Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Lamenting Dido*
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Lamenting Dido*
Today I am announcing that we are forming the National Institute for Health Protection.This will have a single & relentless mission: protecting people from external threats to this country’s health, bringing the UK’s world-class science and scale into one coherent organisation. pic.twitter.com/v27UhhCT8Y
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
It was also suggested on the last thread that no one would touch this appointment with a ten foot barge pole.
Life For Rent is one of the greatest albums of the millennium and if you don’t like White Flag then you have no taste.
@britainelects
·
2h
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 42% (-1)
LAB: 37% (-)
LDEM: 7% (+1)
via @SavantaComRes
, 14 - 16 Aug
Chgs. w/ 19 Jul
Apologies if already posted.
They appear to have been the source of the entire scheme.
https://www.consultancy.uk/news/25175/mckinsey-to-evaluate-british-nhs-test-and-trace-programme
...As the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) looks to improve the service, the Health Service Journal has revealed that McKinsey & Company has been tasked with reviewing the governance of the NHS Test and Trace programme. The consultancy will now consider which level of state management would facilitate the best provision of its future services – be that remaining under the direct control of the DHSC, gain greater operational independence, or be merged with another entity of the DHSC, such as Public Health England... (27th July)
https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1296065385372975105
https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1296068734914899968
Presumably this is what "... taking back control ..." really means. Being completely unaccountable for 5 years and therefore using that period to trouser as much cash as possible before you get tossed out on your ear.
And tossing this lot out will be a big ask given the state of Labour, so maybe 10 years of troughing?
That should be enough to set any trougher up for life and after that is done, why should they gave a f***?
In the middle of a Pandemic is absolutely the right time to abolish the body responsible for Public Health and stick one of your own up to create a successor which will stop putting out facts demonstrating how and why ministers are culpable. Anyone who doesn't think so is obviously a Corbynite.
Whether that counts as lying is an interesting question.
FPT but On Topic: Probably a controversial opinion but . . . Given that our neighbouring nations that had an original COVID surge all now seem to be having a second wave while we aren't (yet) then it seems like NHS Test & Trace are doing a good job.
Anyone agree?
As we're all about to witness as the schools go back. Remember - its perfectly safe, the scientists said so, and he will fine you if you dissent.
Not in the least bit surprised that he's shit at it though.
Headline - 15
7 Days - 14
Yesterday - 0
Prove to me that T & T had anything to do with it. There could be any number of factors such as 25% of people being too afraid to leave their houses, the fact that schools have been closed for months and fewer people in offices.
Be rest assured our tax dollars are being well spent. Calling businesses to ask for their feedback on how they are adapting to something that neither us or them have any real idea what it will be like.
Opinion is turning against our oh so wonderful NHS, and fast.
If we're avoiding a second major spike right now its luck not T&T.
btw Zhou Enlai
1. The UK might generally still have tighter restrictions so that the vector for increased cases in other countries is not present here. For example, the much-derided quarantine on travellers might be having a beneficial effect. Or it could be that school terms started earlier elsewhere. Or there was something about a much greater proportion of UK office workers still working from home than on the Continent.
2. I think it's true that on the continent we've mostly seen an increase in cases, which hasn't yet resulted in extra deaths. If Test and Trace in the UK is performing really badly then it could be missing an increase in the number of cases, and we'll only know about it when we see the deaths later.
3. We are seeing an increase in cases, but just as with the situation in February and March we're a little bit behind the Continent and will catch up soon.
These all seem at least as plausible as Test and Trace working, particularly given some of the underwhelming statistics released on contact tracing, but I can't say confidently either way.
(Just to save HYUFD the trouble, sleazy Yes on the slide by 1% in poll by different company)
https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1296062799089750017?s=20
The national, phone call based, system does not.
As the latest Imperial report points out:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8640223/Quick-effective-testing-tracing-reduce-coronavirus-R-number-26.html
It's not completely useless, but it is still poor.
(And has still not met the target Boris set. If that means anything.)
Implication, a decent Green (and pro-indy) contingent.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1295916143471808513?s=20
Maybe distance lends enchantment and ignorance, but the Dem's media game seems much superior to that of the Reps.
I'm writing this because it is clear you do not get a RKI by just chosing a politician off the shelf and overnight handing them the responsibility of the health of a country's citizens.
"The government has suggested that it is modelled on Germany’s Robert Koch Institute" claiming this is a complete joke and shows that the cabinet have absolutely no idea how how you go about setting up an administration which requires specialist scientific knowledge.
Why, I don't know.
Suggesting that this woman (who I freely confess not to have even heard of a couple of days ago) worked as a travel agent or in a supermarket when she was on the Board of Thomas Cook and Tesco's seems a tad unfair. She is an experienced manager. Whether she is a successful one is harder to judge but she is not obviously unqualified for the role.
I also don't agree that not having a scientist in charge (like Germany) is necessarily a bad thing. Part of the problem with PHE is that it has been too dominated by scientists who seem to see risk as something that really should not be taken, no matter what the consequences. It seems to be a part of the problem.
As to the perils of reorganising does anyone seriously think that the performance of PHE has reached the giddy heights of adequate in this crisis? Too slow, way too bureaucratic, just utterly useless at producing statistics and excessively cautious may be some of the criticisms that have been thrown their way. Some of this may be unfair in respect of an organisation starved of funds in recent times but it is not a good basis for going forward.
She may turn out to be a disaster and things may not improve but remember that PHE was created as a part of the Lansley reforms, a Minister who could give Chris Grayling a run for his money.
It's public record, and none of it is good.
I deeply care about the Union and want it to continue for at least another three hundred years.
But that is not the only failing.
More significantly, the time taken for both test results, and then the time from those results to tracing contacts, is just too long for effective disease control.
Those metrics can only improved by decentralisation/localisation of test/track/trace.
Here's an actual quote.
'He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured.'
That's how bad it was.
If Talk Talk was a pizza topping it would be olives or pineapple.
Just that that a massive reorganisation like this is quite likely not to see any improvements for months, and that its genesis looks to be half baked.
'McKinsey (the consultants invariably brought in by those CEOs and others too unimaginative to think for themselves, too scared to make their own decisions or just looking for someone else to blame).'
This was exactly my experience with them. They would come to you room, spend a lot of time finding out what you did and how you did it. They would type it up and report this to the CEO, leaving you wondering why the CEO didn't just ask you himself. The result of all this earnest research was the recommendation that the firm (which was profitable and successful) should carry on pretty much as before.
Naturally they were paid a huge sum for this timeless advice.
Neither accounts for the lack of a hospital wave though as we are reporting around 1000 cases a day, but falling hospitalisation rates. Manifestly, plenty are still being infected.
It seems that with our current level of restrictions R is right now about 1. If T&T is breaking transmission chains then R would logically be above 1 right now - in which case we'd be back in exponential growth territory.
I remember the conversations I had with pollsters in 2011/12 about setting up their polls for the 2014 referendum.
One thing in particular vexed them, trying to come up with a wording that they could ask adults if they had children aged 13/14/15 and if they could ask them questions about how they would in the Indyref without the pollsters getting called nonces.
Apparently when Bernie Sanders was first elected, Biden showed him how things worked etc, unlike some on the Hill who tried to make things difficult... they became good friends.
We are blundering about in the fog and PHE have to take a lot of the responsibility for that.
The next election isn't due until 2024 but for next election polls generally the pollster doesn't ask if the adults have a child aged 14/15/16/17 and if they could ask them questions about how they would voted in the next General Election - do they?