Health secretary to make an important statement today 5pm

[oldbagface]

What do you think he will be announcing?

UK government orders halt to Randox Covid-19 tests over safety issues

If you have any test kits, check they are not Randox

Another dodgy fast-track contract for a firm with Tory connections that has produced dodgy crap ?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/uk-government-orders-halt-randox-covid-19-tests-over-safety-issues

Care homes and members of public told to immediately stop using kits produced by firm
....
Randox had been awarded the contract under fast-track arrangements.
These enable public bodies dealing with the coronavirus to urgently award commercial contracts without asking other firms to bid for them.

Randox employs the Conservative politician Owen Paterson as a £100,000-a-year consultant

Can we have our eyebrows and mustaches waxed yet????

Asking for a friend.

I must have misunderstood as so took it to mean that early years settings and schools in LEICESTER could reopen on 24/7. I took that to mean they could come out of lockdown rather than still be in it rather than have to!

Oh another bad batch of these deals with mates tests that now leaves us with no testing at all.

SusieOwl4 when the Government are busily handed out non-tendered contracts to all-sorts (reportedly £100million contract for PPE from a confectionery company and another to a pest control company see links below) I think it's vitally important that questions be asked about quality control of the items they've procured. After all we want the response to the pandemic to improve over time.

What was the certification problem? How many tests? What is the impact? How much was paid for them? Will the money be recouped? How can we improve quality controls when purchasing future tests? Just a few questions off the top of my head.

The Government,and companies they have given public funds to, should be accountable if its faulty
www.businessinsider.com/uk-government-sued-pest-control-company-ppe-contract-2020-6?r=US&IR=T

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/15/coronavirus-contracts-government-transparency-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR051BZYjFaK4LBVmGyBZ6hti-FeepSpZ9tSk35kMiHpIhH069dKEBokvk4

Test & Trace costs £10 billion & increasingly chaotic with private firm after private firm failing to deliver.”

What confuses me is why we still have nothing. Beginning of the year track and trace was used to plot it globally.

After the 3 cruise ships, the passengers were tracked and traced sourced as local outbreaks in the UK and elsewhere globally.

What info is it they want that this money is being wasted on trying to find a private company? We know one was Apple because of privacy issues.

I've written to local mp, I get a generic responses about delays, but evading the question.

Randox employs the Conservative politician Owen Paterson as a £100,000-a-year consultant.

Blatant conflict of interest? He's been working for them since 2005.

In May, Mark Menzies, the Conservative MP for Fylde in Lancashire, raised the issue of the Randox testing kits in parliament when he said a care home in his constituency, where half of the residents had died from coronavirus, could not secure testing for other residents.

Menzies said: “Six of the remaining residents are displaying symptoms, but they are being told that they will have to wait until mid-June for further tests, following errors made by Randox a few weeks ago.” Hancock, said at the time he would try to resolve the problem.

Absolutely shocking. Problems since May and waiting until now, yet again with the delays.

Wonder what other mates deals how been cooked up.

All I can find about schools opening over the summer is Scottish schools going back early as they always have.

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare tbh. Try and maintain SD to 2 metres but when you cannot pop your mask back on. And no crossing of classes like for literacy, and basically the secondary educational system. But of course, it can all change tomorrow!!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53423453

and other schools give sweet FA?

It's unfair to blame the schools and teachers in this.
For the summer classes to open the teachings staff, and school admin and maintenance staff, have to volunteer to work throughout their holidays - and often for no extra pay.

I'm not at a secondary school, we are primary. But we aren't doing any summer school classes, we've all worked full time since March, including through 3 weeks if school holidays. Many of us have worked longer hours and weekends from home. Others have been ft in school with full bubbles.

The headteacher here didn't even entertain the idea of asking us to give up more of our holidays over the summer, and we are all grateful for that - not wanting to be the 'selfish' one who needed to say no to extra unpaid work.

If the government wanted catch up classes over the summer for school children they should have got it properly organised, with tutors and other learning groups, and paid for it to happen properly.

@mumratheevergiving

We live in a massively disadvantaged area, the majority of our students don't have access to proper online resources. We were posting out 700 paper packs a week of resources. Very, very few people in the area go on to higher education so most parents can't help, unemployment and MH problems are very common. Alot of our kids won't have eaten properly either. So we do what we can to give them a boost. Teachers won't be paid but have been promised toil instead.

Aragog - I don't really care about the view from primary tbh. The lack of parity for next year's GCSE students is massively unfair. My daughter is part of that cohort and it concerns me.

HP I’m so glad that there are people like you out there looking out for these kids and families. It’s easy to forget what a tough time some people have in general and in particular this year