Coronavirus

Quoted from Marinerz93

Errr labour were in power for long enough to have implemented a plan and bought the necessary equipment so any review would mean minimal stock and equipment would be needed, a top up so to speak. The fact we don't have what Maringer is claiming means Labour just had good fortune that a pandemic didn't happen in their time in office or we would be were we are now.

It is estimated that every 50 years there is a possibility of a world wide pandemic, and Obama spoke in 2005 about putting infrastructure in place in the USA not only to deal with a pandemic but to head it off. What were labour doing in 2005?



What I am saying is that all previous governments have failed in preparing for this pandemic, and regardless of who is in office now they would all have had the same issues, be it labour or Lib Dems.

One party  has consistently underfunded health and social care for 10 years. It’s made the situation much worse than it would have been. If Labour failed to prepare for a pandemic that doesn’t excuse the present government from preparing. And it’s even less of an excuse for failing to act in a timely fashion.

But then you’d excuse the fat lying, cut price Trump with a Churchill fantasy anything. The stupid pillock admits to jeopardising his own health so he can’t be trusted with anyone else’s.

Quoted from Maringer

If this ratio has remained accurate, we're certainly not being given the full picture, and quite deliberately so:

Tweet 1247458186300456960 will appear here...

Ultimately, it will all come out in the wash as the overall mortality figures from the ONS will eventually show us just how many more have died than would normally be expected during this period of any given year. It will be interesting to see how the government deflect blame for our terrible figures in comparison to those of our immediate peers (US aside, of course).

I’d love to see someone defend this disparity in numbers.

Quoted from smokey111

Priti Patel is one if the most hard faced politicians I have seen for a long while. No remorse, no acknowledgement of woeful failings.

I’m sorry you feel that way about her.

Quoted from LH

I’m sorry you feel that way about her.

PP is like a foxglove. Beautiful, beguiling but toxic.

In rigor mortis she would stand over me, smirk and would belittle my thatching knowledge

Quoted from KingstonMariner

I’d love to see someone defend this disparity in numbers.

I have been in the ons website and it is easy to defend , they admit the figures given out by NHS England are correct at the time of publication (the next day). It takes over  a week for the figures to be ‘collated and corrected’ . There are some interesting stats on there , the main one that sticks out is York’s and Humber have they lowest death rate in the country from COVID

Being at the end of the line is a good thing sometimes. The lockdown in our area will effectively have saved a lot more lives compared to areas where the pandemic was more advanced.

Not looked at them, but I understand that the Scottish figures show all deaths, not just the hospital ones. They might give some sort of an idea of the progression in much of England, other than the hotpots, of course.

Quoted from codcheeky

That the government has failed us
That we ignored the WHO and seen likely to have more due here than anywhere else in Europe?

There's an interesting article on the BBC website about how Denmark is about to come out of lockdown.   They went into lockdown nearly 2 weeks before UK.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Of course not. I’m not one of those conspiracy nut jobs. I’d just like the advice the government had received to be published. For example, What advice did they get when they decided a lockdown wasn’t desirable and what advice had they had when they changed their mind? Why not publish it and let the opposition see it? And for the media to see it so. It’s a national emergency so involving the opposition is the thing to do. What have they got to hide? Something embarrassing possibly.

I thought they did publish both Kingston. When announcements were made, from the very start they were made by Boris plus the MO or similar adviser and they gave that information.

One problem that has become evident is that early strategies based on what the Chinese said was liable to be misleading but nevertheless I thought the U.K. was as open as feasible about stats and advice.

My complaint would be the lack of forceful leadership in the early stages and the waffling that is now going on between different ministers. Blunkett is right to describe the press conferences as Sermons On The Mount.  Lockdown was a relatively easy decision. Someone is going to have to make a very hard decision soon and Hancock clearly does not want to be the one. Whenever they decide to ease or lift lockdown it will be a tacit admission that they cannot protect every citizen even with a vaccine. Nobody wants to be seen saying it. They are all just Waiting For Boris (apologies to Mr Pinter).

The fact is, they screwed the pooch by delaying the lockdown for so long. Infections were doubling every 3 to 4 days so 1 week delay would have led to a fourfold increase in the overall number of cases to deal with in the country. 2 week delay, 16-fold. There would be a proportional increase in the most serious cases requiring hospital treatment even if it was a low percentage overall. That's a lot of additional ventilators and medical resources required. They left it at least a week too long to lockdown, simple as that.

That's in the past now so they had better be concentrating on the plan for the aftermath when the lockdown is eased - contact tracing, testing and enforced isolation where required.

I'd also suggest they think about setting up a Universal Basic Income. Even if it is only at a peppercorn level, it would set up the infrastructure for direct transfer of money into accounts for any future lockdowns required. Reports of well over a million people who are right now absolutely destitute and with no food. A UBI would enable instant transfer of money to keep people eating.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

I thought they did publish both Kingston. When announcements were made, from the very start they were made by Boris plus the MO or similar adviser and they gave that information.

One problem that has become evident is that early strategies based on what the Chinese said was liable to be misleading but nevertheless I thought the U.K. was as open as feasible about stats and advice.

My complaint would be the lack of forceful leadership in the early stages and the waffling that is now going on between different ministers. Blunkett is right to describe the press conferences as Sermons On The Mount.  Lockdown was a relatively easy decision. Someone is going to have to make a very hard decision soon and Hancock clearly does not want to be the one. Whenever they decide to ease or lift lockdown it will be a tacit admission that they cannot protect every citizen even with a vaccine. Nobody wants to be seen saying it. They are all just Waiting For Boris (apologies to Mr Pinter).

Another interesting article on leadership and how perhaps things should have been done

https://www.independent.co.uk/.....ership-a9460591.html

Our Government has failed to convey it’s policy from the start, the herd immunity or not, the schools, race meetings, big football matches and then a complete U turn does not give any confidence, neither does the waffles responses at press briefings, people on here say don’t make it political but these ministers are by trying to hide failings, give false hope on ventilators and not facing the truth about PPE