Thursday 16th July 2020

[refitman]

Morning all.

[howsillyofme1]

Morning all

Just wanted to get in early and thank Sky for the really nice message last week and to offer my apologies for throwing my toys out of the pram a bit - an unpleasant character trait of mine I am afraid

On the substantive point about immune system I think we should be careful in just thinking of immunity as being linked to antibodies. It seems to be a very complex area and I have seen plenty of immunologists suggesting that just looking at antibody tests is superficial and that innate metabolic health, other immunity mechanisms etc are as or more important.

The scientific understanding is changing and so we need to be flexible in changing our views on things. I have seen enough coherent and eminent challenge of the antibody conclusions from the studies - and to be fair often these are robust studies where the observations are sound but how you then translate such data into hypothesis can be very different.

I would always suggest to people to look at the data we have now, especially compare what happened in March/April to now - some of the things I hear about the current 'surge' would make you think it is much worse. Two things to take into mind though is that the 'surge' is in cases and we have no idea of the evolution of the number of cases in the wider community if we accept a high percentage are asymptomatic - the testing regimes are hugely influential - and the real data not the predictions. In some countries the debate is hugely political

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[RogerOThornhill]

Morning all.

Heard Malcolm Rifkind laying into No 10 this morning about the Grayling fiasco and have just seen this.

Andrew Boff
@AndrewBoff
·
13m
If any Mayor of London told us who should chair a committee that scrutinises them, Assembly Members from all parties would tell them where to get off: we know what our job is.

For non-Londoners he is a long serving Tory London Assembly Member...

[RogerOThornhill]

The Guardian in a spot of bother...

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Sign of the times I guess - must be great to be propped up by million/billionaire owners...

[RogerOThornhill]

Patrick Wintour
@patrickwintour
The Intelligence and Security Committee "has unanimously agreed this morning that it will publish the Report on Russia prepared by its predecessor before the house rises for the summer recess".
10:51 AM · Jul 16, 2020·Twitter Web App

[AnatolyKasparov]

The Guardian in a spot of bother...

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Sign of the times I guess - must be great to be propped up by million/billionaire owners...

Sadly, they have partly been the authors of their own misfortune in the past decade.

[RogerOThornhill]

To the surprise of no-one, they've chosen Government favourite Tony Sewell to head up their race commission.

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And yes, he's one of the supporters of academy cheerleaders "Parents and teachers"* for Excellence - as is Munira Mirza.


* as in they haven't got many of either...lots of academy trust CEOs and Gove supporters though.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Patrick Wintour
@patrickwintour
The Intelligence and Security Committee "has unanimously agreed this morning that it will publish the Report on Russia prepared by its predecessor before the house rises for the summer recess".
10:51 AM · Jul 16, 2020·Twitter Web App

I mean, what response to last night's shenanigans did Number 10 expect exactly?

[RogerOThornhill]

I've remembered something else about Tony Sewell...he was the first CoG of a Free School called STEM Academy Tech City opened in Islington in 2014.

It didn't go that well - Ofsted gave it a very bad report.

https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2015/0 ... ed-report/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And then inevitably after it changed hands...it closed last year.

http://islingtontribune.com/article/sha ... experiment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pretty sure that Sewell wasn't involved by then but he certainly was when Ofsted came in.

[PorFavor]

Good morfternoon.

Kent customs facility will also be used as lorry park, minister confirms

DfT has bought site that will be used for customs clearance and holding pen for lorries, Rachel Maclean confirms

The Department for Transport has signed off on the purchase of a vast site in Kent for a Brexit border facility and confirmed that it will be partly used as a giant lorry park just days after the cabinet ministerMichael Gove insisted that was not the “intention”.

The facility needs to be in place to accommodate checks for up to 11,000 lorries going to and from Dover and Eurotunnel in Folkestone every day. (Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... r-confirms

[RogerOThornhill]

Something else about Tony Sewell - I'll stop after this one...

In 2012, Tony was appointed to chair the Mayor’s Education Inquiry into London schools. Its final, landmark, report, published in 2013, led to the establishment of the £24m London Schools Excellence Fund, which sees high performing schools working with partners to help raise standards of teaching in other schools.

The Mayor eh?

Wonder where he is now? And his deputy responsible for education.

[frog222]

Patrick Wintour
@patrickwintour
The Intelligence and Security Committee "has unanimously agreed this morning that it will publish the Report on Russia prepared by its predecessor before the house rises for the summer recess".
10:51 AM · Jul 16, 2020·Twitter Web App

I mean, what response to last night's shenanigans did Number 10 expect exactly?

So that includes Bozo's 'nominee' !

[gilsey]

Patrick Wintour
@patrickwintour
The Intelligence and Security Committee "has unanimously agreed this morning that it will publish the Report on Russia prepared by its predecessor before the house rises for the summer recess".
10:51 AM · Jul 16, 2020·Twitter Web App

Looks like they've accepted the inevitable, can't see they'd be talking about this otherwise.

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said: “It is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 general election through the online amplification of illicitly acquired and leaked government documents.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... nts-online" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[gilsey]

Good morfternoon.

Kent customs facility will also be used as lorry park, minister confirms

DfT has bought site that will be used for customs clearance and holding pen for lorries, Rachel Maclean confirms

The Department for Transport has signed off on the purchase of a vast site in Kent for a Brexit border facility and confirmed that it will be partly used as a giant lorry park just days after the cabinet ministerMichael Gove insisted that was not the “intention”.

The facility needs to be in place to accommodate checks for up to 11,000 lorries going to and from Dover and Eurotunnel in Folkestone every day. (Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... r-confirms

Like Johnson, Gove just seems to say the first thing that comes into his head, regardless of truth.
See also face coverings.

[gilsey]

DWP set to open swathe of new Jobcentres - two years after closing 100 to cut costs

Some of the jobcentres that were shuttered in 2018 may be reopened and new buildings will have to be found as the number of work coaches soars to deal with coronavirus

'Work coaches'.
What work would that be, then?

[RogerOThornhill]

Peter Walker
@peterwalker99
I've been sent a Ukip press release which argues that the way to prevent mass unemployment due to coronavirus is to train up large numbers of people as customs agents to deal with the border changes from Brexit.
3:01 PM · Jul 16, 2020·TweetDeck

[AnatolyKasparov]

Your occasional reminder that UKIP is still (barely) a thing.

[PorFavor]

UK government orders halt to Randox Covid-19 tests over safety issues

Care homes and members of public told to immediately stop using firm’s kits

The UK government has instructed care homes and members of the public to immediately stop using coronavirus testing kits produced by a healthcare firm after safety problems were discovered.

Randox was awarded a £133m contract in March to produce the testing kits for England, Wales and Northern Ireland without any other firms being given the opportunity to bid for the work.

The UK government has instructed care homes and members of the public to immediately stop using coronavirus testing kits produced by a healthcare firm after safety problems were discovered.

Randox employs the Conservative politician Owen Paterson as a £100,000-a-year consultant. The former cabinet minister and leading Brexit supporter has been a consultant since 2015.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ety-issues


Edited to get the quote correct

[AnatolyKasparov]

Glad someone has posted, was just dusting away the cobwebs in here.

[howsillyofme1]

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-on ... l-anomaly/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[frog222]

Sir Peter Soulsby puts the boot in this morning, Patrick Vallance this afternoon

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ights-back" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mr Crace seems to have forgotten Johnson's 'working' at Chequers for a week finalising that urgent divorce settlement , or is it just a wicked rumour and he was only er resting ?

[frog222]

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-on ... l-anomaly/

Ce site est inaccessible http://www.cebm.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; a mis trop de temps à répondre.
Well I DID manage your link, at last, but just could NOT get into the other one on the proportion of asymptomatic cases .
[https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19- ... ptomatic/b] Grrr! [/b]
Now back at the Guardian, and cannot find,again, their latest article on post covid19 Viral Syndrome . More grrr !

Perhaps, like the BLM movement, as swathes of people were woken up to what they elided before , attitudes to previously-accepted levels of flu mortality++++ postviral complications will take on a new salience ?

I hope so.

[adam]

English universities must prove 'commitment' to free speech for bailouts

Universities in England needing bailouts to survive the impact of Covid-19 will have to “demonstrate their commitment” to free speech as well as closing courses with low graduate pay, Gavin Williamson has announced.

I look forward to the site of lots of universities falling foul of the government's Prevent strategy by inviting far right and religious fundamentalists onto campus to recruit for direct action campaigns.

I particularly liked this...

Graham Galbraith, the vice-chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, said the sector would be pleased with any promise of government support but that it needed to define how to assess the value of undergraduate courses.
“It will be vital for government to benchmark ‘strong learner outcomes’ data to work out the distance travelled by a university’s students. How much a student improves at university is a proper value-for-money measure. Without this, government risks throwing taxpayers’ money at coasting universities who recruit high-attaining students who would have succeeded anyway,” Galbraith said.

[frog222]

English universities must prove 'commitment' to free speech for bailouts

Universities in England needing bailouts to survive the impact of Covid-19 will have to “demonstrate their commitment” to free speech as well as closing courses with low graduate pay, Gavin Williamson has announced.

I look forward to the site of lots of universities falling foul of the government's Prevent strategy by inviting far right and religious fundamentalists onto campus to recruit for direct action campaigns.
I particularly liked this...

Graham Galbraith, the vice-chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, said the sector would be pleased with any promise of government support but that it needed to define how to assess the value of undergraduate courses.
“It will be vital for government to benchmark ‘strong learner outcomes’ data to work out the distance travelled by a university’s students. How much a student improves at university is a proper value-for-money measure. Without this, government risks throwing taxpayers’ money at coasting universities who recruit high-attaining students who would have succeeded anyway,” Galbraith said.

Every fule noes that they go to uni to getta multi£ job.
Deviation from this objective = close 'em down !