"No one is safe until all are safe" is a sound statement (I know, safety and freedom are not the same thing ... bear with me a moment here). In relation to covid, we've seen that demonstrated repeatedly - while the coronavirus is circulating anywhere in the world new variants will arise, and they will eventually reach everywhere. The current variant of concern which has lead to the massive wave of disease in India is a one that appears to be more infectious and also one which the vaccines we have been using are marginally less effective against. While the disease is running largely uncontrolled somewhere sooner or later there'll be another variant, potentially one that our current vaccines are significantly less effective against or causes serious disease in people who have not been vaccinated (ie: the young). Until the virus is under control everywhere sooner or later we're all going to experience another wave.
The reason why safety relates to freedom is that until that point where everyone is safe there's going to need to be ongoing restrictions of some form to keep everyone else as safe as possible. First off, restrictions on travel - while there are still areas with higher rates of infection we're not going to be returning to the freedom to travel from those places (that can relate to regions within a nation, as well as different nations). Once the virus enters and starts to spread through a community we're also going to need to introduce measures to slow that spread - so, until everyone is safe we may find that we need to maintain some restrictions so that if the virus spreads back into a community it doesn't flare up, and to reintroduce some restrictions at short notice.
Which basically means that as no one is safe until all are safe it's also true that no one is free until all are free - I'd suggest that's true generally as well as in relation to the coronavirus, but we can debate the extent to which individual liberty depends on all having the same freedoms (as well as what liberty actually is) in a more philosophical way on a more appropriate forum.
In the US smoking bans did not hurt the hospitality sector; in fact, some places did more business in the wake of the implementation of a smoking ban. I know over the years I've spent far more time and money in bars and bar & grill-type establishments than I would have if smoking in them were still allowed; California has had a smoking ban in public buildings since some time in the 90s.
Any data about the lives saved due to the cumulative and environmental/cultural effects of smoking ban? Just a little thing, I know, not worth considering in some people's minds, but it would be interesting to know the other side to the argument of smoking bans in confined public spaces.
I don't understand why Marvin can neither do the math to figure out how many people will be harmed without public health measures of various kinds nor muster the empathy to care about them.
I don't understand why Marvin can neither do the math to figure out how many people will be harmed without public health measures of various kinds nor muster the empathy to care about them.
Because that wasn’t the point. Alan raised the prediction that thousands of pubs would close because of the smoking ban as an example of a warning that didn’t come true (with the implication that similar warnings about lockdown can be ignored). Problem is, it did come true.
Now, if you want to say that thousands of pubs closing is an acceptable price to pay for the health benefits of a smoking ban then make that argument. And if you want to say that similar (or worse) economic impacts are a price worth paying to eliminate every single last case of COVID then make that argument. But don’t pretend that there aren’t costs to doing so, or that there isn’t a cost-benefit analysis to be made.
But the reason that pubs have been closing in their hundreds may correlate to the smoking ban, but most experts reckon correlation is not causation in this case. There are a number of reasons pubs have closed:
changing demographics - pubs don't do well in Muslim areas for some reason¹,
younger people are not drinking so much,
cheaper supermarket prices for alcohol, so it's cheaper to drink at home,
high taxes on beer, the highest in Europe apparently,
business rates that are crippling most of the high street, including pubs,
high property prices that make the pubs more valuable to redevelop as housing rather than keep them as pubs.
the old boozers are doomed as that's not how people drink now, the pubs that have turned themselves into gastropubs are doing better.
all the reasons above and Covid19 are going to finish quite a few more pub businesses now.
I'd also add that I don't find most pubs welcoming places to drink as a woman on my own or with my daughter and rarely go to a pub unless I'm meeting other people or can sit outside, even though I have an encyclopedic knowledge of London pubs from a misspent youth drinking in many of them - link to i-news article from 2018
Did you read the link I provided? A news article about why pubs were closing in 2018 is hardly relevant to the question of why thousands closed in the preceding decade.
How long ago was the smoking ban now? The fact that pubs are *still* closing 14 years on makes it quite clear that there's a lot more involved than simply not being able to smoke inside. I think @Curiosity killed 's list is a reasonable summation.
The author of that report provides very little evidence to support the contention that the bulk of the pub closures are attributable to the smoking ban. Indeed, in his article, he lumps "smoking ban" together with "high taxes", which is complete nonsense. Even the most rabid free-market zealot would agree that there's a fundamental difference between thinking "I'm not paying more than a fiver for a pint" and "I like to smoke while I drink".
I would also add to Curiosity's list the prices Pubco's charge tenant landlords. The markup they charge on beer they supply is horrific, and even worse if you source outside the tied system. Our local when we were in Coventry is up for lease due to retirement, and the PubCo is wanting over 10% of their annual turnover estimate in rent.
To get back to Covid, our favourite restaurant in town has reopened, but they are still offering takeaways weekly for those who don't want to come in just yet, albeit moved to Thursday for collection to avoid the peak weekend trade. And none of the local drive through Starbucks/McDonald's queues appear to have hugely improved.
Did you read the link I provided? A news article about why pubs were closing in 2018 is hardly relevant to the question of why thousands closed in the preceding decade.
And as @Leorning Cniht says above he lumps taxes together with the smoking ban - which as Cniht says is total nonsense, unless you adopt the lens of the IEA in which all taxes are bad.
His entire argument ends up resting on the graph in Figure 8, in which the smoking bans are placed against a graph of generally declining pub numbers. There's an increase in the decline post the smoking ban, but the fact that it continues till at least 2013/2014 seems to indicate that it owes its cause to different factors (to the point @Sandemaniac makes above) - probably the crash of 2007/2008 and the general stagnation of wages ever since then.
Indeed. Thanks to nice Mr Cameron's friend George, my salary has finally recovered to a point slightly above what it was in 2011 when science (amongst many other things) funding was hacked back and I lost my job. In the mean time, costs have risen and I've gained a mortgage, amongst other things. So I've got (markedly) less money to spend on consumer stuff like going to the pub, and what I do have doesn't go as far as it used to because stuff costs so much more.
While I enjoy going to a (blessedly smoke-free) pub, I've cut right back on the amount I drink. 2 pints normally, 3 if I'm pushing the boat out. I appreciate that they're not going to make much profit on my patronage.
The other thing, of course, is the number of young people who don't drink at all. 25-30% at the latest count. Pubs need to sell a much wider range of LA and NA beers - actually good ones that folk (potentially like me, and them) want to drink, as opposed to beers at 4-5% or stronger.
While I enjoy going to a (blessedly smoke-free) pub, I've cut right back on the amount I drink. 2 pints normally, 3 if I'm pushing the boat out. I appreciate that they're not going to make much profit on my patronage.
The other thing, of course, is the number of young people who don't drink at all. 25-30% at the latest count. Pubs need to sell a much wider range of LA and NA beers - actually good ones that folk (potentially like me, and them) want to drink, as opposed to beers at 4-5% or stronger.
Funny you should say that, as Mrs T and I were only saying the other day that you don't seem to see the 3.5-4% session ales any more - it's all 4.5% at a minimum and often more. Same on the home brew side as well. Truth is it is harder to make a satisfying ale at a lower ABV but it is possible. Breweries are a bit obsessed with pale ("gold") beers at the moment and it's harder to do a good weaker one because the way to get a good low ABV ale is to load up on crystal and dark malts. This is why trad UK session bitters are copper rather than yellow.
Very true, Karl! Lots of IPAs around, of varying degrees of hoppiness, but not a lot of darker beers. I don't mind hoppy IPAs, but my tastes definitely tend towards the dark side.
Very true, Karl! Lots of IPAs around, of varying degrees of hoppiness, but not a lot of darker beers. I don't mind hoppy IPAs, but my tastes definitely tend towards the dark side.
Some of those IPAs taste like grapefruit pith and deserve to be mentioned here in Hell.
How long ago was the smoking ban now? The fact that pubs are *still* closing 14 years on makes it quite clear that there's a lot more involved than simply not being able to smoke inside. I think @Curiosity killed 's list is a reasonable summation.
Seriously? There are pubs closing at the present time (Covid excepted) because of a smoking ban from fourteen years ago?
While I enjoy going to a (blessedly smoke-free) pub, I've cut right back on the amount I drink. 2 pints normally, 3 if I'm pushing the boat out. I appreciate that they're not going to make much profit on my patronage.
The other thing, of course, is the number of young people who don't drink at all. 25-30% at the latest count. Pubs need to sell a much wider range of LA and NA beers - actually good ones that folk (potentially like me, and them) want to drink, as opposed to beers at 4-5% or stronger.
Funny you say that. My nieces and nephews, and their partners (in their twenties/early thirties) have only produced one regular alcohol drinker among them. And she prefers craft gin at home with family and friends. The others are into energy drinks or soft drinks. they will occasionally go to a pub, if meals are being served. But they don't 'do' pub drinking at all.
I suspect another influence on some pub attendances will correlate to the increasing strictness of alcohol restrictions on drivers. I'm currently reading a memoir from the 60's where even the local Bobby imbibes in a pint or two before getting on his police motorcycle to toddle off round the village on the beat. And I personally remember, as a driver, back in the 80's and 90's the way drink units were calculated by pub attenders to allow them to 'safely' drive home again. It's virtually zero tolerance now, and I imagine that not many people feel it's worth their while to drive to their favourite pub to sit over an orange juice and drive home again! Pubs with a nice line in entertainment and good food, however, might sustain the attraction.
How long ago was the smoking ban now? The fact that pubs are *still* closing 14 years on makes it quite clear that there's a lot more involved than simply not being able to smoke inside. I think @Curiosity killed 's list is a reasonable summation.
Seriously? There are pubs closing at the present time (Covid excepted) because of a smoking ban from fourteen years ago?
My understanding is that Sandemaniac was contesting the claim in the paper Marvin linked.
IPA = the International Phonetic Alphabet? Forgive Miss Amanda's ignorance, but she doesn't habitually frequent pubs.
Likewise: LA and NA beers - those served in Los Angeles and those that are Not Applicable?
We're trying not to turn this in to a CAMRA meeting, honest...
Some of those belong in Hell once the Cask Breather acceptors get into an argument with the rejecters and then some twit asks whether all Craft Ale should be endorsed...
And while we're talking about pub offerings, as someone who's now teetotal*, but prefers cask conditioned bitter given an option and not the vile over-hopped IPAs, there's slightly more chance I'd patronise pubs more often if they offered a better range of non-alcoholic drinks; anything that wasn't poisonously sweet would be a start.
* because being on permanent caring call, I am not risking dealing with paramedics with drink taken
My understanding is that Sandemaniac was contesting the claim in the paper Marvin linked.
You understand correctly, and I was concurring with the statements that Curiosity Killed made as well.
Ha! I should clarify. The first point was a post I began, before realizing what you were saying, so I abandoned it, thinking I'd dodged a reading-for-comprehension bullet. I then logged out and later logged in to give my second response, not realising that the first part had remained having been saved automatically.
Initially, I felt foolish not having read properly your response. Now I feel foolish not having read my own post properly before posting it!
A pox on this effing virus. Latest Scottish government notice this morning says we'll have to get tested before travelling - not unreasonable - but then pay £170 each for two tests and isolate for ten days after arriving from Canada. The certified complete vaccinations don't interest them. (In Canada the tests are free)
I don't think that's news, the Scottish government position for a long time has been that entry into the country (except from other parts of the UK) is dependent upon negative test results and self-isolation (at your own home, or place you'll be staying for visit) or quarantine (at a government mandated hotel, at your cost) - the difference being on the prevalence of the virus in your country of origin, so low rates allow for self-isolation whereas high rates require quarantine.
The English government allows a lot of people to enter the country without requiring self-isolation. But, that also allowed the delta variant to enter far more quickly than would have been the case had testing and self-isolation been required.
Just came across some exceptionally stupid friend-of-a-friend running their mouth off about "half of the adults in Israel who have got the Delta variant recently were fully vaccinated with Pfizer. This is why I'm not vaccinating my kid."
Let's do a little math, shall we? Israel reports >80% of its adults are fully vaccinated. So there are four times as many vaccinated adults as non-vaccinated adults. Cases of the Delta variant split 50-50 between those two populations. In other words, compared to non-vaccinated people, the Pfizer vaccine was successful at preventing 75% of Delta infections. Yeah, Delta's more infectious than the other strains, and the vaccine doesn't do quite as well against it. It still does pretty well. It's still worth having.
(I believe it's also true that those vaccinated people who get Delta aren't as sick, on average, as non-vaccinated people who get Delta.)
I wish the standard "daily cases" Covid reports you get would include the vaccination status of the patients: that would help distinguish between rates plateauing because of non-vaccinated people vs rates plateauing because of more infectious variant.
Today is the first day in the entire pandemic that wearing masks is required here in Canberra.
Thanks a lot, stupid unvaccinated Sydney driver of international flight crews. And the employers who let him. AND the NSW government officials who seem to have made vaccination of such people an 'expectation' rather than a fucking requirement.
Thanks a lot, stupid unvaccinated Sydney driver of international flight crews.
Stupid question: Why not place a wall between the driver and the aircrew, so they're not sharing the same airspace? Why would you even rely on vaccination, when "don't breathe the same air" is achievable?
Thanks a lot, stupid unvaccinated Sydney driver of international flight crews.
Stupid question: Why not place a wall between the driver and the aircrew, so they're not sharing the same airspace? Why would you even rely on vaccination, when "don't breathe the same air" is achievable?
To clarify: unvaccinated and suspected of breaching procedure.
I don't know the exact nature of the arrangements, but yes, it's my understanding they're not supposed to be sharing the same airspace anyway.
Addendum: At the very least they were supposed to be wearing masks. But even recently the Premier kept talking about "strict guidelines". As a legislative drafter the word GUIDELINE tends to make me scream with rage precisely because it makes it unclear whether something is an actual law or not.
He and his employer are not going to be charged, because apparently there's insufficient evidence they broke an actual rule.
As a legislative drafter the word GUIDELINE tends to make me scream with rage precisely because it makes it unclear whether something is an actual law or not.
Is it not completely clear that the word "guideline" is only ever advisory, and an example of best practice? One could, perhaps, make a case for negligence for behaviour that was generally in flagrant breach of commonly accepted guidelines, but ...
(And there's a vast difference between wearing a face covering and breathing in a separate airspace. It's why people who work in bio labs wear those puffy isolation suits with air hoses, rather than a mask.)
As a legislative drafter the word GUIDELINE tends to make me scream with rage precisely because it makes it unclear whether something is an actual law or not.
Is it not completely clear that the word "guideline" is only ever advisory, and an example of best practice? One could, perhaps, make a case for negligence for behaviour that was generally in flagrant breach of commonly accepted guidelines, but ...
It's actually not clear at all, due to the widespread existence of assholes who think it's a good idea to soften their demands and improve their corporate image by using "guideline" when they truly mean "do this or get fired." And so somebody always has to ask the question (or find it out the hard way).
The UK government and its various agencies are terrible for this. They keep publishing guidance which is "do or die". And then they "enforce" it by threatening draconian penalties that they only enforce just enough to stop you from ignoring the "guidance" completely. So total opacity - total government by fear rather than consent, because the guidance is frequently opaque and not infrequently perverse.
As a legislative drafter the word GUIDELINE tends to make me scream with rage precisely because it makes it unclear whether something is an actual law or not.
Is it not completely clear that the word "guideline" is only ever advisory, and an example of best practice? One could, perhaps, make a case for negligence for behaviour that was generally in flagrant breach of commonly accepted guidelines, but ...
It's actually not clear at all, due to the widespread existence of assholes who think it's a good idea to soften their demands and improve their corporate image by using "guideline" when they truly mean "do this or get fired." And so somebody always has to ask the question (or find it out the hard way).
This. I wouldn't mind the word "guideline" if it was actually used in a purely advisory sense, but it isn't. As I've already said, my latest invective against the word was caused by the Premier of New South Wales talking about the "strict guidelines" in place.
How the fuck can you have "strict guidelines"? That's a spectacularly bad case of mixed messaging.
As a legislative drafter the word GUIDELINE tends to make me scream with rage precisely because it makes it unclear whether something is an actual law or not.
Is it not completely clear that the word "guideline" is only ever advisory, and an example of best practice? One could, perhaps, make a case for negligence for behaviour that was generally in flagrant breach of commonly accepted guidelines, but ...
It's actually not clear at all, due to the widespread existence of assholes who think it's a good idea to soften their demands and improve their corporate image by using "guideline" when they truly mean "do this or get fired." And so somebody always has to ask the question (or find it out the hard way).
This. I wouldn't mind the word "guideline" if it was actually used in a purely advisory sense, but it isn't. As I've already said, my latest invective against the word was caused by the Premier of New South Wales talking about the "strict guidelines" in place.
How the fuck can you have "strict guidelines"? That's a spectacularly bad case of mixed messaging.
As a legislative drafter the word GUIDELINE tends to make me scream with rage precisely because it makes it unclear whether something is an actual law or not.
Is it not completely clear that the word "guideline" is only ever advisory, and an example of best practice? One could, perhaps, make a case for negligence for behaviour that was generally in flagrant breach of commonly accepted guidelines, but ...
It's actually not clear at all, due to the widespread existence of assholes who think it's a good idea to soften their demands and improve their corporate image by using "guideline" when they truly mean "do this or get fired." And so somebody always has to ask the question (or find it out the hard way).
This. I wouldn't mind the word "guideline" if it was actually used in a purely advisory sense, but it isn't. As I've already said, my latest invective against the word was caused by the Premier of New South Wales talking about the "strict guidelines" in place.
How the fuck can you have "strict guidelines"? That's a spectacularly bad case of mixed messaging.
If not downright oxymoronic.
Thank you for supplying the word I was looking for but couldn't think of.
Javid is being very bullish now about lifting restrictions, it's all personal responsibility, we have to live with covid like flu, open everything up. You have to hope he's right. Presumably, there are going to be a lot more cases, and still quite a lot of people are not double vaccinated. One of the risks is more variants emerging. Ah well, it's laissez faire medicine, you'll probably survive.
Total cases is no longer the important metric, because the vaccines are ensuring that the vast majority of those cases are minor. Deaths from Covid have flatlined, if you'll forgive the ironic dual meaning of that word.
But every time the virus is transmitted, there is the chance of a mutation to a more dangerous form. Case rates do matter.
Cases also matter for people who aren't vaccinated (too young / medically contraindicated). If they're surrounded by a sea of infectious but functionally healthy people, they're basically screwed.
Total cases is no longer the important metric, because the vaccines are ensuring that the vast majority of those cases are minor. Deaths from Covid have flatlined, if you'll forgive the ironic dual meaning of that word.
There are still a lot of significant non-fatal impacts of infection. Death rate was never the only metric - indeed the whole "protect the NHS" mantra was about people in hospital (in one sense a lot of infected people dying also helps protect the NHS because a corpse doesn't occupy a bed and the care of nursing staff). Protecting the economy also benefits from low infection rates - people who are at home sick are not economically productive, nor are the people who stay home caring for them or those self-isolating if they can't work from home. Long term, low infection rates also means less disruption to schooling because teachers and pupils don't need to stay off school as often.
So, yes there are lots of important metrics, but total cases underlies most of them. Also, as has been noted, high infection rates are a major issue for anyone who for whatever reason are either not vaccinated or the vaccine is less effective. And, that's just for the UK. Looking internationally high infection rates in the UK poses a significant threat to nations with lower vaccination rates - unless, of course, there's no travel from the UK to other nations. If the UK government simply closes the borders and lets no one from the UK travel then our high total case metric wouldn't be killing people elsewhere.
FUCK. I am so angry I don't even have words. The UK, you know, the place that had 50000 new Coronavirus cases today, just reimposed quarantine on visitors returning from France. This is supposedly because of the Beta variant, which the French statistics show today made up about 10% of cases in France, or less than 400 people. Against sodding 50000 primarily Delta variant cases in the UK, for which France incidentally has not closed its border for the vaccinated.
My parents were meant to be coming to visit next month. I haven't been able to see them for twenty months, or if you prefer, half my son's lifetime. I have no idea if they're still going to be able to come. The most galling part? Had we been a house, they would have been allowed to visit. Since I am only their daughter, they never have. Fucking Tories all over. Property matters more than people, because of course it does.
I want to cry. And possibly give up my British nationality. I'm so sick of being a part of a nation with the most incompetent, hypocritical, self-serving excuse for a Government on the planet.
Sorry to hear about your parents, that must be so difficult for all of you. (((Hugs)))
The government is wary of the Beta variant because they are not certain how well the vaccines work against it; they know they work very well against Delta. The current government travel advice is very much geared towards keeping Beta out.
Everyone else should be imposing quarantine requirements on people coming from the UK. Want to go on holiday on a Greek island, spend the first 10d in a hotel room on your own and then stay there until you've had two negative PCR tests (costs to be incurred by tourist). It's a simple choice, get the virus under control so that our case rate is no higher than the country people want to travel to or have no travel.
Comments
Bullshit.
The reason why safety relates to freedom is that until that point where everyone is safe there's going to need to be ongoing restrictions of some form to keep everyone else as safe as possible. First off, restrictions on travel - while there are still areas with higher rates of infection we're not going to be returning to the freedom to travel from those places (that can relate to regions within a nation, as well as different nations). Once the virus enters and starts to spread through a community we're also going to need to introduce measures to slow that spread - so, until everyone is safe we may find that we need to maintain some restrictions so that if the virus spreads back into a community it doesn't flare up, and to reintroduce some restrictions at short notice.
Which basically means that as no one is safe until all are safe it's also true that no one is free until all are free - I'd suggest that's true generally as well as in relation to the coronavirus, but we can debate the extent to which individual liberty depends on all having the same freedoms (as well as what liberty actually is) in a more philosophical way on a more appropriate forum.
The British Heart Foundation has some info here.
I don't understand why Marvin can neither do the math to figure out how many people will be harmed without public health measures of various kinds nor muster the empathy to care about them.
Because that wasn’t the point. Alan raised the prediction that thousands of pubs would close because of the smoking ban as an example of a warning that didn’t come true (with the implication that similar warnings about lockdown can be ignored). Problem is, it did come true.
Now, if you want to say that thousands of pubs closing is an acceptable price to pay for the health benefits of a smoking ban then make that argument. And if you want to say that similar (or worse) economic impacts are a price worth paying to eliminate every single last case of COVID then make that argument. But don’t pretend that there aren’t costs to doing so, or that there isn’t a cost-benefit analysis to be made.
- changing demographics - pubs don't do well in Muslim areas for some reason¹,
- younger people are not drinking so much,
- cheaper supermarket prices for alcohol, so it's cheaper to drink at home,
- high taxes on beer, the highest in Europe apparently,
- business rates that are crippling most of the high street, including pubs,
- high property prices that make the pubs more valuable to redevelop as housing rather than keep them as pubs.
- the old boozers are doomed as that's not how people drink now, the pubs that have turned themselves into gastropubs are doing better.
- all the reasons above and Covid19 are going to finish quite a few more pub businesses now.
I'd also add that I don't find most pubs welcoming places to drink as a woman on my own or with my daughter and rarely go to a pub unless I'm meeting other people or can sit outside, even though I have an encyclopedic knowledge of London pubs from a misspent youth drinking in many of them - link to i-news article from 2018To get back to Covid, our favourite restaurant in town has reopened, but they are still offering takeaways weekly for those who don't want to come in just yet, albeit moved to Thursday for collection to avoid the peak weekend trade. And none of the local drive through Starbucks/McDonald's queues appear to have hugely improved.
Now, that's an opinion.
The report is authored by Christopher Snowdon - someone with a long track record of writing for the tobacco industry https://tobaccotactics.org/wiki/christopher-snowdon/ as indeed does the IEA itself.
And as @Leorning Cniht says above he lumps taxes together with the smoking ban - which as Cniht says is total nonsense, unless you adopt the lens of the IEA in which all taxes are bad.
His entire argument ends up resting on the graph in Figure 8, in which the smoking bans are placed against a graph of generally declining pub numbers. There's an increase in the decline post the smoking ban, but the fact that it continues till at least 2013/2014 seems to indicate that it owes its cause to different factors (to the point @Sandemaniac makes above) - probably the crash of 2007/2008 and the general stagnation of wages ever since then.
The other thing, of course, is the number of young people who don't drink at all. 25-30% at the latest count. Pubs need to sell a much wider range of LA and NA beers - actually good ones that folk (potentially like me, and them) want to drink, as opposed to beers at 4-5% or stronger.
Funny you should say that, as Mrs T and I were only saying the other day that you don't seem to see the 3.5-4% session ales any more - it's all 4.5% at a minimum and often more. Same on the home brew side as well. Truth is it is harder to make a satisfying ale at a lower ABV but it is possible. Breweries are a bit obsessed with pale ("gold") beers at the moment and it's harder to do a good weaker one because the way to get a good low ABV ale is to load up on crystal and dark malts. This is why trad UK session bitters are copper rather than yellow.
Some of those IPAs taste like grapefruit pith and deserve to be mentioned here in Hell.
Likewise: LA and NA beers - those served in Los Angeles and those that are Not Applicable?
We're trying not to turn this in to a CAMRA meeting, honest...
(IPA = India Pale Ale
NA = No alcohol
LA = Low alcohol
CAMRA = Campaign for Real Ale)
Seriously? There are pubs closing at the present time (Covid excepted) because of a smoking ban from fourteen years ago?
Funny you say that. My nieces and nephews, and their partners (in their twenties/early thirties) have only produced one regular alcohol drinker among them. And she prefers craft gin at home with family and friends. The others are into energy drinks or soft drinks. they will occasionally go to a pub, if meals are being served. But they don't 'do' pub drinking at all.
I suspect another influence on some pub attendances will correlate to the increasing strictness of alcohol restrictions on drivers. I'm currently reading a memoir from the 60's where even the local Bobby imbibes in a pint or two before getting on his police motorcycle to toddle off round the village on the beat. And I personally remember, as a driver, back in the 80's and 90's the way drink units were calculated by pub attenders to allow them to 'safely' drive home again. It's virtually zero tolerance now, and I imagine that not many people feel it's worth their while to drive to their favourite pub to sit over an orange juice and drive home again! Pubs with a nice line in entertainment and good food, however, might sustain the attraction.
My understanding is that Sandemaniac was contesting the claim in the paper Marvin linked.
Some of those belong in Hell once the Cask Breather acceptors get into an argument with the rejecters and then some twit asks whether all Craft Ale should be endorsed...
You understand correctly, and I was concurring with the statements that Curiosity Killed made as well.
* because being on permanent caring call, I am not risking dealing with paramedics with drink taken
Ha! I should clarify. The first point was a post I began, before realizing what you were saying, so I abandoned it, thinking I'd dodged a reading-for-comprehension bullet. I then logged out and later logged in to give my second response, not realising that the first part had remained having been saved automatically.
Initially, I felt foolish not having read properly your response. Now I feel foolish not having read my own post properly before posting it!
#%$#@!&$!!!
The English government allows a lot of people to enter the country without requiring self-isolation. But, that also allowed the delta variant to enter far more quickly than would have been the case had testing and self-isolation been required.
Let's do a little math, shall we? Israel reports >80% of its adults are fully vaccinated. So there are four times as many vaccinated adults as non-vaccinated adults. Cases of the Delta variant split 50-50 between those two populations. In other words, compared to non-vaccinated people, the Pfizer vaccine was successful at preventing 75% of Delta infections. Yeah, Delta's more infectious than the other strains, and the vaccine doesn't do quite as well against it. It still does pretty well. It's still worth having.
(I believe it's also true that those vaccinated people who get Delta aren't as sick, on average, as non-vaccinated people who get Delta.)
I wish the standard "daily cases" Covid reports you get would include the vaccination status of the patients: that would help distinguish between rates plateauing because of non-vaccinated people vs rates plateauing because of more infectious variant.
Thanks a lot, stupid unvaccinated Sydney driver of international flight crews. And the employers who let him. AND the NSW government officials who seem to have made vaccination of such people an 'expectation' rather than a fucking requirement.
Stupid question: Why not place a wall between the driver and the aircrew, so they're not sharing the same airspace? Why would you even rely on vaccination, when "don't breathe the same air" is achievable?
To clarify: unvaccinated and suspected of breaching procedure.
I don't know the exact nature of the arrangements, but yes, it's my understanding they're not supposed to be sharing the same airspace anyway.
He and his employer are not going to be charged, because apparently there's insufficient evidence they broke an actual rule.
Is it not completely clear that the word "guideline" is only ever advisory, and an example of best practice? One could, perhaps, make a case for negligence for behaviour that was generally in flagrant breach of commonly accepted guidelines, but ...
(And there's a vast difference between wearing a face covering and breathing in a separate airspace. It's why people who work in bio labs wear those puffy isolation suits with air hoses, rather than a mask.)
It's actually not clear at all, due to the widespread existence of assholes who think it's a good idea to soften their demands and improve their corporate image by using "guideline" when they truly mean "do this or get fired." And so somebody always has to ask the question (or find it out the hard way).
This. I wouldn't mind the word "guideline" if it was actually used in a purely advisory sense, but it isn't. As I've already said, my latest invective against the word was caused by the Premier of New South Wales talking about the "strict guidelines" in place.
How the fuck can you have "strict guidelines"? That's a spectacularly bad case of mixed messaging.
If not downright oxymoronic.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ojK9Q_ARE
Thank you for supplying the word I was looking for but couldn't think of.
https://theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/16/englands-covid-unlocking-a-threat-to-the-world-experts-say
Unbelievable folly...
Cases also matter for people who aren't vaccinated (too young / medically contraindicated). If they're surrounded by a sea of infectious but functionally healthy people, they're basically screwed.
That’s true of every single virus.
So, yes there are lots of important metrics, but total cases underlies most of them. Also, as has been noted, high infection rates are a major issue for anyone who for whatever reason are either not vaccinated or the vaccine is less effective. And, that's just for the UK. Looking internationally high infection rates in the UK poses a significant threat to nations with lower vaccination rates - unless, of course, there's no travel from the UK to other nations. If the UK government simply closes the borders and lets no one from the UK travel then our high total case metric wouldn't be killing people elsewhere.
My parents were meant to be coming to visit next month. I haven't been able to see them for twenty months, or if you prefer, half my son's lifetime. I have no idea if they're still going to be able to come. The most galling part? Had we been a house, they would have been allowed to visit. Since I am only their daughter, they never have. Fucking Tories all over. Property matters more than people, because of course it does.
I want to cry. And possibly give up my British nationality. I'm so sick of being a part of a nation with the most incompetent, hypocritical, self-serving excuse for a Government on the planet.
The government is wary of the Beta variant because they are not certain how well the vaccines work against it; they know they work very well against Delta. The current government travel advice is very much geared towards keeping Beta out.