Up Till Now....

... I've been pretty much behind the government's handling of this virus.
It's started to change since these 5pm briefings from Downing Street came on our screens, especially the last few days. Last night topped the lot with Sharma not answering ONE question directly, he just 'batted' them off with platitudes. What do these ministers take us for?
Have to say the journos ask far to long questions allowing ministers wriggle room. Peston drives me nuts and why is his name plastered all over the background.

Anyway the nail in the coffin for me is that our fantastic NHS staff are being laid bare confronting the virus lacking PPE and now we learn only 2,000 out of 500,000 have been tested.
W T F is going on?

The fantastic NHS staff are lions led by donkeys.

 

Totally agree with all of this. I was very happy with the way that Boris and Rishi were handling things until the truth started to come to light.
I read earlier that many Doctors and front line medical staff in Romania have resigned as they are in the same position of treating people with a potentially lethal disease whilst not being properly protected. And who can blame them for not wanting to take such risks ?

 

do not be to harsh … a barrel of beer has 72 pints [talking the sort where it comes out of the barrel under gravity .. "real" real ale ] 94 people all want a pint ……. 69 -70 pints is good clear beer whilst 70 -72 could be cloudy and the rest get nothing so to satisfy everybody, in your 1 pint glass you get poured out less than a half ..and still maybe those at the end of the q get nothing ….. and the Q is getting longer so whilst some at the beginning got less than a half those approaching the end get just a mouthful ……!
there is always more than 1 side in fact I suppose you could say the minimum number of sides is 3 [ quiz.. work it out! ] and each side is the argument / against the argument and the mitigation of the argument. Good news generally doesn't sell newspapers or attract to much attention … when you look at pre election a lot of noise was generated by the sore losers coming up with another vote 90% or more of the population just got on with their everyday life and had their penneth on Dec 12th.
SO people need something to pick on now, [ they are the pessimist side of humanity one side of 3 ] and that is the government not doing enough it has been stated with interviews of professional medical people in a number of countries they wish to do more tests, have more PPE etc but they add the caveat there is not enough to go round at the moment but more and more production is coming on line … and STATE test kits are suffering from a lack of re agent [ pharmaceutical chemical companies are at full stretch ] there is 7 billion peeps in the world probably about 300 million on the front line they make most likely in a normal year a few million test kits for known diseases … now in 3 months they are expected to make 300million for a new disease and that is just the start . HAND SANITIZER brewers and the such like filled fill a small gap a major Chemical co has in less than a week built a factory in the NE to produce over a million units [ a week ?] Face mask production at another factory is producing masks [ minimal level] whilst 3m is in overdrive …

NOTHING happens in a few seconds Excel has taken just over a week and other centres around the uk are close behind... ventilators and pressure masks are in production from places like Dyson / formula one/ bae etc

there are over 300 countries in the world all would like 10,000 ventilators 600million masks 100,000 litres sanitiser a million test kits minimum ….[ you do not just test once and Ok YOU ARE FINE … the test kits might be at 2 or 3 over a month!

there are 2 to my knowledge testing labs used by Bristol hospitals one in Southmead and one in Southampton [ when couriering took tests to these weekly ] Southmead would likely need to test 1000,s a day and info is they stepped up the ability to be prepared ..

THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL DOING A GOOD JOB … THEY ARE IN THE ARENA WITH AT LEAST 70 MAJOR COUNTRIES ALL WANTING THE SAME THING …. the human race is helping each other and the manufacturers have a responsibility to give everyone a bit of a fighting chance .................... AMERICA and UK order 50,000 ventilators and Samoa 10 do they give Samoa 10 and deduct from USA /UK 5 NO... because 300 countries want some [ of the 100,000 ?] so I guess ITS PRO RATA the fair way?

 

**** me that really frazzled my brain. That one has to top the lot of goobly goop. I doth my cap to you JGF. That was the most confusing comment you’ve ever made.

 

I'm really sorry JGF, but if any of your replies to anything is over 4 lines long I completely bypass it!!

 

R Robin, you're not on your own.

Anyway I feel a bit more assured after tonight's Downing Street briefing.
A confident Hancock answered questions, very well in my humble opinion, a massive improvement on the performances of Gove and Sharma.

 

Fair play for making it to 4 lines

 

Whilst this crisis is unprecedented and a national emergency, I said earlier on another thread that Boris has been slow to react. I really didn’t like the order he gave for people to stop going to pubs and restaurants but didn’t order them to close - meaning that the business owners couldn’t claim on their insurance.
Now we have to accelerate the testing programme as a matter of urgency and ensure that the NHS staff have their protective gear - it’s not difficult - I went on the internet and ordered some masks a couple of days ago and they are due tomorrow.
I can imagine what the delay is - I expect that the NHS has ‘preferred suppliers’ and the hospitals are not allowed to shop for items in the open market.
Ironically, Corbyn’s mad spending plans would have actually given us a headstart on this - of course nobody could have predicted it at the time of the election.

 

To summarise I think JGF said , all things considered, in the circumstances, he thinks Boris is dong alright.

 

Very few pub’s, restaurants and shops had insurance for business interruption for this sort of thing. None of them had insurance or if they did against specified diseases as this covid-19 virus only had a name in December. So it was never specified.
It’s a bit of a miff this saying the government did not shut them down from the get go, to prevent insurance paying out.
ABI estimated only about 5% of businesses would of had the correct insurance for this.

Probably worded wrong, and don’t tell my wife but I do listen to her sometimes. She’s a director of an insurance company and sat on the BIBA board.

PS. I’m not a Tory, but been impressed with them. Like Redprint says some of them don’t know what they saying or doing but majority of them have done really well.

 

pretty much said what was pointed out this morning ….

sorry ROD but at least Hancock took some of it on board ...lol ….

The negative / pessimistic peeps always have to find something / someone to pick on … being locked up the only ones they can pick on are those responsible for their incarceration albeit incarcerated for the positively minded masses benefit …

whats that famous saying …………….. uuuuum ........... uuuuuuuummmmmmm ...AH YES Rome wasn't built in a day ……….

 

At the briefing Hancock was ask if Prem players should take a wage reduction. Championship players also earn comparatively huge salaries to mere mortals.
Has any City player or member of the coaching or senior staff (Ashton) offered to take a wage cut.
The likes of Kalas and others on big bucks should volunteer.
Junior should lead by example and reduce his salary by 50% at the very least.
None are currently 'overworked' - don't tell me this lot can't afford it.

 

Fair play to them at the start, they did what they needed to try and support the economy, and did things I never thought I'd ever see a Tory government do. On the other hand, their response to the virus itself has been abysmal, and thousands will die due to their incompetence on that front. Germany and South Korea reacted quickest and are seeing the results, whereas now ourselves and (to a larger extent) the USA are heading off on our own trajectory. The lack of testing and the lack of ventilators is going to put us deep in ****.

Didn't we turn down an offer from the EU for something like 50,000 ventilators? Why the hell didn't we bite their hand off? Instead we have 30 (yes THIRTY) being delivered this weekend. Not even one per county. Even the tabloids are turning on them now to some extent.

And that's not a Brexit issue by the way, definitely not getting into that.

God help the Americans, I think Trump is losing the plot over this.

 

I was wondering when someone would bring this up and I am in full agreement with what you're saying RP.

I would like to think that there are many players who "keep under the radar" and do massive amounts for their local charities/good causes that we never hear about, but in the present climate I think they should be standing up and shouting out loud that they are in it with the rest of us. I await the players response with interest!!

 

Germany’s deaths are rising similar rate to ours, just seems to be further back. They did test a lot more and have on average 22 in every 1000 ventilators where Italy has 12 and us 7. So Germany are already more equipped that majority of other countries. But their graph line is not to dissimilar.
Spiderweb of spread is possibly that, Italy has a huge population of Chinese due to the textile business in northern Italy. I think (so could be wrong) that Milan is the only direct flight to Wuhan in Europe. The Chinese Italian residents went home over Christmas, and came back in the New Year.
Majority of the northern Italy regions that first went into lockdown (before lockdown) support Milan who played Madrid, which happens to be the epicentre of Spain.
France, Germany and UKs and others links was the skiing season. Which is possibly the reason that we are all behind Italy and Spain.

 

Rod, what about the 3,500 A Madrid fans who came over to Liverpool. Perhaps the North West might see a spike there.

 

I don’t know, but just following the reports. But you may be correct most of the news concentrates on London like the rest of the UK don’t count.

I had to take my dad today to hospital to be admitted for blood transfusions. And the sights I saw there wasn’t pleasant.
For some reason I just said he’s to go to 5th floor and can I go with him as far as I’m allowed. I got so far thinking this is a bit far then someone stopped me saying how did I get in!. I then had to go back out and talk to a nurse in triage through the speaker in the window looking into there.
One image that I saw being triaged is still etched into my brain.
When she asked if myself or father had high temps or coughs, said no. And she said “Do not go anywhere near that door to your left” will stick with me for ages.

 

Germany actually makes provides parts for ventilators as a norm? It was said normal annual usual production of ventilators is counted in the hundreds ….

Whereas the RM were in a mix with the Milanese close up and confined.. when they returned home unlikely they all had it so a "significant number" may have …. and being dotted around Madrid may not have had much contact with AM supporters and would need to actually infect one who came to L/POOL … any spike in Lpool more likely from contact in Nwales or laedistrict / dales /peak district …..

 

Boris & Co have pretty much been lead by medical experts and implemented the appropriate measures.. admittedly, the testing has been a problem and I think on that we've been caught on the hop.....but without going into too much detail, I think the government have been doing a great job. And of course the key workers, especially the NHS have been magnificent....I think we should be proud, on how Britain are all getting together and putting in so much effort helping to keep us safe..

 

Up till now I think City have opened the Sports Bar for the less fortunate.
Do fans think they should be doing more?
Johnson was allowed to waste £500k paying Liverpool by not playing a loanee. Isn't it time for Johnson and co to stop sitting on their 'pile' and lead by example.