Mutating Corona Virus

[honeybee13]

I agree with both of you, hightail and tobyjugg.

 

Two things occur to me. Jacinda Arden in NZ said she didn't want to lose thousands of Kiwis if they didn't have a lockdown and I think she was right.

 

My other thought from something TJ said is a quote from Prof John Ashton, ex-public health director. I find it very moving. 'Statistics are patients with the tears wiped off.'

[honeybee13]

Good spot, BN.

[honeybee13]

I wouldn't want to sign up to it, TJ.

 

Did I read that there's a connection with Cambridge Analytica somewhere?

[honeybee13]

14 minutes ago, tobyjugg2 said:

Especially when there is no test part ...

Surely the cornerstone of a 'real' app for the purpose

 

 

That's what I read, it's based on self-reported symptoms. Not exactly track and trace then.

[honeybee13]

Meanwhile on IT, government ministers are using an app that can permanently delete texts and according to this article, makes it easier to avoid FoI requests.

 

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/pm-and-tory-figures-install-signal-app-that-permanently-deletes-texts-the-sun-1-6639776?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social_Icon&utm_campaign=in_article_social_icons

[honeybee13]

Here you go, TJ, temperature checks at Heathrow.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/06/heathrow-to-carry-out-temperature-checks-on-passengers

[honeybee13]

It's going well today, isn't it?

 

400,000 gowns from Turkey that HMG made such a fuss about aren't fit for purpose.

 

The tracing app could be illegal.

 

And the Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who went back to helping the NHS during Covid, has been sacked for speaking out about the lack of PPE.

[honeybee13]

Our lot were running round like headless chickens trying to play catch up. I'm sure there will be a refund of the money...

 

The Guardian have started publishing bits of the 2016 Exercise Cygnus report that Jeremy Hunt and the Tories seem to have ignored at the time. UK care homes say they weren't told of this.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/revealed-the-secret-report-that-gave-ministers-warning-of-care-home-coronavirus-crisis

 

From the article. 'It contained 26 key recommendations, including boosting the capacity of care homes and the numbers of staff available to work in them. It also warned of the challenge facing homes asked to take in patients from hospitals.

 

However, Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, which represents the largest independent care home providers, said concerns raised by the exercise about the social care system’s ability to handle patients discharged from hospitals and the need for the largest private care providers to increase capacity were not raised by government agencies with his members.'

[honeybee13]

Did you link to the Register before, BN please?

[honeybee13]

Channel4 have got hold of the national stockpile  inventory and done an investigation.

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-ppe-stockpile-was-out-of-date-when-coronavirus-hit-uk

[honeybee13]

Full Fact have published their own analysis of the death figures.

 

https://fullfact.org/health/covid-deaths/

[honeybee13]

At last!

 

It seems that HMG are asking local public health directors to take over testing for care homes.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/public-health-directors-take-charge-covid-19-testing-care-homes

[honeybee13]

Indeed, many public health experts have been saying this for weeks. Even better, local PH people should take over the rest of testing too.

[honeybee13]

Michael Veale from UCL has analysed the NHSX app. It seems to have a lot of problems.

 

https://osf.io/preprints/lawarxiv/6fvgh

[honeybee13]

Now the testing and tracing set-up is coming under fire for using call centre operatives instead of environmental health people or teams they've trained. Plus over-centralisation of the system.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-and-trace-programme-cases-deaths-uk-a9503651.html

[honeybee13]

I know.

[honeybee13]

Part of the reason that the NHS wasn't on its knees is that many people were left to die in care homes or in their own homes.

[honeybee13]

If you go back to the excess mortality figures, all of those people died somewhere other than a hospital and having tested positive. AIUI anyone who wasn't tested isn't in the official figures. It isn't just me saying this, it's all over the media.

[honeybee13]

I assume it's health professionals following the guidelines that they must have about who they admit to hospital/intensive care.

[honeybee13]

Thank you for the information, Bazza. I agree, doctors have some difficult decisions to make.

[honeybee13]

I saw that earlier, it's very good.

[honeybee13]

You seem to be one of the 30% who think the message is clear, hightail.   I struggled with it, myself.

 

There's a view that the purpose of this is to make it the public's personal choices, whilst staying 'alert' and that if it goes wrong and ends up in a second wave, it'll be the public's fault.

 

One thing I don't get is why it's OK to travel from France to the UK but not from the rest of the EU, apart from Ireland. Boris was unable to answer what happens if somone travels over the border into France and then on to the UK.

 

 

[honeybee13]

Indeed. There are some contradictions.

[honeybee13]

I never thought I'd sing Piers Morgan's praises, but he's doing really well on challenging ministers at the moment. On Good Morning Britain, he made Andrew Bridgen MP look very silly over meeting both his sons together in the park. Piers pointed out it was against the rules as per the PM.

 

Today he tied Edwina Currie up in knots about being able to have a cleaner but not see his sons. She ended up saying his younger son could be his cleaner and Piers said that was against the published rules too.

[honeybee13]

This is quite a worrying article from a public health professor in Edinburgh.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/12/tories-lockdown-social-distancing-testing-second-wave-coronavirus