• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Coronavirus

I don't know that even Corbyn could have moved slower to get PPE to NHS staff and sorted testing out. How long does this government need? Not like there is a lot of other stuff on at the moment.

Speaking purely as a casual observer I'd say the testing issue is fair enough comment, it does appear we've lagged behind on that. I'm not sure the PPE criticism is quite as valid - I've seen news reports from multiple other countries who seem to have had similar or worse problems than us in this regard. It looks like it's been more of a common difficulty than the testing issue.
 
Last edited:
We are currently - bar possibly the US (although some forecasts now have us eventually being above them when it comes to a final death rate per million of population) - heading towards having the highest death rate on the planet for this virus. I am sure that some poor African countries may eventually overtake us; but our government has handled this incredibly badly, as have their scientists.

We had the warnings from Italy and Spain but chose to ignore them. We also had examples of countries who had handled it well - we ignored this too. We have failed in every area from testing through to PPE. Our response was characterised by our PM who, a fortnight before lockdown, was joking about the virus and boasting of still shaking hands with surgeons treating those infected. Fast forward two weeks and he was taking up valuable NHS resources in an ICU, having most probably infected his pregnant girlfriend, the Chief Medical Officer and the Health Secretary along the way.

Saying that any government would have been unable to cope with this is just wrong. You don’t need to look any further than Germany or Austria to see that’s simply not true.

If you think there wasn’t a better way this all could have been handled then I suggest you read a bit more - particularly the Reuters report @milo posted a bit earlier in this thread. Make no mistake, this has been a massive clusterfudge - I just hope it will all come out in the wash eventually.

i have read plenty but unlike some experts on a football forum i do not rush to judgement so quickly. Its a major problem and political bias being shown ( by some) is just that.
 
I don't know that even Corbyn could have moved slower to get PPE to NHS staff and sorted testing out. How long does this government need? Not like there is a lot of other stuff on at the moment.

Pretty sure the lack of testing is that we only have 2 or 3 of the machines that can process the samples. That’s why there’s only 2 centres nationwide for NHS workers to get tested. Testing will only ramp up once they start using a new testing method.

Similarly the delay with PPE was that we didn’t have any. They’ve since bought high volume though.

These points were freely mentioned by the gov a few weeks ago but were then brushed under the carpet a bit as things got more serious.

The biggest criticism for me is why we didn’t have more of this stuff as it wouldn’t have been that expensive to stockpile PPE for example.
 
Pretty sure the lack of testing is that we only have 2 or 3 of the machines that can process the samples. That’s why there’s only 2 centres nationwide for NHS workers to get tested. Testing will only ramp up once they start using a new testing method.

Similarly the delay with PPE was that we didn’t have any. They’ve since bought high volume though.

These points were freely mentioned by the gov a few weeks ago but were then brushed under the carpet a bit as things got more serious.

Oh I see! That's okay then....

Seems to have passed people by that the whole nation is in lockdown. Thousands are dying. Billions are lost weekly. In effect, the nation is at war. Let's just accept that there are only 3 machines for testing, and wait patiently while we bring some rudimentary protective gear for the front line soldiers of this war! Accept it and suck it up is not a response you want from your leader at a time of crisis.

What was needed was to act fast and do whatever it took to ensure there is the required kit. Commandeer whatever people and resources are needed to buy or make more testing machines. There will be more than one means to test people. Use the UKs significant pharma industry and world-leading Universities and do it fast! Have the army on standby for logistics or to get materials. The reality is, we got a slow response from this government who have been playing catch up, well behind other nations.

The only mitigation is that the virus probably spread through our government and physically slowed them down. But they should have had a plan in place about a month ago to equip the nation with the key resources needed to fight back. Ironic that Boris admires Churchill, as his response could not have been less Churchillian. He wasn't prepared, he did not galvanize the nation, and he didn't seem to have a plan.
 
i have read plenty but unlike some experts on a football forum i do not rush to judgement so quickly. Its a major problem and political bias being shown ( by some) is just that.

Even The Daily Mail and The Telegraph have been critical of the government, particularly when it comes to PPE. That’s two Tory papers criticising a Conservative government in the midst of a national crisis. Basically unheard of.

Then there is what those on the frontline are saying:

https://www.theguardian.com/society...lic-not-to-overuse-ppe?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I’m not rushing to judgement. It’s now three months into this brickstorm - and I was pretty much behind the government to begin with, as I’m sure everyone was. I hoped they had our backs. While we were all hoping that, Boris was ‘getting Brexit done’ - and then taking a week off to write his book.

I’m certainly not an expert either; but it doesn’t take one to work out how badly this has been fudged up. You just need to check the figures, while realising that we are around two - three weeks behind Italy and Spain. So how is it possible that we could have been so badly prepared that we are now scrabbling around trying to beg 60 ventilators off the German military; and that many of our medical staff being honoured with applause every Thursday evening are having to go to work each day without basic protective equipment ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: DTA
Commandeer whatever people and resources are needed to buy or make more testing machines. There will be more than one means to test people. Use the UKs significant pharma industry and world-leading Universities and do it fast!

Not saying it’s “ok”, but in one of the first live Q and A they said this was the initial plan but there wasn’t a single machine available to buy in the world, and no other way to test. Therefore the strategy changed to inventing a new way of testing and manufacturing this In bulk.

So I guess the question is at what time was this realised (I.e if none available in Dec/Jan then more understandable than if they tinkled around until late March)

Hence my point that the bigger error seems to be not having this stuff just in case, and erroneously assuming that we could buy it if needed (when the whole world also wants the same + America making it law that PPE cannot leave the country etc.) Plus as you say, if we didn’t have it then we should have got all out as soon as Wuhan reported this.
 
Burning Cell Towers, Out of Baseless Fear They Spread the Virus

A conspiracy theory linking the spread of the coronavirus to 5G wireless technology has spurred more than 100 incidents this month, British officials said.

LONDON — On April 2, a wireless tower was set ablaze in Birmingham. The next day, a fire was reported at 10 p.m. at a telecommunications box in Liverpool. An hour later, an emergency call came in about another cell tower in Liverpool that was going up in flames.

Across Britain, more than 30 acts of arson and vandalism have taken place against wireless towers and other telecom gear this month, according to police reports and a telecom trade group. In roughly 80 other incidents in the country, telecom technicians have been harassed on the job.

The attacks were fueled by the same cause, government officials said: an internet conspiracy theory that links the spread of the coronavirus to an ultrafast wireless technology known as 5G. Under the false idea, which has gained momentum in Facebook groups, WhatsApp messages and YouTube videos, radio waves sent by 5G technology are causing small changes to people’s bodies that make them succumb to the virus.

The incidents starkly demonstrate how coronavirus conspiracy theories have taken a dark turn by spilling out into the real world. In just a few weeks, the pandemic has given pre-existing fringe ideas online new urgency by playing on people’s fears.

Before the coronavirus, rarely did such theories cause as much tangible harm so quickly, disinformation researchers said.

In the United States, one person died after self-medicating with chloroquine, which was touted online as a miracle cure for the coronavirus even though its efficacy is unproven. And Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was assigned more security this month after unfounded theories spread that he was part of a secret cabal working to undermine President Trump.

“Most conspiracies stay online, but this is having real-world impact,” said Alexandre Alaphilippe, executive director of the E.U. DisinfoLab, a Brussels-based group tracking virus conspiracy theories. He called managing pandemic misinformation “a new problem” because the disease is global and people everywhere are hunting for information.

The false theory linking 5G to the coronavirus has been especially prominent, amplified by celebrities like John Cusack and Woody Harrelson on social media. It has also been stoked by a vocal anti-5G contingent, who have urged people to take action against telecom gear to protect themselves.

The idea has deep internet roots. An analysis by The New York Times found 487 Facebook communities, 84 Instagram accounts, 52 Twitter accounts, and dozens of other posts and videos pushing the conspiracy. The Facebook communities added nearly half a million new followers over the past two weeks. On Instagram, a network of 40 accounts nearly doubled its audience this month to 58,800 followers.

On YouTube, the 10 most popular 5G coronavirus conspiracy videos posted in March were viewed over 5.8 million times. Today, the conspiracy can be found on Facebook in over 30 countries, including Switzerland, Uruguay and Japan.

British politicians said the conspiracy theory and the violent acts it was causing were unacceptable.

“This is nonsense of the absolute highest order,” said Julian Knight, a member of Parliament who leads a committee investigating coronavirus-related online misinformation. He said Facebook and YouTube needed to “get a grip” on the situation or risk undermining the crisis response.

Mr. Knight added that the spread of 5G conspiracies raised alarms about how information about a future coronavirus vaccine would be disseminated.

“If we were to get a vaccine for Covid-19, can we trust the social media companies to ensure that the right public health messages are put out about that vaccine?” he asked. “That could be a question of life and death for many people.”

Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, said it was “starting to remove false claims that 5G technology causes the symptoms of or contraction of Covid-19.” YouTube said it would reduce recommendations of videos linking the coronavirus to 5G, while Twitter said it had taken action against misleading and harmful content about the illness.
 
Wild claims about 5G are not new. The technology has an outsize political importance because it may provide countries with a competitive edge, with faster wireless speeds enabling more rapid development of driverless cars and other innovations.

Internet trolls have seized on 5G and its political implications to sow fear, leading to protests in the United States and elsewhere against the technology in recent years. Russians have pushed claims that 5G signals were linked to brain cancer, infertility, autism, heart tumors and Alzheimer’s disease, all of which lacked scientific support.

In January, as the coronavirus rippled through Wuhan, China, and beyond, it provided new fodder for anti-5G trolls. On Jan. 19, a post on Twitter speculated on a link between 5G and the disease, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company that studied 699,000 mentions of the conspiracy this year through April 7.

“Wuhan has 5,000+ #5G base stations now and 50,000 by 2021 — is it a disease or 5G?” the tweet said.

On Jan. 22, an article on a Belgium news website included a comment from a physician claiming that 5G was harmful to people’s health. Though it did not specifically mention the coronavirus, the doctor mentioned a possible “link with current events.” The article, later deleted by the publisher, reached as many as 115,000 people, according to CrowdTangle, a tool that analyzes interactions across social media.

By last month, 5G-coronavirus claims on the web and television were rising, according to Zignal Labs. A YouTube video that connected the virus to 5G last month racked up roughly two million views before the site deleted it. And the singer Keri Hilson, as well as Mr. Harrelson and Mr. Cusack, posted online about the conspiracy.

“A lot of my friends have been talking about the negative effects of 5G,” Mr. Harrelson wrote on Instagram to his two million followers last week, sharing a screenshot of an article that drew links between the outbreak in Wuhan and 5G development there.

Representatives for Mr. Harrelson and Mr. Cusack, whose 5G posts have since been deleted, declined to comment. Ms. Hilson’s manager said her posts had been removed because “we feel that at this time it is important to focus on the things that we know are 100 percent accurate.”

The conspiracy particularly resonated in Britain. In January, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had given the Chinese technology company Huawei permission to set up 5G infrastructure in the country.

In recent weeks, conspiracy theorists began saying China’s lack of transparency on Covid-19 was evidence that Huawei should not be trusted to install 5G in Britain. Some went further and called for the destruction of wireless equipment.

“We need to bring 5G down,” said one person in the Facebook group Stop 5G U.K., which has more than 58,600 members.

After the British government issued shelter-in-place orders on March 23, some conspiracy theorists commented that it was a trick to secretly build 5G masts out of public view.

On April 2, in one of the first 5G-coronavirus incidents, telecom equipment in a neighborhood of Belfast in Northern Ireland was set ablaze, according to local officials.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Carl Whyte, a Belfast City Council member. “They are seeing these conspiracy theories on social media and going out and destroying those masts.”

Word of the fire spread around the Belfast area. Richard Kerr, the minister at Templepatrick Presbyterian Church in nearby Ballyclare, said, “I was taken aback that it went to that level that people were prepared to commit arson.”

Other fires of telecom towers followed in Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere. Videos of burning equipment were shared and celebrated on Facebook. Some videos also showed telecom technicians being harassed.

“You know when they turn this on it’s going to kill everyone,” a woman said of 5G in a recent video on Twitter, as she confronted technicians laying fiber-optic cables in an unidentified British town.

Mark Steele, a prominent anti-5G activist in Britain, said the fires were a result of people being frustrated that their safety concerns weren’t taken seriously. Asked if he believed 5G was causing coronavirus, he said, “It’s looking a bit suspicious, don’t you think?”

Telecommunications companies, which have added more security and are working with law enforcement, said the attacks against their workers and equipment had been widespread, threatening communication networks during the crisis. Vodafone said it had experienced at least 15 incidents, while BT has had at least 11. The companies said that in many cases, vandals had damaged existing infrastructure and not new 5G gear.

The police in Belfast, Liverpool and Birmingham said they were continuing to investigate the incidents, reviewing security-camera footage and asking the public for leads.

Anti-5G groups have continued adding hundreds of members. One Facebook user shared photos this week of a wireless tower being constructed in an unidentified area of Britain.

“Light it up,” one commenter responded.
 
Wild claims about 5G are not new. The technology has an outsize political importance because it may provide countries with a competitive edge, with faster wireless speeds enabling more rapid development of driverless cars and other innovations.

Internet trolls have seized on 5G and its political implications to sow fear, leading to protests in the United States and elsewhere against the technology in recent years. Russians have pushed claims that 5G signals were linked to brain cancer, infertility, autism, heart tumors and Alzheimer’s disease, all of which lacked scientific support.

In January, as the coronavirus rippled through Wuhan, China, and beyond, it provided new fodder for anti-5G trolls. On Jan. 19, a post on Twitter speculated on a link between 5G and the disease, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company that studied 699,000 mentions of the conspiracy this year through April 7.

“Wuhan has 5,000+ #5G base stations now and 50,000 by 2021 — is it a disease or 5G?” the tweet said.

On Jan. 22, an article on a Belgium news website included a comment from a physician claiming that 5G was harmful to people’s health. Though it did not specifically mention the coronavirus, the doctor mentioned a possible “link with current events.” The article, later deleted by the publisher, reached as many as 115,000 people, according to CrowdTangle, a tool that analyzes interactions across social media.

By last month, 5G-coronavirus claims on the web and television were rising, according to Zignal Labs. A YouTube video that connected the virus to 5G last month racked up roughly two million views before the site deleted it. And the singer Keri Hilson, as well as Mr. Harrelson and Mr. Cusack, posted online about the conspiracy.

“A lot of my friends have been talking about the negative effects of 5G,” Mr. Harrelson wrote on Instagram to his two million followers last week, sharing a screenshot of an article that drew links between the outbreak in Wuhan and 5G development there.

Representatives for Mr. Harrelson and Mr. Cusack, whose 5G posts have since been deleted, declined to comment. Ms. Hilson’s manager said her posts had been removed because “we feel that at this time it is important to focus on the things that we know are 100 percent accurate.”

The conspiracy particularly resonated in Britain. In January, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had given the Chinese technology company Huawei permission to set up 5G infrastructure in the country.

In recent weeks, conspiracy theorists began saying China’s lack of transparency on Covid-19 was evidence that Huawei should not be trusted to install 5G in Britain. Some went further and called for the destruction of wireless equipment.

“We need to bring 5G down,” said one person in the Facebook group Stop 5G U.K., which has more than 58,600 members.

After the British government issued shelter-in-place orders on March 23, some conspiracy theorists commented that it was a trick to secretly build 5G masts out of public view.

On April 2, in one of the first 5G-coronavirus incidents, telecom equipment in a neighborhood of Belfast in Northern Ireland was set ablaze, according to local officials.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Carl Whyte, a Belfast City Council member. “They are seeing these conspiracy theories on social media and going out and destroying those masts.”

Word of the fire spread around the Belfast area. Richard Kerr, the minister at Templepatrick Presbyterian Church in nearby Ballyclare, said, “I was taken aback that it went to that level that people were prepared to commit arson.”

Other fires of telecom towers followed in Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere. Videos of burning equipment were shared and celebrated on Facebook. Some videos also showed telecom technicians being harassed.

“You know when they turn this on it’s going to kill everyone,” a woman said of 5G in a recent video on Twitter, as she confronted technicians laying fiber-optic cables in an unidentified British town.

Mark Steele, a prominent anti-5G activist in Britain, said the fires were a result of people being frustrated that their safety concerns weren’t taken seriously. Asked if he believed 5G was causing coronavirus, he said, “It’s looking a bit suspicious, don’t you think?”

Telecommunications companies, which have added more security and are working with law enforcement, said the attacks against their workers and equipment had been widespread, threatening communication networks during the crisis. Vodafone said it had experienced at least 15 incidents, while BT has had at least 11. The companies said that in many cases, vandals had damaged existing infrastructure and not new 5G gear.

The police in Belfast, Liverpool and Birmingham said they were continuing to investigate the incidents, reviewing security-camera footage and asking the public for leads.

Anti-5G groups have continued adding hundreds of members. One Facebook user shared photos this week of a wireless tower being constructed in an unidentified area of Britain.

“Light it up,” one commenter responded.

People are really fudging stupid.
 
Reason we have higher rates than Spain and Italy is down to the high rate of population living in such proximity in the U.K., London alone means the opportunity for spread was always likely to be higher even before it was known just how deadly this could be.
 
Back