Now is not the time...

[BillyStubbsTears]

...for party politicking.

But it is perfectly reasonable to.list questions that will need to be addressed afterwards.

The Public Health England planning document on infectious disease planning strategy for 2020-2025 was published in September last year.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-infectious-diseases-strategy&ved=2ahUKEwjY2qiUupzoAhWXEMAKHQD7DfgQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw3zyIUepp5z2AaKGJ2H4GGp

On page 13 of that document, Influenza-type pandemic is identified as "the highest scoring risk on the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies"

The Health Secretary has been on the BBC today, admitting that we do not have anywhere near enough respirators for the people who are going to need them. And respirators are vital in saving lives. He's urged a "wartime effort" from everyone from car manufacturers to bomb makers to change their production lines to make respirators.

Which raises 2 questions.

1) Why was this shortfall not addressed months and years ago?

2) Why the hell was it not dealt with as an emergency 4 weeks ago, when the very real threat of this going epidemic was clear?

[BillyStubbsTears]

And I stress. This is not party politics. This is about the competence of the people charged with governing us.

[River Don]

The answer to 1.) underfunding the NHS and a lack of foresight and to some extend it couldn't be helped. I don't think anyone was seeing something quite like this on the horizon.

The answer to 2.) is complacency and incompetence.

[BobG]

And reactive government. And I'm not aiming at any specific party there. It seems to me we are increasingly living in an age of government by reaction. Overt leadership is on the wane whilst covert manipulation doubles and redoubles. And that leads to government by reaction since anything else would require funds that policy make impossible to budget - for except in extremis.

BobG

[SydneyRover]

Add to the list the hollowing out of civil service expertise

[wilts rover]

1) As RD has said deliberate underfunding of the NHS over the past 10 years - probably also linked to the people making those decisions linked to private health care/insurance companies as to the direction in which they intended to take the country

2) Statistical modelling. The government (Cummings) has looked at the rate of infection in other countries, such as Italy and judged that by taking the measures they have done (telling people to wash their hands) they can 'control' it.

We currently have the same rate of infection as Italy.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

That last sentence is categorically wrong.

[wilts rover]

Apologies Billy, I just presumed that when the lines on the graph are going in the same direction that means they are the same.

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1239165350064861185

[BillyStubbsTears]

The "rate of infection" is the percentage of the population that have or have had the virus.

The slope of the graph is the "rate of increase in the rate of infection".

Those graphs show that our reported case rate of increase is following broadly the same trend that Italy's was 2 weeks ago.

We are on the same track as Italy. We're not currently in the same place. But we are going there rapidly.

Sorry if I sounded hectoring. It's just important to be clear on this.

[drfchound]

...for party politicking.

But it is perfectly reasonable to.list questions that will need to be addressed afterwards.

The Public Health England planning document on infectious disease planning strategy for 2020-2025 was published in September last year.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-infectious-diseases-strategy&ved=2ahUKEwjY2qiUupzoAhWXEMAKHQD7DfgQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw3zyIUepp5z2AaKGJ2H4GGp

On page 13 of that document, Influenza-type pandemic is identified as "the highest scoring risk on the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies"

The Health Secretary has been on the BBC today, admitting that we do not have anywhere near enough respirators for the people who are going to need them. And respirators are vital in saving lives. He's urged a "wartime effort" from everyone from car manufacturers to bomb makers to change their production lines to make respirators.

Which raises 2 questions.

1) Why was this shortfall not addressed months and years ago?

2) Why the hell was it not dealt with as an emergency 4 weeks ago, when the very real threat of this going epidemic was clear?

I wonder whether the Australian public are lambasting their government who haven’t got enough Covid19 testing kits.

[BobG]

I hear Yankee airports are in chaos too...

BobG

[selby]

  Bob, they bare  bothered one iota how long you wait to get into the States, just if you should be there, and in this case whether you are fit enough to be there.
   How long it takes is irrelevant.

[BillyStubbsTears]

  Bob, they bare  bothered one iota how long you wait to get into the States, just if you should be there, and in this case whether you are fit enough to be there.
   How long it takes is irrelevant.

Yeah. Cos, like. They've REALLY got there own cases under control, haven't they?

[BigH]

It's not politicking, but the current state of affairs is a sad reflection on our political class generally.

I'm talking about the career politicians across the spectrum who have 'forgotten' the imperative of government (i.e. to govern in the interests of the population) and who have instead indulged in playing silly games around ideology and tribalism.

Where you end up is with a group of people who have never had any experience of serious decision-making or running anything of any great scale, let alone something successfully (or even competently!), having to make decisions that affect lives. Scary.

If I were Johnson I would be seriously thinking about a Government of National Unity (as has been suggested in other posts) for no better reason than it would enable him to spread the blame for the chaos across the whole political spectrum.

In the meantime I suppose we should be grateful that we don't have the likes of Grayling, Duncan Smith, McDonnell, Corbyn, Swinson or Farage anywhere near the decision making.

[selby]

  Billy, how the States look after themselves has nothing to do with us at all, although if a queue in a US airport upsets you so you can have a pop at their government so be it, if that gives you a lift well done.
  If the Democrats were in power, no doubt you would be holding them up as saints, and comparing it with our lax entry programme run by Boris and holding their draconian system as the way we should be acting, instead of people breezing into this country without checks and still getting criticism.
  In this country we have tested 40, 274 people, no doubt the people who thought they had the symptoms of  the virus, 1372 a rise in a day from yesterdays figure of 232 have tested positive, with 35 deaths a just over 2.5% death rate of positive patients tested, and 0.0869% of the total people tested not great figures with 3.406% of those tested being found to have the virus.
  Just as a side discussion, do France, Italy, Germany etc. have like us a Flu jab and pneumonia jab programme like we do on the national health free, people keep saying we are a fortnight behind Italy etc, are we really?or could our immunisation programme free of charge for older people be a reason for slightly different results, not a pop a genuine question.
 

[BigH]

  Billy, how the States look after themselves has nothing to do with us at all, although if a queue in a US airport upsets you so you can have a pop at their government so be it, if that gives you a lift well done.
  If the Democrats were in power, no doubt you would be holding them up as saints, and comparing it with our lax entry programme run by Boris and holding their draconian system as the way we should be acting, instead of people breezing into this country without checks and still getting criticism.
  In this country we have tested 40, 274 people, no doubt the people who thought they had the symptoms of  the virus, 1372 a rise in a day from yesterdays figure of 232 have tested positive, with 35 deaths a just over 2.5% death rate of positive patients tested, and 0.0869% of the total people tested not great figures with 3.406% of those tested being found to have the virus.
  Just as a side discussion, do France, Italy, Germany etc. have like us a Flu jab and pneumonia jab programme like we do on the national health free, people keep saying we are a fortnight behind Italy etc, are we really?or could our immunisation programme free of charge for older people be a reason for slightly different results, not a pop a genuine question.
 

1. There is no vaccine at present that can deal with this.

2. That rate of 2.5% you mention? The mortality rate is generally thought to be c1%. That means that if 35 people have died then there are c3,500 cases out there. However, we've only identified 1,372. That means there are c2,100 people with the virus out there passing it on. Some won't even know they've got it. The Chief Scientific Advisor thought on Friday that there could be c5-10,000 people with it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Big H.

Agreed on the vaccine. Anyone who has been vaccinated against usual flu will get zero benefit against C-19. It's a different virus.

Unfortunately, your assessment on the number of cases (better than most as it is) is almost certainly a huge underestimate. That's because the people dying today didn't catch the disease today. They caught it probably 5-14 days ago. So if there's a 1% death rate, it means we had 3,500 cases 1-2 weeks ago. And ulif the number of cases are doubling every 5 days as the epidemiologists think, we've currently got 10-25,000 cases.

[selby]

  On the vaccine, it was reported yesterday that vaccines developed in London and the Netherlands had had very good results on mice,and the next stages were Monkeys and then humans with June/July the earliest for distribution.
 My thoughts were could it be trialled on people who were very poorly with little hope now to speed it up.
  Desperate times mean desperate measures surely.

[River Don]

I believe they would have to do such early testing with extreme caution Selby.

There is a danger they could accidently release a monster that is worse than the one we are facing. That's one why reason testing has to be so thorough.

[Metalmicky]

TBF....... if I was at death's door and someone had an experimental vaccine there - I would say crack on....

[wilts rover]

The "rate of infection" is the percentage of the population that have or have had the virus.

The slope of the graph is the "rate of increase in the rate of infection".

Those graphs show that our reported case rate of increase is following broadly the same trend that Italy's was 2 weeks ago.

We are on the same track as Italy. We're not currently in the same place. But we are going there rapidly.

Sorry if I sounded hectoring. It's just important to be clear on this.

Yes agreed and again apologies that I was not clear enough.

[selby]

  MM,RD, I accept both your views, with a tendency to lean towards MM and crack on, as far as the vaccination programmes done free of charge here compared with other countries has anybody got any Information?
  The figures I quoted were as on the BBC about an hour ago, so will be fairly factual, projections Billy are an educated guess admittedly, by much more educated people than I, but have been miles out on subjects in the past, and i hope they are again.
  Our vaccination programme could be one reason why, if other countries do not follow suit.

[BigH]

Big H.

Agreed on the vaccine. Anyone who has been vaccinated against usual flu will get zero benefit against C-19. It's a different virus.

Unfortunately, your assessment on the number of cases (better than most as it is) is almost certainly a huge underestimate. That's because the people dying today didn't catch the disease today. They caught it probably 5-14 days ago. So if there's a 1% death rate, it means we had 3,500 cases 1-2 weeks ago. And ulif the number of cases are doubling every 5 days as the epidemiologists think, we've currently got 10-25,000 cases.

Yep, agree.

Last week I wondered what trajectory the virus was on in the UK. Hoping against hope that it would be like South Korea, fearing that it might be like Italy or Spain.

I'm now starting to think it's the latter. If by this time next week there have been 400 deaths announced then that'll bear it out.

[wilts rover]

Really good piece here explaining how the search for a vaccine is being conducted - and why it is impossible for one to be widely available this year (basically they won't know if it has any side effects for a number of months)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/when-will-a-coronavirus-vaccine-be-ready-human-trials-global-immunisation

[SydneyRover]

...for party politicking.

But it is perfectly reasonable to.list questions that will need to be addressed afterwards.

The Public Health England planning document on infectious disease planning strategy for 2020-2025 was published in September last year.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-infectious-diseases-strategy&ved=2ahUKEwjY2qiUupzoAhWXEMAKHQD7DfgQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw3zyIUepp5z2AaKGJ2H4GGp

On page 13 of that document, Influenza-type pandemic is identified as "the highest scoring risk on the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies"

The Health Secretary has been on the BBC today, admitting that we do not have anywhere near enough respirators for the people who are going to need them. And respirators are vital in saving lives. He's urged a "wartime effort" from everyone from car manufacturers to bomb makers to change their production lines to make respirators.

Which raises 2 questions.

1) Why was this shortfall not addressed months and years ago?

2) Why the hell was it not dealt with as an emergency 4 weeks ago, when the very real threat of this going epidemic was clear?

I wonder whether the Australian public are lambasting their government who haven’t got enough Covid19 testing kits.

The Australian people haven't quite finished kicking the government in the balls over the total f**k up they made over the recent bushfires and are now seeing what an incoherent mess our ex-marketing PM is making over this, hound

[selby]

Well Syd, it looks like your wish  for the oldies to pop off could be about to come back and bite people like you in the arse buddy.

[SydneyRover]

Well Syd, it looks like your wish  for the oldies to pop off could be about to come back and bite people like you in the arse buddy.

I have asked you quite politely in the past not to put words in my mouth you stupid old ****

[selby]

  Stay well young un

[SydneyRover]

truce?

[selby]

  Yep buddy all the best except in test matches