Chris Whitty in The Times today - don't meet friends and family unnecessarily

[MrsMiaWallis]

"Emergency patients will be turned away from hospitals, causing “avoidable deaths”, unless the public starts obeying the lockdown, England’s chief medical officer warns today.
In a stark intervention designed to shock, Professor Chris Whitty warns that everyone who meets friends and family unnecessarily is a “link in a chain” that threatens the lives of vulnerable people"

Worth noting. I had to pick up a prescription from my local town and was surprised to see so many people - mainly middle aged women, some of whom I know and had always seemed like rational intelligent people - walking around town and chatting on the pavements, unmasked, no social distancing.

Apologies I don't know how to do share tokens.

You can be sick and tired of it all you want (so am I) but that doesn't change the fact that there isn't an alternative.

Chris Whitty has stood beside Johnson, Hancock and others and agreed with them. He didn't condemn Cummings. I don't think he has any credibility left and we need someone people can trust doing his job.

He's a civil servant. That is his job. If he leaves and gets replaced, it will be with another civil servant who will do the same thing - but might not be as experienced and knowledgeable about pandemics as Chris Whitty is.

I've been a civil,servant - we advise in private and can influence to a certain amount, but at the end of the day the elected ministers make the decisions. This govt has made the wrong decisions, but that doesn't mean they have not had appropriate advice.

PineConeifDoom

“Your DM is entitled to make that decision for herself - but she can’t make it for anyone else can she? Every time she ‘carries on as normal’, she is making a decision for wider society, and she has no right to do that.”

This.

You CAN'T carry on as normal, that's the thing. Even if you wanted to, most stuff is closed.

I'm a key worker / essential worker and I'm at breaking point, like the rest of my colleagues many of whom have said they absolutely cannot carry on like this.
Not everyone lives in a bloody ivory tower.
Financial hardship is a killer.
I don't expect anyone to stop going for a walk when they are at breaking point, or not see a loved one.
And for what exactly , what benefit do they get?
Yes 90 year old Mavis might live another 2 years in the care home her family have stuffed her into but at what cost to the stranger who feels life is not worth living.

[quote stovetopespresso]@Bagamoyo1 "I remember hearing about people going out dancing in London during WW2, despite the air raids, and thinking “how could they take the risk?”.

nope this is different as its other people's lives you're playing with[/quote]
You misunderstood my post.
I was saying that the fear factor has gone, and therefore, for many people, the only motivation to follow rules is because it’s for the greater good. And plenty of people aren’t motivated by that. They obeyed the rules when they were personally frightened, but now their fear has gone.
My point was the fear can’t last for ever with a sustained threat.
So turning their backs on restrictions and living a “what the hell” life is, for many of us, basic human nature.

Do you realise that money has to come from somewhere to actually pay for the NHS, right

Well yes, in theory. However the Tories haven't done a good job so far of funding the NHS. It's not that there isn't enough money, it is due to the priorities of the govt in power where that money goes.

In the last year our tax has been used to pay friends of govt ministers to not deliver essential services to control the pandemic. Are you still so keen to continue with this argument?

To be honest I think the information that was received on 18th Dec from porton down is the game changer .

I do think the public should take their own responsibility in general .

But now the evidence is clear . The way this is spreading is frightening. So perhaps the government will have to enforce the guidance and shut down more . I think next week this might happen.

Financially it will be a disaster. But at 1000 per day if it carries on thats 365000 in a year.

It does not bear thinking about .

Starmer has a mole I am sure so he knows nurseries are next . Handy to announce before the weekly broadcast next week.

"There's a REAL pandemic out there."
Just like there were REAL weapons of mass destruction, a REAL risk that your mobile phone was killing you, a REAL risk that immigrants are stealing your jobs, a REAL risk that that man standing outside your child's school every day is a paedophile, a REAL risk that terrorists are lurking around every corner... and the media and politicians don't cry wolf?

Media and politicians have been stoking the "cry wolf" effect for years and years, not just since March. They've been throwing sensationalist drivel at us for so long, that they have no credibility left, so that when they plead "it's reeeeeeeeeeeeal this time," we don't see a prime minister with a serious message: we see the boy who cried wolf. And as for figures: the saying "80% of statistics are made up on the spot" exists for a reason. Remember how the Covid death count suddenly dropped by a few thousand, when the government moved the goalposts? I'm sure the "high count" before was no accident, it was all part of the game of fear.

@SecretSpAD

Someone needs to sort out the nhs trust systems. Where managers are paid way more than the pm and have less accountability.

Guess who bought them in ? Labour .

are suffering from PND from having had a baby while in lockdown

Then they do have mental health issues.

Feeling absolutely shite about a shite situation is not a "mental health issue"

@wanderings

"There's a REAL pandemic out there." Just like there were REAL weapons of mass destruction, a REAL risk that your mobile phone was killing you, a REAL risk that immigrants are stealing your jobs, a REAL risk that that man standing outside your child's school every day is a paedophile, a REAL risk that terrorists are lurking around every corner... and the media and politicians don't cry wolf?

Media and politicians have been stoking the "cry wolf" effect for years and years, not just since March. They've been throwing sensationalist drivel at us for so long, that they have no credibility left, so that when they plead "it's reeeeeeeeeeeeal this time," we don't see a prime minister with a serious message: we see the boy who cried wolf. And as for figures: the saying "80% of statistics are made up on the spot" exists for a reason. Remember how the Covid death count suddenly dropped by a few thousand, when the government moved the goalposts? I'm sure the "high count" before was no accident, it was all part of the game of fear.

Sheesh. Believe the science. And keep your distance!

we advise in private and can influence to a certain amount, but at the end of the day the elected ministers make the decisions. This govt has made the wrong decisions, but that doesn't mean they have not had appropriate advice

Indeed.

But this is a government which, In Michael Gove's words, believes that "The people in this country have had enough of experts."

People in this country would rather that a lot of people die, or become long-term ill, it seems.

The sanctimony on here is laughable. People voted for this selfish government. You voted for cuts in public services, in schools and hospitals now you are worried that other people might act selfishly too.
The irony of it all. It's like turkeys voting for Christmas.

[quote Unsure33]@SecretSpAD

Someone needs to sort out the nhs trust systems. Where managers are paid way more than the pm and have less accountability.

Guess who bought them in ? Labour .[/quote]
God yes, the NHS is the most bloated organisation in the country, full of pigs with their noses in the trough. More so than government!

Nobody wants people to die.
However if you ask an 'ordinary' person, one who isn't lucky enough to have been born into wealth and priviledge, perhaps someone who works in a supermarket and is a single parent. Ask them are you prepared to lose your job, your only income , lose your home and possibly your children so that a stranger whose family haven't seen them in 10 years can live an extra 6 months what do you think they would say?

Could businesses be forced to furlough non-essential workers who are married to essential workers?

Taking a 20% pay cut is not an option for a lot of people. Furlough has to be agreed with employees. It’s a change in employment status, it can’t really be “forced”. Not as things stand anyway.

@Onlinedilema

Nobody wants people to die. However if you ask an 'ordinary' person, one who isn't lucky enough to have been born into wealth and priviledge, perhaps someone who works in a supermarket and is a single parent. Ask them are you prepared to lose your job, your only income , lose your home and possibly your children so that a stranger whose family haven't seen them in 10 years can live an extra 6 months what do you think they would say?

Ugh

@DenisetheMenace

Hatstrategicallydipped

“I could present graphs very easily”

🤯

So who would you prefer? Carol Vorderman? Ant and Dec?

😆

@MajorBumsore

My question is why a government scientist has chosen to write in The Times behind a paywall, rather than address his message to everyone?

The fee.

Joining in against my better judgement - a few points

Remember at the start, Government said they had to be careful when to introduce lockdown as inevitably there would be lockdown fatigue - well that’s where we are now. Some of us have been under pretty severe restrictions (Scotland high tier) for pretty much 10 months with only a short 6 week gap over summer when things weren’t even open properly and GUESS WHAT? These strict restrictions have made no real difference to the transmission now so IMO we need a different approach.

Until I see proper evidence to the contrary I will continue to believe that the vast majority of cases are being transmitted in health and care settings, essential workplaces, institutions such as prisons, and hospices not through two people meeting outside for a walk. Within our region I am well aware that spikes have been linked to hospitals, care homes (over 100 cases last week linked to care homes), the local hospice, workplaces (food plants, distribution centres).

OP do you realise:

• people are still being discharged from hospital to care settings without negative Covid tests

• or that care workers don’t have the same access to routine testing as NHS staff

-or that track and trace say you are only contagious 2 days before you either start displaying symptoms or have a positive test

-workplaces still expect parents into work (essential workers) even if kids are self-isolating because of potential contacts

etc etc

So until these issues are addressed we are never going to break the trains of transmission.

I want the economy back up and running members of my family have lost their jobs through this and the mental toll is unbareable.

Erm, no I didn't.

Until I see proper evidence to the contrary I will continue to believe that the vast majority of cases are being transmitted in health and care settings, essential workplaces, institutions such as prisons, and hospices not through two people meeting outside for a walk. Within our region I am well aware that spikes have been linked to hospitals, care homes (over 100 cases last week linked to care homes), the local hospice, workplaces (food plants, distribution centres).

Hospitals as well, they’ve been filthy holes for as long as I can remember.

There's a REAL pandemic out there."
Just like there were REAL weapons of mass destruction, a REAL risk that your mobile phone was killing you, a REAL risk that immigrants are stealing your jobs, a REAL risk that that man standing outside your child's school every day is a paedophile, a REAL risk that terrorists are lurking around every corner... and the media and politicians don't cry wolf?

Obviously not. What pointless comparisons.

Yes, he answers questions about the virus occasionally, mostly with a 'We don't know yet'.
Knows fuck-all.

He is a well respected scientist alongside van Tam and the rest of sage certainly knows more about how to handle the situation more than the ransom people of Mumsnet. I personally would hand control over to sage and just have the government rubber stamp it. If only we had followed new Zealand last February we would be living restriction free just with no foreign travel which sounds good to me.