UK Government can't say it wasn't warned...

[Jimgward]

The Government keeps saying "we follow the science" - that could be it's epitaph!

It's time the media did use Science to counter them. There are literally hundreds of scirntisist, consultants, epidemiologists and more who daily are castigating the government and their 'science'. We all know, their science was her immunity which drives everything. They WANT people to get the virus and as long as it's not all at once, they are happy. They have sacrificed the old and sick to their science.

Have a look at the quote from the New Zealand premiere on this;

[Jimgward]

Well done, that Lady!

[Jim B]

I'm looking forward to when all these experts who have suddenly popped up on social media are working for WHO and governments around the world!

You don't have to be an expert to ask why the airports in the UK have been open through the critical phase of the pandemic just as you don't have to be an expert to ask why the UK government have been under reporting fatalities.
Everything in the garden isn't rosy and under control as this government would have you believe. Nothing to do with left or right wing politics as Austin 7 would have you believe but more to do with the incompetence of this government.
Most of the media have been going easy on Blojo but even the Mail, Telegraph, Express and Times have started being critical of the government's handling of the situation. Have a look at last night's Panorama and it may open your eyes a little.

Jim

Actually, you do have to be an expert. Otherwise you won't necessarily understand the answer. The solution is simple. BBC et al should employ people who know science to ask the questions. They shouldn't rely on political commentators trying their hand at a different angle.

If you want a comparison. Imagine if Peston was brought in to commentate on the next FA Cup Final, and interview the referee. What would be the point of that? He couldn't ask decent questions, and if somebody told him what to ask, he wouldn't get the reply. So the chance of asking a decent follow up would be lost.

Why do you need a Scientist to ask a logical qùestion? Why do you need a Scientist to ask as an example; "Why didn't you take on board the findings of Cygnus in 2016? The answer is more than likely financial rather than scientific.
The government spokespersons are supposedly answering to the general public, not just the scientific community.

Jim

[Dominic]

But when you give general answers you have to simplify, and when you simply you get less accurate. Then, people take your answers and give them to other scientists, who say "Well that isn't right", because of course, it isn't right, it is simplifed. And so the people asking the questions then assume the government or scientist is talking rubbish, and it all goes round and round and the people who should be working on the solution are spending more and more time having to handle the media.

[Jimgward]

Some of the science, it doesn’t take a scientist to review - such as covering your nose and mouth in public. While they may argue as to the percentage protection it gives yourself, there is no dispute that it protects people from you! I.e. if you cough, sneeze or exhale fast, then any covering will minimise that. So, the facts might argue of 30%, 40%, 60%, 80% or whatever, every other country has agreed that face covering is correct.

[Varky]

You do the usual, of interchanging England and the UK - they arent the same!

So what!!! Does that diminish the point I am trying to get across?

If you want to be pedantic arent should have been aren't.

[Jim B]

But when you give general answers you have to simplify, and when you simply you get less accurate. Then, people take your answers and give them to other scientists, who say "Well that isn't right", because of course, it isn't right, it is simplifed. And so the people asking the questions then assume the government or scientist is talking rubbish, and it all goes round and round and the people who should be working on the solution are spending more and more time having to handle the media.

Morning Dominic
Sorry to Labour the case but the government spokespersons are not talking to SAGE or a conference of Scientists at the daily briefing they are talking through the journalists to the general public and the questions have to be in layman's terms so we can get the gist of what's going on.

Another point regarding numbers may interest you. The below link from the FT provides a bar chart of deaths probably down to CV19.

Jim



https://www.ft.com/content/0ed8ea34-ebc ... 29447de57b

[trevnhil]

It would seem that you cannot read the FT article unless you are a subscriber.. So I cannot see any bar chart of other details

[Jim B]

You can Google the FT information or get similar statistics off Sky News.

Jim

[living the dream]

HIC - as per usual you have quoted figures to suit your argument, Greece, New Zealand, Singapore, Cyprus all with small populations. London like Madrid and New York and other main metropolis are densely populated and as such were always going to have a high mortality rate, Sweden has the highest death rate per 100,000 people in Europe and look at Italy's death rates. The only country you listed which bucks the trend was S Korea which has a slighter smaller population than the UK but certainly Seoul like the cities I mentioned is densely populated. If S Koreas figures are correct then lessons on lockdown etc could have and should have been learnt earlier.

The UK's death rate in care homes may be higher than was first anticipated but at least the UK Carers have stayed put and cared for the elderly unlike other places in Europe where carers have left the patients to fend for themselves. Germany is also bracing itself for a 2nd wave which they fear may be worse than the initial outbreak. It is a lot easier to lockdown smaller populated countries than larger populated countries but regardless of size all economies and healthcare systems of all size countries are affected.

You have proudly stated that you had a full warehouse of stock and increased stock - good for you as you could see the crisis unfolding it makes financial sense, however if someone said to you 4-5 years ago there MAY be a situation that you might not get access to pool cleaning tabs etc would you have rushed out and filled up your warehouse, spend all your cashflow or borrowed excess funds via O/D or loans on filling that warehouse up on the possibility that supplies might dry up 4/5 years down the line, I think not - most of the business people I have met over the years including my next door neighbour whose husband was CEO of Asda for 6 years and currently CEO of Leeds Bradford Airport amongst other senior Board Positions would say no they would not tie up working capital, investment capital, bank funding on having significant excess supplies sitting on shelves on the off chance of selling it in bulk 3/4/5 years down the line.

As per my previous post RCN stated that 11m items of PPE per day were currently required thats 77m items per week, 308m items per month, show me any report including the Cygnus report that quantifies levels of PPE required and more importantly I doubt if any PPE manufacturer or supplier in the UK would be holding such levels based on a report. Its easy to fill a warehouse with a few thousands pounds of stock but the levels required for this pandemic were never sitting on shelves and to expect businesses to have that amount of cashflow sitting in excess stock that may or may not ever get used is nonsense.

An additional 30,000 ventilators were the governments estimated requirements, however at about 20k a go and only so many specialist manufacturers which of those are going to hold that many ventilators sitting on shelves tying up 600M in capital for the possibility of a Pandemic.

I am not saying what the UK has done has been perfect and as far as the procurement process it has been abysmal and shambolic with UK companies having to sell PPE abroad is farcical as per my previous post however the same team of NHS, University and PHE specialists advising the government would have been the same team advising a Labour or Lib Dems or Monster Raving Loony Party Government so don't try to place blame on Bojo in particular because of your personal dislike of him due to Brexit.

All you ever seem to do and take pleasure in is to KNOCK the UK and its Government, you never have a balanced argument and always quote facts or figures to suit your personal point of view and those with similar views to yourself. I for one am proud to be British, and proud of the fact of how the vast majority of the UK populations has met this crisis, be it staying at home or working for the frontline NHS or Key Workers and Joe Publics show of appreciation and support to its frontline staff on a weekly basis. How many Prime Ministers have had to cope with situations in their first Term of Office such Brexit, Flooding, Covid-19 and suffered with Covid-19 personally. Your next gripe in a few months time will be how much the Government has borrowed to support the economy and the UK workforce and the years it going to take to the UK Taxpayer to repay this - hear some news for you - Joe Public already realise this is not free money and the UK Taxpayer will end up paying more in the long term to support these unprecedented levels of spending and support packages.

[Jim B]

Living The Dream
Firstly, as I said to another poster, I personally don't have a "Downer" on the UK and I would hazard a guess HIC doesn't either. Yes we are both critical, not of the country but of the shambolic government who tend to be reluctant to tell the truth or able to run the proverbial in a brewery.
You said the comparisons with New Zealand and other countries HIC are unfair because they are small but when you do a deaths per million, the UK is at 319 which is only inclusive of NHS deaths. If you look at France which includes all CV related deaths their deaths per million is 362. Take in South Korea and Japan, similar in population size and countries close to the epicentre, their deaths per million are 5 and 3 respectively while our little island has a figure of 12.
The UK knew 4 years ago after Cygnus the emergency equipment requirement was totally inadequate but did nothing about it.
They had four years to prepare and waited till events overtook them before responding. Buying and storing any equipment is very straight forward; not difficult for proactive Procurement and Warehousing Departments.

Jim

[Jimgward]

When the UK finally discloses the true figure on numbers of deaths, which they obviously know but are hiding, then we can compare with Europe. The FT would have it over 45,000, putting us far and away the worst country in the world.

I applaud the financial support packages, particularly, furlough, that the government has put in place. It was above and beyond expectations and we all know we will paying this back for a generation. But that is as it must be.

However, for an island to have gotten is so wrong on every count, from late lockdown, to advising care homes the risk was low, to lack of PPE, ventilators and more, plus lack of testing and zero tracing, it is shambolic. They have sacrificed the weak and elderly on the altar of the economy.

South Korea showed the way. That was science. Germany showed how a better-prepared and equipped country could handle it. We built Nightingale hospitals that will never be used. We didn’t consult with the local NHS Trusts over them, where they would have been told that there wasn’t the spare staff to man them, not could they be used for sever covid cases due to the lack of access to all the facilities that a hospital provides. Now I am not knocking the concept overall, as if the pressure had been even worse, then we may have needed them for the less severe cases.

The last 8 years has seen nearly 20,000 beds disappear from the NHS leaving us with one of the worst ratios of ICU beds AND specialists in the western world. Thousands of more ventilators would not have helped, as we don't have the staff, even with returnees, to man them. Austerity and Brexit played their parts in the woefully short numbers of staff in the NHS. We knew coming into this, that we couldn’t cope, but they keep saying “we’re following the science’ as their excuse.

Now, I am not being political, as Corbyn would have made as bad a job, but since they are the government who have been in power for nearly 10 years, there are no excuses. None at all. Plaudits where they are due, but castigation where deserved.

[living the dream]

Jimgward - a fair and balanced appraisal - I would go back though to preparation, I still feel that unprecendented demand has far outweighed the natural internal and external supply chains however as I have said the numbers of suppliers with stock and companies that moved away from their normal business to produce PPE only to be given the run around by the governments procurement platforms is an absolute disgrace and heads should roll. Even after the government appointed a PPE "Zsar" what good has he been - useless from where I'm sitting. Get rid of the red tape and internal beuracracy of the massively complicated government procurement process and PPE might start flowing fairly rapidly but whilst the red tape stay's in place then we just lurch from one day to the next regarding PPE etc.

[Jimgward]

Good post LtD. Bureaucracy should never be a reason to miss out on vital supplies. It is also possible to bypass existing procedures during this crisis. The government did create a mechanism last month to do so, so if staff have not applied it, then they are complicit.

[Jimgward]

The UK figures up to over 26,000 today, as they now include SOME of the ones who died in the community, but ONLY those where they had a Covid19 test. This still puts us above other European countries, but where we are between 2 and 4 weeks behind them!

Shocking. I feel so sorry for the families, especially those in care homes.

[jeba]

Some of the science, it doesn’t take a scientist to review - such as covering your nose and mouth in public. While they may argue as to the percentage protection it gives yourself, there is no dispute that it protects people from you! I.e. if you cough, sneeze or exhale fast, then any covering will minimise that. So, the facts might argue of 30%, 40%, 60%, 80% or whatever, every other country has agreed that face covering is correct.

No, there is quite a dispute about the mask issue. E. g. Dr. Montgomery, the president of the World Medical Council spoke out against the use of medical masks which aren´t meeting at least FFP2 standard. He claims there are studies which show that they can even increase the risk of spreading the virus.

[jeba]

You have proudly stated that you had a full warehouse of stock and increased stock - good for you as you could see the crisis unfolding it makes financial sense, however if someone said to you 4-5 years ago there MAY be a situation that you might not get access to pool cleaning tabs etc would you have rushed out and filled up your warehouse, spend all your cashflow or borrowed excess funds via O/D or loans on filling that warehouse up on the possibility that supplies might dry up 4/5 years down the line, I think not - most of the business people I have met over the years including my next door neighbour whose husband was CEO of Asda for 6 years and currently CEO of Leeds Bradford Airport amongst other senior Board Positions would say no they would not tie up working capital, investment capital, bank funding on having significant excess supplies sitting on shelves on the off chance of selling it in bulk 3/4/5 years down the line.

Governments can make it mandatory to stock up. Just as they can e. g. make it mandatory that pharmacies are staying open at night even if there is no profit to be made from those 2 customers who will come over a 14 h period. Or just as they can force municipalities to build infrastructure like water treatment plants or professional firefighter staff.

An additional 30,000 ventilators were the governments estimated requirements, however at about 20k a go and only so many specialist manufacturers which of those are going to hold that many ventilators sitting on shelves tying up 600M in capital for the possibility of a Pandemic.

Given that they were warned that a pandemic would come sooner or later it seems to me that´s the responsible thing to have done. Just as they keep fire engines available even though there is no smoke to be seen.

I am not saying what the UK has done has been perfect and as far as the procurement process it has been abysmal

Procurement isn´t the only area the UK seems to have failed. Testing is another one. Why didn´t they rush to build up testing capacity? That would have been just as important as it would have allowed to block chains of infection to at least reduce the speed the epidemic has been snowballing with. And this wouldn´t have been very expensive or at least much less expensive as the consequences of not having done it. It boggles the mind that they didn´t do that at least. Germany´s virologists as well as the health minister unanimously say that (massively building up testing capacity) is the main reason why Germany´s numbers are looking better. "Corona taxis" are another one - meaning that doctors are visiting corona-outpatients at home 3 times a week to check on them and pick up a potential deterioration early on so they can be taken to hospital before they need to go to an ICU. Is that done in the UK as well?

[jeba]

When the UK finally discloses the true figure on numbers of deaths, which they obviously know but are hiding, then we can compare with Europe. The FT would have it over 45,000, putting us far and away the worst country in the world.

I applaud the financial support packages, particularly, furlough, that the government has put in place. It was above and beyond expectations and we all know we will paying this back for a generation. But that is as it must be.

However, for an island to have gotten is so wrong on every count, from late lockdown, to advising care homes the risk was low, to lack of PPE, ventilators and more, plus lack of testing and zero tracing, it is shambolic. They have sacrificed the weak and elderly on the altar of the economy.

South Korea showed the way. That was science. Germany showed how a better-prepared and equipped country could handle it. We built Nightingale hospitals that will never be used. We didn’t consult with the local NHS Trusts over them, where they would have been told that there wasn’t the spare staff to man them, not could they be used for sever covid cases due to the lack of access to all the facilities that a hospital provides. Now I am not knocking the concept overall, as if the pressure had been even worse, then we may have needed them for the less severe cases.

The last 8 years has seen nearly 20,000 beds disappear from the NHS leaving us with one of the worst ratios of ICU beds AND specialists in the western world. Thousands of more ventilators would not have helped, as we don't have the staff, even with returnees, to man them. Austerity and Brexit played their parts in the woefully short numbers of staff in the NHS. We knew coming into this, that we couldn’t cope, but they keep saying “we’re following the science’ as their excuse.

Now, I am not being political, as Corbyn would have made as bad a job, but since they are the government who have been in power for nearly 10 years, there are no excuses. None at all. Plaudits where they are due, but castigation where deserved.

I doubt they can claim having followed scientific advice when saying that the risk for care homes was low. Did they really say that?

From my outsider´s perspective I wonder whether the UK´s NHS isn´t an outdated concept. You UKians might want to consider major reform of your healthcare system. Like e. g. privatisation along with strict regulation (especially of pricing) and health insurance provided by private not-for-profit insurance companies which are also heavily regulated. Of course, health insurance would have to be compulsory and those who can´t afford it would have to get financial help enabling them to pay for it. That way I think efficiency would increase. E. g. the fact that healthcare is mostly privatised helped rolling out testing capacity in Germany as it was in the labs (which are almost all privately owned) best economic interest to upskill themselves so that they could offer that service and make a nice profit from doing so. Now Germany´s testing capacity is at 800,000 tests/week which I doubt would be the case if healthcare was run by the state.

[Uncle D]

I doubt they can claim having followed scientific advice when saying that the risk for care homes was low. Did they really say that?

We are always being told what a burden on the state old people are, that is why the government, has and is, gradually increasing the retirement age, but in this crisis a windfall has happened, now the government have 20,000 less (still counting) pensions and benefits to pay out.
Also I expect that the share holders of private pension companies are also rubbing their hands in delight.
They really dont give a damn about anybody but their self serving selves.

[Dominic]

That is just wrong. There is no way the government would seek to kill off its biggest voting pool.