A list of the systemic failings that have led us here

[Tonkerbea]

Because I'm angry and bored.

I'll start with:

Why did it take so long for us to start sourcing extra ventilators?

Why was/is our capacity for testing so paltry?

Why were people discharged into care homes who were still symptomatic?

Why did Cheltenham go ahead?

[SuckingDownDarjeeling]

Sorry, connection issue x

[SuckingDownDarjeeling]

When all of this is over, will individuals have a greater appreciation for hygiene, or will it go back to generally acceptable 'five second rules' for food on the floor and people not stopping others from spitting on the ground?

[SuckingDownDarjeeling]

When all of this is over, will individuals have a greater appreciation for hygiene, or will it go back to generally acceptable 'five second rules' for food on the floor and people not stopping others from spitting on the ground?

[randomer]

"The Govt were being guide by the WHO and that organisation was slow off the mark in declaring Covid-19 to be a pandemic".

No no no, the government is the bloody government, it governs, It doesn't sit around waiting for experts or bogging off on holiday.

[randomer]

here is mine....why from the day the UK actually woke up to this crisis, why was a strange volcabulary unleashed upon us?

From the outset I hated " herd immunity". It makes me think of David Attenborough and gazelles.

" Lockdown", no we are not in an Americam maximum security jail.

" Our NHS", you didn't give a before all this.

And don't even think about mentioning all the " Carry on" rubbish.

[Baaaahhhhh]

Why were care homes not made a priority in terms of giving them adequate supplies of PPE, given it was clear they were full of very vulnerable people?

Because they are mostly run by private companies, who can get their own PPE, and because they, in the main, closed down very early. This of course hasn't stopped many, many deaths occuring in these settings, but hospital staff had to come first.

[Baaaahhhhh]

Why has the government gagged NHS staff from talking to the press, this ensuring we know more about what has been happening in Italian or Chinese hospitals than our own?

They haven't, and do you really think you know what happened in Chinese hospitals, really??

[Baaaahhhhh]

Why did we turn down and ignore all the many local UK companies who manufacture or supply ventilators and PPE

Because they need to be accredited.

[Baaaahhhhh]

Why is our government lying about the death stats by deliberately leaving out all deaths at home and in care homes, and encouraging doctors not to put Covid-19 on death certs if the patient also had co-morbidities?

They aren't. It is a stated aim to only release hospital deaths, as these are being used to monitor death rates, and these figures are more readily available than community deaths, and even then, have a large time lag within them. As you should know by now, the ONS picks up all and any other deaths every Tuesday. As for encouraging doctors not to use Covid on death certs, this is fake news.

[Daffodil101]

Question - could any idea you have done any better on some of these points?

[effingterrified]

OP, here are some more:

Why is our government lying about the death stats by deliberately leaving out all deaths at home and in care homes, and encouraging doctors not to put Covid-19 on death certs if the patient also had co-morbidities? It's hard to escape the conclusion that this is being done deliberately to try to hide the fact that our death stats are far and away the worst in Europe and possibly the world, as we seem to have not far off as many deaths as the US, even though their population is 5 times larger than ours

Why did we turn down and ignore all the many local UK companies who manufacture or supply ventilators and PPE, in favour of buying only from abroad or ordering them from a tiny number of big name and/or Tory donor companies like Dyson, Rolls Royce and Burberry?

Why did the Chancellor announce a big support scheme for business yet weeks later only a tiny handful of companies have received any?

Why did the government not impose conditions on bailouts for big companies (as the EU has done) to prevent them giving away taxpayer funded support in dividend payouts to shareholders? This would have prevented the disgrace of Tesco paying out 600 million quid to shareholders straight after being given 600 million quid by the taxpayer?

Why has the government gagged NHS staff from talking to the press, this ensuring we know more about what has been happening in Italian or Chinese hospitals than our own?

Similarly, why have our press been banned from reporting bad news?

And why has Parliament not been re called?

Why have the membership of SAGE, which has been the label of 'experts' advising the government not been released, as official guidance states it should be? Why does it appear that this committee is staffed heavily by behavioural 'scientists' ie members of the Nudge Unit and mathematical modellers, and with very few if any doctors, or public health experts?

Why have the minutes of the SAGE meetings giving the advice the government based its decisions on not been published, along with the mathematical models, so they can be peer reviewed and discussed? Why has the government now said that none of this will be published until AFTER the pandemic is over, so ie probably never?

Why was Boris not present at FIVE Cobra meetings in Feb, including one apparently because he was busy meeting Tory donors, thus wasting 5 crucial weeks when we could have been preparing our response?

Why were care homes not made a priority in terms of giving them adequate supplies of PPE, given it was clear they were full of very vulnerable people? Why was this only even thought of as a priority after high death rates in care homes had become a scandal?

Etc etc etc.

[EmpressMcSchnozzle]

1.Because they don't read their own risk registers.

1. Because they have unelected expert "special advisers" telling them all what to do and that all the specialists and experienced civil servants are all rubbish. Besides, eugenics. Call it herd immunity if you want. It amounts to the same thing.

1. Because they're infinitely more interested in Brexit than anything else.

1. Because they're all living in an Enid Blyton 1950s Dream of England that never existed anyway.

1. Because none of them seem to have studied ANY science. Or even the type of literature or humanities that make you apply actual critical thinking skills.

1. Because they hate poor people/the disabled/ill people/many old people/people who didn't go to the right schools or universities.

1. Because an expensive education and the ability to collect pieces of academic wallpaper is not the same as intelligence.

1. Because they don't think we can learn anything from South Korea.

1. Because they thought we'd be lucky again and, like Ebola, MERS, SARS etc, this one too would be contained somewhere far away.

10. Because their God, ultimately, is Mammon.

And increasingly, if you look at the evidence, while the virus getting loose might have been an accident (and given that it took TEN YEARS to work out where SARS 1 came from with any degree of certainty, nd CENTURIES to identify what [they currently think] really caused the Black Death, the jury's out on that one, though some of the conspiracy theories are utterly nutty), the response to it has all the hallmarks of pure incompetence and/or malice aforethought. I can't quite decide which one's winning at any given time.

Still, it could be worse. We could be in America.

And it could be better. We could be in New Zealand.

What this has really taught me is that our only option, as individuals, family, or local units, is to plan for as many scenarios as possible and do what you can to prepare for them. Because the government is utterly clueless, overall.

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

TheSandman

Unfortunately the NHS can’t operate as it usually does no health service is able to while dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic

Germany has managed this best in Europe. China well them suddenly adding numbers to their death toll and their very strict lockdown would be unacceptable to many here different countries have taken different approaches but no health care service has been able to remain fully functioning as it usually does

For those that the treatment has been postponed I feel deeply sorry.

[LaurieMarlow]

But we have a democratically voted government which hasn't done drastically better or drastically worse than the majority of other countries.

I’m not sure where you’re getting the second bit from. The death rate in the UK is dreadful and that’s not even taking into consideration the serious underreporting of deaths outside hospital, particularly nursing homes.

[TheSandman]

My last could be taken as criticism of the NHS and the way it dealing with this. It's not meant as such. The NHS a gigantic structure and to change as rapidly as it has without totally falling to bits is incredible and a testament to the way the people who work for it believe in it. (My wife included.) But there will be HUGE waiting lists after all this is over.

[TheSandman]

"The NHS is coping with the huge numbers it’s having to deal with."

While NOT dealing with the other routine and elective ops and preventative stuff that it normally does. Thus storing up a great backlog to be dealt with when the crisis has abated.

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

TheVanguardSix

Optimism? We have had to remain optimistic at work what do you expect us to do rant over how our jobs have changed and refuse to cooperate. But the changes have been dramatic in many areas. The sheer numbers of patients in a short period of time and the deployment of staff has been in huge and down very quickly. Hospital wards becoming COVID wards. All these changes didn’t take place over months it was a few weeks sometimes days if that for some.

The two hospitals I have visited in recent weeks seem like completely differently places to what they were

The NHS is coping with the huge numbers it’s having to deal with.

[NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite]

Crufts was another thing that should have been cancelled.
Why did Cheltenham go ahead?
Crufts started on 5th March and runs for 4 days usually.
Cheltenham was 10th to 13th March.

The Govt were being guide by the WHO and that organisation was slow off the mark in declaring Covid-19 to be a pandemic. The WHO didn't declare a pandemic until 12th March. If they had declared it a pandemic earlier then maybe these two events would have been cancelled.

As the news was full of covid-19 information, people could have actually used their common sense too and just decided themselves not to have gone to these events. We all have to take some responsibility for protecting ourselves.

[TheVanguardSix]

I don’t think people understand how many changes have gone on how much planning (yes I agree we should have tested more) has taken place and at such speed we literally changed and all had to be done as smoothly as possible and it worked - it worked because it was so well planned. This has happened in all areas of the NHS it’s incredibly how smoothly the changes have taken place

Smoothly? Let's stay in the realms of reality: It's organised chaos at best. Though I admire your optimism.

[Baaaahhhhh]

Flights from Italy are still allowed

Yes, because it is in the EU, and EU citizens are still allowed to travel for essential purposes. Also, many of the flights you see on arrivals boards are now freight, not passenger. You will also have a smattering of connecting flights of people coming from all over the world, still trying to get home.

[ShastaBeast]

Why were people going on holiday to Italy when it was clearly out of control and impossible to contain within a few small towns in northern Italy. So many skiers came back with it and spread it around. Flights from Italy are still allowed and there is no screening or quarantine, and there never was except for the Wuhan flights. Those poor Wuhan exiles left and ended up here with this utter mess. What was the point in their quarantining for two weeks to be left vulnerable by their own government?

[Humphriescushion]

Thanks @Baaaahhhhh i lurk a lot on that thread ( may have asked a few questions) and it is very useful.

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

Not a frontliner but caring for those with covid-19 and also agree with Salmonpasta

We have completely changed how we work (nhs mh) the preparation and implementing these changes wasn’t planned overnight

I don’t think people understand how many changes have gone on how much planning (yes I agree we should have tested more) has taken place and at such speed we literally changed and all had to be done as smoothly as possible and it worked - it worked because it was so well planned

This has happened in all areas of the NHS it’s incredibly how smoothly the changes have taken place

[Baaaahhhhh]

Humphriescushion and anyone else wanting all the stats available from here and around the world, in the same place, come over to this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3881672-Daily-numbers-graphs-analysis-thread-5

Lots of knowledgeable people, no bitching, just facts.

[Humphriescushion]

I would also like more statiscal information in what is happening. There seems to be a high rate of deaths for the numbers in hospital, but i cant find accurate information on this. How many are in hospital, how manh in intensive care, how many discharged.Are patients not admitted until it is too late. If we have spare capacity then it cant be this.