Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Donathan]

Exactly. Yet the whole country has had to stop for it. The economy could take years to return to how it was which means job loses and all the things that go along with that (depression, financial hardship etc). To steal from Corbyn, this whole situation was to benefit the few, not the many 

Spot on. The long term mental health toll on today’s millennials isn’t worth the benefit of lock down (I.e. extending lives by a few months/few years at most)


Not to mention the economic hardship

[Todd_is_God]

28 minutes ago, bendan said:

There's simply no point in looking at single day figures from Scotland.

True, but i didn't and never have done so.

Look at the overall picture, data on specific (significant) days of the week, 7 day averages for new infections, deaths and positive test results and everything is trending down.

[D.A.F.C]

Winding back furlough to 60%.
Is the 80% agreed until June?

[Donathan]

Winding back furlough to 60%.
Is the 80% agreed until June?

Source?

[D.A.F.C]

Source?

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-britain-furlough/uk-considers-wage-cut-for-63-mln-furloughed-staff-evening-standard-idUSL8N2CN54E

[Todd_is_God]

6 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Is the 80% agreed until June?

"Finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday there would be no sudden cliff edge in June but that he was looking at the best way to phase the scheme out and ease people back to work “in a measured way”.

According to the Evening Standard, a leading option is to lower the proportion of furloughed staff’s wages that the government pays to employers to 60% from 80%."

It doesn't say, but it reads that way

Could be that by July the expectation is that all workplaces will be open, but that some subsidies will remain to allow businesses to avoid redundancies, whilst trading with lower turnover than before

Edited May 5, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Thereisalight..]

5 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Winding back furlough to 60%.
Is the 80% agreed until June?

They could never sustain 80% for months and months. I worry for people in the pub and restaurant industry who are likely to be the last ones to reopen. Looks like they’ll have to go onto Universal Credit and hope they still have a job to return to 

[Donathan]

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-britain-furlough/uk-considers-wage-cut-for-63-mln-furloughed-staff-evening-standard-idUSL8N2CN54E

Those of us who are WFH are effectively working full time for 20% of our salaries now so this would make actually working a bit more lucrative tbf

[D.A.F.C]

Boss phoning round this week saying dont be surprised if called back next week.
No mention of health and safety.
Got a letter from work saying furloughed until end of may.
Sturgeon saying manufacturing advice coming out this week, no idea what it would be or if not applied does that mean we can walk out or refuse with no union?

Absolutely clear as mud.

[Sergeant Wilson]

13 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Exactly. Yet the whole country has had to stop for it. The economy could take years to return to how it was which means job loses and all the things that go along with that (depression, financial hardship etc). To steal from Corbyn, this whole situation was to benefit the few, not the many 

 

11 minutes ago, Donathan said:

Spot on. The long term mental health toll on today’s millennials isn’t worth the benefit of lock down (I.e. extending lives by a few months/few years at most)


Not to mention the economic hardship

What a pair of utter tits.

You've had to restrict socialising for a few weeks. If the Government had acted quickly enough it probably have been longer over all.

Dry your eyes.

[Dan Steele]

20 minutes ago, Donathan said:

I believe 90%+ of them had underlying health conditions and of those who didn’t, the vast majority were over 70.

I believe they're as dead as the other 10%. Or are you arguing they don't really matter?

[Wee Willie]

25 minutes ago, Donathan said:

About time they advise those over 70 and with health conditions to do social distancing and let the rest of us live our lives tbh

I can definitely assure you that when they say I can go out on my wee mobility scooter I'll be coughing and spluttering and wiping my nose on my sleeve for a long time tae come.

In fact I'm coughing the noo as I write this but I did use a tissue (nae comment) and I'm awa tae wash my hands.

[Distant Doonhamer]

A lot of talk about Formula One coming back on sky sports.

Why is that relevant you may ask?

Well it's a good indicator of my desperation for live sport that I am sat here thinking "yeah that will be good il watch that".

Rock bottom found, upwards.

One of the few benefits of this pandemic has been no Formula One. Surely we’ve suffered enough [emoji6]

[Wee Willie]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

No. Memes very rarely are.

A quick shifty on Google brings up these. I reckon somebody’s telling porkies….

 

Vote Leave AI firm wins seven government contracts in 18 months

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/vote-leave-ai-firm-wins-seven-government-contracts-in-18-months

Faculty is run by Marc Warner, whose brother Ben Warner, a data scientist, was reportedly recruited to Downing Street last year by Cummings after running the data modelling for the Conservative party’s general election campaign. Ben Warner is a former senior employee at Faculty and is also said to have worked on Vote Leave….

….Faculty’s work on the coronavirus response is only the latest government project it has secured under the Conservative administration. One early contract, for £32,000, funded fellowships in 2018 to place data scientists in city governments to help solve local challenges. Faculty was at that time operating under its original name, Advanced Skills Initiative…..

….Last year Faculty was awarded a £250,000 contract from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to run a cross-government review on the adoption of artificial intelligence, announced on the same day that the company rebranded as Faculty Science…..

….In addition, Faculty has been awarded a £264,000 contract from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to monitor the impact of the coronavirus on industry…..

 

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/22/palantir-coronavirus-contract-did-not-go-to-competitive-tender/

Highly controversial contracts which allow ministers and senior health officials to mine confidential data from tens of thousands of COVID-19 hospital patients have been awarded to technology companies without being put out to competitive tender, NHS England has disclosed to Byline Times.

The system is now live and being used to inform senior health officials on the latest situation at the daily Downing Street briefings. The contracts involve five companies – Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services, Palantir Technology UK and Faculty.

 

According to the Guardian, Faculty – which had a pre-existing contract with other companies to help build a £250 million artificial intelligence lab for the NHSX subsidiary – took on a leading role in the data response to the pandemic. It is run by Marc Warner, whose brother, Ben, was reported by the Sunday Times to have been recruited to Downing Street by Cummings after running the Conservative Party’s private election model.

Ben Warner, who used to be a principal at his brother’s AI company, is said to have worked closely with Cummings on the modelling programme used in the Vote Leave campaign.

Faculty’s lawyers told the Guardian that “its NHS contract was the result of a tender process that was not influenced by Cummings”.

[Todd_is_God]

8 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

They could never sustain 80% for months and months. I worry for people in the pub and restaurant industry who are likely to be the last ones to reopen. Looks like they’ll have to go onto Universal Credit and hope they still have a job to return to 

You never know. They could have different subsidies in place for different sectors.

i.e. if you are in a sector still forced to close nothing changes.

If you are allowed to trade, but in a limited capacity the subsidy is less, but employees will also be allowed to work some hours and be paid for these by their employer.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Donathan]

I believe they're as dead as the other 10%. Or are you arguing they don't really matter?

I’m arguing that even in the absence of covid they’d be dead soon enough so widespread disruption to society is pointless.

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Just think of us poor feckersdown here, who watch Sturgeon talking to her country like adults on a daily basis, knowing that we are entirely at the mercy of this bunch of shysters and their paymasters.

When did Sturgeon actually do this, as opposed to claiming that she would before presenting the same 'stay at home or the nurses get it' mantra that Westminster is peddling? She has been more professional and cautious in her messaging but the idea that there is in any way a two-sided, adult conversation taking place with the public is nonsense.

[Donathan]

What a pair of utter tits.
You've had to restrict socialising for a few weeks. If the Government had acted quickly enough it probably have been longer over all.
Dry your eyes.

Ok boomer.

[Wee Willie]

1 minute ago, Donathan said:

I’m arguing that even in the absence of covid they’d be dead soon enough so widespread disruption to society is pointless.

Back in the day 50 years ago if somebody said to me , "I see that so-and-so has died" my first words were usually, "How auld was he"

If the reply was, "over 70 ", then I would say, "at least he had a long life".

Now that I'm 77 I bite my tongue.

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, Wee Willie said:

A quick shifty on Google brings up these. I reckon somebody’s telling porkies….

 

 

Vote Leave AI firm wins seven government contracts in 18 months

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/vote-leave-ai-firm-wins-seven-government-contracts-in-18-months

Faculty is run by Marc Warner, whose brother Ben Warner, a data scientist, was reportedly recruited to Downing Street last year by Cummings after running the data modelling for the Conservative party’s general election campaign. Ben Warner is a former senior employee at Faculty and is also said to have worked on Vote Leave….

….Faculty’s work on the coronavirus response is only the latest government project it has secured under the Conservative administration. One early contract, for £32,000, funded fellowships in 2018 to place data scientists in city governments to help solve local challenges. Faculty was at that time operating under its original name, Advanced Skills Initiative…..

….Last year Faculty was awarded a £250,000 contract from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to run a cross-government review on the adoption of artificial intelligence, announced on the same day that the company rebranded as Faculty Science…..

….In addition, Faculty has been awarded a £264,000 contract from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to monitor the impact of the coronavirus on industry…..

 

 

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/22/palantir-coronavirus-contract-did-not-go-to-competitive-tender/

Highly controversial contracts which allow ministers and senior health officials to mine confidential data from tens of thousands of COVID-19 hospital patients have been awarded to technology companies without being put out to competitive tender, NHS England has disclosed to Byline Times.

The system is now live and being used to inform senior health officials on the latest situation at the daily Downing Street briefings. The contracts involve five companies – Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services, Palantir Technology UK and Faculty.

 

 

According to the Guardian, Faculty – which had a pre-existing contract with other companies to help build a £250 million artificial intelligence lab for the NHSX subsidiary – took on a leading role in the data response to the pandemic. It is run by Marc Warner, whose brother, Ben, was reported by the Sunday Times to have been recruited to Downing Street by Cummings after running the Conservative Party’s private election model.

Ben Warner, who used to be a principal at his brother’s AI company, is said to have worked closely with Cummings on the modelling programme used in the Vote Leave campaign.

Faculty’s lawyers told the Guardian that “its NHS contract was the result of a tender process that was not influenced by Cummings”.

I posted that link in my last reply to you. The contract for the app didn't go to the Warner brothers or any of the companies mentioned above. It was developed by the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine along with US firm VMware.