Am I the only one?

[thrumylookingglass]

I have been reading with interest all the threads on this board. Am I the only who cannot believe the tone, content and the sheer catastrophe thinking about this issue? Reading threads about stockpiling and falling out with family and friends over this strikes me as strange. Historically, there a many, many more events that have had a humanitarian impact on the world ... Brexit is not one of these! There may, or may not, be an economic impact of Brexit, but will people die? Get killed? Be oppressed? There needs to be some perspective here.

I think your aunts role during or after a nuclear strike would be obsolete.

Do you remember the Protect and Survive leaflets that the Government sent us? We were supposed to hide under stairwells, and or take doors off and hide behind those, from what I remember.

I have such a leaflet (of course I do ). There's a whole "hide under the stairs" thing.

A married couple I was friends with were both GPs - so they had some extra role, and it was expected that if they survived, as a couple they would be er able to help repopulate the country.

"I won’t say where DB works however he has been involved in planning locations for mass grave sites."

😂 Of course he has

jajas .

Yes.

We had worked that out at the time.

Posters ridiculing the preparation of mass grave sites, do you think government shouldn't have arrangements like this in place? Setting Brexit aside, did BSE teach you nothing? What if we has a flu pandemic like Spanish flu again? Civil unrest over Brexit (whichever way it goes) seems very likely, government seems to think so as well.

My dad was Very Important in major emergency planning in the 80s (he once got hauled in & spoken to by someone Even More Important because I'd visited him in his office festooned with CND badges. I was 14 at the time ).

Mass graves & where to put them were definitely part of his remit, & not just in the event of nuclear war - when yep, in practice would have been the least of anyone's priorities in reality - all sorts of contingencies.

Of course someone somewhere is thinking about this through the lens of any possible severe upheaval.

That doesn't mean Brexit is likely to cause unmanageable by normal practice levels of fatalities, it just means that it's something any competent government has someone somewhere planning for it as a possibility.

A potential combination of severe food shortages, civil unrest & an NHS that is already groaning & then gets walloped with additional funding crises AND drug shortages? Yeah, that could do it. Needs planned for.

Totally believable, unremarkable & not scaremongering; standard planning for a worst case scenario.

Of course there’s a huge amount of planning by civil servants going on behind the scenes. Very lotto do with government mind. We’ve a lot of our staff seconded our to DH at the moment planning for drug shortages, hospital crisis staffing, major disease outbreaks and infrastructure breakdown.

Isn't it perfectly normal for government to have contingency plans. Usually ones we don't know about.
My office has plans for keeping going if we get struck by fire, flood, terrorism, pandemic etc, that sort of thing. Doesn't mean we expect them, just that we have a few plans to deal if we do. Isn't it just normal responsible government?

bellinisurge a degree of contingency planning is normal. Having to second about a quarter of my staff to emergency planning and now being asked for more is not.

@CherryPavlova , I totally get it. My post was to those people who think nothing like that ever goes on and are whining about scaremongering and Project Fear.

I actually think it is immoral, what is being asked if you CherryPavlova. Putting ourselves on a war footing when the situation is entirely of our own making. If these kinds of contingencies are required, then it is madness and it is immoral of our government to continue when it is entirely in their power to put an end to it

Mass graves could also be for animals? That's also a risk to water supply.

The Sunday Times leak discusses the supply of veterinary medicines: basically, we are totally unprepared - less prepared than we were in March. An outbreak of animal disease could in those circumstances reasonably be expected to result in widespread slaughter and the need for mass burials?

Add in a flu pandemic - and a shortage of flu vaccines due to Brexit - and you could be looking at 100s of thousands of extra deaths.

Add in a flu pandemic - and a shortage of flu vaccines due to Brexit - and you could be looking at 100s of thousands of extra deaths.

March 2019 "France’s Sanofi has said it may fly supplies of flu vaccine into the UK if Brexit causes travel disruption after the country leaves the EU."

"Hugo Fry, the managing director of its UK arm, told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Wake Up To Money programme that the vaccine cannot be stockpiled."

"Fry reassured listeners that the day after Brexit, patients will be able to access all drugs that it has been possible to stockpile."

"Fry noted that patients are Sanofi’s main concern despite the extra expense of using airlifts to get the vaccine over to UK patients."

"He said: “We prepare in different ways and have prepared many different routes into the UK."

“If we have to in the end, we will airlift it in."

“We are eating the cost of that but patients and citizens are our primary concern, so we’re quite happy to take that cost and make that planning.”

"Last August Sanofi said it was increasing stocks by four weeks to give it a 14-week medicine supply."

"Mr Fry added: “We’re doing everything possible to make sure that everyone will get their medicines and vaccines so that they can be reassured and they don’t have to worry about it.”

pharmaphorum.com/news/sanofi-may-airlift-medicines-into-uk-after-brexit/

Oranginna
I was in a rush yesterday - thank you - I am one of life's optimists!

Not reassuring at all clavinova, but thanks for trying. If these are the sorts of provisions required, then the only moral way to proceed is to cancel brexit. We should not be putting ourselves knowingly in a position of requiring these measures. Completely immoral and irresponsible

Brexit means Airlifts..... how reassuring.

Of course a flu pandemic wouldn't just affect the UK, France would look after its own first, supply other EU countries then and only then the UK and others.

the only moral way to proceed is to cancel brexit.

I think you mean that the only moral way to proceed is to sign the WA??

Brexit means Airlifts..... how reassuring.
Last resort - “If we have to in the end, we will airlift it in."

The huge irony is that all those right-wingers who believe that those on benefits or otherwise in unfortunate circumstances have brought it upon themselves and shouldn’t be entitled to help, are totally ok with the idea that other countries have some sort of duty of care towards us and that we are entitled to aid and airlifts etc when we have brought the disaster completely upon ourselves

I would be relieved if the WA were signed instead of no deal. Is the WA still an option then? I’m so pleased if brexiteers have come round to it instead of no dealing, after all it’s their refusal to agree to the WA that has stopped brexit happening already.

If the politicians can’t see that the right thing to do is to revoke A50, they need a huge wake up all. Why would anyone do something which will destroy the country economically, politically and morally?

Clavinova You’ve not read the Sunday Times today then?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49385263

Or the 2004 flu pandemic planning documents either - it was in the Torygraph so one of your favourite sources?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1570166/Mass-graves-included-in-flu-pandemic-plan.html

Sadly i suspect the only wake up call would be for them to suffer financially personally from it, and those who are pro brexit have already benefited hugely financially. Such a shame that they have managed to persuade vast swathes of the population to support the increase of these particular politicians’ own personal bank balances