Another post about the covid coverup and poor sharing of information:
Jennifer Williams @JenWilliamsMEN
Re pillar 2, a reminder of what Greater Manchester found when its first data finally came through last wk
(After weeks of contradictory statements from the DHSC.) From poking about in the last couple of days: no, LAs don’t all yet have postcode level data but seems to be because not all of them have yet signed the data protection act (weren’t offered it until y’day in some cases)
They’re not allowed to publish the pillar 2 data they do have, which is at borough level. They’ve been told it must remain confidential. Not clear why, but best guess among those I’ve spoken to is that the data itself is still too rubbish
And apparently there are also 16,000 GM test results that are simply ‘missing’ from the early days of the programme
This article I wrote on June 9 gives an idea of how the govt’s comments on this issue moved around over the space of a month
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/greater-manchester-still-no-idea-18390111
(Fwiw the first time it implied councils already had the data was the day before the MHCLG published a blog aggressively denying our story on the ‘everyone in’ policy being wound up. I don’t have fond memories of that week.)
Finally: if I’d had a q at another Downing St presser, this is what I’d have asked about. The lack of Downing St pressers is a problem. The lack of data is a problem. The lack of competence is problem.
Off to make a brew now before starting another day of talking to baffled LAS
This is her article from today:
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/government-finally-releases-greater-manchester-18496597
Government finally releases Greater Manchester coronavirus data... and there are SIX TIMES more cases than local officials knew about
Andy Burnham called the numbers a 'warning sign', stressing there is still 'a large amount' of the virus still circulating here
Public health officials have finally received crucial local testing figures from government after nearly two months of pleading - and they reveal the number of cases here in the past week has been as six times higher than their own data suggested.
Since the start of May officials here have been begging government to release ‘pillar two’ testing data, the results of swabs carried out at drive-through stations and other facilities operated here by the private sector on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.
Without it, they only had access to ‘pillar one’ test numbers, those carried out directly by Greater Manchester councils and hospitals and processed in Public Health England labs.
That had left public health directors flying blind, unable to accurately gauge the virus’s spread in the community.
This week they finally received the missing data - and it shows nearly 400 more people had tested positive in the past week than their existing figures would have suggested.
In total there had been 78 new ‘pillar one’ cases, those the region already knew about, but once ‘pillar two’ tests were added in the real figure came to 465.
This is York:
www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/18552029.new-pillar-2-testing-data-reveals-york-twice-many-coronavirus-cases-reported/
New Pillar 2 testing data reveals York has had TWICE as many coronavirus cases as reported
This is in addition to the FT article. The following quote is from the FT article:
“For weeks we have been trying to get information about the level of testing in the city and the results of that testing in the city,” Peter Soulsby, mayor of Leicester, told the BBC on Tuesday.
According to published data for Leicester, the city recorded just 80 new positive tests between June 13-26. But health secretary Matt Hancock revealed that there were in fact 944 as he announced the decision to tighten the lockdown in Leicester, closing non-essential shops and ordering schools to shut to all non-key worker pupils by Thursday.
Now given all the accusations we had made towards China, this is poor.
Then we have this:
Fionna O'Leary @fascinatorfun
THIS Story by *@ShaunLintern* is going to make you mad
Rather than rapidly expand and support NHS labs with existing equipment, QA, information systems linked to GPs & PH they outsourced to companies with labs THAT HAD TO SET UP LABS FROM SCRATCH
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-lighthouse-lab-milton-keynes-samples-alderley-park-glasgow-a9589401.html
Inside the coronavirus mega-labs
Investigation: Workers inside the Covid-19 laboratories tell Shaun Lintern about the challenges of ramping up testing
A volunteer workforce of expert scientists, technicians and students were drafted in to help get the Lighthouse Laboratories up and running at the beginning of the UK lockdown. As the first tranche of staff arrived on site in Milton Keynes, the challenge became clear.
“The simple fact is the Milton Keynes site wasn’t a lab at all,” said one insider. “Most of the equipment we were using was donated and it all had to be set up quickly. All the tests failed in the beginning.”
Another added: “They spent the whole first week getting the process up and running and validating the tests with a hospital checking the work. It would have undoubtedly been a faster response mobilising existing labs.”
One said: “It was 200 unpaid people who knocked out the first 300,000 tests and essentially winging it in a very controlled and sensible way but when you talk about preparedness, that doesn’t strike me as being very prepared.”
The whole article is appalling and gets worse:
The Cheshire Lighthouse Lab is run by Medicines Discovery Catapult, described as a technology and medical innovation incubator funded by Innovate UK, an agency of the UK government. It also had little experience in running large-scale infectious disease testing.
Along with the third site in Glasgow, these labs have been operating without formal accreditation to confirm they meet the same standards followed by most UK laboratories.
Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, said: “When you set Lighthouse Labs up, running only with volunteers without registered staff, which are largely unaccredited, then I think that runs significant risks and that’s not a risk many other countries are prepared to take.
So the Guardian has TODAY seen fit to publish this article, with NO question after the above has become apparent:
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/coronavirus-uk-are-covid-19-cases-rising-or-falling-near-you?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1593593377
Coronavirus UK: are Covid-19 cases rising or falling near you?
If you look at it, it makes NO sense. Why? Look at Leicester. The number of cases there and the rise of cases is lower than many other places. Even accounting for cases per 100,000 it still doesn't appear to be significantly worse than other places. So why the local lockdown?
Why the fuck didn't the Guardian ask questions over this data?
Especially when they also published the following:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/30/some-leicester-factories-stayed-open-and-forced-staff-to-come-in
Some Leicester factories stayed open and forced staff to come in, report warns
Allegations come as city begins second lockdown after infection rates increase
The findings from Labour Behind the Label includes allegations that workers were forced to work despite high levels of infection in factories and allegations of “furlough fraud”.
and
The report came as it emerged that Public Health England had found evidence that young men between 20 and 40 who work in the city’s garment factories and food processing plants were major vectors of transmission.
It is understood that the body became so concerned about the surge in cases in Leicester that they sent a team of officials to the city at the weekend to investigate. Analysis of data collected by local health bodies shows that many of those infected recently have been young men aged 20 to 40, often from an Asian background, many of them working in textiles and food.
Leicester’s garment factories have been the subject of concern for years. A report by the parliamentary environmental audit committee last year found that wage exploitation was flourishing in the city and across the sector more broadly. MPs behind the report heard it was an “open secret” that many of the 1,000 or so factories and workshops in the city were paying below the minimum wage.
One unnamed worker quoted in the report said he had told his employer he was unwell but was told to come in to work anyway – even after testing positive. He was told not to tell any other workers about the result, the report said. In one factory with 80 staff, around 15 had Covid-19 at the same time, another worker told the authors.
Workers in a number of factories told the group that there had been no physical distancing measures in place and that their employers had closed only for a few days, if at all.
The Mail is also running a story in a similar vein:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8476065/Clothes-factory-bosses-Leicester-vow-defy-city-lockdown.html
Clothes factory bosses in Leicester vow to defy city lockdown because they cannot afford to lose any more money - even if it puts lives at risk
Dozens of small manufacturers have vowed to ignore the government lockdown
They claim they cannot close down again even it it means putting lives at risk
Council officials claim workers in the garment trade are at risk of Covid-19
Workers operate in cramped conditions with little access to proper PPE
Asim Ali, 34, manager of Fazia Fashion which is located in lockdown area said: ‘We haven’t had any guidance from the Government or local authority on if we should close or remain open.
‘But to be honest, we lost so much money during the first lockdown that we cannot afford to close. It would be a disaster for the company and our workers. So, we will remain open, regardless of what the authorities tell us.’
and
Mr Ali said: ‘Our workers are predominantly South Asian, and they know the risks they are taking because they are most at risk of catching coronavirus. But what can they do? They are not rich people and need this money to survive.’
He admitted that the company reopened before it was supposed to during the first lockdown, shutting down for only four weeks.
When you read about it, its striking how poverty features.
Also see the numbers on the Guardian article, for Anglesea when state there were 77 cases last week and 37 the week before. Yet we know there were 200 cases associated with the 2 Sisters meat factory alone.
The things that jump out to me:
- Outsourcing being a major issue.
- Lack of effective organisational planning.
- Deliberately not using the facilities we already have, which would have been better placed to identify cases early on.
- Lack of accreditation.
- Deliberately leaving local authorities in the dark.
- The role of poverty, and who is vulnerable to this. UK sweatshops where workers essentially have no rights.
- Lack of oversight from large companies who have turned a blind eye to work practices which are seriously dodgy.
- Newspapers who publish bullshit figures which have plainly been shown to be worse than useless rather than raging about how they are worse than useless because a headline 'are covid-19 cases near you rising or falling?' gets them more clicks.
- A couple failure to join the dots between stories in other newspapers and in the same newspaper. ESPECIALLY when its a supposedly left wing newspaper.
This is why there is a lack of faith and trust in politicians, scientists and journalists - particularly from those blue collar workers out there, who are seeing things through the lens of 'who is shitting on me' and who is complicit and enabling that shitting.
Its quite incredible that we have a story about exploitation of workers in the clothing industry - based in fucking Leicester - when thats what we associate with 3rd world countries not our own doorstep. Indeed no doubt some of these companies will be selling stuff on the basis that its not made in sweatshops in India or whereever.
This is where this country is at.
No fucking wonder we have had more deaths than anywhere else. No one bloody cares.
And we know this is going to get a hell of a lot worse.
To quote someone who gets it:
"Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes is not success, it is failure" Jacinda Ardern
And when I read people saying 'I'm bored of Covid-19 on this thread', I get even bloody angerier because they say it with no irony given the 'bored of Brexit' mantra won Johnson the election.
I'm sorry if you are bored of Covid-19 on this thread. The theme of this thread has been Brexit, but its always been about the underlying issues that lead to Brexit too - stuff about the weaknesses of local government and its relationship to central government (and how the EU has been blamed), the failures of the press, the loss of rights and how rights mean little to those at the bottom because they effectively don't have them and how we are sleepwalking slowly into an authoritarian regime which possibly isn't going to end up a whole lot better than China if we are not very careful.
shrugs
People only see what they WANT to see. They chose not to see what makes them uncomfortable or costs them money.