I suppose if you post a thread at 10.30pm, then another ten hours later it is technically 2 days
And when allows Starmer to focus PMQs back onto Johnson's lamentable record on care homes at noon tomorrow, it'll be Day 3.
Care homes are private, profit making enterprises, lets not canonize the owners just yet
I think the issue is that many of them don't seem to be doing that well at the "profit" bit.
They have been at the mercy of mismanaged, or mis-forecast LBOs resulting in many of them now needing bailouts either from public or private (via haircuts) means.
It requires more time than I have at the moment but one problem with care homes is that they are really a volume business - 100% capacity highly profitable, 80% capacity profitable, 60% running a loss....
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
“I was a Unionist then.”
Should I say Welcome Aboard! or are you still wavering?
I'm never going to be a full blooded Scot Nat for a range of reasons not the least of which is I live in London. But the Brexit referendum proved to me that the Union is not a healthy construct for Scotland, so independence it is. Thank you for your welcome.
Neil Oliver is mentioned down thread for parting company with National Trust Scotland following his comments regarding David Starkey.
I don't have much time for either of these gentlemen but I was recently surprised to hear Oliver passionately arguing about the dangers of shutting down every voice we disagree with. He essentially took the view that dissenting voices are unlikely to change their mind without debate, and that silencing unwelcome opinions did not make them go away.
The BBC ruthlessly excludes pro-independence voices and slams down honest debate. It is now becoming increasingly clear that simply by silencing pro-Scottish voices, we do not go away.
If Unionists really are interested in the Union not merely surviving, but thriving and becoming popular, they need to move away from propaganda, censorship, exclusion, threat and fear and open up to honest debate and discussion. The reason they don’t is that they know that honest debate and discussion would lead to landslide in support of Scottish independence.
Also, I've never seen the NTS as a hotbed of rabid separatism. Have you?
My fathers care home got away with one case (so far)
Even that case everyone at a loss to explain as when the doctor visited that patient when they were ill they said it was definitely not COVID - but when the residents and staff were tested this resident was found to have the anti bodies.
So, one resident, no staff and no visitors allowed ...........
Reading various comments on this thread, it's curious that prejudice against a whole group, based on anecdote or the behaviour of a small number of the group, is seen as OK when the group is public-school educated toffs. I rather that imagine that the same people who show this prejudice would be utterly outraged if the group being unfairly vilified were, for example, benefit claimants, tenants, or black kids from inner London.
@Richard_Nabavi - black people have been "unfairly vilified" for most of history in a way the Etonian and Harrovian snobs have no conception of.
The Posh Boys have got off lightly in comparison...
That's all right then. Some unfair vilification is OK because some other unfair vilification is worse. Got it.
I see you continue to miss the point. The "... public-school educated toffs ..." do not get prejudice, they get criticism. If anything, numbers of them tend to hand out prejudice and condescension in large dollops.
OTOH, there is a large group in society where "prejudice" results in them being sidelined or even victimised by the Police.
Do you really imagine that those at the top of society suffer pain like those pushed to the bottom or shoved to the sides?
I agree that of course the stick that toffs get is incomparable to that of ethnic minorities, but I’d still say it is not healthy in the long term for a person to make sweeping generalisations about a group of people, whatever their status.
Generalisations are necessary otherwise you have a near-infinite number of individual cases to discuss.
Generalisations can also be surprisingly accurate - that is why they get used so much.
Reading various comments on this thread, it's curious that prejudice against a whole group, based on anecdote or the behaviour of a small number of the group, is seen as OK when the group is public-school educated toffs. I rather that imagine that the same people who show this prejudice would be utterly outraged if the group being unfairly vilified were, for example, benefit claimants, tenants, or black kids from inner London.
@Richard_Nabavi - black people have been "unfairly vilified" for most of history in a way the Etonian and Harrovian snobs have no conception of.
The Posh Boys have got off lightly in comparison...
That's all right then. Some unfair vilification is OK because some other unfair vilification is worse. Got it.
I think this is the wrong horse to be riding, Richard.
The only institution I know of which discriminates against all public schools but one (yes, Slough Grammar) is the Household Cavalry.
Not exactly a ditch to die in, now, is it!!
My interest isn't in the prejudicee but the prejudicer, if you forgive the ugly neologisms. The toffs can look after themselves, of course, but I'm running a Quixotic one-man campaign to encourage those showing the prejudice to be more self aware. I suppose you could say that I'm trying to extend the boundaries of Wokeness.
I appreciate that my campaign is doomed to failure.
I suppose if you post a thread at 10.30pm, then another ten hours later it is technically 2 days
And when allows Starmer to focus PMQs back onto Johnson's lamentable record on care homes at noon tomorrow, it'll be Day 3.
Care homes are private, profit making enterprises, lets not canonize the owners just yet
I think the issue is that many of them don't seem to be doing that well at the "profit" bit.
They have been at the mercy of mismanaged, or mis-forecast LBOs resulting in many of them now needing bailouts either from public or private (via haircuts) means.
It requires more time than I have at the moment but one problem with care homes is that they are really a volume business - 100% capacity highly profitable, 80% capacity profitable, 60% running a loss....
Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.
The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.
Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.
Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.
That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.
The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
How many staff for 2 residents FIVE or TEN?
How many staff for 3 residents FIVE or FIFTEEN?
£60 PER HR OR £20 PER HR?
Some dementia units are obliged to have one staff member on duty per five residents. However as I said to have one staff member on duty requires paying full time 5 staff's wages (since there's 168 hours in a week plus statutory holidays) - which means that at that ratio the care staff are the same number of staff as the residents.
That's before you consider ancillary staff like chefs etc
Wouldn't surprise me if dementia homes have more staff than residents.
There are no minimum numbers in CQC regulation 18
However a home they inspected in 2018 with "adequate staffing levels".
Normal staffing was. 24 beds, at any one time around 4 short occupancy, 2 EOL, 18 longer term Care. Daytime (08.00 - 20.00) - 2 nurses, 6 carers. Nighttime (20.00 - 08.00) - 1 nurse, 4 carers.
Legislation only requires there to be sufficient staff for the residents needs and for regular review of numbers.
Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.
The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.
Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.
Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.
That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.
The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
How many staff for 2 residents FIVE or TEN?
How many staff for 3 residents FIVE or FIFTEEN?
£60 PER HR OR £20 PER HR?
Some dementia units are obliged to have one staff member on duty per five residents. However as I said to have one staff member on duty requires paying full time 5 staff's wages (since there's 168 hours in a week plus statutory holidays) - which means that at that ratio the care staff are the same number of staff as the residents.
That's before you consider ancillary staff like chefs etc
Wouldn't surprise me if dementia homes have more staff than residents.
+1 - it's worth saying that assuming a 40 hour week, no training, no illness and the absolute bare minimum holidays you need 4.71 staff to cover a 24/7 service.
Which means at least 6 if not 7 in reality...
My maths was comparable. 37.5h week (5x8 with half hour lunch break), no training, no illness, statutory holidays = 5.01 staff for 24/7 cover.
Of course its more complicated than that but that's a starting point.
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
“I was a Unionist then.”
Should I say Welcome Aboard! or are you still wavering?
I'm never going to be a full blooded Scot Nat for a range of reasons not the least of which is I live in London. But the Brexit referendum proved to me that the Union is not a healthy construct for Scotland, so independence it is. Thank you for your welcome.
Well if you live in London you cannot vote even if Scotland gets indyref2 in the next decade anyway
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
The saddest aspect of this though is that so many of those abused in this way by these evil people end up voting for them.
Question I don't know the answer to: At the beginning of the covid19 crisis it seemed like nobody was having any luck keeping the rona out of care homes, even in places like Sweden where the explicit policy was concentrated around shielding old people. However recently it sounds like in places like the US where there are a lot of cases, we aren't yet seeing huge spikes in deaths. Is this something people have now cracked, or is it still pretty much an impossible thing to do except by reducing the prevalence in the general population?
There was a US virologist/public health guy on R4 this morning discussing this. He suggested it was mainly down to younger people representing the spike in cases and improved treatments for hospitalised cases. He didn't rule out a lagging spike in deaths coming down the line though.
The Irish Covid tracing app is released today. I've been staying with my in-laws in Cork since March, so I've downloaded the app.
The description of the app says that it uses the Apple/Google Bluetooth exposure notification service. However, it seems to turn on location services. If I try to turn off location services I receive a notification that the exposure notification service won't work without it.
Seems a bit weird.
Why is that weird ? If you won't let the app acmes your phone's location service, it can't know where you are or where you've been. How can it then tell you if you've potentially been exposed to someone subsequently tested as infected (which is what the app is supposed to do) ?
The whole point of the Apple/Google solution is that it's not a tracking app, it's only interested in lists of numbers representing other devices you meet.
What Ireland appears to have done is taken their solution, and stuffed a tracking app on top of it.
Which is odd, because asking for location is against Google's Terms of Service for the API, and so the app should not have been approved by Google.
Reading various comments on this thread, it's curious that prejudice against a whole group, based on anecdote or the behaviour of a small number of the group, is seen as OK when the group is public-school educated toffs. I rather that imagine that the same people who show this prejudice would be utterly outraged if the group being unfairly vilified were, for example, benefit claimants, tenants, or black kids from inner London.
@Richard_Nabavi - black people have been "unfairly vilified" for most of history in a way the Etonian and Harrovian snobs have no conception of.
The Posh Boys have got off lightly in comparison...
That's all right then. Some unfair vilification is OK because some other unfair vilification is worse. Got it.
I see you continue to miss the point. The "... public-school educated toffs ..." do not get prejudice, they get criticism. If anything, numbers of them tend to hand out prejudice and condescension in large dollops.
OTOH, there is a large group in society where "prejudice" results in them being sidelined or even victimised by the Police.
Do you really imagine that those at the top of society suffer pain like those pushed to the bottom or shoved to the sides?
I agree that of course the stick that toffs get is incomparable to that of ethnic minorities, but I’d still say it is not healthy in the long term for a person to make sweeping generalisations about a group of people, whatever their status.
Generalisations are necessary otherwise you have a near-infinite number of individual cases to discuss.
Generalisations can also be surprisingly accurate - that is why they get used so much.
Reading various comments on this thread, it's curious that prejudice against a whole group, based on anecdote or the behaviour of a small number of the group, is seen as OK when the group is public-school educated toffs. I rather that imagine that the same people who show this prejudice would be utterly outraged if the group being unfairly vilified were, for example, benefit claimants, tenants, or black kids from inner London.
The private school educated (at some stage of their efucation) are a similar sized cohort in society to British Muslims.
Good privatelly educated people can be done of the finest, the Will Smith quote about how money and privilege merely exaggerate the type of person you already are, is spot on.
And only a small proportion of the privately educated end up in the exclusive drinking clubs of the more traditional universities and going on to become senior Tory MPs without any sort of public service mindset, just as a small number of British Muslims go on to do heinous things.
Is that a really bad comparison? Being a Tory MP, being a Tory is not innately evil. (The WI Tories of the South and Shires are not short of fine people, but may also have very different perceptions, for instance, of what the 1980s were like.)
But here's the rub. Which set of people are more likely to destroy my family's life and future in this country? The insider group or the outsider group? Show me the outsider group that has ever shattered a country to pieces except those identified as belonging to a neighbour state looking to use credible force. The list of insider groups who have destroyed countries is endless.
Now, the correlation is not direct here - the private schooled and those likely to destroy the country both map as separate insider groups. There may be overlap, there may not.
But, for instance, when I see SeanT harping on about Muslims as an entire group again and the need to be hard line, I think - no, YOU are the threat to me here, you and your cohort threaten my family if this talk is allowed to go too far. I like to think, if the worst did happen, he would recant and take up the role of exile critic-in-chief from the safe distance of some luxury Singapore hotel. But, it would be too late, far too late.
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
The saddest aspect of this though is that so many of those abused in this way by these evil people end up voting for them.
I think the problem is that the toffs that @OnlyLivingBoy met were gaslighting him.
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
“I was a Unionist then.”
Should I say Welcome Aboard! or are you still wavering?
I'm never going to be a full blooded Scot Nat for a range of reasons not the least of which is I live in London. But the Brexit referendum proved to me that the Union is not a healthy construct for Scotland, so independence it is. Thank you for your welcome.
Well if you live in London you cannot vote even if Scotland gets indyref2 in the next decade anyway
So it OK for London MPs of Unionist parties, but not Mr Boy, to vote on the matter of having an indyref at all?
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
Thatcher too.
I have heard similar about Thatcher, who was apparently quite kind in her personal life. Equally many left wing people are quite obnoxious on a personal level. My view is that there is no excuse for rudeness, which I hope is also largely reflected in my interactions here.
I agree. The Tories have too many who lack empathy or have a totally unrealistic view of life at lower income levels.
There ought to be an official and well paid post of being the person who is licensed to pour custard over public figures while receiving full support from the PM of the day.
You would be more likely to find this post in the Royal Household. The Queen's Custardier, or somesuch.
Other accounts of the tale have it as gravy, which is probably a likelier soaking medium, being more liquid at room temperature. Although not as amusing as imagining Howe quivering with range and covered in the yellow stuff.
I thought it was more than a little laboured as an article. Waugh is clearly bored of talking about the virus, but he didn't have much to work with.
The Labour position, now, seems to be something like, "we're not in the business of increasing tax for the sake of it, but if it is required to balance the books then we think those most able to pay more should do so."
I think it would be a mistake to announce anything more detailed this far in advance of an election.
Boris reminds us once again that under the veneer he is a dishonest, dishonourable, self-serving shit. 🤷♂️
Veneer?
That's the genius of the disguise. Cloaked in the outward appearance of a dishonest, dishonourable, self-serving shit, nobody would guess that what this in fact conceals is a dishonest, dishonourable, self-serving shit.
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
“I was a Unionist then.”
Should I say Welcome Aboard! or are you still wavering?
I'm never going to be a full blooded Scot Nat for a range of reasons not the least of which is I live in London. But the Brexit referendum proved to me that the Union is not a healthy construct for Scotland, so independence it is. Thank you for your welcome.
Well if you live in London you cannot vote even if Scotland gets indyref2 in the next decade anyway
Thanks for pointing out the bleeding obvious. I also had no vote in 2014. But I do have opinions on the matter, as indeed do you (and you're not even Scottish).
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.
The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.
Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.
Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.
That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.
The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
How many staff for 2 residents FIVE or TEN?
How many staff for 3 residents FIVE or FIFTEEN?
£60 PER HR OR £20 PER HR?
Some dementia units are obliged to have one staff member on duty per five residents. However as I said to have one staff member on duty requires paying full time 5 staff's wages (since there's 168 hours in a week plus statutory holidays) - which means that at that ratio the care staff are the same number of staff as the residents.
That's before you consider ancillary staff like chefs etc
Wouldn't surprise me if dementia homes have more staff than residents.
There are no minimum numbers in CQC regulation 18
However a home they inspected in 2018 with "adequate staffing levels".
Normal staffing was. 24 beds, at any one time around 4 short occupancy, 2 EOL, 18 longer term Care. Daytime (08.00 - 20.00) - 2 nurses, 6 carers. Nighttime (20.00 - 08.00) - 1 nurse, 4 carers.
Legislation only requires there to be sufficient staff for the residents needs and for regular review of numbers.
So excluding the nurse 20 residents is a minimum of 4 carers on duty to be "adequate". Tell me what ratio 20 residents to 4 carers is? Could it perhaps be the 5 to 1 I quoted?
Using your numbers you've got 8x 12h shifts for daytime x 7 days a week = 56x 12h shifts for daytimes. Plus a further 5x 12h shifts for night time x 7 days a week = 35x 12h shifts for night times. So using your numbers there are a total of 91 shifts a week. Throw in statutory holiday requirements and you're talking over 100 shifts a week.
Staff won't be working 12 shifts seven days per week. 4 days per week is standard for 12h shift work. So you need, without training or absences a minimum of 25 full time staff . . . to cover the 20 residents/24 bed maximum. And that is before you consider ancillary support staff like chefs, cleaners, accountants, managers etc
As I said 24/7 care means more staff than residents.
Question I don't know the answer to: At the beginning of the covid19 crisis it seemed like nobody was having any luck keeping the rona out of care homes, even in places like Sweden where the explicit policy was concentrated around shielding old people. However recently it sounds like places like the US where there are a lot of cases, we aren't yet seeing huge spikes in deaths. Is this something people have now cracked, or is it still pretty much an impossible thing to do except by reducing the prevalence in the general population?
Unclear at this stage, I think. It does seem that treatment has improved as doctors have got to understand more about the effects of the disease on the body, which may be part of the explanation. Also the world shortage of PPE has greatly eased.
Greater availability of testing would also be expected to help in keeping it out of care homes, but it also means we see a spike in case numbers earlier in the course of an outbreak.
It also means that - while recorded case numbers in Florida now are comparable to NY earlier - the actual incidence of the virus may be much lower. It's hard to make a comparison.
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
It's a really nice setup for Biden, you have these Republicans (I have no idea how Republican they really are but even Trump has described them that way) carrying all the personal stuff, and he gets to be all positive and uplifting and "soul of America" ish.
I thought it was more than a little laboured as an article. Waugh is clearly bored of talking about the virus, but he didn't have much to work with.
The Labour position, now, seems to be something like, "we're not in the business of increasing tax for the sake of it, but if it is required to balance the books then we think those most able to pay more should do so."
I think it would be a mistake to announce anything more detailed this far in advance of an election.
Yes, they are clearly avoiding boxing themselves in, which is very sensible. It's part of the obvious increased professionalism of the party since Starmer became leader.
It will be very interesting to see how Anneliese Dodds develops. She's clearly very bright (a 1st in PPE from the toffs' favoured university), but she's very inexperienced for such an important front-line role. Starmer must rate her abilities very highly to have made that appointment.
So excluding the nurse 20 residents is a minimum of 4 carers on duty to be "adequate". Tell me what ratio 20 residents to 4 carers is? Could it perhaps be the 5 to 1 I quoted?
Using your numbers you've got 8x 12h shifts for daytime x 7 days a week = 56x 12h shifts for daytimes. Plus a further 5x 12h shifts for night time x 7 days a week = 35x 12h shifts for night times. So using your numbers there are a total of 91 shifts a week. Throw in statutory holiday requirements and you're talking over 100 shifts a week.
Staff won't be working 12 shifts seven days per week. 4 days per week is standard for 12h shift work. So you need, without training or absences a minimum of 25 full time staff . . . to cover the 20 residents/24 bed maximum. And that is before you consider ancillary support staff like chefs, cleaners, accountants, managers etc
As I said 24/7 care means more staff than residents.
In the case of nursing care for older people, UK benchmarks of 8.1 qualified nurse hours and 18.9 care assistant hours per resident per week have been entered in the toolkit spreadsheet.
and
For residential care of older people, the corresponding benchmark is 16 day and night care assistant hours per resident per week (no nursing staff).
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
Why are we supposed to applaud The Guardian for taking 15 years to notice this?
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
The saddest aspect of this though is that so many of those abused in this way by these evil people end up voting for them.
The people you're describing aren't evil, and your referring to them as such without a hint of irony is worrying.
Boris - when in a hole never admit you are in a hole... Just keep digging and eventually you will get out.
Fairly soon I think this philosophy is going to result in him being buried alive..
Unfortunately, I'm increasingly of the view that the remarks made here by a government loyalist in the early days of Dom's Adventures in Durhamland were right. Not morally right, but an accurate reflection of reality.
Unless 40+ Conservative MPs defect to the opposition, or 183 vote against him in an internal vote of confidence, there's no reason for him to go anywhere. And having purged the most obvious traitors in 2019, those are both huge hurdles.
There's no actual process to get Boris or his favourites out before 2024. So until then, we plebs should just jog on. I think some of them enjoy the impotent rage.
Freezing Stamp Duty? £1.3 billion Cost of the Job Retention Scheme? £123 billion Watching Piers Morgan rant and wail because Boris dared to demure from his sacred view of Who Is To Blame?
Priceless
You've misspelt demur. I know as a classicist and alumni of one of the UK's great universities (as you never tire of telling us) that you're a stickler for that kind of thing, and would prefer to have it pointed out.
Somehow I knew you would. But talented as I am, I am not many alumni, but just the one alumnus. Other posters with multiple personalities are available.
Touché, my only excuse is that I am but an alumnus of a humble art skool. Its fine art degree did have a reputation as a stepping stone for poshos, though in Edinburgh that didn't really make them stick out from the crowd.
Art school. That means you should by now be an ageing rock star. Or at least a bassist.
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
FPT: I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.
Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?
I think more research is needed.
Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
The saddest aspect of this though is that so many of those abused in this way by these evil people end up voting for them.
The people you're describing aren't evil, and your referring to them as such without a hint of irony is worrying.
So excluding the nurse 20 residents is a minimum of 4 carers on duty to be "adequate". Tell me what ratio 20 residents to 4 carers is? Could it perhaps be the 5 to 1 I quoted?
Using your numbers you've got 8x 12h shifts for daytime x 7 days a week = 56x 12h shifts for daytimes. Plus a further 5x 12h shifts for night time x 7 days a week = 35x 12h shifts for night times. So using your numbers there are a total of 91 shifts a week. Throw in statutory holiday requirements and you're talking over 100 shifts a week.
Staff won't be working 12 shifts seven days per week. 4 days per week is standard for 12h shift work. So you need, without training or absences a minimum of 25 full time staff . . . to cover the 20 residents/24 bed maximum. And that is before you consider ancillary support staff like chefs, cleaners, accountants, managers etc
As I said 24/7 care means more staff than residents.
In the case of nursing care for older people, UK benchmarks of 8.1 qualified nurse hours and 18.9 care assistant hours per resident per week have been entered in the toolkit spreadsheet.
and
For residential care of older people, the corresponding benchmark is 16 day and night care assistant hours per resident per week (no nursing staff).
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
Sounds like a reasonable assessment: ...these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads….
…The secret of fearmongering is a willingness to go there, and that’s where the Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents. The group’s founders aren’t calibrating their ads around a Democratic base that mistrusts the military, delves into nuance, or shies away from causing offense. That leaves ample room for dog-whistle symbols that range from clichés to horror-movie tropes: One ad accuses Trump of being played by China, and ends with the image of the White House, the entire screen tinted red.
Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group….
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
Why are we supposed to applaud The Guardian for taking 15 years to notice this?
I agree that the notion of "Boris" as pure (and very successful) brand is not the most blindingly original observation. However when floated on here recently many bridled.
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
Why are we supposed to applaud The Guardian for taking 15 years to notice this?
I agree that the notion of "Boris" as pure (and very successful) brand is not the most blindingly original observation. However when floated on here recently many bridled.
We ended up with this man as PM because the choice for PM was between a flawed Boris and a flawed Marxist. The political law of comparative advantage applied.
The Irish Covid tracing app is released today. I've been staying with my in-laws in Cork since March, so I've downloaded the app.
The description of the app says that it uses the Apple/Google Bluetooth exposure notification service. However, it seems to turn on location services. If I try to turn off location services I receive a notification that the exposure notification service won't work without it.
Seems a bit weird.
Why is that weird ? If you won't let the app acmes your phone's location service, it can't know where you are or where you've been. How can it then tell you if you've potentially been exposed to someone subsequently tested as infected (which is what the app is supposed to do) ?
The whole point of the Apple/Google solution is that it's not a tracking app, it's only interested in lists of numbers representing other devices you meet.
What Ireland appears to have done is taken their solution, and stuffed a tracking app on top of it.
Which is odd, because asking for location is against Google's Terms of Service for the API, and so the app should not have been approved by Google.
Having just checked I can clear this up.
You need Location on for the exposure notification service itself to do Bluetooth advertisments and scanning (because it potentially exposes your location), but the tracing apps themselves are not allowed to request location.
This is an issue that some other apps run into, like Wi-Fi utilities, because even if they aren't trying to locate you their use in itself could expose your location to other users or systems.
So Location is on for the Google/Apple exposure service, which does not locate you, so that the user is aware of the potential privacy issue, but location access should not be available to any apps using the service.
I actually think by the time you see there is a problem - it's too late, the lag time between being contiguous and feeling ill is such that by the time you've seen the spike in numbers, the chain reaction has already been triggered.
I thought it was more than a little laboured as an article. Waugh is clearly bored of talking about the virus, but he didn't have much to work with.
The Labour position, now, seems to be something like, "we're not in the business of increasing tax for the sake of it, but if it is required to balance the books then we think those most able to pay more should do so."
I think it would be a mistake to announce anything more detailed this far in advance of an election.
Yes, they are clearly avoiding boxing themselves in, which is very sensible. It's part of the obvious increased professionalism of the party since Starmer became leader.
It will be very interesting to see how Anneliese Dodds develops. She's clearly very bright (a 1st in PPE from the toffs' favoured university), but she's very inexperienced for such an important front-line role. Starmer must rate her abilities very highly to have made that appointment.
Her appointment was the first time a shadow Chancellor was appointed who I hadn't heard of before, since I began paying too much attention to politics in the late Major years.
The other explanation is that he rates all the alternative options very poorly.
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
Why are we supposed to applaud The Guardian for taking 15 years to notice this?
I agree that the notion of "Boris" as pure (and very successful) brand is not the most blindingly original observation. However when floated on here recently many bridled.
We ended up with this man as PM because the choice for PM was between a flawed Boris and a flawed Marxist. The political law of comparative advantage applied.
What on earth else was a centrist voter to do?
He needs telling this a few times.
He rants and raves about Boris and indeed, I yield to no one in my estimation of him as a useless, solipsistic twat.
But the effing Labour Party, of which I believe @kinabalu is a supporter, put Jeremy Effing Corbyn up against him so what did they expect to happen!?
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
Sounds like a reasonable assessment: ...these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads….
…The secret of fearmongering is a willingness to go there, and that’s where the Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents. The group’s founders aren’t calibrating their ads around a Democratic base that mistrusts the military, delves into nuance, or shies away from causing offense. That leaves ample room for dog-whistle symbols that range from clichés to horror-movie tropes: One ad accuses Trump of being played by China, and ends with the image of the White House, the entire screen tinted red.
Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group….
I think the issue here though is the last part "Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group….". If you are a Conservative looking at the States at the moment, would you be confident that a Biden presidency doesn't lead to measures you abhor such as defunding of the police, militant moves against religion and significant measures to promote abortion etc? I know there will be the quote about Biden appears to be more moderate to voters according to the polls but there are the obvious questions of (a) how long will he be around and (b) whether he can control the radicals. His performance on (b) wouldn't give conservatives that much in the way of confidence nor would his July 4th punchline of tackling "systemic racism".
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
While the decision to empty the hospitals of the clinically well , but in need of care, population is now seen as an error, we also know far more today about asymptotic transmission than we did in March. Someone with no symptoms in hospital for say 5 days would have been seen as not in need of a test back then. Now we know different.
I actually think by the time you see there is a problem - it's too late, the lag time between being contiguous and feeling ill is such that by the time you've seen the spike in numbers, the chain reaction has already been triggered.
Which I guess means we will be social distancing for a long time to come (unless vaccine)
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
While the decision to empty the hospitals of the clinically well , but in need of care, population is now seen as an error, we also know far more today about asymptotic transmission than we did in March. Someone with no symptoms in hospital for say 5 days would have been seen as not in need of a test back then. Now we know different.
But how solid was the "5 days" even back then? Not very, presumably?
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
So excluding the nurse 20 residents is a minimum of 4 carers on duty to be "adequate". Tell me what ratio 20 residents to 4 carers is? Could it perhaps be the 5 to 1 I quoted?
Using your numbers you've got 8x 12h shifts for daytime x 7 days a week = 56x 12h shifts for daytimes. Plus a further 5x 12h shifts for night time x 7 days a week = 35x 12h shifts for night times. So using your numbers there are a total of 91 shifts a week. Throw in statutory holiday requirements and you're talking over 100 shifts a week.
Staff won't be working 12 shifts seven days per week. 4 days per week is standard for 12h shift work. So you need, without training or absences a minimum of 25 full time staff . . . to cover the 20 residents/24 bed maximum. And that is before you consider ancillary support staff like chefs, cleaners, accountants, managers etc
As I said 24/7 care means more staff than residents.
In the case of nursing care for older people, UK benchmarks of 8.1 qualified nurse hours and 18.9 care assistant hours per resident per week have been entered in the toolkit spreadsheet.
and
For residential care of older people, the corresponding benchmark is 16 day and night care assistant hours per resident per week (no nursing staff).
8.1 nursing and 18.9 care hours = 27 hours That report further says a further 6 hours per resident for ancillary staff = 33 hours Add in statutory holiday cover etc and you're back to a full time employee per resident - before you consider any sicknesses, other absences or training.
No matter how you slice it, it keeps coming back to the same rule of thumb - every care home resident requires a full time employee in order to provide 24/7 continuity of care. I don't work in the sector but can comprehend basic maths to figure that out: 168 hours per week to have continuity of care does not come easy or cheap.
Apparently the problem with Starkey's dropped bollock was down to a comprehension problem. I'm guessing it isn't his own comprehension he's talking about.
'The historian said the “misunderstanding of my words in no way reflects my views or practice on race”.'
Not dissimilar to the way we poor oiks have misunderstood “Too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures”. We really need to up our game.
Johnson was defended by Alok Sharma this morning on the grounds that "there weren't any procedures" therefore he - Johnson - was not criticizing care home staff who had "done brilliantly".
Those Johnson comments again - "care homes did not always follow the procedures."
This is gaslighting but so as not to cause @TOPPING a brain-ache let's call it what it also is - trolling. Trolling care home workers. Trolling anybody with a care for integrity and competence in government.
We need another election asap imo. The country has made a clear and grievous error. We deserve a chance to rectify matters before too much damage is done.
I actually think by the time you see there is a problem - it's too late, the lag time between being contiguous and feeling ill is such that by the time you've seen the spike in numbers, the chain reaction has already been triggered.
Which I guess means we will be social distancing for a long time to come (unless vaccine)
Social distancing by how far? It's a bit of a mess now with 2m in some places down to 1m in others. Reducing to 1m everywhere will make fully reopening schools a bit easier.
I actually think by the time you see there is a problem - it's too late, the lag time between being contiguous and feeling ill is such that by the time you've seen the spike in numbers, the chain reaction has already been triggered.
It's certainly a very narrow window. Perhaps the technique of testing for traces of the virus in sewage might give some advance warning?
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
Maybe SAGE were right to be warning against a premature lockdown? This was their argument afterall.
I actually think by the time you see there is a problem - it's too late, the lag time between being contiguous and feeling ill is such that by the time you've seen the spike in numbers, the chain reaction has already been triggered.
Which I guess means we will be social distancing for a long time to come (unless vaccine)
Social distancing by how far? It's a bit of a mess now with 2m in some places down to 1m in others. Reducing to 1m everywhere will make fully reopening schools a bit easier.
It'll be 2 metres unless there is mitigation, in which case it is 1 metre till we have a vaccine.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
Will they? Spain is reporting only 5.2% after their major outbreaks....
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
While the decision to empty the hospitals of the clinically well , but in need of care, population is now seen as an error, we also know far more today about asymptotic transmission than we did in March. Someone with no symptoms in hospital for say 5 days would have been seen as not in need of a test back then. Now we know different.
But how solid was the "5 days" even back then? Not very, presumably?
No idea, but I hope that clinicians at least thought the patients they were discharging were well.
So excluding the nurse 20 residents is a minimum of 4 carers on duty to be "adequate". Tell me what ratio 20 residents to 4 carers is? Could it perhaps be the 5 to 1 I quoted?
Using your numbers you've got 8x 12h shifts for daytime x 7 days a week = 56x 12h shifts for daytimes. Plus a further 5x 12h shifts for night time x 7 days a week = 35x 12h shifts for night times. So using your numbers there are a total of 91 shifts a week. Throw in statutory holiday requirements and you're talking over 100 shifts a week.
Staff won't be working 12 shifts seven days per week. 4 days per week is standard for 12h shift work. So you need, without training or absences a minimum of 25 full time staff . . . to cover the 20 residents/24 bed maximum. And that is before you consider ancillary support staff like chefs, cleaners, accountants, managers etc
As I said 24/7 care means more staff than residents.
In the case of nursing care for older people, UK benchmarks of 8.1 qualified nurse hours and 18.9 care assistant hours per resident per week have been entered in the toolkit spreadsheet.
and
For residential care of older people, the corresponding benchmark is 16 day and night care assistant hours per resident per week (no nursing staff).
For residential care that's £139.52/resident/week. Add on Employer's NI, holiday etc - perhaps say £180 is the staffing cost required. Nursing home fag packet maths gives £350/week.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
I don't think we could stop second waves of 80 cases, which is what Melborne is dealing with.
I actually think by the time you see there is a problem - it's too late, the lag time between being contiguous and feeling ill is such that by the time you've seen the spike in numbers, the chain reaction has already been triggered.
Which I guess means we will be social distancing for a long time to come (unless vaccine)
Social distancing by how far? It's a bit of a mess now with 2m in some places down to 1m in others. Reducing to 1m everywhere will make fully reopening schools a bit easier.
yep - 1m with other things. I think we should consider the face coverings in shops (as in Scotland). At work I know who I am in contact with and can isolate should a case come up. In the shops, no idea who might infect you.
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
Yes, again not absolving the government of responsibility. We could go back in time to 2011 and you'd see me arguing against the Lansley reforms on the basis that GPs know fuck all about what happens in hospitals and shouldn't be put in charge of anything, I'm now of the opinion that GPs should be abolished entirely.
As for PHE, I think they were and still are lacking, though not in capacity, lacking in judgment. They seem to be more concerned with private sector encroachment into their domain than solving the issues of the day.
The government is basically writing a blank cheque for anything virus related, the idea that the resources don't exist is not true, they just aren't doing a very good job.
As for the scientists, I think they have been a disaster, one which the government will now hide behind on the basis of "we followed the advice".
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
While the decision to empty the hospitals of the clinically well , but in need of care, population is now seen as an error, we also know far more today about asymptotic transmission than we did in March. Someone with no symptoms in hospital for say 5 days would have been seen as not in need of a test back then. Now we know different.
But how solid was the "5 days" even back then? Not very, presumably?
No idea, but I hope that clinicians at least thought the patients they were discharging were well.
Indeed.
In a parallel universe where the policy had been that the vulnerable were to be kept in hospitals then the media would be screaming about why so many without the virus had been kept unnecessarily in hospitals to be exposed to the virus at the hospital and left to die there, rather than being sent safely home.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
Will they? Spain is reporting only 5.2% after their major outbreaks....
National, vs local. London is believed to have much more exposure than say Wiltshire, so the UK figure will be nowhere near 20%, and more in line with Spain.
So excluding the nurse 20 residents is a minimum of 4 carers on duty to be "adequate". Tell me what ratio 20 residents to 4 carers is? Could it perhaps be the 5 to 1 I quoted?
Using your numbers you've got 8x 12h shifts for daytime x 7 days a week = 56x 12h shifts for daytimes. Plus a further 5x 12h shifts for night time x 7 days a week = 35x 12h shifts for night times. So using your numbers there are a total of 91 shifts a week. Throw in statutory holiday requirements and you're talking over 100 shifts a week.
Staff won't be working 12 shifts seven days per week. 4 days per week is standard for 12h shift work. So you need, without training or absences a minimum of 25 full time staff . . . to cover the 20 residents/24 bed maximum. And that is before you consider ancillary support staff like chefs, cleaners, accountants, managers etc
As I said 24/7 care means more staff than residents.
In the case of nursing care for older people, UK benchmarks of 8.1 qualified nurse hours and 18.9 care assistant hours per resident per week have been entered in the toolkit spreadsheet.
and
For residential care of older people, the corresponding benchmark is 16 day and night care assistant hours per resident per week (no nursing staff).
For residential care that's £139.52/resident/week. Add on Employer's NI, holiday etc - perhaps say £180 is the staffing cost required. Nursing home fag packet maths gives £350/week.
Reading various comments on this thread, it's curious that prejudice against a whole group, based on anecdote or the behaviour of a small number of the group, is seen as OK when the group is public-school educated toffs. I rather that imagine that the same people who show this prejudice would be utterly outraged if the group being unfairly vilified were, for example, benefit claimants, tenants, or black kids from inner London.
@Richard_Nabavi - black people have been "unfairly vilified" for most of history in a way the Etonian and Harrovian snobs have no conception of.
The Posh Boys have got off lightly in comparison...
That's all right then. Some unfair vilification is OK because some other unfair vilification is worse. Got it.
I think this is the wrong horse to be riding, Richard.
The only institution I know of which discriminates against all public schools but one (yes, Slough Grammar) is the Household Cavalry.
Not exactly a ditch to die in, now, is it!!
My interest isn't in the prejudicee but the prejudicer, if you forgive the ugly neologisms. The toffs can look after themselves, of course, but I'm running a Quixotic one-man campaign to encourage those showing the prejudice to be more self aware. I suppose you could say that I'm trying to extend the boundaries of Wokeness.
I appreciate that my campaign is doomed to failure.
I dropped them all long ago - as you must when you awake - but some of my best friends used to be public schoolboys.
That confidence they have - if allied to a naturally benign personality - can be extremely appealing.
Care home provider owners: Guy Hands, Spencer Haber. Lehman Alumni: Guy Hands, Spencer Haber, @kinabalu.
I realize I'm falling for the old "it's not £350m it's £250m" but -
I did NOT work with Hands at Lehman. It was at another bank. And I remember him piling into all sorts. Financial and fiscal engineering of the most mercenary type.
Did I put a hand up and try to stop it? Yes, I did. I thought about doing that many times.
But the genius of the Lincoln Project ads is that they’re quite specifically after Trump, using his own favored tools of shamelessness and fearmongering, and turning them back on their source. Who knows? It could actually work.
Sounds like a reasonable assessment: ...these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads….
…The secret of fearmongering is a willingness to go there, and that’s where the Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents. The group’s founders aren’t calibrating their ads around a Democratic base that mistrusts the military, delves into nuance, or shies away from causing offense. That leaves ample room for dog-whistle symbols that range from clichés to horror-movie tropes: One ad accuses Trump of being played by China, and ends with the image of the White House, the entire screen tinted red.
Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group….
I think the issue here though is the last part "Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group….". If you are a Conservative looking at the States at the moment, would you be confident that a Biden presidency doesn't lead to measures you abhor such as defunding of the police, militant moves against religion and significant measures to promote abortion etc? I know there will be the quote about Biden appears to be more moderate to voters according to the polls but there are the obvious questions of (a) how long will he be around and (b) whether he can control the radicals. His performance on (b) wouldn't give conservatives that much in the way of confidence nor would his July 4th punchline of tackling "systemic racism".
I think absolutely the same, but it is difficult to argue with the stack of polling that suggests that, right now, Trump is losing.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
I don't think we could stop second waves of 80 cases, which is what Melborne is dealing with.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
Will they? Spain is reporting only 5.2% after their major outbreaks....
How does that split into city vs countryside though? Over here we see that London has a high prevalence but the countryside doesn't.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
Will they? Spain is reporting only 5.2% after their major outbreaks....
How does that split into city vs countryside though? Over here we see that London has a high prevalence but the countryside doesn't.
Reading various comments on this thread, it's curious that prejudice against a whole group, based on anecdote or the behaviour of a small number of the group, is seen as OK when the group is public-school educated toffs. I rather that imagine that the same people who show this prejudice would be utterly outraged if the group being unfairly vilified were, for example, benefit claimants, tenants, or black kids from inner London.
@Richard_Nabavi - black people have been "unfairly vilified" for most of history in a way the Etonian and Harrovian snobs have no conception of.
The Posh Boys have got off lightly in comparison...
That's all right then. Some unfair vilification is OK because some other unfair vilification is worse. Got it.
I think this is the wrong horse to be riding, Richard.
The only institution I know of which discriminates against all public schools but one (yes, Slough Grammar) is the Household Cavalry.
Not exactly a ditch to die in, now, is it!!
My interest isn't in the prejudicee but the prejudicer, if you forgive the ugly neologisms. The toffs can look after themselves, of course, but I'm running a Quixotic one-man campaign to encourage those showing the prejudice to be more self aware. I suppose you could say that I'm trying to extend the boundaries of Wokeness.
I appreciate that my campaign is doomed to failure.
I dropped them all long ago - as you must when you awake - but some of my best friends used to be public schoolboys.
That confidence they have - if allied to a naturally benign personality - can be extremely appealing.
Care home provider owners: Guy Hands, Spencer Haber. Lehman Alumni: Guy Hands, Spencer Haber, @kinabalu.
I realize I'm falling for the old "it's not £350m it's £250m" but -
I did NOT work with Hands at Lehman. It was at another bank. And I remember him piling into all sorts. Financial and fiscal engineering of the most mercenary type.
Did I put a hand up and try to stop it? Yes, I did. I thought about doing that many times.
Well done you. The power of a positive mental attitude. At least you thought about doing it. Many times. And I bet you actually did it (with dash, bash and panache) in your fantasies.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
Apparently the problem with Starkey's dropped bollock was down to a comprehension problem. I'm guessing it isn't his own comprehension he's talking about.
'The historian said the “misunderstanding of my words in no way reflects my views or practice on race”.'
Not dissimilar to the way we poor oiks have misunderstood “Too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures”. We really need to up our game.
Johnson was defended by Alok Sharma this morning on the grounds that "there weren't any procedures" therefore he - Johnson - was not criticizing care home staff who had "done brilliantly".
Those Johnson comments again - "care homes did not always follow the procedures."
This is gaslighting but so as not to cause @TOPPING a brain-ache let's call it what it also is - trolling. Trolling care home workers. Trolling anybody with a care for integrity and competence in government.
We need another election asap imo. The country has made a clear and grievous error. We deserve a chance to rectify matters before too much damage is done.
When this all comes out I very much doubt anyone will come out of this well and to be honest Starmer would not have been any better
And as for an election it is four years away and no amount of wishing is going to change that
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
Why are we supposed to applaud The Guardian for taking 15 years to notice this?
I agree that the notion of "Boris" as pure (and very successful) brand is not the most blindingly original observation. However when floated on here recently many bridled.
We ended up with this man as PM because the choice for PM was between a flawed Boris and a flawed Marxist. The political law of comparative advantage applied.
What on earth else was a centrist voter to do?
The effective choice as regards outcome was -
Johnson Con majority and Brexit OR Corbyn Lab minority and Remain.
All intelligent floaters or centrists who voted did so with the above calculus available to draw on. All made their decision. All own it.
Mr. NorthWales, I think the Government's had some unfair criticism from a scientifically illiterate and innumerate media.
But they have made mistakes too, and those shouldn't be denied or diminished. The Nightingale hospitals were a necessary contingency that thankfully weren't activated, but when the care homes issue arose they should've been repurposed. That may not have been sufficient to prevent additional care home deaths entirely but could've reduced the number.
Mr. NorthWales, I think the Government's had some unfair criticism from a scientifically illiterate and innumerate media.
But they have made mistakes too, and those shouldn't be denied or diminished. The Nightingale hospitals were a necessary contingency that thankfully weren't activated, but when the care homes issue arose they should've been repurposed. That may not have been sufficient to prevent additional care home deaths entirely but could've reduced the number.
Absolutely and I have heard Boris and Nicola admit to mistakes but Nicola is very adamant that it is very well in hindsight which is true
Apparently the problem with Starkey's dropped bollock was down to a comprehension problem. I'm guessing it isn't his own comprehension he's talking about.
'The historian said the “misunderstanding of my words in no way reflects my views or practice on race”.'
Not dissimilar to the way we poor oiks have misunderstood “Too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures”. We really need to up our game.
Johnson was defended by Alok Sharma this morning on the grounds that "there weren't any procedures" therefore he - Johnson - was not criticizing care home staff who had "done brilliantly".
Those Johnson comments again - "care homes did not always follow the procedures."
This is gaslighting but so as not to cause @TOPPING a brain-ache let's call it what it also is - trolling. Trolling care home workers. Trolling anybody with a care for integrity and competence in government.
We need another election asap imo. The country has made a clear and grievous error. We deserve a chance to rectify matters before too much damage is done.
The grievous error was that Labour decided to put up a not-so-crypto-Marxist as its candidate for the premiership because he tickled their funny bone and promised to make their wildest confiscatory fantasies come true. Just like said fantasies, they imagined that decision would be without cost. Well, it wasn't - the cost is half a decade in the wilderness watching the other side make all the decisions. And if Labour decide to go overboard on wealth taxes and wokeness, it'll be another five years after that, until they finally get the message...
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
The death rates are remarkably low in the USA generally. The reasons remain unclear. The cynic in me suspects suppression for political reasons but there may be others, such as care facilities, age profile and even a different type of virus. Or course a combination of factors.
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
Yes, again not absolving the government of responsibility. We could go back in time to 2011 and you'd see me arguing against the Lansley reforms on the basis that GPs know fuck all about what happens in hospitals and shouldn't be put in charge of anything, I'm now of the opinion that GPs should be abolished entirely.
As for PHE, I think they were and still are lacking, though not in capacity, lacking in judgment. They seem to be more concerned with private sector encroachment into their domain than solving the issues of the day.
The government is basically writing a blank cheque for anything virus related, the idea that the resources don't exist is not true, they just aren't doing a very good job....
My comment about capacity and resources related to what was in place at the start of the crisis; the UK's public health capacity was then a fraction of what it was two decades ago. We may now have tens of thousands of lightly trained contact tracers; PHE had I think a total of 129 trained professionals at the beginning of the year.
I don't know enough about the organisation to comment on why the senior management appears so poor, but it's not entirely a surprise that an organisation apparently balkanised and in decline should find itself so led.
Apparently the problem with Starkey's dropped bollock was down to a comprehension problem. I'm guessing it isn't his own comprehension he's talking about.
'The historian said the “misunderstanding of my words in no way reflects my views or practice on race”.'
Not dissimilar to the way we poor oiks have misunderstood “Too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures”. We really need to up our game.
Johnson was defended by Alok Sharma this morning on the grounds that "there weren't any procedures" therefore he - Johnson - was not criticizing care home staff who had "done brilliantly".
Those Johnson comments again - "care homes did not always follow the procedures."
This is gaslighting but so as not to cause @TOPPING a brain-ache let's call it what it also is - trolling. Trolling care home workers. Trolling anybody with a care for integrity and competence in government.
We need another election asap imo. The country has made a clear and grievous error. We deserve a chance to rectify matters before too much damage is done.
When this all comes out I very much doubt anyone will come out of this well and to be honest Starmer would not have been any better
And as for an election it is four years away and no amount of wishing is going to change that</blockquote
Plus Trust in the mainstream media's corona reporting has fallen through the floor during the pandemic.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
The death rates are remarkably low in the USA generally. The reasons remain unclear. The cynic in me suspects suppression for political reasons but there may be others, such as care facilities, age profile and even a different type of virus. Or course a combination of factors.
And as time goes by medics are getting better and better at treating corona as they learn more about it.
easier and cost-effective to transport to a production facility on the French border rather than incurring import tariffs to ship to Wales post-Brexit.
Why is the daily mail of all papers throwing lines like that into a story?
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
Why are we supposed to applaud The Guardian for taking 15 years to notice this?
I agree that the notion of "Boris" as pure (and very successful) brand is not the most blindingly original observation. However when floated on here recently many bridled.
We ended up with this man as PM because the choice for PM was between a flawed Boris and a flawed Marxist. The political law of comparative advantage applied.
What on earth else was a centrist voter to do?
The effective choice as regards outcome was -
Johnson Con majority and Brexit OR Corbyn Lab minority and Remain.
All intelligent floaters or centrists who voted did so with the above calculus available to draw on. All made their decision. All own it.
Absolutely. All credit to the intelligent floaters or centrists who looked at that and overwhelmingly made the right decision.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
The death rates are remarkably low in the USA generally. The reasons remain unclear. The cynic in me suspects suppression for political reasons but there may be others, such as care facilities, age profile and even a different type of virus. Or course a combination of factors.
Sure, but the fact that there is negative correlation between cases and deaths even when controlling for the lag is interesting.
Suggests that the virus is a bit of flat-track bully: after a while it starts to run out of vulnerable people.
Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
I think it is a brilliant article giving me new insights into the nature of leadership (dependence on followers) and also Boris's strengths and weakneses. "His brilliance lay in his performance as the non-political politician. Not well prepared, but chaotic. Not carefully controlled, but outrageous. Not dignified, but happy to appear a buffoon. Even the look – rumpled suit, tousled hair – and the name, Boris, foreswore the traditional politician’s dignity. Everything his political critics saw as gaffes and weaknesses actually served to affirm his anti-political identity, and their outrage marginalised themselves rather than Johnson.
None of this was accidental. Johnson’s apparently dishevelled, disorganised, improvised buffoonery was in fact very carefully rehearsed. His brilliance did not come despite his blundering. His blundering was his brilliance."
This is how we ended up with an individual like this as our PM. The answer isn't on a postcard but in this article.
Thanks. A depressing read but it rings true. The "Boris" brand - which we discussed at length a few days ago - is a killer. It's fooled millions and continues to do so. And amongst those it doesn't fool there are plenty on the Tory side who are happy to go with it because it delivers at the polls. He's not as malevolent as Trump - not even close imo - but in the sense of being a phony and a shallow populist with only his own interests at heart he is our Trump. And I fear we're stuck with him for quite some time. Woe is us.
Why are we supposed to applaud The Guardian for taking 15 years to notice this?
I agree that the notion of "Boris" as pure (and very successful) brand is not the most blindingly original observation. However when floated on here recently many bridled.
We ended up with this man as PM because the choice for PM was between a flawed Boris and a flawed Marxist. The political law of comparative advantage applied.
What on earth else was a centrist voter to do?
The effective choice as regards outcome was -
Johnson Con majority and Brexit OR Corbyn Lab minority and Remain.
All intelligent floaters or centrists who voted did so with the above calculus available to draw on. All made their decision. All own it.
Absolutely. All credit to the intelligent floaters or centrists who looked at that and overwhelmingly made the right decision.
easier and cost-effective to transport to a production facility on the French border rather than incurring import tariffs to ship to Wales post-Brexit.
Why is the daily mail of all papers throwing lines like that into a story?
I have no idea what the proposed market for that fucking thing is. BMW B58 + ZF 8HP is a fine powertrain but I'd rather have it in a BMW than a copy of Defender styled by somebody with a serious head injury.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
The death rates are remarkably low in the USA generally. The reasons remain unclear. The cynic in me suspects suppression for political reasons but there may be others, such as care facilities, age profile and even a different type of virus. Or course a combination of factors.
Sure, but the fact that there is negative correlation between cases and deaths even when controlling for the lag is interesting.
Suggests that the virus is a bit of flat-track bully: after a while it starts to run out of vulnerable people.
That makes little sense though - given only a small percentage of the population have been infected there are a lot of vulnerable people who could still potentially be infected.
Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?
The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?
Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
Again, at the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the NHS with the unlimited resources of government behind it was unable to access adequate PPE for a time. Care homes, however well managed (and both we and government knew that many aren't), quite clearly would be in a worse situation. To expect that Covid patients could safely be dumped on care homes was simply irresponsible.
I think it was the complete lack of testing before putting residents back in care homes that was the most irresponsible decision of this crisis. It should have been possible to test a few thousand people for the virus before sending them back, that no one in PHE thought to do it is another indictment of that organisation which has completely failed the country time and again. The original decision to free up bed space for expected incoming patients made sense, but the manner in which it was achieved gave the worst possible outcome.
I don't disagree with that. The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
Yes, again not absolving the government of responsibility. We could go back in time to 2011 and you'd see me arguing against the Lansley reforms on the basis that GPs know fuck all about what happens in hospitals and shouldn't be put in charge of anything, I'm now of the opinion that GPs should be abolished entirely.
As for PHE, I think they were and still are lacking, though not in capacity, lacking in judgment. They seem to be more concerned with private sector encroachment into their domain than solving the issues of the day.
The government is basically writing a blank cheque for anything virus related, the idea that the resources don't exist is not true, they just aren't doing a very good job....
My comment about capacity and resources related to what was in place at the start of the crisis; the UK's public health capacity was then a fraction of what it was two decades ago. We may now have tens of thousands of lightly trained contact tracers; PHE had I think a total of 129 trained professionals at the beginning of the year.
I don't know enough about the organisation to comment on why the senior management appears so poor, but it's not entirely a surprise that an organisation apparently balkanised and in decline should find itself so led.
I hear from PHE that the contact tracing lists and stats systems are held together with binder twine, sealing wax, Excel and email.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
The death rates are remarkably low in the USA generally. The reasons remain unclear. The cynic in me suspects suppression for political reasons but there may be others, such as care facilities, age profile and even a different type of virus. Or course a combination of factors.
Sure, but the fact that there is negative correlation between cases and deaths even when controlling for the lag is interesting.
Suggests that the virus is a bit of flat-track bully: after a while it starts to run out of vulnerable people.
That makes little sense though - given only a small percentage of the population have been infected there are a lot of vulnerable people who could still potentially be infected.
We really need to see some reliable 'excess death' figures for the USA. Not sure these are easily available.
easier and cost-effective to transport to a production facility on the French border rather than incurring import tariffs to ship to Wales post-Brexit.
Why is the daily mail of all papers throwing lines like that into a story?
I have no idea what the proposed market for that fucking thing is. BMW B58 + ZF 8HP is a fine powertrain but I'd rather have it in a BMW than a copy of Defender styled by somebody with a serious head injury.
There's also much less immunity in Melbourne than there is in London and other major UK and European cities. By October London and the major cities will have 20-25% of people immune.
There's been a massive spike in Georgia, yet deaths are falling fairly sharply.
The death rates are remarkably low in the USA generally. The reasons remain unclear. The cynic in me suspects suppression for political reasons but there may be others, such as care facilities, age profile and even a different type of virus. Or course a combination of factors.
Sure, but the fact that there is negative correlation between cases and deaths even when controlling for the lag is interesting.
Suggests that the virus is a bit of flat-track bully: after a while it starts to run out of vulnerable people.
That makes little sense though - given only a small percentage of the population have been infected there are a lot of vulnerable people who could still potentially be infected.
Infected yes, vulnerable not necessarily. It's very possible (indeed pretty likely) that one can be infected and be fine or almost fine. Indeed the mayor of Atlanta herself falls into this group!
Comments
https://twitter.com/AgentP22/status/1280420136944623616?s=20
Even that case everyone at a loss to explain as when the doctor visited that patient when they were ill they said it was definitely not COVID - but when the residents and staff were tested this resident was found to have the anti bodies.
So, one resident, no staff and no visitors allowed ...........
Generalisations can also be surprisingly accurate - that is why they get used so much.
Count me as an Associate Member.
However a home they inspected in 2018 with "adequate staffing levels".
Normal staffing was.
24 beds, at any one time around 4 short occupancy, 2 EOL, 18 longer term Care.
Daytime (08.00 - 20.00) - 2 nurses, 6 carers.
Nighttime (20.00 - 08.00) - 1 nurse, 4 carers.
Legislation only requires there to be sufficient staff for the residents needs and for regular review of numbers.
Of course its more complicated than that but that's a starting point.
Good privatelly educated people can be done of the finest, the Will Smith quote about how money and privilege merely exaggerate the type of person you already are, is spot on.
And only a small proportion of the privately educated end up in the exclusive drinking clubs of the more traditional universities and going on to become senior Tory MPs without any sort of public service mindset, just as a small number of British Muslims go on to do heinous things.
Is that a really bad comparison? Being a Tory MP, being a Tory is not innately evil. (The WI Tories of the South and Shires are not short of fine people, but may also have very different perceptions, for instance, of what the 1980s were like.)
But here's the rub. Which set of people are more likely to destroy my family's life and future in this country? The insider group or the outsider group? Show me the outsider group that has ever shattered a country to pieces except those identified as belonging to a neighbour state looking to use credible force. The list of insider groups who have destroyed countries is endless.
Now, the correlation is not direct here - the private schooled and those likely to destroy the country both map as separate insider groups. There may be overlap, there may not.
But, for instance, when I see SeanT harping on about Muslims as an entire group again and the need to be hard line, I think - no, YOU are the threat to me here, you and your cohort threaten my family if this talk is allowed to go too far. I like to think, if the worst did happen, he would recant and take up the role of exile critic-in-chief from the safe distance of some luxury Singapore hotel. But, it would be too late, far too late.
Or he was gaslighting them.
Or we are now gaslighting him.
Or...
The Labour position, now, seems to be something like, "we're not in the business of increasing tax for the sake of it, but if it is required to balance the books then we think those most able to pay more should do so."
I think it would be a mistake to announce anything more detailed this far in advance of an election.
Mountain. Molehill.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/06/lincoln-project-ads-republicans-democrats-349184
Using your numbers you've got 8x 12h shifts for daytime x 7 days a week = 56x 12h shifts for daytimes.
Plus a further 5x 12h shifts for night time x 7 days a week = 35x 12h shifts for night times.
So using your numbers there are a total of 91 shifts a week. Throw in statutory holiday requirements and you're talking over 100 shifts a week.
Staff won't be working 12 shifts seven days per week. 4 days per week is standard for 12h shift work. So you need, without training or absences a minimum of 25 full time staff . . . to cover the 20 residents/24 bed maximum. And that is before you consider ancillary support staff like chefs, cleaners, accountants, managers etc
As I said 24/7 care means more staff than residents.
It also means that - while recorded case numbers in Florida now are comparable to NY earlier - the actual incidence of the virus may be much lower. It's hard to make a comparison.
It will be very interesting to see how Anneliese Dodds develops. She's clearly very bright (a 1st in PPE from the toffs' favoured university), but she's very inexperienced for such an important front-line role. Starmer must rate her abilities very highly to have made that appointment.
https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/calculating-operating-costs-care-homes
In the case of nursing care for older people, UK benchmarks of 8.1 qualified nurse hours and 18.9 care assistant hours per resident per week have been entered in the toolkit spreadsheet.
and
For residential care of older people, the corresponding benchmark is 16 day and night care assistant hours per resident per week (no nursing staff).
The failings of public health are not, of course, the sole responsibility of the current government. The decline in capacity began two decades ago, and problems were likely exacerbated by Lansley separating the service out from the rest of healthcare.
PHE is, of course, the organisation tasked with contagious disease surveillance and control, and it seems clear that they were significantly lacking in capacity, whether management, number and scale of public health laboratories, or sheer numbers of staff available for (eg) contact tracing.
As an aside, the Deputy CMO, whose performance during the pandemic appears lamentable, was formerly a regional director of PHE.
Apart from the Jews, obvs.
...these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads….
…The secret of fearmongering is a willingness to go there, and that’s where the Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents. The group’s founders aren’t calibrating their ads around a Democratic base that mistrusts the military, delves into nuance, or shies away from causing offense. That leaves ample room for dog-whistle symbols that range from clichés to horror-movie tropes: One ad accuses Trump of being played by China, and ends with the image of the White House, the entire screen tinted red.
Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group….
https://twitter.com/gsoh31/status/1280452122677575680
What on earth else was a centrist voter to do?
You need Location on for the exposure notification service itself to do Bluetooth advertisments and scanning (because it potentially exposes your location), but the tracing apps themselves are not allowed to request location.
This is an issue that some other apps run into, like Wi-Fi utilities, because even if they aren't trying to locate you their use in itself could expose your location to other users or systems.
So Location is on for the Google/Apple exposure service, which does not locate you, so that the user is aware of the potential privacy issue, but location access should not be available to any apps using the service.
The other explanation is that he rates all the alternative options very poorly.
He rants and raves about Boris and indeed, I yield to no one in my estimation of him as a useless, solipsistic twat.
But the effing Labour Party, of which I believe @kinabalu is a supporter, put Jeremy Effing Corbyn up against him so what did they expect to happen!?
That report further says a further 6 hours per resident for ancillary staff = 33 hours
Add in statutory holiday cover etc and you're back to a full time employee per resident - before you consider any sicknesses, other absences or training.
No matter how you slice it, it keeps coming back to the same rule of thumb - every care home resident requires a full time employee in order to provide 24/7 continuity of care. I don't work in the sector but can comprehend basic maths to figure that out: 168 hours per week to have continuity of care does not come easy or cheap.
Those Johnson comments again - "care homes did not always follow the procedures."
This is gaslighting but so as not to cause @TOPPING a brain-ache let's call it what it also is - trolling. Trolling care home workers. Trolling anybody with a care for integrity and competence in government.
We need another election asap imo. The country has made a clear and grievous error. We deserve a chance to rectify matters before too much damage is done.
Nursing home fag packet maths gives £350/week.
it's about keeping them to 80 cases.
As for PHE, I think they were and still are lacking, though not in capacity, lacking in judgment. They seem to be more concerned with private sector encroachment into their domain than solving the issues of the day.
The government is basically writing a blank cheque for anything virus related, the idea that the resources don't exist is not true, they just aren't doing a very good job.
As for the scientists, I think they have been a disaster, one which the government will now hide behind on the basis of "we followed the advice".
In a parallel universe where the policy had been that the vulnerable were to be kept in hospitals then the media would be screaming about why so many without the virus had been kept unnecessarily in hospitals to be exposed to the virus at the hospital and left to die there, rather than being sent safely home.
I did NOT work with Hands at Lehman. It was at another bank. And I remember him piling into all sorts. Financial and fiscal engineering of the most mercenary type.
Did I put a hand up and try to stop it? Yes, I did. I thought about doing that many times.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/07/ex-labour-mp-eric-joyce-faces-jail-after-admitting-child-abuse-image-offence
Why?
https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report
And as for an election it is four years away and no amount of wishing is going to change that
Johnson Con majority and Brexit OR Corbyn Lab minority and Remain.
All intelligent floaters or centrists who voted did so with the above calculus available to draw on. All made their decision. All own it.
But they have made mistakes too, and those shouldn't be denied or diminished. The Nightingale hospitals were a necessary contingency that thankfully weren't activated, but when the care homes issue arose they should've been repurposed. That may not have been sufficient to prevent additional care home deaths entirely but could've reduced the number.
We may now have tens of thousands of lightly trained contact tracers; PHE had I think a total of 129 trained professionals at the beginning of the year.
A couple of recent letters to the Guardian give a flavour of the problem;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/why-the-uk-lacks-an-adequate-testing-system
I don't know enough about the organisation to comment on why the senior management appears so poor, but it's not entirely a surprise that an organisation apparently balkanised and in decline should find itself so led.
https://twitter.com/AlbzSFC/status/1279553544543186947
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cars/article-8497591/Ineos-considers-French-factory-vehicle-puts-UK-hold.html
easier and cost-effective to transport to a production facility on the French border rather than incurring import tariffs to ship to Wales post-Brexit.
Why is the daily mail of all papers throwing lines like that into a story?
Suggests that the virus is a bit of flat-track bully: after a while it starts to run out of vulnerable people.
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1280457599884935168
And immense time on data cleansing.
But perhaps we all know that.