The right people for the job

[Retsdon]

At work our students have all gone home and within 4  days we're having to go wholly onto online teaching and grading. We've a pretty big department  - 80 odd teachers - and for some guys who haven't used the online teaching formats and software much (or even at all in some cases) the learning curve is a steep one. And that includes some of the middle management. So from today a totally new emergency team has been assembled to help everyone get up to speed. The old coordinators whose expertise was teaching or testing are taking a back seat, and they're being replaced (at least for the meantime) by new guys whose expertise is in computer software and how to get the best from it. 

Which has got me thinking about this corona virus thing. I watched the press conference with Boris Johnson, Chris Wittey (the Chief Medical Officer) and Vallance (the Chief Scientific Adviser) and quite honestly it didn't inspire confidence. I don't like Johnson but that's not the point. It didn't inspire confidence because it seemed to me that none of them was qualified to deal with what needs to be done. And that's because Johnson is a politician whose expertise is in selling a message, and the other two are book-learned scientists. But this virus thing isn't a scientific or political problem - or at least not a word-based political problem like Johnson is expert at. Everyone knows what's coming down the pike. Lots of people are going to get infected and the bottleneck is going to be the provision of critical health care - mainly breathing assistance in the form of ventilators and oxygen. We're not talking heart surgery here. We're talking the availability of a particular and foreseeable remedy on a large scale. So at heart it's properly a logistics problem - and so never mind the scientific experts. They're the wrong people for the job. The people you really need to fight this epidemic and save lives would be a top notch logistics guys with disaster experience - the sort of person who flies in after an earthquake or a tsunami and, against the clock,  sets up and oversees the relief effort. 

If were Johnson this is what I'd do. I'd appoint such a person or people even if I had to take them from the military or high level NGOs. I'd give them sweeping powers to take on people (volunteers, drivers, cooks, whatever. I'd give them powers to requisition buildings to set up dedicated corona virus care 'hospitals'  - perhaps in leisure centres or on military bases. I'd give them powers to purchase the necessary field hospital style equipment and to take on people to oversee the installation and set up. As for staffing these places, a lot of the basic work could be done by dividing tasks between volunteers or quickly trained assistants who would be responsible for only one or two things over a larger number of beds and patients, thus limiting the training needed and spreading the work load, freeing up properly qualified medical staff to deal with the very highly critical cases.

Of course, the argument arises that all this might prove to a waste of effort and money because the epidemic never materializes. I would say, never mind. There's no political downside at all to being over prepared, and to any opposition politician who griped about the cost, the question 'what price would you have put on people's lives?' kills the criticism stone dead. But if the epidemic does come about, being prepared and tackling it as well as possible would earn massive political kudos. 

A bit of leadership is all that's lacking.

 

[Smokersmith]

Isn't the government following the expert advice of the CMO … Wittey?

[udderlyoffroad]

To paraphrase the above, an academic starts armchair generalling/keyboard warrioring about people with a lack of hands on experience at the top?

You owe me a new irony klaxon Retsdon, mine’s exploded 😁

But in all seriousness, I tend to agree.

But don’t forget experienced logisticians/disaster management types will likely delegate the task of appearing in front of the press to their political masters, whilst they get on with the task at hand. At least I hope that’s the case.

 

[hedge]

"Behind every politician are several people who actually know what they are talking about"

*allegedly

[stumfelter]

We'd end up with capt mainwaring.....

[Gordon R]

Luckily Boris has Dominic Cummings, to whom he has allegedly given too much power already.

Whatever the Government does, there will be those who say it isn't enough or they overreacted.

[Westward]

Well it strikes me that there's no one anywhere who has much of a clue about how the infections will spread & develop or what action to take. Governments, whatever their stripe, have to rely on advice from people with appropriate expertise in order to make decisions but when the Chief Medical Officer says one thing and his deputy says another, it sounds like everyone's just groping.  It's all very well reacting to an outbreak by locking down a city or a country but they will have to open the doors again sometime and what happens then?

[turbo33]

I watched Tyson Fury last night. The upshot of his fight with Deontay Wilder, is that he had to get the right trainer to win the battle and secure his title, this by letting go, what his father felt was a trainer not adequate enough for  that which was  required. We know the result.

I agree with Retsdon, this is where we are.

[Retsdon]

The famous 4 stage strategy.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2020 by Retsdon

[Lloyd90]

You can have all the volunteers you want but if it does spread rapidly there won’t be enough ventilators, beds, breathing masks or oxygen to go around, and the minute we start trying to buy in those medical resources in great numbers, so do all the other big nations. 
 

It’ll be the toilet paper dash on a global scale. 
 

 

[old man]

20 hours ago, hedge said:

"Behind every politician are several people who actually know what they are talking about"

*allegedly

Please prove it?

[hedge]

15 minutes ago, old man said:

Please prove it?

I can't! 🙁

[old man]

1 hour ago, hedge said:

I can't! 🙁

I guessed that.

[grrclark]

Your point is a fair one Retsdon, but let's say the press conference was BoJo and Colonel CJ Francis of the Royal Logistics Corps, undoubtably one of the finest logistics bodies anywhere, let alone the UK.

Would people take comfort from a politician and a soldier on guidance that is still fundamentally about epidemiology and medical science right now?

People take comfort from the chief medical officer and chief scientist because they are subject matter experts about the big public question right now.  You can bet your boots that behind the scenes there are going to be very many experts across all aspects of this, including said Colonel and his staff.

Of course as we live in a real time world there will be people from various points in the supply chain bleating about how they have heard nothing, because proper planning does take time, the message to be distributed has to be right and the public stage management has to happen when everyman and their dog is clamouring for some nugget of information that will make them feel better and safer.

Because it isn't immediately visible does not mean that it isn't happening.  There are briefings going on at all levels throughout national and local government, but it takes time for a message to cascade so because some exec' from a superstore or some GPs/headteachers are bleating on about not hearing anything doesn't mean that nothing is happening, just that the message has not got to them yet.

Sadly unstructured noise, i.e. media headlines, soundbites and social media gossip, travels a lot faster then coherent, considered and structured guidance that is partly reactive to an evolving situation.

Edited March 12, 2020 by grrclark

[Retsdon]

25 minutes ago, grrclark said:

Would people take comfort from a politician and a soldier

I think they would if they were talked to like adults. One of my biggest beefs with modern politicians is the way they talk down to people. That Johnson fireside chat was structured as if he and the Harries woman were addressing young children or complete simpletons. What's wrong with telling people the truth - and more importantly, giving them a 'stake' (as the modern parlance goes) in the battle against this epidemic? I agree with what this man's saying. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/health-expert-brands-uks-coronavirus-response-pathetic .

It's not about being on the right or left of the political spectrum, because they're each as bad as the other and if Corbyn had won the election he too would be baby -talking to people. Rather It's about treating people like grown-ups. Let them know what's happening. Let them know what they're facing. Tell them what they can do to help and try and bring the whole country onside. Instead it's like  - how can we spin this?

It's not good enough.

[Smokersmith]

Heard the revised advice ... and analysis from an epidemiologist on R4.

Seems to make sense to me.

Boris hasn’t sugar coated it at all.

[grrclark]

1 hour ago, Retsdon said:

I think they would if they were talked to like adults. One of my biggest beefs with modern politicians is the way they talk down to people. That Johnson fireside chat was structured as if he and the Harries woman were addressing young children or complete simpletons. What's wrong with telling people the truth - and more importantly, giving them a 'stake' (as the modern parlance goes) in the battle against this epidemic? I agree with what this man's saying. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/health-expert-brands-uks-coronavirus-response-pathetic .

It's not about being on the right or left of the political spectrum, because they're each as bad as the other and if Corbyn had won the election he too would be baby -talking to people. Rather It's about treating people like grown-ups. Let them know what's happening. Let them know what they're facing. Tell them what they can do to help and try and bring the whole country onside. Instead it's like  - how can we spin this?

It's not good enough.

The blunt truth is that you are a smart fella and can process complex and grown up news, vast swathes of our population are just not bright enough.

It is an arrogant thing to say, but a big percentage of our populace is thick.  No matter how many times you tell them, you can demonstrate, you can break it down simply, try to go into detail, all the same it is like trying to educate wood.

Stop thinking emotionally and start thinking critically and objectively.

[Retsdon]

23 minutes ago, grrclark said:

vast swathes of our population are just not bright enough.

I'm sorry but I think you're exaggerating here. I don't think it has to do with intelligence. Rather, I think it's about expectations and experience. I"d posit that since the finish of WW2 most adults in the UK (and the west in general come to that) have never had to deal with real life-changing adversity. Most people under the age of about 50 have never suffered a serious bereavement, or gone really hungry or lost their homes, etc, etc,. Of course some have,  but not enough of them that their experience colours the national narrative. People have grown up with the expectation that life will be sweet - or at least not chaotic - and politicians have come to think that they are duty bound to maintain this narrative even in the face of contrary circumstances.

But really at the end of the day, sooner or later there'll be a reversion to the norm and I think most people in their hearts know that. If Johnson, instead of flannelling with the Harries woman had laid it on the line and told people that basically the country is faced with a crisis of real, war like dimensions; that emergency measures would be needed; that people would need to put aside personal concerns and offer their best to get through what was going to be a very difficult period  - the worse since the Blitz ...people would have listened, understood, and responded.

Like they say in the military, there's no such thing as bad troops - just bad commanding officers.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Retsdon

[Smokersmith]

15 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

If Johnson, instead of flannelling with the Harries woman had laid it on the line and told people that basically the country is faced with a crisis

Did you not see him this evening?

[Retsdon]

1 hour ago, Smokersmith said:

Did you not see him this evening?

I watched Johnson and his medical sidekick. It's still all about spinning the narrative of what, in the absence of some properly and determined proactive intervention, will be an inevitable unfolding of events.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Retsdon

[stumfelter]

1 hour ago, Retsdon said:

I'm sorry but I think you're exaggerating here. I don't think it has to do with intelligence. Rather, I think it's about expectations and experience. I"d posit that since the finish of WW2 most adults in the UK (and the west in general come to that) have never had to deal with real life-changing adversity. Most people under the age of about 50 have never suffered a serious bereavement, or gone really hungry or lost their homes, etc, etc,. Of course some have,  but not enough of them that their experience colours the national narrative. People have grown up with the expectation that life will be sweet - or at least not chaotic - and politicians have come to think that they are duty bound to maintain this narrative even in the face of contrary circumstances.

But really at the end of the day, sooner or later there'll be a reversion to the norm and I think most people in their hearts know that. If Johnson, instead of flannelling with the Harries woman had laid it on the line and told people that basically the country is faced with a crisis of real, war like dimensions; that emergency measures would be needed; that people would need to put aside personal concerns and offer their best to get through what was going to be a very difficult period  - the worse since the Blitz ...people would have listened, understood, and responded.

Like they say in the military, there's no such thing as bad troops - just bad commanding officers.

Who said it's going to be the worst period since the blitz?