Masks help no doubt about it but untill we have a vaccine Rigorous and effective test and trace Is the only option .
A fat, lazy, lying, bumbling, waffling,incompetent, 5hithouse of a PM and his toady, lightweight, unprepared pile of turds, ministers. I'll reserve judgement on the Chancellor because he's just throwing money around at the moment. Matt Cockhands tries his best and stands his ground is the nicest thing I can say about them.
It's going to be interesting to see how many excess deaths the UK has had between March this year and March next year.
Johnson acted weeks too late - but he was late coming to the party. There were 5 (yes, five!) National Emergency Meetings (“emergency” being the key word) before he attended - too busy being on holiday & fundraising for the Tory party. Sunak followed a socialist path & did really well but lost my respect with the pathetic support for Cummings.
I would think they knew extremely early in the first phase of the Oxford vaccine that it works for them to be making hundreds of millions of doses before it's officially signed off as working. After say a month, they would check the swab tests of those they gave it to that had to be sent to them weekly for a year and see. What they wouldn't know at that point is how safe it was. We could know the answer to that as early as next week. Oddly the first phase was for those 18-55 so if it indeed it works on that age group it could be the people least affected who get it first. The point with masks was we could have locked down 2-3 weeks earlier. Anytime you were outside you had to wear a mask no exceptions like certain people have for wearing them on public transport from Monday. Then from the start of May we'd have been in a cracking position as the virus would have struggled to spread from us all covering our mouth and nose whenever we wasn't in our home.
The reasoning they gave against that was they thought it could stop PPE getting to the front line as providers chased the money instead of where it was urgently needed.
Interesting fact about Masks and front line that I have never seen said anywhere is the NHS Trusts were told in January to stock up on PPE, some chose to others didn't. The Government have also scrapped all budgets for the NHS as a result of Corona Virus and also promised to refund all PPE purchases made which has resulted in some NHS over buying stock. Not sure what it has to do with this thread but thought would chuck it in.
Another interesting fact I was told is that the strategy for acquiring PPE was to bulk buy when a pandemic was forecast instead of stockpiling.t When the practice was put into motion they found they hadn’t factored in that the countries they would acquire it from would also need it themselves and wouldn’t release the agreed supplies . That’s Shocking if true imo .
The in house "pandemic team" was disbanded by Johnson and May 6 months before Covid arrived. This was to focus on Brexit, apparently.
Indeed you would think you'd factor in all eventualities. In Lincolnshire we have three trusts, one of them bought in January and have 2 warehouses full, described as 'enough for 2 years' this wasn't the one that runs the Hospital, they have been like others desperate. You would think the Trust with lots would have handed some over, but didn't partly because 'just in case' but also because they had been 'paid' for them they would have had to give the money back.
Utterly bizarre the hero worship of Sunak. I suspect many will change their tune when the damage wreaked on the economy translates itself into redundancies when his Redundancy Deferral Scheme comes to an end. incidentally - when Keith Hill was told he was furloughed he thought someone was walking behind him.
Hmmm..the Cheltenham festival and the Liverpool-Madrid game. Both fundamentally outside public events with thousands of people in close proximity to one another. Fast forward to the unwarranted recent protests in major cities (imho) with thousands of people outside in close proximity, after being told by the government about breaking social distancing rules, I can’t really see the difference tbh apart from the former events people would’ve been generally law abiding. Makes you think...
In a way it’s not Sunaks fault other than being in an inept incompetent headless chicken Govt . If we had gone the same way as some other countries the lockdown and furlough scheme would’ve been weeks not months and we could’ve got the economy rolling to nearly normal at least . We should have followed up with an effective test and trace but we still havnt got one despite loads being out there . This PM has waited till his friends can cash in . This PM and his hyenas have a lot to answer for , wonder how his friends in the media will react to this in coming months .
Rumours today that he hasn't been to one for the *last* month either and wants to move on from COVID already.
Is the fake professor still posting? - Imperial College sued him to prevent him claiming to work there (he *might* be a professor from the private Buckingham University).