Cummings evidence today

[Dirtystreetpie]

Anyone listening?

Golden I think you are mixing up the integrity of the CCP (which has none) and individual Chinese scientists and doctors who have at some personal sacrifice (including their own lives ) been transparent, not just about this pandemic. Over years scientist in the U.K. and Australia have worked closely with the Wuhan lab, there have been visits to and from there. The Wuhan Scientist is not a CCP bot, she is a scientist on the world stage working with others. She shared her research and there wasn’t any mystery cironaviruses lurking in her fridge . When the networks started buzzing back in December and Taiwan took notice it was because those same networks exposed the SARS outbreak too.

Did you watch that clip Janiie Jones? Lives could have been saved if someone of Stewart's calibre had been PM rather than the populist Johnson.

[quote HarrietPierce]At least Rory Stewart talks sense. He would have been a far better PM than Johnson.

twitter.com/WritesBright/status/1270841263634481159[/quote]
Yes.

Going back in time with missed opportunities, David Davis would have been better than David Cameron, and Alan Johnson would have been better than the Milibands or Corbyn.

I am not a Tory but at least I can recognise intelligence and integrity when I see it.

the Crick Institute which, funded by Cancer Research U.K. was providing thousands of tests a day in March 2020

Not thousands of tests a day in March -

2nd April 2020

The Institute estimates that by early next week, scientists should have the capacity to be conducting around 500 tests a day or 3000 a week. In the longer term, researchers are aiming for 2000 a day.

www.crick.ac.uk/news/2020-04-02_francis-crick-institute-and-uclh-develop-covid-19-testing-service-for-patients-and-nhs-staff

The Wuhan Scientist is not a CCP bot, she is a scientist on the world stage working with others. She shared her research and there wasn’t any mystery cironaviruses lurking in her fridge

I’m not saying she personally is a CCP bot or a mendacious liar, I’m saying that in an environment like China’s it isn’t always up to an individual scientist how much they want to share about these things.

Starmer would not have sidelined all the public sector expertise in testing track and tracing, and thrown money at someone in the private sector who had no experience or competency and predictably produced too little too late.

Yes, I've been wondering whether Cummings mentioned the complete cock-up that was his actual area of responsibility: viz loading gigantic wadges of our personal data into Palantir's surveillance software (on the premise of it being for the greater good) for a high-tech track and trace system which hasn't really worked, and which diverted effort from on-the-ground local tracing systems by public health professionals

I can't bring myself to waste 7 hours of my life on this dead-cat-throwing slimebag. Can anyone who did dip in tell me whether his speshul oh-so-clever tech got dealt with? Or skimmed over?

@HarrietPierce

I am not a Tory but at least I can recognise intelligence and integrity when I see it.

Integrity in particular is something too often in short supply in parliament, on all sides sadly.

Now, Johnny Mercer. He's a rare example of a truly principled MP with integrity.

@PerkingFaintly

Don't you? I remember Blunkett resigning because because he'd had an affair (I think he was single but the woman was married).

Seems kinda quaint now.

Yep. Robin Cook did too - it intrigued me that anyone could even think about sleeping with him.

It is quite clear and on record that Starmer would have locked down earlier in March

And here?

14 December 2020

Starmer urges leaders to try to keep schools open as [Sadiq] Khan backs early closure.

www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2020/12/14/starmer-urges-leaders-to-try-to-keep-schools-open-as-khan-backs-early-closure/

Starmer would not ... have thrown money at someone in the private sector who had no experience

So, he would not have appointed venture capitalist, Kate Bingham (who had no public health experience), to lead Britain's vaccine task force either?

Janie There is a pandemic playbook, much of it actually written in the U.K. as well as refined by the experience of SARS. It was put into play by lots of countries with different regimes, cultures, geography and populations not just teensy weensy New Zealand with the result of less deaths and economic damage. Taiwan, South Korea (who that intellectual powerhouse Andrea Loathsome was very fond of quoting as an exact comparator for the U.K. post Brexit) Hong Kong etc etc. What ever the effectiveness with which it was implemented elsewhere it was only Boris, Trump and The Brazilian leader who had such a deep aversion to playing by that book.

At least Rory Stewart talks sense. He would have been a far better PM than Johnson.

Did you watch all of the video in the link? Rory Stewart advocates using the police and the military to enforce self-isolation. He also says; "I honestly believe there is no reason why what they've done in South Korea we could not do here."

Fair enough - let's copy South Korea next time;

"South Korea is also enforcing a law that grants the government wide authority to access data: CCTV footage, GPS tracking data from phones and cars, credit card transactions, immigration entry information, and other personal details of people confirmed to have an infectious disease."

"it was only Boris, Trump and The Brazilian leader who had such a deep aversion to playing by that book."

All populists.

@Clavinova

At least Rory Stewart talks sense. He would have been a far better PM than Johnson.

Did you watch all of the video in the link? Rory Stewart advocates using the police and the military to enforce self-isolation. He also says; "I honestly believe there is no reason why what they've done in South Korea we could not do here."

Fair enough - let's copy South Korea next time;

"South Korea is also enforcing a law that grants the government wide authority to access data: CCTV footage, GPS tracking data from phones and cars, credit card transactions, immigration entry information, and other personal details of people confirmed to have an infectious disease."

Our government can track data too if they want. And if you're on Mumsnet or use Google or Apple or Samsung or any other major technology, your data is also held by private less accountable than public organisations...

Yes Rory Stewart very sensibly wanted to take the same proactive preventative action taken by Australia, New Zealand, East Asia, and many African countries to save the economy, lives, and long term physical and mental health.

We are up against a contagious virus, not a human and needed to act accordingly.

October 2020

South Korea police set up 'bus walls' to prevent protests amid COVID-19 concerns.

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea-idUSKBN26O0DJ

There is a pandemic playbook, much of it actually written in the U.K. as well as refined by the experience of SARS. It was put into play by lots of countries with different regimes, cultures, geography and populations not just teensy weensy New Zealand

It’s not that simple. There were different plans. UK’s and many other countries was based on mitigating a pandemic flu. Other countries approached it like they had SARS from the start.

The idea of strict local/national lockdowns like in Wuhan and wider areas in China was controversial at the time (didn’t the WHO view it with suspicion?) and it wasn’t a straightforward global plan that obviously you do this if there’s a pandemic.

Teensy weensy New Zealand locked down in late March, the same as the UK.

"Teensy weensy New Zealand locked down in late March, the same as the UK."

Yes, but they shut their international borders on 19 th March.

@HarrietPierce

"it was only Boris, Trump and The Brazilian leader who had such a deep aversion to playing by that book."

All populists.

Except that they're not. At least Boris isn't. I can't speak for the other two as I don't feel I know enough to say.

Border control was and remains popular
Boris refused to do it.

Indeed most pandemic containment measures were/are consistently popular in polls but ignored by the UK government (I think the general public has the common sense to realise the Australian/New Zealand/East Asia approach was the way back to more normality).

So actually I don't believe Boris is a populist. Certainly not in terms of implementing popular policy.

I don't remember Keir Starmer suggesting we track credit card transactions, stop protests from taking place with bus walls or use the military to enforce self-isolation.

I really see the appeal of this idea that there was an obvious, simple way out of this, an obvious, simple way to prevent all the deaths, and if only the Tories weren’t such a lying bunch of incompetents they’d have simply ‘followed the science’ and done it.

It’s true that the government could have done a lot more to save more lives. Its true that the Cabinet is made up of lying incompetents. But it’s also true that SAGE were advising for mitigation and against lockdowns, and that the virus was already well established here by the time we saw what it was doing in Italy.

@GoldenOmber

I really see the appeal of this idea that there was an obvious, simple way out of this, an obvious, simple way to prevent all the deaths, and if only the Tories weren’t such a lying bunch of incompetents they’d have simply ‘followed the science’ and done it.

It’s true that the government could have done a lot more to save more lives. Its true that the Cabinet is made up of lying incompetents. But it’s also true that SAGE were advising for mitigation and against lockdowns, and that the virus was already well established here by the time we saw what it was doing in Italy.

Someone linked to Feb SAGE minutes and yes to this.

It still said public events / no masks for general public and not border closure

It shows the difference timing makes to when you are early on on the curve - re NZ

Golden I lived through SARS in Hong Kong and whilst they were at sea in the first two weeks the government quickly learned from their mistakes and implemented all those elements of the leaky sieve that are infection control measures. It was a pragmatic learning process and you felt safeguarded. As Cummings has highlighted here ideology got in the way. All along it has been obvious what needed to happen, from experiencing Covid raging through my communities in Feb /March 2020 and my OT friend saying they were sending people into care homes untested and she was dreading the inevitable for the patients in her care on I have constantly felt that my life was put at risk because Boris had some aversion to doing the bleeding obvious to save lives.

@HarrietPierce

"Teensy weensy New Zealand locked down in late March, the same as the UK."

Yes, but they shut their international borders on 19 th March.

Yes. Although actually New Zealand is not 'teeny tiny' at all. It's a fairly large land mass but it's not over populated.

Doing the same as New Zealand, are not teeny tiny Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam. Many African countries too.

Right now Taiwan is dealing with a small outbreak....

The total death toll is rising to nearly...100. That's for the whole country since the start of the pandemic.

Their small rise is considered an emergency enough to immediately take further containment measures. Likewise Melbourne in Australia. Around 4 cases and immediate action to contain. Which means they will open up again as fast as they shut down.

Hard and fast. That's how you deal with a pandemic - and, as those countries have shown, it's how you protect the economy.

Yeah, and it’s obvious now in retrospect that we could have saved a lot of lives by locking down earlier in March, but the virus was already here in January. To have locked down early enough on the curve to have avoided almost all the deaths we’d have had to do it before even Wuhan did. Was that ever really plausible? I don’t think so, no matter who was in government.

I do wonder what’s going to happen in the future, next time there’s an outbreak of something worrying somewhere in the world. Will there be a call for a national lockdown here just in case? Or are we all going to watch the news through our fingers dreading it happening again, every single time something a bit worrying gets reported?

Johnson "Get Brexit done"

Populism suggests nationalistic answers to political, economic, and social problems.