Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

Who new that Priti Patel and Scott Steiner had so much in common?

[Michael W]

1 hour ago, The DA said:

I can't work out whether it's that the job is too big for this incompetent government or whether it's a lack of will to do anything about it.  

Carole Cadwalladr has been tweeting about the differences between Ireland and the UK.  Both started off with the same number of ICU beds per capita but Ireland has suffered less than half the death rate.  Almost certainly all down to the UK's one-week delay in announcing a 'lock down'.

More and more, Boris and the Buffoons remind me of the mayor in Jaws.

The lockdown, or at least the banning of mass-gatherings, is probably a key differentiator.

I'm not convinced that the number of ICU beds here tells us much either. I've seen the chart and all of France, Italy and Spain have significantly better ICU capacity than the UK. It hasn't helped them.

Ireland is also small country and lacks a mega city like London, which has unsurprisingly proven to be the epicentre in the UK. Various reasons for this such as volume of public transport use (especially in crowded conditions) and sheer volume of international in/out traffic. The more suitable comparators for the UK are Germany, France, Spain and Italy, only one of which appears to have handled this well. 

 

[coprolite]

I think it's hard to blame the government for being unprepared. 

No government in living memory has had a democratic mandate to spend "taxpayers money" on contingency planning, for anything. 

The tories privatised water boards in england and wales, then cut flood defence budgets. Then floods got worse year on year. But they got voted back in to cut more.  That's something visible and obvious.

Imagine labour/snp trying to spend billions on surplus icu capacity just in case. Waste, inefficiency etc. 

It wouldn't happen. 

c***s they undoubtedly are but they're c***s who are in power because we're all morons obsessed by trivial shite and get the system we deserve. 

[ayrmad]

21 minutes ago, coprolite said:

I think it's hard to blame the government for being unprepared. 

No government in living memory has had a democratic mandate to spend "taxpayers money" on contingency planning, for anything. 

The tories privatised water boards in england and wales, then cut flood defence budgets. Then floods got worse year on year. But they got voted back in to cut more.  That's something visible and obvious.

Imagine labour/snp trying to spend billions on surplus icu capacity just in case. Waste, inefficiency etc. 

It wouldn't happen. 

c***s they undoubtedly are but they're c***s who are in power because we're all morons obsessed by trivial shite and get the system we deserve. 

Won't disagree with the overall sentiment but we could have prepared far far better early doors in this pandemic, we were being forewarned by what was unfolding in China then latterly in Italy, I don't even think we bought ourselves a day in comparison to Italy with 3 weeks notice. 

On a more positive note, in relation to lockdown days, Italy had their highest daily death total Friday and Spain had theirs yesterday, here's hoping. 

Edited April 12, 2020 by ayrmad

[Florentine_Pogen]

The answer is titwank.

Oh.....I thought his surname was Handcock.

[The DA]

6 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

Won't disagree with the overall sentiment but we could have prepared far far better early doors in this pandemic, we were being forewarned by what was unfolding in China then latterly in Italy, I don't even think we bought ourselves a day in comparison to Italy with 3 weeks notice. 

On a more positive note, in relation to lockdown days, Italy had their highest daily death total Friday and Spain had theirs yesterday, here's hoping. 

With all of their talk of 'doing the right thing at the right time', I think they arranged for lock down to kick in at 'just the right time' to ensure the NHS could cope a few weeks down the line.  Any earlier and hospitals would have been relatively under-used, people would have been one week further down the boredom curve and the economy would have suffered earlier and longer.

It's definitely the herd immunity strategy.

[Granny Danger]

32 minutes ago, coprolite said:

I think it's hard to blame the government for being unprepared. 

No government in living memory has had a democratic mandate to spend "taxpayers money" on contingency planning, for anything. 

The tories privatised water boards in england and wales, then cut flood defence budgets. Then floods got worse year on year. But they got voted back in to cut more.  That's something visible and obvious.

Imagine labour/snp trying to spend billions on surplus icu capacity just in case. Waste, inefficiency etc. 

It wouldn't happen. 

c***s they undoubtedly are but they're c***s who are in power because we're all morons obsessed by trivial shite and get the system we deserve. 

I don’t think it’s hard to blame the government at all.  It’s harder being an apologist for them though you’re having a good bash at it.

[Distant Doonhamer]

It’s a global pandemic and everyone can realise that significant mistakes have been and will be made by those in power. What grates most with me is the complete lack of any sense of accountability of the likes of Hancock and Patel and a pretty much uniform failure of our press to call this out.

[ayrmad]

2 minutes ago, The DA said:

With all of their talk of 'doing the right thing at the right time', I think they arranged for lock down to kick in at 'just the right time' to ensure the NHS could cope a few weeks down the line.  Any earlier and hospitals would have been relatively under-used, people would have been one week further down the boredom curve and the economy would have suffered earlier and longer.

It's definitely the herd immunity strategy.

It definitely is, it will be interesting to see how they deal with the scrutiny which should come when we're sitting at 30,000 or 40,000 and Germany are at a fraction, how many normal people will realise that they've basically decided that the lives of their loved ones was a price worth paying, I salute Sweden' approach even if it fails, at least their government have built up a trust with their population that we can only dream of. 

[coprolite]

2 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I don’t think it’s hard to blame the government at all.  It’s harder being an apologist for them though you’re having a good bash at it.

I'm not apologising for anyone. 

Back in 2016 we had a pandemic practise and cocked it up. 

No-one was campaigning to get the government to sort it. I could have. You could have. Anyone could have, but didn't. 

Instead all political bandwidth went on EU membership. 

So really, it's your fault. 

[beefybake]

4 hours ago, The DA said:

I can't work out whether it's that the job is too big for this incompetent government or whether it's a lack of will to do anything about it.  

Carole Cadwalladr has been tweeting about the differences between Ireland and the UK.  Both started off with the same number of ICU beds per capita but Ireland has suffered less than half the death rate.  Almost certainly all down to the UK's one-week delay in announcing a 'lock down'.

More and more, Boris and the Buffoons remind me of the mayor in Jaws.

 

 

 

How it looks to me is....

 

The Tories won the general election.   Every single member of the cabinet are those who pledged themselves to Johnson and Brexit.

They're not there because of their abilities.

 

Brexit and those who support it pretty much defines the term Little Britain, and the 'island mentality'.

Combine that with the associated   '...Well, it's Asia, they're always having these mysterious infections that happen out of nowhere...,

course, it couldn't happen here etc.   .'   factor.

 

And top it with... 

 

[ Coronavirus : What can the UK learn From Germany ]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52234061

 

".....More significant may be higher health spending:

• Germany spent €4,271 (£3,744) per person on healthcare in 2016
• The UK spent €3,566 per person on healthcare in 2016  ... "

In terms of the other EU countries, the UK spent less than the EU average on healthcare in 2016.

 

 

Edit/Addition :

All the above combined, I believe, to create a slowness to respond, an unwillingness to quickly learn from how other

countries ( ie in Asia ) responded, and also a lack of proper PPE resources in the NHS.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by beefybake

[Distant Doonhamer]

It definitely is, it will be interesting to see how they deal with the scrutiny which should come when we're sitting at 30,000 or 40,000 and Germany are at a fraction, how many normal people will realise that they've basically decided that the lives of their loved ones was a price worth paying, I salute Sweden' approach even if it fails, at least their government have built up a trust with their population that we can only dream of. 

If deaths in Sweden continue to ramp up I’d imagine that trust will evaporate pretty quickly.

[Rodhull]

35 minutes ago, coprolite said:

I think it's hard to blame the government for being unprepared. 

No government in living memory has had a democratic mandate to spend "taxpayers money" on contingency planning, for anything. 

The tories privatised water boards in england and wales, then cut flood defence budgets. Then floods got worse year on year. But they got voted back in to cut more.  That's something visible and obvious.

Imagine labour/snp trying to spend billions on surplus icu capacity just in case. Waste, inefficiency etc. 

It wouldn't happen. 

c***s they undoubtedly are but they're c***s who are in power because we're all morons obsessed by trivial shite and get the system we deserve. 

Wasn’t there a story that a report was made in 2016 showing that in the event of a pandemic the UK was badly prepared and the NHS would struggle to cope that the Government basically ignored and hushed up? I suppose I wouldn’t expect this Government to spend the extra money but some kind of preparation plan should have been put in place so that they weren’t fumbling about like they were.

I suppose it also depends if you’re fine with the UK being amongst the worst in developed countries  for hospital/icu beds per head of population generally as well.

[Billy Jean King]

Bound to be vague as they are not testing routinely so (some would say conveniently) it's pretty much impossible to quantify Covid deaths outside hospitals which is ridiculous.

Business Minister, Alok Sharma, on Andrew Marr extremely vague as to number of deaths in care homes in England, and why they aren't recorded and included in overall death figures. 
In fact Alok Sharma is extremely vague full stop.

[ayrmad]

4 minutes ago, Distant Doonhamer said:

If deaths in Sweden continue to ramp up I’d imagine that trust will evaporate pretty quickly.

It may well but at least they've trusted their government to do what they think is best for the country as a whole, we know ours are coming from the angle of looking after them and theirs. 

[coprolite]

7 minutes ago, beefybake said:

 

 

 

How it looks to me is....

 

The Tories won the general election.   Every single member of the cabinet are those who pledged themselves to Johnson and Brexit.

They're not there because of their abilities.

 

Brexit and those who support it pretty much defines the term Little Britain, and the 'island mentality'.

Combine that with the associated   '...Well, it's Asia, they're always having these mysterious infections that happen out of nowhere...,

course, it couldn't happen here etc.   .'   factor.

 

And top it with... 

 

[ Coronavirus : What can the UK learn From Germany ]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52234061

 

".....More significant may be higher health spending:

• Germany spent €4,271 (£3,744) per person on healthcare in 2016
• The UK spent €3,566 per person on healthcare in 2016  ... "

In terms of the other EU countries, the UK spent less than the EU average on healthcare in 2016.

 

 

Is that government spending or spending in the economy? The US spends more on healthcare than we do, but a huge chunk funds profits of insurers, and providers of bullshit wellness. 

Beware of international comparisons

[Billy Jean King]

Are you a moon howler?
I didn't say "yesterday was our peak"
I said based on the figures from Spain and France, deaths peaked around 6 days after new cases peaked. I then went on to say when our current peak new cases days were, and if they remained true when 6 days from then was.
Finished up by saying I hope that remained the case.
I'm now absolutely convinced that there are people on this thread not only incapable of any sort of positive thinking, but get outraged by anyone looking for positives anywhere.
You and [mention=20881]Marshmallo[/mention] are by far the worst for it.

Thanks for reiterating it again. Our current peak day you said. While the figures keep rising every day is a peak day. Given the inaccuracy of weekend reporting you have no way of knowing when our peak day will be. Your speculating like everyone else.

[Bairnardo]

It’s a global pandemic and everyone can realise that significant mistakes have been and will be made by those in power. What grates most with me is the complete lack of any sense of accountability of the likes of Hancock and Patel and a pretty much uniform failure of our press to call this out.

It's like May trying to slope the blame about Brexit because she didnt instigate it. They think because this is a difficult situation they should be let off with any scrutiny. Some of the press are either buying that or complici in the inception of it

[ICTJohnboy]

3 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Bound to be vague as they are not testing routinely so (some would say conveniently) it's pretty much impossible to quantify Covid deaths outside hospitals which is ridiculous.

 

My point wasn't so much to do with testing - or the lack of.

I was making the point that in England, deaths in care homes are not being recorded. Why is it they can be recorded and tabulated in Scotland but not in England? 

Strikes me we have a government that is hell bent on point scoring, rather than stating the truth.

[Distant Doonhamer]

It may well but at least they've trusted their government to do what they think is best for the country as a whole, we know ours are coming from the angle of looking after them and theirs. 

It’s pretty likely that trust is misplaced though. Time will tell.