Just to keep you up date with the world shattering trace and track system. From some one who works there...or at least did.. So the wonderful Test and Trace system is currently getting rid of thousands of clinical contact tracers, seemingly in favour of call centre staff. With their usual careful and considerate approach, they have done this by a/announcing staff numbers would need to be cut and would some people volunteer to step down (so far, so good: I did volunteer as there are people doing the job full-time who depend on it). b/announcing loads more would need to go and they would decide who by 22 March, with effect from 31 March (it's bank work so legal). c/ introducing seriously major updates to the training that came in effect on 18 March meaning lots of people waiting to hear if they were binned had to spend time on it anyway d/announcing on 19 March that all shifts for April were being cancelled and would need to be rebooked over the weekend of 20/21st (to put this in context, shifts are released a few at a time, every hour or so, and the only way to get them is to hover on the Bank system with finger poised. It can take literally hours to hook a few. A lot of people had spent much of the previous two weekends booking shifts as there had been delays in releasing them anyway - only to find them cancelled, and having to try all over again in the hope of booking them again AND not being binned the next day). e/ on the 22nd, nothing. f/on 24th, the last day to give the 7 days legal notice required they start sending out emails. Firstly to those of us who volunteered to the reserve list to tell us that actually it's goodbye, sorry for the bad news and all that. A few hours later to some of those who have been anxiously waiting to say bye, your 'attendance' was poor. No definition of attendance but it seems to be to do with the amount of time logged on to the notoriously glitchy phone system, certainly not to do with cancelling shifts or not logging in to the main system. Currently there are still a few thousand people waiting to hear if they are staying or going, and what the reason might be. All of this is completely legal of course - it's bank work. Morally and ethically, given the timings, the uncertainty, the lack of transparency.... it's very Test and Trace.
Bottom line:- Trace and Track is so useless, that they have got rid of the trained operatives and will now send it out to a call centre...with untrained operatives.. Not sure why I am so worked up. It wasn't working anyhow. This way it still won't work, but it will be cheaper.. Oh I am so in favour of it now I have explained it to myself
Test and Trace sneakily sacking clinical staff on grounds of ‘poor attendance’ on an impossible to access computer system in favour of unskilled call centre staff to call you up.
Absolutely correct Stan. But it is cheaper...and every one has forgotten it is world beating.. So it is okay
There would be page after fevered page on here, filled with raging condemnation if that was our government.
Even I have to admit T&T has been a disaster. In the beginning of Covid I remember people saying it was the way to go and that it worked in other countries. Even I, ‘Mr I obey every rule’ forgot to sign in with my phone. All that business with the app and then another app was a waste of money. We have to learn by these mistakes.
Never mind, only £22bn. What worked in other countries was a decentralised system run by local authorities. You can't enrich Tory donors like that.
37 billion more i believe. 22 billion was last year, they got another 15 billion this year to keep it running
Some of that will have been legitimately spent which allows Tories to bury their heads in the sand when the figure is mentioned. The cash within that £37bn siphoned off to donors and MPs’ relatives for little return should get even the most fervent forelock-tuggers blushing if there’s ever a real inquiry.
There will never be an inquiry, it would be too damaging. Unfortunately we are moving fast towards dictatorship with some lapping it up.
Just to add some personal perspective. My mother has had a variety of ailments and conditions. You could have put your house on it that she would get a reaction which was bad (to Pfizer) and sure enough she did. Some people are just unlucky like that but statistically a very small number. She was fine second time around. I would be amazed if they were carrying out autopsies on those who have been unlucky as the medical authorities already have enough to do keeping the rest of us alive and, hopefully, healthy but there could be a whole host of personal reasons why one person developed clots and died when they have never had them before. Tell me if I'm wrong but doctors look for evidence of positive harm in a statistically much higher number of people than a handful of cases when testing the safety of a new drug. Don't they?
Doctors, regulators and companies keep a very close eye on any reactions people get after taking a medicine, especially new medicines, even if the reaction is clearly unrelated to the drug. If someone mentions to me that they are on a drug made by my company, and a few minutes later say they stubbed their toe yesterday, I am meant to report it to the company, just in case the drug affects balance. If enough similar cases build up proper investigations would take place. With vaccines, especially the current ones, there are huge numbers of possible reactions reported - see the Yellow Card links I have posted a couple of times. This number is entirely a function of the historically massive numbers of people receiving the vaccine in a very short time. The trials for vaccines usually involve large numbers of people, and 30,000 is a lot for a trial (they are stunningly expensive) because a lot of people will take them. For more specialised drugs sometimes you have trials running in the low hundreds of people, or even less, because the patients simply aren’t out there to enrol, and sometimes it is unethical to. Even with the big trials for these vaccines they have not picked up any unexpected reactions or adverse events, and those which have been spotted in the now millions strong real world population who have had the vaccines are at no greater levels than would be expected in the non vaccinated population. These vaccines are, I would guess, amongst the most widely and intensively scrutinised drugs ever invented. Even if, eventually, there is a link proved between a vaccine and a rare but serious reaction, that has to be balanced against the risk of serious illness or death from the virus. As far as I can tell. Yet again a long drone, apologies.
They can shove their vaccine right up where the sun don’t shine. I don’t want it, my body is compromised enough with the arthritis steroids l’m taking and while l know others may want to take the jab, l just don’t trust it. That aside, stuff the Italians for not wanting to share when the world needs compassion. They didn’t mind a handout when Mussolini sold them out.
Don't worry Didley those Aussie borders are pretty good. A family member of mine has just returned to Oz and after 2 weeks in a prison camp she was released into a society of bars, restaurants... normal stuff.
