Think he's succumbed to too many good lunches too... Sad to see him become a parody of himself.
I'm afraid CCHQ are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think telephone canvassing (we don't have enough telephone numbers) or social media can make up for the deficit of being unable to either leaflet or canvass. This is not a General Election or a Presidential Election, council candidates cannot wage their campaign through the TV screen. If Covid is still prevalent in the community in March and April, should candidates and activists be out and un-intentionally spreading the virus? Organising elections are a lot more logistically complicated than I suspect many in Westminster understand... a bit of common sense should be used here and a short, simple postponement would be the sensible course of action.
The local news... I wouldn't rate BBC Spotlight or ITV for getting things right as far as Covid stats are concerned. Spotlight take the weekly infection rate data... however that data is always 5 days old. Todays figures showed on Spotlight and upward trend in nearly all Districts, which was of no surprise to me as I could see from the daily numbers that our infection numbers had increased. My heart breaks for hospitality and the Government should be more generous in its grant support for them, but giving 48 hours notice over New Year would only have encouraged residents to enjoy a blow out before lockdown. This happened in the November lockdown and led to an increase in infections. I don't like hospitality being forced to close but I don't think there is much alternative. Frankly we are lucky to be in Tier 3 and not in a full lockdown.
Er, Cornwall is definitely not seeing a downward movement of cases. Torbay has done well but the neighbouring Districts to Torbay have seen sharp increases, and looking at the latest data Torbay will be lucky not to see its infection rate rise after the inevitable Christmas spike. Looking at the data closely in Devon, what tends to happen is that high infections in one District spill over into neighbouring areas. The high infection rates in Teignbridge would concern me if I was in Torbay. Even if there were no restrictions, if God forbid we saw Covid become endemic in Devon in the same way as it has in Kent, people would vote with their feet and stay at home and not support hospitality industry. I do feel for the sector and the Government should do more I feel to compensate them given their business is suffering through no fault of their own. Lockdowns are awful, but we are kidding ourselves if we think we can keep the economy functioning as normally as possible without seeing a major Covid spike. January and February are going to be extremely difficult months, but hopefully by March we should start to see a loosening of restrictions if the vaccine is rolled out.
So you want to encourage non-compliance with the basic public health guidance - hands, face, space - which more than anything are the most effective measures at keeping the virus at bay? If so, I'm afraid I think you are a bit of a fool... because by encouraging non-compliance that is exactly why people like me in low infection areas have to put up with greater restrictions on our everyday lives. Whether you like it or not, the pandemic is a public health emergency and encouraging non-compliance will only make our suffering longer, not shorter.
Our infection rates are higher in Devon since the start of the lockdown and our hospitals are under pressure as hundreds of staff are absent having either caught Covid or being put into self-isolation. I get a whiff of head in sand syndrome from your post... or perhaps keyboard warrior syndrome, or maybe both. I dislike the restrictions, but Tier 2 is a fairly small price to pay verses an even stricter lockdown which Labour and the scientists would impose on us. Covid is not the bubonic plague but you are in denial if you think it presents no danger to our public health - having our hospitals overrun with Covid patients is not in anyone's interest.
I think most people will privately be glad *not* to have to put up with their families over Christmas... Bah humbug!
Lloyd Gorge fought with the generals... Ministers so far have resisted the more trench warfare proposals from SAGE, the ludicrous 'circuit breaker' being one of them...
Our scientists on SAGE remind me of, sadly, the Generals in World War I. Unimaginative and rigid in sticking to tactics that they know will cause hardship, misery and deaths for thousands of people in the country. We live in grim times.
Again, Devon had one of the lowest number of outbreaks in care home in the country. There are positive cases being picked up with care home staff but so far they have all be isolated and the outbreaks kept under control.
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Brainchild