COVID-19

Chuck what you've got in the bin then mate if it upsets you.......good god...

 

I would love to do that but it would only work if we all did it.

 

That is true Al, but the ten years of ideologically driven austerity - cutting local authority and NHS capacity - certainly hasn't helped. It's at times like these that the total reliance on the free market we've had rammed down our throats since 1979 proves utterly inadequate.
When all this is over we have to get back to a better balance between private and public provision. Apart from a tiny minority of headbangers, no one wants a state-run command economy. But there is a proper place for state funded, planned and delivered social provision and we've gone far too far in chucking out the baby with the bathwater.

An example is vaccines. When the SARS virus hit, the pharma companies were developing vaccines, but they dropped development completely when the virus disappeared, because it wasn't profitable to continue. If the state had funded them to carry on regardless, in anticipation of future animal crossover viruses, they would now be in a position to produce a Covid 19 vaccine much faster, because there are similarities with SARS. Instead of which we're told it may be 18 months because they're starting again almost from scratch.
We are now reaping the results of years of underfunding and under-planning.

 

Oh Dear...
* The austerity WAS necessary after labour left us skint
* We were just about to embark on a massive catch up spend
* Virus knew all this I suppose so timed it just right to f us all up...

 

I think if you remove the "ideologically driven" from the first sentence it's hard to disagree with anything that @Offcomedun has stated. We do need a better balance of private/public provision.

In regards to a SARS/Corona vaccine I haven't got a clue of the technicalities. So I can't really comment.

NYC on lock down as of Sunday. Unprecedented times. Good to see Boris and Co really making bold statements to help people. I know its a relief to a few people in my group chats etc.

 

I agree with a lot of that, a lot of public services have been cut to the bone to a point where they no longer are fit for purpose. But that wasn't what McDonnell was getting at, as usual he was trying to point score when in thruth this is not the time for petty political bickering. Our health service this time has been put under enmormous pressure, not from cut backs, but from the way China have dealt with this from the very beginning. They knew about this way before they were letting on to the rest of the world, by then its too late, everyone is having to play damage limitation because a country thousands of miles away can't get their shit together.

 

No, the Austerity wasn't necessary. Labour didn't leave us skint - the bankers did that. We were no worse off than most other countries after the global banking crash, and better off than many.

The austerity was ideological - the World Bank advised against it and no other country pursued it beyond the first year after the crash. Most of them took the traditional Keynesian route of stimulating demand and their economies recovered much faster than ours. Our government used the crash as an excuse to pursue their Thatcherite ideological crusade against the public sector. And now we are paying for that because our public services can't cope. Obviously they would have been stretched anyway by this unprecedented situation, but the years of unnecessary cuts have made it far worse than it needed to be.
The fact that we can produce billions out of a hat now demonstrates that we could have taken a different course, but chose not to. Johnson let the cat out of the bag on Tuesday when he said, 'Now is not the time for ideology'.

 

Ain't money thats turned you ugly m8, just the cards mother nature dealt you.

 

China made it worse than it needed to be. Bet even after all this very little will change over there.

 

But we could have acted faster. The government is making all the right moves now but they could and should have done so three or four weeks ago. But their libertarian inclinations have made it hard for them to impose restrictions as they should have done.

 

Blair overloaded the public sector in an attempt to reduce the unemployment figures, anyway, doesn't matter now, we're all stuffed...

 

But that's totally different to what you implied, which was Daily Mail style scaremongering. How many ICU beds do you think Bradford has?

 

No other leadership would have done it differently despite what anyone says. To put an entire nation in lockdown is unheard of, i've never seen it and everyone would have been hoping that some sort of partial measure could have been the answer. But then i wouldn't expect anything else but moaning from our political classes, always we'd have done this we'd have done that. No they wouldn', they'd have been like rabbits in the headlights like Johnson has been. A tough baptism of fire for Johnson, no other leader has been in this position before.

 

No he didn't. The public sector was doing just fine when Labour left office. NHS had record levels of treatment. Local Authority social care services to children and adults were doing well etc etc. We could have recovered much faster from the 2008 crash but the government chose to use it as an excuse to hammer public services. And that is now biting us on the bum.

 

it was in a corona virus thread so meant corona virus patients but anyway. I’ll take it back if it makes you feel better. The point is the NHS will be overloaded. I will guarantee it now

and to answe your ICU question I don’t have a clue about Bradford. But I can tell you it won’t be enough

 

Nobody knows what difference anything will make..........yet. Spain might suffer a huge outbreak as soon as restrictions are lifted, no country has an guaranteed exit strategy. I like the Dutch approach, tell it like it is and you'll have to deal with it, it's upfront, honest, lets everybody know where they stand and it's sensible as there are no other better options right now..

 

We'll have to agree to differ on this. I fully accept that Johnson has been put in an unprecedented position. But he has always been a politician whose approach to adverse circumstances is to ignore them and hope things will be ok. His strength is that he's a pragmatist, not a Thatcherite ideologue like many in his parliamentary party, so he's prepared to throw money around. But his weakness is his libertarianism. In this situation it's no good suggesting that people avoid pubs, clubs etc, you have to order it or many, as we are seeing, will just ignore it.

 

think it is a regular thing

 

Well yeah because you said a hospital couldn't accept patients which is way different to saying it's ICU dept was full.
What's enough? Anyway, have a guess, I know (ish) because I went a lot to vist my MIL last year.

Also, I disagree, I don't think the NHS will be overloaded, ICU might be but hospitals are having a huge drop in a&e arrivals, surprise surprise! Add on non urgent operations cancelled and you have a huge spare capacity, just not in ICU.

 

For those unable to work I think they still get paid 100% but their employer can claim back 80% rather than they get paid 80%, but could be wrong