COVID-19

You also know that different scientists will have different opinions don't you?

 

Yes, that's why it was a massive mistake saying we follow the science at the start but he's a poor leader.

I mean what leader bans his party for other 170 days from going on GMB, Channel 4, Newsnight and others because he can't face questions?

Might send you on there in your blue suit.

 

Straight talking Yorkshire folk.

 

The map has updated to the 16th. It looks to have improved overall. White spaces are appearing all across the South and East now which means case numbers there were falling from at least 8 or 9 days ago - despite rising testing. There seems to even be a couple of new white ones in London. A few colours have got lighter in the Northeast, too, and a couple of white ones have appeared in rural Yorkshire. The map seems to show it is getting better - and that's over a week ago and with increasing tests processed. It backs up what I was posting about local authority histograms in recent days.

Https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map

I've run through the local authorities again and there are as many places falling as rising in England now (though risers tend to be slightly more rapid). There was another 24% rise in tests processed in England compared to 7-days ago. Adjust for increasing testing over the last two weeks and the slight rising trend in new cases might well be a slightly declining trend in prevalence.

https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation&areaName=England

But what is the age mix and will we see it in hospital trends soon? Well, the Southeast and Southwest hospital admissions looks to be levelling out in line with their better new case trends so that is some good news - but it is only those two so far.

https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nhsregion&areaName=South East
https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nhsregion&areaName=South West

 

and yet SAGE advisor Jonathan Van Tam said last night circuit breaker was not currently appropriate - see my post above

 

He is also the one saying the have to protect the over 80's but fails to forget the under 20's and the bloody that will suffer more.

Think maybe you need to listen to this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08vx7r4

 

yes Fordy I have listened to it and have every sympathy....but it has no relevance whatsoever to whether we should have a full lock down or not. Look I don't know whether we should go full on or not, but I have demonstrated that whatever opinion you want to follow you can find a scientific advisor to endorse it.

 

Mate you have kindly been posting your stats since this started back in March/April saying positive things but we are still in this mess and with no sign of getting out of it.

No exit plan..Nothing! If we had it my way we would be learning to live with this now.

What's the bet we have a circuit break mate? I am telling you now it will be a national circuit break before Christmas. Funny how Boris hasn't ruled this out.

 

Morning Fordy. I think this reply was meant for Aleman?

 

Countries that have done track & trace well have based it on local knowledge and resources. There is a nationwide network of Public Health and Sexual Disease teams in local authorities for whom track & trace is a bread and butter task. Track & trace is a skilled job requiring tact, persuasion and local knowledge and those local authorities that have now set up their own local alternatives to the hopeless national system are achieving far better results. No surprise there.
Why reinvent the wheel - wasting time and money building a system from scratch with personnel and management who have no prior knowledge or training? The results have been predictably woeful. If speed was the essence, which it clearly was, then that's even more reason to put money into expanding the existing expertise and infrastructure rather than start from scratch. But this government couldn't bear to devolve responsibility out of London or give the public sector a more prominent role. It preferred to entrust the nation's wellbeing to people who have no experience or expertise in the field, but who just happen to have close personal and financial connections to various members of government..

As for trust - the only people who trust Serco, G4S and Dido Harding are their best mates in government. They are all serial failures. It's a scandal that people are dying unnecessarily because they have been entrusted with a crucial task that they are manifestly incapable of performing competently.

 

Morning mate, yes you are correct but I couldn't be bothered binning the post.

 

We've been through it before.

Public health and sexual health teams were a handful of people. Excellent knowledge about this kind of stuff but in no way scalable and definitely not quickly.

So yes, we should have (and I hope we did) use their knowledge but let's not dress it up as a ready made solution. Whichever way they did it was going to be reinventing the wheel.

Your point about them doing better is why I hate the Guardian articles. The devil will be in the detail. Are the local teams taking on the easier cases? Are they having to do lower volumes. Yes they are doing better - and that's good - but are there any reasons for it where they are being "helped" by doing it alongside the national version. I just don't know because none of the media actually explain.

Which countries are you thinking off that have done it well? From the media all I see are complaints about every system in basically every western country but that may be because expectations are top high.

 

More subsidies being announced - quite generous as well - more generous than I would have liked.

No doubt people will still complain.

 

Why aren't folk getting their i-phones, netflix,drugs and scratch cards paid for by the government, it's not fair...

 

Have you had a look at what is happening in the South? It looks like they might be nearly out of it already.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths?areaType=region&areaName=London
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths?areaType=region&areaName=South East
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths?areaType=region&areaName=East of England
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths?areaType=region&areaName=South West


I am not familiar with this Spectator writer but he has picked up on the parallels with the "Russian Flu" outbreak of 1889-90 that turned out to be a Coronavirus which still ciculates now as a common cold.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/covid-and-the-russian-pandemic/

 

Will it be backdated to when Bradford And others went into tier 2?

 

No. Are you one of the people who are going to complain?

I thought you'd be happy that more free money was getting passed out?

 

Free money? What are you talking about?
It was a genuine question. Clearly you don’t agree

 

Free money was harsh, I was being flippant. More support I should have said,

No, they're not backdating it to when Bradford went into tier 2 but for the sake of 8 days or whatever it is I wouldn't even consider that worth of comment.