Awol

Genuinely think they got caught out by the Chinese test scam (like many other countries), but the desperation to say something positive made them reckless. As someone else said, it’s always over-promise and under-deliver. Not a good combo. The strategic communication has been dogs**t from day one and that’s entirely on them.

Antibody tests. No one has millions of antibody tests.

1) it’s not here yet, and 2) the answer was in the other part of the post you quoted from. In my view they’re doing the best they can now with the situation in front of them, but as I’ve posted repeatedly in this thread... the shortages in ventilation and PPE were highlighted in the 2016 pandemic exercise and instead of addressing those the Cameron government buried the report. Johnson will be judged on the corners cut after this is over because the music stopped on his watch so he is ultimately responsible. That’s right and proper. The inquiry will come. Careers will be killed. I thought the advice they were getting not to introduce border closures/mass quarantine for incoming travellers in combination with early social distancing were crazy. I said as much on here and took my own kids out of school 10 days before the closures came in. I don’t think Johnson, the CMO, SAGE or anyone else has acted in bad faith but they have made serious mistakes - in my unqualified opinion. Having been caught out with insufficient stocks of PPE they are now involved in the intergovernmental knife fight as countries scrap to get what they need at each other’s expense. There’s a finite manufacturing base for this kit and those who own it are looking to their own needs first. Fair enough. I’m not criticising government for failing to deliver tests that haven’t been invented yet (ones that work), or other things that aren’t currently within their gift. The mistakes we are living with now are baked in from previous administrations, so where they are trying to rectify them I don’t see the harm in at least acknowledging that.

Very decent of the Bundeswehr and every little helps, but the requirement defined by government was about 8000 units. The only way we can get hold of those numbers quickly is to build them ourselves, not from the open market where everyone is competing. The Ventilator Challenge UK consortium is the best chance of meeting anticipated demand (or most of it). The Dyson and Babcock ventilators will put us miles over the top for capacity if and when there’s a second peak - like the extra field hospitals that won’t be ready for the first peak but will for the second. The government needs to focus now on getting manufacturers converted to making PPE, which is in similarly short supply globally.

Boris is going to turn down the chance of a lifetime to deflect blame.

You can still do the lottery online, easy money.

No quick deliveries of COVID-19 ventilators, EU says So the ‘value add’ was reducing competition between EU states, including the UK would remove is from the market as a competitor for the same finite resource. The bonus was slowing down the entire acquisition process during an emergency.. That’s two potential reasons for the UK to decline.

I don’t know if you read the text of the agreement, I admittedly haven’t so don’t know the details. If it involved the pooling and rationing out of production/acquisition, for example, we may have had nothing to gain from participating. We won’t be able to judge whether or not it was the right call for a few months, but it is at least possible those attacking this decision might be proven wrong.

New ventilators for EU will take time, commission says Deciding to focus efforts on domestic industry and international markets to rapidly increase ventilator capacity, might not be as complacent and ‘Brexity’ as it first appeared.

Normally pretty slack about shaving but it’s every morning now, only to get a daily routine going. Need a haircut though, more greys than I’d realised!

Dalwhinnie Winter’s Gold. Not much left though so into a bottle Jura tomorrow night. Definitely didn’t buy enough beer before this all kicked off.

That all depends on whether we start losing people due to a lack of ventilators. If we do then yes, absolutely you’re right. Posts (not yours) stating that people are dying because we didn’t jump into an EU procurement programme are simply untrue. There’s capacity everywhere right now if it’s required. Also said on the radio this evening that a further 8 sites have been identified for field hospitals, making 17 in total. The activity and preparation doesn’t align with the public statements being made by PHE, NHS bods and politicians at the daily press conferences. Maybe they’re belatedly building in over capacity as a ‘just in case’ measure, or they’re actually setting up for a very long haul, which then doesn’t square with the peak in 7-10 days narrative. The strategic communications piece has been a failure from day one, imo.

With all the known caveats about NHS delays in reporting.. 936 new hospital deaths in UK yesterday according to the four nations individual reporting. 828 in England.

People sometimes use the level of collaboration in occupied France as a stick to beat them with. I’m not sure we’d have performed much better in the same circumstances. Edit: but if my neighbours had 20 people round for a BBQ session I’d probably be tempted.

If folks do as many expect by taking the mick this weekend then it seems inevitable. Hopefully outside the cities the police will use their discretion and common sense* - people round here are really taking it seriously, bar a few teenagers. *yeah, I know...

Half of London stranded in their second homes?

So the herd immunity strategy, but with public consent?

Thinking about the lockdown situation... the epidemic is clearly going to peak at different times across different regions of the country. The NHS is planning to build emergency care hospitals all over the place that realistically will take 4-6 weeks to deliver at best. Yet we’re being told the ‘peak’ is probably 7-10 days away. We also now know from research that the generic and definitely nothing to do with China virus spreads much more easily than previously expected by the scientists. So the question is are we likely to be in lockdown until the virus is finally stamped out across all of GB, (potentially a few months away) or does economic reality mean trying to open up the country one region at a time while imposing strict internal restrictions on travel? Could that even work?

I can’t post it on here but anyone on twitter should search for this text... “Police Chief of Uganda loosing his cool over people breaking curfew. #QuarantineAndChill”

Special Report: Johnson listened to his scientists about coronavirus - but they were slow to sound the alarm This is a really detailed and balanced look at how we got here, and maybe where we’re going. Worth a read.

This is interesting, seems the reproductive rate of the virus is much higher than predicted. Guessing this means they’ll have to stamp it right out before any real reduction in social distancing measures, then be much stricter about incoming international travel.

Yes it’s a cat vid. But it’s a good cat vid.

Trouble in testing land Having been collectively spoofed by the Chinese antibody testing scam, it seems no one is even close to a reliable version yet.

How weird. Thanks. It’s been reported by mainstream (not Fox) media outlets in the US, too. Given all the stuff China has undoubtedly done over the generic killer virus that happened to start in Wuhan, it seems pretty self defeating and unnecessary to start making things up.

Now Gove in self-isolation as someone in his household displaying symptoms. That’s 14 days..