[COVID-19] General Discussion

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Why did you feel the need to remove the middle sentence?

Didn't fit with your #FakeNews agenda there Donnie?

I was just trying to highlight the parts of it I was talking about because you obviously couldn't see them.

And what are you on about haha, fake news about what? Also why are you trying to call me Trump?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Suggesting the prime minister shouldn't be tested when exhibiting symptoms is up there with putting your pants on your head, two pencils up your nose and only saying "Wibble"

 

[ncurd]

Plus you do realise (and it doesn't matter in context if he should be tested or not) ******* Dominic Raab is in charge if Boris does become unable to govern....

 

[Amiga500]

I was just trying to highlight the parts of it I was talking about because you obviously couldn't see them.

And what are you on about haha, fake news about what? Also why are you trying to call me Trump?

So the bit I felt most important - if the useless c**t was incapacitated we might have someone of competence in charge - got omitted to fit your world view?

 

[Amiga500]

Suggesting the prime minister shouldn't be tested when exhibiting symptoms is up there with putting your pants on your head, two pencils up your nose and only saying "Wibble"

What change has it made? Anyone else across the country with symptoms has been self-isolating without a test.

Once you get past "its the Prime Minister" - and look at the mechanics of it - its the same as most other office jobs across the country. Can be done remotely.

Why did Boris need a test to heed his own haphazard advice?


Anyway - its a weak argument I have as they'd probably consider it important for morale. [Although my morale would be sky high if half the cabinet couldn't get out of their bed tomorrow morning and they were replaced with folks fit for the job]

 

[Amiga500]

Plus you do realise (and it doesn't matter in context if he should be tested or not) ******* Dominic Raab is in charge if Boris does become unable to govern....

Ugh.

Yeah. Perhaps he'd shut Dover to stop the virus getting in.

Its not like we get anything else through Dover or anything.

F88k me how did such a shower get elected in...?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Once you get past "its the Prime Minister"

You don't get past that, though.

Look I can't stand the arsehole either, but it was 100% the right call to test him, just as it would be the right call to test Trump if he came down with a fever etc.

Just because the tests aren't available to everyone doesn't mean they shouldn't be available to anyone but those on their deathbeds.

If I had a fever I could get a test too - because I tick a bunch of other boxes on their danger list. I imagine BoJo would too considering how much he's travelled and who he's come into contact with recently.

 

[Amiga500]

If I had a fever I could get a test too - because I tick a bunch of other boxes on their danger list.

You might be surprised - I'm hearing from elsewhere of people with obvious symptoms in risk groups getting every test under the sun... apart from covid-19. They even ask where is the covid test and get told "we aren't there yet".

Logically, the infectious disease that could put the health workers in attendance at risk should be the first thing tested.


I've a horrible feeling Boris, Cummings and the rest of the circus trying to play perceptions with numbers. Which is another reason I'd love the fucker to be laid up in bed and unable to cause further harm.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

This has all turned quite nasty in here. I dislike Johnson a lot too but he is the PM and it is fully expected that members of the government would get priority in testing, this is not an outrageous concept.

 

[Amiga500]

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public#number-of-cases

113,777 tested at 2020-03-27 @ 09:00

Working back to the start of March, that is ~4000 a day.

Looking around papers etc, as of 3 days it looks like the ceiling is around 5500 per day.

That is pitiful. Considering there were around 3,000 new cases diagnosed yesterday - and no doubt most of them ended up in hospital, testing is shambolic.

Would the government respond to a FOI request detailing how many tests there have been for corona virus which turned up a positive result of someone who wasn't subsequently admitted to hospital?

 

[Amiga500]

This has all turned quite nasty in here. I dislike Johnson a lot too but he is the PM and it is fully expected that members of the government would get priority in testing, this is not an outrageous concept.

My nastiness isn't getting people killed.

Unfortunately, that useless c**t in Downing Street is.


You are getting the politicians you deserve if you think Bozo's performance is acceptable or tolerable.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

My nastiness isn't getting people killed.

Unfortunately, that useless c**t in Downing Street is.


You are getting the politicians you deserve if you think Bozo's performance is acceptable or tolerable.

Its very easy to take cheap pot shots, hurl abuse and say anyone else would have done better.

Of course mistakes have been made, but Johnson, and other world leaders, are facing an issue of unprecedented magnitude in peacetime. It's incredibly complex and must be phenomenally stressful. There's no rule book for this and monumental decisions are having to be made on the hoof without the luxury of time to research and really think things through.

We only have a tiny insight into all the factors that these people are having to wrestle with. Asserting that others would have done a better job is laughably without foundation. Precisely whose CV suggests they would have handled this better?

Dislike Johnson all you like, I'm no great fan, but he's our PM and is doing his damnedest. I'm bloody sure that no-one in positions of power is sleeping easily knowing that the decisions they are having to take will determine whether people live or die and may tank the economy for years.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Its very easy to take cheap pot shots, hurl abuse and say anyone else would have done better.

Of course mistakes have been made, but Johnson, and other world leaders, are facing an issue of unprecedented magnitude in peacetime. It's incredibly complex and must be phenomenally stressful. There's no rule book for this and monumental decisions are having to be made on the hoof without the luxury of time to research and really think things through.

We only have a tiny insight into all the factors that these people are having to wrestle with. Asserting that others would have done a better job is laughably without foundation. Precisely whose CV suggests they would have handled this better?

Dislike Johnson all you like, I'm no great fan, but he's our PM and is doing his damnedest. I'm bloody sure that no-one in positions of power is sleeping easily knowing that the decisions they are having to take will determine whether people live or die and may tank the economy for years.

100% agree with all of this!

 

[ncurd]

I'm bloody sure that no-one in positions of power is sleeping easily knowing that the decisions they are having to take will determine whether people live or die and may tank the economy for years.

I'll be honest I'm unsure about Trump on this front...I'm not even convinced he really understands the magnitude of what's happening.

 

[Yoshimitsu]

Its very easy to take cheap pot shots, hurl abuse and say anyone else would have done better.

Of course mistakes have been made, but Johnson, and other world leaders, are facing an issue of unprecedented magnitude in peacetime. It's incredibly complex and must be phenomenally stressful. There's no rule book for this and monumental decisions are having to be made on the hoof without the luxury of time to research and really think things through.

We only have a tiny insight into all the factors that these people are having to wrestle with. Asserting that others would have done a better job is laughably without foundation. Precisely whose CV suggests they would have handled this better?

Dislike Johnson all you like, I'm no great fan, but he's our PM and is doing his damnedest. I'm bloody sure that no-one in positions of power is sleeping easily knowing that the decisions they are having to take will determine whether people live or die and may tank the economy for years.

My natural inclination is to be less vehement than Amiga. I also pretty much endorse what you are saying. But........

However, decisions made by accountable people should not be forgotten or swept aside as they are trying their best. Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance embarked down a path that was to a very great degree driven by a desire to protect the economy. I don't know the degree to which Dominic Cummings was involved but I suspect it wasn't zero. They got this catastrophically wrong. Flights were arriving from Wuhan with students going back to universities in the same time frame that we were repatriating people from the same places to be quarantined. We were accepting flights from Northern Italy without people being checked in any way and we were told that was O.K. because they'd advised flight crew to look out for ill people (really?). We had people returning from hot spots and going straight back to work as there was no guidance to the contrary. Then the icing on the cake being Cheltenham festival and Athletico vs Liverpool Champion's League game. We will look back on these events in the same way as the Philadelphia War Bond parade in 1918. It verges on criminally negligent. "Herd immunity" which was a thing and then wasn't as they realised that 500k people would die in 2 months......

Could others have done a better job? Well those not beholden to massive financial interests might have seen things differently in the early days. This Government did not. They are now dealing with the repercussions of those decisions. For example the severity of the lock-down (it'll be total by Monday imo) required now is directly correlated to the lack of action earlier. The fact that the police are using drones to stop people using green space to exercise doesn't sit well with me. We may find out that Boris is a great crisis leader and I bloody hope we do, as I suspect that it is going to be required. Our country is constructing makeshift hospitals in exhibition centres and morgues at airports. Clapping NHS workers isn't going to magically make more of them and the current administration has done little to create additional capacity in normal times.

I hope with all my heart that the actions taken allow the NHS to cope as well as possible and minimise deaths. But the actions of those responsible for making decisions should be subject to scrutiny.

As for Trump. He's either going to be proven spectacularly right or spectacularly wrong. I strongly suspect the latter but I have no evidence to back that up at this point. The U.S.A. is about to become a second rate power as people will wonder why China could protect their populace and the U.S.A couldn't or wouldn't. Trump's only hope is that it's milder than thought and that his magic drugs cocktail is massively effective.....

On edit - 20/20 hindsight is easy. But this isn't that. The audit trail is available on this very thread. Now it is of course impossible to state that one course of action was "right". However, what i don't want to hear at any point is "we didn't have other options" we did and didn't take them.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

My natural inclination is to be less vehement than Amiga. I also pretty much endorse what you are saying. But........

However, decisions made by accountable people should not be forgotten or swept aside as they are trying their best. Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance embarked down a path that was to a very great degree driven by a desire to protect the economy. I don't know the degree to which Dominic Cummings was involved but I suspect it wasn't zero. They got this catastrophically wrong. Flights were arriving from Wuhan with students going back to universities in the same time frame that we were repatriating people from the same places to be quarantined. We were accepting flights from Northern Italy without people being checked in any way and we were told that was O.K. because they'd advised flight crew to look out for ill people (really?). We had people returning from hot spots and going straight back to work as there was no guidance to the contrary. Then the icing on the cake being Cheltenham festival and Athletico vs Liverpool Champion's League game. We will look back on these events in the same way as the Philadelphia War Bond parade in 1918. It verges on criminally negligent. "Herd immunity" which was a thing and then wasn't as they realised that 500k people would die in 2 months......

Could others have done a better job? Well those not beholden to massive financial interests might have seen things differently in the early days. This Government did not. They are now dealing with the repercussions of those decisions. For example the severity of the lock-down (it'll be total by Monday imo) required now is directly correlated to the lack of action earlier. The fact that the police are using drones to stop people using green space to exercise doesn't sit well with me. We may find out that Boris is a great crisis leader and I bloody hope we do, as I suspect that it is going to be required. Our country is constructing makeshift hospitals in exhibition centres and morgues at airports. Clapping NHS workers isn't going to magically make more of them and the current administration has done little to create additional capacity in normal times.

I hope with all my heart that the actions taken allow the NHS to cope as well as possible and minimise deaths. But the actions of those responsible for making decisions should be subject to scrutiny.

As for Trump. He's either going to be proven spectacularly right or spectacularly wrong. I strongly suspect the latter but I have no evidence to back that up at this point. The U.S.A. is about to become a second rate power as people will wonder why China could protect their populace and the U.S.A couldn't or wouldn't. Trump's only hope is that it's milder than thought and that his magic drugs cocktail is massively effective.....

Well argued post. You're absolutely right that those in office should be subject to scrutiny. I'm certainly not writing Johnson a blank cheque in that regard and I did say that mistakes have been made.

Politicians can only act on the advice of their advisers, I just hope Johnson has been listening to the right people. I don't count Cummings among those.

Emotions will run high. Johnson's a politician, but he's also a human like the rest of us. On a personal level, he's got this virus, maybe only mildly but he's still got it, a job with stress few of us can imagine and a pregnant other half to worry about. Of course many many have it worse but that would still be enough to tip a lot over the edge. I hope he shrugs off the virus and rises to the challenge for all our sakes.

Couple of other thoughts.

I doubt anyone has been thrown in at the deep end quite as much as Sunak, but he's been mighty impressive. Looks like a PM in waiting.

My great fear is what happens if this takes hold in Africa. That could be really distressing.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

We definitely started off on the wrong foot but I think the last week or so has been good
Could've been more firmly worded when issuing the lockdown to cut out ambiguity, but if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt maybe they didn't want to look toooo police statey by issuing a concrete quarantine (though I don't think too many would've complained).
The 80% to companies (and now self employed) is better than any other country in the world that I've seen - I've not really looked into it but I believe they've tried to fast track universal credit payments as well (cutting the initial several week wait period or something?). Rishi Sunak has probably had the most meteoric rise of any MP in recent history with how well he's come across during all of this.

You only have to look at America to see how badly it could've been handled.
Of course we could be in a better position right now, and likely times will become harder over the next few weeks, but I think as a nation we're handling it quite well (obviously with some exceptions)

 

[die_mole]

I think boris and your government fully understands the problem. They played with different tactics but they now know the gravity of the situation.

trump is just clueless. He's ****** off companies haven't produced ventilators yet. He claims to be a businessmen but doesn't understand production lines can't be installed in a day. It would take my dads plant weeks just to change what type of beverage they were producing and trump thinks automakers can switch to ventilators overnight.

he could have ordered production and started building makeshift hospitals months ago but he's acting like a student whose paper deadline has passed.

 

[Leinster Fan]

Leo pretty much announcing a full lockdown right now.

Exercise within 2km of your house on your own is okay, so is shopping, that's about it. Seems like people aren't even meant to go to work unless it's healthcare or childcare, although I'm not sure on that.

 

[ncurd]

Exercise within 2km of your house on your own is okay,

That has to come from someone who's never exercised outdoors....you go well beyond that to do any real distance. My point simply being you might as well just say don't go outdoors.