Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

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quoonbeatz
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by quoonbeatz » Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:22 pm

https://twitter.com/jdpoc/status/125226 ... 30848?s=19

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this - its essentially the dept of health or their marketing agency has created a load of fake Twitter accounts purporting to be nhs workers posting in support of herd immunity and the government. Using fake names but photos of real nhs staff who knew nothing about it.

Could just be some very odd trolling given the bios of some of the accounts, of course, but could also be more sinister than that. Hard to tell right now as theres more to come out but hopefully it's the former as the government engaging in a disinformation campaign wouldn't be a good thing for any of us.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by martin_p » Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:45 pm

Barrowboy wrote:
Mon Apr 20, 2020 7:10 pm
2 old sayings jump out to me regarding this article and our current or indeed any government

1. You're damned if you do or damned if you don't.
2. Hindsight is an exact science.

Sure we've made mistakes and too many lives have already been lost. Covid19 just wasn't on anyone's priority list until it became almost a H G Wells blockbuster. In this film however neither the USA, the cavalry or anyone else will easily come to the rescue but there's plenty of heroes (NHS et al) fighting the battle.
When the war is won then the best thing ( in my opinion, ) we can do, for the sake of those who died and their families, is to find some proper positives and get rid of the nonsense that doesn't matter and make sure that B****** Rovers are kept in their place! UTC
Hindsight? Barring having an actual Tardis we had as much foresight of what was likely to happen as is possible. Not only had the government ‘war gamed’ a pandemic scenario a few years ago which predicted the problems we’re seeing now, but we only had to look to China and Central Europe to see our future mapped out before us!

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Jakubclaret » Tue Apr 21, 2020 12:27 am

thatdberight wrote:
Mon Apr 20, 2020 1:35 am
Are you sure you're not operating under two IDs because "immediate closure of all businesses" is something so doltish I thought only you could come up with it?

Although to be fair, even in that short list it doesn't make the top two of stupid ideas.
Most of the non essential businesses shut anyway, don't really see the difference before or after, it's a reasonable logical assumption knowing what we know now to safely say sooner would have been shorter thus minimising any economical damage, instead somehow we've opted to act late & as a consequence businesses will almost certainly be shut for longer some with no possible plan going forwards, it only takes a couple of supply chains with no other alternatives & the whole shebang is derailed, with manufacturing & customer confidence you need smooth continuity & not to fracture developed relationships.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by IanMcL » Tue Apr 21, 2020 12:35 am

Less, had they made better decisions and implemented isolation and testing from the outset.

To trumpet that the test was created by Oxford Uni and used all over the world....and then not use that as the strategy, beggars belief. That is the criminal act.

Cummings evidently persuaded PM Johnson to go 'herd'. That's another fine mess he has got us into.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by arise_sir_charge » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:08 am

IanMcL wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 12:35 am
Less, had they made better decisions and implemented isolation and testing from the outset.

To trumpet that the test was created by Oxford Uni and used all over the world....and then not use that as the strategy, beggars belief. That is the criminal act.

Cummings evidently persuaded PM Johnson to go 'herd'. That's another fine mess he has got us into.
Evidently........used with no evidence to support its use.

You need to stop posting such stuff Ian, it helps nobody.
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by evensteadiereddie » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:12 am

Especially the Tories.... ;)
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by arise_sir_charge » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:28 am

evensteadiereddie wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:12 am
Especially the Tories.... ;)
Whether it’s Tories, Labour, Liberals, Greens or whoever is irrelevant. In the last fortnight Ian has posted some outlandish claims with nothing to back them up.

There is a scientific theory now that no lockdown was the way to go. Can you imagine the current number of deaths (which you’d surely see) with no government lock down in place? People would want their balls on sticks!

However, you can be sure the Government will come under scrutiny for enforcing a lock down should the ‘Sweden’ approach prove to be successful.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Spijed » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:00 am

arise_sir_charge wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:28 am
Whether it’s Tories, Labour, Liberals, Greens or whoever is irrelevant. In the last fortnight Ian has posted some outlandish claims with nothing to back them up.

There is a scientific theory now that no lockdown was the way to go. Can you imagine the current number of deaths (which you’d surely see) with no government lock down in place? People would want their balls on sticks!

However, you can be sure the Government will come under scrutiny for enforcing a lock down should the ‘Sweden’ approach prove to be successful.
Sweden will be a poor comparison. A country with a population slightly bigger than London but spread over a country that's over twice as big as the UK.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by TVC15 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:15 am

arise_sir_charge wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:28 am
Whether it’s Tories, Labour, Liberals, Greens or whoever is irrelevant. In the last fortnight Ian has posted some outlandish claims with nothing to back them up.

There is a scientific theory now that no lockdown was the way to go. Can you imagine the current number of deaths (which you’d surely see) with no government lock down in place? People would want their balls on sticks!

However, you can be sure the Government will come under scrutiny for enforcing a lock down should the ‘Sweden’ approach prove to be successful.
If Sweden are proven to be correct with their strategy then most of the governments round the world will have been proven to be wrong.
It does not sound like the Swedish citizens have much faith in their own government...many of them are choosing to lockdown themselves despite what they are being told.

Of course Sweden could be the ones who got it right but so far it’s not looking great for them - and tbh their strategy does not seem to make sense on the basic level that more contact between people allows the virus to spread more and quicker.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by IanMcL » Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:02 am

arise_sir_charge wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:08 am
Evidently........used with no evidence to support its use.

You need to stop posting such stuff Ian, it helps nobody.
The evidence for that is already contained in the research article, from which this thread emanates.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by RingoMcCartney » Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:14 am

Sweden , I believe, has really disproportionately large number of single occupancy homes. Its medical advisers felt that self isolation would therefore, be more effective , than other countries or even certain boroughs with other countries where multiple occupancy homes are far more common. So a full lockdown, they believed was not , necessarily appropriate for sweden.

We are currently slap bang in the middle of this unprecedented global pandemic. When and only when we have the benefit of the exact science, otherwise known as hindsight. Will we, then, be able to judge, fairly and objectively how our government, NHS, supply lines, procurement agencies, civil service, Her majestys Loyal Opposition, Health England and all stakeholders have performed. And then perhaps following a 2nd , 3rd or 4th wave of this hideous virus can we compare their respective performances to other nations.

Each country has unique and individual circumstances, that provide unique and individual challenges. Trying to objectively compare their respective performances when all the relevant information has been gathered will be difficult enough. Doing it while we're in the middle of this fluid and fast changing crisis is simply a fool's errand.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by RingoMcCartney » Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:28 am

IanMcL wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:02 am
The evidence for that is already contained in the research article, from which this thread emanates.
Bloody hell ian! You used a pretty broad definition definition to describe a "war criminal " . But you're use of "research article" to describe what was knocked out at the weekend , really is stretching things to breaking point!

Stand back everyone, I think it's going to go !

😲







(A research article reports the results of original research, assesses its contribution to the body of knowledge in a given area, and is published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. A given academic field will likely have dozens of peer-reviewed journals.)

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:22 pm

Glad to see the Sunday Times article is now being roundly criticised as the partisan piece of journalism it obviously was.

The bit of the debate that the media often miss is the extent to which (say) an extra week or two’s lockdown at the start would have worsened the economy (and thus cost more lives) on top of the already devastating collapse. Rather them than me deciding on that stuff. Prof Whitty as CMO sitting on the DoH board (which oversees PHE as well as all the other organisations) would have had to take both into account in his advice, poor fella, ultimate no win scenario.

p.s. I suspect Hancock has had a mediocre crisis and will get the boot inside 12 mths, I also suspect PHE have had a terrible crisis and will be reformed (decades too late), and the No. 10 comms team have made some errors too. Nobodies claiming no errors, but that Sunday Times article was a partisan piece of trash nonetheless.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Burnley Ace » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:15 pm

Spijed wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:00 am
Sweden will be a poor comparison. A country with a population slightly bigger than London but spread over a country that's over twice as big as the UK.
Which country would be a good comparison?

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Spijed » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:22 pm

CrosspoolClarets wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:22 pm
Nobodies claiming no errors, but that Sunday Times article was a partisan piece of trash nonetheless.
Have any credible doctors or others in the medical profession said as much, or are you just siding with the Conservative party and the likes of Dominic Cummings?

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by IanMcL » Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:32 pm

Blimey! Even the daily Mail is sounding off about the ineptitude of the Government, big time. Only the blind are unable to see the huge areas of fault and they can probably smell it anyway!
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by thatdberight » Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:36 pm

quoonbeatz wrote:
Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:22 pm
https://twitter.com/jdpoc/status/125226 ... 30848?s=19

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this - its essentially the dept of health or their marketing agency has created a load of fake Twitter accounts purporting to be nhs workers posting in support of herd immunity and the government. Using fake names but photos of real nhs staff who knew nothing about it.

Could just be some very odd trolling given the bios of some of the accounts, of course, but could also be more sinister than that. Hard to tell right now as theres more to come out but hopefully it's the former as the government engaging in a disinformation campaign wouldn't be a good thing for any of us.
Twitter saying no evidence thus far of government involvement, BBC also saying that.

Still, I don't imagine that'll change your suspicion (which you actually gave as a fact in your first paragraph).

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by arise_sir_charge » Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:37 pm

Spijed and IanMcl.......I give in, there is a well known phrase about arguing with idiots.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by quoonbeatz » Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:49 pm

thatdberight wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:36 pm
Twitter saying no evidence thus far of government involvement, BBC also saying that.

Still, I don't imagine that'll change your suspicion (which you actually gave as a fact in your first paragraph).
Cute. I don't have any suspicion mon frere, i was merely summarising what the tweets said, but nice try.

As I said in my post, very clearly, it's hard to tell what's gone on as those responsible for the tweets were doing more investigating. Good news if it's entirely innocent (I haven't looked into it since last night) as i dont want my government being involved in such skullduggery.
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by keith1879 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:01 pm

CrosspoolClarets wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:22 pm
Glad to see the Sunday Times article is now being roundly criticised as the partisan piece of journalism it obviously was.

The bit of the debate that the media often miss is the extent to which (say) an extra week or two’s lockdown at the start would have worsened the economy (and thus cost more lives) on top of the already devastating collapse. Rather them than me deciding on that stuff. Prof Whitty as CMO sitting on the DoH board (which oversees PHE as well as all the other organisations) would have had to take both into account in his advice, poor fella, ultimate no win scenario.

p.s. I suspect Hancock has had a mediocre crisis and will get the boot inside 12 mths, I also suspect PHE have had a terrible crisis and will be reformed (decades too late), and the No. 10 comms team have made some errors too. Nobodies claiming no errors, but that Sunday Times article was a partisan piece of trash nonetheless.
But an extra week of lockdown at the start would have substantially reduced the number of infections at the point where the rate of infection was highest ...and hence could have saved at least a week off the end surely.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by thatdberight » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:06 pm

quoonbeatz wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:49 pm
Cute. I don't have any suspicion mon frere, i was merely summarising what the tweets said, but nice try.

As I said in my post, very clearly, it's hard to tell what's gone on as those responsible for the tweets were doing more investigating. Good news if it's entirely innocent (I haven't looked into it since last night) as i dont want my government being involved in such skullduggery.
"It will be interesting to see what comes out of this - its essentially the dept of health or their marketing agency has created a load of fake Twitter accounts purporting to be nhs workers posting in support of herd immunity and the government."

Where does it say that's an allegation? Must be my misreading of it...

I also don't want such underhanded tactics used by the government or anyone else although I admit I'm probably a bit more blasé about governments lying to populations than you.
Last edited by thatdberight on Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Jimscho » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:17 pm

To all the Labour supporters and remainders on here who are doing nothing but knock the government.Tough you lost the referendum you lost the election and you lost Brexit.Get over it.You and I know who you are you appear on every thread like this with your negativity.This is a time for the county to be united in the fight against this terrible virus not a time for point scoring.I won’t be coming back on any replies as I have more important things to do.
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Spijed » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:25 pm

Jimscho wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:17 pm
To all the Labour supporters and remainders on here who are doing nothing but knock the government.Tough you lost the referendum you lost the election and you lost Brexit.Get over it.You and I know who you are you appear on every thread like this with your negativity.This is a time for the county to be united in the fight against this terrible virus not a time for point scoring.I won’t be coming back on any replies as I have more important things to do.
Don't slam the door behind you!

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Joe Buck » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:27 pm

Jimscho wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:17 pm
To all the Labour supporters and remainders on here who are doing nothing but knock the government.Tough you lost the referendum you lost the election and you lost Brexit.Get over it.You and I know who you are you appear on every thread like this with your negativity.This is a time for the county to be united in the fight against this terrible virus not a time for point scoring.I won’t be coming back on any replies as I have more important things to do.
Yeah you tell em. It’s negativity that’s killing people not incompetence
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by thatdberight » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:27 pm

Jimscho wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:17 pm
To all the Labour supporters and remainders on here who are doing nothing but knock the government.Tough you lost the referendum you lost the election and you lost Brexit.Get over it.You and I know who you are you appear on every thread like this with your negativity.This is a time for the county to be united in the fight against this terrible virus not a time for point scoring.I won’t be coming back on any replies as I have more important things to do.
It might seem like that but there are people talking about legitimate questions and that sometimes includes the people who are doing it to score points. It's not negative to discuss what is the best outcome and how that's being achieved. Ignore the more idiotic remarks (there's lots I know) and there is some sensible chat much of which is not positive towards the government.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by AndrewJB » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:42 pm

CrosspoolClarets wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:22 pm
Glad to see the Sunday Times article is now being roundly criticised as the partisan piece of journalism it obviously was.

The bit of the debate that the media often miss is the extent to which (say) an extra week or two’s lockdown at the start would have worsened the economy (and thus cost more lives) on top of the already devastating collapse. Rather them than me deciding on that stuff. Prof Whitty as CMO sitting on the DoH board (which oversees PHE as well as all the other organisations) would have had to take both into account in his advice, poor fella, ultimate no win scenario.

p.s. I suspect Hancock has had a mediocre crisis and will get the boot inside 12 mths, I also suspect PHE have had a terrible crisis and will be reformed (decades too late), and the No. 10 comms team have made some errors too. Nobodies claiming no errors, but that Sunday Times article was a partisan piece of trash nonetheless.
Who is criticising the article? I haven’t come across anything more than the “No he didnt” by Gove, and the long “rebuttal” by the government which has already been laughed at by many people.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/co ... 74316.html
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by tiger76 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:48 pm

thatdberight wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:27 pm
It might seem like that but there are people talking about legitimate questions and that sometimes includes the people who are doing it to score points. It's not negative to discuss what is the best outcome and how that's being achieved. Ignore the more idiotic remarks (there's lots I know) and there is some sensible chat much of which is not positive towards the government.
What about Conservative voters and leavers who have similar concerns about how the government is handling this crisis,or don't we count,strange post that one by Jimscho,and as for the spelling,dear,oh,dear,when do the schools return again. :roll:
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by thatdberight » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:53 pm

tiger76 wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:48 pm
What about Conservative voters and leavers who have similar concerns about how the government is handling this crisis,or don't we count,strange post that one by Jimscho,and as for the spelling,dear,oh,dear,when do the schools return again. :roll:
Yes, we do count. I wasn't intending to imply that the only questions come from Labour supporters (or the only support from Conservative voters).

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by martin_p » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:55 pm

Jimscho wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:17 pm
To all the Labour supporters and remainders on here who are doing nothing but knock the government.Tough you lost the referendum you lost the election and you lost Brexit.Get over it.You and I know who you are you appear on every thread like this with your negativity.This is a time for the county to be united in the fight against this terrible virus not a time for point scoring.I won’t be coming back on any replies as I have more important things to do.
Unfortunately getting through this minimising deaths and with a plan for the country post pandemic is going to take some competence not just blind faith in government.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Jimscho » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:21 pm

tiger76 wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:48 pm
What about Conservative voters and leavers who have similar concerns about how the government is handling this crisis,or don't we count,strange post that one by Jimscho,and as for the spelling,dear,oh,dear,when do the schools return again. :roll:
I said I wouldn’t rely but when someone insults my intelligence I feel I must.First of all I don’t hide behind an anonymous username.I think it’s obvious my name is Jim Schofield from my username.I was educated at BRGS and was once a Bank Manager.I think I am quite intelligent.I am 71 years old so won’t be going back to school any time soon.If I spell something incorrectly it is because I have an eyesight problem caused by diabetes so sometimes make mistakes.Please don’t treat me like an idiot.If you can’t see that all these sort of threads aren’t infiltrated by people with agendas then fair enough.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by nil_desperandum » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:31 pm

Jimscho wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:21 pm
I said I wouldn’t rely but when someone insults my intelligence I feel I must.First of all I don’t hide behind an anonymous username.I think it’s obvious my name is Jim Schofield from my username.I was educated at BRGS and was once a Bank Manager.I think I am quite intelligent.I am 71 years old so won’t be going back to school any time soon.If I spell something incorrectly it is because I have an eyesight problem caused by diabetes so sometimes make mistakes.Please don’t treat me like an idiot.If you can’t see that all these sort of threads aren’t infiltrated by people with agendas then fair enough.
Whilst it's so clear from your initial, confrontational post that you have no agenda at all. Ok.
And no, it wasn't obvious what your actual name was from your user name - I'd never given it a thought. Our respected "team leader" could easily by "Tonyscho", but he's not a Schofield.
Last edited by nil_desperandum on Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by quoonbeatz » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:32 pm

thatdberight wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:06 pm
"It will be interesting to see what comes out of this - its essentially the dept of health or their marketing agency has created a load of fake Twitter accounts purporting to be nhs workers posting in support of herd immunity and the government."

Where does it say that's an allegation? Must be my misreading of it...
It doesn't. Nobody said it did. As I said in my last post, it was simply a summary of the tweets i linked.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by IanMcL » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:35 pm

Good to see journalists questioning the inept idiots.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by quoonbeatz » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:39 pm

Jimscho wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:21 pm
If you can’t see that all these sort of threads aren’t infiltrated by people with agendas then fair enough.
Like you, Jim? Better to discuss things without tainting your views of others' opinions with whatever you think their political allegiance to be. Unfortunately there's too many people already do that on here which is a shame but that's their problem. Its easy disregard them. Almost fun in fact!
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Paul Waine » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:51 pm

keith1879 wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:01 pm
But an extra week of lockdown at the start would have substantially reduced the number of infections at the point where the rate of infection was highest ...and hence could have saved at least a week off the end surely.
Hi Keith, there's been some mention that a contributor to London's falling curve has been that people in London didn't wait for 23-March to start "self-isolating" and "social distancing." Firm I worked with ordered us all to work from home on the afternoon of Thurs 5th March. I'd stopped doing the commute into London the day before. Lot's of Londoners were obviously already starting their "social distancing" at the beginning of that week. Monday's trains were quieter than usual, Tuesday's more so. By Wed it was obvious commuter numbers were down maybe 30-40% - my personal observation.

Of course, there are a lot more factors to be researched and understood. London is a big "global city." All nations, all cultures are represented - and I like it this way. There's been talk of "above average" infections in BAME groups - though that covers a wide range of different cultural as well as ethnic backgrounds. I've seen it reported that Muslims have faired a lot better than other BAME groups in the UK, protected by their religious observance of washing their hands 5 times a day.

So, a lot of factors. Tough to make the "optimum" call while the situation is ongoing. Some great research to be done in the months and years ahead.

We will be better prepared for the next one.... unless it is 40-50 years time, when today's covid-19 pandemic will be no more than a "folk memory."

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Greenmile » Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:00 pm

Jimscho wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:21 pm
I said I wouldn’t rely but when someone insults my intelligence I feel I must.First of all I don’t hide behind an anonymous username.I think it’s obvious my name is Jim Schofield from my username.I was educated at BRGS and was once a Bank Manager.I think I am quite intelligent.I am 71 years old so won’t be going back to school any time soon.If I spell something incorrectly it is because I have an eyesight problem caused by diabetes so sometimes make mistakes.Please don’t treat me like an idiot.If you can’t see that all these sort of threads aren’t infiltrated by people with agendas then fair enough.
Dunning-Kruger strikes again.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Paul Waine » Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:01 pm

AndrewJB wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:42 pm
Who is criticising the article? I haven’t come across anything more than the “No he didnt” by Gove, and the long “rebuttal” by the government which has already been laughed at by many people.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/co ... 74316.html
Loving this quote from your Independent article, Andrew: "It hardly needs to be said that Thomas Cook is not coronavirus."

The Sunday Times has quietly dropped their article from what I've seen. There's been no "follow up" since it was published on Sunday. No discussion of the Gov't response. No further mention of anyone "skipping" any COBRA meetings. That's enough of an admission that ST got it wrong - and not just opening the article with their "brave" statement "On the 3rd Friday in January..." when the 24th is, of course, always in the 4th week of the month.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by tiger76 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:16 pm

Paul Waine wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:51 pm
Hi Keith, there's been some mention that a contributor to London's falling curve has been that people in London didn't wait for 23-March to start "self-isolating" and "social distancing." Firm I worked with ordered us all to work from home on the afternoon of Thurs 5th March. I'd stopped doing the commute into London the day before. Lot's of Londoners were obviously already starting their "social distancing" at the beginning of that week. Monday's trains were quieter than usual, Tuesday's more so. By Wed it was obvious commuter numbers were down maybe 30-40% - my personal observation.

Of course, there are a lot more factors to be researched and understood. London is a big "global city." All nations, all cultures are represented - and I like it this way. There's been talk of "above average" infections in BAME groups - though that covers a wide range of different cultural as well as ethnic backgrounds. I've seen it reported that Muslims have faired a lot better than other BAME groups in the UK, protected by their religious observance of washing their hands 5 times a day.

So, a lot of factors. Tough to make the "optimum" call while the situation is ongoing. Some great research to be done in the months and years ahead.

We will be better prepared for the next one.... unless it is 40-50 years time, when today's covid-19 pandemic will be no more than a "folk memory."
Some excellent points raised there Paul,and i'm sure they'll be plenty of academic research in the months and years to come,it's more likely than not that we'll experience a 2nd wave,and if that's the case then hopefully forewarned is forearmed,and the relevant authorities will have learnt valuable lessons,even when the lockdown is lifted they'll still be many employees who will work from home,for practical as well as social reasons,now they've had this experience and found it was far better than they could have imagined,for both themselves and their employers,technology will also play a major role in this sea change,and any move towards normality will be very gradual,especially in the initial stages,this virus isn't going to vanish overnight,so society will have to adapt for the foreseeable future.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by martin_p » Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:50 pm

Paul Waine wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:01 pm
Loving this quote from your Independent article, Andrew: "It hardly needs to be said that Thomas Cook is not coronavirus."

The Sunday Times has quietly dropped their article from what I've seen. There's been no "follow up" since it was published on Sunday. No discussion of the Gov't response. No further mention of anyone "skipping" any COBRA meetings. That's enough of an admission that ST got it wrong - and not just opening the article with their "brave" statement "On the 3rd Friday in January..." when the 24th is, of course, always in the 4th week of the month.
It’s a mystery why the SUNDAY Times haven’t published anything more on this story since SUNDAY.
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by arise_sir_charge » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:28 pm

martin_p wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:50 pm
It’s a mystery why the SUNDAY Times haven’t published anything more on this story since SUNDAY.
They’d better have a word with those people at The Times then! They have word for word copied the Sunday Times article on to The Times website. They should sue them.
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:53 pm

keith1879 wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:01 pm
But an extra week of lockdown at the start would have substantially reduced the number of infections at the point where the rate of infection was highest ...and hence could have saved at least a week off the end surely.
Fair comment but not my understanding.

I am led to believe that the curve will be steeply up and very gradually down (even if we had limited the growth better) , so it would probably have led to a longer lockdown if we had locked down earlier in the curve.

Probably the important thing now is to prevent a second wave - that would be cataclysmic for the economy, so I suspect we won’t be on the Turf anytime soon.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:58 pm

Spijed wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:22 pm
Have any credible doctors or others in the medical profession said as much, or are you just siding with the Conservative party and the likes of Dominic Cummings?
I would think the doctors are far too busy at the moment to pay much attention to what has gone on in Whitehall meetings (the key element of the Sunday Times claims). It’s politicians and scientists on NERVTAG and SAGE who know what really went on and they have generally debunked it (one scientist who was mentioned in the article claims he wasn’t even in the meeting).

I certainly wouldn’t side with Cummings and the Tories on this, as I said they are bound to have made errors, I simply have an aversion to gotcha journalism at a time when everyone is under enormous stress.
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Devils_Advocate » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:02 pm

CrosspoolClarets wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:53 pm
Fair comment but not my understanding.

I am led to believe that the curve will be steeply up and very gradually down (even if we had limited the growth better) , so it would probably have led to a longer lockdown if we had locked down earlier in the curve.

Probably the important thing now is to prevent a second wave - that would be cataclysmic for the economy, so I suspect we won’t be on the Turf anytime soon.
I dont get your logic on this. Not arguing on the premise of whether an earlier lockdown would end up better and worse cos thats an unknown but just focusing on your logic around length of lockdown

You reason that the curve is much steeper going up and more gradual coming down which I agree with. Taking that position then the idea around the earlier lockdown was to prevent the curve from rising as high meaning a week less of rising steeply would give you additionally less weeks for it to come down gradually.

You are obviously interpreting it another way but stopping the curve getting up as high in those early days/weeks to me logically reduces the amount of slow gradual decline needed to get out of this lockdown phase

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:02 pm

AndrewJB wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:42 pm
Who is criticising the article? I haven’t come across anything more than the “No he didnt” by Gove, and the long “rebuttal” by the government which has already been laughed at by many people.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/co ... 74316.html
Just a couple:

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetor ... endum.html

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/ ... oris-john/

https://order-order.com/2020/04/21/sund ... ck-record/

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:09 pm

Devils_Advocate wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:02 pm
I dont get your logic on this. Not arguing on the premise of whether an earlier lockdown would end up better and worse cos thats an unknown but just focusing on your logic around length of lockdown

You reason that the curve is much steeper going up and more gradual coming down which I agree with. Taking that position then the idea around the earlier lockdown was to prevent the curve from rising as high meaning a week less of rising steeply would give you additionally less weeks for it to come down gradually.

You are obviously interpreting it another way but stopping the curve getting up as high in those early days/weeks to me logically reduces the amount of slow gradual decline needed to get out of this lockdown phase
The nature of these things is that the curve will take many, many weeks to get down to low digits (cases, not deaths), and would do no matter how high it rose. Unless this is stamped out completely, more or less, the exponential rise will happen again in short order. The lockdown will have to exist in parts until probably Christmas (my guess), they will only gradually loosen the reins, e.g. schools returning this term but pubs not opening for many months.

So I’m hypothesising that the full lockdown would have lasted until early May regardless, then a gradual loosening, after we have had time to prepare for testing and contact tracing in the “new normal” of mini lockdown for the rest of the year. Let’s be honest though, not even the politicians know, there isn’t a counter factual for this.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Greenmile » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:16 pm

Is that the best you can manage? “Conservativehome.com”, Maajid Nawaz, and Guido Fawkes?

Not exactly Woodward and Bernstein, is it?

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by claret59 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:26 pm

It may have been already mentioned in this post but if not there was a brief mention/ warning about a week ago on a news item that unlike every other country affected by this crisis that there are no controls whatsoever on persons entering the country through the airports ( and by sea presumably) . No health checks , temperature taking, isolation etc.
I was surprised that this brief item was not reported elsewhere in more depth but in today's Daily Mail there is at last, a longish article using Heathrow as an example of how this scandal continues unabated in regards to thousands of people still entering the country from many other countries with serious outbreaks of the disease.
How can this be? Why is this not a public scandal that could so easily negate all the good work being done in other areas? A new wave of infections and deaths is surely inevitable because of some weird belief that no preventative measures need to to be taken at airports.
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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by thatdberight » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:30 pm

CrosspoolClarets wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:09 pm
The nature of these things is that the curve will take many, many weeks to get down to low digits (cases, not deaths), and would do no matter how high it rose. Unless this is stamped out completely, more or less, the exponential rise will happen again in short order. The lockdown will have to exist in parts until probably Christmas (my guess), they will only gradually loosen the reins, e.g. schools returning this term but pubs not opening for many months.

So I’m hypothesising that the full lockdown would have lasted until early May regardless, then a gradual loosening, after we have had time to prepare for testing and contact tracing in the “new normal” of mini lockdown for the rest of the year. Let’s be honest though, not even the politicians know, there isn’t a counter factual for this.
Well, we'd best hope for something in the way of vaccine then because, in my view, there will be a point in not too long where the population decides that hiding under a rock is not much fun and we'd be better just getting on with it and taking our communal chances. And that's long before "many months" of no social activity.

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by Paul Waine » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:54 pm

martin_p wrote:
Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:50 pm
It’s a mystery why the SUNDAY Times haven’t published anything more on this story since SUNDAY.
Nice one, martin. I didn't know some didn't know that Sunday Times and The Times are one and the same. Yes, then are both owned by the same owner.

I was wrong, btw, saying that "The Times had dropped it. Not strictly correct.

Matt Chorley made reference to his Insight colleagues in Monday's Times:

"The Sunday Times’ Insight investigation laid out the timeline of how this year unfolded, including the sense that by the time it was accepted by the British political and scientific establishment that Covid-19 was worse than a bit of flu it was too late to do too much about it.

Blaming Mr Johnson for sunning himself at Christmas, as if he should have known that China was going to tell the world it had picked up some unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan, is perhaps a little unfair.

But the overwhelming sense, created admittedly by people who seem to have it in for him, is that the PM was unconcerned about it all, missing five meetings of the Cobra emergency committee discussing coronavirus. Outrageous dereliction of duty, said many. Entirely normal, said Downing Street in an extensive response to the story, which included pointing out that Labour’s Alan Johnson chaired Cobra as health secretary to discuss H5N1, a respiratory disease that threatened life around the world.

When the Cobra meetings went ahead without the PM, the World Health Organisation had not even declared Covid-19 a “public health emergency of international concern”, as it did on January 30. In early February the WHO was advising countries not to impose lockdown measures, and it only declared a global pandemic on March 11, when Britain had already had eight deaths.

Britain sent 279,000 items of its depleted stockpile of protective equipment to China, said TheSunday Times. The equipment was not from the pandemic stockpile, insists the government, and since then China has reciprocated many times over, sending more than 12 million pieces of PPE to the UK this month.

However, the suggestion that Mr Johnson had his eye off the ball — distracted by fighting on multiple fronts including Brexit, the BBC, the lobby, and the not insignificant matter of his girlfriend being pregnant — is an easy one to stick on a man known to be keener on posing for photo ops than poring over details.

It is possible, though, that he had his eye on the ball, but had been told it was a small ball that was nothing to worry about.

The threat of a global pandemic bringing the entire planet to a standstill was not taken seriously because it seemed so unlikely. Health experts (and, bluntly, quite a lot of health journalists) had been around the block on big scares like this many, many times. It was a theoretical threat that never comes true. Until it does."

The above is only part of Chorley's Red Box newsletter. It's well written and balanced.

He ends:

"Tony Blair, one of the five people alive with some idea of what Mr Johnson faces, told the Today programme this morning: “I have never come across anything more complicated or difficult in politics than this. So I have huge sympathy for the people handling this in a position of power in government today.”

Critics say the government ignored the threat. The government insists it followed the science, and the science suggested the threat, at the time, was low. Data changes, models change, advice changes.

Science is not, well, an exact science."

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Re: Sunday Times - 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Post by tiger76 » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:57 pm

There has been another development in the row over why the UK initially refused an invitation from the EU to join a scheme to obtain medical equipment to fight the coronavirus.

The government faced criticism last month for not taking part in the scheme. Ministers denied claims that anti-EU sentiment played any role in the decision and instead blamed a "communication confusion".

But earlier today the foreign office's top civil servant, Sir Simon McDonald, told MPs that ministers had been briefed on the scheme but took a "political decision" not to take part.

Now - a few hours after Downing Street suggested Sir Simon had "misspoken" - the civil servant has issued a retraction. Sir Simon said his comments were wrong and had been made "due to a misunderstanding".

Health Secretary Matt Hancock earlier on Friday said the UK had actually now joined the scheme but it had "yet to deliver a single item" of equipment.

The UK has left the European Union but is in a transition period during which it is able to participate in such schemes.

Is it just me or is there an awful lot of confusions and misunderstandings in the government and civil service.

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