If he's right there's no point doing LF tests anymore. If they aren't specific enough and need backing up with a PCR which also has limited sensitivity and reliability then the whole test programme is compromised.
I'd like to know more about "this new cold virus" if anyone out there knows anything about its genetics.
Staying away from colds isn't really a realistic option for teacher Madame. Colds and flu usually get to us with a lag time down here, people around me seem remarkably healthy. It'll be interesting to see what happens when mask wearing is dropped.
Doesn’t sound right to me. LFT are quite targeted, aren’t they? The tests for antibodies could be confused by the response to other (common cold) viruses, because they are looking for the response, not the virus. LFT on the other hand are triggered by parts of the actual virus itself.
LFT have shown high specificity, PCR has a sensitivity somewhat below 100%, so unless there is clear evidence for this "new virus" the safer assumption is surely that these are covid cases.
Surprised this hasn't been picked up already
BBC News - Covid: UK's early response worst public health failure ever, MPs say
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58876089
Only had a quick skim. Report seems fairly balanced, suspect the reporting/headlines will be twisted to highlight the message the press wants to give out to their readership.
Shame this wasn't done a year ago ahead of the winter wave so lessons could have been learnt in time to save more lives, and it's the learning lessons that had to be the priority rather than a blame game.
Yes but... Just maybe if we look at who's to blame they can be held to account and we can't get someone better in. Personally I think certain senior politicians ought to be on trial for effectively causing thousands.... Tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Personally I think certain senior politicians ought to be on trial for effectively causing thousands…. Tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
My priority is making sure we don't have tens of thousands more.
Then we can sharpen the pitchforks
But is the risk risk of 10s of thousands of more deaths not more likely if we keep the same incompetent, cowardly decision makers in post?
The two obvious ball-dropping points were implementing the first lockdown too late, and not introducing the autumn circuit breaker lockdown. Both clearly supported by evidence and both fumbled by decision makers whose primary aim was to remain popular.
You can then add on a clearly unfit for purpose and hugely expensive test & trace system plus lack of a PPE stockpile and inability to procure necessary items at scale.
The airline industry is held up as being a great example of open and honest error reporting and learning from mistakes. But if one airline had lost multiple planes in a single year the argument goes from learning to removing the decision makers ASAP.
Personally I find it hard to see how Boris and chums could have handled this much worse. Trump and an invisible opposition have been an unbelievable blessing for them
Surprised this hasn’t been picked up already
Reading it now. Have relatively little to disagree with so far. Scientific groupthink is a thing one can identify with. I deliberately avoided looking at what others were doing for that reason. The comment on data availability is absolutely spot on. I likened COVID to landing a plane in fog without instruments. That view has not changed. Fast forward and things are in a totally different place.
You can then add on a clearly unfit for purpose and hugely expensive test & trace system
Guess where I have pleasure of working.
The airline industry is held up as being a great example of open and honest error reporting and learning from mistakes.
We had someone who worked for us for few months. Fuloughed from their job as an aviation maintenance supervisor (they’d been an engineer themself so knew what the job standards should be.)
They left as they couldn’t understand why lapses in proper procedure were allowed to happen and when they reported them they were viewed as a grass.
I wouldn't get on a bike built to T&T standards, let alone an aeroplane. When quality and safety matter, look no further than the most regulated industries.
1 in 4 people I test are COVID positive. (The ratio is going in the wrong direction). My PPE is an NHS supplied paper mask. The rest is all about proper practice. The rules are impossible to follow in our workplace.
The two obvious ball-dropping points were implementing the first lockdown too late, and not introducing the autumn circuit breaker lockdown. Both clearly supported by evidence and both fumbled by decision makers whose primary aim was to remain popular.
The first one I think is still unclear quite where the scientific evidence pointed and when? Or at least the weight of enough scientific evidence. Despite most people and businesses already taking their own precautions.
The second, yes, that was a clear and incorrect political judgement that added to the impact of the Kent variant last winter before they failed just as dismally to prepare for the Delta variant. Starmer publicly backed the scientists iirc, and then failed to follow up with a lot of "we told you so"
The first one I think is still unclear quite where the scientific evidence pointed and when? Or at least the weight of enough scientific evidence. Despite most people and businesses already taking their own precautions.
Perhaps I was a bit more focussed on it as I work in healthcare and was booted out of Italy in March when they locked down but I distinctly remember shouting at the tv when Boris was saying no lockdown was needed around 14th/15th.
Even in March we had evidence of the mortality rates from other European countries, the folly of local lockdowns (when northern Italy was locked down everyone fled south, making the situation far worse as many carried the virus with them), asymptomatic transmission being a key factor.
Some evidence was unknown; for example the ease of airborne transmission wasn’t fully understood, hence the delay in recommending masks.
And I realise I neglected to mention the fact Boris & co abandoned thousands of people in care homes to die thanks to lack of PPE. Despite Hancock’s erroneous and downright disingenuous claim of putting a “ring of steel” around them.
I guess we now know why Boris chose this week to go on Holiday
This very thread, and the one that went before are proof enough of where the scientific evidence was pointing all along.
The delay is advising mask wearing was purely down to mask shortages in France, the evidence of their usefulness was there. It's one of the things that's provoked a judicial interest here. There was the crazy situation of medical professional begging for FFP2/3 masks and the government telling us they weren't important. We knew. The answer was making our own until supplies became avvailable.
The chair of the group is Jeremy Hunt. Does that seem remotely appropriate to anyone at all in the world?
Well, it's appropriate because all the people crying "it's just lefties out to get our Boris" can be pointed to the names on the report. It's a pretty fair, balanced, and unsurprising report really. Nothing new in it. And nothing to do with hindsight... as reading pages of the thread contemporary with the events it covers show. Hell, just read the Sage reports published... in most cases they were saying what independent scientists outside were saying, it's only the past delays in publishing that helped give any credence to claims of ignorance by the government... and make their "only in hindsight" claims in media interviews today look like the gaslighting that they are.
The Tory MP on 5 Live this afternoon was full-on blaming the scientists. The only criticism of the govt was that they "trusted the scientists too much"!!!!
On the same day as we’re checking out this report…
https://twitter.com/matthancock/status/1447970376131170305?s=21
…what can you say to that?
Arse
Interesting article on Guardian website about testing anomalies, similar to ours and others I know.
The Tory MP on 5 Live this afternoon was full-on blaming the scientists. The only criticism of the govt was that they “trusted the scientists too much”!!!!
Did anyone see this going any other way? These slippery ****s will throw whoever they can find under the bus.
I distinctly remember shouting at the tv when Boris was saying no lockdown was needed around 14th/15th.
I provided my first analysis, that was presented to SAGE, on the 15th March. A week is reasonably rapid for the magnitude of decision taken and people had already started to act of their own accord. One might ask why a similar analysis wasn't conducted earlier by SPI-M (one did come two weeks after mine using Italy data). There was not a long delay to be honest and I don't think we could have acted much faster. Shutting down a country is not an easy decision.
However, the autumn decision was an opportunity missed. And there is a clear and obvious bump in excess deaths (compared with the European range) over Christmas of approximately 30k deaths that could have been avoided with a clear Christmas do not mix message. Peak death in the Uk is always two weeks after Christmas for the same reason, but 2020-21 was even worse than a bad year.
I'm surprised to read that from you tired. Like many, I put my family in lockdown 4 or 5 days before Boris did, that wasn't an easy decision. The 'data' was we'd seen whutan struggle in January then had ring side seats as Italy feel apart and it's health care system failed. Even before that I recall reading modelling predicted London would be hit early and hard.
Did we have the quality of modelling and data you deal with? No, but did we have enough to act a week, teen days or even 2 or 3 weeks earlier? I think so.
I’m surprised to read that from you tired.
My point was really that the time from analysis to decision was actually short. If I had fallen off that electric skateboard and had the groin strain a week earlier, then I'd have done the same analysis a week earlier. I think there was groupthink in the analysis methods being applied to the (limited) data by SPI-M from a group that is founded on mathematical modelling (which I also used to do in that field).
Only by borrowing information from other countries was a clear picture available. I was the first to do that using ECDC data and relatively simple but powerful statistical methods. No R was harmed in my analysis. With that analysis it was obvious that UK was not an outlier - well actually we were, but for the wrong reasons 🙁
April last year…
“We closed down too late—that’s clear from the maths,” said Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who is advising the World Health Organization on the pandemic. “English exceptionalism has been really damaging.”
The mess of those early months in 2020, when we watched our neighbours take action, while our PM talked of the economic advantage the UK would gain by staying open when others were not… a speech made while on a short break from his endless time away from work and avoiding talking to anyone working on the UK’s response, avoiding COBRA meetings, avoiding even going back to Downing Street… well some might excuse his poor and slow decision making after making himself unavailable and cut off rather than doing his job in those early months… but his poor decision making didn’t end in April last year, did it… it ran and ran… killing thousands more, while also financially damaging the country in a way we will all be paying for for quite some time to come.
Yeah - what's written in that report has been blindingly obvious to most people paying attention throughout - no news here other than now it's finally "official". Anyone claiming that BoJo and chums didn't spectacularly **** it up, causing tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths in the process, needs their head examined (or probably just having their opinion dismissed as delusional).
It was freedom day here (Sydney) on Monday - we passed 70% fully vaccinated in the week previously. It's pretty muted - not a lot has changed - people still working from home, masks being worn everywhere by everyone. Shops and restaurants/pubs are open (reduced capacity) - but pretty empty from what I can see. People have got the message about opening-up slowy.
We are due to hit 80% double vaccinated next week I think, and then 90% maybe 2 weeks after that.
Schools are going back at the end of October I think?
Good news batfink. Meanwhile, for goodness knows what reasons, after a brilliant start to the vaccine roll out it seems the UK has stalled, London in particular. According to the BBC figures Croydon figures are 65 and 58%. Hmmm.
Like many, I put my family in lockdown 4 or 5 days before Boris did, that wasn’t an easy decision. The ‘data’ was we’d seen whutan struggle in January then had ring side seats as Italy feel apart and it’s health care system failed.
Same here, based on my wife's knowledge as a virologist and experience of colleagues in Milan. BUT, it's easy on a personal level to take that risk-averse option, especially as someone whose work was already mostly remote. It's much harder to justify that kind of drastic action at a societal level - you'd want to be pretty confident.
Similarly with the airborne transmission thing - it was always the way to bet as a private individual, and we were using the best masks we could find very early. But the economic consequences of that decision at a societal level are substantial, and again it's clearly a harder decision for a government than for a private individual.
Or course. Being PM requires making difficult decisions way beyond those any of us make in our day to day lives. But he wanted to be PM, and then spent the months after his election win doing all he could to stay away from the job. And his dithering and delaying (when those in a similar position in other countries were taking action) had a price as well. A greater price. There should be no “it’s a difficult decision” … it is his job. There should be no “he did his best” … it was not good enough.
Same here, based on my wife’s knowledge as a virologist and experience of colleagues in Milan. BUT, it’s easy on a personal level to take that risk-averse option, especially as someone whose work was already mostly remote. It’s much harder to justify that kind of drastic action at a societal level – you’d want to be pretty confident.
Similarly with the airborne transmission thing – it was always the way to bet as a private individual, and we were using the best masks we could find very early. But the economic consequences of that decision at a societal level are substantial, and again it’s clearly a harder decision for a government than for a private individual.
I completely agree with you - however, many other governments looked at what was happening and made those tough decisions at that time, and did so on an ongoing basis throughout the crisis, saving thousands (tens of thousands?) of lives as a result. Whereas Boris Johnson's government has been defined throughout the crisis as consistently either making the wrong decision, failing to take action until it was too late, or completely mishandling something to the point of abject failure - and doing so accompanied by howls of despair from their own scientists/experts, the general public and the demonstrable success of different approaches in other countries.
I can only think of two exceptions..... two things that weren't completely arsed-up:
The furlough scheme
The vaccine roll-out
Admittedly, both hugely impactful, and going some way to mitigate the harm of virtually every other decision action/inaction of the government.
In any other job, if your severe and serial incompetence led to even a single death - you would face very severe consequences..... but I fear this report will barely even leave a dent on the cult of Boris Johnson and the modern conservative party.
Sorry - dangerously close to a rant. I'm also aware that I'm leaning against an open door - I don't think anyone on here will particularly disagree with any of the above.
I can only think of two exceptions….. two things that weren’t completely arsed-up:
The furlough scheme
The vaccine roll-out
I'd question the vaccine rollout.
We made a good start and then failed to keep up with our neighbours.
We put ourselves in a good position to be the first to vaccinate teens, and could and should have succeeded before schools went back.
Dithering, fear of making a decision, and populism meant we lost more lives.
Furlough was botched as well IMO
the rate at which they paid furlough was far too high, it came in too late and was done in such a way as to give the devolved parliaments no say and people were excluded from help who needed it
Vaccine rollout worked because it was done by the right folk and not thru useless harding or one of their stooges
Nice when the experts catch up with and agree with points debated on STW:
There's a good interview by Jim Al-Khalili with Patrick Valance. Nothing earth shattering but more valuable background on what was going on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09ydn63
Did we have the quality of modelling and data you deal with? No, but did we have enough to act a week, teen days or even 2 or 3 weeks earlier? I think so.
Sorry, but if TiRed says the data wasn't there to make such a huge decision 2-3 weeks earlier, then I'll take his word for it. As one of the scientists, he's holding his hands up to something that could/should have been done better, and I admire his honesty, which he has shown throughout this thread.
Unlike any of the government.
Yes, individuals and businesses were making their own decisions by then based on what they were seeing abroad, but that's different to imposing a nationwide lockdown with all it's implications based on something that scientists at that time didn't have the data to confirm.
Furlough was flawed, as everything is when it's rushed in, but it was successful. HMRC knew nothing about it until the Chief Exec got a call from the Treasury telling him to watch Sunak's announcement on the telly in half an hour.
Sorry, but if TiRed says the data wasn’t there to make such a huge decision 2-3 weeks earlier, then I’ll take his word for it.
There was data, but the methods being used to look at it were basically here is the UK curve, where is it going? And there wasn't very much UK data. All I did was combine with other countries and see how are very early data was tracking other countries further ahead. My one regret is not doing that earlier. I deliberately took a different approach to the standard epidemiological modelling (which I used to do), simply because I knew everyone else would be doing that.
Biggest failure for me was Christmas (above and beyond circuit breaker).
Biggest success has been vaccine rollout.
Could try better: explanations of the dire situation in more transparent terms to show how bad things really were. And less focus on "today's deaths statistic".
I wonder when we'll see the similar enquiry into the handling of the pandemic in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon must be booking her holidays now.
Biggest failure for me was Christmas (above and beyond circuit breaker).
Biggest success has been vaccine rollout.
Absolutely agree, given what was learnt from the first wave, the politically driven decisions around Christmas were unforgivable and downright reckless.
The rollout, despite it's flaws, has saved a lot of lives and serious illness this year, and has to be considered a success.
According to the BBC figures Croydon figures are 65 and 58%. Hmmm.
Whenever I pose the question why the fully vaccinated only represent just over half in Croydon the standard response is that it must be related to Croydon's high rate of ethnic minorities, I remain unconvinced.
the rate at which they paid furlough was far too high,
What alternative was there?
Whenever I pose the question why the fully vaccinated only represent just over half in Croydon the standard response is that it must be related to Croydon’s high rate of ethnic minorities, I remain unconvinced.
I used to live near Croydon. It's not an ethnic issue. It's a Croydon issue.
Well it sounds as if it should be but I had no problem whatsoever getting vaccinated in Croydon, nor do I know anyone who had who had any problem. In fact after being vaccinated the NHS contacted me about another three times, both by text and post, offering me the jab that I had had already had.
It remains a mystery to me.
I agree the delivery had been smooth and my wife and I got both jabs quickly and easily. I don't think it's a Croydon issue, I think it's London wide, the communication seems to not have persuaded about 35%.
What alternative was there?
Enforce mortgage / rent holidays without penalties and pay a far lower rate - It just annoyed me that furlough was paid up to well above national average wage - IMO about half that would have been better
share the costs around a bit more - this way the mortgage companies pay a bit and the government a bit less
