Call me sceptical but !!!

[Velocette]

36 minutes ago, clangerman said:

this so say great job the government is doing how many people are now DEAD?maybe we should get a opinion from one of their loved ones on the government or maybe not as they are planning FUNERALS! 

If only I'd known how astute, far sighted and eloquent you are I'd have put my cross next to your name at the last election and we wouldn't be in all this trouble now, Not to mention the money you would have made selling rearward looking crystal balls !

[Danger-Mouse]

[panoma1]

14 minutes ago, hodge911 said:

Counting gloves as singles and not a pair so it would increase the numbers of ppe . . Not counting deaths in care ..... saying ppe was not a problem 

I have a close relative who is on the front line in one of the big hospitals in london that caught it due to the LACK of ppe when the government were saying there wasn't a shortage . Ect ect .

Everyone is allowed an opinion and if you believe that they have been completely upfront and honest during this covid19 pandemic than thats up to to you . I however believe they haven't ...

Medical PPE gloves come in boxes, they are not in pairs!.......they are single gloves that fit either left or right hand....why would anyone count them in pairs?

[millrace]

Easy when you actually carry out 70/80,000 but then add in the almost forty thousand you have sent out....not carried out and many of these may never actually be used....or used incorrectly!!!!

And!!...

bosh you,ve  exceeded your target!!!.....

Politicians....

[Retsdon]

1 hour ago, Norfolk wildfowler said:

WHY DID THE GOVERNMENT NOT KNOW , or did they but stuck their head in the sand hoping it would all blow over.

There was a plan .https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/344695/PI_Response_Plan_13_Aug.pdf 

Unfortunately, it was for a different disease. I'm  not critical of the slow response, because I think the government was badly advised by its 'scientific advisors', several of whom had had a hand in drawing up the 2014 plan linked to above, and were probably influenced by that. It's hard to abandon your own work.

That said, when looking at the crisis in Wuhan and the accelerating one in Italy it would be nice to think that someone, somewhere, in one of these COBRA meetings or whatever, would have asked the question, 'Are we sure that this is actually a kind of flu? Or is it something completely different?"  Was that question ever asked - and if so what was the response?

in any event, once the reality became clear that Covid-19 wasn't just some particularly virulent flu strain; that it was highly infectious; that there was no vaccine in the offing; that short of palliative care there was no treatment either and that unless the plan was abandoned an awful lot of people were going to to die, the government did change course - although there seems to be the impression that it's still just reactive stuff, and that as yet there's no clear goal or pathway to that goal been properly determined. I think poor young Matt Hancock has been handed the short straw and left to take the flack while more 'senior' cabinet ministers try and keep out of the firing line. Where's the Home Secretary in the biggest home crisis since WW2?  Disappeared! The Prime Minister (despite that I don't like him) at least has the excuse of having been hospitalized himself and is probably still not 100%. But the rest of the government seem to have gone into hiding completely. That's not right.

[Dave-G]

7 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

There was a plan .https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/344695/PI_Response_Plan_13_Aug.pdf 

Unfortunately, it was for a different disease. I'm  not critical of the slow response, because I think the government was badly advised by its 'scientific advisors', several of whom had had a hand in drawing up the 2014 plan linked to above, and were probably influenced by that. It's hard to abandon your own work.

That said, when looking at the crisis in Wuhan and the accelerating one in Italy it would be nice to think that someone, somewhere, in one of these COBRA meetings or whatever, would have asked the question, 'Are we sure that this is actually a kind of flu? Or is it something completely different?"  Was that question ever asked - and if so what was the response?

in any event, once the reality became clear that Covid-19 wasn't just some particularly virulent flu strain; that it was highly infectious; that there was no vaccine in the offing; that short of palliative care there was no treatment either and that unless the plan was abandoned an awful lot of people were going to to die, the government did change course - although there seems to be the impression that it's still just reactive stuff, and that as yet there's no clear goal or pathway to that goal been properly determined. I think poor young Matt Hancock has been handed the short straw and left to take the flack while more 'senior' cabinet ministers try and keep out of the firing line. Where's the Home Secretary in the biggest home crisis since WW2?  Disappeared! The Prime Minister (despite that I don't like him) at least has the excuse of having been hospitalized himself and is probably still not 100%. But the rest of the government seem to have gone into hiding completely. That's not right.

Or maybe have the virus but don't want it to be news.

 

[JohnfromUK]

59 minutes ago, Mice! said:

The important thing is that the tests are accurate. 

....... and I think therein lies the problem.  I read various reports about 'accuracy', notably false negatives (possibly due to the swab not connecting with the virus containing mucus enough), or possibly because those who are 'asymptomatic' may have very low viral loads.  Also (like an MoT test), it is a result 'at that instant' and it is apparently possible to be already infected, but not yet showing or having sufficient virus present to be swabbed.  Overall, it seems a bit 'suspect' for reliability as a screen for being 'virus free'.  I worry about the 'home administered tests because apparently it is necessary to put the swab down the tonsils to an extent that is very unpleasant - and up the nostril to an extent that is (for some people) painful.

Nevertheless - huge progress in getting the volume up has been made in a very short time - and that is worthy of praise.  Whether it is 100,000 is largely irrelevant to any other than those looking to permanently criticise, political point score and carp about government 'deficiencies' and missed opportunities.  We now have vastly more tests than we had - and more coming - and that is seen as the reason some other countries have had good results in containment and key to 'contact tracking and tracing (which has the lefty liberals working up a head of steam over privacy).

To me, it seems that the real test we need is the antibody test - to see who has the much hoped for immunity.  It is not clear to me quite where we are on that one.

13 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

I think poor young Matt Hancock has been handed the short straw and left to take the flack

On a lighter note - his performances in the daily briefings are now known as "Hancock's Half Hour".

[clangerman]

34 minutes ago, Velocette said:

If only I'd known how astute, far sighted and eloquent you are I'd have put my cross next to your name at the last election and we wouldn't be in all this trouble now, Not to mention the money you would have made selling rearward looking crystal balls !

it takes no talent or brains to know you shut a island down on day ONE doh! as for taking on the job they all been in power during my lifetime and have all done the same lined their own pockets at the voters expense hence why i never voted in my life 

[London Best]

I always said, “don’t vote, it only encourages them.”

[Retsdon]

1 hour ago, JohnfromUK said:

On a lighter note - his performances in the daily briefings are now known as "Hancock's Half Hour".

Are they? That's funny. Strangely topical though because I changed out a couple of CDs in car last week without really looking what I was feeding into the CD player, and found myself listening to Hancock's Half Hour. 'Back from Holiday' was the first one up - containing the immortal line (about French food) '...just the look of it was enough! Even the dog closed his eyes when I gave it to him.' 

[Walker570]

Can't argue with the dog.

[Norfolk wildfowler]

2 hours ago, JDog said:

And another one. Where does PW dredge these people up from?

What do you mean by that!!!

 

[Norfolk wildfowler]

2 hours ago, Vince Green said:

They are not porkies they are just a chronicle of how the picture changed over time as things emerged, and are still changing for that matter. I think they are doing a pretty good job in a very difficult time.  But I do agree Corbyn would have been a disaster

But 2 months too late. we all or should have known what was coming why did not the  Government act while there was time to reduce the impact of

 this virus. If I had to guess , they did not want to spend the money. Well this is going to cost them and us a hell of a lot more. Incompetent is only part of the hash Boris has made.

[Norfolk wildfowler]

1 hour ago, Retsdon said:

There was a plan .https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/344695/PI_Response_Plan_13_Aug.pdf 

Unfortunately, it was for a different disease. I'm  not critical of the slow response, because I think the government was badly advised by its 'scientific advisors', several of whom had had a hand in drawing up the 2014 plan linked to above, and were probably influenced by that. It's hard to abandon your own work.

That said, when looking at the crisis in Wuhan and the accelerating one in Italy it would be nice to think that someone, somewhere, in one of these COBRA meetings or whatever, would have asked the question, 'Are we sure that this is actually a kind of flu? Or is it something completely different?"  Was that question ever asked - and if so what was the response?

in any event, once the reality became clear that Covid-19 wasn't just some particularly virulent flu strain; that it was highly infectious; that there was no vaccine in the offing; that short of palliative care there was no treatment either and that unless the plan was abandoned an awful lot of people were going to to die, the government did change course - although there seems to be the impression that it's still just reactive stuff, and that as yet there's no clear goal or pathway to that goal been properly determined. I think poor young Matt Hancock has been handed the short straw and left to take the flack while more 'senior' cabinet ministers try and keep out of the firing line. Where's the Home Secretary in the biggest home crisis since WW2?  Disappeared! The Prime Minister (despite that I don't like him) at least has the excuse of having been hospitalized himself and is probably still not 100%. But the rest of the government seem to have gone into hiding completely. That's not right.

No I am talking about Corvid 19. I certainly knew by mid January what was coming just by watching news programs both here and across the world. In January I had told my son to cancel his Ibiza holiday. I said to him you might get there , but you will have trouble getting back. 2 weeks before Boris and co announced a lock-down I was already doing isolation, but what was Boris saying , sing happy birthday twice as you wash your hands. God who was the man talking to, kids. He could not have cared less or he would not have missed the first 5 Cobra meeting on the virus. Who does he think the UK public are , kids. Now he has had a dose of the virus he does seem a  little less flippant and has at least part of his mind on the job. Time will tell.

[Westley]

1 hour ago, clangerman said:

it takes no talent or brains to know you shut a island down on day ONE doh! as for taking on the job they all been in power during my lifetime and have all done the same lined their own pockets at the voters expense hence why i never voted in my life 

No surprise there then  ??     

[toontastic]

12 hours ago, clangerman said:

this so say great job the government is doing how many people are now DEAD?

27,000. But listening to the news today they discussed some of the dead, one of them was 78 and had serious lung/breathing problems. But they put his death down as covid 19, yet in many other countries they don't class it as a covid death as they are only count them as covid death if there are no other serious illnesses. Our response can only really be compared to other countries if everyone uses the same measurements.

[Vince Green]

1 minute ago, Norfolk wildfowler said:

But 2 months too late. we all or should have known what was coming why did not the  Government act while there was time to reduce the impact of

 this virus. If I had to guess , they did not want to spend the money. Well this is going to cost them and us a hell of a lot more. Incompetent is only part of the hash Boris has made.

If you are so clever why aren't you the prime minister? Easy to criticise, Jeremy Corbyn has made a career out of it 

[Lloyd90]

You can be tested clear and catch the virus 5 mins later... or already be carrying it and get a false negative ... apparently some 30% of tests are false negatives. 
 

I’m not sure why people are so concerned with testing. 
 

Irs a world wide pandemic I think any country keeping their head above the water is doing amazingly well. 
 

I also think thank your lucky stars that we are from the U.K. ... a country that is able to just borrow billions of pounds at the drop of a hat due to our county’s reputation and financial systems. 
 

There will be a number of countries out there who wish they had the means to just pay everyone to stay at home but can’t. 
 

It’s easy to sit in the sidelines and say what a shambles of a job the Government is doing... everyone who normally spends their entire weekend down the pub ******* their lives up the wall could apparently do a better job! 

[toontastic]

12 hours ago, hodge911 said:

Counting gloves as singles and not a pair so it would increase the numbers of ppe . . Not counting deaths in care ..... saying ppe was not a problem 

I have a close relative who is on the front line in one of the big hospitals in london that caught it due to the LACK of ppe

As someone has already pointed out gloves have always been counted as single gloves, that is why on the boxes it says 100 gloves and not 50 pairs. So that rubbishes your claim that they are doing it to increase numbers.

On care home deaths, many other countries don't count deaths in care. They also don't count deaths of people who were already seriously ill. That is one of the reasons some countries have suspiciously low death rates.

As someone said on the news today, if Boris personally discovered a cure for cancer people would still complain that it took him too long.

[scutt]

    although joe public was kept in the dark many times during ww11 we came thru .

T.B.O. most of us are not that daft to think that the Gov tells us the whole truth .

But even with all the flak from the critics they do come across as calm and in control and this aint a bad thing.

[JohnfromUK]

12 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

I’m not sure why people are so concerned with testing.

I agree entirely with your question and point about false negatives and being 'a point in time'.  It puzzles me as well.   I think the answer lies in that those countries that have (apparently from their own statistics) done well - have had in place and have claimed their low cases and rapid control is due to a rigorous testing regime.

Two of the best performers have been New Zealand and Australia.  I am not aware that they have a lot of testing, but there are other factors there - they have been in their 'warm' season, they have low population densities, low(ish) average ages I suspect, and probably well educated and 'health aware' populations - but that is simply my own reading of their reasons.  I hope things don't turn bad for them as weather cools off.

Edited May 2, 2020 by JohnfromUK

[Raja Clavata]

13 hours ago, panoma1 said:

Why would the number be of importance? As long as its going up? The government have increased the testing exponentially!....the only people it matters to is people with an agenda, who want to criticise the government!

The government have done a great job in getting the number of tests over the 100k mar, even if the numbers may have been massaged a little, but there's no branch of mathematics or statistics that supports the rate of growth of tests being anywhere near exponential. Good steady upward trend, yes.

Unrelated but the one thing that gets my goat at the moment is the retort that things would be worse if Labour were in, whilst it's undeniably true, it's not relevant because they aren't 🙄

Being better than the other lot, who would be worse, does not make you good.

[islandgun]

31 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

You can be tested clear and catch the virus 5 mins later... or already be carrying it and get a false negative ... apparently some 30% of tests are false negatives. 
 

I’m not sure why people are so concerned with testing. 
 

 

Exactly Lloyd, surely the emphasis should/have been placed on those in the front line especially care home workers [as the old are the most vulnerable] and nurses....... the rest can wait...........hey ho, hindsight is a wonderful thing 

[JohnfromUK]

24 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Unrelated but the one thing that gets my goat at the moment is the retort that things would be worse if Labour were in, whilst it's undeniably true, it's not relevant because they aren't

I think for the reasons for this comment - you need to wind back 6 months or so when we were looking at a December election. 

There was from the opinion polls a distinct possibility of a hung parliament - in which whoever could form a coalition would take power.  With allies who were both broadly left (SNP, various 'Change UK' and derivatives, most LibDems), - the Labour Party were more likely to get a Labour led coalition.   That very much worried many people including me - not least because the Labour leadership were very far left of any previous Labour Government - and some had demonstrated very questionable competence.

In the event, the Tories won with a large majority. 

However since then many (not talking this forum, but country wide) have been continuously looking for all possible 'slip ups', mistakes, etc., many shown by hindsight made by the Johnson administration.  There was a BBC Panorama relating to Covid and especially shortfalls in the supply of PPE which included a series of interviews - all critical of the government - from several 'medical professionals'.  It was highly critical and on subsequent investigations - it seems that ALL of the interviewees had strong labour/trades union/left connections - one even having stood as  a Labour candidate in various forms.  The political backgrounds of the interviewees was not mentioned, but it seems the BBC was far off its duty to be impartial.  I appreciate this is the Mail, so not exactly impartial itself, but https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8270999/How-Panorama-infiltrated-Left-BBC-interviewed-five-medics-Labour-links-PPE.html

This is why the 'politics' isn't really irrelevant and in me anyway (though I don't think I've expressed it in these forums) this does invoke a feeling of 'thank goodness Labour didn't take power'.  Both the BBC and the medical profession are seen by much of the public as having left leanings at present - and when they get together .....

For the record, I think that the present government are doing pretty well overall, and as always hindsight says they could have done better.  However - things (by whoever was in power) could also have been very much worse.

Edited May 2, 2020 by JohnfromUK

[hodge911]

12 hours ago, panoma1 said:

Medical PPE gloves come in boxes, they are not in pairs!.......they are single gloves that fit either left or right hand....why would anyone count them in pairs?

You dont see many 1 handed Drs /surgeons its all in the way the government manipulates the information it gives the public . Its on news now they counted tests that were "sent out but not received back " so how the heck can they count them when there's the possibility of a percentage not being sent back , getting damaged in transit & so on .