Westminstenders: Following the EU lead

[RedToothBrush]

Coronavirus poses a particularly Irish shaped question. How the UK responds to Irish plans for ending lockdown and whether Arlene continues to back an all Ireland plan will be fascinating to watch and see justified regardless of which way we go.

The UK for all its new found independence is looking very closely to the success / failure of EU strategies before making our own plan public. Mainly because we've yet to write one.

Johnson hasn't led much. He's delegated. Yet he gets all the praise for doing the sum total of fuck all and never being the bad guy. There always another fall guy to blame.

Economically we are stuffed and promises of a very quick bounce back don't look likely based on public confidence and willingness to return to places like pubs restaurants and shops.

Our ability to adapt to new conditions at short notice has been tested and businesses can not afford to do this again soon.

This is the background to which we go into talks. Both sides need an extension to serve their best interests. Johnson is determined to cut our nose of to spite our face for the sake of his legacy and to keep those paying the back handers and dodging tax happy.

It's hardly hypothetical, DGR. Right now it's the one of the only real ideas the gov has for emulating the contact tracing, so if people aren't using it than it will fail, and our attempts to ease lockdown will fail.

I am interested in combing through the security questions because it sounds like the IoW is a pilot, and there may be changes before it rolls out futher depending on what kinds of questions are asked in the media and by other gov agencies, the law, etc. Sorry if you find that all terribly boring.

I don’t fully understand the implications of the app, but I am (naturally) a bit sceptical. There are suggestions that it’d have been possible to do the tracking and tracking locally via councils rather than through a profit-making company.

Snubbing local expertise in favour of private Covid-19 tracing is a disaster

Not only are councils naturally placed to respond quickly to the distinct needs, challenges and infection rates of their own area, but they are equipped with their own teams of public health professionals. All they need is the permission – and resources – from Westminster.
It would seem an obvious fit. Instead, in a pattern that is becoming all too familiar, the government has opted to centralise and outsource. Testing will sit with the Department for Health and Social Care, and the tracking of the virus’ spread will be in the hands of two private call centre operators.
It is a dangerous dismissal of the expertise and dedication already in place at local level, at the time we need it most.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/05/private-covid-19-tracing-disaster-councils?__twitter_impression=true

It's hardly hypothetical, DGR. Right now it's the one of the only real ideas the gov has for emulating the contact tracing, so if people aren't using it than it will fail, and our attempts to ease lockdown will fail.

To me it's hypothetical, and I suspect it will be for the entire population. Quite aside from serious questions over the final resting place of all the data, is the simple fact that the UK governments track record on IT simply doesn't support the claim this is going to work in any way shape or form. This thread has enough posters who understand "due diligence" to agree with me that the UK government simply doesn't pass due diligence - they only way it can is to actually legislate it into existence, and to legislate away it's liabilities.

If you wanted to restart the economy and you were serious about it, you wouldn't be pissing around with an "app". So I conclude the government isn't serious. And given the government is headed by a PM who upon saying "Fuck business" in public was publicly rebuked by no-one, and subsequently elected, then the electorate is clearly behind that too. And I give not a shit about "pulling together" and all that bollocks. A lot of the people grumbling right now that the government isn't caring about the economy are the same people who last December had to be physically restrained at the polling station as they stampeded to Back Boris.

Well, this is what Backing Boris looks like.

The app has to function hand in hand with testing, otherwise it is a pointless exercise.
It has been seen to work in other countries, where there is a large publicly engaged testing regime.
Both are crucial to come out of lockdown without incurring an increase in transmission.
The more people engaged, the better it works.

It only works when phone isn't locked?! I don't use my phone when I'm out and about, I'm more interested in getting home as quickly as possible. So although I have it on me, it's locked and in my pocket.

It has been seen to work in other countries, where there is a large publicly engaged testing regime.

You write that aware that the UKs testing rate could only be lower if charged patients for it ?

Oh, Handcock is hanging Ferguson out to dry on Sky, isnt he?

'Mr, I mean Professor, Ferguson... I mean, I'm speechless... a matter for the Police... we've acted on HIS science...' etc etc

Oh, Handcock is hanging Ferguson out to dry on Sky, isnt he?

Handy, having the security services on call isn't it.

Ferguson, sadly, seems a Bit Dim. Oh well.

I'm starting to think that Cabinet meetings must be a bit like conversations down the pub where someone says their flush is leaking and their pished mate goes, "Oh, I've got a mate who once sold fleecy toilet seat covers. He'll fix your flush for you, no problems."

Only the stakes are a little higher here.

It only works when phone isn't locked?! I don't use my phone when I'm out and about, I'm more interested in getting home as quickly as possible. So although I have it on me, it's locked and in my pocket.

www.theverge.com/2020/5/5/21248288/uk-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-bluetooth-restrictions-apple-google

...
The problem is that both Google and Apple restrict how apps can use Bluetooth in iOS and Android. They don’t allow developers to constantly broadcast Bluetooth signals, as that sort of background broadcast has been exploited in the past for targeted advertising. As The Register reports, iOS apps can only send Bluetooth signals when the app is running in the foreground. If your iPhone is locked or you’re not looking at the app, then there’s no signal. The latest versions of Android have similar restrictions, only allowing Bluetooth signals to be sent out for a few minutes after an app has closed. Such restrictions will block devices from pinging one another in close quarters, drastically reducing the effectiveness of any contact-tracing app.
(contd)
...

going to the horses mouth

developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/bluetooth-le

I still think Taiwan's system of using GPS was better

• because it is simple and actually worked for them, combined with other measures

It's hardly hypothetical, DGR. Right now it's the one of the only real ideas the gov has for emulating the contact tracing, so if people aren't using it than it will fail, and our attempts to ease lockdown will fail

Didn’t you mean, right now the government is finally tardily adopting an idea that they had in Asia and implemented in January, just like the testing, contact tracing and quarantine it supports. Of course as with testing they are ignoring the ways in which the idea was implemented effectively there, such as using the labs in universities and research institutes to build up testing capacity, and existing public health processes developed as a result of the experience of SARS, in favour of linking up with commercial partners with little experience and then it going predictably slowly to not at all, and then fudging the figures to make it look as though they had this idea and implemented it brilliantly.

There fixed it for you

Here you go, the governments only real idea implemented and lessons learned about the limitations months ago www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2020/4/18/21224178/covid-19-tech-tracking-phones-china-singapore-taiwan-korea-google-apple-contact-tracing-digital.

Right now it's the one of the only real ideas the gov has for emulating the contact tracing, so if people aren't using it than it will fail, and our attempts to ease lockdown will fail

If it genuinely is the only real idea these jet powered bell ends have had in 3 fucking months then we are rightly - and deservedly - fucked. We may have had some people worth saving. We may have had some people that didn't deserve to die. With this shower in charged we will never know. But a country that has only this shower of shits to show after three fucking months probably deserves to be exactly where it is. Proudly leading the world in deaths. In fact it makes me perversely proud to be British to think how hard the whole country must have worked at achieving that figure. Truly it is awesome what the British can do when we put our minds and lives to it.

If we are really lucky, maybe we can get that number of deaths to exceed the victims of the Blitz before tomorrow. And for goodness sakes, if it is a hollow victory, can we not celebrate that it is at least a victory rather than running ourselves down.

I know where my bunting is going tomorrow.

Starmer just swatted Johnson: - Why are the deaths so high compared to other countries? - Mr Speaker, we do not make international comparisons. - Don't we? Well what's this slide I just happen to have here that we see literally every day?

Just had a letter inviting me to take part in random covid screening from DoH, Imperial, NHS and Ipsos. Apparently they'll send me a kit.

Having lived through the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong I get so frustrated that so many lessons learned even back then about simple steps you can take to control the pandemic have been and are being ignored here, things like taking your temperature and not going out if it is over 37, and having temperature monitors outside supermarkets, restaurants, in airports etc. The latter actually stayed in place in many Asian countries because another pandemic was regarded as inevitable and it was the first line of defence, they did not even have to implement this time around.

Is it cock up or ideology?

Either way it is the result of a big dose of exceptionalism and hubris. It is like some terrible nightmare playing out..... Being at risk of dying of a horrible disease I can handle, being at risk of dying of a horrible disease as a result of a government that ignores all the lessons learned in the rest of the world whilst pandering to a cult of exceptionalism and hubris is quite another thing

Hong Kong 8 deaths in a city of 7.4m people. Singapore 18 deaths in a city of 5.6m (and a particular issue with migrant workers coming into dormitories). South Korea 273 deaths in a country of 51m (and a particular issue with evangelicals spreading this “gift from god” willfully) .......

Yep. Any mandatory mask wearing outside

These are measures that are fairly cheap & simple
and would allow the economy to mostly continue

and

What happens if I get Covid symptoms in the U.K.? I ring 111 and speak to someone working off a script who does not mobilise medical help / testing unless I can’t get a sentence out. I could die in my bed if I get silent hypoxia.

What would happen if I still lived in Hong Kong? I would ring up and request a test, people in full PPE turn up within an hour (mostly). If positive, even if assymptomatic I go straight to a special negative pressure Covid ward in a hospital where my vital signs are checked four times a day, I am tested daily and not allowed to leave until I have had two negative tests. For some people this has taken a month. All my contacts are traced and arrangements made for them to go to quarantine in a holiday camp (where my daughter went for her Year 3 camp) or new housing block where their temperature is taken four times. After 14 days they are allowed to leave providing they test negative. It is pretty basic and supplies of Sriracha are essential but nobody complains because it is keeping Hong Kong safe. Any deterioration and I am moved to another ward for active treatment. Thats how you keep the death rate down www.scmp.com/video/coronavirus/3083125/coronavirus-what-happens-inside-hong-kong-covid-19-ward

Either way it is the result of a big dose of exceptionalism and hubris. It is like some terrible nightmare playing out..... Being at risk of dying of a horrible disease I can handle, being at risk of dying of a horrible disease as a result of a government that ignores all the lessons learned in the rest of the world whilst pandering to a cult of exceptionalism and hubris is quite another thing

YES, absolutely this. Fuckers.

Re Ferguson
DH and I were talking about it last night ..... did a neighbor dob him in- knowing his girlfriends name, marital status etc? As if paparazzi were about surely he wouldn't have organised for her to come around.....

Or - given the story was broken in the telegraph- was this a story leaked , to discredit him and therefore his science.

Which given Hancock's performance on sky, which really does fit nicely. Never mind we have a PM whose girLfriend was very clearly pregnant at the election - well before probably, and didn't follow the advice the rest of the nation took and got sick - is rather one rule for one.....

They really are a shower if shits

And I would add that the public health system in Hong Kong is if anything less well funded and under more strain than the NHS. However providing this level of care for a controlled epidemic is surely cheaper than letting it run rampage and only avoid being totally overwhelmed by only admitting patients that are already dying....

Ferguson will have been under surveillance by the security services.

I see Boris is promising us "200,000 tests a day by the end of May" which admittedly has a slightly more hummable ring to it.

Clavinova will be along in 3..2..1.. to explain why we can believe this, and why we are really running at the promised 100,000 tests/day in an alternate reality.

Just had a letter inviting me to take part in random covid screening from DoH, Imperial, NHS and Ipsos. Apparently they'll send me a kit.

Will you get the result? Even if negative? The cynic in me says that this gov will send you a test - with or without a return label. But even if you can return it they won't have lab capacity to process it in a timely way.

It will be a test 'done' on the way to Johnson's 200k a day (or was that 250k a day) that never yields a result or, if it does, it won't be timely enough to be useful.