CV-19 day 44 / light at the end ?

[ronk]

The Sunday Times recently suggested very strongly that out Govt and Boris in particular, was concentrating in something else at the time the virus was starting to become more prevalent - Brexit! He had also been missing from several important meetings it's said.

The bottom line is I suppose, the Govt sleep walked into this situation.

I had an email from some German friends last night and they seem to think that some of their restrictions are also being relaxed and are of the opinion that it is for financial / economic recovery reasons.

 

[NickDE]

New Zealand is the exemplar for me. Just 21 deaths - expressed as deaths per capita that's 100 times less than the UK. They locked down early and hard. In the UK we had very clear early warnings from other European countries (not to mention China) that were ahead of us in the spread (Italy in particular - remember the terrible scenes we saw on our news?). Instead of locking down and taking a safety first approach our leaders chose to allow folks to continue going to pubs, clubs and restaurants for almost 2 weeks. Mass gatherings went ahead - Cheltenham Festival and Liverpool's Champion Leagues game (with hundreds of supports travelling from Madrid of all places) being prime examples. Many people, but not enough, chose to take early action themselves - isolating and taking their kids out of school etc. Many chose to continue as if nothing was wrong and the virus had exactly the open door it needed and as a result the lock down has been a sub optimal attempt to close it.

Add to that the lack of preparation in PPE and Testing where we wasted months and you had a recipe for the disastrous outbreak we are now experiencing. What has happened in Care homes is a scandal. It seems to me that complacency characterised much of what happened in February and March. Johnson himself missed 5 Cobra meetings. Remember when we were told we were the best prepared country in the world? Johnson boasting that he had been shaking hands with people in hospitals with Covid-19 patients.

Sadly the government is now between a rock and hard place with the economy tanking and the virus still killing hundreds each day. Its interesting to note that we went into lock down with deaths at around 400/day but are now talking of exit when its over 500/600. Whilst the shape of the trajectories might be different I think it would be madness to loosen much, if anything at this stage. Whilst hindsight is a wonderful thing I think there needs to be an accounting for what has happened. 30,000+ deaths is not a success and is not a good number and mistakes must be exposed and learnt from. I do have some sympathy with those who point to the challenges of comparing our country with others but I wonder if the government would be quite so quick to throw doubt on others figures if our rates were better than theirs?

Rather than treating us with respect the government is resorting to leaking possible exit scenarios to the press, trying to use them to influence our reaction to whatever Johnson says on Sunday. Listening to Nicola Sturgeon today I think I prefer Scotland's approach and I think there is the very real possibility that they will fall out of lock step with us if Johnson goes beyond the mildest of easing.

Stopping now before it becomes even more of a rant!

Very nicely put. I could add that the government's own pandemic exercise a few years ago showed systemic weaknesses in care homes. Which the government says they addressed. But the care home industry says the government didn't even talk to them about the results. And what's happening in care homes now ? So many unnecessary deaths needs accountability.

 

[Nictrix]

There was quite an interesting program on C4 tonight with part of it about stocks of PPE for hospitals that was set up years ago. Some of the PPE was almost 10 years out of date. There had been new stickers put over the old ones with new dates on them.

 

[Vornwend]

You can crunch data & numbers all day with this but in regards to holding up NZ as the torch i guess locking down a population under 5 million ( more people live in New York city ) spread over a island the same size of the UK is less of a task than doing it with 65million :? much easier to blanket ban & quarantine folks arriving there too as it has far less numbers passing through than the UK does
Granted those large scale events both in UK & Europe that were held in March now look very foolhardy

Well said Mr wilks I have visited both NZ and OZ and they huge countries both with very strict border controls as the norm (which I think is a good thing ) so control of this virus for them is a hell of a lot easier than the small over crowded poorly border controlled country that is the UK

Have also visited Australia and NZ. Interestingly around 90% of the NZ population lives in an urban setting (UK 83%) and around 1/3rd of its population live in Auckland so the population is not as widely dispersed as you might think - huge areas like the southern alps are uninhabited. Likewise Australia which has 86% of its population living in an urban setting. It was entirely our choice how we controlled our borders wasn't it?

 

[Vornwend]

On the challenges of comparisons:

 

[mr wilks]

On the challenges of comparisons:

 

[mr wilks]

Germany anyone? 89m landlocked with 9 discrete nation state borders...?

Admittedly only 70m pax through Frankfurt vs 80m for Heathrow...

There that must be the reason..

Didn't really start the thread to dissect the infection / death rate across the nations or attempt to find the reasons for those wildly differing figures ( or who in the UK is to blame for ours )
As already said you can crunch the numbers & data forever & a day but ultimately there are way too many variables you would need to factor into each country to know for sure the exact reason as to why the numbers are what they are . ( Belgium for eg has the highest death rate per 1m at 726 but they are attributing CV19 as cause of death to virtually every nursing home death regardless of a positive test )

January / February 2021 should tell us in the UK the real facts when the years death rates are announced , its easy enough to see where they should be by looking at the past 10 years ( average 550-600,000 pa) over 12 months of 2020 you would expect a significant spike across April / May into June but across the 12 month period the final total may not be wildly different to past years .
CV19 is drawing all the headlines right now & whilst the rate of dead with CV19 listed as cause has been significant its also been noted that the number of deaths where main cause would be listed as heart disease has seen a drop ( in UK for eg 170,000 a yr die from heart related causes so around 460 per day )

As for singling out Germany as leading the way with 88 dead per 1m , why not mention Russia , China or India who are really bucking the trend with just 12 , 3 & 1 death per 1million yeah right :roll: you can fudge figures all day long

 

[Anonymous]

Mr Wilks...to come back to your original premise, as you originally point out, looks now, like furious back peddling from English government...

I think it’s going to be 3 more weeks lockdown UK wide..whether thanks to Boris’s blurting in PM’s questions / press off the record briefing there is either some confusing ramblings on Sunday resulting in mass abandonment in England of lock down type behaviour or an attempted regression to bring England in line with the other 3 nations we’ll have to see..

 

[Nictrix]

Apparently deaths in England and Wales are 75% up from average.
For some reason most statistics that you find have stopped including Scotland and Northern Ireland.

 

[Taz]

The birds bees and polar bears etc must be loving this virus

 

[Nictrix]

The birds bees and polar bears etc must be loving this virus

The weather we are getting in Scotland is also strange. We have hardly had any rain since lockdown and Im not sure if its a coincidence or because there is less planes and cars polluting.

 

[mr wilks]

The birds bees and polar bears etc must be loving this virus

The weather we are getting in Scotland is also strange. We have hardly had any rain since lockdown and Im not sure if its a coincidence or because there is less planes and cars polluting.

Must be Boris & his men meddling again everything else is down to him

 

[mr wilks]

Mr Wilks...to come back to your original premise, as you originally point out, looks now, like furious back peddling from English government...

I think it’s going to be 3 more weeks lockdown UK wide..whether thanks to Boris’s blurting in PM’s questions / press off the record briefing there is either some confusing ramblings on Sunday resulting in mass abandonment in England of lock down type behaviour or an attempted regression to bring England in line with the other 3 nations we’ll have to see..

Well its going to be " interesting " just how they ease current stipulations that's for sure , clearly they need to open the door sooner than later but what's behind the door must be frightening them i really can't see another 3 weeks rules as the last 7 , already seeing lots more businesses returning to work , by Monday the construction firm i sub contract for will have all their direct staff ( approx 45) off furlough & back working all over the country ( current contracts in Anglesey , Scarborough , Coventry & Kent all restarted / restarting ) that means finding accommodation for many who stay away so self catering holiday cottages now the choice as opposed to previously in B&b , pub or hotel .
I'm working 100 miles away in North Lakes near Ullswater commuting daily , the roads are getting busier every day so suspect many others are opting to return to as normal a life as possible under the circumstances , hard to ignore that the suppliers or visiting contractors to site don't appear to be doing anything different with regards handwashing ,masks , gloves or distancing :| whether that has effect down the line who knows ?

 

[srhutch]

Just had 7 motorbikes come past the house in convoy. i think this weekend people are going to break rank. I had to go into the office one day this week and noticed a steep uptunr in traffic compared the the 2 others days I've had to go in over the last 6 weeks.

 

[jabber]

I know that what ever the new rules are I definitely wont be going back to normal any time soon, we moved my 86 yr old mother in law in with us just before the lockdown and she isn’t in any hurry to go back to her own home, very worrying times for her

 

[z4pilot]

Mr Wilks...to come back to your original premise, as you originally point out, looks now, like furious back peddling from English government...

I think it’s going to be 3 more weeks lockdown UK wide..whether thanks to Boris’s blurting in PM’s questions / press off the record briefing there is either some confusing ramblings on Sunday resulting in mass abandonment in England of lock down type behaviour or an attempted regression to bring England in line with the other 3 nations we’ll have to see..

I think I'd be more inclined to listen to your opinion if you dialled back the anti-English, anti-UK Government rhetoric in every post on this topic. Getting a bit predictable and boring now :thumbsdown:

 

[Pastry]

The birds bees and polar bears etc must be loving this virus

The weather we are getting in Scotland is also strange. We have hardly had any rain since lockdown and Im not sure if its a coincidence or because there is less planes and cars polluting.

Must be Boris & his men meddling again everything else is down to him

 

[ben g]

The birds bees and polar bears etc must be loving this virus

The weather we are getting in Scotland is also strange. We have hardly had any rain since lockdown and Im not sure if its a coincidence or because there is less planes and cars polluting.

Must be Boris & his men meddling again everything else is down to him

My cousins husband is currently on Facebook implying that Boris Johnson is liable for the 30,000+ deaths in the UK :lol:

Nothing to do with probably half the country acting like there's nothing wrong? The mentality of these 'victims' does make me laugh.

 

[mr wilks]

You can crunch data & numbers all day with this but in regards to holding up NZ as the torch i guess locking down a population under 5 million ( more people live in New York city ) spread over a island the same size of the UK is less of a task than doing it with 65million :? much easier to blanket ban & quarantine folks arriving there too as it has far less numbers passing through than the UK does
Granted those large scale events both in UK & Europe that were held in March now look very foolhardy

Well said Mr wilks I have visited both NZ and OZ and they huge countries both with very strict border controls as the norm (which I think is a good thing ) so control of this virus for them is a hell of a lot easier than the small over crowded poorly border controlled country that is the UK

Have also visited Australia and NZ. Interestingly around 90% of the NZ population lives in an urban setting (UK 83%) and around 1/3rd of its population live in Auckland so the population is not as widely dispersed as you might think - huge areas like the southern alps are uninhabited. Likewise Australia which has 86% of its population living in an urban setting. It was entirely our choice how we controlled our borders wasn't it?

I'm not fanning the flames here but this proved a interesting read on why New Zealand may not have played the perfect hand many assume they have https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8300631/Swedish-Covid-19-expert-says-lockdown-merely-delaying-inevitable.html to continue CV free longterm they would need to quarantine (until a vaccine is found ) every single person who travels onto the island could take years :| is that feasible :?

 

[ben g]

Just had 7 motorbikes come past the house in convoy. i think this weekend people are going to break rank. I had to go into the office one day this week and noticed a steep uptunr in traffic compared the the 2 others days I've had to go in over the last 6 weeks.

My neighbours have been having a garden party all day today with family members who don't live there :lol: they came out of their house to clap at 8pm yesterday evening... :lol: :lol: :lol: it's like a comedy sketch.