IOM Covid removing restrictions

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Banker said:

This was source I was quoting but Roger M doesn't believe it.

I don't know what the Telegraph article says because it's behind a paywall, but the Mail has something that appears to be based on the same government briefing.  It's a bit odd because while it refers to a government report but I can't find the report to which it refers - certainly not on ONS.  So how that number is made up remains to be seen.  It's also worth remembering the old saying  that anything quoted as 'up to' a number might mean the number zero.

The Mail report says that number could die - not that they have or that they will.  It isn't controversial that there will be non-Covid deaths that arise from the effects of the Covid pandemic - I made the same point myself on here back in March.  But that's got nothing to do with lockdown, which was what we were discussing.  If no lockdown had happened and the NHS was overwhelmed with patients with Covid-19, there would be even less availability of medical services for those with cancer or having heart attacks and there would have been more deaths from those things, both in recent months and in the future.

One odd thing about the report is that it says:

Quote

But up to 25,000 deaths would have come in the first six months because of healthcare delays, according to experts at the Department of Health and Social Care, Office for National Statistics, Government Actuary's Department and the Home Office.

But we are more than four months into that period and the ONS statistics suggest we have fewer deaths from non-Covid causes not more.  Certainly not 25,000 more.  So it will be interesting to see the details of this government report.  If it exists.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Roger Mexico
Only really four months due to delay on ONS deaths.

[pongo]

21 minutes ago, Banker said:

But they’re not and a lot of parents would travel with 18 year old girls as well as boys to ensure they get to destination safely.

theres a lot more random violence and theft about now than 30/40 years ago

Don't be ridiculous. It's far safer than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Especially in London and the big cities. It's unbelievable, this daft idea that people need someone to hold their hand when they go off to University.

[Roger Mexico]

22 minutes ago, Banker said:

theres a lot more random violence and theft about now than 30/40 years ago

Crime figures for years ending March  (see fig 4)

Violence: 1981: 2 063 000   2020: 1 293 000

Theft:   1981: 6 292 000   2020: 3 299 000

So there's actually a lot less.

[Banker]

26 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Crime figures for years ending March  (see fig 4)

Violence: 1981: 2 063 000   2020: 1 293 000

Theft:   1981: 6 292 000   2020: 3 299 000

So there's actually a lot less.

It just doesn't get reported these days as police don't investigate, I have family who live in London & Birmingham and it's not safe at night in a lot of places particularly around train stations. A lot of knives being carried and far more than when I was at university.

[woolley]

3 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

I don't know who 'UK' are, but that figure looks completely made up.  The number of excess deaths over a five year average for 2020 is shown as 53,979 in the latest ONS figures[1].  So unless you're suggesting that Covid-19 is so wonderful that it's caused 150,000 people to rise from the dead, those figures look dubious.

There's an interesting paradox here that has been rarely discussed.  Lockdown has almost certainly been reducing deaths from other causes as well - at least in the short term.  Some of this is obvious - if there is less traffic on the roads there will be fewer deaths in traffic accidents for example.  But I suspect that other features, such as vulnerable people self-isolating and  better infection control, may mean that there are fewer deaths from non-Covid infectious diseases and possible outbreaks haven't happened.

You can see that in the ONS figures.  Over the last few weeks deaths have been below average for the time of year.  This isn't because people have stopped dying of Covid-related causes (there were 532 registered in the most recent week) though the number is falling.  So the number from other causes must be lower. 

 

[1]  Based on death certificates registered to 3 July for England and Wales.

Cases of food poisoning were almost nil over the period whereas there would normally be thousands. Restaurants shut. 

[pongo]

26 minutes ago, Banker said:

It just doesn't get reported these days as police don't investigate, I have family who live in London & Birmingham and it's not safe at night in a lot of places particularly around train stations. A lot of knives being carried and far more than when I was at university.

It's much safer than it used to be. Gentrification and rising living standards have had a hugely positive effective.

Christmas shopping is a lot less scary too thanks to the Blair govt. The litter bins no longer randomly explode.

[woolley]

31 minutes ago, Banker said:

It just doesn't get reported these days as police don't investigate, I have family who live in London & Birmingham and it's not safe at night in a lot of places particularly around train stations. A lot of knives being carried and far more than when I was at university.

I agree with you that there is a huge amount of crime that goes unreported because people think it's pointless. However, I agree with Pongo about the absurdity of adults being accompanied to university by their parents, just as they were on their first day at school. And the crime angle doesn't stack up in this respect. It's not as though they aren't going out on the town after mummy and daddy have left for home, is it?

[Roger Mexico]

44 minutes ago, Banker said:

It just doesn't get reported these days as police don't investigate, I have family who live in London & Birmingham and it's not safe at night in a lot of places particularly around train stations. A lot of knives being carried and far more than when I was at university.

But that's always been the case, possibly more so 40 years ago than it is today.  We know this because of the British Crime Survey, which started in 1982 and asks a large number of people what crimes they have been victims of over the last year, whether they reported them to the police or not.  And that also shows a similar pattern to the reported crimes.  The numbers went up and up until the late 90s and have been falling more or less ever since.  The level of crime that people report is now lower than it was almost 40 years ago by quite a bit.

There have always been a lot of areas in big cities that people thought were unsafe at night.  Some of them even were.  But in general things have got a lot better over the last 30 or 40 years.

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, woolley said:

Cases of food poisoning were almost nil over the period whereas there would normally be thousands. Restaurants shut. 

I know you're not being entirely serious and of course food poisoning can be contracted from stuff you eat at home but I found this interesting

Quote

These new studies and their accompanying models reveal: 

• 380,000 estimated cases of norovirus  linked to food occur in the UK every year. 
• Eating out accounts for an estimated 37% of all foodborne norovirus cases, and takeaways account for 26% of cases. 
• Open-headed lettuce (retail) accounts for 30% of cases, raspberries (retail) account for 4% of cases, and oysters (retail) account for 3% of cases. 
• The revised foodborne norovirus estimate, combined with better analysis of how many illnesses of unknown cause are also likely to be caused by food, suggest around 2.4 million estimated UK cases of foodborne illness occur each year.

 

So it looks as if most is actually caught outside the home.  And lettuce is a killer.

 

[woolley]

2 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

I know you're not being entirely serious and of course food poisoning can be contracted from stuff you eat at home but I found this interesting

 

So it looks as if most is actually caught outside the home.  And lettuce is a killer.

 

Interesting comparison for incidence of notifiable diseases in 2020 against recent years here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/notifiable-diseases-weekly-reports-for-2020

[Roger Mexico]

Thanks - there's substantial drops on nearly everything there - even on the weekly figures that are after the UK lockdown has eased.  Both on those usually spread person-to-person within the UK such as measles and scarlet fever and those usually imported from abroad such as malaria and TB.  Lockdown and the massive reduction in international travel will have hit these.

The only exception is the YTD figures for mumps - and that's because there was a very big mumps outbreak in February, which lockdown nipped in the bud.  There's already a worry about kids missing MMR jabs in the last few months, but maybe there should also be a push to get young people especially who didn't get them (or missed the booster) to get that sorted as well.

Food poisoning is also down, though only by about 60% as people can still poison themselves at home and with takeaways.  While most of these things aren't usually fatal if treated, they do indicate how more fatal infections will not be being passed on as well.

[Banker]

Anyway with UK cases on decline and more restrictions being eased in UK hopefully stage 2 will be reached by September so all the talk of diseases and crimes will be irrelevant 

 

looks like Guernsey will have borders open soon as starting business tunnels next week with no quarantine for some business travellers.

https://guernseypress.com/news/2020/07/21/business-tunnels-from-next-tuesday/

Edited July 21, 2020 by Banker

[Escape Artist]

8 hours ago, Banker said:

Anyway with UK cases on decline and more restrictions being eased in UK hopefully stage 2 will be reached by September so all the talk of diseases and crimes will be irrelevant 

looks like Guernsey will have borders open soon as starting business tunnels next week with no quarantine for some business travellers.

https://guernseypress.com/news/2020/07/21/business-tunnels-from-next-tuesday/

It is unlikely that we will be in stage 2 in September. As soon as the requirement for self isolation is removed, travel back and forth will increase by a lot; and new coronavirus cases in the island will be inevitable I am afraid. It is not just the dispensation from self-isolation that will make the difference; but the sheer number of travellers. Personally, I intend to avoid all travel until quarantine is mandated, precisely because I would find it very difficult to stay at home for two weeks.

Since there is no need to quarantine when coming back from Guernsey; I wonder if it is possible to travel from the UK to Guernsey, and then from Guernsey to the Isle of Man, in such a way that IOM border force won't be aware of the UK starting point of the journey, and thus one can sidestep IOM's quarantine requirement.

 

[Anyone]

Therein lies lies the problem. When the borders open Covid will come back. The IOM will not be able to cope , never were so the total closure worked. But they have no plans or indeed capability to deal with a resurgence. It’s not the fault of the Island , it just makes a mockery of the notion that the IOM is a ‘nation’. It’s not despite having a cabinet office which to be honest if was not so expensive is laughable. 

[Hmmmm]

Just musing at the lack of input from certain High Profile individuals during covid 19.  Is Ann Reynolds still in post?  Been extraordinarily quiet and under the radar (sic) during the pandemic. Is it 4 flights a day in and out and the steam packet and coastguards.  Has Ann some capacity for additional responsibility?