Quite frankly bloody terrifying. I can find nothing to disagree with in my own experiences.
PK
Peter KE
3 years ago
An aspect not mentioned is that the ccp have released onto the world the covid-19 virus. This is a biological warfare attack either in error or intentional. We need to hold the ccp as a state that has committed foul war crimes against the world. Investigation and trials need to be held and reparations for this attack and the last 25+ years of evil need to be made.
WM
William meadows
3 years ago
I read years ago, that before WW2, France and Germany were each others biggest trading partners. Make what you will of that.
NB
Neil Baird
3 years ago
Thanks very much for the article. Recently, I read a paper titled China’s Vision for a New World Order. (The National Bureau of Asian Research NBR special report #83 | January 2020) by Nadège Rolland. This enlightened me with a better understanding of the concept of the Chinese “tianxia” system and a deeper appreciation of Chinese culture. However, this idea of real politik seems to get in the way, notwithstanding, that we lack world leaders who have the skills and knowledge to engage effectively and empathically with the CCP with hope of influence and change.
T J Putnam
3 years ago
A lot of the early airborne transmission research focused on droplets, lacking the technology to capture nano particles. As these have been included it’s become clear that 4m dispersion is not unusual and that the virus continues to circulate indefinitely in enclosed environments and ventilation systems as these particles are not heavy enough to sink. The question then is how much exposure triggers infection. If 2m is no longer a magic number neither is any distance in a shared space. Sticking to 2m in the UK has been the product of a dance between politicians and health authorities involving the wish to relax restrictions despite higher remaining levels of infection and less developed controls and countermeasures than other European countries. Additionally some around No 10 don’t think mask wearing fits with their idea of Britishness, and for quite a while there haven’t been many around. Few constraints left, apart from 2m, now that’s going too the warnings are pouring in, including from those with key roles in the system.
AS
Adrian Smith
3 years ago
In the early days there were a relatively small number of fairly simple rules for the masses to follow. This was backed up by more detailed guidance, which few people read or even knew existed. Dominic Cumming probably had a hand in reviewing some of the guidance and most certainly knew what it said, which is why he got away with doing what he did from a legal perspective and had he been sacked could have successfully sued for wrongful dismissal.
As things have moved on the rules have become more numerous and complex, necessarily so if you are going to do it by rules. The most sensible thing Boris said was we need to trust the British people to use their common sense to manage the risks. As someone who does risk management in various forms for a living, I am entirely happy. The problem is we are a nation of rule followers and we have a mainstream media that likes to make big deals out of inconsistencies in the rules and politicians who think they can score easy points and make themselves look clever by doing the same.
Rather than messing around with rules that fewer and fewer people are following (why have the police not broken up the various protests which have been illegal under the Covid social distancing legislation, issuing fines to thousands of people a day as they are empowered by law to do?) but instead clearly explain the risks and provide advice on how best to manage them in practical situations.
PK
Peter KE
3 years ago
A load of rubbish, this is about individual responsibility not just the state. A few large warehouse hostels can provide a place for a cot/z-bed. Let’s stop the left wing drivelling and get some responsibility above the next high.
PK
Peter KE
3 years ago
Sorry let’s not over complicate this. The people advising the government were at best useless. Five a day in the right direction is a great analogy for 2 metres distancing as being fairly arbitrary but great as an initial idea that could be revised. Overall the science support for the government has been pathetic, with poor modelling and rigidity in moving to the next stage. Our approach should have been like Sweden, the immediate death rates no worse and the real point the long term economic and death rates much better. How can anybody have thought closing schools was necessary or flooding care homes with infected people would be a good idea. All of the SAGE committee should be sacked along with PHE and various other NHS quangos and the department of health.
MY
Michael Yeadon
3 years ago
I’d love to comment, because if I did, it would be to commiserate about the SSC shutdown & the wider point – that it’s almost impossible to have a civil debate with someone who takes a different view – yet, if I did, I’d probably be cancelled by teatime. An example. I’ve only recently used Twitter, although I registered an account some years back. Early on, almost every comment drew criticism that “I must be a troll, virtually no followers yet been registered for years”. Explaining how that happened cut no ice. Still a Nazi/ homophobe / denier etc. Anyway, I’ve been in the thick of it on covid19. As someone with several decades senior leadership experience in quantitative, applied bioscience, I’m qualified to read into new areas, assess the quality of evidence & data and to write coherent pieces. I’ve developed certain views on the topic which have the handy feature of prediction which leads to ready invalidation, which so far hadn’t happened. Perhaps I’m correct, or at least not so grossly in error that deviation from what I expect hadn’t yet occurred. Time & again, even though I don’t, I’m accused of making things up (I include published, peer reviewed articles), not having any idea “how science works” & as usual, being a troll / alt-right / murderer / sociopath etc. I might be any of these things (I don’t think I am) but it certainly wouldn’t be possible to infer them from anything I’d written. The point of drawback came after a few, particularly unpleasant account holders decided I needed to be silenced & their approach was to find out who I was IRL and to then publicly attack that real person online. If you’ve not had that happen, it might not be easy to explain how that feels. But it certainly prompted me to consider whether the (almost certainly) low risk of something real happening to me or my family was worth taking, in order to continue the online debate. I’ve not decided yet.
JL
John Lewis
3 years ago
I first became aware of Scott Alexander as the author of the excellent web fiction UNSONG (United Nations Sub-committee on Names of God). A very entertaining read which thankfully is still online.
Good luck Scott. You’ve given a lot of people a lot of pleasure.
Quite frankly bloody terrifying. I can find nothing to disagree with in my own experiences.
An aspect not mentioned is that the ccp have released onto the world the covid-19 virus. This is a biological warfare attack either in error or intentional. We need to hold the ccp as a state that has committed foul war crimes against the world. Investigation and trials need to be held and reparations for this attack and the last 25+ years of evil need to be made.
I read years ago, that before WW2, France and Germany were each others biggest trading partners. Make what you will of that.
Thanks very much for the article. Recently, I read a paper titled China’s Vision
for a New World Order. (The National Bureau of Asian Research NBR special report #83 | January 2020) by Nadège Rolland. This enlightened me with a better understanding of the concept of the Chinese “tianxia” system and a deeper appreciation of Chinese culture.
However, this idea of real politik seems to get in the way, notwithstanding, that we lack world leaders who have the skills and knowledge to engage effectively and empathically with the CCP with hope of influence and change.
A lot of the early airborne transmission research focused on droplets, lacking the technology to capture nano particles. As these have been included it’s become clear that 4m dispersion is not unusual and that the virus continues to circulate indefinitely in enclosed environments and ventilation systems as these particles are not heavy enough to sink. The question then is how much exposure triggers infection. If 2m is no longer a magic number neither is any distance in a shared space.
Sticking to 2m in the UK has been the product of a dance between politicians and health authorities involving the wish to relax restrictions despite higher remaining levels of infection and less developed controls and countermeasures than other European countries. Additionally some around No 10 don’t think mask wearing fits with their idea of Britishness, and for quite a while there haven’t been many around. Few constraints left, apart from 2m, now that’s going too the warnings are pouring in, including from those with key roles in the system.
In the early days there were a relatively small number of fairly simple rules for the masses to follow. This was backed up by more detailed guidance, which few people read or even knew existed. Dominic Cumming probably had a hand in reviewing some of the guidance and most certainly knew what it said, which is why he got away with doing what he did from a legal perspective and had he been sacked could have successfully sued for wrongful dismissal.
As things have moved on the rules have become more numerous and complex, necessarily so if you are going to do it by rules. The most sensible thing Boris said was we need to trust the British people to use their common sense to manage the risks. As someone who does risk management in various forms for a living, I am entirely happy. The problem is we are a nation of rule followers and we have a mainstream media that likes to make big deals out of inconsistencies in the rules and politicians who think they can score easy points and make themselves look clever by doing the same.
Rather than messing around with rules that fewer and fewer people are following (why have the police not broken up the various protests which have been illegal under the Covid social distancing legislation, issuing fines to thousands of people a day as they are empowered by law to do?) but instead clearly explain the risks and provide advice on how best to manage them in practical situations.
A load of rubbish, this is about individual responsibility not just the state. A few large warehouse hostels can provide a place for a cot/z-bed. Let’s stop the left wing drivelling and get some responsibility above the next high.
Sorry let’s not over complicate this. The people advising the government were at best useless. Five a day in the right direction is a great analogy for 2 metres distancing as being fairly arbitrary but great as an initial idea that could be revised. Overall the science support for the government has been pathetic, with poor modelling and rigidity in moving to the next stage. Our approach should have been like Sweden, the immediate death rates no worse and the real point the long term economic and death rates much better. How can anybody have thought closing schools was necessary or flooding care homes with infected people would be a good idea. All of the SAGE committee should be sacked along with PHE and various other NHS quangos and the department of health.
I’d love to comment, because if I did, it would be to commiserate about the SSC shutdown & the wider point – that it’s almost impossible to have a civil debate with someone who takes a different view – yet, if I did, I’d probably be cancelled by teatime.
An example. I’ve only recently used Twitter, although I registered an account some years back. Early on, almost every comment drew criticism that “I must be a troll, virtually no followers yet been registered for years”. Explaining how that happened cut no ice. Still a Nazi/ homophobe / denier etc.
Anyway, I’ve been in the thick of it on covid19. As someone with several decades senior leadership experience in quantitative, applied bioscience, I’m qualified to read into new areas, assess the quality of evidence & data and to write coherent pieces. I’ve developed certain views on the topic which have the handy feature of prediction which leads to ready invalidation, which so far hadn’t happened. Perhaps I’m correct, or at least not so grossly in error that deviation from what I expect hadn’t yet occurred.
Time & again, even though I don’t, I’m accused of making things up (I include published, peer reviewed articles), not having any idea “how science works” & as usual, being a troll / alt-right / murderer / sociopath etc. I might be any of these things (I don’t think I am) but it certainly wouldn’t be possible to infer them from anything I’d written.
The point of drawback came after a few, particularly unpleasant account holders decided I needed to be silenced & their approach was to find out who I was IRL and to then publicly attack that real person online. If you’ve not had that happen, it might not be easy to explain how that feels. But it certainly prompted me to consider whether the (almost certainly) low risk of something real happening to me or my family was worth taking, in order to continue the online debate. I’ve not decided yet.
I first became aware of Scott Alexander as the author of the excellent web fiction UNSONG (United Nations Sub-committee on Names of God). A very entertaining read which thankfully is still online.
Good luck Scott. You’ve given a lot of people a lot of pleasure.
http://unsongbook.com/
A poor article. Fails to distinguish between homelessness and rough sleeping (they’re very different) and no explanation of what drives either.