“A new Chinese coronavirus, a cousin of the SARS virus, has infected hundreds since the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December"Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
That was what CNN called 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?
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”.
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.
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.
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.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18...tific-adviser/"And when Michael Gove says 'but prime ministers don't attend all Cobra meetings', I cannot recall a Cobra meeting when it was called with Blair or Brown as prime minister when the prime minister wasn't in the chair."
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
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
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.
https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/statu...736644611?s=19
If there's doubt amongst scientists about how bad the pandemic could be, some people saying it could be very bad and others saying maybe not so much, do you think it's prudent to just assume the people saying it won't be so bad are right or do you think more of a 'hope for the best, prepare for the worst' approach would be better?
Saying that previous Tory prime ministers were just as irresponsible cavalier as Johnson is perhaps not the defence that you and Javid seem to think it is.
There is, however, a difference between missing a COBR meeting about the migrant crisis in Calais (as Cameron did in 2015) and one about a infectious disease which had the potential to shut down the UK economy and kill 10s of thousands.
There is also a difference between missing one such meeting and missing five of them.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
I do, which is what was done. The science advisory group (SAGE) and Nervtag were called to prepare and regular meetings held to monitor the situation and prepare.
He didn't "miss" them if he wasn't due at them. Or are you grossly negligent for not attending meetings you're not due to go to?Saying that previous Tory prime ministers were just as irresponsible cavalier as Johnson is perhaps not the defence that you and Javid seem to think it is.
There is, however, a difference between missing a COBR meeting about the migrant crisis in Calais (as Cameron did in 2015) and one about a infectious disease which had the potential to shut down the UK economy and kill 10s of thousands.
There is also a difference between missing one such meeting and missing five of them.
COBRA is just an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. Or COBR is without the A. The PM doesn't attend most briefings, that is the Secretary of State's responsibility normally.
When did you decide we should abolish Cabinet governance and have one President responsible for everything?
Woah!
Twitter Link
The fuck it was. Why do we have a shortage of PPE or testing Apparatus? We didn't we have a lockdown till near the end of March?
Probably if there was a meeting that is directly relevant to my responsibilities, like "Is [thing Steely is responsible for] going to be completely fucked next month?" and I was like "think I'll sit this one out, chief. not coming to the next four, either. let me know how it goes, though." that might be frowned upon, yes.He didn't "miss" them if he wasn't due at them. Or are you grossly negligent for not attending meetings you're not due to go to?
COBRA is just an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. Or COBR is without the A.
Keyword: normally.The PM doesn't attend most briefings, that is the Secretary of State's responsibility normally.
Might be nice to have a PM who was responsible for something.When did you decide we should abolish Cabinet governance and have one President responsible for everything?
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
We have a shortage of PPE because PPE usage is up over 5000% locally and worldwide so every week we need more PPE than would normally be needed in an entire year. We've already approximately the same sum of PPE that would have been required through the entire 2020s put together. And every country is facing the same thing.
We didn't have a lockdown til near the end of the March as the scientific advice was [quite rightly] not to have one and that it would be counterproductive. Why would you do something the scientists are saying is a bad idea? Do you want the government to go against scientific advice?
Indeed, if Matt Hancock was missing from the meetings without a good reason that would be a bad thing.Probably if there was a meeting that is directly relevant to my responsibilities, like "Is [thing Steely is responsible for] going to be completely fucked next month?" and I was like "think I'll sit this one out, chief. not coming to the next four, either. let me know how it goes, though." that might be frowned upon, yes.
Oh then why are you saying the opposite?
Indeed. PM is responsible for the big picture and ensuring all Secretary of States are doing their jobs etc - PM is not a Secretary of State.Might be nice to have a PM who was responsible for something.
WTI Oil now Minus $37.63 per barrel.
Yes, that's what planning for the pandemic before it gets started is supposed to entail. You get the PPE before the world-wide shortage kicks in. From the Times article:
“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."The NHS could have contacted UK-based suppliers. The British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) was ready to help supply PPE in February — and throughout March — but it was only on April 1 that its offer of help was accepted. Dr Simon Festing, the organisation’s chief executive, said: “Orders undoubtedly went overseas instead of to the NHS because of the missed opportunities in the procurement process.”Per the Times article, this was based on the assumption that the coronavirus was 'just like the flu', when it wasn't, and the assumption that the public wasn't prepared to accept a lockdown, which it was. You speak as though 'the scientific advice' is some kind of binary thing handed down from on high, whereas in fact there were plenty of scientists both within and without the government advocating for a lockdown much sooner. Nor is there any particular reason to think than an earlier lockdown might have been "counterproductive" in some vague and magical way. Ireland began it's lockdown much sooner closing schools on the 12th of March (something you were insisting was going to cause the virus to spread), yet they have approx half the deaths per million we do.We didn't have a lockdown til near the end of the March as the scientific advice was [quite rightly] not to have one and that it would be counterproductive. Why would you do something the scientists are saying is a bad idea? Do you want the government to go against scientific advice?
Or his boss, since the whole thing seems like a big deal. Oh wait.Indeed, if Matt Hancock was missing from the meetings without a good reason that would be a bad thing.
You don't think the coronavirus is relevant to the "big picture"?Indeed. PM is responsible for the big picture and ensuring all Secretary of States are doing their jobs etc - PM is not a Secretary of State.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
uh oh
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...say-scientists
*golf clap*The government’s target of carrying out 100,000 Covid-19 tests each day by the end of the month has come under criticism from senior scientists, who say it will be impossible to reach.
[...]
However, scepticism is building. On Saturday, only 21,626 tests were carried out.
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said he viewed the target as impossible. “I cannot see that being achieved,” he said. “It was always designed to be a headline grabber rather than anything else.”
Others said a relentless focus on the number of tests performed each day had led to basic data reporting standards falling by the wayside. Prof Sheila Bird, formerly of the Medical Research Council’s biostatistics unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “The level of incompetence in reporting these tests is outrageous.”
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
Indeed they did increase PPE, but the demands have sky rocketed past that.
The public was prepared to accept a lockdown only because the public was educated first and then the lockdown happened. Had the lockdown been implemented prematurely without educating the public, without sorting out alternatives for wages and work, without people seeing pictures of what was happening in Italy - then no the public wouldn't have likely accepted it.Per the Times article, this was based on the assumption that the coronavirus was 'just like the flu', when it wasn't, and the assumption that the public wasn't prepared to accept a lockdown, which it was. You speak as though 'the scientific advice' is some kind of binary thing handed down from on high, whereas in fact there were plenty of scientists both within and without the government advocating for a lockdown much sooner. Nor is there any particular reason to think than an earlier lockdown might have been "counterproductive" in some vague and magical way. Ireland began it's lockdown much sooner closing schools on the 12th of March (something you were insisting was going to cause the virus to spread), yet they have approx half the deaths per million we do.
And the lockdown has worked. The purpose of the lockdown was to prevent NHS capacity being overran. NHS is running under capacity now, many hospitals are now quieter than they would be normally. The lockdown is working and was probably done too early, but better safe than sorry. It definitely wasn't too late.
We are not seeing in the UK anything like the scenes in Italy, Spain or NYC.
Yes his boss is involved now (or was until he couldn't be), he wasn't before WHO etc raised their warnings, that was the Health Secretary's responsibility.Or his boss, since the whole thing seems like a big deal. Oh wait.
You don't think the coronavirus is relevant to the "big picture"?
“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."The NHS could have contacted UK-based suppliers. The British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) was ready to help supply PPE in February — and throughout March — but it was only on April 1 that its offer of help was accepted. Dr Simon Festing, the organisation’s chief executive, said: “Orders undoubtedly went overseas instead of to the NHS because of the missed opportunities in the procurement process.”All the more reason for the government to start talking it more seriously, sooner.The public was prepared to accept a lockdown only because the public was educated first and then the lockdown happened. Had the lockdown been implemented prematurely without educating the public, without sorting out alternatives for wages and work, without people seeing pictures of what was happening in Italy - then no the public wouldn't have likely accepted it.
Firstly, that's not exactly a very high bar to get over. Secondly, unlike the two European countries in that list (don't know about NYC), our figures do not show care home deaths. So we'll see how we fare compared to Italy, Spain and France once the dust has settled?We are not seeing in the UK anything like the scenes in Italy, Spain or NYC.
He was seriously waiting for the WHO to press the big red button saying "Alert Level Maximum" (or whatever they do) before he showed up? He was able to make it to the COBRA meetings about the 2019 floods in Yorkshire and Derbyshire without the WMO declaring a Major Flooding Incident, or whatever.Yes his boss is involved now (or was until he couldn't be), he wasn't before WHO etc raised their warnings, that was the Health Secretary's responsibility.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
This is not the genius-level rebuttal you two seem to think it is. Believing that it's premature to cause panic among the public—or inappropriate to tacitly approve of racist fears—is not the same as believing it's premature or inappropriate for governments to dramatically step up their efforts to ensure readiness. The public and its govt. do not have the same responsibilities, and cannot be held to the same standards. At that point in time, it should already have been clear to the govts of both the US and the UK—based on intelligence reports as well as the publicly available information coming out of China—that this may soon end up becoming a dangerous global pandemic. That scientific advisors were saying it was not yet at that stage says little about the likelihood of it reaching that stage, and it says almost nothing about the need for or appropriateness of taking decisive action to guard against that possibility.
Look, this is a super-weird defense. Even if we presume your scientists were giving reassurances that were relevant to the PM walking around in a hospital shaking hands with covid patients—and presumably everyone else there as well—that does not mean that refraining from shaking hands would be tantamount to going against scientific advice; it would be a precaution with next to no physical cost. Many doctors, nurses and even patients at my hospital refrain from shaking hands—esp. during flu season. You have misunderstood the guidance on this issue; they weren't saying, "Please, you must shake hands—science demands it!"
That being said, it's entirely possible Johnson was infected somewhere else, at some other time, and/or by some other means. Nobody will ever know, but that's not the point.
You keep bringing this up, and it remains as misguided a point as before. Italy's lockdown was implemented at a very late stage in its epidemic, and it was also one of the first countries to be hit very hard by covid—with very little time for the healthcare system to prepare.
This is an important objection to the blathering response to the Times article. If the PM normally does not attend these meetings, and the PM missed five meetings relating to the rapidly evolving coronavirus matter, pointing to what's "normally" the case is only a compelling defense if you believe circumstances were normal when those meetings were held.
I've seen your PMs, perhaps it really is best if they aren't responsible for anything.Might be nice to have a PM who was responsible for something.
Three ways to address this problem are 1. maintain large stockpiles of critical PPE 2. find ways to immediately ramp up domestic production of necessary equipment, and 3. swiftly implement effective containment or suppression measures early on in order to sharply reduce the demand on healthcare resources including PPE. The UK—like many other nations—failed to maintain PPE stores, failed to ramp up production of both PPE as well as scale up necessary testing infrastructure, and failed to take measures to contain or suppress their domestic epidemic at an early stage (indeed, they pursued the exact opposite strategy—deliberately, as is becoming increasingly clear for every day that passes). "We have a shortage of PPE because PPE usage is up over 5000% locally and worldwide so every week we need more PPE than would normally be needed in an entire year" is not a defense—it's a succinct summary of one of the charges against your govt.
There is no compelling evidence that this was "quite right"; rather, there is considerable controversy, but mounting evidence that it was quite wrong. To persist in characterizing that decision as being obviously right is just ignorant—the decision was, at the very least, not obviously right.We didn't have a lockdown til near the end of the March as the scientific advice was [quite rightly] not to have one and that it would be counterproductive.
The govt. should red-team the authorities handling its crisis response.Why would you do something the scientists are saying is a bad idea? Do you want the government to go against scientific advice?
This would be a fantastic retort if this were strictly a healthcare issue, but it is a massively important political issue with ramifications for almost every aspect of society, so, yeah, sorry.Indeed, if Matt Hancock was missing from the meetings without a good reason that would be a bad thing.
Boris SEP Johnson.Indeed. PM is responsible for the big picture and ensuring all Secretary of States are doing their jobs etc - PM is not a Secretary of State.
I'm sorry to tell you this but both of these comments are stupid. They were dubious the first time you started saying this sort of thing, but they are much more clearly stupid now, given what we've learned since this issue was first brought up. There is no compelling reason to believe the UK instated its lockdown too early; there are good reasons to believe exactly the opposite, ie. that it was instated too late, leading to a much more unmanageable epidemic and many preventable deaths. Though you laud your govt's willingness to make U-turns in response to changing advice, you yourself continue to obstinately defend decisions that were made for the wrong reasons, and that consequently turned out to be wrong.The lockdown [...] was probably done too early ... It definitely wasn't too late.
By this time tomorrow, probably around 20,000 people in the UK will have died of covid.We are not seeing in the UK anything like the scenes in Italy, Spain or NYC.
This is a pretty sad but appropriate defense of a man notorious for not putting in the work.Yes his boss is involved now (or was until he couldn't be), he wasn't before WHO etc raised their warnings, that was the Health Secretary's responsibility.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Some US states are loosening restrictions and opening up certain businesses.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...-crisis-limits
Not sure how Georgia can say they're following Trump's "guidelines" for phase 1 when testing is still less than 1% of the population....and first responders still can't get the masks they need. But then, this was the Governor who acted surprised just a week ago that asymptomatic people were spreading the virus. The home of the CDC. Can't make this shit up.
The falling price of oil got buried. It only makes sense for the supply-side and trickle-down financiers who don't consider viral pandemics as part of their "risk analysis". Exuberant optimism (for capitalism and freee markets) is exposed as a charade, a game that's propped up by political actors and lobbyists, in favor of corporatism that benefits the top 1-10%, at the expense of everyone else.
No wonder it's so painful to admit that a virus can take down our economies, based on "conventional wisdom" that doesn't make sense. We've underfunded Public Health for decades, and turned all healthcare into Profits vs People political campaigns.
This virus is forcing us to re-evaluate our priorities and structural flaws. Long time coming. But I'm not convinced we'll make the necessary changes.It might be construed as SSSocialism, lol
Also, Sweden's per capita death rate is double the rate of its neighboring nations. Maybe they're assuming that their hospitals are better funded and supplied...or that their population is "smart" enough to follow voluntary guidelines? I don't know why they're relying on "herd immunity" when that's been debunked by epidemiologists. See the UK's similar (failed) policies.
Either way, it's crazy to compare the US healthcare system to nations with socialized health care/national health service. The US is a #1 failure.
Last edited by GGT; 04-21-2020 at 02:19 AM.
How can you not see the connection with hot spots and public transit?
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