Coronavirus.

[Howardh]

hard to isolate/work at home when your home is the nerve centre of the UK government!

I disagree with that. Surely they can keep the distancing rules and clean everything up thoroughly, just like shops and offices have been doing?
However if they have been travelling on the tube, or a a group in private cars/taxis thenthat's where they could have caught the disease.

 

[Djgr]

I disagree with that. Surely they can keep the distancing rules and clean everything up thoroughly, just like shops and offices have been doing?
However if they have been travelling on the tube, or a a group in private cars/taxis thenthat's where they could have caught the disease.

The phrase "Do what I say, not what I do" springs to mind!

 

[edwin_m]

Boris will confinue to lead in self-idolation apparently: https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1243496497729191936?s=20

Whether intentional or not that post deserves some kind of forum award.

 

[bussnapperwm]

Matt Hancock has tested Positive now

 

[Ianno87]

Whether intentional or not that post deserves some kind of forum award.

Let's just pretent it was my superb wit and not just my clumsy fingers

 

[Bletchleyite]

Matt Hancock has tested Positive now

Whoops. I'd imagine it's all over the Commons.

 

[Darandio]

It's an utter shambles.

 

[Howardh]

It's an utter shambles.

If it spreads throughout parliament then clearly - like the country - their response was too late. We have elected a government whose duty it is to protect us and they can't even protect themselves. Eek.

 

[scotrail158713]

It's an utter shambles.

Considering most people are expected to get it in some form, how is it?

 

[Darandio]

Considering most people are expected to get it in some form, how is it?

Not just Johnson, Hancock and the rest that will probably follow. It's all a shambles. A lack of equipment that should have been on order 6 weeks ago, testing that should have been done much earlier and in much bigger numbers, I could go on all day. And this isn't hindsight, the warnings were there.

 

[Mogster]

Same with Prince Charles. The U.K.’s testing regime is a joke and nothing will improve until this is acknowledged at the top.

Current capacity is overloaded. You can’t just create more easily.

New tests are being made available but they need to be carefully evaluated, this takes time. To do tens of thousands of tests you need robotic analysers, they are complex and you can’t just make more quickly. Additional to the analyzer are all the chemicals and disposable plastic elements it needs to work. All this has to be mass produced to a new level, there is intense new worldwide demand and the stuff mostly isn’t made in the UK. Then you need more manufacturer support and trained staff to use the equipment.

Once you have your results you have to report them and someone has to action them, usually GP surgeries. You have to decide exactly what you want to do with the results and what the point is, testing people for no reason causes ethical problems.

 

[Meerkat]

Not just Johnson, Hancock and the rest that will probably follow. It's all a shambles. A lack of equipment that should have been on order 6 weeks ago, testing that should have been done much earlier and in much bigger numbers, I could go on all day. And this isn't hindsight, the warnings were there.

Do you know it wasn’t on order 6 weeks ago?
What were the warnings?

 

[The Ham]

Do you know it wasn’t on order 6 weeks ago?
What were the warnings?

Newscast were talking about Basingstoke Hospital started to look at undertaking testing for the virus 7 weeks ago, so the signs were there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If it spreads throughout parliament then clearly - like the country - their response was too late. We have elected a government whose duty it is to protect us and they can't even protect themselves. Eek.

This is a bit silly, but it is going to spread. The measures are not about stopping it doing so, they are about slowing it to reduce load on the NHS.

They are not the only Government figures to get it and won't be the last. Hopefully they'll all have a minor case and be back "in service" soon with some possibly useful immunity.

 

[Darandio]

Do you know it wasn’t on order 6 weeks ago?
What were the warnings?

Do you live on another planet?

They only ordered extra masks last weekend, those were the words of our health secretary. As for warnings, jesus christ. It's 8 weeks today since the first case was diagnosed in this country, 8 weeks. At the same time other countries were seeing cases and tens if not hundreds of thousands people were still flying around the globe. This isn't rocket science.

 

[Meerkat]

Do you live on another planet?

They only ordered extra masks last weekend, those were the words of our health secretary. As for warnings, jesus christ. It's 8 weeks today since the first case was diagnosed in this country, 8 weeks. At the same time other countries were seeing cases and tens if not hundreds of thousands people were still flying around the globe. This isn't rocket science.

You are the king of hindsight aren’t you! If it was that simple and obvious then air travel would have been binned earlier, by all countries.
Are any countries not short of PPE, testing kits etc?

 

[Howardh]

This is a bit silly, but it is going to spread. The measures are not about stopping it doing so, they are about slowing it to reduce load on the NHS.

They are not the only Government figures to get it and won't be the last. Hopefully they'll all have a minor case and be back "in service" soon with some possibly useful immunity.

I wish them well (no, really!) but if they go to hospital I hope they remember to thank all the EU doctors, nurses, consultants and just as importantly the cleaners, cooks, etc and think to themselves "maybe freedom of movement wasn't so bad after all, as our rules in future will prevent low-paid workers from the EU taking up these menial jobs like cleaning hospitals which keeps us safe...".

 

[Bletchleyite]

You are the king of hindsight aren’t you! If it was that simple and obvious then air travel would have been binned earlier, by all countries.
Are any countries not short of PPE, testing kits etc?

It's because, like it or not, the economy vs deaths from coronavirus IS a balance, because economic problems also cause deaths (suicide, homelessness, underfunded NHS, poor diet etc).

I worked this out yesterday, on an average day in 2018 there were about 1,500 deaths from all causes in the UK. This creates a level of perspective.

 

[Darandio]

You are the king of hindsight aren’t you! If it was that simple and obvious then air travel would have been binned earlier, by all countries.
Are any countries not short of PPE, testing kits etc?

No, not hindsight, everything was too slow and in many cases downright careless. Flights were still landing from China, Italy, Iran and other infected countries earlier this week and the occupants unchecked and allowed to waltz in freely.

Countries are short of equipment of course, but if we could order them last weekend we could have ordered them 6-8 weeks ago when they were already talking about the potential for many cases. They had very early signs back then about how quickly the virus could spread.

 

[ainsworth74]

Gentle reminder to keep things civil. No-one's breaking any rules yet but I'm getting worried if we keep going in this direction we very well might.

 

[Meerkat]

This is also a fairly standard disaster in terms of hindsight.
Like Clapham, Herald, Marchioness, Bradford, Hillsborough etc etc we have been bumbling along ignoring the siren voices, mainly because nothing had really gone wrong so it’s safe right?
Now it’s just a case of how long the lessons stay learned - how long before the stockpiles of PPE and ventilators get sold off and not replaced, the contact tracing and testing capability is rationalised, the sovereign manufacturing of PPE, testing etc is protected.
Do we have a lessons learned/suggestions for the future thread yet? I wonder whether we need some kind of medical reserve, a bit like the Army Reserve.

 

[Mogster]

The problem with retaining Large amounts of surge capacity is that it needs to be maintained and replaced constantly. According to the BBC the USA has a over a million expired N95 masks sat in warehouses.

Then there’s the issue of what you stockpile and how useful it will actually be next time.

Hindsight is always 20/20x

 

[JamesT]

I've seen news reports that the Chinese were buying up the stockpiles of things like PPE in January and February to ship to Wuhan. So when governments like ours came along to order there wasn't any waiting in the supply chain so we've had to wait for more to be produced.

 

[Meerkat]

The problem with retaining Large amounts of surge capacity is that it needs to be maintained and replaced constantly. According to the BBC the USA has a over a million expired N95 masks sat in warehouses.

Then there’s the issue of what you stockpile and how useful it will actually be next time.

Hindsight is always 20/20x

Sure, but how many billions of pounds of military stuff do we keep stockpiled for national security?
Most of the PPE could be used or donated as it reached expiry.
For testing kits etc it would be more about having a buffer of materials, and some factories ready to go bonkers busy at short notice. Plus containerised drive thru testing stations ready to go.

 

[packermac]

The problem with retaining Large amounts of surge capacity is that it needs to be maintained and replaced constantly. According to the BBC the USA has a over a million expired N95 masks sat in warehouses.

Then there’s the issue of what you stockpile and how useful it will actually be next time.

Hindsight is always 20/20x

Exactly disaster planning works on what has happened in the past, the predicted unexpected of what may happen in the future. All industrialised nation healthcare systems were unprepared for a global pandemic when basically all recent events have been predominantly focused on what are or were until recently third world countries (for example recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks). I suspect there was not a healthcare system in the world that had planned for a spread from Asia across the globe in about 3 months.

 

[yorkie]

If it spreads throughout parliament then clearly - like the country - their response was too late. We have elected a government whose duty it is to protect us and they can't even protect themselves. Eek.

The fact is people are going to get viruses; you can't realistically stop it. The actions taken now are about slowing the rate of new infections.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The fact is people are going to get viruses; you can't realistically stop it. The actions taken now are about slowing the rate of new infections.

I think that is probably the least well understood thing about the whole thing. The strict measures in place have given many the impression that it's deadly if they get it. It might be, but in most people it probably won't, but if the NHS gets overloaded people are going to die because of other things, such as minor broken bones, cuts etc which get infected and there's no capacity to treat them.

 

[JamesT]

Exactly disaster planning works on what has happened in the past, the predicted unexpected of what may happen in the future. All industrialised nation healthcare systems were unprepared for a global pandemic when basically all recent events have been predominantly focused on what are or were until recently third world countries (for example recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks). I suspect there was not a healthcare system in the world that had planned for a spread from Asia across the globe in about 3 months.

Probably the only way it could have been stopped is if the Chinese had done things differently at the start. Publicised the existence of the virus instead of trying to suppress the news, put in restrictions on movement to curb the spread instead of letting people travel for Chinese New Year. If other countries had been aware of the severity from the start then they could have quarantined any travellers from China which would have prevented the virus getting into the population at large.

 

[eastdyke]

I worked this out yesterday, on an average day in 2018 there were about 1,500 deaths from all causes in the UK. This creates a level of perspective.

I think that you can up that a little. Government statistics reported around 616,000 deaths in 2018 (from all causes). Nearly 1700 per average day.

 

[bussnapperwm]

The Chief Medical Officer for England has started to experience symptoms and is now self isolating