Dominic C Covid evidence 2

[Newtonianmechanics]

New thread for if old fills up.

Prime Candidate to be next Tory PM in about 2034.

Morning all. Supposed to be Harries (cont.), Javid and Raab today.

Streaming just started.

Another Dan Goyal twitter thread

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1729617250376733152.html

Today we have Harries, Javid and Raab

Inquiry KC taking Harries through an early stage email from Harries that highlights her concerns about having community structures in place that would help to protect vulnerable people (i.e. those in need of safeguarding, and those at risk of domestic violence) - and asking who was actually doing what, given that risks to these people could be considerably greater than catching coronavirus.

Harries is unsure what the actual responses to this were.

And notes that it would be an immediate risk to (esp) women and children, not a gradually building one.

[Seems like a theme of the inquiry that this area wasn't given sufficient attention at the beginning of the pandemic]

They keep saying that the domestic abuse topic was raised but that was it.

It just didn't feature

Care homes - email on 16th March 2020 - she accepts they will need to accept a policy that discharges covid-19 positive patients back into care homes.

She expected hospitals to 'do their best' and care homes to put in infection controls. She says her thinking was that this would be the only way, unpalatable as it was, to have the capacity in hospitals to accept new patients. Harries says this was her trying to issue a warning about pandemic and exponential cases, not pushing a policy.

Back and forth about 'covid positive' and 'symptomatic'.

Yes, Care Homes were thrown under the bus, 'here are some guidelines but it is basically up to you'

[I closed my eyes as Harries's voice reminded me of someone, and when she said 'food factories' I realised that it's Victoria Wood. This is now messing with my head as Harries continues down her rabbit hole of 'explanations'.]

Pointing out now the shortage of care workers, low pay, lack of sick pay and that this the occupational group at greatest risk

Harries just deflects

Surely discharching positive patients to care homes just creates more patients who need to go into hospital as the virus is spread to them?
Or are we not allowed to apply logic?

What baffles me with Gove and other Ministers evidence is their complete lack of curiosity as to what was going on. I like to know stuff. It seems that they actively avoid knowing stuff as though information and evidence scares them.

Screenshots attached

https://x.com/BestForBritain/status/1729807183779406050?s=20

This exchange on releasing older symptomatic people from hospitals into care homes does not make (then Chief Medical Officer, now Chief Exec of UK HSA) Professor Jenny Harries look good.

Especially the bit that families won't like it, but they'll get used to it

Talking about masks now, homemade 1 and 2 layer ones were basically useless and gave people a false sense of securtity

But government was releasing instructions how to make them anyway

Just to add, these were masks worn by care workers

Did she say that that was in relation to how far away people stood from each other? I was distracted. That there wasn't the evidence for reducing social distancing from 2m to 1m and making up for the 1m by wearing a mask?

Trouble is, she talks a lot about 'not enough evidence for' things, rather than what she thought they actually had the evidence for.

Also, in the real world, people were not able socially distance 2m at work and on public transport as we heard from her colleagues. A lot of workers in food production, warehouses and care homes, for example.

I don't think she mentioned social distancing, I missed bits too. Hallett interuppted as well but I didn't catch what she said either

FEMHO KC Leslie Thomas up now. Harries seems very uncomfortable answering questions about care homes and care home workers.

Re masks

The key thing here is that she was told that this is the policy decision and to make the science work around it - another example of Johhnson, Hancock and Sunak not following the science but creating a rule then wanting the science to shape around it somehow

She's trying to evade responsibility is my impression and shunting it off to ministers.

Southall Black Sisters! (Marina Sergades) are up.

Harries is better on answering about 'forseeable' domestic abuse - but still making it someone else's role to action.

I hope the inquiry report really gets to grips with this. Exactly WHOSE responsibility was it, and what should they have been doing, and how should they have been doing it? Senior people emailing each other clearly changed nothing, achieved nothing, and altered nothing. Looks more like arse-covering than a call to action.

10 minute break and then its Javid's turn.

I am away for a while

I wasn't happy that the KC for the disability groups got cut off again just as he was finally getting some answers out of Harries about when, why and how Down Syndrome people went onto the shielding list. (I am interested if her evidence tallies with that of Chris Whitty.)

So - no 'signal' at start of pandemic. By September there was a big 'signal' (x10 risk rate ) and it was decided that DS adults should be added to shielding list. But this didn't happen till 2nd Nov - the KC asks why?

Harries says that there was no shielding list by then and that work started on 9th October to add DS adults ...

Judge ends questioning.

Yes, that cut-off was very abrupt. I understand they have to keep moving reasonably quickly, but he was stopped mid flow.

Yes, vulnerable people being moved on and off shielding lists and in and out of CEV and CV categories, and relying on consultants in secondary care and GPs in primary care to be on top of this, as well as having supposedly centralised list(s), resulted in a shit show.

(To this day, I am still not correctly coded. Every jab, for everything, is a wearisome battle. Hence my interest.)

Sajid Javid now.

Behind the scenes insights about 'the way Dominic Cummings was carrying on' in Number 10.

Another damning Vallance extract shown at the #covidinquiryUK

- Boris Johnson allegedly said in July '21 we'll need to learn to die with covid
- PM wanted 'all the malingering work shy people' to be back at work. ie full opening up
- Health Sec Sajid Javid v cautious

Sajid Javid not holding back re: Dominic Cummings in his evidence to #covidinquiryUK so far this morning. "I felt... many of the key decisions made being made by Dominic Cummings and not the Prime Minister." And then this from his witness statement.