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?

@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!

If we keep doing the 'hokey kokey' a couple of times before vaccine and better treatments, we actually save the nhs a lot of grief. So it does work.

We had a very long lockdown last time to "buy time" but they did fuck all and now here we are again, the people of the UK, being punished with lockdown again because they didn't use the first one wisely whilst being told it's all our fault. We are paying for their mistakes and it baffles me that most people can't see that

YES! exactly this. Its utterly baffling.
Also- I'm not sure why people seem so convinced this mythical vaccine is our saviour- what if it doesnt work? what if it takes years and years to develop an effective one? You cant base this situation now on what may or may not happen at some magical point in the future. Vaccines and drugs are typically tested for a 10 year period before being released, this is to ensure they are safe and effective, the idea that this is going to be one and done after a year is naive.

The thing is his plan is lockdown. But lockdown has to end and it doesn't seem like he has a plan past that because lockdown is his plan

It isn’t Chris Whitby’s job to come up with a plan. It’s the Government’s job.

*Whitty’s

It isn’t Chris Whitby’s job to come up with a plan. It’s the Government’s job

I only partly agree with this- if he is a medical officer then he MUST consider the effects of lockdown on the medical health of the population too. If people are not being screened and operations are being cancelled that will affect the nations health too. They estimate that 175,000 people will die over the next 5 years due to disruptions with the NHS cancelling screenings and treatments so I dont agree that Whitty should simply ignore the effects of lockdown- it his job to consider health in all aspects, not JUST covid.
2 million operations have been cancelled. You cannot simply ignore the effects of that.

The university thing just doesn't make sense to me. Like a pp suggested loads of students south of Birmingham have gone into halls of residence aswell.

If we keep doing the 'hokey kokey' a couple of times before vaccine and better treatments, we actually save the nhs a lot of grief. So it does work

When will the vaccine and treatments come? How many people will have committed suicide or died from domestic abuse in that time? How many business and jobs will be lost? It's a balance, or it should be.

Yep. You can't blame Whitty for us spending 12 billion on a non functioning test and trace system when plenty of other places managed to set up functioning ones for much less. That corruption and incompetence falls entirely at the feet of Johnson, Cummings and the cabinet.

It also wasn't Whitty or SAGE encouraging people to Eat out to help out or encouraging people to get back to the office.

The treatment is already much better than the first wave

Hospital and simple oxygen has reduced the number of people who go into intensive care.

Once in intensive getting out alive was fifty fifty now its80% are coming out alive

Progress has been made and will continue

SAGE are only concerned with the medical side of things - death rate, hospitalization rates etc. They are there to advise and have no decision making power so their "plans" are just a theoretical thing that's hard to predict anyway. Whitty has to treat all age groups the same as a scientist.

I suspect that Johnson doesn't want be "highest death toll in Europe" this time because he's a politician with an ego that makes him feel like he could be the next Churchill. I suspect this is why he's not as driven as Sunak to prioritise the economy. Sunak is judged by how much he spends and how much the economy grows so he will naturally see things differently.

If we had a proper TTI months ago things would be different and we'd probably not need the level of restrictions that are imposed right now but Johnson has been slow and half arsed about everything hence things still dragging on imo.
I think many people who think the science is too "influential " would not have accepted Johnson using the army and police to enforce the original rules like they did in China even if it meant that we'd be virus free now.

I still don’t know why Whitty was being blamed. It was very clear when he spoke alongside the PM in early August that ‘we have reached the limit of what we can reopen”. The implication is that full hospital and leisure sector openings cannot exist alongside full time schools and universities being open. But we’ve tried to do everything over the last few months, with a failing track and trace system, instead of offering eg some support to universities so that they don’t encourage hundreds of thousands of students to move across the country into halls of residence, because they desperately need the accommodation money.

The path here isn’t pretty either way and there are no easy choices for the economy. The time to drive down the case rate further was July/August when furlough was still in operation. Now it’s mid-October and we’re basically screwed for the winter.

Dido Harding will never be held accountable for the disaster that is TTI. She will continue to waft from job to job despite leaving a trail of incompetence wherever she goes. She deserves more of our ire with this situation

Vaccines and drugs are typically tested for a 10 year period before being released, this is to ensure they are safe and effective, the idea that this is going to be one and done after a year is naive

Completely agree and its why track and trace and mass testing is the only long term solution (short of an effective vaccine)
Even now healthcare workers are not being routinely tested and those that are, wait days for the result.
So CV gets into social care and care homes, deaths go up... calls for more lockdowns, close schools and universities.

Johnson wasted the summer, didn't get testing sorted, in fact it went backwards! & no planning for a 2nd wave, now we learn he ignored SAGE advice, just as he did in Feb/March.

@AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter

It isn’t Chris Whitby’s job to come up with a plan. It’s the Government’s job

I only partly agree with this- if he is a medical officer then he MUST consider the effects of lockdown on the medical health of the population too. If people are not being screened and operations are being cancelled that will affect the nations health too. They estimate that 175,000 people will die over the next 5 years due to disruptions with the NHS cancelling screenings and treatments so I dont agree that Whitty should simply ignore the effects of lockdown- it his job to consider health in all aspects, not JUST covid.
2 million operations have been cancelled. You cannot simply ignore the effects of that.

What makes you think he isn't? Those people are still going to die if we don't get the virus under control. It isn't a simple case of lockdown = save the covid patients, risk other people dying vs not locking down = covid patients dying but everyone else lives.

What makes you think he isn't? Those people are still going to die if we don't get the virus under control. It isn't a simple case of lockdown = save the covid patients, risk other people dying vs not locking down = covid patients dying but everyone else lives

Because I work with hospitals as part of my job and ive spoken to many nurses and doctors. Where I live they have been sat twiddling their thumbs at many points in the last few months due to empty wards. They HAD the capacity to operate but it did not happen- they have told me this. Its not good enough and its disgusting

had a very long lockdown last time to "buy time" but they did fuck all and now here we are again, the people of the UK, being punished with lockdown again because they didn't use the first one wisely whilst being told it's all our fault. We are paying for their mistakes and it baffles me that most people can't see that

I can see that. But that doesn't alter the principle, it just suggests we have a lazy shuffling buffoon with a useless handler, a bunch of idiots who probably can't even tie their own shoelaces and a very convincing sociopath holding the purse strings. Boris is incapable of understanding any detail, cant drill down into anything and doesn't know what questions to ask. He just trots out ridiculous shit like operation moonshit and gives us free meals. They had time to implement safer schools, to plan and implement a t & t system that could work, time to increase capacity and contingency plans for the NHS, instead we have pals awarded contracts, MP pay rises, a shambolic testing system, unsafe schools, vulnerable front line workers,.....and now we have.....

The 3 tier system that apparently is like table dhote! the rhetoric of regional leaders know best is a handy way for central government to wash its hands of responsibility. They are seen to be doing something, whilst also passing the buck. They haven't handed greater control to regional leaders because the outcome will improve, its because they want to share the blame around, just like the calculated choice of blaming Joe blogs.

When you say paying for their mistakes though, what currency would you prefer....your money or your life?

I suspect that Johnson doesn't want be "highest death toll in Europe"

No concern for him, he can just change the way the deaths are counted.

Dido Harding will never be held accountable for the disaster that is TTI. She will continue to waft from job to job despite leaving a trail of incompetence wherever she goes. She deserves more of our ire with this situation

Nope, Johnson is the root cause of our problems, his cabinet is made up of people who agree with him on one thing - Brexit, not ability & so people of limited intelligence (Hancock) are making decisions and appointments.
Even Whitty is a Bojo appointee.

@Hyperfish101

I think 2 weeks total lockdown would have been awful but in some ways preferable to what we have now dragging on for weeks. Yes only kicking the can down the road but eases the pressure for a bit.

Instead we're getting death by a thousand cuts instead because the government feared a kicking from the Tory press

The data doesn’t point at unis - the biggest rise is in the workplace and home. My understanding is this is driven by factories and close working.

Johnson wasted the summer, didn't get testing sorted, in fact it went backwards! & no planning for a 2nd wave, now we learn he ignored SAGE advice, just as he did in Feb/March.

The government were complacent over the summer. It doesn't help that parliament shuts down through July/August summer break and they all go off on holiday. When Johnson did actually say anything it was 'get back to the office' and there was a let's get back to normal vibe. Therefore it was outrageous when he blamed the public for being complacent over the summer recently.

Parliament should have continued through summer, instead they had their 6 weeks recess as if 'nothing to see here'.

'They need to stop letting him address the public, then. If all he does is advise the pm then why do they keep wheeling him out with his bullshit graphs?'

'Bullshit graphs'?! We need to see the evidence or else people whine about civil liberties and suggest Johnson is making it all up, but don't actually say why he would do this. A couple of weeks ago some on mn thought the spike in cases was fine, irrelevant as deaths not increasing!! seemingly unaware that people don't get the virus then die on the same day.

It is so disappointing to see the constant lack of support for what is a difficult situation. I'd like to see them ram compliance down people's necks at the press conferences because it is clear that is the problem. People aren't social distancing because civil liberties 🙄

We need to see the evidence

By the last graph they showed us we should be ok like 50k cases a day by now but we aren't. Hence bullshit. I like a factual graph based on real data as much as the next woman but that wasnt was it?

It was a projection of what could happen if the doubling time stayed at the same rate as it was at the time. Vallance did quite clearly state it wasn’t a prediction.

@jasjas1973 as I said earlier, Chris Whitty is not a BJ appointee!

It is so disappointing to see the constant lack of support for what is a difficult situation. I'd like to see them ram compliance down people's necks at the press conferences because it is clear that is the problem. People aren't social distancing because civil liberties

Nonsense! IF the govt played their part with a functioning test, trace & isolate system plus tested twice weekly healthcare staff, we'd then identify hotspots in time for local restrictions to work..... then sure, i would support them.

But they gave this work to individuals and companies with no experience in the field of public health.

Nothing to do with civil liberties, everything to do with incompetence.