Apparently he misinterpreted what cobra was and drank it when he should have been going to it.
Could happen to anyone.
Probably just following Boris’s example.
Why "comedy clubs"?
Why “comedy clubs”?
You'll need a laugh after going to all the funerals.
The fails schedule can't work unless the 5 measures announced by raab are in place
Not sure that any will be, by 4 weeks, let alone 3?
the daily fail are running with…. their/someones traffic light plan
Nice to see that getting your hair done is in the right category of essential.
All of this is impossible without proper testing. You need to see where the hotspots are in terms of community cases, not when truckloads of new patients are being admitted, because it's too late to close the valve again then.
Warehouses reopen? Did they ever have to shut? Someone might need to tell Amazon - where do people think their Internet shiz comes from if not a warehouse?
I doubt it, national security defence I’d imagine.
It's was a pandemic drill not a military drill.
It’s was a pandemic drill not a military drill
The knowledge of how vital infrastructure will react in time of crisis would be pretty useful information you wouldn’t want to disclose unti you have to use it and would seem to fall under national security.
That fail graphic looks lifted word for word from a Spanish one that was doing the rounds yesterday, which was complete conjecture
Did they ever have to shut?
Most didn’t. But that’s what happens when a ‘journalist’ just looks at what’s happening elsewhere, and doesn’t bother to sense check it against what is happening here. See also the excitement of other countries ‘leaving lock down’, when their relaxation measures are still leaving the population and businesses with much tighter controls than ours are currently under.
if anything the failure is the inability to understand the severity
That is precisely the problem. He wanted to be both in total control, and not have to bother being involved, leaving us without anyone who could take the steps required at the time they were required. Ministers were both hobbled by the new way that no 10 controls everything, and slowed down by the main man at no 10 being too busy enjoying having the label of PM to bother actually doing the work of the PM. Johnson not only lacked the ability to understand the severity of threat from this virus, he lacked the ability to understand what his role requires of him, and how he and Cummings had made that role even more arguious with their controlling power grab and appointment of ministers based on Brexit beliefs more than their capability to shoulder the responsibilities of their roles. Perhaps he will understand the seriousness of all this now after what he has been though in recent weeks.
[Insert all the PM’s jokes about the virus, before the shit hit the fan in the UK, here.]
the 2016 simulation exercise outcomes were as people seem to think they
The 2016 simulation was for an influenza pandemic in which:
1) the young are hit harder than the old and have high morbidity (hospital use) but low mortality - closing the schools has a disproportionate effect on overall transmission.
2) Mass treatment is available for stockpiling for the infected (Tamiflu and Relenza).
3) Standard PPE required would be typical for a less transmissible agent.
OK, we probably failed that preparedness, and Belgium disposed of their PPE stockpile after they went out of date, but the COVID-19 epidemic fails on the above three criteria.
The only obvious failures I can see are 1) lockdown could have been a week earlier, and 2) PHE could have deregulated testing to smaller labs instead of believing in central command and control. We'd still be running out of PPE (like most other countries). We still wouldn't have any treatments. The elderly would still be disproportionately hit by the infection.
3) Standard PPE required would be typical for a less transmissible agent.
If we'd stockpiled standard PPE maybe care homes could have something instead of nothing, nurses could avoid wearing bin-bags, and Joe Public could wear a mask on the Tube?
But still - Boris had a nice vacation, so hey-ho.
I’m no fan of BoJo and can see that for a matter of this importance you can argue that he should have played a hands on role but this isn’t in itself a smoking gun,
You're joking, right? An existential threat to the nation, and Boris "Johnson" Johnson doesn't think it worth showing up? Maybe his hero (but not, sadly, role model) should have buggered off on holiday and left that "fighting on the beaches" stuff to a secretary?
The only obvious failures I can see are 1) lockdown could have been a week earlier, and 2) PHE could have deregulated testing to smaller labs instead of believing in central command and control.
The week before saw some big events happening including 1/4 million people at Cheltenham festival
Also kept construction industry open for a further 2 weeks, 1000s of the workers squeezing into the tube ever day
Decision to ignore WHO advice & abandon community test, track & trace.
Also failure to warn businesses & crucially supermarkets before lockdown& conflicting advice about parks, exercise etc
Other problem is that government love a press release with accompanying churchillian image of the "PM leading COBRA meeting to save us all from..."
Now we learn that he skipped 5 of them, to miss one might be misfortunate, 2 looks like carelessness,* 5? Looks like he couldn't give a flying fudge.
*apologies to Oscar Wilde
Dom and Dommer have established a presidential style of government where all power is centralised at number ten in a way it has never been before. The cabinet are all yes-men (and women) appointed for their unquestioning loyalty over Brexit, rather than any actual ability.
The last couple of weeks have ruthlessly exposed the weaknesses of these particular nodding dogs. It can’t have come as any great shock to anyone.
The trouble with that system of government is now pretty obvious.
If you’re going to concentrate power in the hands of one man, probably best that he’s not a bone-idle, entitled layabout, who can’t even be arsed to actually turn up for meetings even at a time of national crisis.
No wonder he looked like he did at those early press conferences when the shit got real.
As Marina Hyde put it “wearing the look of a man who’d just been caught ****ing” (rhymes with banking)
Why “comedy clubs”?
It's shorthand for the House of Commons
Well reading the internet this morning, it appears what we are witnessing is the start of a Gove power play for the top job.
Hmm can’t see that it’s not like he’s got prior form for backstabbing. 🙂
They deserve each other then ❤️
You’re joking, right? An existential threat to the nation, and Boris “Johnson” Johnson doesn’t think it worth showing up?
That's not really what i said though - if the crime is not chairing a COBRA meeting then a health issue would normally be chaired by the Health Secretary and so IN ITSELF that's not the failure IF he thought that it could be controlled by Hancock.
I absolutely agree the failure was in misunderstanding the severity. Which is pretty unforgivable given the lead they seemed to getting from experts, but as said they have history in ignoring inconvenient truths when it deviates from their intended path.
Of course he should have gone to them / chaired them, and they should have acted sooner. No doubt in that.
TL;DR - not going to every COBRA meeting is not the issue. Not going to these ones, particularly given the weight of evidence / importance - a totally different matter.
An article about Anti Body testing in California
That not 24 hours later is having the absolute arse ripped out of it being subject to some robust criticism.
I think the authors of the above-linked paper owe us all an apology. We wasted time and effort discussing this paper whose main selling point was some numbers that were essentially the product of a statistical error.
How does a plastic apron go out of date. We are bombarded with news about plastic lasting 852 years etx. Are they impregnated with quat or iodine and this denatures over time? Surely something is better than nothing.
Judging by the car activity today lock down is over, people everywhere doing stuff as its warming up and sunny
Lots of riders driving from Leeds and Manchester to be here this weekend. When asked, that guidance to the police being cited… “new rules that mean we can do this again, isn’t it great?!?”
Not as bad as those driving out to the moors for a BBQ that are keeping the fire service busy.
That’s not really what i said though – if the crime is not chairing a COBRA meeting then a health issue would normally be chaired by the Health Secretary and so IN ITSELF that’s not the failure IF he thought that it could be controlled by Hancock.
The crime is not even showing up, never mind chairing. On such an important issue how could he be sure that the briefing from Hancock (god help us) would be sufficient? Was it really more vital that he go shopping for baby clothes or whatever he did rather than learn a bit more about the likely fate of the country?
Judging by the car activity today lock down is over, people everywhere doing stuff as its warming up and sunny
British people are by and large stupid. They voted for Brexit and they voted to destroy the health service. Why would they bother staying at home? Indeed - it would be illogical for them to do so - CV19 is giving them the chance to benefit fully from both those choices. Best spread it around as much as possible.
Yup, local park is packed full of cars, as the car parks have all been reopened.
Tesco back to normal.
I really don't know what to say.
Well, they can help with the herd immunity so I don't have to 😀
Wonder if Donald might have a word with Boris about lifting lockdown sooner rather than later in some kind of miss-guided show of solidarity, with the promise of a trade deal has a reward
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/boris-johnson-and-coronavirus-inside-story-illness
Johnson had experienced a scare, no doubt about that.
One specialist said he thought the prime minister had gilded the lily a bit – “I suspect there’s been an element of poetic licence there” – but at the same time stressed that he did need oxygen, albeit through a face mask rather than Cpap or full mechanical ventilation.
The specialist did not begrudge Johnson being put into ICU, reasoning “he’s the prime minister”, and “without that oxygen he would not have got better”.
The saga had a curious footnote.
Photographs taken from a public footpath showed Johnson and Symonds walking with their dog in the grounds of Chequers, the prime minister bundled up in a duffel coat and gloves. He looked pale but well enough to go for a stroll. Most ICU patients leave hospital in a wheelchair. They suffer from exhaustion, muscle wastage and other chronic problems. The prime minister appears to be in much better shape.
Johnson goes on holiday for two weeks during the critical early stages of the pandemic, flouts the advice on infection control, gets really sick and is now out of action till who knows when. An extended recuperation is quite convenient for him, because it means other people are the face of government as things get increasingly bad.
Johnson has a track record of failing to do his job properly. He's a terrible choice to be leading the country at any time, doubly so under the current situation.
Williamson is awful even at reading out his speech, he could be mauled in the Q&A
I hope that daily fail timeline is a load of crap, I don't want to put the boy back into school then as I reckon it will just accelerate the epidemic with the bunch of little biohazards running around. Bloody stupid idea and easy way to make sure the second wave starts soon
Just reading the questions and replies from the useless Harries. I really do despair if these people are considered "experts".
Well I’ve just been for a short stroll with the dog too. I didn’t need O2 and stayed out of hospital, but it probably might have helped on one or two days. He was put in icu/high dependency because he’s the prime minister. I don’t really have an issue with that. I hope he makes a good recovery. Can’t stand him as a politician, mind.
Was odd that California data was so far out from similar data. From holland which said 3% spread iirc?
Was odd that California data was so far out from similar data. From holland which said 3% spread iirc?
Debunked, as per post on previous page ..
The statistics have been called into question based on the sensitivity and specificity of the test. However, it is more instructive to turn it around and rather than ask "is the true prevalence 1% or 3%", ask "given this data and test performance, what's the probability of it being greater than, say 10% or 30%?". For almost ant statistical methodology, including Bayesian with informative priors, that probability will be very small indeed.
The problem for any imperfect test looking for a rare event, is that all your positives might be false. The fact that the two numbers are similar certainly rules out 10% and 30% of the population having been infected already. That is useful information.
@TiRed based on the fact that very few of the test kits seem to have been properly validated for antibody response I would say we are some way off knowing any solid level of data.
was reading yesterday that a lot of them use the nucleocapsid as an antigen which may or may not be the primary antigen in the immune response.
Proper guess work going on here, but hopefully there will be some full panel antibody binding data soon to allow the targets to be narrowed
Well I ran a fully Bayesian analysis and here is the posterior probability distribution for the prevalence incorporating propagation of all uncertainty. Prevalence is less than 3% in the samples given the test results. Of that I am very firm. The methodology makes it a lot harder to adjust for sampling, as they did, but for the raw data, this is the best analysis. Note in this plot ZERO prevalence is not ruled out either. All data is useful if you understand the uncertainty.
I should note that someone else posted the same analysis on that website, I ran it with a different software and slightly different priors.
The government rebuttal to the Times article is here
https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/04/19/response-to-sunday-times-insight-article/
at first glance it seems reasonable, but the more you read through it you more you realise its mostly spin & BS
Ive done a response to the governments response for the first few claims & its even shonkier than I thought:
Claim – On the third Friday in January Coronavirus was already spreading around the world but the government ‘brushed aside’ the threat in an hour-long COBR meeting and said the risk to the UK public was ‘low’.
Response – At a very basic level, this is wrong. The meeting was on the fourth Friday in January. The article also misrepresents the Government’s awareness of Covid 19, and the action we took before this point. Health Secretary Matt Hancock was first alerted to Covid 19 on 3 January and spoke to Departmental officials on 6th Jan before receiving written advice from the UK Health Security Team.
He brought the issue to the attention of the Prime Minister and they discussed Covid 19 on 7 January. The government’s scientific advisory groups started to meet in mid-January and Mr Hancock instituted daily coronavirus meetings. He updated Parliament as soon as possible, on January 23rd.
The risk level was set to “Low” because at the time our scientific advice was that the risk level to the UK public at that point was low. The first UK case was not until 31 January. The specific meaning of “public health risk” refers to the risk there is to the public at precisely that point. The risk was also higher than it had been before - two days earlier it had been increased “Very Low” to “Low” in line with clinical guidance from the Chief Medical Officer.
The WHO did not formally declare that coronavirus was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) until 30 January, and only characterised it as a global pandemic more than a month later, on 11 March. The UK was taking action and working to improve its preparedness from early January.
Response to the response – Correct 24th Jan was the 3rd Friday in Jan, the Times are daft for getting the wrong week in jan
The rest is just flap, The Times never said that Hancock didn’t do any of those things & actually SAGE didnt 1st meet until 22nd Jan (which I suppose is mid-Jan)
Up until this bit
“The risk level was set to “Low” because at the time our scientific advice was that the risk level to the UK public at that point was low. The first UK case was not until 31 January.”
First of all they have the date wrong first confirmed case was on 29th of Jan, dept of health really should know this
https://bfpg.co.uk/2020/04/covid-19-timeline/
Its worrying that it was still low at that point tbh, there were estimated to be 10,000 UK tourists in china at the end of Jan
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51288672
And the first papers from China had already shown P2P transmission
Claim - ‘This was despite the publication that day of an alarming study by Chinese doctors in the medical journal The Lancet. It assessed the lethal potential of the virus, for the first time suggesting it was comparable to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people.'
Response - The editor of the Lancet, on exactly the same day – 23 January - called for “caution” and accused the media of ‘escalating anxiety by talking of a ‘killer virus’ and ‘growing fears’. He wrote: ‘In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language.’ The Sunday Times is suggesting that there was a scientific consensus around the fact that this was going to be a pandemic – that is plainly untrue.
https://twitter.com/richardhorton1/status/1220606842449072128?s=19
Response to the response –At a very basic level, this is wrong the tweet was from the 24th, not the 23rd, & its very selective, china had lifted its embargo on data, hours later Horton tweeted this
https://twitter.com/richardhorton1/status/1220725032126689281
By 26th following several other papers he was saying we should prob declare a PHEIC & shouting lodly about it by 29th, which WHO did on 30th
https://twitter.com/richardhorton1/status/1221552137517305856
They also give 2 examples of scientists playing it down, but suddenly start ignoring Hortons tweets which they had previously been paying attention to?
Which leads on to the next bit…..
They make a big fuss about it being fine for Johnson not to attend COBR meeting, as other PMs haven’t in past & it wasn’t even a PHEIC yet…
Claim - It was unusual for the Prime Minister to be absent from COBR and is normally chaired by the Prime Minister.
Response - This is wrong. It is entirely normal and proper for COBR to be chaired by the relevant Secretary of State. Then Health Secretary Alan Johnson chaired COBR in 2009 during H1N1. Michael Gove chaired COBR as part of No Deal planning. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps chaired COBR during the collapse of Thomas Cook. Mr Hancock was in constant communication with the PM throughout this period.
At this point the World Health Organisation had not declared COVID19 a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’, and only did so only 30 January. Indeed, they chose not to declare a PHEIC the day after the COBR meeting.
Response to the response –The point is that even if Johnson missing the 1st meeting was fine, he then proceeded to miss the next 4, well after it was declared a PHEIC he didn’t bother attending one until 2nd March, by which time Lombardy was locked down & people were dying across Europe!
So what did he learn whilsta ttending his 1st COBR meeting?
SPI-M had said that infection rate was likley to be 80% with 0.5-1% fatality rate, meaning that ~400,000 UK ctizens could die & that stringent measures would be needed to slow it down
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/873713/01-spi-m-o-consensus-statement-on-2019-novel-coronavirus-_covid-19_.pdf
Theyd also reported that it was more contagious than spahish flu & P2P well established
so obviously this bombshell information was noteworthy & he took that all in, right?
well, the next day he said this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3NAx3tsy-k
New favourite lockdown entertainment (with a message)
scotroutes - never impressed with her music in the past but heard her interviewed recently and really warmed to her; lovely family vid and, as you say, with a message.
I quite liked her indie band, but they never really did anything
The Danish Govt has announced that any company that has it's HQ based in an offshore Tax Havens, buy back it's own shares, or pay dividends will be ineligible for any govt based COVID 19 financial help.
https://twitter.com/g_bertoncello/status/1251978034497888269
The Danish Govt has announced that any company that has it’s HQ based in an offshore Tax Havens, buy back it’s own shares, or pay dividends will be ineligible for any govt based COVID 19 financial help.
WTF - have they missed the point that the job of govt is to channel money from poor people to rich people? Damned communists!!
So it appears that we are on the downward side of the peak in terms of hospital admissions etc (I am aware that deaths will keep going up for sometime). We didn't exceed the beds capacity or ventilators from what I understand.
So were the additional ventilators and beds that were procured not used (although they haven't all been delivered) because it wasn't as bad as they thought or is the expectation there that a second peak will be worse and therefore the Nightingale Hospitals and Ventilators will be required?
I’ve just had an email for KN95 masks, face shields, sanitizer and anti bacterial wipes from a promotional merchandise company.
Unexpected, it’s usually t shirts and cheap pens they punt!
