T.R.O.Y wrote:Look, if you don't agree that Cummings is driving things behind the scenes then that's fine. It's just a theory, however it is a popular one amongst people who are far better connected to the government than any of us - so i don't think calling Lust an 'Utter Moron' is fair. We don't know what goes on behind closed doors.
One thing we do know for certain is that two weeks were wasted pursuing a strategy that couldn't work and would have cost thousands more lives. The damage done by the delay to isolation could be massive. Once this is out the way why they chose this response will need to be examined.
I don't doubt that Cummings is the puppet master behind the scenes but I very much doubt even he would change the priority of the medical advice from the country's Head of the National Institute for Health Research, who happens to be Chris Whitty.
It's clear the modelling based on the data available at the time turned out to be wrong when compared where we should have been on the predicted curve and where we found ourselves.
If I was Whitty and all my professional advise was ignored to make way for some political gerrymandering by Cummings - fully knowing that that would cost lives, then I would resign as I'm sure most people put into that position would.
I don't know Whitty but this is how he is regarded -
As it happens, Prof Whitty is one of the foremost UK experts in infectious diseases. He is the official in the right place at the right time to be leading Britain's response to the coronavirus.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51924796Doesn't strike me as one who would be railroaded into doing something for political reasons than national health reasons so I'd expect him to quit too if that was ever forced upon him.
There's also been no rumours of his medical advise being supressed in order to facilitate Cummings wishes as to what should happen either - and wouldn't you think that would be being said by those who are 'far better connected to the government than any of us' because I most certainly would - as he's clearly made loads of enemies in his time.
So yes I think it was fair and reasonable comment to call anyone an utter moron for believing that in this country the nations health plays second fiddle to a political desire to look good in elections five years away whilst currently holding a 80 seat majority now!
The problem seems to have been that too much reliance was placed on China's reported figures for the initial modelling and when more 'honest' data came from what happened in Italy and fed into a more refined model the findings shocked everyone and hence the changes in action since then.
For anyone who believes the Chinese totals to be 100% true at the time we ran predictions based upon it I give you this -
The Chinese doctor who tried to warn others about coronavirushttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51364382Coronavirus: Why the 'spike' in increase in deaths and cases in HubeiJust about everyone who's been following China's official coronavirus numbers has been able to see that they have been incomplete. Government officials know this too. There's no way they've accounted for everybody infected. How could they?
But at least we had what appeared to be a trend. We could observe the pattern to try and estimate the trajectory of outbreak. Now that's gone too.
You can understand why it has been decided that people who have virus symptoms, plus a CT scan showing chest infection, are now being counted in the "definitely infected" column. However, this has thrown the trend mapping into chaos.
Over the past 24 hours in Hubei alone, nearly 15,000 people were moved into the infected column. This would have sent shockwaves around the world, but actually, if you consider Wednesday's cases by the old definition, the rate could well mean another day of decline: a completely different picture.
So now, we're scratching our heads: do we start looking at the pattern all over again from Thursday onwards? This has also left many wondering what the real death rate must have been over recent weeks
and the extent to which we should be treating the overall figures seriously anyway.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51482994China accuses US of bringing coronavirus to Wuhanhttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-accuses-us-of-bringing-coronavirus-to-wuhan-c9rrfbrs7