Scathing attack on government Covid-19 response

I have to say, seeing the Health Secretary doing the rounds of the TV stations on Sunday morning, basically begging British industry to switch production into ventilators did little to inspire confidence. They’ve had 2 months to plan the country’s response to this virus and it’s taken them until now to realise that we might need more ventilators? That should have been one of the first things they thought of.

People started panic buying loo roll 2 weeks ago. Ventilators are the NHS’s ‘loo roll’ in this situation, which just goes to prove that the average man or woman in the street could do a better job of planning for this than the Government is doing.
 
Billy Horner said:
People started panic buying loo roll 2 weeks ago. Ventilators are the NHS’s ‘loo roll’ in this situation, which just goes to prove that the average man or woman in the street could do a better job of planning for this than the Government is doing.
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As per the Alan Cochrane stand up sketch I posted before

“being the prime minister must be the worse job in he world. Everyone thinks they can do it better. “He’s useless this bloke I could do that job better standing on my head” ..... “Who?, you? Your standing in a weatherspoons, at 10am, drinking. Wearing a tracksuit.......with shoes”

See above
 
Cooper6711 said:
As per the Alan Cochrane stand up sketch I posted before

“being the prime minister must be the worse job in he world. Everyone thinks they can do it better. “He’s useless this bloke I could do that job better standing on my head” ..... “Who?, you? Your standing in a weatherspoons, at 10am, drinking. Wearing a tracksuit.......with shoes”

See above
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Even the people in Wetherspoons at 10am, who may well have only heard that we’re facing a public health emergency this week, immediately thought to themselves “What basic supplies do I need - I’d better get them in straight away before everyone else buys them”.

This virus even has the acronym SARS in its name. So the clue’s in its name, it can cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The Government knew we’ve only got 5000 ventilators at the start of this situation and it shouldn’t have taken them this long to think the sane thing as the people in Wetherspoons.
 
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I agree it wouldn’t matter what Boris did, he would be criticised no matter what.

I think it’s fair that if you fly in the face of the rest of the world you will face criticism. Especially when you don’t fully disclose the science/models that you are using

You would never know if you overreacted and of had any effect, but you will know if you under-reacted. I know which camp I would want to sit in
 
bear66 said:
Germany has 5x more per head than the UK and have already ordered 10,000 more. I'm guessing we tried to order some but the order books were already full.
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I’m sure that’s true. The question is though, given that we have so few ventilators in this country, at which point did it dawn on the Government that they should order some more? If it had been several weeks ago, as it should have been, I’m pretty sure that the order books wouldn’t have been full.
 
You're probably right. Italy have also ordered 5000 as well as many other countries. There are only a few companies that make these devices and these are annual production figures for those companies.

Hopefully by turning to UK manufacturing companies we are adopting a novel approach to getting world manufacturing up, but it'll be a long time before any great numbers come off the production line.

Next I need an operating manual pdf so I can be prepared to run one when called up.
 
When you choose to march to a different beat to the majority then people will question you, and the Wetherspoon’s analogy is a pretty snobbish and inaccurate one, it’s people from all walks of life, some with far greater expertise in this area than the Government, asking legitimate questions and expressing valid concerns of why the dissonance of our policy with other countries with similar figures.

To suggest that it is only badly dressed morning drinkers who are questioning the validity of the policy is crass and shows a level of myopia that fails to hold those in office to account.

The government might well be right, but the answers they are giving and the actions they are undertaking are unclear and potentially leaving a lot of people unnecessarily vulnerable in the opinion of many ‘experts’ within a wide range of fields, what is the exception in the UK to the rest of Europe and what benefits will our policies give us over countries that have been more draconian in their measures ?

If it was a government of a different rosette in power I’d be asking the same questions had they adopted the same stance.
 
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That all makes some sense but how do you stop the spike when we quarantine at a later date with more people carrying and evidence that having it once does not lead to immunity so people will potentially have secondary infection ?
 
Even from the considered opinions expressed here from what are clearly some well educated posters, it seems apparent that there is so much that is not known about the transmission vectors of this virus and of the chances of reinfection.
I would say that erring on the side of caution is commonsense and if that turns out to have been overly reactive then the cost may well be a financial one rather than one that sees huge losses of life.
Much better than being the other way around.
 
dooderooni said:
Even from the considered opinions expressed here from what are clearly some well educated posters, it seems apparent that there is so much that is not known about the transmission vectors of this virus and of the chances of reinfection.
I would say that erring on the side of caution is commonsense and if that turns out to have been overly reactive then the cost may well be a financial one rather than one that sees huge losses of life.
Much better than being the other way around.
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Adi_Dem said:
This is a hugely flawed analogy. Not worth anyone's time.
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American_Mary said:
That all makes some sense but how do you stop the spike when we quarantine at a later date with more people carrying and evidence that having it once does not lead to immunity so people will potentially have secondary infection ?
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You're all fabulous posters but have you seen the leaked footage of Wuhan from the past couple of days...

They've been locked down and it's not stopped it at all.. the Chinese government have stopped counting new cases.. our media are complicit with holding them up as having solved it, it's just not true. Locking down now will just lead to shortages of food and supplies later. You need to start thinking critically.
 
Alvez_48 said:
You're all fabulous posters but have you seen the leaked footage of Wuhan from the past couple of days...

They've been locked down and it's not stopped it at all.. the Chinese government have stopped counting new cases.. our media are complicit with holding them up as having solved it, it's just not true. Locking down now will just lead to shortages of food and supplies later. You need to start thinking critically.
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If that is the case Alvez, and I don’t doubt you, then Governments and Health Organisations need to get that information into the public domain and try and formulate an alternative coherent plan, my understanding that early isolation and firebreaking the spread was having a positive impact, if that isn’t the case then it does seem we’re very much in the lap of fate with this outbreak.
 
Just search Jennifer Zeng Wuhan on Twitter and watch the video of the ambulance. It looks pretty real to me but then I just don't know anything anymore.
 
Alvez_48 said:
You're all fabulous posters but have you seen the leaked footage of Wuhan from the past couple of days...

They've been locked down and it's not stopped it at all.. the Chinese government have stopped counting new cases.. our media are complicit with holding them up as having solved it, it's just not true. Locking down now will just lead to shortages of food and supplies later. You need to start thinking critically.
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I have. What do you think this leaked footage proves?

I am thinking very critically. Unless or until we start a proper and full testing regime and can be satisfied that having it once builds an immunity then the only strategy that makes sense to me is lockdown. If we don't our NHS will inevitably be overwhelmed. Lock down buys time. Failing to act without knowing what we are dealing with is ridiculously risky. And unless or until our government comes out and explains their strategy and the science it is based on they will continue to leave room for social media to fill in the blanks. Leadership is what is required here and it has been absent thus far.
 
Not denying that Boris is doing sweet feck all and that we should be testing better but the point is lock down is not seemingly stopping it.

But lockdown does stop production of food, resources and cause whatever is left of the economy to fall over... This then causes more shortages, panic and death. Do you understand my point?
 
Alvez_48 said:
Not denying that Boris is doing sweet feck all and that we should be testing better but the point is lock down is not seemingly stopping it.

But lockdown does stop production of food, resources and cause whatever is left of the economy to fall over... This then causes more shortages, panic and death. Do you understand my point?
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Lockdown isn't stopping it based on a few videos that have been leaked without any time stamp or other information attached to them? Look at Taiwan for another country in which these sorts of measures have worked.
 
Ok fair enough.. you may be right but it doesn't change the point that there is also a risk to locking down something that needs to be acknowledged.
 
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