Dominic C Covid evidence 2

[Newtonianmechanics]

New thread for if old fills up.

Dan Goyal aslo live tweeted McClean's evidence yesterday, he couldn't sit through Badenoch

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1727651498870346016.html

(I haven't watched the footage from yesterday so just looking for this kind of information,)

Thanks for those thread readers, @DuncinToffee.

I missed the evidence live. I do hope to watch live next week for a lot of it.

A new week in the world of Covid Inquiry.
Should be an interesting one, lots of politicuans
Gove tomorrow
Javid and Raab on Wednesday
Hancock on Thursday

It's 'Mayor Day' today.
Not sure if they'll bring anything new, but iirc Andy Burnham isn't shy in giving his opinion.

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London on currently.

The KC has asked Khan to slow down! He is rattling out his answers.

Mind you, it's a packed agenda today - Khan, Burnham and also Steve Rotherham - so I think Khan is trying to move things along 'at pace' to be helpful.

KC seems to be unpicking if and how Sadiq Khan seemed to have a better understanding of the novel virus transmission risk in Feb/early March 2020 than Downing Street. Also his exclusion from Cobra on 9th March. Was London more at risk than, say, Manchester because of airports, travellers, tourists etc. Khan thinks all the metro mayors could have been at that meeting, rather than excluding him because Burnham wasn't invited.

(Or Khan could have represented them??)

Khan saying only Chris Whitty seemed prepared to brief him and give him information (at Khan's request, on 11th March) and then he, Khan, was finally invited to Cobra on 16th March to be told how shit every was in London including ICU capacity.

Baroness Hallett asks what Khan might have done over that previous week had he known this earlier, given he had limited powers. Khan says if he'd known earlier he might have been able to lobby the PM for specific actions around eg ?public transport that would slow down the rate of transmission in London.

(Sorry he talking very quickly again. He also swallows some words and consonants and the sub-titles are crap.)

Trying to catch up a bit in my break

Khan
We had a massive advantage as a country, which is that the pandemic was happening elsewhere. We could see what was working elsewhere, and what wasn't working. And it seemed to me that that advantage wasn't being used.. I'd spoken to leaders of other cities around the world to see what actions they had taken, and we were an outlier"

This was a response about him requesting a meeting with Johnson on 19th March re lockdown

On equalities / unequal impact of pandemic. 'We're all in the same storm but we have different size boats' [or similar].

Baroness Hallett doesn't want it getting too political.

By 22nd April 2020, Khan had commissioned a report on this from his own health adviser. He clearly feels that he was being kept out of the loop by Downing Street and that that cost lives.

The barrister for Covid Bereaved Northern Ireland been given permission to ask Khan about his work and concerns, from early on, relating to the importance of gathering 'ethnic data' and understanding the effects of structural inequalities/racism.

Boris Johnson was "not aware" that other countries had imposed lockdowns in March 2020, Khan tells the hearing.

Khan's twice said, 'poor process, poor judgement, poor decision making'

Echos from last week

As well as Khan saying

Lockdown two may not have even been needed had the government taken the advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) [and] the lobbying from me...

Andy Burnham being sworn in.

This sort of remark blows my mind!

Domestic abuse in Greater Manchester a known issue - Burnham says that Manchester relayed concerns to government about concerns regarding the effects of lockdown on 'people in abusive relationships'.

[I do hope Burnham is able to say 'women' when it matters]

In his written statement, Burnham said that he first became aware of Covid through media reports and through engagement with the Chinese community in Manchester.

He tells the inquiry that Manchester has a longstanding twinning arrangement with Wuhan, in China, where Covid was first identified, and so some of the familial connections Chinese families in Manchester had were with that very area.
^^
The community was in a state of high alarm, Burnham says, and people asked him for help in getting PPE through airports.

Andy Burnham is very cross.

He is currently explaining how he tried to get the Covid data for Manchester, but was blocked by the test and Trace company and the government.

He had to show them.the law where they had to share the data.

Now talking about the bizarre rule in 2021 to stop Scottish and Manchester going on holiday to each others areas.
There was no enforcement. No consultation. He only found out about it on a BBC interview

Via BBC's Jim Reed

Andy Burnham reacted angrily just then when asked about community testing for Covid in Greater Manchester.

On 18 March 2020, he said there was a "significant moment" when he was informed that testing in the region, then run by local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) was being stood down.

GGCs were local NHS bodies responsible for the planning and commissioning of health care services for their area.

Instead Burnham said he was told testing was going to be centralised and run at a site near Manchester airport.

"That location was chosen without any consultation with us," he added.
He said using the airport "might have made sense" to someone sitting in Downing Street but residents couldn't easily access it if they lived in places like Oldham or Rochdale.
"I mean, fancy opening a testing station in Greater Manchester without asking us about the location," he said.

Andy Burnham is on fire

"There is no way a borough in London would gave been treated the way Bolton was".

This is quite eye opening.
I dont live in North West, I'm in the North East, biut it was crazy what was going on.

Restrictions imposed on Manchester that Govt (incl Hancock) knew wouldn't work 'were a punishment beating' for Manchester - Burnham

He really is.

I retract my earlier statement - Andy Burnham isn't shy in giving his opinion. - I think that was a bit of an understatement.

He is fucking furious.

Boris Johnson in a phone call about 'tiers' unaware and clueless about the longevity and severity of the restrictions that Gtr Manchester were under for so long - Burnham [me paraphrasing]

I said at the time that what they were imposing in the North was a form of punishment