International News Covid-19 .....

[PottersRightBoot]

I wrote on here a few days ago that I didn't think it appropriate, at a time when thousands were dying, to politically point score. I've changed my mind. The more I think about Boris glibly dismissing the impending crisis and seeming to be actually proud of maximising flesh on flesh contact with all and sundry, the angrier I get.

Boris is a Tory with Tory principles of promoting personal freedom and minimising state interference. That makes this political and Boris should feel ashamed. The NHS that his party machine has been decimating for a decade (yes, it has) was called on to save his life. I really hope his experience proves to be a reawakening for him and that, going forward, the NHS - and the whole care sector - is treated by his government as an absolute priority.

Hello Archbishop. Hope you're keeping well.

I disagree. .It's not political We've all been blindsided by the infectious power of this terrible virus. The Labour party or the Lib Dems would have done nothing significantly different if in power. They've said as much .

Also:

1 The PM has been doing a lot of relegating personal freedom and maximising state interference in the last few months so don't get your point.
2 NHS has not been 'decimated'- (god the extremity of the language). Look at the figures. A lot of money has been wasted on a ponderous ineffective management evidenced by rubbish procurement and poor operational administrative performance. .
3 Where the Government has cocked up big time on is not getting the private sector involved quickly enough in the entire health effort. (Would the Labour Party have been 'better'?, I really doubt it.)
4 Medical sector really shouldn't have been ferrying people in old peoples homes between hospital and their care homes.

 

[Pete Burrett]

Hello Archbishop. Hope you're keeping well.

I disagree. .It's not political We've all been blindsided by the infectious power of this terrible virus. The Labour party or the Lib Dems would have done nothing significantly different if in power. They've said as much .

Also:

1 The PM has been doing a lot of relegating personal freedom and maximising state interference in the last few months so don't get your point.
2 NHS has not been 'decimated'- (god the extremity of the language). Look at the figures. A lot of money has been wasted on a ponderous ineffective management evidenced by rubbish procurement and poor operational administrative performance. .
3 Where the Government has cocked up big time on is not getting the private sector involved quickly enough in the entire health effort. (Would the Labour Party have been 'better'?, I really doubt it.)
4 Medical sector really shouldn't have been ferrying people in old peoples homes between hospital and their care homes.

I'm very well, thank you. Still not shaking hands with the general populace.

You miss my point, to an extent. My point was that the way Boris initially reacted during the crisis displayed his very, very Tory attitude of having a right to act as he wishes rather than being controlled by government (or indeed expert) advice.

No party would have handled the crisis better, or even differently, but I'd like to think most leaders would have behaved more responsibly.

I'm sure we all hope Boris will have been affected by his experience to the benefit of the whole population.

 

[werthersoriginal]

I'm very well, thank you. Still not shaking hands with the general populace.

You miss my point, to an extent. My point was that the way Boris initially reacted during the crisis displayed his very, very Tory attitude of having a right to act as he wishes rather than being controlled by government (or indeed expert) advice.

No party would have handled the crisis better, or even differently, but I'd like to think most leaders would have behaved more responsibly.

I'm sure we all hope Boris will have been affected by his experience to the benefit of the whole population.

I don't think we need to assign blame for this politically - we have no idea whether another party (or another Tory regime) would have been better, and the Tories have dealt with compensation for lost wages in a quite 'socialist' way. But until it was too late, Johnson reacted in a fairly typical Tory way in trying to minimize the state's involvement and failing to engage with other more advanced countries, and in a very typical personal way of not taking serious things seriously.

 

[Pete Burrett]

I don't think we need to assign blame for this politically - we have no idea whether another party (or another Tory regime) would have been better, and the Tories have dealt with compensation for lost wages in a quite 'socialist' way. But until it was too late, Johnson reacted in a fairly typical Tory way in trying to minimize the state's involvement and failing to engage with other more advanced countries, and in a very typical personal way of not taking serious things seriously.

I most definitely am not assigning blame politically (see my reply to PRB above). I'm saying that Boris' actions were typical of his Tory beliefs; that if he wanted to shake hands with everyone he was free to do so. I agree totally with your second paragraph, and very fair point about the 'socialist' type money being made available to keep business going. I was pleasantly surprised by that.

 

[RyanioBirdio]

The second that the Prime Minister made a joke about last gasps and bragged about shaking hands in hospitals, we were all fucked.

 

[Essexyellows]

30 day travel ban on non-essential travel in the EU - March 17th.

So consider the time frames before accusing the government of mass murder etc and the reactions of other countries across Europe.... even when it comes to closing borders.....

Germany lock down 9 days after 3rd death.
Spain 10 days after 3rd death.
Italy & France 14 days after 3rd death.
UK 15 days after 3rd death.

Have a picture........

A value of zero days is displayed when the measure was implemented before the third death caused by COVID-19 was registered in the country.

 

[YellowTaxi]

Why are you choosing the third death, I wonder?

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Even using your table EY, it shows that we have been pretty slow off the mark!

Events suspended - Slowest apart from Italy
All schools closed - Slowest
Non-essential shops closed - Slowest apart from Italy
Non-essential movement banned - Slowest
Land borders - we don't have any, but air borders? Apparently not important?

It might only be a day or two in some cases - but given that we could see it coming, we had the opportunity to make our timescales shorter then almost anyone else - not longer!

 

[Navegante]

Hello Archbishop. Hope you're keeping well.

I disagree. .It's not political We've all been blindsided by the infectious power of this terrible virus. The Labour party or the Lib Dems would have done nothing significantly different if in power. They've said as much .

Also:

1 The PM has been doing a lot of relegating personal freedom and maximising state interference in the last few months so don't get your point.
2 NHS has not been 'decimated'- (god the extremity of the language). Look at the figures. A lot of money has been wasted on a ponderous ineffective management evidenced by rubbish procurement and poor operational administrative performance. .
3 Where the Government has cocked up big time on is not getting the private sector involved quickly enough in the entire health effort. (Would the Labour Party have been 'better'?, I really doubt it.)
4 Medical sector really shouldn't have been ferrying people in old peoples homes between hospital and their care homes.

You miss my point, to an extent. My point was that the way Boris initially reacted during the crisis displayed his very, very Tory attitude of having a right to act as he wishes rather than being controlled by government (or indeed expert) advice.

How dare you!

Winston II was busy celebrating our hard-won independence from the EUSSR and then had to attend to the small matter of settling his divorce.

It's scientifically proven we men can't multi-task, y'know.

 

[werthersoriginal]

How dare you!

Winston II was busy celebrating our hard-won independence from the EUSSR and then had to attend to the small matter of settling his divorce.

It's scientifically proven we men can't multi-task, y'know.

Plus his latest Mrs was pregnant, and after all she is very cute. He had a lot on

 

[QR]

Testing people who are not showing symptoms is, frankly, a waste of a swab.

The chances of picking up an asymptomatic care worker are probably lower than 50%.

There is a handy phrase on the Gov.uk website for the non-rocket scientists..............

"This means anyone in one of these groups can find out whether they have the virus. Testing is most effective within 3 days of symptoms developing. "

Essexyellows you seem to have conveniently gone quiet on this point. So as a reminder...
A) that's not the same point you raised.

B) If your new point is so (and I ain't saying it ain't - I'm no expert) why is the government promising to 'waste' (your words) swabs when supply is such an issue?

So can I take it that
A) you now agree there are many out there who want to be tested and who we should be (and we don't need the army to force them!).
B) you believe the government is wanting to carryout unnecessary tests?

 

[Peterdev]

We should have learned from the way NZ did it.
They locked the borders almost immediately.
Deaths from CV have all but passed, unless there is a second wave.
Boris Johnson may well have been affected by his experiences, but that might mean we have several more weeks of lockdown with the risk of a full blown recession affecting everyone’s way of life

 

[m]

I wrote on here a few days ago that I didn't think it appropriate, at a time when thousands were dying, to politically point score. I've changed my mind. The more I think about Boris glibly dismissing the impending crisis and seeming to be actually proud of maximising flesh on flesh contact with all and sundry, the angrier I get.

Boris is a Tory with Tory principles of promoting personal freedom and minimising state interference. That makes this political and Boris should feel ashamed. The NHS that his party machine has been decimating for a decade (yes, it has) was called on to save his life. I really hope his experience proves to be a reawakening for him and that, going forward, the NHS - and the whole care sector - is treated by his government as an absolute priority.

Hmmm. Slightly at a tangent here but what you describe in Boris seems to be a Libertarian issue rather than Left vs Right.

Remember the Tory ID card proposals?

 

[Sarge]

some who have contracted cv19 are stuggling to shake it off , 7 weeks or longer

The patients who just can't shake off Covid-19

Most patients recover from Covid-19 quickly - but for some, symptoms linger for weeks.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Gary Baldi]

This has come up a few times and is worth comment.

The scientists only 'got it wrong' if the government followed their recommendations to the letter. Does anyone think for a second this would have been the case?

And rightly so. The scientists can advise on virus containment but the government has social and economic considerations which are, perhaps, equally important.

It's simple. If the Govt had said, sod science, we'll go down the Sweden route, and it was 10 times worse tham now, the Scientists can point and go yep, we told you so.

Having watched the early briefings, it was clear that the Govt and Science panel were trying to do and they explained it, from a scientific and cultural perspective. As we are seeing, Scientists have different opinions and perspectives, so it's very reasonable for Professor Z to say, I think we did it right and Dr X say, we did it wrong. Now we have more data points, it's a lot easier to retrospectively say, yep, got that wrong, etc.

My only beef is how apocalyptically bad Ferguson's model is and how we all were agog with it to a point, where we didn't get it the right scrutiny or review. That's just part of the process though.

 

[Victor1986]

Just want to make a couple of points:
1. In the winter of 2014/15 there were 28,330 deaths from flu & pneumonia. In fact the annual average is 17,700. What has to be ascertained after all this saga is over is - How many poor souls died because of them having Covid 19? Or was it just the flu/pneumonia thing.
2. As I personally know members of the Design Team that has worked on most of the Nightingale Hospital projects, they tell me they are shocked to see the Excel Arena one being "mothballed". They understood that , once there were enough Nightingales (& there are now to cover the whole of the country), then ALL Covid sufferers would be moved to their nearest Nightingale leaving all other hospitals free to resume 'business as usual'. Lots of folk are clearly going to be very hesitant about goin into Hospitals that still have Covid patients in ICU.

 

[Essexyellows]

Even using your table EY, it shows that we have been pretty slow off the mark!

Events suspended - Slowest apart from Italy
All schools closed - Slowest
Non-essential shops closed - Slowest apart from Italy
Non-essential movement banned - Slowest
Land borders - we don't have any, but air borders? Apparently not important?

It might only be a day or two in some cases - but given that we could see it coming, we had the opportunity to make our timescales shorter then almost anyone else - not longer!

You don`t have any idea of how slow and laborious the public sector is do you? Just one link in the chain not at work or "busy" can easily delay things 24/48 hours.
Imagine how the more liberal folk would have reacted if HMG had just gone full on lock down, shut down everything with no discussion, some tidy emergency legislation ,Civil Contingencies Act would have done, they would all be "frothing" about civil liberties and ex-pats who can`t get home. ;-)

 

[Essexyellows]

Just want to make a couple of points:
1. In the winter of 2014/15 there were 28,330 deaths from flu & pneumonia. In fact the annual average is 17,700. What has to be ascertained after all this saga is over is - How many poor souls died because of them having Covid 19? Or was it just the flu/pneumonia thing.
2. As I personally know members of the Design Team that has worked on most of the Nightingale Hospital projects, they tell me they are shocked to see the Excel Arena one being "mothballed". They understood that , once there were enough Nightingales (& there are now to cover the whole of the country), then ALL Covid sufferers would be moved to their nearest Nightingale leaving all other hospitals free to resume 'business as usual'. Lots of folk are clearly going to be very hesitant about goin into Hospitals that still have Covid patients in ICU.

Point 2 - Nightingales can only take anaesthetised patients on invasive ventilation..... ask the Design Team.....

 

[Sarge]

In PMQs earlier our glorious leader dropped hints that some elements contained his 'road map'proclamation regarding easing lockdown restrictions , on Sunday, will take effect as from Monday

 

[Essexyellows]

Essexyellows you seem to have conveniently gone quiet on this point. So as a reminder...
A) that's not the same point you raised.

B) If your new point is so (and I ain't saying it ain't - I'm no expert) why is the government promising to 'waste' (your words) swabs when supply is such an issue?

So can I take it that
A) you now agree there are many out there who want to be tested and who we should be (and we don't need the army to force them!).
B) you believe the government is wanting to carryout unnecessary tests?

Busy working old fruit.

A. There is little clinical reason to swab people who are asymptomatic.

B: In the same way that people were "making PPE" (mostly destined for the bin or punting out to lower risk areas) they have promised care home staff swabs. Now that might find a few asymptomatic carers and then it might be deemed "worth it" but it mostly to pacify those who don`t understand how the swabs work or who think 1 in 100 is worth it.

Back to reality........ early on hospitals discharged patients to care homes without double testing (swab & bloods) now we double test and get the results before discharge. That will make more difference than swabbing carers just to make them feel happy.