Coronavirus - Were we prepared for it?

I just wanted to post up the following just so it didn't get lost amongst everything else.

At the time we thought we were well prepared for a pandemic - we were actually rated the second best country in the world.

Unfortunately for us (and the rest of the world too) Covid came from left field and caught us all on the wrong foot.

10:34
UK plan was based on the wrong virus

Dominic Cummings is right to suggest there was a misplaced confidence that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic.

As it was unfolding, officials were publicly speaking about how strong our infectious disease surveillance and protection systems were.

That’s not surprising. Just a few months before, the UK had been ranked as the second best prepared country globally. That confidence, as he says, turned out to be “completely hollow”.

Some of that is because that plan was based on the wrong virus - flu not coronavirus.

It meant assumptions about the level of infectiousness and the risk of transmission before symptoms develop or among those who do not have symptoms was massively underestimated.

Nor was the right type of personal protective equipment available.

It is also clear from the official pandemic plan that there was only one plan – mitigating the spread of a pandemic virus rather than suppressing it.

It is why, in the early days, government ministers and scientists were talking about flattening the peak rather than trying to stop it.

The UK though was not alone in this. Most of Europe had a similar approach – unlike Asian countries the continent had not had to deal in any real sense with outbreaks of Sars and Mers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-57245479/page/3

https://www.ghsindex.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2019-Global-Health-Security-Index.pdf

Thought I'd add this bit too -

12:27
Why was testing stopped?

We are back after the break with chair of the Health and Social Care Committee Jeremy Hunt asking about the test and trace programme.

He asks why there was such a long delay on restarting community testing, which was stopped on 12 March and resumed in May.

Cummings says that if you are going for the single peak strategy you do not take testing as an urgent priority.

"The view was 'well 60% or 70% of the country are going to get it'," he says. "Why would you bother testing all those people?"

He says no one challenged that idea until there was a shift to plan B.

Cummings says that even in late March Public Health England said there was "no way" people in the country would do test, track and trace like they do in east Asia.

Where indeed.
Certainly not in the UK.

wanderlust wrote:Where indeed.
Certainly not in the UK.

Thank you for pointing out my spelling mistake in the title in such a snidey and unnecessary way.

In return I'd like to point out that -

1 - You voted for Brexit.
2 - You were out by £168m when telling us how much assets Anderson had stripped from the club (the actual answer was zero!)
3 - You made yourself into a laughing stock when you told us how government works based on your experience in a NON government organisation...

My point being we all make mistakes but some are very, very much bigger than others.

Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones don't you think?

You still don't get it do you?
Your desperate argumentative pedantry, misguided lecturing and vindictiveness have made you, not me, the laughing stock.
Only nobody's laughing because you're as boring as hell.

wanderlust wrote:You still don't get it do you?
Your desperate argumentative pedantry, misguided lecturing and vindictiveness have made you, not me, the laughing stock.
Only nobody's laughing because you're as boring as hell.

As if I gave a fuck about being popular on a website!!!

Facts are often boring, I'll grant you that but I'd rather be perceived as a boring old fart than some needy, attention seeking, deeply unhappy in himself and bitter person as you clearly are.

You post for attention - look at me, look at me, I know everything - and clearly you have major issues when proved wrong with the facts.  Your actions in lying and abuse to avoid acknowledging you were simply wrong prove that.

As for me being vindictive...

Vindictive

adjective
having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge.

...I'm not the one with an axe to grind.

You're the one who followed me on to this thread to have a pop remember?

If you choose to dish it out then expect to get some back.

And that gives me the chance to point out yet again some of your biggest whoppers and laugh at you!

And you just absolutely hate being laughed at...

Back to my original thread before I was so 'vindictively' interupted by someone seeking their 'revenge' - a bit like how Cummings sought his revenge against Boris and Hancock yesterday!


Posted at 16:33
Gove denies Cummings accusations

As well as being facing questions on Covid certification Michael Gove is asked about comments made by the prime minister's former chief adviser Dominic Cummings that the Cabinet Office had "no plans" and was "totally behind the pace".

Asked if he agrees with the statements Gove responds simply "no".

Pressed further, he says: "It was the case that there were plans in place to deal with a pandemic, the most likely pandemic that was anticipated was a flu pandemic, and plans - as a number of people have pointed out - for a flu pandemic meant we had in stock a particular set of equipment."

He says the nature of the coronavirus, with a novel [NEW - ie previously unkown] virus, meant the government had to adjust and he adds "of course there were mistakes that we made".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57265134