You seem more interested in the UK's response to the lockdown and delaying it by days/weeks than your own government's decision not to have one. How come?
The UK government followed the scientific advice it was given by Nervtag and Sage as you'd expect any government to do. Hindsight is 20/20 and stories about how Nervtag didn't upgrade its risk warning to the government though some scientists wanted it to do so does not make it the advice the government was given.
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Wow, yeah, mate, that's definitely an accurate characterization of my views of the Swedish govt's decision to follow the UK's lead at the start of the outbreak
What's especially disappointing is Johnson's unexplained absence from important meetings at a critical stage of the pandemic.The UK government followed the scientific advice it was given by Nervtag and Sage as you'd expect any government to do. Hindsight is 20/20 and stories about how Nervtag didn't upgrade its risk warning to the government though some scientists wanted it to do so does not make it the advice the government was given.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
We have a Cabinet government system. While SAGE and Nervtag were calling the virus "low risk" to "moderate risk" the Health Secretary was chairing the meetings. Its not as if SAGE were calling it High Risk and the PM was absentWow, yeah, mate, that's definitely an accurate characterization of my views of the Swedish govt's decision to follow the UK's lead at the start of the outbreak
What's especially disappointing is Johnson's unexplained absence from important meetings at a critical stage of the pandemic.
It was scientific advice to neglect pandemic planning for years before hand? It was scientific advice to do nothing to secure PPE for the NHS, all throughout February and March? It was scientific advice to not make any approach to the UK's testing industry until the start of April?
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Shocked, absolutely shocked, that the Health Secretary rather than the Prime Minister would chair meetings to discuss a virus the government's scientific advisors were calling "low risk" or "moderate risk".
What kind of government is this in which the Health Secretary could chair a Health meeting? Do they think we have some sort of Cabinet style of government?
Twitter Link
We have a Cabinet government system. While SAGE and Nervtag were calling the virus "low risk" to "moderate risk" the Health Secretary was chairing the meetings. Its not as if SAGE were calling it High Risk and the PM was absentYour reaction to this is extremely strange. Just so we're clear, it's not good that the govt received advice from scientists that the risk was low or even moderate; it was clear very early on that there was a high risk of this turning into a dangerous viral pandemic. The advisors' views, anchored in inappropriate analogies with pandemic flu, led to devastating mistakes that should absolutely be scrutinized. Your scientists telling your govt. something that isn't true isn't a great defense against criticism—it just invites stronger criticism, of more people. The failures of scientific advisors don't absolve your govt. however. Notwithstanding the issues with inadequate preparation that Steely highlighted, there's the issue of inadequate response once the looming crisis popped up on their radar. Amazingly, even you initially had a more appropriate reaction to the events that were unfolding than your govt. appears to have had; around the end of February, while your govt. was being inappropriately cavalier based on assessments that the situation was low risk, you zeroed in on the appropriate strategy—one that your govt. and its advisors were deliberately not pursuing. If you were able to see what might lie ahead, there is no excuse for your govt. not being at least as clear-sighted about the potential danger—irrespective of the current risk-assessments from their scientific advisors. You don't wait for a crisis to become fully established before showing up to crisis response meetings—you show up before, when the possibility of a situation developing into a crisis is first realized.
The reason I'm so interested in the UK's response is that, as in so many other situations, our governments and our civil service—and our scientific culture—track one another. Our scientists made the same mistakes at around the same time, for the same reasons; unfortunately, ours chose to stick to their guns, whereas the UK's changed their views based on new analyses of existing data.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I am curious actually, since news here mostly focuses on our own country, the big ones like US, and ones where things are bad and/or nearby (UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium). How is Sweden doing?
Over here the peak has passed, but ICU still has more Covid patients than the pre-crisis total capacity. I guess some of the measures will slowly and in phases be reduced a little over the upcoming weeks/months. Looks like the measures (which were not extremely strict compared to other countries) were just enough to keep the hospitals just below their capacity. Unfortunately it looks like care homes for the elderly are hit hard.
Also, like the UK we apparently lacked good enough supplies as well and also sent some to China earlier this year. Looks like the plan involved being able to order supplies as normal - which turned out to be a fiasco with a global pandemic happening at the same time.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
I think the ugly truth is that most governments were caught with their pants down. And that it took most of them too much time to get over their normalcy bias. Another ugly truth is that hardly any country was even remotely prepared for what we knew was going to happen. I remember the Dutch experts declaring at the beginning of the pandemic that we had a 'very good system in place to cope with the situation'. And then it turned out the system wasn't worth shit the moment things got real. We barely scraped through and are looking at thousands of deaths that maybe could have been prevented if we hadn't been so certain of being prepared.I am curious actually, since news here mostly focuses on our own country, the big ones like US, and ones where things are bad and/or nearby (UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium). How is Sweden doing?
Over here the peak has passed, but ICU still has more Covid patients than the pre-crisis total capacity. I guess some of the measures will slowly and in phases be reduced a little over the upcoming weeks/months. Looks like the measures (which were not extremely strict compared to other countries) were just enough to keep the hospitals just below their capacity. Unfortunately it looks like care homes for the elderly are hit hard.
Also, like the UK we apparently lacked good enough supplies as well and also sent some to China earlier this year. Looks like the plan involved being able to order supplies as normal - which turned out to be a fiasco with a global pandemic happening at the same time.
At the end of this we may really have to have that talk about China; if we really can afford to have a country so dishonest and that callous with the wellbeing of the entire planet be so important to our way of life. We will be paying for their bad choices in hundreds of thousands of dead people and lives wrecked in the economic aftermath.
Congratulations America
14,385 cases so far—cumulatively—1,079 currently in ICU, 1540 confirmed covid+ deaths (~1000 over 80, 76 under 60, ~490 in the 60-79y span), probably hundreds who've died at nursing homes or in their own homes without being tested. The high number of deaths in relation to number of confirmed cases suggests continued restrictions on testing, but nursing homes are now ramping up testing and I believe there are confirmed covid+ patients at more than half of all nursing homes in sthlm at the moment.
Difficult to draw any conclusions about where we are in relation to peak cases/peak hospitalization, both because of inadequate testing and reporting as well as because we probably have multiple waves superimposed on one another. Most of the cases and deaths have occurred in the sthlm region and nearby towns; outbreaks in other cities started later and are developing much more slowly.
Hospital beds—including ICU beds—have not been a limiting factor, both because they've freed up so many beds by stopping admissions for non-acute care and because so many of the covid patients are so frail that they would not have been admitted to a hospital in the first place, let alone started on invasive ventilation. The only way to protect that group is to go back in time and contain the epidemic. That being said, an investigation has been launched due to reports of at least one hospital in sthlm being excessively restrictive with ICU admission; according to these reports, frail elderly patients may have been denied ICU care, despite availability of ICU beds, based on the expectation that those beds will soon be needed for younger, more robust patients—which would be unethical, misguided, and in violation of laws and regulations.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Timeline of Events with a UK Focus:
21st December: First cases appear in China
31st December: China announces "cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology"
11th January: First known death
13th January: NERVTAG: “no evidence of significant human to human transmission”, risk to UK "very low"
17th January: Imperial College Report says human to human transmission "cannot be ruled out". "Heightened surveillance, prompt information-sharing and enhanced preparedness are recommended."
Circa-Mid January: Virus now identified as type of coronavirus.
20th January: First cases outside China confirmed
22th January: NERVTAG moves threat level to low. First SAGE meeting to discuss virus. Warnings come from China that covid-19 is unusually infectious, one infected person infecting 3 people on average.
24th of January: Ferguson of Imperial College reports to the Cobra meeting today that the infectious rate is between 2.5 and 3.6. The same report says there needs to be a 60% cut in the transmission rate, i.e. a lockdown.
29th January: First UK cases
31st January: Threat level raised to moderate in UK
"End of January": Johnson receiving daily updates on cv19 according to Downing Street aide. UK stockpiles of PPE have been run down in previous years due to lack of spending, attempts to purchase more quickly run into problems due to unprecedented global demand.
2nd February: First death outside China
12th February: Exeter University report warns an unchecked outbreak could peak in 4 months and infect 45 million people.
13th February - March 30th: UK govt misses 8 conference calls with EU leaders to discuss a common strategy for the purchase of ventilators. Johnson vacates Downing Street and goes on holiday until 2th.
14th February: First death in Europe
21st February: NERVTAG conference call decides to keep the threat level at 'moderate' for some reason. Advisor John Edmunds couldn't join the call, but called for it to be raised to 'high' in an e-mail: “I just thought, are we still, we still thinking that it’s mild or something? It definitely isn’t, you know,”
24th February: Italy has a merge surge in cases and locks down parts of Northern Italy. Anecdotally, the public is beginning to realize shit is getting real around now. UK Government sends 650,000 items of PPE to China.
26th February: A "worst case scenario" report by SPI-M predicts 380,000 dead and stresses the urgent need for a lockdown
28th February: First UK death, WHO raise alert level to highest
Februray: Insider sources reflecting on the past month: "Almost every plan we had was not activated in February. Almost every government department has failed to properly implement their own pandemic plans" and “We missed the boat on testing and PPE . . . I remember being called into some of the meetings about this in February and thinking, ‘Well it’s a good thing this isn’t the big one.’ I had watched Wuhan but I assumed we must have not been worried because we did nothing. We just watched. A pandemic was always at the top of our national risk register — always — but when it came we just slowly watched."
1st March: New estimates from Italy show that 8% of infected people will require hospitalization, up from 4% to 5%.
2nd March: "If unconstrained and if the virus behaved as in China, up to four-fifths of Britons could be infected and one in a hundred might die" - official UK Govt report to model the spread of pandemic. Possibly the same report (?) warns that the virus is now transmitting freely in the UK. Johnson attends first Cobra meeting. A battle plan is "signed off".
4th March: The pandemic in the UK begins to gather pace, 34 new cases in one day.
Circa 9th of March: Sage still reluctant to recommend a full lockdown, citing risk of second wave after it ends
11th March: WHO declares covid-19 a pandemic, France, Spain and Italy all either order lockdowns, or prepare to.
12th March: UK threat level moved to 'high'. Johnson: “I must level with you, level with the British public - more families, many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”
13th March: Major organisation postpone or cancel events in the UK, but the government is still avoiding "eye catching measures", still trying to reduce the "peak"
"Middle of March": UK Govt begins issuing requests to labs for assistance with testing
16th March: Publication of the report by Imperial College London that probably saved 10s of thousands of lives here in the UK and in the US, predicting half a million dead if the virus is unconstrained. However, it is basically the same as various reports two weeks earlier saying 1 in a 100 would die, or that 380,000 would die. The same day, Johnson starts daily press briefings, urges people to remain indoors and work from home if they can, Johnson launches appeal to industry to help with production of ventilators. Beginning of the pseudo-lockdown.
18th March: UK closes schools
20th March: UK orders all pubs, clubs, venues etc closed
23rd March: UK begins full lock down
27th March: Johnson and Hancock test positive
2nd April: 1 million cases world-wide
5th April: Johnson hospitalized, government is now proceeding more or less as it should from this point on
Sources:
https://archive.is/20200418182037/ht...ster-hq3b9tlgh
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN21P1VF
https://bfpg.co.uk/2020/04/covid-19-timeline/
I think we can all agree the government has failed in three critical respects:
1) Failed to declare a lock-down anywhere near soon enough
2) Failed to secure adequate supplies of PPE
3) Failed to secure enough testing capacity.
Only question is whether to blame the scientific advisors for not communicating the scale of threat or the ministers for their cavalier attitude. All the information necessary was known in January. We knew how infectious it was thanks to the data coming out of China and Imperial College, and we knew how deadly it was (though I'm not sure when this information became apparent), all you have to do was put two and two together and realize any country that doesn't lockdown is in a world of shit.
1) Failure to declare a lockdown soon enough: This is probably the area where the scientific advisors have the most to answer for. It's clear they shied away from recommending a full lockdown based on what we now know incorrect assumptions about how the public would react, and they were too slow to raise the threat level. I have reason to believe some of them may have used the word "inconceivable" while raising their index finger (not really). However, it's clear that this is far from universal. Reports coming out of Imperial College and others warned in late January that covid-19 was unusually infectious and that this information was part of the Cobra meeting on the 24th of January. So, if ministers didn't know it's because the information wasn't there, it's because they chose not to listen to it.
By the beginning of March it was clear to everyone what was happening, yet still ministers and the scientific advisors are fucking around (we all know what happens when you do this: you find out). I think there is increasingly little excuse for ministers to just have been blithly accepting an advice they were getting to the effect that everything is fine, given everything else that was happening in the world at this time. There's also the matter of the week beginning the 16th. At this point, the scientific advice is basically that, yes, we need a lockdown and yet still the government didn't fully implement one until a week later, and didn't order pubs etc closed for another four days. There is no excuse for this, and given the exponential nature of the pandemic's spread the number of cases could have been doubling or more during this week. The people dying now, today, were probably infected during this period. So, yeah, 50/50.
And, no they can't hid behind and arbitrary and ill-defined 'threat level' when there's some much other information going around, this isn't Red Dwarf
2) Failure to secure adequate supplies of PPE. Yeah, they fucked around all throughout February with nothing much to show for it. You could make the argument that they'd have given it more priority had the scientific advice been clearer and more urgent, but even if you're going with the 'let the virus run through the population, actually' method you should still understand that you're going to need a lot of PPE. More, even, since there will be more hospitalizations without a lockdown. Entirely ministers fault. Plus, the fact that we were short in the first place is basically because of Tory austerity.
3) Failure to secure enough testing capacity. This is especially bad since it's just going to prolong the amount of time we're in this goddamn lock-down, and thus worsen the economic damage they were presumably worried enough about to delay the lockdown in the first place. I cannot fathom why they were so slow turn to the UK's biotech industry, nor why they felt it necessary to spend £20 million on hookey tests from China. They have promised 100,000 a day by the end of April but they're nowhere near that right now, so unless they're going to bring online a load of testing capacity in one go within the next 10 days, that's yet another failure.
TLDR: the UK Government has handled this crisis extremely badly. The fact that a few other countries have done as bad (wtf is going on in France? you never hear about them and their outbreak is even worse than here) or even worse (you know who I mean) does not excuse that.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
UK "experts" and scientists are not to blame. A completely useless, lazy and untrustworthy PM is to blame.
He is literally the worst MP I can think of to lead a country through such a crisis.
I do think though that given how infectious this disease is, stopping it altogether will not happen. Keeping the economy completely locked down will also have disastrous consequences, which in return will also cause a lot of deaths. Given people may be asymptomatic and still spread the disease, if the lockdown is reduced there will almost certainly be an increase in cases again. Given that tests at the moment aren't particularly reliable, plus privacy concerns, I'm not sure i see the current plan for Corona-apps working out well either.
So what is the way forward? Obviously the current measures where needed because the hospitals were being overwhelmed, and by what looks like sheer luck they just managed to stay on the right side. I'd say the only way forward is to find a balance between reducing measures as much as possible while keeping the pressure on the health system manageable (and i don't mean the way the currently manage to scrape by, since that's not sustainable). I just wonder if that's possible, and the impact it may have on the elderly is terrifying.
On a side note, I donated blood two weeks ago and it's used for the research on antibody presence in the population, it's nice to feel like i did something useful. This whole situation did also make me realise I want to change jobs to something that helps the world again. I previously worked on medical devices which helped kids with congenital heart disease, but moved to 'beauty' devices a year or so ago (I mean, technically they're still medical devices, but they have no medical benefits, really). This situation makes me feel useless, and put things in perspective, and I'd like to have a meaningful job again.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
It is amusing how people's pre existing prejudices do seem to so 100% reflect opinions now on this too.
The reality is this was a quick moving virus that was underestimated by the experts and the situation has evolved following the scientific advice.
Any pretence we knew on 24 January what we know now is bullshit. Check the date on this from The Lancet's editor.
Twitter Link
Check the replies to that tweet, including one citing a study that had just been done. Or better yet, check the numerous other studies being done at the time and throughout Februrary.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
So we should have governance by Twitter replies should we? Studies were not of a settled science, hence why the Lancet editor was advising people to calm down.
Of course the Lancet editor has a chequered past himself, especially standing by Dr Wakefield for far too long helping feed the antivax bullshit that has since developed. But he did belatedly renounce that it only took many years not days or weeks.
People are being so revisionist about what people knew and when.
Pelosi: On Feb 24th
"Precautions have been taken by our city. We know that there is concern surrounding tourism, traveling all throughout the world, but we think it’s very safe to be in Chinatown and hope that others will come. It’s lovely here. The food is delicious, the shops are prospering, the parade was great. Walking tours continue. Please come and visit and enjoy Chinatown."
So... yeah. Lots of people didn't think it was a danger. Between "hug a Chinese person" in Italy and Pelosi happy about a parade during a pandemic there were a lot of folks off base.
Now we all get that context is a foreign concept to you but here is some more from that same speech. A speech that was addressing the racism that Trump was fanning with his "Chinese Virus" remarks that your dumbass also uses.
"Prevention, prevention, prevention. We want people to be concerned and vigilant. However, we don’t want them to be afraid.”
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
“A new Chinese coronavirus, a cousin of the SARS virus, has infected hundreds since the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December"
That was what CNN called it.
Randblade, do I really need to remind you of the fact that De Pfeffel was so ignorant as to boast about his disregard for even the most basic behavioral rules to combat covid-19.?You can't expect anyone to believe a man is on top of an issue if he proudly tells the general public he did things that were likely to infect him. It is obvious he didn't take covid-19 serious from his personal life. No excuse for being absent can improve this.
Congratulations America
You mean he said he was shaking hands in a press conference where his Chief Scientist said it was OK to shake hands?
And Randblade, how do you know if the person you shake hands with washed his hands before shaking your hands? Are you now going to tell us that probably he went around all day asking everyone including his 'prossible corona patients' if they washed their hands? How does that even work Randblade? Washing your hands when you're in a hospitalbed with covid-19?
Do you have some mental defect that prevents you from seeing the man behaved more than averagely inept in dealing with this crisis for the simple reason he had already decided that it wasn't all that serious?
Congratulations America
Why would you ask that? Why would it be relevant?
Whether the other party had or not simply didn't matter under the advice at the time. The point our scientists were making was that it didn't matter greatly even if the other party is positive for covid-19 when you shake hands since (and the Chief Scientist repeated this time and again) you can not acquire the disease through the skin. A handshake is insufficient to acquire the disease. You can (the advice at the time was) safely shake hands with someone who is positive so long as you don't touch your face before you have washed your own hands. You may get the virus on your hands but washing them will wash it off and you will not be infected so long as you wash your hands without touching your face.
The advice was changed a couple of days later as telling people not to touch their face between washing of hands doesn't really work but that was the scientific advice when the PM spoke. I have greater concern with governments that go against their scientific advice than those that follow it - and ours has not been afraid of conducting "u-turns" when the advice changes, as it did with handshaking. Have a go at the scientific advisors for calling it wrong early on if you wish, but I for one am glad that in a novel pandemic that our government follows their scientific advice right or wrong - better that than second-guessing them as Trump has done time and again.
You deserve a 'go fuck yourself' again. I'm not going to be drawn into one of your autistic pissing matches.
Congratulations America
Its not a pissing match. If you didn't understand the advice at the time (and you clearly didn't given your worries as to whether the other party had washed their hands) then it explains your confusion completely. Quite happy to draw a line in the sand there and move on.
Twitter Link
Looking to the future good news coming out of Sweden it seems. If Sweden can cope without a lockdown then we ought to be able to leave ours sooner than we'd thought hopefully. No doubt there will be debates in the future as to whether the lockdown was a mistake or not, but I think we were right to do it given the risks at the time whether it was necessary or not. It was probably premature for most of the country outside London (and I felt that at the time) but it would have been a TERRIBLE mistake to lockdown London but not the rest of the nation (would have just led to people fleeing London thus spreading the virus further as happened in Italy) so the rest of us simply have to accept that London got it worse sooner and roll with it.
Interesting response, worth reading in full. Mentions 2 points I'd made plus much more.
Response to Sunday Times Insight article
dhscpressoffice, Posted on: 19 April 2020 - Categories: Coronavirus (COVID-19)
A Government spokesman said: ‘This article contains a series of falsehoods and errors and actively misrepresents the enormous amount of work which was going on in government at the earliest stages of the Coronavirus outbreak.’
‘This is an unprecedented global pandemic and we have taken the right steps at the right time to combat it, guided at all times by the best scientific advice.
‘The Government has been working day and night to battle against coronavirus, delivering a strategy designed at all times to protect our NHS and save lives.
'Our response has ensured that the NHS has been given all the support it needs to ensure everyone requiring treatment has received it, as well as providing protection to businesses and reassurance to workers.
‘The Prime Minister has been at the helm of the response to this, providing leadership during this hugely challenging period for the whole nation.’
On the Sunday Times claims:
Claim – On the third Friday in January Coronavirus was already spreading around the world but the government ‘brushed aside’ the threat in an hour-long COBR meeting and said the risk to the UK public was ‘low’.
Response – At a very basic level, this is wrong. The meeting was on the fourth Friday in January. The article also misrepresents the Government’s awareness of Covid 19, and the action we took before this point. Health Secretary Matt Hancock was first alerted to Covid 19 on 3 January and spoke to Departmental officials on 6th Jan before receiving written advice from the UK Health Security Team.
He brought the issue to the attention of the Prime Minister and they discussed Covid 19 on 7 January. The government’s scientific advisory groups started to meet in mid-January and Mr Hancock instituted daily coronavirus meetings. He updated Parliament as soon as possible, on January 23rd.
The risk level was set to “Low” because at the time our scientific advice was that the risk level to the UK public at that point was low. The first UK case was not until 31 January. The specific meaning of “public health risk” refers to the risk there is to the public at precisely that point. The risk was also higher than it had been before - two days earlier it had been increased “Very Low” to “Low” in line with clinical guidance from the Chief Medical Officer.
The WHO did not formally declare that coronavirus was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) until 30 January, and only characterised it as a global pandemic more than a month later, on 11 March. The UK was taking action and working to improve its preparedness from early January.
Claim - ‘This was despite the publication that day of an alarming study by Chinese doctors in the medical journal The Lancet. It assessed the lethal potential of the virus, for the first time suggesting it was comparable to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people.'
Response - The editor of the Lancet, on exactly the same day – 23 January - called for “caution” and accused the media of ‘escalating anxiety by talking of a ‘killer virus’ and ‘growing fears’. He wrote: ‘In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language.’ The Sunday Times is suggesting that there was a scientific consensus around the fact that this was going to be a pandemic – that is plainly untrue.
https://twitter.com/richardhorton1/s...449072128?s=19
Claim - It was unusual for the Prime Minister to be absent from COBR and is normally chaired by the Prime Minister.
Response - This is wrong. It is entirely normal and proper for COBR to be chaired by the relevant Secretary of State. Then Health Secretary Alan Johnson chaired COBR in 2009 during H1N1. Michael Gove chaired COBR as part of No Deal planning. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps chaired COBR during the collapse of Thomas Cook. Mr Hancock was in constant communication with the PM throughout this period.
At this point the World Health Organisation had not declared COVID19 a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’, and only did so only 30 January. Indeed, they chose not to declare a PHEIC the day after the COBR meeting.
Examples of scientific commentary from the time:
Prof Martin Hibberd, Professor of Emerging Infectious Disease, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said:
“This announcement is not surprising as more evidence may be needed to make the case of announcing a PHEIC. WHO were criticised after announcing the pandemic strain of novel H1N1_2009, when the virus was eventually realised to have similar characteristics to seasonal influenza and is perhaps trying to avoid making the same mistake here with this novel coronavirus. To estimate the true severity of this new disease requires identifying mild or asymptomatic cases, if there are any, while determining the human to human transmission rate might require more evidence.”
Dr Adam Kamradt-Scott, Senior Lecturer in International Security Studies, University of Sydney, said: “Based on the information we have to date, the WHO Director-General’s decision to not declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern is not especially surprising. While we have seen international spread of the virus, which is one of the criteria for declaring a PHEIC, the cases in those countries do not appear to have seeded further local outbreaks. If that was to start to occur, it would constitute a greater concern but at the moment the outbreak is largely contained within China.”
Claim - 'Imperial’s Ferguson was already working on his own estimate — putting infectivity at 2.6 and possibly as high as 3.5 — which he sent to ministers and officials in a report on the day of the Cobra meeting on January 24. The Spanish flu had an estimated infectivity rate of between 2.0 and 3.0, so Ferguson’s finding was shocking.’
Response - Infectivity on its own simply reveals how quickly a disease spreads, and not its health impact. For that, it is necessary to know about data such as associated mortality/morbidity. It is sloppy and unscientific to use this number alone to compare to Spanish flu.
Claim - No10 ‘played down the looming threat’ from Coronavirus and displayed an ‘almost nonchalant attitude…for more than a month.’
Response - The suggestion that the government’s attitude was nonchalant is wrong. Extensive and detailed work was going on in government because of Coronavirus, as shown above.
Claim - By the time the Prime Minister chaired a COBR meeting on March 2 ‘the virus had sneaked into our airports, our trains, our workplaces and our homes. Britain was on course for one of the worst infections of the most insidious virus to have hit the world in a century.'
Response - This virus has hit countries across the world. It is ridiculous to suggest that coronavirus only reached the UK because the Health Secretary and not the PM chaired a COBR meeting.
Claim - 'Failure of leadership' by anonymous senior advisor to Downing Street.
Response - The Prime Minister has been at the helm of the Government response to Covid 19, providing the leadership to steer his Ministerial team through a hugely challenging period for the whole nation. This anonymous source is variously described as a ‘senior adviser to Downing Street’ and a ‘senior Downing Street adviser’. The two things are not the same. One suggests an adviser employed by the government in No10. The other someone who provides ad hoc advice. Which is it?
Claim - The government sent 279,000 items of its depleted stockpile of protective equipment to China during this period in response to a request for help from the authorities there.
Response - The equipment was not from the pandemic stockpile. We provided this equipment to China at the height of their need and China has since reciprocated our donation many times over. Between April 2-April 15 we have received over 12 million pieces of PPE in the UK from China.
Claim - Little was done to equip the National Health Service for the coming crisis in this period.
Response - This is wrong. The NHS has responded well to Coronavirus, and has provided treatment to everyone in critical need. We have constructed the new Nightingale hospitals and extended intensive care capacity in other hospitals.
Claim - Among the key points likely to be explored are why it took so long to recognise an urgent need for a massive boost in supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers; ventilators to treat acute respiratory symptoms; and tests to detect the infection.
Response - The Department for Health began work on boosting PPE stocks in January, before the first confirmed UK case.
- Discussions on PPE supply for COVID-19 began w/c 27 January (as part of Medical Devices and Clinical Consumables), with the first supply chain kick-off meeting on 31 January. The first additional orders of PPE was placed on 30 January via NHS Supply Chain’s ‘just-in-time contracts’. BAU orders of PPE were ramped up around the same date.
- Friday, 7 February, the department held a webinar for suppliers trading from or via China and the European Union. Over 700 delegates joined and heard the Department’s requests to carry out full supply chain risk assessments and hold onto EU exit stockpiles where they had been retained.
- Monday, 10 February, the department spoke with the major patient groups and charities to update them on the situation regarding the outbreak and to update them on the steps it was taking to protect supplies.
- Tuesday, 11 February, the department wrote to all suppliers in scope of the Covid 19 supply response work – those trading from or via China or the EU – repeating the messages from the webinar and updating suppliers on the current situation relating to novel coronavirus.
- The NHS has spare ventilator capacity and we are investing in further capacity.
Claim - Suggestion that ‘lack of grip’ had the knock-on effect of the national lockdown being introduced days or even weeks too late, causing many thousands more unnecessary deaths.
Response - The government started to act as soon as it was alerted to a potential outbreak. Mr Hancock was first alerted to Covid 19 on 3 January and spoke to Departmental officials on 6th Jan before receiving written advice from the UK Health Security Team. He brought the issue to the attention of the Prime Minister and they discussed Covid 19 on 7 January.
The government’s scientific advisory groups started to meet in mid-January and Hancock instituted daily meetings to grip the emerging threat. We have taken the right steps at the right time guided by the scientific evidence.
Claim - Scientists said the threat from the coming storm was clear and one of the government’s key advisory committees was given a dire warning a month earlier than has previously been admitted about the prospect of having to deal with mass casualties.
Response - The government followed scientific advice at all times. The WHO only determined that COVID 19 would be a global pandemic on 11 March. Claiming that there was scientific consensus on this is just wrong. Sage met on January 22 but the first NERVTAG meeting was held on 13 January (NERVTAG is the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group – see here https://www.gov.uk/government/groups...advisory-group ).
Claim - The last rehearsal for a pandemic was a 2016 exercise codenamed Cygnus, which predicted the health service would collapse and highlighted a long list of shortcomings — including, presciently, a lack of PPE and intensive care ventilators.
Response - The Government has been extremely proactive in implementing lessons learnt around pandemic preparedness, including from Exercise Cygnus. This includes being ready with legislative proposals that could rapidly be tailored to what became the Coronavirus Act, plans to strengthen excess death planning, planning for recruitment and deployment of retired staff and volunteers, and guidance for stakeholders and sectors across government.
Claim - By February 21 the virus had already infected 76,000 people, had caused 2,300 deaths in China and was taking a foothold in Europe, with Italy recording 51 cases and two deaths the following day. Nonetheless NERVTAG, one of the key government advisory committees, decided to keep the threat level at “moderate”.
Response - This is a misrepresentation of what the threat level is. This is about the current public health danger – and on February 21, when the UK had about a dozen confirmed cases, out of a population of over 66 million, the actual threat to individuals was moderate. In terms of the potential threat, the government was clear – on 10 February the Secretary of State declared that “the incidence or transmission of novel Coronavirus constituted a serious and imminent threat to public health”.
Sweden doing what it is doing is a good test case. Their per capita Covid rate is middle of the road (though with inconsistent testing across countries hard to make much of it yet).
Though Sweden is different to other nations in other respects too. No two nations are the same and what will work for one will not necessarily work for another - Italy's healthcare system was overloaded even with a lockdown.
What seems the worst vector for this disease is a high population density and mass transit. Large cities with trains packed like sardines etc rather than rural or suburban with cars. I'm not sure what Stockholm or Sweden generally is like in that regard.
I made a thread on what we can learn form the pandemic - key items like moving away from public transit should be in the conversation when all this is over.
Do you get paid by the troll?
Hope is the denial of reality
How can you not see the connection with hot spots and public transit?
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