Economics vs public health. **MNHQ has altered title**

[Mohster]

As you will see for a long time I have been advocating that the govt was putting economics before lives and their plan was to create a herd immunity by sacrificing lives on an acceptable casualties basis. This was totally apparent if you listen to the interview given to Channel 4 where it was suggested as an answer to a question put by the presenter that many would die whilst the govt tried to create herd immunity as being inevitable.

Now Dominic Cummings chief adviser has been caught out for following this strategy and quoted by papers and the Sunday Times in particular as wanting to let the elderly die to save the economy.

You don't need to take them word for it - just look a the govt plan - contain essentially consisted of the suggestion that we should wash our hands. The delay was effectively none existant and the schools were only closed as a result of parents taking their children out of shcool and the forcase that 250000 could die. In fact the govt was rushing thorugh legistlation in the following week to force parents to take their kids to school and it was only scrapped a thte last minute by the estimates publication.

That left mitigation, mitigation of damage to the economy. The PM and govt are as a result backtracking.

The suggestion is that Dominic Cummings had said let the old die whilst we get herd immunity but now seeing what is happening in Italy and likely the fact that the virus is now killing younger people, they are quickly backtracking having failed to contain or delay because they did nothing.

As a result of their false assurances and that we just have to wash our hands the public flocked to public areas and their plans have put us in a position that will result in many more dying. The govt of other countries are now publicly criticising the govt. All of this now means at last these people who are ignorant of the risk will likely make a lock-down more likely.

I personally think that they should face criminal charges if a corporate body was to make such decisions the CEO and directors would be imprisoned.

Nurse on GMB saying right now, she is being advised to share face masks.
As she says, we've had months to get the PPE but did nothing, so yes, criminal negligence... a company sending a working into an environment where the risk assessment says x PPE but doesn't supply it (in a "accident") would/should be be charged... NHS staff are employees of the Govt.

Hancock is like his 1950s namesake.

I agree with you OP

While the rest of the world and the WHO were taking measures, our govt were of the opinion to let it spread through everyone to get herd immunity and anyone that that dies due to that policy, well...meh. tough.

They repeatedly said the NHS was well equipped to deal with this, however I'm not sure who they were trying to convince with that one. Everyone knows the NHS has been underfunded for years, they can barely cope with their day to day patients. How the hell were they supposed to deal with this.

People could see what was happening in Italy. NHS staff were screaming into the void that they had no PPE, there would be no beds, no ventilators, they could not deal with this.

@jasjas1973 agree. The ‘do the right thing’ message whilst leaving the option open to continue as usual. Absolute refusal to be accountable for giving clear instructions to the public. I know of businesses who carried on as they hadn’t been instructed not to by the government. Many people were left confused about what were appropriate measures to take, and many assumed that if they hadn’t definitively been told not to carry on, then it was still ok to do so (or else the government would have said so). Or of course, the people who’s employers had to keep going as there was no mandatory shut down.

Was also in M&S yesterday and there was a security guard standing right in the doorway so everyone had to squeeze past him, and staff were paying no attention at all to social distancing - someone came and grabbed something out my hand to rescan it. Another lady lent over me to get to a shelf (with no warning).

I never cease to be amazed by the vast number of people who view the economy as some sort of nebulous theory that they don't participate in. It's out entire way of life. It's the reason we have money to buy food, to have a good-ish quality of life, to have public services. It's the difference between us and, say, the DRC. Try telling someone who has no electricity that the economy doesn't matter.

S.Korea had the same data as the UK but UK decided to go down a different path... only acting when things got bad in Italy.... this from Professor Devi Sridhar who predicted this pandemic 2 years ago.

We couldn't even supply hand gel to hospitals, a beer company in Cornwall will be making the stuff for Cornwalls district hospital.

I think the govt are still welded to the herd immunity approach, in the hope that in 6 months time, while other countries like China/Korea are experiencing ongoing outbreaks for months/years, the UK will emerge as a super-race of immune, economically active population. Every containment step the govt has adopted has been taken at the very last possible moment and only when public opinion threatened to bubble up and riot.

I think the economy would be doing better if we had thrown money at developing testing capacity, and tested and contact traced if someone so much as sneezed within 14 days of entering the country!

I never cease to be amazed by the vast number of people who view the economy as some sort of nebulous theory that they don't participate in.

You cant have a healthy economy if huge swathes of your population are dead

Hazelnut there has to be a middle ground. We can’t totally sacrifice the economy either, or a damn sight more people will die in the long run.

Oh shut up. What is the point of your post. No question mark as there is no sensible answer.

PieceOfMaria

There is a middle way but we didn't take that either.

Korea has shown what could have been done with mass testing.

Seems to me to be a tad harsh blaming the government for not having enough ventilators this not being prepared for this.

On that basis, no country on the planet was prepared.

Plenty to be critical at the government though, granted. Being entrenched in dogma isn’t one of them, as they have changed tack.

Another point I’d defend them on is the request to JCB/Dyson etc to start making ventilators. Plenty were taking the p1ss over that.

Where are those people now?

PieceOfMaria

"Please Mr Virus do you mind very much not killing/putting people on ventilators for a bit? If we give you the old and infirm perhaps you would avoid infecting the economically productive."

Theres no middle ground because you can't negotiate with a virus. You can kill it, or you can stop giving it people to infect. Seeing as we cant yet kill it....

Fair points but to only order more ventilators last week, 3 months in... is a bit lax isn't it?

NHS runs at around 100% normally, so even a very slight increase in cases leads to chaos.

Which non medical companies are actually building ventilators?
It will take months to train staff, source components etc etc it was a PR stunt.

We don't have the ventilators.

Which meant we should have not given the virus people to infect.

We should have closed boarders to china and then italy.

We should have officially quarentined returning nationals in gov facilities for 20 days.

We should have closed schools and all non essential business 2-3 weeks ago. We should have closed public transport a week ago. We should have been sorting out contingency food supply chains 1 month ago.

Our "lockdown" is to little to late to achieve much.

Or government has been slow in all these things. Its too busy "protecting the economy"

Over 10% of ventilated people in spain are medics. These arent the old and infirm. Their medical system is being rapidly overrun. How you rebuild the medical professionals is beyond me.

Thats before you tackle the construction industry which is being deliberately kept open.

Which non medical companies are actually building ventilators? It will take months to train staff, source components etc etc it was a PR stunt.

Quite a few, and yes the background work did begin a few months ago.

I think you don’t understand the situation and are just trying to make a clumsy political point. People will get it. The isolation is just to make it easier on the health service.

LandOfAThousandJumpers I don't think you can say every other country in Europe grasped this or we wouldn't be looking at Italy (European country) and being horrified by the number of deaths there. Or Spain, or France. Look at countries like the Netherlands - over half the number of deaths the UK has with less than a third of the population.

OP I would say that the plans are more about ratios now than a deliberate cull of the population. Although I do agree the government failed to listen to WHO and CDC advice at the beginning...shake hands just wash them was such irresponsible advice from our PM 20 days ago.

Now an ethical advisory board is being established to support teams decide who out of the approx 30 that will need every ICU bed is going to get it.

Schools, pubs, shops, forbidden to congregate in public places needed to be imposed simultaneously. You don't need Behavioural scientists - which or government claim to use - to predict that many families and kids would treat this any differently to any other weekend when schools break up, the first signs of spring are in the air and it's mothering Sunday. Big, big mistake, even if there were no malicious intent.

100% agree with you OP, makes me feel sick the thought of the errors that have been made here and the lives that will be lost unnecessarily (and before anyone starts with some old would die anyway...yes but without access to a ventilator a lot more will die that wouldn't have done WITH a ventilator)

Exactly Hazel

What fascinates me is the government has made cutbacks to our NHS for years. I had to have my babies in a hospital 45 minutes away because my local hospital shut the maternity unit in 2012. Then they made the community midwives squash into one room and lose their ward.

Then in 2017 they decided our a&e was also closing at night. Now other bigger hospitals are drowning taking on all the extra patients.

Coronavirus arrives and suddenly they have money. They are making temporary hospitals. They are scrambling for ventilators. Why wasn't our health invested in when it's doable. If it was we would be in a better position now!

Now an ethical advisory board is being established to support teams decide who out of the approx 30 that will need every ICU bed is going to get it.

Christ

Its already in the Nice guidelines

As DD said a month ago, "if Dbro gets it theyre not treating him are they?"

If you can only ventilate one person and you have to chose a medic, or an otherwise fit and healthy father of 2, you dont ventilate the SN child or adult who will always be dependent. We knew a month ago.

What is so crushing is how happily and easily the government has put medics in that position in order to "keep the economy going".

It wasnt worth investing in ventilators before because their expensive and we don't need them.

A bit like country with heavy snowfall invest in the expensive infrastructure to withstand snow. We grind to a halt because its cheaper.

Now if someone told you categorically snow will land on this date, it will kills hundreds of thousands if you prepare and millions if you dont and you do nothing..... cos the cost to the economy is too great.

That makes you a pretty shit govenment