Viewing 40 posts - 33,241 through 33,280 (of 39,835 total)
  • The Coronavirus Discussion Thread.
  • TiRed
    Full Member

    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.

    neilnevill
    Free Member

    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.

    TiRed
    Full Member

    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 🙁

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    kelvin
    Full Member

    April last year…

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-04-24/coronavirus-uk-how-boris-johnson-s-government-let-virus-get-away

    “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.

    batfink
    Free Member

    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?

    neilnevill
    Free Member

    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.

    ianbradbury
    Full Member

    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.

    kelvin
    Full Member

    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.

    batfink
    Free Member

    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.

    loum
    Free Member

    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.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    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

    Edukator
    Free Member
    Murray
    Full Member

    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

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    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.

    TiRed
    Full Member

    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”.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    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.

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    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.

    ernielynch
    Full Member

    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.

    Flaperon
    Full Member

    the rate at which they paid furlough was far too high,

    What alternative was there?

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    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.

    ernielynch
    Full Member

    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.

    neilnevill
    Free Member

    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%.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    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

    Mugboo
    Full Member

    tjagain in some cases I expect you are right.

    My own experience, as a self employed barber is that I finished the whole period in a similar financial position to where I would have done anyway (in part due to not spending any money on holidays). And this is after not applying for the last two payments on offer as I was back at work (my choice, it was there for the taking).

    I do still have a £6000 covid loan to pay back…

    Obviuosly this was based on my previous tax returns. Those that had been ripping off the taxman will have had a lot less.

    I have a friend who is a tradesman and he says the self-employed lads that work for him all claimed everything despite working. They said that the wording said ‘if you have been affected’ so they just went for it.

    And a rich **** I know who runs 5 seperate companies took 5 x £50,000 and his account has given him the impression he won’t have to pay it all back. Fingers crossed he is wrong!!

    I do have a customer who works big tax fraud cases and his is pretty confident that lots of chancers are going to feel the pain…

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    And a rich **** I know who runs 5 seperate companies took 5 x £50,000 and his account has given him the impression he won’t have to pay it all back. Fingers crossed he is wrong!!

    There was a lot of bad advice around this, I’ve a few accountant friends, and in HMRC, they all say this will be chased.

    kelvin
    Full Member

    12th March last year… and he was far from alone in saying this… at that time… even among the Conservative candidates that Johnson defeated to become the UK’s ultimate decision maker (a job he has proven himself entirely unfit for)…

    It isn’t hindsight. Johnson was slow to understand what was happening. Slow to make any decision. Slow to accept the massive responsibility that comes with the nice title he spent so many years chasing. This was all painfully clear at the time. We had a part time disconnected PM at just the time we most needed an engaged and effective decision maker running the country.

    batfink
    Free Member

    Jokes aside about Croydon – we had exactly the same thing in Sydney: There are particular groups of suburbs which have really suffered from low vaccine uptake (directly measurable) – these are also the same suburbs that have also struggled with low lockdown/social distancing compliance (obviously more difficult to measure).

    These suburbs in SW Sydney really drove the delta outbreak – at the point we were having 1,500 cases a day (thats a lot for us), over 1,000 would have been in these “Local Government areas of Concern”

    These suburbs are historically cheaper to live in (in one of the most expensive cities in the world) and so have a higher number of people in lower paid jobs who are less likely to be able to work from home, more likely to travel across the city to work (eg, tradespeople), less likely to be able to afford to take time off if they catch covid (and so less likely to get tested) etc etc. The median household size was also larger, often with multigenerational occupants.

    As a result of seeing massive spikes in these areas (combined with low vaccination rates), these areas were subject to much more severe lockdowns than the rest of Sydney – these have largely been lifted now. Vaccine supplies (which were constrainned) were diverted from other parts of Sydney and NSW to give priority to these suburbs – loads of pop-up/drop in vaccination hubs were established, weekend vaccine blitzes at sports grounds, that kind of thing.

    *treading carefully*
    Whereas the socioeconomic factors are relatively easy to understand – I don’t really understand the cultural component. These areas are also largely populated by recent immigrants and their families. There was a decent effort (albeit somewhat late) here to start reaching out to these communities through local organisations to provide information about the pandemic and the vaccine in other languages – but I’m not sure that accounts for all the vaccine hesitancy that we saw.

    I know that in the UK there was/is concern about low uptake within BAME communities – can anybody explain why this was/is? Is it just about (not) tailoring how information was provided to these communities – or there something else there? Not trying to be controversial, just trying to understand.

    *braces for being called a racist/colonialist*

    ernielynch
    Full Member

    I know that in the UK there was/is concern about low uptake within BAME communities – can anybody explain why this was/is? Is it just about (not) tailoring how information was provided to these communities – or there something else there? Not trying to be controversial, just trying to understand

    Lack of trust is the reason generally given. What I find particularly worrying is there has been lower uptake among BAME healthcare workers. How can you work in healthcare and not trust modern medicine?

    And whilst there has been a lower uptake among the BAME community I don’t think it is so significant as to explain why Croydon, for example, only has 58% double jabbed.

    vazaha
    Full Member

    Also, wasn’t there quite early on a noticeably higher incidence in infection rates in the BAME community that was flagged as something that needed to be immediately investigated?

    And then that urgent investigation just seemed to stall, and then it didn’t seem to be reported about at all, and then it just dropped off the agenda entirely.

    And then the ‘why is there a lack of trust?’ articles appeared and suddenly everyone was mystified by it.

    ernielynch
    Full Member

    Well it makes no sense at all that a higher incidence of Covid among the BAME community should result in lower vaccination uptake among the BAME community.

    Did this lack of trust also result in less face covering, hand washing, and social distancing, among the BAME community?

    vazaha
    Full Member

    I’m not suggesting that sense enters into it, but i do think that the lack of progress in pursuing links between ethnicity and infection rates may have given ammunition to bad faith actors in this whole sorry mess.

    reeksy
    Full Member

    @batfink – from what i’ve heard in the Australian context, we’ve failed to direct information at vulnerable sectors of the population who don’t necessarily get their news from Australian sources so may not (amazingly enough) be aware of current situations. Apparently refugees are often scared of health services due to fear of persecution (PTSD?). As for First Nations people i can understand why they would be sceptical of anything offered to them… up here we’ve been working with Elders to try and improve vaccine uptake.

    In Queensland we’ve currently still only have 2,067 + cases and 7 deaths since the start. We’ve been heavily criticised for our approach of locking up the state. But by introducing The COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020 our Chief Health Officer is able to issue Public Health Directions to assist in containing, or to respond to, the spread of COVID-19 within the community. Yes, the Chief Health Officer, not the politicians. I think that’s been a blessing.

    We’re anticipating the opening of borders before Christmas as vaccination rates get higher. You can probably imagine it being a bit like opening Devon and Cornwall to let in all the holiday makers.


    @TiRed

    I likened COVID to landing a plane in fog without instruments.

    Thankfully, all the experience we’re hearing about, primarily overseas, means that hopefully we’re in for less surprises.

    I’m currently working with our Emergency Departments to prepare – we’re expecting a surge in cases and are identifying how we can reduce the impact on vulnerable patients through ED bypass, virtual consults, and pre-entry testing, etc. For the vulnerable, there’s considerable anxiety.

    batfink
    Free Member

    In Queensland we’ve currently still only have 2,067 + cases and 7 deaths since the start. We’ve been heavily criticised for our approach of locking up the state

    Not by me – ultimately it’s been very successful at reducing deaths. Can’t talk to the economic cost of that approach, but you’ve certainly not lost money from lockdowns like Vic (and to a lesser extent NSW) have.

    I do think there is a valid question about what happens to QLD and WA when they do eventually re-open….. that their first line of defense has been so successful that perhaps the secondary, tertiary measures aren’t in-place/tested. But even allowing for a steep learning curve, the area under that curve is still impressively small.

    Biggest question for me is that, without significant motivation (cases/deaths/lockdowns) is it possible to motivate enough people to get the Jab?

    nickc
    Full Member

    Amongst our BAME patients (who make up the majority of our patients) normally reasons for not being vaccinated are: 1. suspicion. Lots of our pts. come from countries where the regimes are less than honest to people, some have also escaped persecution as a minority, and are naturally as a result, wary. 2. Religious sensibilities, mostly Muslims mostly it’s to do with FB posts about pork or human product in the vaccine making it haram. Our local vaccine centre is also a Jain community centre and some won’t go there. We’ve made leaflets for local Imams and it made a difference, but lots of folk are still suspicious. 3. Language. There’s not a huge effort gone in to making information material in Urdu or Arabic or Farsi. Lots of the BAME community (especially the vulnerable older generations) have almost no English and don’t watch or listen to the news at all.

    We’ve managed to get nearly all the most vulnerable vaccinated, but in our area the take-up amongst the Afro-Caribbean communities is shockingly small, and we can’t seem to make a dent in it regardless of what we try.

    batfink
    Free Member

    Very interesting Nickc – exactly answers my questions.

    Any idea what causing the hesitancy within the Afro-Caribbean communities?

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    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.

    One of the vanishingly few instances of a government IT roll-out going very well indeed. Frontline staff had to download the software on the Monday the scheme went live and ‘it just worked’. (The teething issues were very few and mostly cured by, switch it off and switch it back on again).

    I do have a customer who works big tax fraud cases and his is pretty confident that lots of chancers are going to feel the pain…

    HMRC are recruiting and promoting like there’s no tomorrow. I suspect a lot of folk are going to be dismayed come late 2022. Mrs Sandwich is currently doing weekly interviews as a freshly promoted SO. HMRC also seem to have a lot of very keen folk work for them who like puzzles and tracing where the money came from.

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    I think nickc covers the main issues really well. There was an excellent series of articles on the BBC website by a doctor in Bradford through much of 2020, and he raised all of these issues.

    And then that urgent investigation just seemed to stall, and then it didn’t seem to be reported about at all, and then it just dropped off the agenda entirely.

    I seem to recall that further reports suggested poverty was a bigger factor than ethnicity, though sadly more BAME people live in poverty so the two are linked. I certainly noticed that a nearby, less affluent local council area had higher rates than ours, and compliance with pandemic rules was noticeably lower when I had to go there, and both areas are predominantly white – heartland of the former BNP.

    I’m technically based at our Leicester office, and a lot of my colleagues are from the BAME community there, which was badly hit. I’m still very uncomfortable finding the right wording to discuss that aspect of the pandemic and possible reasons why the BAME community were badly hit, but my colleagues are happy to sling mud at the behaviour of other BAME groups in a way I simply wouldn’t dare, even if I had evidence to support the statements.

    nickc
    Full Member

    genuinely no idea @batfink. We have a strong afro-Caribbean community here in my patch of south Manc. We’ve been on a local radio talk show hosted by a couple of afro-Caribbean  DJs with a phone in and a studio chat about it, we set up a couple of vaccine booths in the local community centre, advertised it way in advance, and no-one came. The community centre manager said to us that he’d never seen the place so empty.

    They really seem hesitant for reasons none of us can fathom out. It really stands out in the stats as well.

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    HMRC are recruiting and promoting like there’s no tomorrow. I suspect a lot of folk are going to be dismayed come late 2022. Mrs Sandwich is currently doing weekly interviews as a freshly promoted SO. HMRC also seem to have a lot of very keen folk work for them who like puzzles and tracing where the money came from.

    A lot of colleagues who were on the Covid support teams last year are now on teams going back over the compliance checks. Trust first, check second and all that.

    ernielynch
    Full Member

    They really seem hesitant for reasons none of us can fathom out. It really stands out in the stats as well.

    Stop referring to their hairstyles Nick and they might feel more confident!!

    Yeah a quick Google search reveals that vaccine uptake among the African Carribbean community is indeed shockingly high. I knew that it was higher but I didn’t realise that it was that high. Surely education/information is the only solution?

Viewing 40 posts - 33,241 through 33,280 (of 39,835 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.