Dominic Cummings Covid evidence

[Newtonianmechanics]

Is anyone going to watch this man give evidence today?

Apparently there is a vigil in Barnard Castle ahead of this.

The shopping trolleys emoji seems to mean they think Carrie was controlling Boris from the last few days. Wonder if this will feature.

Prof Halpern alluding also to 'over confidence'.

Is anyone actually going to come out and say it about the reliance on white powder by certain people at the top? Will the inquiry go there?

Government message: 'it tells you to worry, but not what to do' - Halpern.

That would make this inquiry go off the scale 😁

Specifically which message was this? I heard the criticism but missed the slogan being discussed !

If anyone is a saddo like me, may I recommend watching the testimony from Module 1.

Module 1 focused on the pre-March pre planning part.
The main people who gave evidence are all the science people, like Chris Witty and Patrick Vallance.
It's super sciencey, but if want to know how the science community found out about covid and that sort of thing, it is interesting.

But more interesting is Matt Hancock gave his 1st bit of testimony in Module 1. As Secretary of State it was his job to make sure there were plans in place for all the different types of pandemics.
Spoiler Alert - Matt dues not come out well.
Biut he'll be back for Module 2 or 3 to answer more questions about the nursing homes.

You can see all the testimony from Module 1 and 2 on the Covid Inquiry YouTube channel.

I didn't pick up if it was a specific leaflet/message or govt messaging in general ... will have to try and re-wind later, unless anyone else caught it?

Thanks, @minou123 - interesting. And useful. I thought I didn't want to get drawn into this too much (shit memories) but I'm hooked now.

If your stomach can take it, watch Matt Hancocks evidence because it just adds even more to how unprepared the UK was.

But i will pre- warn you, he does do a little speech about how sad and deeply sorry he is for all the mistakes he made.
Its nauseating.
But then again, he'll be back in front of the inquiry soon, no doubt he'll repeat his little speech again.

Sky article if you can't watch

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-inquiry-uk-approach-to-planning-for-pandemics-was-completely-wrong-matt-hancock-says-12910328

But i will pre- warn you, he does do a little speech about how sad and deeply sorry he is for all the mistakes he made

Unsurprisingly that didn't go down well with the bereaved families

I find Hancock and everything about him ... upsetting. Not many people have that visceral effect on me, but he is one.

That doesn't surprise me.

The fact he tries to get in a "sorry" message during this inquiry was just wrong.
I didn't lose anyone during the pandemic, but even I thought his speech was truly inappropriate, so I can only imagine how families who lost loved ones feel about it.

Certainly currently and has been the case for the past 20 years, Classics isn't exactly the hardest course to secure a place on at Oxford.

Boris doesn't need such things, because he knows what a woman is.

I think then we agree that the government, particularly the cabinet office and No 10 should have spent January and February and to some extent March 2020 focussed on considering all the possible aspects of the coming crisis and not messing around going skiing, writing books and doing as newspaper owners told them?

You seem to write your own posts here, not any reflection of what I’m thinking.

As I said below, if you wanted harsher or longer restrictions then that’s a no from me.

https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1719751056584736980?t=TSOBopMZvbv0FxJQf9SCTQ&s=19

Dermot Keating, "You wrote: WE ARE NOT READY"

Dr David Halpern, "I did, in capital letters"

Keating, "And a No 10 colleague leaned over, crossed out your entry, and what was written instead?"

Halpern, "WE ARE F*CKED"

Keating, "Did that represent your concerns?"

Halpern, "In this meeting you're hearing evidence that the NHS is going to be overwhelmed, that we don't have testing ready.. I was shocked and depressed.. The overall sense was that we, the country, is not ready, for what is unfolding. And on people's faces in the room, there was some realisation of that" #CovidInquiry

I am pleased to be able to confirm that I do indeed write all my own posts.

I think I may have been confused. I thought you had said that one of the things we should learn was to consider the wider impacts of the response to covid and learn what could and really should have been done differently so they were reduced. For example ensuring that children remained in education. For that reason I suggest a series of ways based on the available evidence that, that could have been achieved.

@EasternStandard here is another good example of the kind of decisions that should have been taken in January and February 2020 to ensure that the UK was as well prepared for the forthcoming crisis as possible. If such decisions had been taken then the various effects would have been reduced.

Instead we were lead by someone called a trolley by staff he appointed and a Health Secretary who didn't know he wasn't supposed to employ his mistress and fumble with her in the office.

I am pleased to be able to confirm that I do indeed write all my own posts.

Better to stick to summarising your own thoughts not mine. Whenever you try you are far off.

You don't think that we should try and learn from the many and varied mistakes of the pandemic so that if a similar situation arose they should not be made again?

Again as paraphrasing auto play seems out of kilter.

I want harms v risk assessed and structure fixed so there is no loss of voice, eg for children or young people or other who faced harms.

If the damage from restrictions is fully represented in the inquiry then good.

The damage wasn't necessarily caused by the restrictions themselves, but by not thinking about and therefore mitigating how the restrictions would affect that particular group.

It a huge policy to shut down the economy and isolate people.

It’s wishful thinking that you can impose such damaging policy without impact.

Use it carefully, for the right risks.

I hope the inquiry is showing those ‘hidden harms’ as a pp mentioned, right across society. And put in people to argue on behalf of children, or mh or other

So you are for example supportive of the teaching unions who repeatedly pointed out the harms that were occuring to children and think that the government should have listened and responded to those concerns, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to crush unions like Thatcher and the miners?