To feel sorry for Boris Johnson

[LonerGirl]

I know people didn’t have a high opinion of him, tbf neither did I before this, but he’s doing his best. He’s doing what experts are advising him to do. He’s ordered temporary hospitals to be built & thousands of ventilators, asked for help through NHS volunteering.

I think he’s coping okay despite his wife being pregnant too, now he’s unwell himself.

What are your opinions?

I don’t want any fights or arguments I’m
Just curious to what others are thinking

Just thought I’d leave this here...

www.gknaerospace.com/en/newsroom/news-releases/2020/ventilatorchallengeuk-consortium/

Feel sorry for him?! I've heard everything now. Jeezus.

auld you are determined to see the worst in everything the government does

I see no point in that and am instead focusing on the fact we are getting ventilators from somewhere

Carry on with the constant slating of the Tories if it helps people get through this - personally I can’t see how such negativity helps anyone

Just thought I’d leave this here...

Could you tell me where it says, 'we have 50,000 ventilators ready to ship out of the door.'?

Noble though the effort is, all I see is working hard to investigate production,... has evaluated all requirements to design, manufacture, assemble and test components, as well as finished medical ventilators.

Maybe, just maybe, had Boris Johnson chosen to break his holiday earlier in the year, they might have got to the production and shipping stage by now?

I've friends and family in various European countries who are utterly stunned at the lack of proactive govt here. Who are messaging and asking me if certain news items are true because they're so nonsensical they're thinking they're being pranked or it's satire!

And yet at the moment, Spain and Italy are in a far worse situation than the UK and are likely to end up with thousands more deaths than we will, according to a Imperial.

I do a bit too

He's doing it now but he's done it far too late. I do feel a bit sorry for him, I doubt this is what he signed up for but I feel a lot more sorry for more deserving leaders of other countries who care a little more about their people in general

As we don't test the community deaths we don't know if our death rate is better or worse than europe's

A scientist on R4 with morning says Italy and Spain's outbreaks are peaking and showing signs of declining, he said ours are nowhere near.

But we cannot escape the lack of PPE and the deaths this will cause, Govt knew about this in January and didn't check they had enough, only in the last 2 weeks trying to source the stuff.... my DD still can't get it, despite being told to wear masks when visiting patients.

I only know of one person, a hospital nurse, who thinks she had it. But no one tested her, so we don't know whether she had that and recovered, or just had the usual nasty winter virus which float around.

A scientist on R4 with morning says Italy and Spain's outbreaks are peaking and showing signs of declining, he said ours are nowhere near.

If you’re talking about Neil Ferguson, he actually said that the UK infection rate appears to be slowing:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/30/politics-latest-news-government-adviser-neil-ferguson-says-early/

As we don't test the community deaths we don't know if our death rate is better or worse than europe's

Italy’s death rate has now exceeded 10,000. Ours is nowhere near that level.

Hospital admissions are delayed is he talking about actions three weeks ago? Can’t remember where we were at then.

bear
Focus on the positives. Excellent idea.
I was hoping to find a positive in your answer to my question, because I can't see one there. Not because I am determined not to, but because I really can't.

If you’re talking about Neil Ferguson, he actually said that the UK infection rate appears to be slowing

No, it was the guy on before him, he said the opposite as we are not testing sufficiently to know.

Ferguson did say 2 to 3% of pop. already have CV in the UK, so between 1.3m and 2m.

Most people don't die in a hospital, so unless we test community deaths, we have no idea what our actual death rate is, some London hospitals are saying their death rates are 3x the official numbers released.

The only possible motive not to test widely is to make it appear we have handled this outbreak better than we actually have.

@Dongdingdong we don't actually KNOW our situation because we're not bloody testing!

These people aren't in those particular countries but they're seeing what's happening there and completely bewildered as to why our govt aren't learning lessons from what's happening in those countries

"The only possible motive not to test widely is to make it appear we have handled this outbreak better than we actually have." Exactly

These people aren't in those particular countries but they're seeing what's happening there and completely bewildered as to why our govt aren't learning lessons from what's happening in those countries

Perhaps they should save their disbelief for Sweden, who haven't implemented any lockdown measures at all (although I think they might be u-turning on that now). And our government have clearly learned lessons - hence the fact we've all been in lockdown for a week now and have built a huge new hospital in East London in a matter of weeks.

On the testing point - I don't believe the government isn't testing to make themselves look better, that's tinfoil hat territory. The problem is there's a huge demand for testing kits worldwide at the moment and production cannot keep up with demand.

I also think that widespread testing may not be the saving grace people think it is. There are several issues:

• If someone tests negative for the virus they could potentially go to the shop to buy essentials the next day and come down with it. How many times do you test people - daily?
• We still don't know for sure whether someone who has had the virus is immune. So even if we know for certain that they've had it and recovered, it doesn't necessarily mean they're now "safe" to go out and about.
• It seems to be very obvious when people have coronavirus from their symptoms. Do we really need a test to confirm that when money and resources could be better used elsewhere?

It goes without saying that none of the above applies to NHS staff, who are on the frontline and should therefore be tested regularly. But I don't see any point in testing someone like me, who hasn't left the house for three weeks.

The Netherlands, Spain and Turkey have also rejected a load of Chinese testing kits as sub-standard:

www.ft.com/content/f3435779-a706-45c7-a7e2-43efbdd7777b

Oh and by the way, we're the sixth best country in the WORLD (and the second in Europe) in terms of how many tests we've carried out, so we're testing more extensively than most!

Source: ourworldindata.org/covid-testing

That chart is 10 days out of date and doesn’t take in to account the size of the population. So yes the US has tested more people than South Korea but per head of population they are testing way fewer people.

The U.K. are aiming to get to the stage where they are testing 10,000 people per day in a population of 66.5 million. Ireland is currently testing 5,000 per day in a population of 4.8 million.

The point made about the Cheltenham festival above is relevant. It was sickening to see that going ahead when in Italy, the CV crisis was already fully in progress and it had started here. I think all football had already been cancelled at that point. But the Cheltenham festival is a major event in the betting companies' financial year. They generate masses of tax and are major political powers. That is why the festival went ahead - money. And there are reports in the paper about staff who caught CV from the Festival. For BJ and his advisors - remember the government select and appoint their own advisors, these are not independent people - the government do not appoint advisors who have different opinions to what they want to hear, they appoint advisors who are on their side and tell them what they do want to hear - for these people, the money outweighed public health.
Also testing of NHS workers - relative has definite CV caught from a hospital full of CV patients with inadequate PPE for staff (even the good PPE is nothing like you see on TV in China and other European countries - the UK PPE exposes plenty of skin and clothes and shoes); there is has been no testing so far. Was the herd immunity mainly for NHS staff? Maybe, they have all been massively exposed and plenty of them have been very unwell. But if and when they recover, they will be able to go back to work and from the government's point of view, they will already be immune - job done. Well done BJ.

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Testing alone is not sufficient: you need to test people and then trace anyone whom you know has been in contact with those who test positive.
Those people then go into quarantine until it becomes clear whether they have or have not caught CV. So they don't wander off to the shops having tested negative and contaminate people.
Obviously it isn't failsafe and is v restrictive, but it has been effective in S. Korea and Germany.

But, yes, it only works if you have enough tests and many countries just don't.

Testing alone is not sufficient: you need to test people and then trace anyone whom you know has been in contact with those who test positive.

Depends what sort of testing you are doing. If you are testing for the presence of the active virus then the above stands.

If you are testing for the antibodies to demonstrate immunity*, that's a different regime and outcome.

*ASSUMING the presence of antibodies indicates protection against reinfection and that a person is no longer contagious. Two questions that are awaiting a definitive answer, from my understanding.

I don’t think he has prepared as well as he could have. We have been offered ventilators via EU agreement which uk didn’t sign up for, and then lied about not knowing it was happening.

And have you Seen this update? Uk manufacturer offered to make PPE for NHS ten days ago But yet to receive an order while staff risk their lives without the right equipment. Not sure I think that is ok just because he’s clapping them at 8pm.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-52082248

Apparently Ocado has managed to buy 100,00 testing kits for their staff. Everyone (including the public) was able to make better preparations and plan better than BJ and his advisors. As a relative of a nurse with probable/definite CV (circumstantial - spending many days in a hospital full to capacity with CV patients without adequate PPE and having been v. unwell with typical CV symptoms for over a week), I would think the NHS would be stupid to allow this relative back inside a hospital without testing them to check they were no longer infectious. But I bet they will.
On Jeremy Vine last week, someone said there should be an amnesty so the public and return all the masks they panic bought and denied to the NHS. If even people in the street knew that masks would be needed in the near future and were able to plan and purchase, why didn't the government?

Another aspect to the appalling preparations made for this CV crisis, despite having 2 months' headstart and warning after Asia started with it in January, has been the fact that the central NHS can step back and refuse responsibility and put it all on individual health trusts. One local health trust I know did buy extra ventilators and create extra ICU capacity weeks ago, another local trust did nothing other than lock the cupboard where masks are stored in the respiratory department to prevent theft - not a single extra piece of PPE ordered, let alone a ventilator. In fact, they upgraded all their ventilators and sold the still-functional old ones off very recently. That trust has hundreds of staff unwell at home with CV now and they won't be back at work for several more weeks.
In terms of numbers of cases and deaths, all data is very out of date when it is released. It takes days to get results back for patients in hospital, and those are the only people tested. The staff ill at home are not being tested nor are the general public ill at home. According to an NHS nurse, deaths are very late in being reported, the new deaths reported today will not have happened yesterday or today, but a few days' ago. And those who were infected before lockdown are mostly yet to reach hospital admissions, so the worst is very much still to come.

SerendipityJane
My understanding is also that tests cannot definitely show whether someone has had CV - nor whether that provides real certainty with regard to immunity if they have.
My remarks referred to testing for the virus itself, as carried out by S. Korea and Germany, though the latter is now talking about trying to test for antibodies to determine whether it might be feasible to ease lockdown gradually. They were made in response to the PP who said testing was useless as you could test negative despite being asymptomatic/incubating and then go shopping and spread the virus.