with far lower infection and death rates during the later Alpha (Kent) wave and Delta wave. That's why the expert's puzzlement at London's better performance during those latter waves. The net outcome is that we haven't suffered any additional deaths, despite an earlier start to the pandemic than most of the country and despite our very population high density area. Those last two factors should have given us higher death and infections, but the fact they didn't shows we've gained overall. Our gain has simply been due to the earlier widespread infection immunity giving protection against the later far more infective variants.

Your country did the opposite as you've posted over time. You started with an excellent public protection performance with low infection rates, but suffered more later as I've consistently predicted would happen since you failed to get the widespread earlier immunity before the more infective variants arrived. That is why Ireland is suffering so badly now.

Of course none of this is due to planning or being clever on anyone's part, it was simply a matter of chance and circumstances, which have by sheer luck alone been in London's favour.

The clever bit has been in recognising these simple facts as I did and posted well over a year ago and long before the vaccines. At least the UK government's chief statistician Profesor Spiegelhalter has belatedly recognised the truth from the data.
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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Bulb has fallen victim to the energy farce I see. Never used them, but I understand they were one of the better skimmers / middle men / dice rolling chancers upon who the country relies for its energy. Why doesn’t the government use this opportunity to reboot this shambles and nationalise the entire sector?
Bulb are a great supplier, the best in almost every respect, so I'm glad the government has come up with this rescue package as I predicted they would. I just hope that if and when anyone buys them from the receiver that they maintain the Bulb ethics and methods so I can continue to benefit.

Incidentally it's only Bulb UK that's affected, clear evidence that it's Britain cock-up over power supplies that's the villain. The Bulb suppliers in other countries are unaffected.

For information:


When we founded Bulb in 2015 it was because we thought energy customers deserved a better deal. We believed strongly that we should do things differently, and that by building a talented team and creating our own technology we could make energy simpler, cheaper and greener.




We've been so proud to grow Bulb to 6% of the UK market. When we started Bulb just 1% of households were with renewable energy suppliers. Now that figure is over 30%. Green is going mainstream, and Bulb and our members have played a part in making that happen.




We expanded to France, Spain and Texas, taking our technology, our best in class customer service, and everything we learned in the UK to new countries. And we launched new products, like energy management options for EV drivers to help continue to cut carbon emissions and meet net zero targets by 2050. We were one of the only energy companies to be a B Corp, which is assessed against rigorous standards around sustainability; showing how business can be a force for good. And for each new member to join Bulb, we donated £2 to the Bulb Foundation, fighting to address the climate crisis. As important for us was looking after our members, especially the most vulnerable. We're proud to have launched a best in class Smart Pay as You Go product to make it much easier for our members to top up their prepay energy; Ofgem rated our Warm Home Discount product #1 in the energy industry; and we doubled the proportion of Bulb members getting access to our priority services by making them easier and simpler to access.
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Danidl

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Sep 29, 2016
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You just aren't getting it, despite clear explanation.

Once again.

Yes we in London suffered more from the early hit, but as the official data clearly shows, it paid off with far lower infection and death rates during the later Alpha (Kent) wave and Delta wave. That's why the expert's puzzlement at London's better performance during those latter waves. The net outcome is that we haven't suffered any additional deaths, despite an earlier start to the pandemic than most of the country and despite our very population high density area. Those last two factors should have given us higher death and infections, but the fact they didn't shows we've gained overall. Our gain has simply been due to the earlier widespread infection immunity giving protection against the later far more infective variants.

Your country did the opposite as you've posted over time. You started with an excellent public protection performance with low infection rates, but suffered more later as I've consistently predicted would happen since you failed to get the widespread earlier immunity before the more infective variants arrived. That is why Ireland is suffering so badly now.

Of course none of this is due to planning or being clever on anyone's part, it was simply a matter of chance and circumstances, which have by sheer luck alone been in London's favour.

The clever bit has been in recognising these simple facts as I did and posted well over a year ago and long before the vaccines. At least the UK government's chief statistician Profesor Spiegelhalter has belatedly recognised the truth from the data.
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May I counter that if you look at the deaths per million of population , you see a totally different statistic. It is because we were conservative earlier on that our initial numbers were low, and would have been a lot lower except for a fatal error... The female nurses ,from the Philippines working in our acute hospitals ,and who were fully trained, had lesser skilled husbands working as care assistants in residential nursing and old age homes. This allowed the virus access to very vulnerable people Had we recognised that, our fatalities would only be 1/4 the UK's number rather than the 1/2. Then the asine policy of the DUP slavishly following Westminster instead of their own Health Advice , insisted on keeping paths open. This ensured that Ireland got the Delta variant as soon as possible. Even today the fatality rate and case load in NI is about 4 times ours.
The calculation is not about the ratio of deaths to population which in the long run is always 1.0, but the number of premature deaths. It is even more complex than that as when Covid restrictions were in place , many types of deaths were reduced eg RTAs and pub brawls and others increased delayed diagnosis, domestic violence.
 
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oyster

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 7, 2017
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Bulb has fallen victim to the energy farce I see. Never used them, but I understand they were one of the better skimmers / middle men / dice rolling chancers upon who the country relies for its energy. Why doesn’t the government use this opportunity to reboot this shambles and nationalise the entire sector?
"Holmes, why did Bulb go bust?"

"Filamentary, my dear Watson."
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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May I counter that if you look at the deaths per million of population , you see a totally different statistic. It is because we were conservative earlier on that our initial numbers were low, and would have been a lot lower except for a fatal error... The female nurses ,from the Philippines working in our acute hospitals ,and who were fully trained, had lesser skilled husbands working as care assistants in residential nursing and old age homes. This allowed the virus access to very vulnerable people Had we recognised that, our fatalities would only be 1/4 the UK's number rather than the 1/2. Then the asine policy of the DUP slavishly following Westminster instead of their own Health Advice , insisted on keeping paths open. This ensured that Ireland got the Delta variant as soon as possible. Even today the fatality rate and case load in NI is about 4 times ours.
The calculation is not about the ratio of deaths to population which in the long run is always 1.0, but the number of premature deaths. It is even more complex than that as when Covid restrictions were in place , many types of deaths were reduced eg RTAs and pub brawls and others increased delayed diagnosis, domestic violence.
All of which I'm fully aware of, some of which I posted long before you.

But much of it is common to London so doesn't in any way alter what I posted about our performance which is now officially recognised to be far better than expected.

As I've already posted the true measure of performance v Covid is life expectancy and we won't have accurate data on that for at least a decade, probably longer.

I don't place as much importance on premature deaths as you and most others do in here, seeing that as rather foolish. Compared to any time in the past, even within one's lifetime, there are almost no premature deaths. All that has been happening is a degree of loss of the very recent gains in life expectancy, a minor correction.

Since the increases in life expectancy we'd got used to have stalled since the millenium, the current slight reduction could easily be permanent so we'd better to get used to that possibility.
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Zlatan

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Nov 26, 2016
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All that has been happening is a degree of loss of the very recent gains in life expectancy, a minor correction.

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Pretty certain it is not all that has been happening Flecc, our ICU is 45% full of unvaccinated Covid patients and my heart operation has been delayed by at least 6 months..???
Irrespective of situation London is in now or how it got there is generally irrelevant. Everybody who can have jab should be getting it. Encouraging folk not to, either directly or indirectly, is counter productive for us all.
The stats in ICUs throughout Europe reinforce the necessity for a complete and full vaccination programme.
 
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Woosh

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I don't place as much importance on premature deaths as you and most others do in here, seeing that as rather foolish.
I accept that prematured deaths (like in care homes) is a smaller issue for society compared to say school closures and furlough but the effect on routine healthcare procedures would have been far worse if we did not mitigate the infection rate.
 
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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Encouraging folk not to, either directly or indirectly, is counter productive for us all.
I have never done that and it's wrong of you to imply it. Below is my March 8th post which started this discussion, note the three highlighted sections, and remember that only yesterday I was still saying we should all use the vaccines:

"I don't need to argue about the vaccines potential failure, as vaccines they're rather unsuccessful and sometimes even on the verge of failure, and that is before we even know how long their limited protection lasts.

The function of a vaccine is to prevent one getting the targeted disease and we've had some highly successful ones, the best being the Smallpox vaccine which has totally eliminated that terrible disease. There are a number of other highly successful ones in the active, inactive and sub-unit groups, chiefly those against Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, Tetanus, Diptheria, Pertussis (Whooping Cough) and Influenza.

Unfortunately the vaccines we have against Covid-19 cannot prevent us from contracting the disease in anything like all cases. They do however limit the ill effects of the disease when we do catch it, though for how long we don't know. The benefits so far we are told, as well as some degree of prevention of catching Covid, are a large reduction in the need for hospitalisation and a reduction in the transmissibility of the virus. Both are very useful and valid reasons why we should all be innoculated for everyone's sake.

But as vaccines against contracting Covid-19, with efficacy levels in the way they are being applied from as low as 54% at times, they are too often unsatisfactory, as shown by other vaccines with efficacy rates from 50% to somewhat over 60% being officially termed failures. One of the approved Covid vaccines only averages 66% protection against contracting the the disease and the claims of others for 95% or even 100% protection are only for some in certain circumstances. So even calling them vaccines in the accepted meaning of the word is ambitious. Quote:

"Vaccines are designed to prevent disease, rather than treat a disease once you have caught it."

But of course the Covid-19 vaccines in many instances are treating, having insufficiently prevented, so are best regarded as antigens**, highly desirable precautionary medicines rather than highly effective vaccines, ensuring if the disease is caught that the ill effects for the victim and others are minimised, albeit for a yet unknown period.

Fortunately the makers are well aware of their limitations and are already promising forthcoming boosters and/or replacements, so hopefully they'll substantially improve given time and may one day better qualify as highly effective vaccines.

Of course one way we can already improve the disease prevention performance of the vaccines is to get the full dosage into arms at the fastest recommended interval instead of continuing the delaying, or simply use them as single dose vaccines.

** An antigen boosts the immune system against a specific disease, especially promoting the production of antibodies."
 
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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I accept that prematured deaths (like in care homes) is a smaller issue for society compared to say school closures and furlough but the effect on routine healthcare procedures would have been far worse if we did not mitigate the infection rate.
You aren't paying attention! ;)

I was speaking of London's example, where we did mitigate the infections and consequences, thanks to getting the earliest natural immunity from infection. This dramatically reduced our consequences from the Alpha and Delta waves.

And since we are speaking of reduced lifespans, that has benefits that reduce the workload on hospitals etc. The longer we live, the worse matters are for hospitals and ICUs, since our lifespan increases have certainly not been matched by equal expansions in healthy disease free life.
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GLJoe

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May 21, 2017
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That friend I mentioned
...
Now some fool on Internet posts some garbage on YouTube and before you know it... Kids aren't having jabs and adults refuse covid vaccines. They all know so much... But don't.
So while I'd agree there is a lot of bogus info out there, the trouble is, often its not simply "some fool on the internet" causing open minded people to stop and question the mainstream narrative.

What if its someone like a retired scientist (hence now doesn't have to worry about losing his job!) who was a Vice President of one of the big drug companies like Pfizer? e.g. Dr Mike Yeadon.

What if its one of the scientists who originally developed the mRNA technology and has intimate knowledge of not just how these drugs work, but how the medical approval system is now broken and has effectively been taken over by the drug industry itself. e.g. Dr Robert Malone

What if its someone with a doctorate in virology who's worked on developing vaccines for decades but is warning us about the approach currently being taken. e.g. Dr Geert Vanden Bossche

What if its tens of thousands of doctors and scientists who have signed the Great Barrintgton declaration?

What if your friend is actually listening to what those people are saying?

Because if you do listen to them, then you realise that its foolish in the extreme just to accept the mainstream narrative without questioning it.

If anyone isn't aware of those three names above, then I would suggest you search on the alternative media platforms such as odysee or bitchute (as they will have been censored off most of the MSM)

If you want a fairly recent piece - here was a fascinating interview with Dr Robert Malone. There is no conspiracy theory talk here, he's just telling it like it is from someone on the inside. Get a nice cuppa sorted and watch the video. I dare you :)




https://thenewamerican.com/dr-robert-malone-this-is-the-largest-experiment-performed-on-human-beings-in-the-history-of-the-world/
 
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Woosh

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What if its someone like a retired scientist (hence now doesn't have to worry about losing his job!) who was a Vice President of one of the big drug companies like Pfizer? e.g. Dr Mike Yeadon.
no, he doesn't, but is he the one that wikipedia descibes as:

Yeadon falsely claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom was "effectively over" in October 2020,[15][16] that there would be no "second wave" of infections,[5][17] and that healthy people could not spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus.[1][18] He has claimed without evidence that COVID-19 vaccines were unnecessary,[19][18][17] unsafe,[1][20] and could cause infertility in women.[1][5][21] In a letter to the European Medicines Agency, Yeadon and the German physician Wolfgang Wodarg called for all vaccine trials to be stopped, falsely suggesting[22][23][24] that mRNA vaccines could target the syncytin-1 protein needed for placenta formation.[25][a] Several of these claims have been spread widely on social media.[1][5][28][15][26] Yeadon has also discouraged COVID-19 lockdowns and use of face masks despite evidence for their effectiveness.[20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Yeadon
 

jonathan.agnew

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Dec 27, 2018
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I, d totally agree with that without the tory bit.
I must admit tho that performance made Rayner look reasonable and Starmer positively admirable. I think his days are numbered.
he will no doubt continue to fart maskless around hospitals to hug sweaty swivel eyed brexiteers, and give everyone a ring side view of the effect of the latest delta variation on the tory character. But we will probably not notice that amidst his next bigger **** up.
 
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