Coronavirus - the political argument

Sluffy wrote:Another sort of own goal by the government (although I do have some sympathy if the intention was really to deal with lorry drivers etc coming in from France (and presumably just dropping there loads in quarantine zones and going back without otherwise getting out of their cabs?)

Posted at 19:13

France not exempt from UK quarantine - PM's spokesman

The UK has denied that travellers from France will be exempted from its planned quarantine measures.
Under the plans - announced last weekend - people arriving in the UK from abroad will be obliged to isolate themselves for 14 days.
Initially, the two governments said the exemption would apply to any travellers between France and the UK, and any future steps would be taken in a concerted and reciprocal manner.
The policy attracted criticism from other governments and the EU. Some experts suggested it would be unworkable.
But today, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said there was no French exemption, and that the original statement referred to co-operation to manage the common border.
It now appears that those exempted from the policy could include freight drivers - to allow the flow of goods to continue - and people working on Covid-19 research, but not ordinary travellers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52671694

Or you could read the link I posted at 18.19.

This is the sort of political game playing we should be kicking off about. Journalism likes this pokes holes in crap policy making, anyone in the government putting their career before the crisis needs to be exposed so voters can get shot of them when the time comes.

U.K. Coronavirus Testers Pay Price for a Day of Triumph

‘leaked documents and interviews with doctors, lab directors and other experts show that the push to hit the April 30 deadline — and arguably salvage Mr. Hancock’s career — placed a huge strain on public laboratories and exposed other problems that are now slowing efforts to further expand coronavirus testing.

Days before the deadline, some hospitals in England were given 48 hours to rapidly expand testing to thousands of health care workers and patients, even though they were not exhibiting any symptoms of the virus, the documents show.

At the same time, public labs across the country raced through limited supplies of the chemical reagents needed to carry out a flood of tests after the government promised to replenish their supplies. Two weeks later, some labs still haven’t received the stocks they need, forcing some to reduce the number of new tests they can process, several lab managers said.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/world/europe/coronavirus-tests-uk.html

T.R.O.Y. wrote:This is the sort of political game playing we should be kicking off about. Journalism likes this pokes holes in crap policy making, anyone in the government putting their career before the crisis needs to be exposed so voters can get shot of them when the time comes.

U.K. Coronavirus Testers Pay Price for a Day of Triumph

‘leaked documents and interviews with doctors, lab directors and other experts show that the push to hit the April 30 deadline — and arguably salvage Mr. Hancock’s career — placed a huge strain on public laboratories and exposed other problems that are now slowing efforts to further expand coronavirus testing.

Days before the deadline, some hospitals in England were given 48 hours to rapidly expand testing to thousands of health care workers and patients, even though they were not exhibiting any symptoms of the virus, the documents show.

At the same time, public labs across the country raced through limited supplies of the chemical reagents needed to carry out a flood of tests after the government promised to replenish their supplies. Two weeks later, some labs still haven’t received the stocks they need, forcing some to reduce the number of new tests they can process, several lab managers said.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/world/europe/coronavirus-tests-uk.html

And they didn't even hit the target! Posting testing kits is not the same thing as testing.

But what do expect from a government led by a serial liar?

More unbelievable lies from Hancock as he insists that ministers had “tried to throw a protective ring around” care homes “right from the start” of the outbreak.

https://www.ft.com/content/6afb06d6-abd6-4281-ac16-74f500f096d0

xmiles wrote:More unbelievable lies from Hancock as he insists that ministers had “tried to throw a protective ring around” care homes “right from the start” of the outbreak.

https://www.ft.com/content/6afb06d6-abd6-4281-ac16-74f500f096d0

The clue is in his name really. 

Last time I heard it was just over 11,000 deaths in care homes?

Absolutely disgusting.

I can't see either of the articles as I deny third party trackers from links I don't often use or subscribe to.

However the text you posted of the first article says increased testing leads to lack of chemical reagents - well we knew that even before all this, as that was the problem why little testing wasn't being done in the first place - and led to the journalism 'scrutiny' of the 'scandal' of so little testing being carried out being put in the public domain and the 'political' pressure/demand to do something about it 'immediately'!

As the government hasn't got a magic wand to wave it was forced into giving the only answer that would 'fob' things off until they could source the reagents from abroad (in competition with everybody else across the world) by 'fudging' their reply to set a target they presumably/hopefully thought they'd reach at a later date - namely the 100,000 target.

We all now know how that ended.

Would the public had been better off not knowing and let testing increase and be priority targeted as and when stocks were secured than having such a meaningless and ongoing media shit storm and hoo-ha in the sense the government couldn't test without the chemical reagents and they obviously were trying to manage and prioritise what stocks they had whilst seeking restocking from abroad - as they simple couldn't do anything else?

I would say they would - ignorance is bliss at times - and why create a situation that can't be resolved in the short term and was obviously being sorted as best as it could as quickly as it could (unless of course your point of view is that the government were deliberately wanting people to die through lack of testing and through limiting what stocks they had for front line staff only and did not intend to test anyone else ever?)

I did warn at the very start that political games/media 'scrutiny' lead to bad and unnecessary situations at times like this and clearly this is a direct manifestation of this with a 'storm' being created over lack of testing in the 'here and now', even though no one could do anything about it at the time, and false promises/wishful targets being set (and 'politically' had to be seen to met') to buy themselves a bit more time and to 'calm' the 'storm' for then,

Also to underline that really this is a non story is the fact that the article is from an American paper.  If it was a big issue over here don't you thing our papers would have the same article splashed over their papers too?

As for the FT story I'm sure the bottom line will end up being care homes were simply the second priority on the list and remained so until the NHS was secured and until it had, all resources were sent to them and there simply wasn't surplus for those in the care homes.

What else could have been done?

There was only a finite amount of resources to hand when this thing hit and given the stark choice of the NHS collapsing or the care home system they, they prioritised the NHS - which anyone given the same situation would have done.

Care home coronavirus deaths are around 11,000 I guess (this said 9,700 from a few days ago - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52631604 ) but a number of these people would have died within the year through underlying conditions and as such total deaths in care homes will fall under the national average in the coming months - only then the net difference between the two will show the actual deaths resulting from the virus.

It is also worth pointing out that deaths in hospital not resulting from Corona-19 have significantly dropped and that is because hospitals have stopped admissions of terminally ill patients from care homes whilst they have been dealing with the pandemic.

It is what it is unfortunately.

There was only so much stocks and systems in place when the virus struck and there simply wasn't enough to satisfy everybody's needs and demands.

Stocks couldn't be magically conjured up out of thin air and not everybody was going to be saved from this.

Unless you are of the view that the government deliberately set out to 'kill' people, then the only thing to be done is to prioritise where the best use of stocks could be made for the benefit of the population and acquire sufficient stocks for future need as quickly as they could in the face of world demand for the same goods.

It would have been helpful if they could have gone about this as best they could but that was never going to happen and as such unnecessary posturing and political point scoring ensued (by both sides - I've never limited it to just one side - but it is cause and effect - ie 'not enough tests' ok '100,000 tests by the end of the month' type thing).

Unfortunately this virus was always going to kill people and the government clearly (and rightly) prioritised the NHS over anything else - namely the care homes.

A future inquiry when all this is done and dusted will determine how good/bad a job was done.

Hope you all watched Charlie Brooker's Anti-viral wipe last Thursday.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000j4bl/charlie-brookers-antiviral-wipe

okocha wrote:Hope you all watched Charlie Brooker's Anti-viral wipe last Thursday.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000j4bl/charlie-brookers-antiviral-wipe

Ye caught up on that last night. Very good, a horror show for the government though as you see their (lack of) response play out.

Sluffy wrote:I can't see either of the articles as I deny third party trackers from links I don't often use or subscribe to.

However the text you posted of the first article says increased testing leads to lack of chemical reagents - well we knew that even before all this, as that was the problem why little testing wasn't being done in the first place - and led to the journalism 'scrutiny' of the 'scandal' of so little testing being carried out being put in the public domain and the 'political' pressure/demand to do something about it 'immediately'!

As the government hasn't got a magic wand to wave it was forced into giving the only answer that would 'fob' things off until they could source the reagents from abroad (in competition with everybody else across the world) by 'fudging' their reply to set a target they presumably/hopefully thought they'd reach at a later date - namely the 100,000 target.

We all now know how that ended.

Would the public had been better off not knowing and let testing increase and be priority targeted as and when stocks were secured than having such a meaningless and ongoing media shit storm and hoo-ha in the sense the government couldn't test without the chemical reagents and they obviously were trying to manage and prioritise what stocks they had whilst seeking restocking from abroad - as they simple couldn't do anything else?

I would say they would - ignorance is bliss at times - and why create a situation that can't be resolved in the short term and was obviously being sorted as best as it could as quickly as it could (unless of course your point of view is that the government were deliberately wanting people to die through lack of testing and through limiting what stocks they had for front line staff only and did not intend to test anyone else ever?)

I did warn at the very start that political games/media 'scrutiny' lead to bad and unnecessary situations at times like this and clearly this is a direct manifestation of this with a 'storm' being created over lack of testing in the 'here and now', even though no one could do anything about it at the time, and false promises/wishful targets being set (and 'politically' had to be seen to met') to buy themselves a bit more time and to 'calm' the 'storm' for then,

Also to underline that really this is a non story is the fact that the article is from an American paper.  If it was a big issue over here don't you thing our papers would have the same article splashed over their papers too?

As for the FT story I'm sure the bottom line will end up being care homes were simply the second priority on the list and remained so until the NHS was secured and until it had, all resources were sent to them and there simply wasn't surplus for those in the care homes.

What else could have been done?

There was only a finite amount of resources to hand when this thing hit and given the stark choice of the NHS collapsing or the care home system they, they prioritised the NHS - which anyone given the same situation would have done.

Care home coronavirus deaths are around 11,000 I guess (this said 9,700 from a few days ago - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52631604 ) but a number of these people would have died within the year through underlying conditions and as such total deaths in care homes will fall under the national average in the coming months - only then the net difference between the two will show the actual deaths resulting from the virus.

It is also worth pointing out that deaths in hospital not resulting from Corona-19 have significantly dropped and that is because hospitals have stopped admissions of terminally ill patients from care homes whilst they have been dealing with the pandemic.

It is what it is unfortunately.

There was only so much stocks and systems in place when the virus struck and there simply wasn't enough to satisfy everybody's needs and demands.

Stocks couldn't be magically conjured up out of thin air and not everybody was going to be saved from this.

Unless you are of the view that the government deliberately set out to 'kill' people, then the only thing to be done is to prioritise where the best use of stocks could be made for the benefit of the population and acquire sufficient stocks for future need as quickly as they could in the face of world demand for the same goods.

It would have been helpful if they could have gone about this as best they could but that was never going to happen and as such unnecessary posturing and political point scoring ensued (by both sides - I've never limited it to just one side - but it is cause and effect - ie 'not enough tests' ok '100,000 tests by the end of the month' type thing).

Unfortunately this virus was always going to kill people and the government clearly (and rightly) prioritised the NHS over anything else - namely the care homes.

A future inquiry when all this is done and dusted will determine how good/bad a job was done.

Nobody is pretending that there were enough resources to do everything that needed to be done and hard choices clearly had to be made. What is unacceptable is the government lying rather than telling the truth. Nobody forced Hancock to come up with a target of 100,000 and he then chose to lie about hitting this target. Equally it is a lie to say that the government ministers had tried to put a protective ring around care homes right from the start of the outbreak. Why say it if it is not true?

I certainly hope there is an impartial inquiry after the crisis is over to consider how well or badly the government coped. However as far as I am aware the government has not even agreed in principle to this.

Sluffy wrote:

wessy wrote:I accepted that they both won by the system in place, not in question, was just pointing out that whilst in the UK The Consevatives won on all counts.

In America that was not the case he won by the rules and i acknowleding she new the rules and must abide by them, However the statistics show that HC recieved more individual votes, a fact that had no impact on the result, but still a fact.

Them are the rules though.

It didn't stop Labour forming the government in February 1974 when they won less votes than the Conservatives nor visa versa in 1951 when the reverse was true.

Fwiw Trump winning with less votes than his rival was the fifth time that had happened in America - Al Gore being the unlucky loser last time -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote

Yep no problem with any of that , other than Gore was more than unlucky he was up against Bush's brother in Florida and the floating chad. Not bent at all lol

xmiles wrote:Nobody is pretending that there were enough resources to do everything that needed to be done and hard choices clearly had to be made. What is unacceptable is the government lying rather than telling the truth. Nobody forced Hancock to come up with a target of 100,000 and he then chose to lie about hitting this target. Equally it is a lie to say that the government ministers had tried to put a protective ring around care homes right from the start of the outbreak. Why say it if it is not true?

I certainly hope there is an impartial inquiry after the crisis is over to consider how well or badly the government coped. However as far as I am aware the government has not even agreed in principle to this.

Did the government lie or simply bend the rules a bit about what was counted?

Ones man 'creativity' is another mans 'lie' you see - depends on which direction you are viewing things from.

And yes I do think Hancock/the government was forced into a corner by the media/political spotlight ('scrutiny'/political point scoring - it's exactly the same thing) DEMANDING that something be done about increased testing PDQ.

It was impossible for them to magic more testing out of thin air, so the only thing they could do was 'fudge' the issue by throwing a huge target to aim for a few weeks down the road.  I believe they probably hoped/expected to genuinely meet it too and when they couldn't it became about 'political point scoring' again, this time the Conservatives doing their damndest to hit the target and everybody else hoping they wouldn't so they could slag them off.

All this was not helping anyone at all really - the target became more important than fighting the virus - it became the focus of the government when it wasn't really relevant at all.  There's plenty of testing facilities set up to meet the target that are simply not required/hardly used - I'm told the one at the Reebok is seldom busy for instance.

What should have happened is that prioritising resources to need, should have driven the agenda - instead having to firefight and papering over the cracks became the daily focus.

The media/opposition MP's had to keep themselves 'relevant' by pointing out/scrutinising KNOWN failings (do we really think the government didn't know the testing figures were low, that people were dying in care homes, that there was shortages in PPE, etc, etc, etc?) rather than letting the government focus on the need to protect as many lives as they can by keeping the NHS safe - knowing that fewer people would die this way than if they gave all they had to saving those in the care homes and left the NHS short instead.

Maybe if the media didn't have to sell newspapers or the opposition politicians didn't need their daily 5 minutes of 'relevance' then the silly games we have had all along could have been avoided?

No amount of all the hoo-ha over test targets have resulted in magically more tests being available for the next day, or 'scandal' of insufficient PPE suddenly creating tons of it suddenly appearing from thin air, etc, etc - so really what has it achieved?  Holding someone to account for something they are unable to change there and then - it won't stop a single extra person dying though as the tests, PPE's simply aren't there to hand to be able to change anything - it does sell papers though and give good soundbites to the opposition party spokesmen featuring on the news and social media!

Hard decisions had to be made which no doubt have cost lives - maybe instead of having sideshows distracting away from what had to be done rather than 'politically' what had to be 'seen' to be done - a few more might have been saved perhaps?

No inquiry can be formed until the events have happened and everything can be fully investigated and reported upon afterwards.  I don't think there's any danger of an inquiry not happening as lessons have to be learnt for the future irrespective of whatever political party is in charge when this is all over.

Would you send your child to school in June?

Very difficult one this imo.

Forget all the guff about it's important for your child emotionally to interact with other children of the same age (it probably is but if it's anything like where I am the kids are already playing out with their friends now!) it is more to do to get the country back to work again and restart the economy.

If you have kids you need help looking after them if you go out to work.

So if you can't leave them with granny (or have granny pick them up from school) and there's no childminders you can leave them with, then you really need to have schools open to have them through the day.

No doubt the idea is correct to start with the years they have, but the real aim is for schools (and teachers) to get used to the idea that they need to be open again in order for people to get back to work.

However on the other hand, as a teacher would you want to go back and work with numerous kids who may well have the virus? Especially if you are over 60 and/or not in the best of health? It's not like the kids are tested before going into the classroom each day!

Similarly as a parent would you want your kid mixing with others?

Ok the chances are next to zero that your kids will come to any harm but the worry is if they bring the virus home and there is someone vulnerable in the household!

I guess it's up to each family to judge what's right for their child and the family.

Personally if my child was in Year 1 or 6 and I was at the age I was back then, I'd probably be more concerned about catching the virus whilst I'm stood with the other mums and dads outside waiting to pick them up from school - (maybe the schools are doing something about that now perhaps?).

I'd think I'd keep my child off school for now and think about it after the summer holiday when things hopefully have got that much better - but my circumstances were such back then that the ex didn't work and so I had no childcare issues when going off to work, unlike I guess many families either single parent or both parents working, do).

Any views?

That’s okay though, because she claps on a Thursday, that’s all the support the NHS really need:

Home Office failure to scrap NHS migrant surcharge sparks anger

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/16/home-office-priti-patel-failure-to-scrap-nhs-migrant-surcharge-sparks-anger?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

T.R.O.Y. wrote:That’s okay though, because she claps on a Thursday, that’s all the support the NHS really need:

Home Office failure to scrap NHS migrant surcharge sparks anger

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/16/home-office-priti-patel-failure-to-scrap-nhs-migrant-surcharge-sparks-anger?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Eh?

I've read the article a couple of times and it doesn't say what the deliberately inflammatory headline says!!!

Have you actually read the article before you posted your comments?

From the article -

The Home Office tweeted on Saturday afternoon: “It is wrong to suggest the home secretary said there would be a formal review into this policy. All government policies are continuously kept under review".

The current situation is as follows (from the governments website) -

Free visa extensions will be automatically granted to more crucial overseas health and care workers, the Home Secretary has announced today.
Frontline workers, including midwives, radiographers, social workers and pharmacists, with visas due to expire before 1 October 2020 will receive an automatic one-year extension. It will apply to those working both in the NHS and independent sector and include their family members.
This builds on the Home Secretary’s announcement last month for NHS doctors, nurses and paramedics. All will be exempt for the Immigration Health Surcharge for the duration of the exemption.
In total approximately 3,000 vital health and care workers and their families will benefit from the extension.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-secretary-announces-visa-extensions-for-frontline-health-and-care-workers

So as far as I can make out NOTHING has been decided and everything is still open to change, with exceptions already in place in place for the next four months at least!

Yet another unnecessary journalist 'scrutiny' hoo-ha over nothing as it stands.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if NHS migrant surcharge IS favourably reviewed in the coming months.

Seems to me yet another example of shit stirring just to sell newspapers/click bait.

Read it again if you haven’t understood, they have failed to act on calls to scrap the surcharge. Hardly supporting all of our heroic NHS workers is it?

I won’t be dragged into one of your never ending arguments Sluffy, so consider this my last word on the story.

I'm still waiting for a Nuts investigation into "horsegate".

Sluffy wrote:Would you send your child to school in June?

Very difficult one this imo.

Forget all the guff about it's important for your child emotionally to interact with other children of the same age (it probably is but if it's anything like where I am the kids are already playing out with their friends now!) it is more to do to get the country back to work again and restart the economy.

If you have kids you need help looking after them if you go out to work.  

So if you can't leave them with granny (or have granny pick them up from school) and there's no childminders you can leave them with, then you really need to have schools open to have them through the day.

No doubt the idea is correct to start with the years they have, but the real aim is for schools (and teachers) to get used to the idea that they need to be open again in order for people to get back to work.

However on the other hand, as a teacher would you want to go back and work with numerous kids who may well have the virus?  Especially if you are over 60 and/or not in the best of health?  It's not like the kids are tested before going into the classroom each day!

Similarly as a parent would you want your kid mixing with others?

Ok the chances are next to zero that your kids will come to any harm but the worry is if they bring the virus home and there is someone vulnerable in the household!

I guess it's up to each family to judge what's right for their child and the family.

Personally if my child was in Year 1 or 6 and I was at the age I was back then, I'd probably be more concerned about catching the virus whilst I'm stood with the other mums and dads outside waiting to pick them up from school - (maybe the schools are doing something about that now perhaps?).

I'd think I'd keep my child off school for now and think about it after the summer holiday when things hopefully have got that much better - but my circumstances were such back then that the ex didn't work and so I had no childcare issues when going off to work, unlike I guess many families either single parent or both parents working, do).

Any views?

The critical question is to what extent children can transmit the virus even though I agree that there is little risk that they themselves will come to any harm. There is conflicting evidence on this and we need to look at what happens in other countries which have children going to school.

Personally I cannot see it as realistic to expect children to socially distance and I don't see the point of limiting classes to tiny numbers. Either children transmit the virus or they don't.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Read it again if you haven’t understood, they have failed to act on calls to scrap the surcharge. Hardly supporting all of our heroic NHS workers is it?

I won’t be dragged into one of your never ending arguments Sluffy, so consider this my last word on the story.

They haven't though!

I repeat this again from the article -

The Home Office tweeted on Saturday afternoon: “It is wrong to suggest the home secretary said there would be a formal review into this policy. All government policies are continuously kept under review.”

The policy is continuously under review and is subject to change at any time - it doesn't need a formal review.

Currently and for next four months there is an exemption - so nothing needs doing urgently at this point - and there is absolutely NO suggestion that this exemption won't either be extended or indeed made permanent in the months to come.

Yet again another non story - in order to sell a few more papers on the back of a clearly untruthful banner headline.

If it was a TRUE story then why do you think the rest of the national press and the opposition party aren't banging on about it today???

At a time when the government desperately needs cash and is already talking about tax rates being increased it still chooses to extend tax breaks for its rich chums!

Rich non-doms (who basically pay no tax provided they do not spend too much time in the UK) are being given an extra 60 days in the UK without having to pay any additional tax.

[source The Sunday Times]

As usual Tory priorities are all about helping their rich paymasters rather than the country as a whole

Sluffy wrote:

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Read it again if you haven’t understood, they have failed to act on calls to scrap the surcharge. Hardly supporting all of our heroic NHS workers is it?

I won’t be dragged into one of your never ending arguments Sluffy, so consider this my last word on the story.

They haven't though!

I repeat this again from the article -

The Home Office tweeted on Saturday afternoon: “It is wrong to suggest the home secretary said there would be a formal review into this policy. All government policies are continuously kept under review.”

The policy is continuously under review and is subject to change at any time - it doesn't need a formal review.

Currently and for next four months there is an exemption - so nothing needs doing urgently at this point - and there is absolutely NO suggestion that this exemption won't either be extended or indeed made permanent in the months to come.

Yet again another non story - in order to sell a few more papers on the back of a clearly untruthful banner headline.

If it was a TRUE story then why do you think the rest of the national press and the opposition party aren't banging on about it today???

The Independent cover the same story as the Guardian, with the same criticism