Economic recovery

[JMI]

The scientific evidence is all over the place they cannot agree on anything, looks like the government is just making most of this up as they go along now.

I can't understand why theres not more outrage.

 

[boxfish]

Doesn't that somewhat make sense?

If the scientific evidence is all over the place, you have to go with something, in a an unknown situation. In a unknown situation you do normally kind of make it up as you go along, based on what information you choose to listen to. That does ultimately mean you will be wrong sometimes and right sometimes.

There are several videos on YouTube of Chris Whitty giving lectures at Gresham College over a year ago where he says that a global pandemic is imminent, it will be the next killer and he goes through the science of it.

It's not an 'unknown situation', it's one that was predicted and the science has played out as expected. What wasn't mentioned is the economic impact which seems to be dictating the current situation.

 

[Siusaidh]

As a healthcare professional, what I'd like to know is, if it was expected, why was it not prepared for?

 

[martin-s]

As a healthcare professional, what I'd like to know is, if it was expected, why was it not prepared for?

Because there hasn't previously been enough justification for such over-capacity which is quite a costly insurance policy. Even over the past few months of no deal Brexit and Coronavirus preparations, the press will still attack insurance policies like this as wasteful. The Nightingale hospitals, the current over-supply of track and trace workers (insurance against a second wave, surely?), etc.

By definition you expect an insurance policy to be wasteful, because the alternative is so much worse.

Never before has "hindsight is 20/20" been so accurate.

 

[Murray]

As a healthcare professional, what I'd like to know is, if it was expected, why was it not prepared for?

Problem is it could have happened now, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years who knows

If you're a politician and you spent a lot of money "just in case" and nothing happened you would be ridiculed, called a doomsday prepper wasting money and damage you and your political parties chance of being reelected

And how long of a shelf-life would the previsions and equipment last

 

[boxfish]

As a healthcare professional, what I'd like to know is, if it was expected, why was it not prepared for?

If you check this video out, posted in October 2018, the Government Adviser Chris Whitty says pandemic influenza remains the highest risk on the UK Risk Register, it's rated 5/5 in severity and 4/5 as occurring in the next 5 years, so it definitely was expected. (I know this isn't influeza per se but the response would be the same as methods of transmission are the same)

I've linked to the exact slide, which is towards the end but the whole video is very interesting and worth a watch.

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Problem is it could have happened now, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years who knows

In 2018 there was a 4/5 chance of it happening in the next 5 years.

 

[Siusaidh]

I do understand all sides of the argument. The simple facts are that there was a serious shortage of PPE.

In this Guardian article, it's clear that the risk of pandemic was recognised and planned for. However the value of the pandemic stockpiles diminished by £325million (40%) between 2013 and 2019.

Given the present crisis, there must be an urgent need to re-stock both for possible 2nd wave, and for any later pandemic.

I agree with Murray that there is a problem with shelf life/expiry of equipment, and I assume what you do is build up the core, so that say a gown has a 5 year shelf life, then each year you feed one fifth out to the general NHS for use that year, and replace one fifth each year. That then becomes a rolling budget commitment.

I don't know if the 40% fall off in stock valuation between 2013 and 2019 reflected an actual depletion of PPE (it would be unfair of me to say definitely it did). What I do know for myself and all my colleagues, is that as a fact, when the PPE was needed, in many cases the quantity available was woefully insufficient.

Inadequate PPE leads to increased cross-infection, and transmission to healthcare workers. It also results in GP practices being under-equipped and to rationing (or even re-use, which is completely wrong) of equipment.

My impression is that we were under-prepared for a pandemic which was recognised to be a very real possibility. So is the next pandemic too.

Exercise Winter Willow in 2007, and Operation Cygnus in 2016, clearly pointed to the need for contingency planning. Instead, the figures suggest that if anything the stocks were run down. Regardless of the truth of that, they weren't there sufficiently when the crisis broke. It's one thing to 'clap NHS staff' but what would show most respect and recognition would be their safety - and the safety of patients.

Obviously this involves budgets in the context of rival pressures for public money, and that involves political decisions, but I think it should not have been beyond organisational good management to set a rolling stock supply in place, with equipment 'outflowed' to the NHS for general use (so it's not being wasted) in the final year of its shelf life, and 20% replaced in the emergency stockpile each year.

That process would not be waste, because the equipment would end up being used if there was no pandemic. Any excess could be donated to desperately poor hospitals worldwide as part of overseas aid (albeit, with one year's use left, that would not be optimal but no doubt would still be received).

 

[Admin]

As a healthcare professional, what I'd like to know is, if it was expected, why was it not prepared for?

Because of arrogant, low intelligence world leaders who sack all their scientists...... that's one reason.

Worth a watch if you haven't, I watched this the month before COVID, this 'Pandemic' series was made last year https://www.netflix.com/title/81026143

 

[websaway]

Such a shame now how disadvantaged children are the cannon fodder of the political battle going on over a return to school. Leaving 8 year olds in high rise flats all day is no way to act humanely. My heart goes out to the families that don't have gardens, single mothers who simply can't educate 3 or 4 children of different ages. It's very, very sad.

 

[websaway]

Let's get our priorities right. We are facing the worst crisis since the 1970's. I don't think trying to move the statue of Baden Powell who may have been homophobic at a time when maybe 80% of the population were also homophobic and the act was even stupidly illegal and punishable by prison. When is common sense going to trump the minorities with extreme agendas whose leaders are mostly privileged young and have nothing else to do. Incidentally if a little german found us a formidable foe wait to see what the Brits can do if any extremists try to take down the statue of our hero Churchill. I am not homophobic ( never was ) I'm not racist ( never have been ) I think I have just developed a huge degree of common sense having been around the Sun a large number of times. We need to concentrate on beating the virus and saving the economy which so many many underprivileged people depend on.

 

[martin-s]

Having statues of slave traders as if to celebrate their work is a bit thoughtless frankly. If the statues are to stay, we need to acknowledge the negative parts of their history alongside.

We can't deny the UK's history, but that's not who we are (or want to be) now.

 

[Murray]

The statues remind me of The Simpsons episode where Lisa discovers Jebediah Springfield was a pirate, not a great founding hero the town thinks he is

The difference was in that episode the myth of Jebediah gave the community a sense of pride and unity

I don't think statues of slave traders should be up, but at the same time did they stand as monuments to the men who actually existed or more just representing some deeds and successes they accomplished

You don't have to be a great man to commit a great deed

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[diablo]

It's interesting because we have this thing that if it's 'history' it's spoken as if exceptions should be made... because it's history.

We would never put up a statue of Jimmy Savile though for the "good deeds" he did for charity. Despite that being history in the future.

 

[websaway]

people lived in the day and of the day. Savile clearly committed acts that were illegal in his own time. If a chief raided another village or tribe raped their women killed their children but brought the spoils back for his own village he would be a hero. Should I now judge that chief by my standards of today, no, we have to make allowances for the time that things took place. If we want to put historic figures on trial then let's, but they must be tried under the circumstances that existed then and not the progressed circumstances that have been achieved now. Otherwise I may be vilified in 100 years for not being a supporter of paedophilia.

 

[websaway]

I explained the relevance of my views explain where you see the irrelevance .
Will we tear down mandelas statue in 100 years because he ate beef.

 

[Murray]

Great Britain and how we conquered all", but don't speak about the rape, murder, slavery and exploitation that got us there.

I'm just thinking out loud, this is a delicate topic so I probably shoudn't be

Teaching children about those things would be an accurate account, but I wonder how accurate you can be before it becomes a bad thing to know

Could you get to the point where you're stirring up self-hatred and tensions between races/nations

If your dad killed my dad but we didn't know we could be perfect friends, but if we find out about it then it may cause some tension; knowing doesn't change what happened so would it be better to be ignorant

I understand the argument it's glossing over the past, it's an insult to the memory of those who suffered and I agree

I understand those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it

But sometimes is a little glossing over of history better for current relations and the future

Again not saying I'm right, just pondering out loud

 

[websaway]

The big problem seems to be that some people want change. The majority of people are happy how things are. The change that people want is ambiguous , so very difficult to arrive at something when you don't know what it is, our great country has got to where we are over centuries and let's be perfectly honest if the majority in a democracy are happy then something has been achieved. Teaching the truth about history in this day and age is not difficult, the difficulty is establishing which is the truth . But anyone who ignores the fact that history was of the day and should be judged as such is whistling in the wind and will never be taken seriously.

 

[martin-s]

The big problem seems to be that some people want change.

Change is normal. Without change we don't improve.

 

[websaway]

Change is normal. Without change we don't improve.

It needs to be change for the better though and change for the better is not necessarily what everyone wants. We've changed out of all recognition during the last hundred years but if that change does not totally satisfy everyone then minorities will protest. Think where we have come from in recent decades and then look at parts of the world where they have not moved forward. When some ask for change it is simply because they want to change to their way of thinking. They don't want Trump they don't want tories, they don't want Brexit and they dress it up to look like something else. I mean show me someone who would not have made money out of the slave trade if it meant being very poor or being very rich, but relate to the thinking of the day to do so. People didn't think black people had souls but they also burned witches. Trying to turn the clock back and relate the ignorant deeds of the past to the enlightened standards of today is moronic. It seems some academic historians have learned about the past but can't disassociate it from the present.

 

[websaway]

The protests that are going on and the issues they highlight are valid. Your comments about "most people in a democracy are happy" is moot because it was never offered as a democratic vote.

The majority of the UK did not vote for Brexit, but the majority of those who did vote voted for Brexit.
So what you're saying is Brexit shouldn't have happened?

Black lives matter, I know nobody in this country who don't already agree with that in it's entirety. I see an ad on TV looking for money to stop an 8 year old black girl having to engage in an arranged marriage. We wouldn't allow that in this country, we don't allow the police to kneel on someones neck. If Black lives matter so much how come we accept the knife crime that sees young black lives wasted . Black lives matter, I will support that but it's as broad as it is long when it's something else dressed up and hidden behind that cause.