Quote from: petejh on May 07, 2020, 03:46:04 pmNige I haven’t read that link yet. But what matters is what they knew at the time. There’s little use in judging past decisions on present knowledge. Lets see what they were being told at the time by SAGE and the WHO. Future pandemics, great we can learn and hopefully remember it for the next one.Yeah, I know all this is raking over old coals and largely pointless, accepted! But I disagree about it only being a learning process for future pandemics. Seems a counsel of despair. We haven't finished with this one yet, not by a long way. And the same people that were making the decisions 7 weeks ago, are still making the decisions now (SAGE + HMG). To my mind something went a bit skew-whiff with our initial UK response (you may disagree?). If that was due to SAGE, then ideally lets see what they said, assess it, and swap in some folk who called it right to help us with the next bit. Or maybe set up an official "shadow SAGE" to offer an independent check / balance / confirmation? If it was political then ideally lets know about it now, find out where the bollocks were dropped, and get parliament to scrutinise things now they're back (seeing this in action now on for e.g. the app). Given where we are right now, we could really do with getting the timing and process of lifting the lockdown spot on. The current messaging and actions I see on that is not filling me with confidence to be honest! Yes you're right we can't change the past, but to reverse your sentence, I think there is some use in judging present decisions on past knowledge. The time to improve our response is right now. I would much prefer that to waiting a few years for an inquiry and the solace that we might be OK in 50 years time. Given that we ignored Cygnus from 4 years ago I wouldn't hold out too much hope for that either tbh. Your point still applies btw i.e. what use is blathering about it on here?! I don't know. Hopefully we can go climbing soon.
Nige I haven’t read that link yet. But what matters is what they knew at the time. There’s little use in judging past decisions on present knowledge. Lets see what they were being told at the time by SAGE and the WHO. Future pandemics, great we can learn and hopefully remember it for the next one.
Interesting, do you have a link that can be read free?
Completely agree with all that RE media Pete.
Personally I think the biggest obstacle to any government choosing the most effective measures in emergencies like this is the noise created by the UK media.
Quote from: Nigel on May 08, 2020, 04:05:36 pmCompletely agree with all that RE media Pete.If you REALLY believe that “the biggest obstacle to any government choosing the most effective measures in emergencies like this is the noise created by the UK media” ......Edit: please excuse grumpiness.
And possibly its reasons are more complex than the Mail writing shite.
‘following the evidence’ means changing tack when new evidence suggests it wise to change tack. We don’t have a media sensible enough nor a population forgiving enough to allow this sort of behaviour by governments, without it being portrayed in large sections of the media as something very wrong and indecisive.
Quote from: petejh on May 09, 2020, 08:15:15 am‘following the evidence’ means changing tack when new evidence suggests it wise to change tack. We don’t have a media sensible enough nor a population forgiving enough to allow this sort of behaviour by governments, without it being portrayed in large sections of the media as something very wrong and indecisive.Only if the evidence is kept hidden. If new evidence is presented openly, together with an explanation as to why a change of tack is now sensible then it’s hard for the public or the media to portray it as anything other.As an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:“unfortunately for whatever reason the virus is now too widespread in the UK for travel restrictions to be any use and here’s the modelling from SAGE that shows it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s why we’re not doing the same as other countries. But if we can get the infection rate down then it’s something we’ll introduce at a later date”I think the public and the media could buy into that. Just repeatedly saying “we’re following the science but you can’t see any of the science, sorry” leads to the (valid) confusion and questioning we’re seeing from the media this morning about the apparent U-turn.
What I see currently happening is a weak and indecisive cabinet (packed with Brexit loyalists at the expense of any experienced or competent* politicians) using the media to float ideas and gauge public opinion before they’re willing to pin themselves to any firm policies.*with the exception of Sunak probably.
As an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:“unfortunately for whatever reason the virus is now too widespread in the UK for travel restrictions to be any use and here’s the modelling from SAGE that shows it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s why we’re not doing the same as other countries. But if we can get the infection rate down then it’s something we’ll introduce at a later date”I think the public and the media could buy into that. Just repeatedly saying “we’re following the science but you can’t see any of the science, sorry” leads to the (valid) confusion and questioning we’re seeing from the media this morning about the apparent U-turn.
They did! Nobody remembers. People just remember the things they want to and the narrative pushed by the media they read.As I pointed out to Nigel - the government CSO said in a public briefing in early March that a travel restriction was pointless at that time...
Quote from: ali k on May 09, 2020, 09:17:58 amAs an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:They did! Nobody remembers. People just remember the things they want to and the narrative pushed by the media they read.
As an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:
He said it in the press briefing with Boris Johnson on March 12th. It was the chief scientific officer(sic) saying it and he explained in basic terms some of SAGE's thinking behind it
If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:“unfortunately for whatever reason the virus is now too widespread in the UK for travel restrictions to be any use and here’s the modelling from SAGE that shows it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s why we’re not doing the same as other countries. But if we can get the infection rate down then it’s something we’ll introduce at a later date”I think the public and the media could buy into that.
The key word in what I wrote was clearly. For a govt so good at ramming messages home when they want to it's a cop out to blame the 'media narrative' or people's poor memories. The only message being rammed home at the daily press conferences is that of "following the science" while at the same time failing to present any of 'the science'.
So presumably by this logic we should only listen to scientists who are correct first go....
alertadjective quick to see, understand, and act in a particular situation
There are some variations in definition, but Cambridge dictionary has:Quote alertadjective quick to see, understand, and act in a particular situation