Apart from lending his name to tight smart casual trousers for men that ought to know better he appears to be one of the government’s advisers. So, with that in mind, I’d like to know: (1) have the advisers been largely been reaching a consensus when giving the government their advice, and (2) has the government been largely following that advice?
With that speech from Boris the usual suspects will be calling this his ‘finest hour’...... ‘NHS, powered by love’ indeed
Also Beth I don’t want to sound pedantic here But Your post makes it sound like Farrar mentioned Lack of a quick and total lockdown Lack of PPE Lack of closing borders When he didn’t. He said that it was critical to get a vaccine and that was the only true exit strategy. He said the Oxford group would have vaccine by the autumn. He went on to say they would have it. Although mass manufacturing would be a problem.
1) is demonstrably ‘no’. In fact individual advisors, like that idiot Ferguson form Imperial, regularly contradict themselves, let alone other experts. 2) no way for us to know, but as the advice is likely to have been inconsistent I have some sympathy for the policy makers. As we were discussing the other day it does look as if the death total (subject to definitions, comparability etc etc) will be higher than the ‘good result’ 20,000. What we don’t know is what is considered a ‘bad result’. 100k?
Not your love, obviously. That would be creepy. Interesting that he highlighted two non UK staff for thanks, and made the effort to be precise on where they came from. Perhaps he’ll follow his free market instincts on immigration. Also, all this effusive praise might be good for you and the NHS, protection against the hideous austerity ****storm on the way? You and I might know exactly what Johnson is, but the fact that he has been ‘saved’ by the public sector might not be a bad thing. Though of course had he dropped a couple of stone and followed his own advice on social distancing Tommy’s probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity.
Wow hang on! When I mentioned a while back about Oxford and their data I was basically told IC were the ones to listen to. Not by you Sb, someone else.
They all contradict themselves. I think the government has been closest to IC, but that bloke Ferguson is a complete twat. The history of conflict and bitching between IC and Oxford would be funny had it not resulted in very dodgy modelling capability in this country. We might be better off relying on John Hopkins Uni in the US.
Funny enough when they mentioned the Oxford data at one of the briefings the IC boys went very quiet.
I missed this post Sooper. This thing was caused by them and as Sb said they will be the only winners. No one in our health circles trusts there data. They have made this worse than it was, although WHO said it was going to be bad. Later I will watch the videos that Nines posted.
I really wonder how badly we’d have to end up either in absolute terms or relative to other comparable countries for some people to think maybe just maybe they haven’t done a great job of this.
Anything over 20,000 deaths under whatever definition the government is currently using to record deaths would be a fail in my view. 20k has been mentioned too many times as a good result to be forgotten. Any death rate per million significantly higher than our larger Western European friends with socialised health systems would also be a failure.
It’s almost as if the Tory fan club have been brain washed to forget that 10 years of lack of funding and cuts to the NHS have put us in this position in the first place. It’s like Boris being applauded for getting in an extra 20,000 old bill......nobody thinks about the numbers that were cut in the previous 10 years. But I guess that’s the way they are...... Apologies this should really be on The Politics thread.
But, but, but..... No-one could have predicted this. Lets not start picking on the government until it's all over At least it's not Corbyn Etc etc etc Zzzzzzz
If there’s no vaccine found in time and we have no option but to let the virus make its way through the whole population in as measured way as possible, then 100,000 deaths is 0.15% of that population. It’s a horrible quantum but maybe inevitable?
There will be a vaccine, and until yesterday no one was talking about anything other than 18 months for that. I can only assume that the 20k ‘good result’ was based on that knowledge, so 100k shouldn’t, in my view, be seen as inevitable. I’m kind of interested in the spin that will be put on other figures.
Like I said before, I reckon about 35,000, which is still a pretty sobering toll. Before 18 months are up I’d expect the virus to have spread through the majority of the population anyway. Keeping it away from the majority of those considered vulnerable will be the toughest thing.
in the last 20 years, neither major party has really done anything other than look after themselves. Blair took us to an illegal war which cost millions, (how he got 16 homes is a mystery), Brown gave away our gold reserves and the tories tend to look after their own. Lets not point score - neither party has hardly in my opinion done anything. However I do not want to get political - I wonder what would happen if the UK and others closed their borders so there was no trade with them after this. (hum..maybe that is political)
Complete self-sufficiency ? Most of us would be dead within weeks I expect. Or do you mean just no trade with China?
