Off Topic Coronavirus

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How much blame do you think should the scientific and medical experts take for their poor advice?

You are absolutely right Col, some of the scientists and experts have shown poor leadership, and possibly vbeen easily led into following a political path.
There was also been a little too much "competition" especially in the early stages in the two modelling camps Oxford vs Imperial, that gave rise to very different sceanarios

The one I really want to know about is the ventilator situation.

Reading about the ventilators yesterday in the lightweight scientific articles I could easily undersatand why some of the basic ones that have been made in response to the government call were not fit to purpose. So who the hell put those specifications out to the manufacturers in the first place...and no, not even I am that stupid to think it was Boris on the back of an envelope. The specifications were put out by an "expert", but not a real expert on ventilation design. So that is really something that needs to be accounted for.

One last thing is another thing that is a factor...the "youth" of the government. This government was only in power for a month or two before this blew up, their only real experience was in "getting Brexit done". There had been little time to bed in with the civil service either. They were hugely inexperienced in running a country.
Add to that a really big confounding factor:-the Chief Medical officer Professor Witty had only taken over from Dame Sally Davis in September.

All I can say is that what I know of her...the CoVid19 virus probably would have taken a one look at her and left the country of its own accord.
If Sally Davis was still CMO things would have been different. She took no prisioners and actually could not give a @@@@ what people thought.
Sally Davis was phenomenal
 
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You are absolutely right Col, some of the scientists and experts have shown poor leadership, and possibly vbeen easily led into following a political path.
There was also been a little too much "competition" especially in the early stages in the two modelling camps Oxford vs Imperial, that gave rise to very different sceanarios

The one I really want to know about is the ventilator situation.

Reading about the ventilators yesterday in the lightweight scientific articles I could easily undersatand why some of the basic ones that have been made in response to the government call were not fit to purpose. So who the hell put those specifications out to the manufacturers in the first place...and no, not even I am that stupid to think it was Boris on the back of an envelope. The specifications were put out by an "expert", but not a real expert on ventilation design. So that is really something that needs to be accounted for.

One last thing is another thing that is a factor...the "youth" of the government. This government was only in power for a month or two before this blew up, their only real experience was in "getting Brexit down". There had been little time to bed in with the cicil service either. They were hugely inexperienced in running a country.
Add to that a really big confounding factor:-the Chief Medical officer Professor Witty had only taken over from Dame Sally Davis in September.

All I can say is that what I know of her...the CoVid19 virus probably would have taken a one look at her and left the country of its own accord.
If Sally Davis was still CMO things would have been different. She took no prisioners and actually could not give a @@@@ what people thought.
Sally Davis was phenomenal
Do you think Whitty is not up to the job?
 
Most of whom when asked to go into self isolation to break the chain of infection and help save others did so
4.8m who the government has done more than I expected of it to try and ease the disruption and economic problems to all
4.8 million who find out today if lockdown finishes this week

1400 infections
12 deaths

China is new Zealand's biggest trading partner with lots of free movement between both
Closing the borders early and the lockdown will have saved lives

Not to say a second wave won't kill us all but right now I know which country I would rather be in
 
In the UK the death rate from coronavirus is 237 per million people, and we have conducted 7,101 tests per million people.
In New Zealand the death rate from coronavirus is 2 per million people and they have conducted 17,258 tests per million people.
Even accounting for different ways of recording deaths (and the UKs is higher because this is based only on hospital deaths) the gap is massive and won’t be closed.
If both countries had a population of 1 million for every 1 Kiwi who died of coronavirus 118.5 Brits would.
It’s not a function of population size.
New Zealand does not have any resources that we do not - quite the reverse. 86% of New Zealander’s live in urban areas, compared to 83% in the UK.
Sorry if you find this difficult to understand.
 
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In the UK the death rate from coronavirus is 237 per million people, and we have conducted 7,101 tests per million people.
In New Zealand the death rate from coronavirus is 2 per million people and they have conducted 17,258 tests per million people.
Even accounting for different ways of recording deaths (and the UKs is higher because this is based only on hospital deaths) the gap is massive and won’t be closed.
If both countries had a population of 1 million for every 1 Kiwi who died of coronavirus 118.5 Brits would.
It’s not a function of population size.
New Zealand does not have any resources that we do not - quite the reverse.
Sorry if you find this difficult to understand.
Eer no. I was just responding to Cols post about how many people live in NZ... and I get bombarded with this?
 
That's what you said not me.
As I replied to Col I meant socially, culturally and largely ethnically. I must remember to be really clear in future, your razor sharp ability to interpret things in a way which appears to make you look right is awesome.

Now I have bombarded you with facts about NZ, do you think we should have copied them?
 
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As I replied to Col I meant socially, culturally and largely ethnically. I must remember to be really clear in future, your razor sharp ability to interpret things in a way which appears to make you look right is awesome.

Now I have bombarded you with facts about NZ, do you think we should have copied them?
I think we should do what our health people advise us to do.
 
What the health people and their political bosses who have given us a death rate 118.5 times higher than New Zealand’s? Jolly d.

Sb calm down. All I did was a reply to Col's post giving the NZ population. You can tell as it clearly shows that I replied to him. You, then reply to me about NZ? I hadn't even mentioned it in that post.
However, for argument's sake, you did say "New Zealand - "am island country, with a similar population"... which is incorrect... well the island bit isn't but the 'similar population' is.

As for banging on about us v another country... just about every Dr/Scientist/Professor/Expert, when asked the question, have all said we shouldn't compare. Do you know what Sb we shouldn't compare?
 
Thanks.
Wanted to hear it from someone who knows what they're talking about rather than no nothing journalists or people on hear (not everyone) guessing.

Most of the points you raise I had pretty much sussed out.
I'm still not sure what has caused these mistakes.
I'm guessing that a lot of it is down to politicians not being able to stop being political.
How much is down to wrong advice from medical experts and scientists?
Have they ignored most of that advice or followed it?

I'm genuinely not sure exactly how and more importantly why we are where we are.

Having said all that, it still seems as though there's so much conflicting information.
So many are dying we're told, yet the new emergency hospitals are nearly empty.

I genuinely find it hard to know just exactly what is happening and one day I think the lockdown is an over reaction and will cost many more lives in the future and the next I think it's the right thing to do.
The problem it seems to me is that you don't get to be invited as a medical expert if you aren't prepared to be persuaded by the politicians to deliver the message they want you to. You have got there by having ambition and you don't want your spot in the limelight taken away. The idea that the three spokespersons put forward each day do not discuss beforehand and discuss a list of FAQs prepared by spin-doctors so they all come to the briefing with an independent mind strikes me as fanciful. The real difference between the experts and the politicians is that the experts are at least honest enough to say they don't know occasionally whereas the politicians feel they have to say something and are quite prepared to lie to give the impression that it is they who are winning..
 
Turkish, has your Mrs received a letter regarding 12 week isolation due to her condition? Mine hasn't which is quite incredible really.

My old man got the letter, saying he's to be isolated for 14 weeks I think. He's lost his spleen, a kidney and half a lung to cancer, leading to poor lung capacity, breathing issues etc and was hospitalised for six weeks at the beginning of the year with fluid on the lungs - catching COVID would definately see him off.
 
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The problem it seems to me is that you don't get to be invited as a medical expert if you aren't prepared to be persuaded by the politicians to deliver the message they want you to. You have got there by having ambition and you don't want your spot in the limelight taken away. The idea that the three spokespersons put forward each day do not discuss beforehand and discuss a list of FAQs prepared by spin-doctors so they all come to the briefing with an independent mind strikes me as fanciful. The real difference between the experts and the politicians is that the experts are at least honest enough to say they don't know occasionally whereas the politicians feel they have to say something and are quite prepared to lie to give the impression that it is they who are winning..
Spot on
 
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