Dido Harding

[Cpl654321]

What is the actual point of her. She's in the news again today saying there was no way to know these new variants are coming. What?? Plenty of scientists were saying just that before it happened.

Why has she not been sacked yet. It's infuriating.

basic GSCE level biology (i.e. that viruses mutate!).

14 Jan 2021 -

FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany wants to jump-start gene sequencing efforts to closely track coronavirus mutations and catch up with European nations such as Britain and Denmark which have taken the lead on decoding viral genomes.

Marco Binder, a virologist at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, which runs the country’s largest human genome sequencing facility, said the German science community traditionally had other priorities.

Sporadic coronavirus sequencing had previously been enough to stay on top of its relatively slow genomic shifts, but the emergence of faster-spreading variants posed a new imperative.

“We probably underestimated that,” he said. “It is indeed important and worth the effort to be able to track this fast and well, also on a local level.”

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-sequencing-idUSKBN29J1KS

Here we go, the cut and paste of someone getting it wrong somewhere else.

It isn't just that the fact of virus's mutate is O level Biology. It was totally understood that this virus was mutating all the time. Hong Kong for instance established that its first and second waves came from a UK variant. In fact one of their identified patients who caught it twice, once in January and again more seriously in April, had the Chinese variant the first time and bought the UK one back with him from a trip to London.

The issue was did it mutate in a way that affected transmission and mortality. With the sheer number of cases in some countries worldwide most Scientists saw it as inevitable that a mutation that was more dangerous would emerge. Now it has and it has and it has been picked up and worldwide. Only Dido wasn't on watch for this. Not just that but Scientists are now warning that the delay to the second dose of the vaccine risks providing the perfect environment for a vaccine resistant mutation, no doubt by then Dido's Business Plan will be for shutting up shop because vaccination has solved the problem

Emilyontmoor
Here we go, the cut and paste of someone getting it wrong somewhere else.

Keir Starmer and Jonathan Ashworth were praising Germany's test and trace strategy last year.

The protocol for expanding testing in public labs included details of a back engineered reagent "brew" to avoid that world shortage.

It sounds as though the Crick's Covid19 Consortium bought large batches of the same reagent/s as everyone else initially - so they were in direct competition for supplies at the start?

In response to potential shortages of supplies, we forecast demand, ordered reagents in large batches, used in-house buffers wherever possible, and established an in-house N gene assay as a contingency plan...

There was an expose of the testing shambles by Dispatches on Channel 4 (think it's on watch again) - they had a reporter go undercover. They were just chucking the tubes in the same cardboard container, massive potential for cross contamination. They interviewed one of the heads of the NHS labs who said it was extremely poor practice.

They were chucking leaking tubes into cardboard containers under the desks. Even I could tell that's hardly bio-secure.

As far as expertise goes - Indie Sage have routinely said they should have been using local public health expertise and NHS labs. They are the definition of experts.

Clav Germany did have better track and trace at the start as a result of using local public health resources and whilst they have been as successful containing a second wave they are still well below our case numbers, 5000 cases on Monday, compared to our 28000 here. Most importantly they are taking it seriously, being led by the Science (literally, Merkel is a Scientist) and not putting incompetents in charge of important virus suppression tools. I would feel safer living there than here (for all sorts of reasons, not just the virus).

And you do understand the meaning of the word contingency? The point is the Crick ensured they did not have capacity issues as a result of shortages of reagent. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52276836

Of course they had stocks of the standard reagent. You do realise that in normal times they actually had more PCR machines in active use, before the most advanced ones were requisitioned for Dido to leave underused as she worked out what to do with them?

Dido the singer would have done a better job, I expect. Dido Harding should never have been appointed given her track record especially her response to the data breach at TalkTalk when she was CEO there.

Thank you emilyontmoor for the most clear concise and damning explanation of the shambles going on behind the scenes...utterly shocking and yet not surprising . I hope someone pays you a large wedge to collate and publish that so it can be read by all ...thank you

Independent SAGE are anything but “independent”. They have got their own strong views (others might choose to use the word “agenda”) and they refuse to listen to alternative opinions so I would take anything coming from them with a huge pinch of salt.

I agree Germany did a great job containing the first wave and I am a huge fan of Merkel. However, I think also believe UK has come a long way between March and now and I think the testing system has had a significant role to play.

Of course, there may be valid reasons for criticism but I am not sure how truly “independent”, objective and well informed those critics are. I can’t consider opinions of “Independent Sage” reliable or trustworthy.

I don't understand why Dido Harding has risen so high. She's obviously a very bright woman, but that alone doesn't give you the appropriate qualifications to lead on Test&Trace.
She was worshipped by the Board at B&Q years ago for leading the consultancy on a very lacklustre revamp campaign which people on the ground with far more experience than her were very scathing of. She literally had no idea, but someone saw something in her that well, nobody else could!

5000 cases on Monday, compared to our 28000 here.

When people make inaccurate statements about details, there is always risk they may also be wrong about bigger things.

On Monday Feb 1:

• UK reported 18,607 cases
• Germany reported 6,630 cases.

Our 7 day averages (which are better indications of the real trend):

• UK - 22,396
• Germany - 10,409

Of course they had stocks of the standard reagent

They ordered large batches in direct competition;
we forecast demand, ordered reagents in large batches

Germany did have better track and trace at the start as a result of using local public health resources

A set up already in place and established over many years, helped by having 16 separate federal states - clearly not Dido Harding's fault. Germany have had 50,000 deaths in the last 3 months.

Indie Sage...They are the definition of experts.

One of the Indie Sage experts here;

Brexit means coronavirus vaccine will be slower to reach the UK.

In an article published...on the Guardian website, the academics and lawyers say Boris Johnson’s determination to “go it alone”, free of EU regulation, after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it...

The authors include Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine...

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-vaccine-delays-brexit-ema-expensive

Winter I was quoting from the Who website covid19.who.int/ I am sure we could do a detailed reconciliation but order of magnitude is pretty similar....

@wintertravel1980

5000 cases on Monday, compared to our 28000 here.

When people make inaccurate statements about details, there is always risk they may also be wrong about bigger things.

On Monday Feb 1:

• UK reported 18,607 cases
• Germany reported 6,630 cases.

Our 7 day averages (which are better indications of the real trend):

• UK - 22,396
• Germany - 10,409

Those figures are definitely much better. [hmmm]

Clav They were in operation and effective at the start of March, testing the patents and staff at the North London hospitals including the Royal Marsden, UCLH and GOSH, getting the staff having to isolate back on the wards. It was months before the staff in other hospital trusts were getting regular tests. At this point London was almost certainly at the peak of it’s first wave, as already been mentioned an estimated 17% of Londoners had antibodies by June, so there had been 1.5 m cases, and every Londoner I know who found they had antibodies by then had the illness in the early weeks of March (including me) . At that point testing was non existent. In my parents village there was an outbreak of 20 cases, antibodies subsequently prove, at the start of March but only 4 cases tested positive in the whole county (the biggest one). They were not in “competition”, it hadn’t even started.....

And ah! If you are against Brexit your opinion is voided, no matter how many years of experience and expertise. Of course! Who needs experts. Just as well because just as with lockdown scepticism you have to look pretty hard for a Scientist who supports it. Please don’t wheel any of them out.....

Emilyontmoor
They were in operation and effective at the start of March

Appears to be the start of April, not the start of March;

The CRICK COVID19 Consortium commenced on 19 March 2020.

2 April 2020;

“Two weeks ago, it was clear to me that we didn’t have COVID-19 testing at the hospital and we needed it,” says Professor Charlie Swanton, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, who spearheaded the transformation with Steve Gamblin, the Crick’s research director..."

That was just 2 weeks ago. “It’s taken us a fortnight to set up a diagnostics lab at the Crick.

scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2020/04/02/testing-for-covid-19-coronavirus-at-the-francis-crick-institute/

clearly not Dido's fault Well no, she was the symptom, not the disease. It was the government who decided to be the only country to sideline their public health resources (which were rated amongst the best in the world, even post austerity) and pour the money into starting from scratch and give her the opportunity to prove her incompetence again. I don't think this is even political . I can't see Theresa May with her strong sense of public duty and strong sense of identity as a public servant making that decision. I doubt Boris would have been bothered. It seems more likely the brainchild of a certain "genius" who was intent on turning the UK into one huge experiment for his batshit ideas and love of grand designs. Unfortunately established public health strategy and the boring logistics of implementing it was just too boring for the man who altered his blogs to pretend he was a guru who predicted Coronavirus, oblivious to the fact that anyone who lived through SARS and the scientific community had been predicting it for years. I even have my (unedited) emails from 2003 when I was living on another frontline in a pandemic to prove it .

the brainchild of a certain "genius"

Good job he was there by the sounds of it;

Boris Johnson’s most powerful political aide pressed the U.K.’s independent scientific advisers to recommend lockdown measures in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus, according to people familiar with the matter.

The government has confirmed that Dominic Cummings was an observer at some meetings of its Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the secretive body which gives specialized advice to ministers on responding to the pandemic.

According to two people involved, Cummings played far more than a bystander’s role at a crucial SAGE meeting on March 18, as the panel discussed social distancing options to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because the meetings are private, the people said Cummings asked why a lockdown was not being imposed sooner, swayed the discussion toward faster action...

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/top-aide-to-u-k-s-johnson-pushed-scientists-to-back-lockdown

Clav Volunteers were already reading PCR tests before lockdown on 23 March when they started to be furloughed. They had all the equipment and skills they needed to get going, and 300 volunteers. By the start of April they were fully up to their initial target of 500 tests a day. You don't do that from a standing start. Do you not see what an immense achievement that was? Especially compared to Dido's shambles (see poster above on just how unprofessional it was)

It is interesting though that you see it as a competition? That somehow the Crick was undermining Dido (as if she needed it) when actually it was using skills and equipment that the government would have seen wasted to make a huge difference and almost certainly save lives

I saw Christina Pagel (Prof at UCL) say that among countries with more than 10 million we have the worst death rate, the worst (either on Sky or Channel 4 news).

That's quite some awful achievement. And we're supposed to be a developed, rich country.

Fact is, however anyone argues the toss about whether Dido was a massive waste of space, or Cummings or any of the lot of them, you can't escape that fact. It's been a colossal failure and we actually had more time than many nations to prepare.

There are literally tens of thousands of people bereaved (children too) who needn't have been if there'd been a modicum of greater competence.

It's an absolute scandal.

I agree, Theresa May would never have put up with this sort of rubbish. She might not have been the most charismatic person but way more competent than the current lot. Why they didn't put together a cabinet of talented people given this unprecedented crisis instead of fielding the least well qualified bunch in modern history, I'll never know. It's all their personal political game (Dido is the most obvious example of this, actually maybe not, maybe that's Gav) at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.

I mean you know you're in the shit when Matt Hancock is the competent one.

Emilyontmoor
They had all the equipment and skills they needed to get going, and 300 volunteers. By the start of April they were fully up to their initial target of 500 tests a day.

2nd April -
Swanton estimates that around 50 Crick scientists are now working on coronavirus testing. “But once we’re at full speed and we’re doing hundreds or thousands of tests a day...

Well that is an interesting screenshot in the life of Dom, missing out that he widely reported to be the author of the herd immunity strategy in the first place (he wrote about pandemics in his blogs and about mathematical modelling and herd immunity as early as 2013). www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059

Government advisers had never been part of SAGE to preserve impartiality so you can speculate why he was there, tampering with impartiality. I have always wonder why Vallance etc went with the herd immunity idea. It went against the scientific consensus that herd immunity is only achieved with vaccines, to think it could be achieved by letting the virus go was untested thinking. It was allowed to go when the government abandoned its traditional public health response in favour of "flattening the curve". Perhaps they felt they could influence things better on the inside?

23 March was very late to a conversion to lockdowns. Lots of Scientists inside and outside SAGE had been advocating it for weeks. It seems that Fergusons modelling of 500,000 deaths (even with lockdowns we are at 100000) was the cause of his Damascene conversion

His latest brainchild, the moonshot testing project, thats going so well isn't it?

Dido is a complete Dodo isnt she:(
how insulting that an incompetent is put in charge of us, not lions led by donkeys but a population done over by a dodo:(

I saw Christina Pagel (Prof at UCL) say that among countries with more than 10 million we have the worst death rate, the worst (either on Sky or Channel 4 news).

Has Christina Pagel forgotten about Belgium? For now their “official” death rate is higher than ours (and yes, I know, you can argue that Belgium counts deaths differently but this would be a much more nuanced message).

Unfortunately, I do expect our death numbers to eventually surpass the Belgian count but this is another inaccuracy (out of many) that makes me question competence and objectivity of Independent Sage.

Of course, it is a statement of fact that the UK has been hit particularly hard in the second wave but that was the result of the new Kent variant. The mutation arose in the UK in September and, no, it was not because we “let the virus run wild” (again, quoting Independent Sage). Kent in September had very prevalence. The mutation still happened. We are now dealing with the consequences.