Off Topic SARS-CoV-2 Covid-19

I haven't read any posts subsequent to yours I'm responding to now, Thus I have no idea whether the debate has progressed in any particular direction.

My points are:

a) An unknown virus around 4 1/2 months ago. Therefore no known experience on how to "specifically" react to the potential threat of this unique threat. Yes/No ?

b) In the first month of it rearing its ugly head, it was somewhat isolated, with maybe some official notification from it's epicentre
( China - localized) to global health authorities (WHO)). Some debate about the timing of that disclosure. Yes/No ?

c) In that first month there may have been 100's or 1000's of individuals exposed to the "ground zero" infected area in China who took air flights to other countries - name any of them on earth. Many to North America or Europe at least. Yes/No ?

d) When did authorities declare the covid-19 situation a "major problem" ?
End of January - mid Feb - A Major health emergency by the WHO. A pandemic was declared by the WHO on March 11th.

e) Nations responded differently. Based on the same information (statistics of number of effected individuals (essentially symptomatic observations), as opposed to validated test results. To some degree based on number of deaths attributed to covid-19 related(?) symptoms.

At this point, the margins for error in making a decision on how to handle the situation were very narrow for every nation.
- very few tests to confirm a patient was infected - other than general "symptoms".
- little statistical information on how the "infection" was being transmitted, other than historical knowledge - flu, SARS, Mers etc.

The decisions made by any government in any nation were marginal at best.

What is it you think the UK government did to **** up, given the UK's general record for being scientifically well renowned other than you having a political bias ?

Disclaimer: This is not a political statement on my behalf in any shape or form.

 

A group kick in the bollocks more like.

 

Six weeks in, and only now the should, could, would haves are finding their voice. I would add,

f) What is the incubation period for this virus?

 

I've just listened again and the death rates (adjusted to cover people of working age) came out as 1 death for every 19000 people in the NHS and also the general population. For London transport workers the death rate was 1 for every 1560 workers. This suggests that, even allowing for the caveats the statisticians highlighted, any increased risk for NHS staff was far surpassed by that for some other front line staff. My original suggestion that death rates for transport workers were double those of NHS staff appears to have been a significant underestimation - but I am getting on a bit.

 

But that's just not true. Many have been calling for the closure of borders since the end of January.

 

I'll try and do this as best I can:

a) While it was a "new virus" in the loosest possible sense, it wasn't new to the UK in terms of knowledge. We knew it existed, we have an embassy in China as well as many reporters and people in other sectors, it would be incredibly naive to assume we had no idea what this was or how it worked in February, considering the WHO had been looking into it when it started spreading around China at Christmastime. Were models drawn up at this point? Projections? Contingencies? Apparently not. It's not that we didn't have a virus response plan, I think we overestimated how safe we were and we thought it would be like SARS and remain localised to China.

b) With it being China, it is hard to discern when the virus reared its head properly. Some say November, others say September, some say early December. That will come out in due course. The WHO can only act on the information given, it isn't investigative by nature and I don't know if it has the jurisdiction to go into countries and root around.

c) There were a lot of flights to and from China, yes.

d) Again, it depends on which authorities you are referring to. Generally speaking, if the WHO declares an international emergency, that's when the alarm bells should start ringing. The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern on 30th January because reports had surfaced in Germany, Vietnam, Japan and the US that human to human transmission had begun. So that's the point I would have looked at the government and expected a response. Our response was to wash our hands and some voluntary restrictions were put in place a couple of weeks later in the middle of February. By that point, Italy and China were already being ravaged. Non essential travel wasn't established by the government until 16th March (six and a half weeks after WHO declared a PHEIC). A week later, 23rd March, lock down begins. So from the point at which the WHO first flagged this as an international concern, after several countries had reported infections to lockdown, a month had gone by. We had our first transmission confirmed in the UK in the first week of February. So either our government didn't think it was important enough and was very naive, or they knew it was a worry and instead hoped it would be a bit like the flu and go away (which is what led to the herd immunity strategy that was famously abandoned).

e) Every nation would respond differently because every nation is different. However, the preventative measures taken by countries to prevent the spread of the virus were clearly working. At the time, they looked draconian and something our PM was very hesitant to do, despite Italy's death rate slowing as we entered lockdown. A group within the UK staged a pandemic drill in a UK hospital in 2016 and the results were damning; the evidence was presented to the government and dismissed. The government then subsequently refused to publish it. EDIT: I'm on form today, Sky have just picked up on that story: https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...d-pandemic-plans-were-not-sufficient-11984773

The simple fact remains, our government knew about this virus from quite an early stage. When it became apparent that we were going to be significantly impacted, the measures taken were not strong enough, nowhere near. We saw other countries locking down and yet we decided not to, instead hoping it would simply pass like regular flu does. The information we got as the general public was disseminated to us a while after it had arrived at the desk of the PM, at the point of lockdown we weren't getting as much information from the government as we are now. They claim to be led by science, but initially there doesn't seem to be any evidence to support that since the science all along suggested that a lockdown would be far more effective than voluntary social distancing methods. Chris Witty and Patrick Vallance are brilliant scientists, they are, but they've been curtailed massively by the government and you can tell the things they're saying are lines thrown to them by the administration.

I'm not asking for somebody to hang for this. What I want is for the government to show a little humanity and accept that errors have been made that have cost lives. The reason they haven't done that is because they know that it'll cost them votes. We learn through mistakes, we have to make sure we do that otherwise history is doomed to repeat itself again.

 

Pop back to page 1 and read on from there, I think you'll find there were plenty on here who were touting this as important when it began.

 

Not for the distilleries or their distribution partners I assume ?

 

One briefing weeks ago one mouthbreather got fobbed off asking two dumb questions. Beth Rigby up next goes and asks exactly the same two questions.

 

Amalcarb - the very first post on this - "This one won’t go away."

An astute observation. Not least of all, as you say, touting this as important.


What, just exactly, what would you have done? For the next however long it takes to formulate a reply, you are the government. You have the powers. What do you do. No hindsight allowed. You are the government informed of a virus seemingly out of control in China. What do you do.

 

Good question, but it will be almost impossible to answer without using hindsight as he/she already knows what's happened etc.

 

Guessing this is probably aimed at me... And I stand by my shouldn't be an inquiry till this is under control. Whilst this is still an issue, all resources should be aimed at finding as way through this with the smallest amount of deaths as possible and finding a vaccine etc.. all that would come from an inquiry now would be mud slinging, woulda, coulda and shoulda. All wrapped up in political point scoring. An inquiry 100% should happen but right now me personally would rather everything and everyone was looking forward and supporting the fight and search for a way back to as normal of a life as possible.

And I certainly won't "hang my head in shame" for that view point.

 

As I said earlier today - you really are a ****ing idiot - your posts were kicked off earlier because they were ****e - I expect this ****e will be off before long - in the meantime please send me the link where Corbyn asked for the lockdown to be implemented any earlier

 

I'd tell everyone to stop being racist, go out and publicly hug a Chinaman, condemn white supremacy and mutter about far-right conspiracy theories, then take a private car home whilst encouraging everyone else to take the underground.

 

Not allowed. Social distancing applies.

 

Sorry ST, but I'll cut to the chase - your "on form " quote via Sky.
Unless the evidence is forthcoming (a copy of the report or an official statement from the author(s)), it is meaningless.
Unless you have proof that the "eminent" scientists are cow-towing to the PM et al, it does not indicate the decision making of the administration is tampering with said advice. There would have been consensus decisions made based on evidence. As I said, the margins either way are extremely tight ( I hate to say "lives lost versus jobs lost"), but it's a hell of a difficult decision for elected polititions to make).

The science in this case didn't point quickly enough to a potential virulant pandemic health threat, hence the disparity in the approach various nations adopted. A change happened in the Uk's approach, perhaps somewhat tardily, but not a "cock-up" as you suggest.

By the way - I watch the TV briefing every day by the government "reps" and their invited "scientific" experts. I do detect some trepidation by the scientists, but not to the extent that Dr David Kelly experienced perhaps, and certainly hopefully won't get that far.

 

*Looks at the rate of infection in China and Italy*


Hmmmm

*Looks at their measures*

Well, we aren't as infected as them, but given how quickly it spread across China and given how we've now got confirmed cases in this country, we should act. If I take the measures they are taking, and apply them at an earlier stage in the spread than they did, it'll save many more lives than if I just wait to see if it goes away. Also, people should be informed that this virus is incredibly contagious, so I'm going to enforce strict social distancing measures, rather than just recommend them.

RING RING

Hello? What's that First Secretary of State Gary Numan? A lot of people will be pissed off that they have to stay indoors? Well, just tell them it's that or thousands of people will die. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well we can create a benefits scheme to help those who can't go to work, yeah. Yeah I know. Tell them to get a ****ing grip, they can stay in and watch Pornhub, I'm not asking them to go over the top at the Somme. Right, send in Culture Secretary Lucy Pinder, I'd like to discuss riding with her. No, I don't own a horse, get back to work.

 

Well the document is here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/what-was-exercise-cygnus-and-what-did-it-find

about halfway down the page.

As for cow-towing, I was merely suggesting that they looked like they were being told to toe the line, but not by the PM. I actually think Boris would be more open about this, but it's Cummings that's pulling the strings here in terms of what's released. He's also been sat in on the SAGE briefings, which is why they've had to chair a different SAGE group without him in it to stop him influencing decisions that should be made by qualified people. He wouldn't be there if not to add a political element to it, he's not got a shred of scientific background, he had no cause to be there if the government is acting on the science, which it keeps saying it is.

 

He didn't. In fact, I didn't mention Corbyn at all.

Try again please.

Also, calm the **** down.

 

Or do what they did in India, which was by and large **** all.