[Oldmanmatt]

City dwellers versus country dwellers. I’ve walked a different footpath almost one day in every three! Loving this sun.

..

I was going to post something on this thread about noticing that the political debate around corona is starting to revert to the mean, and how it’s beginning to be the usual voices saying the usual things.
I’m trying to think who might have tory sympathies on UKB, maybe GME or shark (honestly don’t know)? I’d take more notice of criticism of the government’s handling of this pandemic if the voices weren’t those of people strongly opposed to a tory government.
So that Times article is useful. Political opinions on UKB come across to me as more venting than balanced.

Why do we need Tory or Labour “sympathies”?

I have a lot of “sympathy” for a great deal of “Tory” philosophy (just as I do for plenty of “Labour” philosophy).
I don’t have as much from the ascension of Cammeron onwards and hindsight gives me a (broadly) negative view of Thatcher, but I still feel Major was ok (much as I think Brown was not far off the mark).

I’m sick of the current, fatuous, sound bite, shower of shit and only need to defer to the opinions of almost everyone that ever employed or taught or worked with Boris (prior to his elevation) to firmly believe him to be the wrong person for the current task.

To be fair, not liking this current crop, is not a particularly “Labour” or even “Left wing” thing, plenty of dissent from within the ruling party.

[petejh]

Out at the moment but I don’t agree with using 15,000 deaths (it’s actually closer to 20,000+, as the next ONS figures will show) as proof of anything just yet except - we’re in the middle of experiencing a global pandemic. Clearly we aren’t Norway. How badly we come out the other side remains to be seen.
I’m more interested in what makes people get infected and what makes them die - density, underlying poor health (UK is terrible for this), health service capacity, age demographic, poverty, political view (libertarians going out more?), and a thousand other variables that invite you to be a bigger target for dying of covid.
I’m less interested in which government is in charge but fully agree it plays a large role in the exact choice of lockdown, condition of health service (however it’s noteworthy the NHS capacity has not been exceeded- this is a success right?).  However people are also sovereign and choose their own interpretation  of control measures - difference between people on here. I get the impression there’s a hell of a lot of individual choices all interlinked  involved in covid death rates, not an overarching government ‘fault’.

[Nigel]

Taking on the "Tory sympathy / philosophy" point, their response has been a failure even on their own standards.

Presumably they opted initially for herd immunity so they could avoid shutting down the economy. Due to their own litany of fuck-ups they are now having to lockdown almost completely, and with no end in sight. If they had properly funded the NHS over the last decade, acted on Operation Cygnus, and instigated test and trace in January then we might have deaths in triple figures and all be back at work.

[mrjonathanr]

Out at the moment but I don’t agree with using 15,000 deaths (it’s actually closer to 20,000+, as the next ONS figures will show) as proof of anything just yet except - we’re in the middle of experiencing a global pandemic. Clearly we aren’t Norway. How badly we come out the other side remains to be seen.
I’m more interested in what makes people get infected and what makes them die - density, underlying poor health (UK is terrible for this), health service capacity, age demographic, poverty, political view (libertarians going out more?), and a thousand other variables that invite you to be a bigger target for dying of covid.
I’m less interested in which government is in charge but fully agree it plays a large role in the exact choice of lockdown. However people are also sovereign and choose their own interpretation  of control measures - difference between people on here. I get the impression there’s a hell of a lot of individual choices all interlinked  involved in covid death rates....

I was with you till the catastrophic serial incompetence of our government response - which should have been informed by our neighbours' battles to learn from - being batted away as

…. not an overarching government ‘fault’.

There is a myriad of factors at play, of course, but a national fiasco forms a major part.

[Offwidth]

it’s noteworthy the NHS capacity has not been exceeded- this is a success right?).

Yes. An overwhelmed service would have seen a huge rise in mortality rates. The government action to tell the NHS to spend what they need, and to move in new emergency facility, like Nightingale,  has been good. Yet this is a solution to a problem that mostly should not have happened. We, Italy and Spain are fighting for the top spots in European deaths (depending on care home deaths... its very likely we will be top on hospital deaths). They had 2 weeks less warning than us and were hit under high flu strain.

The UK government errors are serious and it's not party political to point this out. Germany has most obviously shown what can be done with a better prepared health system with less government mistakes; notably health systems not hamstrung by austerity, stronger and earlier messaging on social distancing, more tests and proper logistical prep on PPE. 

[petejh]

MrJR, I say that because you can look to other countries with different control measures and they’re experiencing different death rates that don’t necessarily tally with the narrative being put forward that our figures are all a UK government fuck up. I find it hard to see how the gov control measures can be described as a cock up when compared with everyone else’s? What exactly is it that you think we haven’t put in place during this pandemic that we should have and which would massively alter our death rate - when looked at against other countries?
Seeing as deaths from covid are what matter, if you think the gov are doing something wrong then ask does it greatly alter the ultimate death rate?

Testing - would it have altered the death rate up to now?
PPE - serious issue, not being flippant, but has it significant affected the death rate? Tragic deaths of NHS workers. But not a blip on the 20,000 plus who have died so far.
Social distancing - what should be different that would greatly alter our death rate? Lockdown a week or two earlier? Most think this would have been unworkable.
Messaging - would this have greatly altered our death rate?

[mrjonathanr]

I’d take more notice of criticism of the government’s handling of this pandemic if the voices weren’t those of people strongly opposed to a tory government.

I'd do what I normally do, which is look at the argument.

[mrjonathanr]

oops, cross post Pete.
To the one above..

UK gov approach has consistently deviated from WHO advice. UK doesn't have to follow it, but given that it comprises:
test
contact trace
quarantine and repeat
and that countries around the world following this are experiencing successful outcomes, we really need to be showing good results from a different approach. Currently on track to be the worst outcomes in Europe, so it looks weak.
The shambolic approach from the off is self evident, you don't need a political flag to see we have been slow to react, disorganised and under prepared in a range of different ways.
As to whether political enemies make mileage of political incompetence, well that's not worth debating. Whether the national response is competent is, because that's the only way to restart the economy.

[petejh]

Generally agree with you. But I’m still curious what people who are calling this government’s crack-handed what we could be doing much better *at this point in time with the position we started at*, that we aren’t. I think there’s a lot of ‘told you so’ going on with hindsight. Look back to some of your posts three weeks ago. Seems to me that the point at which we would have altered the course of the virus seems was early on. We’re not unique in not racing out do the blocks early on. Not that that’s cause to celebrate anything of course.

[mrjonathanr]

I think there’s a lot of ‘told you so’ going on with hindsight. Look back to some of your posts three weeks ago.

Sure there is, in part because that's what people do, but also when people feel they are now grasping the situation better - and it's cause for dismay- they are going to start speaking out.

I think there needs to be balance between keeping focused on making things better and leaving the partisan stuff for the results of the public enquiry, and not giving incompetence a free pass. Tricky, but the gov need to get their act together to protect the front line workers (including social care in the front line) and get a proper testing regime set up so the virus can be isolated as much as possible to allow people back to work.

Regarding PPE, it's not just repugnant to expose health workers unnecessarily, it's bad management because it increases the transmission of the virus. I'd take the same view for soldiers sent to fight with inadequate kit and weapons. Why isn't the political will there to repurpose existing manufacturing under emergency legislation pdq?

[Oldmanmatt]

I think there’s a lot of ‘told you so’ going on with hindsight. Look back to some of your posts three weeks ago.

Sure there is, in part because that's what people do, but also when people feel they are now grasping the situation better - and it's cause for dismay- they are going to start speaking out.

I think there needs to be balance between keeping focused on making things better and leaving the partisan stuff for the results of the public enquiry, and not giving incompetence a free pass. Tricky, but the gov need to get their act together to protect the front line workers (including social care in the front line) and get a proper testing regime set up so the virus can be isolated as much as possible to allow people back to work.

Regarding PPE, it's not just repugnant to expose health workers unnecessarily, it's bad management because it increases the transmission of the virus. I'd take the same view for soldiers sent to fight with inadequate kit and weapons. Why isn't the political will there to repurpose existing manufacturing under emergency legislation pdq?

Regarding that last paragraph.

Have you been under a rock the last few decades?

I think the current lockdown isbroadly correct.
I don’t think anything harsher would work (not “work to control the virus” but “work in the context of people obeying it”).

I think they were late acting, by about a week and had better intelligence than the general public. I suspect they’re actually, genuinely, too arrogant to listen to “experts” or, at least, think  people like Cummings are on a par with actual academics and scientists.

Otherwise, ish, mostly and with reservations, I agree with Pete.

Fight the fire, debrief in the debrief.

[spidermonkey09]

I'm not convinced by the "back in January none of you wanted anything different done" argument Pete. The most obvious rebuttal is that I am not privy to cobra meetings and sensitive govt info which the UK govt clearly are! I would accept that up until fairly recently I thought the govt was playing a shit hand fairly well. The last few weeks have changed my view on this. It's not party political to look at where mistakes have been made and see whether that was avoidable.

Regarding your "we are not unique in being substandard", you're right, that is nothing to celebrate. This government makes significant mileage out of British exceptionalism. The examples are numerous. There is absolutely no reason why our planning for this couldn't have been world leading, indeed the piece in the ST makes that point explicitly, saying that until 2010 we were in a great position. If the government wants to talk the talk about the UK being world leading, it needs to walk the walk too. It manifestly isn't.

[chris j]

Germany... ...more tests....

Ironically from what i've read this appears to have been achieved by greater general private sector lab involvement pre-crisis and not having tests centrally managed by a PHE equivalent.

[mrjonathanr]

Regarding PPE, it's not just repugnant to expose health workers unnecessarily, it's bad management because it increases the transmission of the virus. I'd take the same view for soldiers sent to fight with inadequate kit and weapons. Why isn't the political will there to repurpose existing manufacturing under emergency legislation pdq?

Regarding that last paragraph.

Have you been under a rock the last few decades?

Pretty rude. Whatever.

Which companies have been taken over by HM gov for the production of PPE? Genuine question- I thought it was all on a voluntary basis? Does not seem adequate to demand, does it?

[Oldmanmatt]

Regarding PPE, it's not just repugnant to expose health workers unnecessarily, it's bad management because it increases the transmission of the virus. I'd take the same view for soldiers sent to fight with inadequate kit and weapons. Why isn't the political will there to repurpose existing manufacturing under emergency legislation pdq?

Regarding that last paragraph.

Have you been under a rock the last few decades?

Pretty rude. Whatever.

Which companies have been taken over by HM gov for the production of PPE? Genuine question- I thought it was all on a voluntary basis? Does not seem adequate to demand, does it?

It was a joke, dude!

Just like most military issue kit since Napoleon was knocking on the gate.

[mrjonathanr]

Ah okay. I get that there is a lot of repurposing going on, but it does not appear to be solving supply issues.  It needed more urgency, earlier.

[chris j]

I'm not convinced by the "back in January none of you wanted anything different done" argument Pete.

Back near the end of January supposedly well informed luminaries such as the editor of the lancet were tweeting of moderate transmissibility, low pathogenicity and the need to avoid fostering panic with exagerrated language. There really wasn't a settled scientific consensus at that point for the government to base decisive action on, was there? There are certainly long term strategic decisions that could have been different, such as PPE stores and national manufacturing capacity, and private sector involvement in testing, but i'm sure we would have heard howls of protest about wasting money preparing for something that might never happen and there being higher priorities if  money had actually been allocated in advance. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[spidermonkey09]

I'm not convinced by the "back in January none of you wanted anything different done" argument Pete.

Back near the end of January supposedly well informed luminaries such as the editor of the lancet were tweeting of moderate transmissibility, low pathogenicity and the need to avoid fostering panic with exagerrated language. There really wasn't a settled scientific consensus at that point for the government to base decisive action on, was there? There are certainly long term strategic decisions that could have been different, such as PPE stores and national manufacturing capacity, and private sector involvement in testing, but i'm sure we would have heard howls of protest about wasting money preparing for something that might never happen and there being higher priorities if  money had actually been allocated in advance. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I know the tweet you're referring to and would point out that he changed his mind extremely quickly, considerably quicker than the government experts by the looks of things. Appreciate that there is no such thing as consensus, and if we had delayed a week I would be the first to agree with you. Five weeks, however, is an order of magnitude different. I dont accept, for example, that the science was unclear at the point of the Cheltenham Festival or liverpool v Atletico going ahead. Somewhere between the end of Jan and the start of March opportunities were clearly missed.

The trouble with your argument that "long term strategic decisions are unpopular" and "hindsight is wonderful" is that it basically has the effect of absolving the government from all responsibility. Large numbers of people are employed by the government for pandemic preparedness. Running exercises like Cygnus are designed to mitigate against this exact scenario we see now. It is the job of government to make long term decisions. Not doing so exposes you to criticism later. They know the game! The fact that they dropped the ball on this is not a case of hindsight is cheap in my view.

[mrjonathanr]

I'm not convinced by the "back in January none of you wanted anything different done" argument Pete.

Back near the end of January supposedly well informed luminaries such as the editor of the lancet were tweeting of moderate transmissibility, low pathogenicity and the need to avoid fostering panic with exagerrated language. There really wasn't a settled scientific consensus at that point for the government to base decisive action on, was there?

This is his tweet, from January 23rd:
https://twitter.com/richardhorton1/status/1220606842449072128

The detail from China came on Jan 24, he changed tack pretty quickly. January 29

2019-nCoV: It must now surely be time to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Not to do so will cast doubt on the credibility of the international health system.

https://twitter.com/richardhorton1/status/1220606842449072128

Goldsmith had a go at him on Twitter about his Jan 23rd tweet, which wilfully misrepresents the timeline and ignores that Horton has been banging the drum for action since last week of January, it's easy enough to find richardhorton1:
https://twitter.com/zacgoldsmith/status/1243315992459182082?lang=en

I'd have to disagree with you about government lacking clear knowledge Chris, since the knowledge about community transmission and pandemic potential has been available since late Jan, over 12 weeks ago.

[TobyD]

I think there’s a lot of ‘told you so’ going on with hindsight. Look back to some of your posts three weeks ago.

Sure there is, in part because that's what people do, but also when people feel they are now grasping the situation better - and it's cause for dismay- they are going to start speaking out.

I think there needs to be balance between keeping focused on making things better and leaving the partisan stuff for the results of the public enquiry, and not giving incompetence a free pass. Tricky, but the gov need to get their act together to protect the front line workers (including social care in the front line) and get a proper testing regime set up so the virus can be isolated as much as possible to allow people back to work.

Regarding PPE, it's not just repugnant to expose health workers unnecessarily, it's bad management because it increases the transmission of the virus. I'd take the same view for soldiers sent to fight with inadequate kit and weapons. Why isn't the political will there to repurpose existing manufacturing under emergency legislation pdq?

Regarding that last paragraph.

Have you been under a rock the last few decades?

I think the current lockdown isbroadly correct.
I don’t think anything harsher would work (not “work to control the virus” but “work in the context of people obeying it”).

I think they were late acting, by about a week and had better intelligence than the general public. I suspect they’re actually, genuinely, too arrogant to listen to “experts” or, at least, think  people like Cummings are on a par with actual academics and scientists.

Otherwise, ish, mostly and with reservations, I agree with Pete.

Fight the fire, debrief in the debrief.

I agree. I don't cheerlead for the current government but would happily vote for a more competent administration whether that was conservative, labour or anything else. However, I think that the time to try to tear down the government's credibility with the general public is after the worst of it has passed, Nigel I understand your feelings but this shit gives licence to the shit thick people who are champing at the bit to break their lockdown. I'd say a majority of the few t*ssers I've seen parked out in the peak are wealthy (judging by their SUVs) upper middle class older people who probably vote conservative on reflex, probably read the Sunday Times and think this sort of thing means go out and play, and I'd really rather they stayed at home, so everyone in the NHS could stop being scared every time we go to work.
The government clearly seriously neglected any proper preparation, although since then they've definitely got their act into gear. It's no use trying to say if we had a different administration of whatever colour it'd have been much better, it clearly wouldn't, the UK is extremely densely populated with many international airports, a large number of international students, and many other factors that made the widespread import of an infectious virus inevitable.
Having said all that, why they're still allowing international flights now seems foolish.

[chris j]

I thought this was a good piece in the guardian today.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/how-did-britain-get-its-response-to-coronavirus-so-wrong

It does make reasonable points about the lack of strategic planning and also mystifying changes in strategy (eg from contact tracing to ths delay phase - was this driven by knowledge of the lack of testing capacity or something else?) but also that the voice from the scientific community was possibly not loud and united enough to be properly taken notice of before mid-feb.

It also makes the same point about casting blame with the benefit of hindsight when those blamed were making unprecedented 50-50 decisions based on sources with differing viewpoints. Given we weren't the only country to follow a laissez-faire approach (Sweden) there has to have been a reasonable basis to take that decision. I'm sure there is much to learn and decisions could have been taken better but I also think the voices on here casting blame at individuals and talking about negligence already are using 20-20 hindsight probably unfairly.

[petejh]

Something else that came into mind while out earlier. Am I right in thinking UK and France are the two countries with the busiest transport hubs in Europe? In the UK's case the London airports and Manchester, plus Dover port and the London railway stations. In France's case CDG and Orly airports, the Calais port and Gard de Nord station. These are some of the busiest in Europe - Heathrow and CDG especially.

As the track of this virus depends entirely on new human-human interactions, could the UK and France especially have been starting with a handicap compared to other European countries, just from the fact of having higher throughput of new virus carriers at the beginning of any outbreak?
 
(I'm ignoring Italy for the moment because from my limited understanding they seemed to have a super-spreading event early in the pandemic and were unfortunate to be first in Europe to have to learn how to deal. Their handicap perhaps was being first.)

I'm not trying to make a case that the gov are or aren't doing well (as I think it's mostly still too early to say) - I'm interested in trying to understand what factors cause a virus outcome to be different in two different countries, because I don't see how all of the differences in death rates between countries can come back to policy and execution given all countries are doing broadly similar things.


edit: The countries with top 10 busiest airports UK 144 million (that's just between Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester). France 97.2 million CDG, Orly)
Germany 102 million (Frankfurt).
If you add in UK's other airports outside top 10: Luton, Stanstead etc. Then the UK is by the busiest in Europe for air travel.

A map of covid-19 cases busiest airports:

https://geoawesomeness.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Europe-Busiest-Airports.png

[tomtom]

Been wanting to post but just back from a tranquil but somehow nerve jangling trip to Tesco...

Pete - yes a few people on here (myself included) thought they were doing an Ok job at the beginning (with some suspicions by some) but I’ve since revised what I think. Personally that’s because I think at those early stages we had some key info kept from us. It also seems clearer that there wasn’t as much leadership and strategy as we were led to believe early on.

Re early testing and would it have helped? We had early testing but stopped it when transmission in the community started to happen. If we had carried on - we would have a good idea where there might be hotspots / issues - where hospitals might need extra facilities. For example there are a large number of cases in Sheffield - but that’s because sheff tester more people than other equivalent cities. It may also have allowed us to make data backed decisions about locking down certain towns/cities - such as London and Birmingham earlier. But because we didn’t know how it had spread (because we hadn’t tested enough) we (a) didn’t know and (b) therefore couldn’t make that call.

 Testing in my view will be at the centre of how we may well have messed up here.

The social isolating non lockdown call in early March was a shambles. Ffs - from late February I was using hand sanitiser at work and being very careful with shared equipment (computers in lecture rooms and labs for example). We had a week where companies didn’t know whether or not to close - and finally the govt realised we needed to lock down.

But there are positives - the lockdown/social distancing seems to be working - without it being that heavy handed (I still wish it were clearer through!).

That our NHS has not been yet overwhelmed is a bullet dodged -  a big positive. With the caveat that most other treatments - operations etc.. have been neglected which may have some knock ons later.

[petejh]

A bullet dodged implies luck TT. I don't ascribe the NHS having extra capacity to luck.
Would you not agree that a better metaphor is that it was a bullet that we were fully expecting to come at us and hit us, and the reason it didn't kill us was because we'd armoured up in time to deal with it?

[tomtom]

A bullet dodged implies luck TT. I don't ascribe the NHS having extra capacity to luck.
Would you not agree that a better metaphor is that it was a bullet that we were fully expecting to come at us and hit us, and the reason it didn't kill us was because we'd armoured up in time to deal with it?

Wrong metaphor really Pete. Sorry.

A near miss - where we just managed to wrestle the steering wheel in time to swerve out of the way might be better. 

My neighbour who runs a bar was telling me today that the govts 10k cash advance and the furlough procedure means he’ll be alright as long as lockdown doesn’t go on much longer than 6 months... so that’s a positive for the govt too - that I forgot to add.