I see the 'it's not important if the target isn't met today' lads have miraculously pivoted to 'what a victory for Matt Clem Fitzgerald Hilda Hancock!!!'
Just 2000 tests in Scotland - WTF is the SNP up to ?
Well they're not posting out 50k tests, that's for sure.
They're not posting out any are they?
Amazing, despite not having heard of posted out tests until today, the PB acolytes are now BIG fans.
But it's a great idea, post the kit with instructions and a padded envelope, post the sample back and get your result a couple of days later. For non-urgent cases such as people living with those who are isolating it's definitely a good avenue to not waste capacity at faster testing routes or clog up the drive through centres unnecessarily.
Triouble is the lack of positive confirmation they really do 'deserve' tests. This could just as well be diverting capacity disproportionately from the priority staff, more than the added capacity in itslef improves the situation. No idea if this is happening to any extent.
Everyone who thinks they're sick with it deserves a test. I don't know about you but we don't eat the very last piece of dried pasta before heading out to the shops. Someone thinks they might have Covid, but they're so mild it's not really affecting them. So they call, get a home test and it comes back positive. Bingo, they know they need to stay in and not make that trip out to the shops that they otherwise might have done.
Oh, I agree - but with the capacity quite low it had to be rationed. If this can truly change then excellent. So long as.e. g. care home staff do get the testst they need.
Either they are being very badly advised or they’re not listening.
I have plenty of sympathy for the pair, but some of their actions have the hallmarks of people who are insistent that because they are very angry, perhaps even righteously so, everything they are angry about must be both unfair and unreasonable.
Reality Check Having set a target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April, the government now says it reached 122,347 tests on Wednesday (the last day of the month).
The government had been averaging around 20,000 tests a day but this increased significantly over the last week.
When home testing kits became a significant part of the testing strategy last week, the Department of Health began counting those sent out as part of its daily test figures.
So, it doesn’t mean the test was actually used by someone on that day - or even received.
Previously, only instances in which the swab had been processed through a lab were counted as a test.
But the new definition - added on 27 April - included tests "posted to an individual at home".
On 29 April, the definition was extended yet further to also encompass "tests sent to... satellite testing locations".
According to figures released on 30 April, home testing kits accounted for over 18,000 of the daily tests, or a quarter of the total.
27k out of 122k - honestly who cares?
Posted tests are a good idea, people were freaking out about the inability to get to a testing centre now they're whining that some tests are posted which can reach anyone in the country even those in the backwoods who don't drive.
27k is at home tests they made the same decision about sattelite test centres on 28/4/20 too so thats another 12k
"Britain could carry out 200,000 tests a day by mid-May, officials believe after the government exceeded its target of 100,000 by more than a fifth."
"Central to the strategy has been the creation of three “mega labs” in Milton Keynes, Cheshire and Glasgow which process the majority of tests. At the end of March, officials identified that a standardised type of PCR equipment made by the biotech company Thermo Fisher was needed and the army was deployed to collect as many machines as possible from university and private labs and bring them to the three centres.
While teething problems slowed the scale-up of the labs, they are now running automated, factory-style processes which made it possible to increase capacity very quickly in the final days."
The last sentence is pretty interesting to me, the fact that we've now got three fully scalable facilities for test processing means we could conceivably run as many tests as we need. The downside is that we don't have onsite processing facilities that can give answers within hours, most of these will have a 48h processing time which seems like a bottleneck to me.
Also:
"NHS and Public Health England labs have also exceeded their target of 25,000 tests by the end of April, reaching 32,150 on Wednesday."
If we'd persisted with public sector only testing. We'd be in the shit.
Its pathetic during a pandemic to see some disappointed that the country is doing well with testing now. Seriously absurd and through the looking glass.
We can't build field hospitals like the Chinese. We did.
We are going to run out of ventilators. We didn't.
We can't ramp up testing fast enough. We have.
We are going to run out of PPE. We haven't.
Obviously nobody would choose to start where we did knowing what we now know about COVID-19. That aside, the response from the NHS, wider public services, the army, and private industry has been remarkable, not forgetting the high degree of compliance by the public.
I for one am extremely grateful by the huge effort made by so many people to fight this virus.
Oh just give up. The Left and Remainerdom wanted this as a stick with which to beat the government. Now your stick is broken. Because the government actually did something good.
An unedifying spectacle. Let us move on.
You are projecting.
Just two of your tweets today
Here, you say the government is as bad as China in its distortion of the stats
Nope, I did not say that the government is as bad a China. It is certainly taking people for fools. That’s not being driven crazy by success, it’s an observation.
I see the 'it's not important if the target isn't met today' lads have miraculously pivoted to 'what a victory for Matt Clem Fitzgerald Hilda Hancock!!!'
Just 2000 tests in Scotland - WTF is the SNP up to ?
Well they're not posting out 50k tests, that's for sure.
They're not posting out any are they?
Amazing, despite not having heard of posted out tests until today, the PB acolytes are now BIG fans.
But it's a great idea, post the kit with instructions and a padded envelope, post the sample back and get your result a couple of days later. For non-urgent cases such as people living with those who are isolating it's definitely a good avenue to not waste capacity at faster testing routes or clog up the drive through centres unnecessarily.
Triouble is the lack of positive confirmation they really do 'deserve' tests. This could just as well be diverting capacity disproportionately from the priority staff, more than the added capacity in itslef improves the situation. No idea if this is happening to any extent.
I doubt the postal tests are being used for priority cases, they will be getting drive through appointments or being told to go to the mobile testing centres. The postal ones are for less urgent cases. If a doctor is self isolating she will be told to go to the drive in, her husband will get sent a postal test aiui.
You can tell the government weren’t taking it seriously enough at the start because the Health Minister went down with Covid-19. As did the Health Secretary. As did the Prime Minister. And his partner. And the Chief Medical Officer.
None of them understood what they were dealing with at even the most basic level.
That's a very weak complaint. Lots of politicians, medical officers and officials around the world have gone down with this virus, presumably because they meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time in meetings talking.
The fact that the Chief Medical Officer was one of them rather destroys your argument. Is he on your list of ignorant, incompetent, Brexit-obsessed dilettantes?
I haven’t mentioned Brexit at all. And yes, I do think the Chief Medical Officer has performed poorly.
But like all fish, this one rots from the head. The fact that the Prime Minister took half of February off and couldn’t be bothered to turn up to five Cobra meetings on the subject is indicative of a hallmark lack of urgency or interest in dull detail. And he was found out.
I am afraid you are working backwards from your conclusion, like many others. You might have had a point if the SAGE group and the COBRA meetings were recommending urgent action which Boris didn't bother to read or implement. But there is absolutely zero evidence of that, quite the opposite.
MOREOVER, the critique that a test mailed out should not count is nuts
If a test is sent out, then the person receiving it will not wait to use it, they will do it immediately. That person will then know if they are positive or negative, they have been tested. The store of knowledge around coronavirus has been increased by 1 test.
The government is right to count them in the total, so the total is 122,000
It's also not general post, it's same day Amazon delivery and next day Royal Mail courier to get it to the processing lab. It's not post, wait 2 days, send back, wait 2 days, process, wait up to 2 days. It's send, send back, next day, process - a maximum of 3 days.
Lol, at last some certitude in a disquieting world. The PB experts who year in year out have proved that they know feck all about Scottish politics still know feck all about Scottish politics.
Sturgeon continuing to do well as governor general of Scotland then in the words of Wings over Scotland, having ruled out indyref2 for the rest of the year and without Westminster support beyond that and sensibly focusing on tackling the virus and Scottish domestic policy
So worst case scenario they still achieved most of the (arbitrary) target. Arguments about capacity vs carried out and so on is now just a political issue of spin then, that is not important. I say leave it to the MPs to take shots at each other over it in that case.
I see the 'it's not important if the target isn't met today' lads have miraculously pivoted to 'what a victory for Matt Clem Fitzgerald Hilda Hancock!!!'
Just 2000 tests in Scotland - WTF is the SNP up to ?
Well they're not posting out 50k tests, that's for sure.
They're not posting out any are they?
Amazing, despite not having heard of posted out tests until today, the PB acolytes are now BIG fans.
But it's a great idea, post the kit with instructions and a padded envelope, post the sample back and get your result a couple of days later. For non-urgent cases such as people living with those who are isolating it's definitely a good avenue to not waste capacity at faster testing routes or clog up the drive through centres unnecessarily.
Triouble is the lack of positive confirmation they really do 'deserve' tests. This could just as well be diverting capacity disproportionately from the priority staff, more than the added capacity in itslef improves the situation. No idea if this is happening to any extent.
It is probably easier to keep on increasing the number of tests, rather than keep on with what was happening before with testing.
Which was where Foxy et al were telling us of people needing multiple signatures to get a test.
You can tell the government weren’t taking it seriously enough at the start because the Health Minister went down with Covid-19. As did the Health Secretary. As did the Prime Minister. And his partner. And the Chief Medical Officer.
None of them understood what they were dealing with at even the most basic level.
That's a very weak complaint. Lots of politicians, medical officers and officials around the world have gone down with this virus, presumably because they meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time in meetings talking.
The fact that the Chief Medical Officer was one of them rather destroys your argument. Is he on your list of ignorant, incompetent, Brexit-obsessed dilettantes?
I haven’t mentioned Brexit at all. And yes, I do think the Chief Medical Officer has performed poorly.
But like all fish, this one rots from the head. The fact that the Prime Minister took half of February off and couldn’t be bothered to turn up to five Cobra meetings on the subject is indicative of a hallmark lack of urgency or interest in dull detail. And he was found out.
I am afraid you are working backwards from your conclusion, like many others. You might have had a point if the SAGE group and the COBRA meetings were recommending urgent action which Boris didn't bother to read or implement. But there is absolutely zero evidence of that, quite the opposite.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
Either they are being very badly advised or they’re not listening.
I have plenty of sympathy for the pair, but some of their actions have the hallmarks of people who are insistent that because they are very angry, perhaps even righteously so, everything they are angry about must be both unfair and unreasonable.
I expect that they think because their target is "evil" and they are so virtuous they must be right. Lots of people fall into that trap though, I have an uncle who, against advice, pursued legal action against his neighbour for something fairly trivial and lost.
Even by the 100k people tested, there was 73k people tested. From the start position to there, and given Wales / Scotland have not managed to increase at all, that isn't a bad effort.
The discussion over the exact number of tests is among the most mind-bendingly dull arguments ever to be staged on PB, and it’s a very crowded field.
Even the debate about whether corona or covid would become the preferred shorthand surpassed this mundane misery.
Did we get a ruling on that? I think Covid won out, but you still see official people talking about 'the coronavirus' sometimes.
On the tests, it will remain an argument among political wonks about the spinning of the number, unless it is shown to take it a long way from the target. If it doesn't then even the positive spin won't have enough consequence to be scandalous.
Lol, at last some certitude in a disquieting world. The PB experts who year in year out have proved that they know feck all about Scottish politics still know feck all about Scottish politics.
Sturgeon continuing to do well as governor general of Scotland then in the words of Wings over Scotland, having ruled out indyref2 for the rest of the year and without Westminster support beyond that and sensibly focusing on tackling the virus and Scottish domestic policy
"Britain could carry out 200,000 tests a day by mid-May, officials believe after the government exceeded its target of 100,000 by more than a fifth."
"Central to the strategy has been the creation of three “mega labs” in Milton Keynes, Cheshire and Glasgow which process the majority of tests. At the end of March, officials identified that a standardised type of PCR equipment made by the biotech company Thermo Fisher was needed and the army was deployed to collect as many machines as possible from university and private labs and bring them to the three centres.
While teething problems slowed the scale-up of the labs, they are now running automated, factory-style processes which made it possible to increase capacity very quickly in the final days."
The last sentence is pretty interesting to me, the fact that we've now got three fully scalable facilities for test processing means we could conceivably run as many tests as we need. The downside is that we don't have onsite processing facilities that can give answers within hours, most of these will have a 48h processing time which seems like a bottleneck to me.
Also:
"NHS and Public Health England labs have also exceeded their target of 25,000 tests by the end of April, reaching 32,150 on Wednesday."
If we'd persisted with public sector only testing. We'd be in the shit.
I've no doubt that as we close on 200,000 a day there will still be some die-hard idiots insisting that only NHS and PHE lab run tests count.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
We're fine on the testing numbers now. John Lilburne's anecdote I think shows that. There are many more beasts to slay, priority, turnaround times, what we do with the testing information to make it as effacious as possible but on testing we're fine. In England.
I see the 'it's not important if the target isn't met today' lads have miraculously pivoted to 'what a victory for Matt Clem Fitzgerald Hilda Hancock!!!'
Just 2000 tests in Scotland - WTF is the SNP up to ?
Well they're not posting out 50k tests, that's for sure.
They're not posting out any are they?
Amazing, despite not having heard of posted out tests until today, the PB acolytes are now BIG fans.
But it's a great idea, post the kit with instructions and a padded envelope, post the sample back and get your result a couple of days later. For non-urgent cases such as people living with those who are isolating it's definitely a good avenue to not waste capacity at faster testing routes or clog up the drive through centres unnecessarily.
Triouble is the lack of positive confirmation they really do 'deserve' tests. This could just as well be diverting capacity disproportionately from the priority staff, more than the added capacity in itslef improves the situation. No idea if this is happening to any extent.
I doubt the postal tests are being used for priority cases, they will be getting drive through appointments or being told to go to the mobile testing centres. The postal ones are for less urgent cases. If a doctor is self isolating she will be told to go to the drive in, her husband will get sent a postal test aiui.
Thanks - good comment.
You get asked at the beginning if you want a drive through or postal, so it's self selecting. I selected something like "public servant" and got a same-day appointment at my closest station. Which had a fairly constant throughput but not what you call busy. There is now plenty of capacity, it seems
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
How do you know what questions he asked?
We know he didn’t bother to turn up to any of the Cobra meetings to ask them.
The discussion over the exact number of tests is among the most mind-bendingly dull arguments ever to be staged on PB, and it’s a very crowded field.
Even the debate about whether corona or covid would become the preferred shorthand surpassed this mundane misery.
Weren't you here for the 'how many were on Peoples Vote march' exercise in pointlessness? Though the level of derangement on display was quite entertaining I guess.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
We're fine on the testing numbers now. John Lilburne's anecdote I think shows that. There are many more beasts to slay, priority, turnaround times, what we do with the testing information to make it as effacious as possible but on testing we're fine. In England.
Now we have the numbers, it's time to use it effectively. I doubt that is the case at the moment.
I wonder how many Sir Humphrey's on PHE and DoH spent the past month saying it just isn't possible, we can't use x because, that is very brave minister....
Fair play, even with any caveats I did not think the government would get close to 100,000 and I was wrong.
I genuinely worry when people just cannot compliment HMG when they achieve something
You are one of the few who is fair
That is kind of you to say, but I think in fairness I am, at times, a little too forgiving of the authorities though I'm happy to say here I thought even with any spinning they'd not be close.
You can tell the government weren’t taking it seriously enough at the start because the Health Minister went down with Covid-19. As did the Health Secretary. As did the Prime Minister. And his partner. And the Chief Medical Officer.
None of them understood what they were dealing with at even the most basic level.
That's a very weak complaint. Lots of politicians, medical officers and officials around the world have gone down with this virus, presumably because they meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time in meetings talking.
The fact that the Chief Medical Officer was one of them rather destroys your argument. Is he on your list of ignorant, incompetent, Brexit-obsessed dilettantes?
I haven’t mentioned Brexit at all. And yes, I do think the Chief Medical Officer has performed poorly.
But like all fish, this one rots from the head. The fact that the Prime Minister took half of February off and couldn’t be bothered to turn up to five Cobra meetings on the subject is indicative of a hallmark lack of urgency or interest in dull detail. And he was found out.
Even by the 100k people tested, there was 73k people tested. From the start position to there, and given Wales / Scotland have not managed to increase at all, that isn't a bad effort.
It's an amazing effort and success. To take anything complicated and to do it, or make it, an order of magnitude more in a matter of weeks is ridiculously ambitious. There are very few businesses or organisations who would want to do things that way in ordinary circumstances.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
We're fine on the testing numbers now. John Lilburne's anecdote I think shows that. There are many more beasts to slay, priority, turnaround times, what we do with the testing information to make it as effacious as possible but on testing we're fine. In England.
Now we have the numbers, it's time to use it effectively. I doubt that is the case at the moment.
You need to have the raw capacity to fine tune the response systems though. It's a big step but not the only one
The discussion over the exact number of tests is among the most mind-bendingly dull arguments ever to be staged on PB, and it’s a very crowded field.
Even the debate about whether corona or covid would become the preferred shorthand surpassed this mundane misery.
Weren't you here for the 'how many were on Peoples Vote march' exercise in pointlessness? Though the level of derangement on display was quite entertaining I guess.
I can confidently state there were between 1 and 100 million on that march.
Even by the 100k people tested, there was 73k people tested. From the start position to there, and given Wales / Scotland have not managed to increase at all, that isn't a bad effort.
Its not a bad effort I agree.
We still need to run faster to catch up though.
Perhaps we could count tests when the Government buys a stamp rather than having to have an address to send it to
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
The current testing trajectory is admirable. The correct criticism is why Britain was so far off the pace for so long.
Yes, we're 4 weeks too late to this point in time. If we were testing 100k people per day 4 weeks ago our isolation strategy would have worked a lot better.
You can tell the government weren’t taking it seriously enough at the start because the Health Minister went down with Covid-19. As did the Health Secretary. As did the Prime Minister. And his partner. And the Chief Medical Officer.
None of them understood what they were dealing with at even the most basic level.
That's a very weak complaint. Lots of politicians, medical officers and officials around the world have gone down with this virus, presumably because they meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time in meetings talking.
The fact that the Chief Medical Officer was one of them rather destroys your argument. Is he on your list of ignorant, incompetent, Brexit-obsessed dilettantes?
I haven’t mentioned Brexit at all. And yes, I do think the Chief Medical Officer has performed poorly.
But like all fish, this one rots from the head. The fact that the Prime Minister took half of February off and couldn’t be bothered to turn up to five Cobra meetings on the subject is indicative of a hallmark lack of urgency or interest in dull detail. And he was found out.
I am afraid you are working backwards from your conclusion, like many others. You might have had a point if the SAGE group and the COBRA meetings were recommending urgent action which Boris didn't bother to read or implement. But there is absolutely zero evidence of that, quite the opposite.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
No it's not. Most COBR meetings have the Secretary of State not the PM at them. The PM attends a fraction of COBR meetings.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
The current testing trajectory is admirable. The correct criticism is why Britain was so far off the pace for so long.
Scotland and Wales still look off the pace to me.
The Welsh government is having a bad covid, the latest being it has caused the closure of all Debenhams stores due to the way it has allocated the money and refusing rate relief on large rateable values.
It is awarding carers £500 each but that cash is needed to save jobs just now especially those in Debenhams.
Properly rewarding the care workers is the right thing to do, but not just now
I see the 'it's not important if the target isn't met today' lads have miraculously pivoted to 'what a victory for Matt Clem Fitzgerald Hilda Hancock!!!'
Just 2000 tests in Scotland - WTF is the SNP up to ?
Well they're not posting out 50k tests, that's for sure.
They're not posting out any are they?
Union doesn't believe the Scottish governments own figures of 2,063.
It was in today's briefing which you presumably don't watch for Hunnish patriotic reasons.
My big worry isnt if we can do 150k or 200k tests, its the app....i really worry about this....we have effectively turned down the F1 team mechanics for Colin's cars to work on a one of a kind car whose reliability is crucial to life and death.
You can tell the government weren’t taking it seriously enough at the start because the Health Minister went down with Covid-19. As did the Health Secretary. As did the Prime Minister. And his partner. And the Chief Medical Officer.
None of them understood what they were dealing with at even the most basic level.
That's a very weak complaint. Lots of politicians, medical officers and officials around the world have gone down with this virus, presumably because they meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time in meetings talking.
The fact that the Chief Medical Officer was one of them rather destroys your argument. Is he on your list of ignorant, incompetent, Brexit-obsessed dilettantes?
I haven’t mentioned Brexit at all. And yes, I do think the Chief Medical Officer has performed poorly.
But like all fish, this one rots from the head. The fact that the Prime Minister took half of February off and couldn’t be bothered to turn up to five Cobra meetings on the subject is indicative of a hallmark lack of urgency or interest in dull detail. And he was found out.
I am afraid you are working backwards from your conclusion, like many others. You might have had a point if the SAGE group and the COBRA meetings were recommending urgent action which Boris didn't bother to read or implement. But there is absolutely zero evidence of that, quite the opposite.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
No it's not. Most COBR meetings have the Secretary of State not the PM at them. The PM attends a fraction of COBR meetings.
This Prime Minister does. That says much about his laziness.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
How do you know what questions he asked?
We know he didn’t bother to turn up to any of the Cobra meetings to ask them.
We don't have any knowledge at all of what questions he asked, searching or otherwise, but we do know that at the time the experts assessed the risk as 'Low' and then later upgraded it to 'Moderate' right through until March 12th. We also know that it is perfectly normal for PMs not to attend COBRA meetings.
As an outside observer I'd like to advise both sides of the 'testing debate' to keep their powder dry, for now. The time to put it to use may be a week or so from now.
When swabs are taken and processed by qualified staff they have a false negative rate of 25%-30%. The mail order tests will presumably have a higher false neg rate but will still find infections, just like the ramped up test numbers which are counted as "performed" without yet having received the results.
Over the last few weeks the UK has reported on average around 5k positives out of 30k - 40k performed tests. For comparison, here in Germany roughly double the number of tests has yielded positives in the 2k range.
The interesting moment will be when the results from the tests of the last couple of days will come in. It seems not unreasonable to expect a marked uptake, That may be a more appropriate moment to assess the success, or otherwise, of HMG's pandemic response.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
The current testing trajectory is admirable. The correct criticism is why Britain was so far off the pace for so long.
Well we know why i.e. the belief the antibody tests were ready. We won't know who asked what about that for quite a while.
You get the sense NHS England and or Public Health England said "We've got testing covered", and the government accepted it. Then the classic NHS approach to project delivery kicked in and things moved very slowly. Hancock blew his top, got a load of outside experts involved and here we are.
Lots of decent learning coming out on how to reform and improve the NHS in the future, being positive about it.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
The current testing trajectory is admirable. The correct criticism is why Britain was so far off the pace for so long.
Well we know why i.e. the belief the antibody tests were ready. We won't know who asked what about that for quite a while.
You get the sense NHS England and or Public Health England said "We've got testing covered", and the government accepted it. Then the classic NHS approach to project delivery kicked in and things moved very slowly. Hancock blew his top, got a load of outside experts involved and here we are.
Lots of decent learning coming out on how to reform and improve the NHS in the future, being positive about it.
I am waiting to hear the Big Dom bas been stalking the halls of PHE and DoH screaming at people for the past few weeks.
You can tell the government weren’t taking it seriously enough at the start because the Health Minister went down with Covid-19. As did the Health Secretary. As did the Prime Minister. And his partner. And the Chief Medical Officer.
None of them understood what they were dealing with at even the most basic level.
That's a very weak complaint. Lots of politicians, medical officers and officials around the world have gone down with this virus, presumably because they meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time in meetings talking.
The fact that the Chief Medical Officer was one of them rather destroys your argument. Is he on your list of ignorant, incompetent, Brexit-obsessed dilettantes?
I haven’t mentioned Brexit at all. And yes, I do think the Chief Medical Officer has performed poorly.
But like all fish, this one rots from the head. The fact that the Prime Minister took half of February off and couldn’t be bothered to turn up to five Cobra meetings on the subject is indicative of a hallmark lack of urgency or interest in dull detail. And he was found out.
I am afraid you are working backwards from your conclusion, like many others. You might have had a point if the SAGE group and the COBRA meetings were recommending urgent action which Boris didn't bother to read or implement. But there is absolutely zero evidence of that, quite the opposite.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
No it's not. Most COBR meetings have the Secretary of State not the PM at them. The PM attends a fraction of COBR meetings.
This Prime Minister does. That says much about his laziness.
Despite changing the rules to include non processed tests, including those not returned, including those not even received by the testee.
You have fallen for it unsurprisingly
You are giving an impression that you are desperate for HMG to fail for political reasons
And in this deadly disease that is wrong
No i expect them to be consistent with the way they count them.
Up until Monday that meant they were counted once they were processed.
Then we decided to count posted out and not received back. Posted out but not yet received. And even requested a test.
You would be screaming if anyone else changed how to count them 3 days before a deadline to meet a self imposed target.
You are giving an impression that you are desperate for HMG to succeed for political reasons even if it has to move the goalposts to do so
You have lost the argument
There is no argument.
If i tell you i am sending you £200,000 to buy a 2nd property can you buy it on the day you send me an envelope to put a cheque in or do you spend it it if i send it and the bank processes my cheque?
Your Health Secretary has been caught cheating Big G
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
The current testing trajectory is admirable. The correct criticism is why Britain was so far off the pace for so long.
Well we know why i.e. the belief the antibody tests were ready. We won't know who asked what about that for quite a while.
You get the sense NHS England and or Public Health England said "We've got testing covered", and the government accepted it. Then the classic NHS approach to project delivery kicked in and things moved very slowly. Hancock blew his top, got a load of outside experts involved and here we are.
Lots of decent learning coming out on how to reform and improve the NHS in the future, being positive about it.
The "We've got testing covered" people are definitely going to be sacking all of the people who showed them up over the last few days. They absolutely hate what is happening right now, I can guarantee it. All of these union approved processes being ignored, all of these equality approved recruitment processes not being used, best person for the job actually in the right role. That's all going to be stamped out ASAP.
I see the 'it's not important if the target isn't met today' lads have miraculously pivoted to 'what a victory for Matt Clem Fitzgerald Hilda Hancock!!!'
Just 2000 tests in Scotland - WTF is the SNP up to ?
Well they're not posting out 50k tests, that's for sure.
They're not posting out any are they?
Union doesn't believe the Scottish governments own figures of 2,063.
It was in today's briefing which you presumably don't watch for Hunnish patriotic reasons.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
How do you know what questions he asked?
We know he didn’t bother to turn up to any of the Cobra meetings to ask them.
We don't have any knowledge at all of what questions he asked, searching or otherwise, but we do know that at the time the experts assessed the risk as 'Low' and then later upgraded it to 'Moderate' right through until March 12th. We also know that it is perfectly normal for PMs not to attend COBRA meetings.
It’s not normal for the Prime Minister to miss so many. And opening any newspaper in February would have alerted a Prime Minister with a sense of responsibility to an obvious risk to understand.
“Low” and “Moderate” did not have the defined meaning those words would imply, cf the government’s response to the recent Sunday Times article:
“Response - This is a misrepresentation of what the threat level is. This is about the current public health danger – and on February 21, when the UK had about a dozen confirmed cases, out of a population of over 66 million, the actual threat to individuals was moderate.”
Now if you are saying that the experts failed woefully, I would agree. That does not absolve the politicians. It’s their job to test the advice they receive.
Boris Johnson went on a fortnight’s holiday instead.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
The current testing trajectory is admirable. The correct criticism is why Britain was so far off the pace for so long.
Well we know why i.e. the belief the antibody tests were ready. We won't know who asked what about that for quite a while.
You get the sense NHS England and or Public Health England said "We've got testing covered", and the government accepted it. Then the classic NHS approach to project delivery kicked in and things moved very slowly. Hancock blew his top, got a load of outside experts involved and here we are.
Lots of decent learning coming out on how to reform and improve the NHS in the future, being positive about it.
I am waiting to hear the Big Dom bas been stalking the halls of PHE and DoH screaming at people for the past few weeks.
You can tell the government weren’t taking it seriously enough at the start because the Health Minister went down with Covid-19. As did the Health Secretary. As did the Prime Minister. And his partner. And the Chief Medical Officer.
None of them understood what they were dealing with at even the most basic level.
That's a very weak complaint. Lots of politicians, medical officers and officials around the world have gone down with this virus, presumably because they meet a lot of people and spend a lot of time in meetings talking.
The fact that the Chief Medical Officer was one of them rather destroys your argument. Is he on your list of ignorant, incompetent, Brexit-obsessed dilettantes?
I haven’t mentioned Brexit at all. And yes, I do think the Chief Medical Officer has performed poorly.
But like all fish, this one rots from the head. The fact that the Prime Minister took half of February off and couldn’t be bothered to turn up to five Cobra meetings on the subject is indicative of a hallmark lack of urgency or interest in dull detail. And he was found out.
I am afraid you are working backwards from your conclusion, like many others. You might have had a point if the SAGE group and the COBRA meetings were recommending urgent action which Boris didn't bother to read or implement. But there is absolutely zero evidence of that, quite the opposite.
It is highly unusual for a Prime Minister to miss so many Cobra meetings. And simply opening a newspaper would have alerted the Prime Minister to the nature of the danger. A Prime Minister who took his responsibilities seriously (just about all of his predecessors) would have been asking searching questions. But he couldn’t be arsed.
No it's not. Most COBR meetings have the Secretary of State not the PM at them. The PM attends a fraction of COBR meetings.
This Prime Minister does. That says much about his laziness.
If testing numbers continue to increase, the criticism seem very petty if in weeks time they are consistently doing in excess of 100k.
The current testing trajectory is admirable. The correct criticism is why Britain was so far off the pace for so long.
Scotland and Wales still look off the pace to me.
Complementary roles operating in Scotland for the 'UK' and SG systems it seems (which would be sensible). In any case testing being expanded and changing anyway - vide FM briefing earlier this pm. Will wait and see.
So, only 27k home kits. Even without those it's 95k.
I think it would have been better to say they’d done 95k and sent out 27k. People tripping over to find fault would have had less toy ammo
Exactly. Present the unvarnished picture of 'close but no cigar'.
We're all adults. We're all rooting for him. We'd have understood.
No. The attack dogs would go out on the line “the government broke their promise/didn’t deliver”. The nuance of it being by a comparatively small amount would be ignored.
Despite changing the rules to include non processed tests, including those not returned, including those not even received by the testee.
You have fallen for it unsurprisingly
You are giving an impression that you are desperate for HMG to fail for political reasons
And in this deadly disease that is wrong
No i expect them to be consistent with the way they count them.
Up until Monday that meant they were counted once they were processed.
Then we decided to count posted out and not received back. Posted out but not yet received. And even requested a test.
You would be screaming if anyone else changed how to count them 3 days before a deadline to meet a self imposed target.
You are giving an impression that you are desperate for HMG to succeed for political reasons even if it has to move the goalposts to do so
You have lost the argument
There is no argument.
If i tell you i am sending you £200,000 to buy a 2nd property can you buy it on the day you send me an envelope to put a cheque in or do you spend it it if i send it and the bank processes my cheque?
Your Health Secretary has been caught cheating Big G
Seems the French are doing exactly the same thing as us - very late to the mass testing party, but making up for it by going bigger than everyone else.
The discussion over the exact number of tests is among the most mind-bendingly dull arguments ever to be staged on PB, and it’s a very crowded field.
Even the debate about whether corona or covid would become the preferred shorthand surpassed this mundane misery.
Weren't you here for the 'how many were on Peoples Vote march' exercise in pointlessness? Though the level of derangement on display was quite entertaining I guess.
We got this silly virus BEAT. We are the BEST. Fuck off Starmer, Sky, BBC, and the moaning lefties.
AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH
You really are not right in the head, you do know they counted 50K postal applications as tested even if just requested and not even posted. What is it about Tories that makes them such gullible fools. Who could be stupid enough to think that they have tried for 6 weeks to get anywhere , were miles and miles away a day or so ago and suddenly they have done 4 times as many tests in a day or so as they did in previous 6 weeks
I see the 'it's not important if the target isn't met today' lads have miraculously pivoted to 'what a victory for Matt Clem Fitzgerald Hilda Hancock!!!'
I don't see what the contradiction is there. It wouldn't have mattered all that much if it had been missed but was at least relatively close, yet it is clearly a victory if it isn't missed, politically if not mattering so much around impact.
Cheating barstewards, surely you are not stupid enough to believe they miraculously did 4 times as many yesterday as they did in previous 6 weeks.
The discussion over the exact number of tests is among the most mind-bendingly dull arguments ever to be staged on PB, and it’s a very crowded field.
Even the debate about whether corona or covid would become the preferred shorthand surpassed this mundane misery.
Did we get a ruling on that? I think Covid won out, but you still see official people talking about 'the coronavirus' sometimes.
Covid is gaining as it is shorter. Personally In find coronavirus more poetic, and you can also shorten it to The Rona, or just Rona
There's a Rona Road in the cheaper part of NW3. The inhabitants will be furious
Why is "chinese flu" racist when "spanish flu" is an accepted historical name?
A decision was made decades ago that while historical names have stuck that in the future it would be wrong to use geographic identifiers for the name.
The discussion over the exact number of tests is among the most mind-bendingly dull arguments ever to be staged on PB, and it’s a very crowded field.
Even the debate about whether corona or covid would become the preferred shorthand surpassed this mundane misery.
Weren't you here for the 'how many were on Peoples Vote march' exercise in pointlessness? Though the level of derangement on display was quite entertaining I guess.
Nah the “how many attended Trumps inauguration” discussion was the best
This isnt going to go away the Government are going to have to explain why.
Even the BBC will pick this up eventually
When did it change?
If it was April 3 then it’s very different to it changed yesterday.
The current one looks like the boiler plate that’s been used for a while - I suspect CET that it was a wholesale rewrite a while ago
It never really changed.
They always said it would include all types of tests and listed the types of tests they were planning. They added extra types of testing they would do during the month and those have been added into the totals.
We got this silly virus BEAT. We are the BEST. Fuck off Starmer, Sky, BBC, and the moaning lefties.
AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH
You really are not right in the head, you do know they counted 50K postal applications as tested even if just requested and not even posted. What is it about Tories that makes them such gullible fools. Who could be stupid enough to think that they have tried for 6 weeks to get anywhere , were miles and miles away a day or so ago and suddenly they have done 4 times as many tests in a day or so as they did in previous 6 weeks
No they counted 27k that were sent out using a same day delivery service.
Despite changing the rules to include non processed tests, including those not returned, including those not even received by the testee.
You have fallen for it unsurprisingly
You are giving an impression that you are desperate for HMG to fail for political reasons
And in this deadly disease that is wrong
No i expect them to be consistent with the way they count them.
Up until Monday that meant they were counted once they were processed.
Then we decided to count posted out and not received back. Posted out but not yet received. And even requested a test.
You would be screaming if anyone else changed how to count them 3 days before a deadline to meet a self imposed target.
You are giving an impression that you are desperate for HMG to succeed for political reasons even if it has to move the goalposts to do so
You have lost the argument
There is no argument.
If i tell you i am sending you £200,000 to buy a 2nd property can you buy it on the day you send me an envelope to put a cheque in or do you spend it it if i send it and the bank processes my cheque?
Your Health Secretary has been caught cheating Big G
These Tories are either mugs or just as bad as their government, you woudl need to be brain dead to think they made the numbers.
We got this silly virus BEAT. We are the BEST. Fuck off Starmer, Sky, BBC, and the moaning lefties.
AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH
You really are not right in the head, you do know they counted 50K postal applications as tested even if just requested and not even posted. What is it about Tories that makes them such gullible fools. Who could be stupid enough to think that they have tried for 6 weeks to get anywhere , were miles and miles away a day or so ago and suddenly they have done 4 times as many tests in a day or so as they did in previous 6 weeks
Of course they were, capacity takes time to build and come online but then once it is online it can be used.
That's like saying how pathetic it is to think that after an opening of a building 100% of its users have been after it opened rather than before it opened.
Comments
Some interesting stuff:
"Britain could carry out 200,000 tests a day by mid-May, officials believe after the government exceeded its target of 100,000 by more than a fifth."
"Central to the strategy has been the creation of three “mega labs” in Milton Keynes, Cheshire and Glasgow which process the majority of tests. At the end of March, officials identified that a standardised type of PCR equipment made by the biotech company Thermo Fisher was needed and the army was deployed to collect as many machines as possible from university and private labs and bring them to the three centres.
While teething problems slowed the scale-up of the labs, they are now running automated, factory-style processes which made it possible to increase capacity very quickly in the final days."
The last sentence is pretty interesting to me, the fact that we've now got three fully scalable facilities for test processing means we could conceivably run as many tests as we need. The downside is that we don't have onsite processing facilities that can give answers within hours, most of these will have a 48h processing time which seems like a bottleneck to me.
Also:
"NHS and Public Health England labs have also exceeded their target of 25,000 tests by the end of April, reaching 32,150 on Wednesday."
If we'd persisted with public sector only testing. We'd be in the shit.
We're all adults. We're all rooting for him. We'd have understood.
Even the debate about whether corona or covid would become the preferred shorthand surpassed this mundane misery.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1256244858081218560?s=20
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1256262654466969601?s=20
Even the BBC will pick this up eventually
On the tests, it will remain an argument among political wonks about the spinning of the number, unless it is shown to take it a long way from the target. If it doesn't then even the positive spin won't have enough consequence to be scandalous.
You are one of the few who is fair
Time for some on here to celebrate some good news in this distressing saga
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1256230902298021889?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1256232224522997763?s=20
We still need to run faster to catch up though.
Perhaps we could count tests when the Government buys a stamp rather than having to have an address to send it to
It is awarding carers £500 each but that cash is needed to save jobs just now especially those in Debenhams.
Properly rewarding the care workers is the right thing to do, but not just now
JamesClayton
@JamesClayton5
·
46m
So around 40,000 tests were ‘delivered’. That is not the same as ‘carried out’ the term used previously
https://twitter.com/G4S/status/1256268414781394947?s=19
When swabs are taken and processed by qualified staff they have a false negative rate of 25%-30%. The mail order tests will presumably have a higher false neg rate but will still find infections, just like the ramped up test numbers which are counted as "performed" without yet having received the results.
Over the last few weeks the UK has reported on average around 5k positives out of 30k - 40k performed tests. For comparison, here in Germany roughly double the number of tests has yielded positives in the 2k range.
The interesting moment will be when the results from the tests of the last couple of days will come in. It seems not unreasonable to expect a marked uptake,
That may be a more appropriate moment to assess the success, or otherwise, of HMG's pandemic response.
Hancock blew his top, got a load of outside experts involved and here we are.
Lots of decent learning coming out on how to reform and improve the NHS in the future, being positive about it.
If i tell you i am sending you £200,000 to buy a 2nd property can you buy it on the day you send me an envelope to put a cheque in or do you spend it it if i send it and the bank processes my cheque?
Your Health Secretary has been caught cheating Big G
Mushroom, courgette and aubergine risotto.
Washed down with Little Valley Python IPA. Organic, bottle conditioned ale; 6%. Very nice.
Wor Lass made the risotto. I opened the bottle.
(I did vacuum the carpets while she was cooking - I do my share!)
“Low” and “Moderate” did not have the defined meaning those words would imply, cf the government’s response to the recent Sunday Times article:
“Response - This is a misrepresentation of what the threat level is. This is about the current public health danger – and on February 21, when the UK had about a dozen confirmed cases, out of a population of over 66 million, the actual threat to individuals was moderate.”
Now if you are saying that the experts failed woefully, I would agree. That does not absolve the politicians. It’s their job to test the advice they receive.
Boris Johnson went on a fortnight’s holiday instead.
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1256275217632157699?s=20
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1256275219658035205?s=20
ps wtf are Japan doing?
https://twitter.com/MoraleCurry/status/1256276703036440577
If it was April 3 then it’s very different to it changed yesterday.
The current one looks like the boiler plate that’s been used for a while - I suspect CET that it was a wholesale rewrite a while ago
Who could be stupid enough to think that they have tried for 6 weeks to get anywhere , were miles and miles away a day or so ago and suddenly they have done 4 times as many tests in a day or so as they did in previous 6 weeks
122,347 "tests" counted, of which 73,191 individual people tested
* 39,753 in NHS, PHE and devolved admin labs
* 3,072 in surveillance programme
* 39,153 drive through
* 40,369 posted out - crucially these are counted *when posted*, not when results come
While they're stressing over this they haven't put much thought into resting.
They always said it would include all types of tests and listed the types of tests they were planning. They added extra types of testing they would do during the month and those have been added into the totals.
That's like saying how pathetic it is to think that after an opening of a building 100% of its users have been after it opened rather than before it opened.