Generic Virus Thread

[Jareth]

Bozza can lie all he wants - nobody can compel him to tell the truth, Trump does it all the time and knows he can get away with it. Over time it may be a different story, one thing's for sure with Keir Columbo Starmer opposite him, it will happen again. 

[Genie]

7 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

They sent old people out of hospitals and back into care homes, many of whom would have had the virus, because their advice was it was unlikely to spread in care homes. 
 

There have now been thousands of deaths in care homes. 
 

And when asked about it he lied and said that wasn’t government’s advice when it clearly was. Starmer told him he was quoting from the government’s advice. And he still lied and said it wasn’t the advice. 
 

Are you really surprised that Boris Johnson would lie?!

I’m not surprised BJ would lie, he’s a piece of shit but I can take things on a case by case basis.

This virus spreads like wildfire, everybody knows that and have known it for a long time.

I don’t believe hospitals were sending people potentially with the virus back to a care homes because they thought for some reason care homes were magically impossible to transit it (because it said on the government website, slightly out of context, that it’s unlikely to spread in care homes).

If hospitals were sending people with the virus back to their care home without being tested it’s a separate scandal, but not because of what was written on the gov website. 

Edited May 13, 2020 by Genie

[snowychap]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

Not completely serious, just felt it was a little bit excessive attempt at scoring some political points. You said this 3 months ago, now you're contradicting it. Its something that needs tidying up for sure, but as far as explaining himself in the house of commons at the earliest opportunity goes and copying his public letter to the speaker, I'd hope they both have more pressing matters to attend to.

He needs to explain himeslf because he lied at PMQs about the advice that was given.

He said that what Starmer said was untrue when it apppears it very much wasn't and that Starmer was quoting from the Gov's own document.

It's as much 'political point scoring' as lying at the despatch box and it is, I hope, an indication of what Starmer intends to do each and every time Johnson is obviously guilty of 'giving inaccurate information'.

Perhaps, in time, it might get Johnson (and other representatives of the Government) to stop lying to Parliament which is an incredibly serious matter not just something to be waved away as insignificant.

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by snowychap
replaced 'from' with 'to stop'

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

If hospitals were sending people with the virus back to their care home without being tested it’s a separate scandal, but not because of what was written on the gov website. 

That's what they were doing. Why were they doing it? Because of lack of testing kits. Why was it particularly bad? because of lack of PPE and because of inability to isolate people in care homes and because it was the official policy up to 13 March to do it. All of that (and more) was the point of Starmer's question - about the government being complacent, doing too little too late. It's all related, rather than seperate in my view.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, snowychap said:

He said that what Starmer said was untrue when it apppears it very much wasn't and that Starmer was quoting from the Gov's own document.

It's as much 'political point scoring' as lying at the despatch box and it is, I hope, an indication of what Starmer intends to do each and every time Johnson is obviously guilty of 'giving inaccurate information'.

Perhaps, in time, it might get Johnson (and other representatives of the Government) from lying to Parliament which is an incredibly serious matter not just something to be waved away as insignificant.

I agree. I also think it's not so much political point scoring from Johnson as a reflex to just deny whatever. An inherent dishonesty and inability to take responsibility. If in doubt deny and lie, kind of thing.

[snowychap]

22 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Absolutely shameless.

Yep. Piss poor stuff from Johnson.

[VILLAMARV]

Pesky bed blockers eh?

Jebus. 

 

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

That's what they were doing. Why were they doing it? Because of lack of testing kits. Why was it particularly bad? because of lack of PPE and because of inability to isolate people in care homes and because it was the official policy up to 13 March to do it. All of that (and more) was the point of Starmer's question - about the government being complacent, doing too little too late. It's all related, rather than seperate in my view.

If this is the case then I expect it to come out in the fullness of time as it’s own scandal rather than an opinion here. It still remains true though that the hospitals weren’t discharging elderly patients back to care homes because the (out of context) government advice was that it was unlikely to spread. No doctor or nurse would do that.

I’ll say it again that Boris is a piece of shit, but there is also small level of dishonesty in this scenario by Starmer for cropping his first half of his quote. If he’d have included it all it would not have had nearly the same impact as it includes caveats to the statement.

[snowychap]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

I agree. I also think it's not so much political point scoring from Johnson as a reflex to just deny whatever. An inherent dishonesty and inability to take responsibility. If in doubt deny and lie, kind of thing.

I'd agree but it's not just limited to him - so many of the current and previous government were guilty of the same thing (for whichever of the reasons - point scoring or innate dishonesty): from Baker and Mogg to the standout merchant of mendacity that is Shapps.

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Yep. Piss poor stuff from Johnson.

Absolutely.

About the if you falsely deny, you don't learn thing I said earlier, I was wondering what an honest answer might have looked like, without being just a "lock me up now" confession.

He could have said something along the lines of "Many nations have struggled with care home deaths at high levels, and yes, all of us with hindsight wish we had done some things differently. All this will be examined calmly in the enquiry I mentioned previously and lessons can be learned for the future, I'm sure. But this isn't some unique issue that the UK has caused or been affected by. We are all trying to deal with an unprecedented threat to the health of all our citizens and making strenuous efforts to end this pandemic....

or something.

Maybe that's crap, I dunno, but it's better than lying.

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, Genie said:

If this is the case then I expect it to come out in the fullness of time as it’s own scandal rather than an opinion here. It still remains true though that the hospitals weren’t discharging elderly patients back to care homes because the (out of context) government advice was that it was unlikely to spread. No doctor or nurse would do that.

I’ll say it again that Boris is a piece of shit, but there is also small level of dishonesty in this scenario by Starmer for cropping his first half of his quote. If he’d have included it all it would not have had nearly the same impact as it includes caveats to the statement.

That's not the section (1) he was quoting, though the wording is similar.

 He was quoting this from a different section (7) of the Gov't webpage/document

Quote

During normal day-to-day activities facemasks do not provide protection from respiratory viruses, such as COVID-19 and do not need to be worn by staff in any of these settings. Facemasks are only recommended to be worn by infected individuals when advised by a healthcare worker, to reduce the risk of transmitting the infection to other people. It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected.

 

[Villarocker]

Starmer is cool, calm and collected. Johnson shoots from the hip. Their confrontations are going to be fun viewing over time. Right now, Johnson must be bricking it going up against him in Parliament. 

I hope that that Starmer persists with the request for the government to publish all the scientific guidance they've been following, it should be an interesting read. 

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by Villarocker

[blandy]

9 minutes ago, Genie said:

It still remains true though that the hospitals weren’t discharging elderly patients back to care homes because the (out of context) government advice was that it was unlikely to spread. No doctor or nurse would do that.

They did do that, the Gov't wanted to free up hospital space for the predicted wave of virus victims - same reason they made those Nightingale hossies. Same thing affected other nations.

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

They did do that, the Gov't wanted to free up hospital space for the predicted wave of virus victims - same reason they made those Nightingale hossies. Same thing affected other nations.

They returned elderly people with the virus back to care homes where it would spread to more people, to free up space for more people with the virus in the future?

and how is that linked to the government website?

Edited May 13, 2020 by Genie

[blandy]

15 minutes ago, Genie said:

They returned elderly people with the virus back to care homes where it would spread to more people, to free up space for more people with the virus in the future?

and how is that linked to the government website?

They did, yes. Bit of a mess, isn't it?

The testing or lack of it meant they didn't check if all the people they were sending back to free up hossie beds were infected.

It's linked to the Gov't website, because the Gov't website was laying down the Government's assessment/position that care home residents (and workers) were "unlikely" to catch the virus - in essence that there was no particular issue with care homes, rather than them being possibly the single most at risk places. The lack of PPE, the concentration of vulnerable people, the lack of social distancing and ability to isolate, the lack of highly trained staff  - the whole care home situation is and was struggling under cost cutting (both private and council run ones). The government overlooked/ignored this. There's loads more to it, but yeah, it's kind of hard to believe, I know.

Also it's linked to the website because the website shows the gov't felt up to 13 March that care homes were low risk places, which is the exact opposite of the reality. Had they been recognised as high risk, all the other stuff would have been handled differently - it's an indicator of the mistakes.

[VILLAMARV]

The government advice offered some framework for the triage decisions. Simple as that.

 

[It's Your Round]

Government advice is best taken with a spade full of salt, or caustic acid granules, or completely ignored. Which I guess is fine for those of us that can make informed decisions. But for the huge chunk of the U.K. that doesn’t know it’s arse from its elbow, the advice needs to be accurate and clear. 

[andym]

I believe although Starmer referenced section 7 in the commons, his letter then quoted the bit from section 1, which obviously has the 'intended for current position' bit.

However, surely the key points are that

1) Johnson said 'it wasn't true the advice said that', i.e it didn't say 'it remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home will become infected', when it did, and he's now actually quoting that in his rebuttal.

2) the defence from No.10 appears to be reliant on the apparent context provided by the 'intended for current position' bit, i.e. that the advice to care homes that they were unlikely to be infected was appropriate because there was currently no transmission in community.  

That advice remained until 12th March, when people were questioning why Cheltenham was going ahead that week, why Liverpool vs Atletico had gone ahead, when the severity of the situations in other countries was clearly apparent along with the fact it was heading our way. 

And yet the government position was, well it actually hasn't happened here yet, so no need to worry, and no need to do anything that might prevent the spread in the most vulnerable communities. And now tens of thousands are dead.

[DCJonah]

 

 

 

[Genie]

I think it’s pretty obvious that when a virus is going round that care homes are high risk. It doesn’t need the gov website to state it for people to act accordingly. 
The document the quote was lifted from included the caveat that it was based on there being no transmission in the community.

22 minutes ago, blandy said:

Also it's linked to the website because the website shows the gov't felt up to 13 March that care homes were low risk places, which is the exact opposite of the reality.

I just don’t accept that the wording causes doctors and nurses to act differently. It’s actually quite a strong accusation you (and @bickster) made suggesting that the NHS doctors and nurses were discharging sick elderly patients to care homes because of the website said they’d be ok. If the NHS were failing to treat patients against their better medical opinion then it’s something altogether more shocking.

There were tests in mid-March. My sister in law had one at her house by paramedics. My wife’s Gran was kept in quarantine in Heartlands because of a risk of having it in mid-March. She was later discharged once given the all clear.