Government response to Coronavirus Approval in the government’s handling of the Coronavirus situation has decreased slightly, falling from 61% to 57%. Confidence in their ability to take us through it has also decreased slightly from 59% to 52%. Overall support for the government is still high, but in the last couple of weeks has fluctuated from increasing slight and then decreasing again. This is probably the result of people being unsure about whether things are improving, but hoping that it will
Boris Johnson ducked out of a COBRA meeting to be photographed signing a letter so I can’t muster up too much shock that he couldn’t be arsed finding out what might be happening about a pandemic.
The idea that it was all some hidden mystery is, however, absurd. I was no great seer but I concluded my article on 19 February with the words:
“Right now we are at a crisis in the true sense of the word, a moment when we do not know which course a disease is going to take. The stakes are very high indeed. Those of us who are not experts must hope that those who are find a way to keep Covid-19 tamed. The alternatives are just awful.”
It turns out that the Prime Minister was asleep at the wheel.
How much do you blame the scientists? If the government was following their advice, it’s hard to be too critical, but like everyone else on here I’d like to think I’d have been a bit more cautious.
It is the government’s job to understand the advice it is getting and the assumptions it is based upon. The scientists may well have been at substantial fault. That does not absolve the government from its failure to understand the advice it received.
Bad advice leaves the government in as damned if you do/damned if you don't situation though. If the government had ignored the advice from SAGE would there not be articles now about how we had overreacted and caused unnecessary damage to the economy against the advice of experts?
That’s not what I said. Advice needs to be understood before acted upon. The advice is not purely scientific and lay upon political assumptions that were the responsibility of politicians. It appears that politicians let scientists take political decisions in ignorance. If the political assumptions had been changed, so might the advice.
I'm agreeing with you, my problem is with the setup. We have a group of unaccountable scientists making political decisions. The government have failed to give SAGE any kind of serious oversight and I think both Boris and Hancock are at fault here. Personally, I think Hancock needs to fall for a lot of this, he's clearly not up to the job and has been far too reliant on the experts for making the decisions for him. If Boris hadn't just won an 80 seat majority I think he'd be in serious trouble too. Politically Boris is safe I think, but it's proven what we all already knew about him. He's let other people take charge of a situation, partially because he's lazy and partly to pass the buck, but he's he PM and isn't able to do that and it's shown him to be unsuitable for job.
I agree with you.
I do have serious concerns about being overly critical of the Government DURING the pandemic. I am fearful that in response to unrelenting criticism, this Government and Boris in particular, will do something inappropriate to curry favour with the voters.
When it is all over criticise away!
No, now is the right time to criticise the government. We need desperately for better leadership on this issue, Hancock isn't up to the job and he needs to be replaced. His failures will lead to the deaths of countless doctors and nurses over the next month. We can't let these same failures continue to lead our response on this.
That’s why I don’t like the obsession with “cobra” as media branding. It is literally just Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. By convention all meetings chaired by the PM are held there.
But there were multiple Cobra meetings working through the detail of options and consequences. Chaired by the Health Secretary who was responsible for briefing the PM
When it cane to Cobra meeting drew all the threads together and needed to make decisions s the PM chaired it in person.
That strikes me as government working g as it should.
Let me put it another way: would and if those Cobra meetings made different decisions if the PM had been there?
What it tells me Charles is that the alarm bells were not ringing nearly loud enough. By early February it should have been obvious that this was not just a matter for the Health Secretary but a national emergency that was going to involve almost every arm of government. Whether that failure was systemic, with the relevant experts not having a loud enough voice in the decision making process, or a result of innumerate and distracted politicians failing to grasp what they were being told will no doubt be the central point of the inevitable inquiry.
Or perhaps they thought that some things were not a price worth paying to restrict infection.
Its the only reason I can see for their casual attitude to restrictions on foreign travel.
I think that the SARS outbreak caused a lot of complacency. In the UK there were 8k cases and 774 deaths without any drastic countermeasures. I suspect it took time to realise that this was different and much, much more serious.
We were discussing very early on how this was different from SARS, and why at the likely consequences might be.
The China figures did not indicate that particularly. Indeed, if you believe them, they still don't. 4.5k deaths out of 1.3bn would indicate something like a couple of hundred deaths in the UK. Not something to ignore but not something to tear the country apart on.
By that time it was also evident that the outbreak in Italy was of a completely different order from anything we had seen for 100 years. So there is a delay but it is not huge. Whether using that time effectively would have bought us more time is uncertain but as I said phase 1 collapsed within days because it was already too late.
Meanwhile wrestling with what to do about father in home with CV19. The home is not communicating at all well, which suggests they are struggling. Phone calls mostly not answered, when you do get through you get carefully worded replies and emails not replied to.
Contemplating busting Dad out, although not sure is that is wise, legal or because of prescriptions etc technically possible.
So play nice on PB, this thing isn’t over.
I don’t know what to advise, especially without knowing your father’s particular circumstances, but you have my absolute sympathy.
+1 - that sounds a really tough dilemma. Perhaps discuss urgently with his GP, who would coverr the prescriptions aspect if (s)he agrees with taking him out of there?
My son in laws father (87) is being kept in his home by the authorities despite being in terrible health, falling nearly daily, on a permanent catheter, and confused. He has 4 carers a day and when he falls my son in law or his sister have to attend in ppe before an ambulance is called
On each occasions recently the paramedics stabilise him and then leave him with his carers. He should be in a nursing home or hospital but neither will take him.
The really sad issue is his wife is in dementia care in a nearby nursing home but they with not take him to be with her
This catastrophe is changing so many lives and seems neverending
Dreadful situation. Awful for your s-i-l and his family and especially for the poor old chap if, as I suspect, he's aware. Suspect the Home might not take him because of staff overload. It must be a wits-end situation for many Home Managers, many of whom didn't join to cope with this sort of thing.
To be honest I could and have wept a few times at the absolute upending of our emotions and indeed he is aware of it, distressed at the separation from his wife, and at times he becomes very confused. To loving families it becomes unbearable
I believe the nursing homes have effectively closed their doors leaving many elderly to try to cope at home with little safeguarding
If Home admit frail elderly they may well be exposing them to coronavirus. If they don't such people may well live for a while at home. Or of course home carers may infect them. What a dreadful situation. I wouldn't wish to be a Home Manager now.
It might be worth thinking about what other epic monstrous alien authoritarian Chinese things might go down better with western voters than we used to think.
I think you have already answered that with you Uighur comment. How many in the west secretly admire the Chinese for their tough line on Muslims making trouble?
That assumes that (a) the Uighur Muslims are masking trouble; (b) the Chinese response is the right one; and (c) it will not lead to worse problems.
All this was canvassed in this header here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/12/09/lets-talk-about-islamophobia/ - last December, note. And the general view was that we either could or would not do anything about China’s atrocious behaviour. Now when its behaviour affects us and not unnamed unknown others we get concerned. I disliked China’s government long before the virus and will do so long after it gets sorted - unless it changes for the better, which seems unlikely.
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It is clear to me that the health of people over 80 is similar to the health levels of people who were 10 years younger when I was a child in the 70s. Peopen now in their seventies seem now to be more like those around retirement age as I was a child.
There are plenty of elderly people in India and I am sure that is also so in those other countries mentioned. But thos elderly people are roughly 10 years younger than their West European equivalents.
Whether it is the actual age of an 80 year old that is important with Covid19 or the health quality in this age group is, as far as I know, not really known yet, but is central to the discussion of how hard it will hit in India and Africa.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
How far back do you mean by back in the day? In the 70's there was lot of plastic crap being solds as toys, which came from China.
I must say that I am impressed that it has taken about 4 weeks into lockdown before some properly serious political troubles for the government to emerge, with accompanying hyperbole for those whom the gov stumbling and having genuine questions to be asked just isn't enough.
I'll predict that in about 2 weeks the govs ratings will take a sustained hit from the impact of negative stories and, hopefully, the plateau tapering off reducing a rally round the flag effect, combined with the ramping up of lockdown fatigue.
Within 4 weeks ratings will be about where they were pre crisis.
This scary. The government might be tempted to boost its ratings by prematurely announcing successes and relaxation of the lockdown.
Let's see how popular the government is when unemployment touches 7m. Will people still be crying out to be placed under house arrest in their homes? Or will something else matter to them altogether.
The main reason I remain broadly agreeable to the Government's handling of the crisis is that I believe the lockdown, irrespective of it's ramifications was the least worst option.
If Boris feels he is being unloved by the media and his public he may well make a decision that will boost his popularity first and foremost.
That's what I'm hoping for. Not wishing to be unpopular is a healthy motivator for politicians. I believe they need to take a good look at Sweden and work out how to get us there.
Both are unscrupulous lying lazy egotistic wankers as well
Morning Malc. Been digging turnips this morning.? It has not improved your humour.
Unfortunately I have to yet again read about the unscrupulous wankers who rule my country knowing we had a chance to be free of the tossers but were thwarted by similar greedy spineless wankers in Scotland. PS: good morning to you, it is another beautiful sunny day here as well.
Bit of a u-turn on the SNP there Malc, though I do see your point!
*Oh, you meant Boris.
The ferry from Immingham will get you to Sweden! I trust you are not alluding to their herd-immunity strategy.
I don't mean from the beginning, but I mean to get to where they are now - surviving economically but slowing the spread.
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
And air quality issues as a result of that density.
Boris Johnson ducked out of a COBRA meeting to be photographed signing a letter so I can’t muster up too much shock that he couldn’t be arsed finding out what might be happening about a pandemic.
The idea that it was all some hidden mystery is, however, absurd. I was no great seer but I concluded my article on 19 February with the words:
“Right now we are at a crisis in the true sense of the word, a moment when we do not know which course a disease is going to take. The stakes are very high indeed. Those of us who are not experts must hope that those who are find a way to keep Covid-19 tamed. The alternatives are just awful.”
It turns out that the Prime Minister was asleep at the wheel.
I'm pretty sure Theresa May would have turned up to the COBR meetings. Particularly if told the UK was facing an imminent pandemic that could claim 500 000 lives.
When the model output changed to the 500k figure Boris was in the room. The issue is that he wasn't in the room before that because our experts completely underestimated the severity of this for far, far too long and our politicians are either too stupid or too incompetent to give them any real oversight.
The 500K figure is implied by this report published by Imperial College on February 10. I don't how it was communicated to ministers, but I would assume it was and is also likely they got sight of it ahead of publication.
The 500K figure might be a bit too high. Regardless of its accuracy, that the figure bandied around was so high contradicts the suggestion that Western governments were lulled into a false sense of security by Chinese misreporting.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
PPE is not the point. PPE can be handled by stockpiling. 5G, nuclear plants, British Steel.
If I were to take some of the "rallying" effect away, I would say Johnson's Government will probably poll somewhere between 40 and 50% in normal times. Labour will want to be in the high 30s before long, to be showing good signs of progress.
The party that appears to have done "best" in an election always seems to gain after for some time. Labour did that in 2017, where they were ahead for a couple of months after.
So my guess would be that rallying around + winning party boost is probably inflating the Tory numbers somewhat.
I would predict to see Labour lead in one poll over the next five years.
Leader of the Opposition is a difficult job at the best of times, to be thrown into it in the middle of a serious worldwide crisis makes it even more difficult than usual for Starmer to get his feet wet in the role.
He seems to be doing okay so far though, he's making the right sort of noises on the national stage, while working hard behind the scenes to clear up the internal party mess he inherited while everyone is focussed elsewhere.
Once the immediate crisis is past, he needs to have a good summer. There will be plenty of things to criticise the government about, and he should be able to make inroads as long as the criticism remains constructive. There will also be plenty of opportunity to present alternative solutions to the problems of recession and unemployment, which will dominate the next year or more of the political agenda. There will also be thousands of hard stories of people affected by events, which again should give him opportunity to make himself heard.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
I agree we need to produce ppe in the UK but how we stockpile sufficient for a pandemic and keep replacing it as goes past it's use by date is a very fair question
An article in FT Weekend on 18 April 2020, ‘Muddled thinking punctures plan for British ventilator’, includes multiple inaccurate and misleading claims about the UK’s work to procure and manufacture ventilators in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
An opinion thread on Twitter by one of the article’s authors contains further inaccurate claims and assertions.
A detailed rebuttal of the article and the associated Twitter thread can be found below.
An article in FT Weekend on 18 April 2020, ‘Muddled thinking punctures plan for British ventilator’, includes multiple inaccurate and misleading claims about the UK’s work to procure and manufacture ventilators in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
An opinion thread on Twitter by one of the article’s authors contains further inaccurate claims and assertions.
A detailed rebuttal of the article and the associated Twitter thread can be found below.
That’s why I don’t like the obsession with “cobra” as media branding. It is literally just Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. By convention all meetings chaired by the PM are held there.
But there were multiple Cobra meetings working through the detail of options and consequences. Chaired by the Health Secretary who was responsible for briefing the PM
When it cane to Cobra meeting drew all the threads together and needed to make decisions s the PM chaired it in person.
That strikes me as government working g as it should.
Let me put it another way: would and if those Cobra meetings made different decisions if the PM had been there?
What it tells me Charles is that the alarm bells were not ringing nearly loud enough. By early February it should have been obvious that this was not just a matter for the Health Secretary but a national emergency that was going to involve almost every arm of government. Whether that failure was systemic, with the relevant experts not having a loud enough voice in the decision making process, or a result of innumerate and distracted politicians failing to grasp what they were being told will no doubt be the central point of the inevitable inquiry.
In early february it was not clear there would be a pandemic in Europe, but it very definitely was the time to act on "It could hit us badly, we need a cross govenment plan in case it hits us", by early march the epdiemic was real in Northern Italy, with ouutbreaks in Western Geramny and Eastern France. That should have been the time to put the preparations into action.
Until Feb 21 the scientific advisers we’re saying the risk was low
If they had spent millions on preparations what do you think their critics and opponents would have said?
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It kills over 80s *and the seriously ill.* If Indians are dying in their 60s either they are dying of being seriously ill, or they are dying of old age. In the latter case, they are physiologically equivalent to westerners in their 80s and the virus probably knows more about physiology than it knows about counting to 80. The evidence about its spread to date is explicable on any number of other grounds, and reliable evidence about the current state of affairs in India is nonexistent.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
I agree we need to produce ppe in the UK but how we stockpile sufficient for a pandemic and keep replacing it as goes past it's use by date is a very fair question
As I understand it, the face masks don't really go useless after their use by date, so much as the elastic which holds them in place. Either find better, longer-life fastenings or have the elastic replaced and returned to the stocks.
We won't be short of breathing kit at the end of this crisis. It may be that the more basic kit has proved far more useful, with a deep reluctance to put people on ventilators, from which they are invariably being unhooked a corpse.
It's not interesting because some people think of the government as not their football team and instinctively criticise it as well.
The pretense one view attracts tribalism and the opposing view does not is one of most pernicious fallacies of our politics generally .
One side will likely be more correct than the other on particular issues. Evidence is mounting of government missteps. But that tweet is just an attempt to blanket dismiss and undermine any defence of government as not valid by attacking its motivation.
It's a way of allowing the dismissal of other viewpoints with as little thought as possible, the very thing we dont want, and yes that applies to automatic dismissal of criticism.
It's fine to be inclined one way, I'm generally inclined to support authority, but colour me suspicious that many critiquing closed minds on the other side have open minds themselves.
I don't think he's saying that (worth reading the whole thread). He's noticing a protection of "your" politicians from criticism. So Johnson supporters will instinctively attack those making the criticism for daring to do so, rather than discuss the issues. People who supported May, Cameron, Brown, Blair and Major didn't do this to nearly the same extent.
My add: this doesn't just apply to Johnson supporters. Corbyn and Sturgeon supporters are similar.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
I agree we need to produce ppe in the UK but how we stockpile sufficient for a pandemic and keep replacing it as goes past it's use by date is a very fair question
It's a completely different question which has nothing to do with deciding which strategic industries we need to retain a domestic capability.
Boris Johnson ducked out of a COBRA meeting to be photographed signing a letter so I can’t muster up too much shock that he couldn’t be arsed finding out what might be happening about a pandemic.
The idea that it was all some hidden mystery is, however, absurd. I was no great seer but I concluded my article on 19 February with the words:
“Right now we are at a crisis in the true sense of the word, a moment when we do not know which course a disease is going to take. The stakes are very high indeed. Those of us who are not experts must hope that those who are find a way to keep Covid-19 tamed. The alternatives are just awful.”
It turns out that the Prime Minister was asleep at the wheel.
I'm pretty sure Theresa May would have turned up to the COBR meetings. Particularly if told the UK was facing an imminent pandemic that could claim 500 000 lives.
When the model output changed to the 500k figure Boris was in the room. The issue is that he wasn't in the room before that because our experts completely underestimated the severity of this for far, far too long and our politicians are either too stupid or too incompetent to give them any real oversight.
The 500K figure is implied by this report published by Imperial College on February 10. I don't how it was communicated to ministers, but I would assume it was and is also likely they got sight of it ahead of publication.
The 500K figure might be a bit too high. Regardless of its accuracy, that the figure bandied around was so high contradicts the suggestion that Western governments were lulled into a false sense of security by Chinese misreporting.
Yes, and that figure was in the SAGE committee at the time, similar to the projection in the Pandemic plan.
We also knew from published data that person to person transmission was happening, and that the the fatality rate was 11% and ICU ventilation rate 17% in the first published case series (24 Jan).
All the pieces were there to be seen by mid February, indeed many of us were discussing it here.
The government (like most in the world) was slow to wake up and realise the significance. That is not surprising as there is little experience of this sort of event out there.
To pretend though that the science mysteriously changed in early March is pure mendacity. I would respect the government more if, like Macron, they accepted that they were not on top of a rapidly evolving situation.
I don't think sacking people at the moment would be helpful though. We have a government of clowns and halfwits chosen for their fanaticism over No Deal Brexit, but they were known to be so when we chose them, and we should stick to them until the immediate crisis is over.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
I agree we need to produce ppe in the UK but how we stockpile sufficient for a pandemic and keep replacing it as goes past it's use by date is a very fair question
It's a completely different question which has nothing to do with deciding which strategic industries we need to retain a domestic capability.
The ultimate answer is that we need to become less dependent upon imports for vital supplies.
Whether the government has realised this yet is something I'm not sure of.
To be honest it is the massive volume of production and of course the main supplier of the components is China, so you can gear up manufacture but if you cannot source the materials you end up in a cul de sac
We used to import hardly anything from China (except tea, back in the day). We need to have a think about what strategic industries there are that we need a domestic capability. PPE is clearly one, in my view.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
I agree we need to produce ppe in the UK but how we stockpile sufficient for a pandemic and keep replacing it as goes past it's use by date is a very fair question
Rather than stockpiling equipment and supplies, we would be better served by working with industry that could convert its usual production to whatever is required when requested.
As we have seen, there's actually plenty of clothing and engineering resources available in various sectors, government should maintain supplies of raw materials and ensure that these strategic businesses remain viable.
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It kills over 80s *and the seriously ill.* If Indians are dying in their 60s either they are dying of being seriously ill, or they are dying of old age. In the latter case, they are physiologically equivalent to westerners in their 80s and the virus probably knows more about physiology than it knows about counting to 80. The evidence about its spread to date is explicable on any number of other grounds, and reliable evidence about the current state of affairs in India is nonexistent.
The evidence globally is the disease has the highest mortality rate for over 80s, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that the disease has the highest mortality rate varying upon the average life expectancy of the country concerned eg late 60s in India, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet
It's not interesting because some people think of the government as not their football team and instinctively criticise it as well.
The pretense one view attracts tribalism and the opposing view does not is one of most pernicious fallacies of our politics generally .
One side will likely be more correct than the other on particular issues. Evidence is mounting of government missteps. But that tweet is just an attempt to blanket dismiss and undermine any defence of government as not valid by attacking its motivation.
It's a way of allowing the dismissal of other viewpoints with as little thought as possible, the very thing we dont want, and yes that applies to automatic dismissal of criticism.
It's fine to be inclined one way, I'm generally inclined to support authority, but colour me suspicious that many critiquing closed minds on the other side have open minds themselves.
I don't think he's saying that (worth reading the whole thread). He's noticing a protection of "your" politicians from criticism. So Johnson supporters will instinctively attack those making the criticism for daring to do so, rather than discuss the issues. People who supported May, Cameron, Brown, Blair and Major didn't do this to nearly the same extent.
My add: this doesn't just apply to Johnson supporters. Corbyn and Sturgeon supporters are similar.
The timing incidentally suggests the model didn't change as ministers claim it did. Their understanding of it may have changed. Also Neil Ferguson seems to have become more optimistic on the effectiveness of lockdown in reducing the rate of infection
An article in FT Weekend on 18 April 2020, ‘Muddled thinking punctures plan for British ventilator’, includes multiple inaccurate and misleading claims about the UK’s work to procure and manufacture ventilators in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
An opinion thread on Twitter by one of the article’s authors contains further inaccurate claims and assertions.
A detailed rebuttal of the article and the associated Twitter thread can be found below.
The rebuttal seems to be based on dismissing the importance of the scheme because the government was also trying to source from existing manufacturers.
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It is clear to me that the health of people over 80 is similar to the health levels of people who were 10 years younger when I was a child in the 70s. Peopen now in their seventies seem now to be more like those around retirement age as I was a child.
There are plenty of elderly people in India and I am sure that is also so in those other countries mentioned. But thos elderly people are roughly 10 years younger than their West European equivalents.
Whether it is the actual age of an 80 year old that is important with Covid19 or the health quality in this age group is, as far as I know, not really known yet, but is central to the discussion of how hard it will hit in India and Africa.
At present it seems more the former than the latter, this is a rich countries disease primarly in terms of mortality
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It kills over 80s *and the seriously ill.* If Indians are dying in their 60s either they are dying of being seriously ill, or they are dying of old age. In the latter case, they are physiologically equivalent to westerners in their 80s and the virus probably knows more about physiology than it knows about counting to 80. The evidence about its spread to date is explicable on any number of other grounds, and reliable evidence about the current state of affairs in India is nonexistent.
The evidence globally is the disease has the highest mortality rate for over 80s, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that the disease has the highest mortality rate varying upon the average life expectancy of the country concerned eg late 60s in India, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet
Facts only get you so far without the most rudimentary grasp of logic.
Thought experiment: We have a hundred story building. Most people leave it by the ground floor, and are fine. Suicidal people sometimes jump off the roof and kill themselves. If we are considering the desirability of jumping from a 90th storey window, how strong an argument is: "The evidence globally is jumping from the roof is fatal, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that jumping from any storey above about the 4th is likely to be fatal, judging from what we know about gravity and human physiology, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet."?
I’d have thought the understatement was Aberdonian, rather than the phrase, wouldn’t you?
For instance I’d say you could show typical English understatement whilst speaking a phrase in French
Perhaps from your deep well of cultural insight you can give me a break down on 'typical' Aberdonian understatement?
No, I had assumed that was acknowledged as a thing, people from Aberdeen being understated. I’ve never heard of it.
But it seems weird, I’d say incorrect, to criticise what he said as never being said by an Aberdonian, which is implicitly accepting there is such a phenomena, if there isn’t one.
It's not interesting because some people think of the government as not their football team and instinctively criticise it as well.
The pretense one view attracts tribalism and the opposing view does not is one of most pernicious fallacies of our politics generally .
One side will likely be more correct than the other on particular issues. Evidence is mounting of government missteps. But that tweet is just an attempt to blanket dismiss and undermine any defence of government as not valid by attacking its motivation.
It's a way of allowing the dismissal of other viewpoints with as little thought as possible, the very thing we dont want, and yes that applies to automatic dismissal of criticism.
It's fine to be inclined one way, I'm generally inclined to support authority, but colour me suspicious that many critiquing closed minds on the other side have open minds themselves.
I don't think he's saying that (worth reading the whole thread). He's noticing a protection of "your" politicians from criticism. So Johnson supporters will instinctively attack those making the criticism for daring to do so, rather than discuss the issues. People who supported May, Cameron, Brown, Blair and Major didn't do this to nearly the same extent.
My add: this doesn't just apply to Johnson supporters. Corbyn and Sturgeon supporters are similar.
A tweet does rather need to stand by itself, however, particularly when it is not flagged as a thought spread across a thread. Certainly I don't think it is incorrect that Johnson, Corbyn and Sturgeon supporters are more passionate/tribal/take your pick and so are more inclined to such a reaction. But I think we all know anyone who shares even a minor view with the most extreme supporters is presumed by many to be the same in all ways as the most extreme, because it makes them easier to dismiss.
I’d have thought the understatement was Aberdonian, rather than the phrase, wouldn’t you?
For instance I’d say you could show typical English understatement whilst speaking a phrase in French
Perhaps from your deep well of cultural insight you can give me a break down on 'typical' Aberdonian understatement?
No, I had assumed that was acknowledged as a thing, people from Aberdeen being understated. I’ve never heard of it.
But it seems weird, I’d say incorrect, to criticise what he said as never being said by an Aberdonian, which is implicitly accepting there is such a phenomena, if there isn’t such a thing.
I lived in Aberdeen from age 5-20 and have no recall of understatement being held up as a civic characteristic. In fact the pursuit of oil money and the vulgar excesses it was put to were the opposite of understated.
Is there any actual evidence the NHS is 'short' of PPE?
Are there any photos of key workers actually going in to work in overalls, jeans, bikinis or lingerie because they don't have protective equipment.
are there any photos of empty or nearly empty PPE storage facilities, or a PPE black market where Barbour PPE (which is apparently brilliant) trades illicitly at a multiple of its face price?
Or is is just another massive pile of media horseh8t?
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It kills over 80s *and the seriously ill.* If Indians are dying in their 60s either they are dying of being seriously ill, or they are dying of old age. In the latter case, they are physiologically equivalent to westerners in their 80s and the virus probably knows more about physiology than it knows about counting to 80. The evidence about its spread to date is explicable on any number of other grounds, and reliable evidence about the current state of affairs in India is nonexistent.
The evidence globally is the disease has the highest mortality rate for over 80s, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that the disease has the highest mortality rate varying upon the average life expectancy of the country concerned eg late 60s in India, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet
Facts only get you so far without the most rudimentary grasp of logic.
Thought experiment: We have a hundred story building. Most people leave it by the ground floor, and are fine. Suicidal people sometimes jump off the roof and kill themselves. If we are considering the desirability of jumping from a 90th storey window, how strong an argument is: "The evidence globally is jumping from the roof is fatal, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that jumping from any storey above about the 4th is likely to be fatal, judging from what we know about gravity and human physiology, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet."?
I only go on facts and evidence, I have no interest in random theories supposedly based on 'logic' but which have no evidence for them yet.
Plus there have already been plenty of coronavirus cases in India, the evidence is India has a death rate per head lower than the West due to the fact it has fewer over 80s.
In your example nobody had jumped from the 4th floor or higher, just from the roof
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It kills over 80s *and the seriously ill.* If Indians are dying in their 60s either they are dying of being seriously ill, or they are dying of old age. In the latter case, they are physiologically equivalent to westerners in their 80s and the virus probably knows more about physiology than it knows about counting to 80. The evidence about its spread to date is explicable on any number of other grounds, and reliable evidence about the current state of affairs in India is nonexistent.
The evidence globally is the disease has the highest mortality rate for over 80s, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that the disease has the highest mortality rate varying upon the average life expectancy of the country concerned eg late 60s in India, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet
lack of hospital care will also be a big factor based on volumes infected and beds / equipment available.
That’s why I don’t like the obsession with “cobra” as media branding. It is literally just Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. By convention all meetings chaired by the PM are held there.
But there were multiple Cobra meetings working through the detail of options and consequences. Chaired by the Health Secretary who was responsible for briefing the PM
When it cane to Cobra meeting drew all the threads together and needed to make decisions s the PM chaired it in person.
That strikes me as government working g as it should.
Let me put it another way: would and if those Cobra meetings made different decisions if the PM had been there?
What it tells me Charles is that the alarm bells were not ringing nearly loud enough. By early February it should have been obvious that this was not just a matter for the Health Secretary but a national emergency that was going to involve almost every arm of government. Whether that failure was systemic, with the relevant experts not having a loud enough voice in the decision making process, or a result of innumerate and distracted politicians failing to grasp what they were being told will no doubt be the central point of the inevitable inquiry.
In early february it was not clear there would be a pandemic in Europe, but it very definitely was the time to act on "It could hit us badly, we need a cross govenment plan in case it hits us", by early march the epdiemic was real in Northern Italy, with ouutbreaks in Western Geramny and Eastern France. That should have been the time to put the preparations into action.
Until Feb 21 the scientific advisers we’re saying the risk was low
If they had spent millions on preparations what do you think their critics and opponents would have said?
that was a lucky guess or what heroes instead they have proven themselves to be zeroes
I’d have thought the understatement was Aberdonian, rather than the phrase, wouldn’t you?
For instance I’d say you could show typical English understatement whilst speaking a phrase in French
Perhaps from your deep well of cultural insight you can give me a break down on 'typical' Aberdonian understatement?
No, I had assumed that was acknowledged as a thing, people from Aberdeen being understated. I’ve never heard of it.
But it seems weird, I’d say incorrect, to criticise what he said as never being said by an Aberdonian, which is implicitly accepting there is such a phenomena, if there isn’t such a thing.
I lived in Aberdeen from age 5-20 and have no recall of understatement being held up as a civic characteristic. In fact the pursuit of oil money and the vulgar excesses it was put to were the opposite of understated.
Fair enough. In that case it was strange of the tweeter to focus on the Aberdonian or not nature of the phrase, rather than query the claim that there was a civic characteristic of understatement, to me
Is there any actual evidence the NHS is 'short' of PPE?
Are there any photos of key workers actually going in to work in overalls, jeans, bikinis or lingerie because they don't have protective equipment.
are there any photos of empty or nearly empty PPE storage facilities, or a PPE black market where Barbour PPE (which is apparently brilliant) trades illicitly at a multiple of its face price?
Or is is just another massive pile of media horseh8t?
If you do an image search for "nurses in lingerie" there is loads of evidence.
Another hack who gives the impression of being delighted that things are not going as well as they might have done, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
Is there any actual evidence the NHS is 'short' of PPE?
Are there any photos of key workers actually going in to work in overalls, jeans, bikinis or lingerie because they don't have protective equipment.
are there any photos of empty or nearly empty PPE storage facilities, or a PPE black market where Barbour PPE (which is apparently brilliant) trades illicitly at a multiple of its face price?
Or is is just another massive pile of media horseh8t?
If you do an image search for "nurses in lingerie" there is loads of evidence.
I’d have thought the understatement was Aberdonian, rather than the phrase, wouldn’t you?
For instance I’d say you could show typical English understatement whilst speaking a phrase in French
Perhaps from your deep well of cultural insight you can give me a break down on 'typical' Aberdonian understatement?
No, I had assumed that was acknowledged as a thing, people from Aberdeen being understated. I’ve never heard of it.
But it seems weird, I’d say incorrect, to criticise what he said as never being said by an Aberdonian, which is implicitly accepting there is such a phenomena, if there isn’t such a thing.
I lived in Aberdeen from age 5-20 and have no recall of understatement being held up as a civic characteristic. In fact the pursuit of oil money and the vulgar excesses it was put to were the opposite of understated.
Fair enough. In that case it was strange of the tweeter to focus on the Aberdonian or not nature of the phrase, rather than query the claim that there was a civic characteristic of understatement, to me
It is Gove that is weird, he would be lucky to recognise an Aberdonian if he tripped over them.
Ah, a government inquiry. Like Franks, Hutton and Chilcot.
"For 338 paragraphs he painted a splendid picture, delineated the light and the shade, and the glowing colours in it, and when Franks got to paragraph 339 he got fed up with the canvas he was painting, and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it."
Russia +6k cases today, that's almost matching Italy's peak. So hard to see any form of future normality sans-vaccine, when it can just be imported from any number of hotspots which have popped up at the time.
An article in FT Weekend on 18 April 2020, ‘Muddled thinking punctures plan for British ventilator’, includes multiple inaccurate and misleading claims about the UK’s work to procure and manufacture ventilators in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
An opinion thread on Twitter by one of the article’s authors contains further inaccurate claims and assertions.
A detailed rebuttal of the article and the associated Twitter thread can be found below.
The rebuttal seems to be based on dismissing the importance of the scheme because the government was also trying to source from existing manufacturers.
It's based on the whole scheme - not just the "Dyson" part of it.
It would face many difficult questions in any inquiry I would hope, whether it was acrimonious or not, or selse what would be the point of an inquiry. Facing difficult questions will not be th eissue, it will be whether they have answers, and whether those answers are reasonable for the situation they found themselves in, rather than an idealised scenario.
I think the key there is 'currently'. If you believe the figures, which many don't.
Looking at the graphs above, we'll all be talking about Russia, India and Africa a month from now. Possibly Brazil too. These countries all have very dense population centres and relatively poor healthcare.
If it was a disease which affected all ages equally and which killed under 50s at the same rate as over 50s that would be true and India and Africa would be most badly hit.
However it is a disease which most kills over 80s and it is only countries in the West which tend to have life expectancies over 80 so all the evidence so far is it is richer countries in Europe and North America that have been worst hit
It kills over 80s *and the seriously ill.* If Indians are dying in their 60s either they are dying of being seriously ill, or they are dying of old age. In the latter case, they are physiologically equivalent to westerners in their 80s and the virus probably knows more about physiology than it knows about counting to 80. The evidence about its spread to date is explicable on any number of other grounds, and reliable evidence about the current state of affairs in India is nonexistent.
The evidence globally is the disease has the highest mortality rate for over 80s, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that the disease has the highest mortality rate varying upon the average life expectancy of the country concerned eg late 60s in India, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet
lack of hospital care will also be a big factor based on volumes infected and beds / equipment available.
He was apparently referring to “beam me up, Mr. Scott”.
Poetic license there. Scotty from Star Trek's accent was never Aberdonian, more like cod hollywood.
In the words of James Doohan himself: “I gave Scotty an Aberdeen accent and I learned that when I was sent over to Catterick camp in England during World War Two. While I was there, I met this fellow from Aberdeen - and I couldn't understand a word he said! But I learned that accent from him and that was the one I used for Scotty....”
Comments
Approval in the government’s handling of the Coronavirus situation has decreased slightly, falling from 61% to 57%. Confidence in their ability to take us through it has also decreased slightly from 59% to 52%.
Overall support for the government is still high, but in the last couple of weeks has fluctuated from increasing slight and then decreasing again. This is probably the result of people being unsure about whether things are improving, but hoping that it will
https://www.opinium.co.uk/public-opinion-on-coronavirus-15th-april/
https://twitter.com/KathyBurke/status/1251776037614235648?s=20
What a dreadful situation.
I wouldn't wish to be a Home Manager now.
https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1251800122318630912?s=20
All this was canvassed in this header here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/12/09/lets-talk-about-islamophobia/ - last December, note. And the general view was that we either could or would not do anything about China’s atrocious behaviour. Now when its behaviour affects us and not unnamed unknown others we get concerned. I disliked China’s government long before the virus and will do so long after it gets sorted - unless it changes for the better, which seems unlikely.
There are plenty of elderly people in India and I am sure that is also so in those other countries mentioned. But thos elderly people are roughly 10 years younger than their West European equivalents.
Whether it is the actual age of an 80 year old that is important with Covid19 or the health quality in this age group is, as far as I know, not really known yet, but is central to the discussion of how hard it will hit in India and Africa.
As Mr Meeks says this will cost us, but it looks like it will be worthwhile. The difficult bit will be anticipating the future crises that justify spending money in advance.
The 500K figure might be a bit too high. Regardless of its accuracy, that the figure bandied around was so high contradicts the suggestion that Western governments were lulled into a false sense of security by Chinese misreporting.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19/report-4-severity-of-covid-19/
He seems to be doing okay so far though, he's making the right sort of noises on the national stage, while working hard behind the scenes to clear up the internal party mess he inherited while everyone is focussed elsewhere.
Once the immediate crisis is past, he needs to have a good summer. There will be plenty of things to criticise the government about, and he should be able to make inroads as long as the criticism remains constructive. There will also be plenty of opportunity to present alternative solutions to the problems of recession and unemployment, which will dominate the next year or more of the political agenda. There will also be thousands of hard stories of people affected by events, which again should give him opportunity to make himself heard.
For instance I’d say you could show typical English understatement whilst speaking a phrase in French
An opinion thread on Twitter by one of the article’s authors contains further inaccurate claims and assertions.
A detailed rebuttal of the article and the associated Twitter thread can be found below.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-ft-article-and-twitter-thread-by-peter-foster
Meanwhile, people actually involved are hailing their success:
https://twitter.com/Daimler/status/1251178676584153090
France has forced a face mask manufacturer to cancel a major UK order as the coronavirus-inspired scramble for protective gear intensifies.
The National Health Service ordered millions of masks from Valmy SAS near Lyon earlier this year as COVID-19 threatened.
But amid a global shortage, France earlier this week ordered the requisition of all protective masks made in the country.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-french-protective-mask-manufacturer-scraps-nhs-order-to-keep-masks-in-france
If they had spent millions on preparations what do you think their critics and opponents would have said?
We won't be short of breathing kit at the end of this crisis. It may be that the more basic kit has proved far more useful, with a deep reluctance to put people on ventilators, from which they are invariably being unhooked a corpse.
My add: this doesn't just apply to Johnson supporters. Corbyn and Sturgeon supporters are similar.
We also knew from published data that person to person transmission was happening, and that the the fatality rate was 11% and ICU ventilation rate 17% in the first published case series (24 Jan).
All the pieces were there to be seen by mid February, indeed many of us were discussing it here.
The government (like most in the world) was slow to wake up and realise the significance. That is not surprising as there is little experience of this sort of event out there.
To pretend though that the science mysteriously changed in early March is pure mendacity. I would respect the government more if, like Macron, they accepted that they were not on top of a rapidly evolving situation.
I don't think sacking people at the moment would be helpful though. We have a government of clowns and halfwits chosen for their fanaticism over No Deal Brexit, but they were known to be so when we chose them, and we should stick to them until the immediate crisis is over.
I feel safer already.
As we have seen, there's actually plenty of clothing and engineering resources available in various sectors, government should maintain supplies of raw materials and ensure that these strategic businesses remain viable.
All in all, a misguided attempt at a dig at Gove
Oh, are you saying ‘I’m’ laconic in English?! Good one if so
The evidence is not yet that the disease has the highest mortality rate varying upon the average life expectancy of the country concerned eg late 60s in India, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet
You can thank me now and later.
Thought experiment: We have a hundred story building. Most people leave it by the ground floor, and are fine. Suicidal people sometimes jump off the roof and kill themselves. If we are considering the desirability of jumping from a 90th storey window, how strong an argument is: "The evidence globally is jumping from the roof is fatal, that is fact.
The evidence is not yet that jumping from any storey above about the 4th is likely to be fatal, judging from what we know about gravity and human physiology, that is just your theory no evidence for it as yet."?
But it seems weird, I’d say incorrect, to criticise what he said as never being said by an Aberdonian, which is implicitly accepting there is such a phenomena, if there isn’t one.
Are there any photos of key workers actually going in to work in overalls, jeans, bikinis or lingerie because they don't have protective equipment.
are there any photos of empty or nearly empty PPE storage facilities, or a PPE black market where Barbour PPE (which is apparently brilliant) trades illicitly at a multiple of its face price?
Or is is just another massive pile of media horseh8t?
Plus there have already been plenty of coronavirus cases in India, the evidence is India has a death rate per head lower than the West due to the fact it has fewer over 80s.
In your example nobody had jumped from the 4th floor or higher, just from the roof
My neighbour runs a pharmacy. Health England issued him with PPE for his 15 staff. A total of 60 masks good for 4 hours each...
So he ordered 400 overnight from China.
Not.
"For 338 paragraphs he painted a splendid picture, delineated the light and the shade, and the glowing colours in it, and when Franks got to paragraph 339 he got fed up with the canvas he was painting, and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it."
Which, as @Dura_Ace might confirm, was not pioneered in Aberdeen...
That Sunday Times piece is the more egregious example of 20/20 hindsight I think I have ever read.
Many media outlets are also completely ignoring the failings of the NHS procurement teams and Public Health England in this.
But I find I have to apologise for doubting Gove on this:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/official-scotty-is-an-aberdonian
He was apparently referring to “beam me up, Mr. Scott”.
https://twitter.com/allisonpearson/status/1251822078795362305?s=19