What has changed since the optimism surrounding the Oxford trials? 

More on the HNS app-ocalypse from Dr Michael Veale:

Contact tracing app may not work with Apple or Google phones
The UK’s coronavirus contact tracing app, being developed as part of the government’s pandemic response, may not work with either Apple or Google phones.

Dr Michael Veale, lecturer in digital rights and regulation at University College London, said the UK is “really going against the grain” in its development of the app.

Comparing the government’s app to the one his team is working on, Veale said: “We’ve been working in a way where all of the matching between people happens on a user’s device, not in a central server, and that’s generally considered to be more privacy preserving. Whereas the UK has taken a different approach, which builds a social network of people in the cloud.”

“The problem is that Apple and Google, Apple in particular, have stated that they won’t allow this kind of central system to be created, it doesn’t work with their operating system,” he said. “And so the UK is really going against the grain and therefore it’s finding problems on both Google and Apple phones.”

Be alert. If you see the virus coming -  "duck" !!!

No idea TBH. There just seems to be a growing assumption based on numerous past failures with vaccines. 

Thats why I used the European average rather than particular countries.

Plotting the ratio of UK/EUR deaths gives a rough idea of the effectiveness of our measures versus those adopted across Europe. Bear in mind that Europe includes Belgium and all the other particularly bad examples. Sadly, having started well, the rate has simply continued to rise. We'd all like to see that value at or around 1 and constant.

So no new evidence?

Yes, you’re right. In fact if I had excluded the countries I included the situation would be more marked. Has all of central and Eastern Europe handled this situation really well or is there more to it?

Fingers crossed that the material in the ST is subjectively pessimistic. 

It really is difficult to know who & what to believe at the moment. 

I’d suggest the chances of a successful vaccine are relatively high, simply because of the unprecedented efforts going in to try and find one. 

At this point, our death rate sits at about 3.2 times the average for the rest of Europe. That should be the subject of a public enquiry when this is over.

I was commenting on the difference between Western Europe (excluding Portugal) and the Central and eastern parts. The contrast is marked.

Most of them closed their borders and locked down as soon as they saw what was happening in Italy. Slovenia is a very striking example, their health care system isn't very good and it's next door to N.Italy and many Slovenians cross the border daily to work in N.Italy. It was a disaster waiting to happen, yet their govt took early and aggressive action and they only have ~100 deaths so far.

It is just speculation. But almost everything is speculation at the moment. There is no alternative to waiting and watching really and trying to deal with hard facts. About all we can say for sure here is that infections are falling, but not that quickly, as are deaths. How that will relate to future moves in the UK is unknown. Also the NHS is coping in terms of capacity. Trying to be positive, it is likely that methods of care are probably a bit better than they were at the start, as the more effective ones will be passed around.

Nobody, at this stage can say whether it will just die out or carry on with further waves. Nobody can say if it will be any different in a future wave. Nobody can say when an effective drug or vaccine will be ready. Anything you read will be either an informed or uninformed opinion only and even then it will be difficult to tell which is which.

I wouldn't pay much attention to this.

I agree that there are huge variations which have a number of different explanations - reporting, testing, health service capacity, etc. etc..

Averaging them all out is thus the proper way to gain perspective.

If I were you Brian, I'd cancel my subscription to both the Times and ST - it's clearly depressing you. 

Also most of the CEE countries kept applying the test, trace and isolate strategy as per the WHO guidelines, but I think the main difference with W.Europe is closing their borders early and locking down internally. They had also banned mass gatherings much earlier than us. Here are some dates for border closures to non citizens:

Slovakia 13 March

Chechia: 14 March

Denmark 14/3

Poland 15/3

Serbia 16/3

Norway 16/3

Hungary: 17/3

Latvia/Lithuania: 16/3

In the same way as it is currently 13°C in the U.K.

(It stopped snowing a few minutes ago).

On the contrary. I would say that on balance it currently has some of the best reporting in the UK, despite some real howlers which I have highlighted in the last week. Each to their own but I'm finding the corona crisis fascinating. 

Talking of opinion polls as some people were, Opinium's findings from this week are shown below. The government has had good approval ratings on coronavirus but people have been unhappy about aspects of its behaviour. Although not asked here other polls have shown a big majority saying the government was too late with the lockdown. A similar question was asked in this survey and only 28% think the government acted quickly enough, 67% thought it moved too slowly.

Government approval on coronavirus has levelled out at its lowest since the crisis began but is still positive at 48% approving and 36% disapproving.

• Approval for PPE and testing are still poor with 60% disapproving despite the government announcing it had hit the 100,000 per day testing target on April 30th

• The UK has slipped down the rankings in terms of which countries voters think have handled things better or worse than the UK.

• Now every country apart from the US is seen as having handled the pandemic better than the UK with Italy and Spain moving from “UK handled better” to “UK handled worse”

• Little support for lifting lockdown measures with the most popular option for schools, shops, restaurants and offices being to re-open only if restrictions are in place, infections are declining and that they close again if infections rise again.

• Even if measures were lifted immediately, most would not feel comfortable using public transport (59% for travelling by bus to 55% travelling by Underground) eating in a restaurant (60%) or going to the gym (46%)

• Half (53%) of the public would be likely to download a contact tracing app

• Parents are more supportive of a partial re-opening of schools in comparison to a full reopening

https://www.opinium.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Opinium-Political-Report-5th-May-2020.pdf

S

The one thing they did which has had the worst impact was clearing hospitals of the elderly in mid-March - by sending them to care homes - when many had already been infected.
We see the result now with a large percentage of deaths in those homes.

Hospitals are now at 39% capacity but the waiting list for other procedures is reckoned to be at 7,000,000
Many of those will die before they get attention.

Opinium coronavirus net trust ratings

44% Chris Whitty

25% Sunak

21% Nicola Sturgeon

18% Sadiq Khan

16% Boris Johnson

12% Hancock

10% Raab

-1% Arlene Foster

-4% Drakeford

-63% Donald Trump (3% of respondents apparently have a high level of trust in what he says on coronavirus)

(sample sizes are small for Khan, Sturgeon, Foster and Drakeford as they were only shown as options to relevant voters)

I stopped getting the ST delivered last year, at 3.70 its too expensive anyway. 

In fact I have stopped buying newspapers full stop since the crisis and I don't think I will ever restart. I will pay money to help keep the Guardian going of course

I'm less impressed with Grant Shapps' announcement on travel now I discover it was all old money

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-public-transport-social-distancing-shapps-a9506886.html

The only development is that £250m of the original $5bn is to be spent as an 'emergency fund' - but can you do more than paint some extra lines on the road within the timescale needed? A new cycle path here and there would be splendid but completing it in less than several months is not going to happen, short of appointing a Director with powers to overrule local authorities, close roads on the spot during construction - and after.

Who is Drakeford?

What about Vallance? Or perhaps plebs mix him up with Whitty anyway

😉