Chris Whitty saying even tier 3 probably wont be enough to reduce the R

[KetoPenguin]

What do you think this means for areas in tier 3, total lockdown? How soon do you think this would happen and how likely is it for tier 2 areas to be upgraded to the same level? Do you think the much rumoured circuit breaker over half term is likely at least in these areas?

And I'm guessing that it's because he's having to front something that he believes to be entirely wrong

If that is true (and i don't think it is) then he needs to stand up, be counted and say what he thinks.

At least this way he can resign with his head held high because sooner or later Johnson will blame him and sack him.

Personally, i think as he is a BJ appointee, he will do & say whatever his master tells him too.

Out of the 3, valance and harries, whitty is the only one I trust.

I believe Whitty. He is an expert in this field .
It’s the newspaper’s you don’t want to believe.

If you watch the piece on itv about Blackpool hospital one patient was saying he was at his daughters wedding at the end of sept now both he and his wife on the covid ward . And another lady who cannot understand how she got it at all .

So as the covid section is full , I know it’s only a small ward , but now they will be taking beds from other intensive care patients.

But better news is that some of the drugs are helping. Still looks pretty scary though.

No, of course the tier 3 restrictions won’t be enough to suppress the virus. To suppress a virus which is largely asymptomatic, once it has taken root in the population, you need total lockdown for the entire country, including schools, and to stay completely locked down until a vaccine has been found and rolled out globally. Maybe 2-10 years. If we’re lucky.

Which is exactly why the WHO envoy David Nabarro is now begging countries not to resort to lockdown. In his words, all lockdowns do is make poor people poorer. They don’t work as a suppression tactic. The WHO has changed its tune on this one.

Whitty is (whether intentionally or not) making clear the lunacy of Boris’ ‘suppress the virus’ strategy. It won’t work. Perhaps it would have done back in February- if he’d had an effective test & trace system. The lockdown could have given the NHS a breather while test & trace got up & running. But he & useless Hancock couldn’t be arsed to get that done & so he missed the last chance. Now his ‘suppress the virus’ lunacy is just crashing our economy for nothing.

If Boris wants to suppress the virus, he should be honest & plunge us into full scale indefinite lockdown. As Whitty seems to be pointing out. It will destroy our country, of course - but that’s the cost of suppressing a now well established & asymptomatic virus. Otherwise he should admit he’s fucked up & that his ridiculous version of lockdown is now just destroying lives & futures for nothing.

The power Boris is using (under the Public Health Act 1984) requires the steps he is taking to be proportionate. Otherwise they are unlawful. The government has not published one detailed impact assessment focusing on the effects of lockdown versus years of life saved. Without this it can’t demonstrate proportionality. Why hasn’t it done this? Because it knows it can’t demonstrate these steps are proportionate. Their effects are so huge they can’t even begin to be assessed. And without that - proportionality- this whole thing is unlawful. Every single rule. We’re being screwed over by the world’s thickest most incompetent dictator.

@jasjas1973

I don’t think so . He has been pretty clear all along

We can only try and minimise risk . Not eliminate it . And if figures go up then action must be taken .

He is not a politician so probably can’t help but tell the truth 🙂

It’s a shit sandwich. My first reaction earlier when they said in the briefing it was largely over 85s in hospital was why the hell are we trashing our economy and lives to save people of already great age. On the other hand you can’t leave people to suffocate to death with no treatment, it’s barbaric. Awful situation.

Gladysthesphinx

"We’re being screwed over by the world’s thickest most incompetent dictator."

Indeed. The same man who promised to free us from the shackles of the European Union.

If it wasn't so serious it would be the best farce ever.

@Gladysthesphinx

You are contradicting yourself .

If the government is following WHO , who also were the ones who completely changed their minds about masks , then how do you know that the government may in the near future change their strategy .

And are you saying all other governments are dictating as well with their stategies which are similar or WORSe than ours?

I can’t see one reason why ant government would willingly ruin the economy and run up debt unless they had to .
And I would say that the country is very split between those who think lockdown should be harder and those who think it should it happen at all .
So damned if you do , damned if you don’t.

And by the way I have lost relatives to the virus and I blame the virus and not the government.

@jasjas1973, Whitty is not a BJ appointee, he was appointed as CMO last June, before BJ won the leadership of the Conservative Party, having previously held other senior posts in the civil service under different governments. I suspect he very much disagrees with BJ on many things, and is just trying at this point to do his best for the country.

@MadameBlobby

Charming . So all old people are disposable. Bet david Attenborough would love that .

Well we have only lost about 46000 grandparents so a few more won’t matter .

[quote Lurkalot]**@jasjas1973, Whitty is not a BJ appointee, he was appointed as CMO last June, before BJ won the leadership of the Conservative Party, having previously held other senior posts in the civil service under different governments. I suspect he very much disagrees with BJ on many things, and is just trying at this point to do his best for the country.[/quote]
Yep. He won't walk because he feels a responsibility to do the best he can. But jeeze, what a horrible position he's in.

@jasjas1973 this isn't the USA. Civil servants aren't appointees of the sitting government. They serve whatever flavour of party they're stuck with, and have to give impartial advice.

I know a passionate remainer who is a civil servant working in the department for Brexit. It's actually messing with his mental health.

[quote Unsure33]@MadameBlobby

Charming . So all old people are disposable. Bet david Attenborough would love that .

Well we have only lost about 46000 grandparents so a few more won’t matter .[/quote]
No I didn’t say that. I in fact said you can’t leave people to suffocate to death. But do quote the bit that makes you look pious.

I can't believe that people can be so utterly ridiculous and childish as to call a highly respected professional playground names. Not only that but even if you are one of the souless few who believe we can sacrifice the over 85s, how do you not understand that people if hospitals are full of elderly Covid patients they aren't going to have the capacity to treat anyone else for any other reason?

As for jibes about how the NHS became the Covid Service. How do you think allowing it to run through society would help that? All that would happen is more people in hospital with it and so less capacity for people with other life threatening illnesses. You do realise that people with cancer are often particularly vulnerable to Covid and would be at great risk if in a hospital full of it? I have personal experience with this and I find people using the its not all about Covid - what about cancer" catchphrase infuriating and upsetting.

I'm not in the UK so can only go by what I watch on BBC World news and reading the press online. From what I can see Whitty is the only one talking sense! You might not like what he is saying, but what he is saying appears logical and factual to me. Its the rest of the clowns I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them.

Although to be honest, I have no idea what the UK can do now. Any response seems too little too late (why do you always have to wait until after the weekend to bring in new measures, just do it already!). My family are in NI, in one of the worst regions, and I have close family who work in one of the major hospitals there, which is now almost full. I am frankly terrified of what is happening there, It looks very bleak indeed, financially and health wise.

Last train you misunderstand me. I think education should be a priority but its not and never has been. Any idiot could see that cases woukd sky rocket when schools and unis returned. Why was no thought given to this? Why not blended learning or rotas. Where are the different solutions? Why not let parents choose and not face fines in order to make space? Its utterly indefensible

The most incompetent government ever.

Thought was given to it, willyoujustbrquiet. I believe sage published a paper with different models of school return. The government ignored virtually all the advice they were given in order to plough on with their ‘in full, full time’ message to appease vocal groups like Us4Them.

I’m in London. Husband works in one London Borough as a secondary teacher, I work in another in the same job. We live in and our kids go to primary In a third. Our kids primary are coping well, no confirmed cases in staff or pupils. The schools we work in though are doing shockingly. Both large, ten form entry “super secondaries” that have had at least one year group bubble out each week since Mon. 14th Sept. 12 confirmed staff cases in mine, 18 in my husbands (and that’s just confirmed, not everyone who’s been out with symptoms of some kind or forced to isolate due to close contact). Whilst our schools are bigger than our children’s primary (they’re a five entry all through primary) they’re not so much bigger as to account for the discrepancy in cases. It’s obvious to everyone working in secondary schools that they’re a major source of community infection. We should be doing blended learning: one week on, one week off or alternate days in or something To keep the numbers of kids in school at any one time down. But then teachers and school staff have been saying this since at least June. The government had so much time to set this up- why the fuck didn’t they?

@ColonSemiColon

Hahaha at too much heed being paid to Chris Whitty when the government keep ignoring his recommendations.

This.

He advises the Government of what to do and they ignore him and put in measures they feel would be better.

@TrustTheGeneGenie

What does Chris whitty expect us to do then? Lock down harder, come out, cases rise, go back in, come back out, do the fucking lockdown hokey cokey?

For an intelligent man in my opinion he's making himself look very thick right about now. He doesn't have a plan other than argh high numbers we look bad lock down!

Chris Whitty wants the basic, standard, proven, tried and tested public health infectious disease response infrastructure in place.

But he works for this government so instead we have a staggeringly expensive useless shadow puppet impression of one.

I'm pretty sure Lockdown Hokey Cokey is government long term policy for the next year to come at least.

I'd imagine Chris Whitty's preference would be for a functional TTI system like wot proper countries have got.

You know the ones, they have hardly any deaths, pretty robust economies and they're all still living full lives.

@QueenOllie

In putting preston in tier 2 they've actually loosened restrictions We've been in local restrictions for weeks which have done nothing and they've loosened them! like tidying up deckchairs on the titanic

I wondered about that.

These restrictions don't see to be enough generally. At best they push the 100,000 cases a day and 1000 deaths a day point on a fortnight.

The trouble is, in three weeks when we can all see they've achieved nothing we'll have had another three weeks of exponential growth and the numbers will probably have doubled twice from where they are today.

Sick of seeing the argument over age that we should let this basically rip through our elderly who often have quite fulfilling lives because ‘we will be ok.’ (also not always true)

It’s not the 85 year olds with covid in ICU beds either... that’s the middle age range : often much younger than ‘elderly’ that are more able to be vented or on similar and cope. Filing beds up so certain surgery can’t happen as they need icu recovery for example. You can create more critical care beds but you also need more equipment but a high ratio of various staff too.

The over 70s are on normal wards with extra support, needing more staff or creating a higher workload. If the elderly are sick they take up increasing numbers of beds ( happening right now in the north!) where are the other winter patients going? The NHS hits breaking point every winter without this.

Staff redeployed from important areas to cope with covid influx. NHS staff are passionate about their fields so this is heart breaking to be deployed elsewhere and your area of work minimised or closed all together. HCP do care their patients treatment is affected but decisions come from above. It’s a shit show with no easy answer. But if the government had planned and sorted theirselves out maybe we wouldn’t be back at this point.

Lockdowns aren’t the complete answer but this isn’t being properly managed by the government from the start. At this stage testing and tracing should be spot on, it’s really not.

Whitty looked anxious to me. He knows this is back and creeping across the country and the government are loathe to act until they have to.

He is saying that nothing is really secure, and nobody can be confident about anything really. It's all unknown territory, and they are trying to juggle all things, and hoping for the best, which might be good, or might not work at all.

Can you imagine standing there as a professional at the top of your field while Boris waffles on and on, and being expected to back him when you believe him to be a total clown?

If any this is true (and it's all speculation, nobody on here knows what Chris Whitty really thinks, regardless of what they say), he should quit and specify the reason why.

I know people will say "we are in the middle of a pandemic, he can't", well he can if he believes we are being taken in the wrong direction.

He can't Phil because he'd be forever known as Chris Quitty