Ponzi schemes always end in tears( or is that tiers).

[DonPeffers]

Today  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15198789  "What is quantitative easing and how will it affect you?"

 

"The coronavirus pandemic has been a massive blow to the economy, hitting jobs and businesses hard. The Bank of England is to pump another £150bn into the UK economy to help it recover, in another round of "quantitative easing".

 

Another £150Bn added to national debt to be repaid sometime from someone's taxes. When I heard this morning of another QE I thought furlough extension coming. We better hope interest rates don't rise on our debt.

Big question is will this QE and furlough extension actually save jobs with unemployment predicted to go from 4% to 8% in next 12 months?

 

04 nov 2020  https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/uk/theresa-may-demands-full-release-of-data-behind-covid-19-decisions/   "Theresa May demands full release of data behind Covid-19 decisions"

"Theresa May accused Boris Johnson of choosing data to fit his coronavirus policies, as she insisted the Government must reveal the economic cost of lockdown".

An interesting article with a few quotes from Conservative MPs concerned about strategy and cost.

Also concern about how Whitty and Vallance (who IMO should be replaced) presented their data and graph.

 

[Ian Podmore]

Wow. That puts it all in perpective.

[jim_l]

Yesterday’s daily Covid hospital admissions translate into 40,000 a month, into an NHS that has 120,000 overnight beds, but more pointedly, was designed and staffed for only 4000 critical care beds.  We built that capacity because people get sick, so 3,000 critical care beds might be occupied by ‘non Covid’ sick people, nothing else got magically cured when Covid came along, and we can’t send them home.

 

“Excess deaths is the key metric” we have seen repeatedly, and people want to measure against that AND a diametrically opposed metric, the economy.  I say, actually neither will be the key metric this winter.

 

The key metrics this winter are:

1. Can we provide NHS facilities and staff so that Covid patients that could be saved are given that chance?
2. Can we provide NHS facilities and staff so that Covid patients that cannot be saved are cared for in their final days?
3. Can we do that and carry on non-Covid activities like emergency bypasses, cancer surgeries, and all of the others. 

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, if we don’t stop the spread, people will die at home in their beds, in hospital car parks or corridors, effectively slowly drowning.  

 

It is about getting through this winter with some shred of our humanity left.

 

[DonPeffers]

Excellent post from MOTCO under ' What no lockdown debate' thread.

 

"Man On The Clapham Omnibus  Posted 4 hours ago

It occurred to me that we'll end up in a sort of 'Lord of the Flies' scenario. The seemingly immune young people feel that they can play fast and loose with the regulations with little risk to their health. However, as recent lead/lag of young and older infections have shown, the young become infected and carry on with their God-given right to have fun with no significant symptoms, and return home to the parental homes where they live (with no real responsibilities to anyone), and infect their parents and grandparents. The older people, being more likely to suffer serious symptoms from the virus, variously become ill and die, or become disabled by 'long-covid' which renders them incapable of either working or looking after the feckless youth. Ultimately it is as if the youth has been cast away on an adult world (here the Lord of the Flies analogy comes in) with little knowledge or skills to manage their lives and no 'grown-ups' surviving to help, guide, provide, or most importantly pay for their new existences. Welcome, brats, to the real world!"

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Thanks DP 

[DonPeffers]

Biggest problem is over 7 months after first lockdown we once more kick the can down the road with 'lets hide away for a few weeks and see if covid goes away'. Yes cases will drop but then likely rise once things open up again.

 

Anyone on furlough breaking covid rules or Law should have that 'benefit' stopped immediately IMO. No more use of 'common sense' to defeat covid; that's failed.

No mention of MP who didn't covid self-isolate straight away after positive test losing pay or job; indeed in line for 4.1% pay increase from April 2021.

 

Some employers are thinking of putting staff back on furlough even though they had let them go as no work and no prospect of work.

Has furlough become a very expensive unemployment benefit where you don't even search for work? Many jobs will disappear and need replacing with new viable jobs yet the fantasy that much of retail (and other now non-viable jobs) will return continues with furlough. Many employers on TV are saying my employees will be available when covid is over, but my business won't be! (bars , restaurants etc).

 

Laurel and Hardy, sorry, Whitty and Vallance, with their now discredited 4000 per day projected covid deaths graph need to be replaced IMO. 

05 nov 2020  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/05/covid-graphs-wrong-death-toll-will-not-surpass-first-wave/  "Official projections which pushed the country into a second lockdown have been quietly revised to no longer suggest deaths could soon overtake those at the peak of the first wave, The Telegraph has learned."

 

 

Sir Simon Stevens (NHS chief) said at the Downing Street covid briefing yesterday..

 

'What it shows is the number of patients that are being looked after in hospitals across England. At the beginning of September that was under 500 patients.

'By the beginning of October that had become 2,000 coronavirus in- patients, and, now, at the beginning of November that is over 11,000.

 

The scientists covid deaths chart apparently was based on out of date data and 4000 covid deaths per day has been revised down to 1000 which if correct still would not match the first wave peak.

500,000 people die every year in UK and if covid average age of death is 82 why cant we find a better way? Will lockdown be needed for a third or fourth wave?

 

Biggest question....how can an RNA virus with no brain outsmart human beings?

We know the answer......because we choose to be stupid.

 

 

05 nov 2020  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54831334  "Covid: Regulator criticises data used to justify lockdown"

"The government has been criticised by the official statistics watchdog for the way it presented data to justify England's second lockdown.

The UK Statistics Authority highlighted the use of modelling at Saturday's TV briefing showing the possible death toll from Covid this winter.

It said there needed to be more transparency about data and how predictions were being made.

The projections were out of date and over-estimated deaths, it has emerged.

A forecast made by Public Health England and Cambridge University said the country could soon be seeing more than 4,000 deaths a day".

[DonPeffers]

04 nov 2020  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54785032  "Covid: The things we’re not being told as lockdown looms"

 

Interesting article and worth a read.

 

Sadly a neighbour of mine today has been taken into hospital (not covid) and I hope she will be alright.

 

Within BBC article is the worrying chart below.