Coronavirus

[Parklaner81]

I think in fairness to the government (and Boris) here, they have been trying to follow the Scientific advice. The problems are this advice is changing based on the circumstances, it isn't uniform and, to some extent, there is I believe a Western arrogance where we believe we can't learn anything from the Asian countries, who have had some experience with these measures before.

I agree with your general view, though I think you're a little harsh on the final point.

There may well be a degree of arrogance involved, but I'd suggest moreso that the Asian countries populations are, generally speaking, more obedient of their governments than in the west and therefore inherently better suited to a lockdown scenario. Governments have a massive balancing act to achieve in blending the medical science with social policy, and the west is at a natural 'handicap' in circumstances such as these.

I personally think this is where the idea of graduating the restrictions here in the UK came from. It remains to be seen how successful or otherwise the approach will ultimately be but I can see the logic and the difficulties behind the decisions, and I'm willing to cut the government some slack on the basis of that.

 

[glasgowspur]

Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove

We should probably get non-experts to manage the national response to this crisis and to nurse and medically manage these patients.

Experts and scientists are not the same thing.
The political experts on both sides of the brexit debate were at best guessing at possible future outcomes. You can never tell which is right and which is wrong, even in Hindsight.
Medicine is factual, evidence based science.

 

[SpurMeUp]

There was no public outcry for them to throw money at anything, in actual fact in defence of Bojo they announced the first global bail out of the public way before anyone expected it and it was alot better than anyone every thought.

Our whole office was in shock that they were literally bailing out everyone to the tune of £2500 a month.

Public outcry that despite saying testing of 25k w day would happen, we’re not even testing all NHS staff.

If you get the testing working you save money and lives in the end. Germany test our total tests thus far in less than 1 week.

A month back, the WHO made it easy by saying it 3 times. Test test test. Only this week when the media and people kicked up a fuss highlighting our lack of testing did we see any decisive action.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[SpurMeUp]

Experts and scientists are not the same thing.
The political experts on both sides of the brexit debate were at best guessing at possible future outcomes. You can never tell which is right and which is wrong, even in Hindsight.
Medicine is factual, evidence based science.

As I think he’s a doctor? he’s probably well aware of what medicine is.

The premise is the same regardless of the label ‘expert’ or ‘scientist’. That’s just semantics.


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[jts1882]

I agree with your general view, though I think you're a little harsh on the final point.

There may well be a degree of arrogance involved, but I'd suggest moreso that the Asian countries populations are, generally speaking, more obedient of their governments than in the west and therefore better inherently suited to a 'lockdown' scenario. Governments have a massive balancing act to achieve in blending the medical science with social policy, and the west is at a natural 'handicap' in circumstances such as these.

I personally think this is where the idea of graduating the restrictions here in the UK came from. It remains to be seen how sucessful or otherwise the approach will ultimately be, but I can see the logic and the difficulties behind the decisions and I'm willing to cut the government some slack on the basis of that.

I think the weekends and weather conspired badly with the gradual implementation. The Imperial study with the new data came out just before the weekend and the government made the pub avoidance advisory after the weekend, then the pub ban on the Friday before the best weekend of the year, and the lockdown announced on the monday. That weekend of socialising could be the difference of a peak near the current 600-700 per day and breaching the 1000 per day at Easter. Why can't it tinkle with rain when we need it.

The government are clearly worried about the good weather forecast for this weekend.

 

[SpurMeUp]

Ok, I'm getting a sense of deja vu here...but could you please flag up where I asserted such a belief?

What I actually suggested was simply that the government had followed the scientific advice they had been given - a point you seem to be disputing. I'm not the one in this conversation claiming to have all the answers.

My understanding (which may well be either wrong or incomplete - feel free to correct me in either case, but please try to keep your answers responsive to things I've actually said) is that the government moved away from the herd immunity approach as a direct result of updated academic modelling that suggested that the NHS would be overwhelmed in short order if they persisted on that path. If my understanding is correct, I struggle to see how anyone could take much of an issue with that. But you seem feel that it wasn't science but public opinion that prompted the shift.

My recollection is that public opinion at that time was quite split - many believed tighter restrictions should've been imposed sooner, others seemed to feel quite differently judging by the photos and videos of crowded beaches, parks etc. Still others, perhaps falling somewhere in the middle of the two extremes felt that the phased introduction of restrictions was very sensible.

Which group was the government reacting to?

Essentially you argument, which was Scaras, is the government are blameless for mistakes because they followed science.

This framing of science is rather simplistic - scientific advice on something like this is rarely black or white and involves judgement calls - and a blame science approach does not factor in the complexity (eg logistical requirements outside science), leadership or taking responsibility.


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[Danishfurniturelover]

Public outcry that despite saying testing of 25k w day would happen, we’re not even testing all NHS staff.

If you get the testing working you save money and lives in the end. Germany test our total tests thus far in less than 1 week.

A month back, the WHO made it easy by saying it 3 times. Test test test. Only this week when the media and people kicked up a fuss highlighting our lack of testing did we see any decisive action.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

I agree about the testing. The WHO said test test test and they really should be listened to.

I dont want to sound arrogant but i amaze myself and cycled 45 miles and did another joe wicks workout. Just got to eat a bit more to get some weight on.

Proper knackered right now.

 

[SpurMeUp]

I agree about the testing. The WHO said test test test and they really should be listened to.

I dont want to sound arrogant but i amaze myself and cycled 45 miles and did another joe wicks workout. Just got to eat a bit more to get some weight on.

Proper knackered right now.

Sound like SuperMan! Clearly no longer symptoms! [emoji123]


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

Sound like SuperMan! Clearly no longer symptoms! [emoji123]


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

Is weird i have always been strong. When i get sick it is usually only ever a 24 hour thing.

It is why this virus shocked me, it floored me. Honestly think if your fit you give yourself the best chance of coming out the other side.

 

[SpurMeUp]

Is weird i have always been strong. When i get sick it is usually only ever a 24 hour thing.

It is why this virus shocked me, it floored me. Honestly think if your fit you give yourself the best chance of coming out the other side.

You had chemo? Or something related to stem cell treatment? So that would account for you having a stronger reaction to the virus. But it sounds like you are back with full force now [emoji106]


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

You had chemo? Or something related to stem cell treatment? So that would account for you having a stronger reaction to the virus. But it sounds like you are back with full force now [emoji106]


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

I did yeah. They emailed me to say i can go back for the last round that i missed.

Might leave it for the 4 years and see where we are then.

 

[scaramanga]

I agree about the testing. The WHO said test test test and they really should be listened to.

I dont want to sound arrogant but i amaze myself and cycled 45 miles and did another joe wicks workout. Just got to eat a bit more to get some weight on.

Proper knackered right now.

Then the WHO should have paid for the testing. Easy decision then

 

[SteveAWOL]

Because, with our lying, ideologically extreme government, they would have absolutely revelled in telling the country how brick the EU scheme was and how the EU were again trying to steal money from the UK, provide us with subpar ventilators. And the country, in its current fervor, would have absolutely lapped it up.

As we can see in here, where people are doing this anyway, regardless of facts.

There's no upside to the government's current approach where they've had to basically admit they were lying and said they'll reconsider next round of procurement.

Yet only one side has been shown up for lying here (and to its own population) and it isn't the EU.

At least they’re finally utilising the APHA labs for testing... only took 2 months.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1245434967666163712

 

[P.D.]

Public outcry that despite saying testing of 25k w day would happen, we’re not even testing all NHS staff.

If you get the testing working you save money and lives in the end. Germany test our total tests thus far in less than 1 week.

A month back, the WHO made it easy by saying it 3 times. Test test test. Only this week when the media and people kicked up a fuss highlighting our lack of testing did we see any decisive action.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

I agree they should be testing more but it's harder to do than say it, if you don't have the relevant chemicals and lab capabilities ready then it can't be scaled easily Germany already had a mass of labs and infrastructure ready.

I do think they should have envisaged needing to test more and looked to scale up earlier, now you can see every country is looking to buy the same tests. It would also avoid the chance of the things that happened in Spain where they had to return faulty tests.

 

[jts1882]

I agree about the testing. The WHO said test test test and they really should be listened to.

I think they might be listened to more if they hadn't tweeted about no evidence for human-human transmission (in mid January) and refused to declare a global pandemic until after the Italy lockdown. Governments might have ramped up testing for a declared pandemic, but could always delay while the WHO didn't consider it that much of a concern. The test, test, test mantra came after it was out of control. It's very much "lock, lock, lock" after the horse has bolted.

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

I think they might be listened to more if they hadn't tweeted about no evidence for human-human transmission (in mid January) and refused to declare a global pandemic until after the Italy lockdown. Governments might have ramped up testing for a declared pandemic, but could always delay while the WHO didn't consider it that much of a concern. The test, test, test mantra came after it was out of control. It's very much "lock, lock, lock" after the horse has bolted.

Did not know that.

 

[jts1882]

I didn't know about the no human-to-human transmission claim until a few days ago. I almost called someone out on it for spreading false information. But there it was in the WHO twitter feed. It was an absurd position, given the number of cases. They hadn't all being rolling in bat and pangolin blood at wild animal markets.

The delay in declaring a pandemic until late March was equally questionable, given its spread throughout the world and several major outbreaks (Italy, Iran, Washington State). Some will question where the WHO head's true allegiance lies. His election was quite controversial and his relationship to those who supported him deserves a little attention.

So I take his belated conversion to criticising western governments for not testing enough with a pinch of salt. He is probably right, but he could have influenced this if he had done his job.

 

[glasgowspur]

As I think he’s a doctor? he’s probably well aware of what medicine is.

The premise is the same regardless of the label ‘expert’ or ‘scientist’. That’s just semantics.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

No, you are quoting Gove speaking about experts on brexit, there is no experts on brexit or politics. It is at best informed guess work.
There's nothing scientific about it.

 

[SpurMeUp]

No, you are quoting Gove speaking about experts on brexit, there is no experts on brexit or politics. It is at best informed guess work.
There's nothing scientific about it.

Firstly I didn't quote babble, babble, Gove on Brexit, I couldn't imagine quoting fish lips on anything meaningful. Secondly, are you sure there are no experienced knowledgeable people who understand the details of international trade, economics, and politics - people who might understand some of the implications of brexit?

 

[Parklaner81]

Essentially you argument, which was Scaras, is the government are blameless for mistakes because they followed science.

Ok...

...what actually happened was that you accused the government of a strategy founded on reacting to public and media pressure, and I responded by arguing that, no, the government's approach has in fact been based largely on the scientific advice it has received.

I have criticised the government in this very thread on at least two specific elements of it's response to this crisis, so once again your interpretation bears little relation to reality.