Covid Enquiry

[Boss Hogg]

This thread is nothing to do with politics.

What is the point of this ? It seems it just comes up with answers that we already know Ie should have locked down earlier and eat out to help out helped spread it.

Also seems like it’s jobs for the boys for some of the people who run these. They sound like pompous imbeciles to me. Can’t imagine these enquiries are cheap to put together either.

[brexit]

Agree will cost around £10 million apparently: give the money to the bereaved or the NHS for research.

[Colburn_Claret]

I'd hate to cause a thread to close, but it has absolutely everything to do with politics.
Enough said.

[Clovius Boofus]

Many of the bereaved want answers as to how decisions were made - decisions made by politicians. I'll leave it at that.

[daveisaclaret]

The answer is political unfortunately. It bought them about two years of avoiding any and all questions about the response to Covid by saying let's wait for the inquiry. By the time the inquiry is over and its report is filed none of them will be in office and none of them will care what it says.

[Nori1958]

If any improvements are recommended for future similar events, hopefully they will never be needed.

[taio]

To learn lessons that will play an important role in responding to emergency situations in the future.

[MrTopTier]

Any opportunity to highlight the incredible incompetence of this outstandingly inept Government is fine by me.

[bodge]

More sense from taio.

[Bosscat]

To learn lessons that will play an important role in responding to emergency situations in the future.

exactly this

[RicardoMontalban]

Not sure how it can avoid being political, given the subject matter, but if it adds learning and improves decision making at all levels should the worst happen, then surely that can only be good thing.

[mdd2]

Big danger that the conclusions will be based on hindsight. No one knew what the best options were at the time. Sure quarantine for all would have reduced the deaths but the Government had to balance the economic costs against the consequences for the pandemic itself. lets face it some of the present inflationary problems stem from the Government spending money it did not have during that pandemic. The public will have to pay twice, once for the virus and secondly for the present economic mess.
Still Sir Keir Starmer will sort it.

[FCBurnley]

Your chance of finding out the truth in either UK or US is approximately zero

[Bordeauxclaret]

I had no idea that Covid managed to delete WhatsApp messages.

[taio]

Big danger that the conclusions will be based on hindsight. No one knew what the best options were at the time. Sure quarantine for all would have reduced the deaths but the Government had to balance the economic costs against the consequences for the pandemic itself. lets face it some of the present inflationary problems stem from the Government spending money it did not have during that pandemic. The public will have to pay twice, once for the virus and secondly for the present economic mess.
Still Sir Keir Starmer will sort it.

Hindsight should absolutely be used to inform future emergency preparedness and response.

[martin_p]

Big danger that the conclusions will be based on hindsight.

Isn’t that exactly the point of an enquiry?

[alwaysaclaret]

This thread is nothing to do with politics.

What is the point of this ? It seems it just comes up with answers that we already know Ie should have locked down earlier and eat out to help out helped spread it.

Also seems like it’s jobs for the boys for some of the people who run these. They sound like pompous imbeciles to me. Can’t imagine these enquiries are cheap to put together either.

Just said exactly the same to my Mrs, will just all end in a multiple hundred page report, and for what. Nothing. Can't bring people's lost relatives back, can't in hindsight go back on decisions, can't change anything, as you say job's for the boys and money in their pockets.

[Goliath]

The decisions made in terms of lockdowns etc are of no interest to me, they were subjective decisions that people could argue about all day depending on your stance on how lockdowns encroach on peoples freedoms etc.

The important stuff to me is in terms of the corruption with how contracts were handed out and where money was spent, which unfortunately js very political

[summitclaret]

Your chance of finding out the truth in either UK or US is approximately zero

I would suggest that there is as much chance of getting to the truth here as there is anywhere else in the world.

[taio]

Just said exactly the same to my Mrs, will just all end in a multiple hundred page report, and for what. Nothing. Can't bring people's lost relatives back, can't in hindsight go back on decisions, can't change anything, as you say job's for the boys and money in their pockets.

You're right, it obviously can't change those things retrospectively, but that's not the point of the inquiry.

The point if it is, there will be important lessons to learn that will save lives and mitigate the economic effects if similar events occurred in the future.

It would be outrageous if the UK didn't undertake a very thorough process to provide a factual account of what happened and to learn lessons from it.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Just over 100 years since the last serious global pandemic

Yes scientists and government officials would have various scenarios built up and plans in place but ultimately until it happens, nothing was guaranteed to work

They made mistakes, anyone would in their position, but people were always going to die here in the uk (and other countries) because of modern travel methods etc which helped Covid get around quicker

Mistakes were made by those in charge of the country, the scientists advising them and those required to implement any processes and also by the populace itself

The Enquiry is all about getting all the information together to see what can be learned from it

Hopefully we won’t get another one for another hundred years but we never know and chances are mistakes will be made in the next one.

Just remember, you don’t vote for your local MP based on their experience in the real world, an absolute minority have had “normal” jobs and none of them are experts in the areas where it matters when it comes to a pandemic

[claret2018]

Public enquiries are the only thing keeping the economy going

[Boss Hogg]

An enquiry into how it escaped the lab in China might be more useful but doubt that is going to happen. Don’t think we’ll learn anything useful from this enquiry. Interesting point above about contract awarding. Would be also interested to see how much money can be reclaimed from fraudsters who set up Ltd companies to take loans and then closed them and what is being done about this.

[RicardoMontalban]

Big danger that the conclusions will be based on hindsight. No one knew what the best options were at the time. Sure quarantine for all would have reduced the deaths but the Government had to balance the economic costs against the consequences for the pandemic itself. lets face it some of the present inflationary problems stem from the Government spending money it did not have during that pandemic. The public will have to pay twice, once for the virus and secondly for the present economic mess.
Still Sir Keir Starmer will sort it.

I think the point there is our lack of preparedness at the time, which was warned of, at the time. As Taio points out, hindsight can be a valuable tool in learning.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

An enquiry into how it escaped the lab in China might be more useful but doubt that is going to happen. Don’t think we’ll learn anything useful from this enquiry. Interesting point above about contract awarding. Would be also interested to see how much money can be reclaimed from fraudsters who set up Ltd companies to take loans and then closed them and what is being done about this.

Didn’t the KC state that the China thing wasn’t up for discussion when someone mentioned it the other day?

[Westleigh]

Agree will cost around £10 million apparently: give the money to the bereaved or the NHS for research.

I think you may have to stick another 0 on the £10 mill the amount the legal teams are charging.

[Westleigh]

IMG_0061.png (503.47 KiB) Viewed 10856 times

[MrTopTier]

An enquiry into how it escaped the lab in China might be more useful but doubt that is going to happen. Don’t think we’ll learn anything useful from this enquiry. Interesting point above about contract awarding. Would be also interested to see how much money can be reclaimed from fraudsters who set up Ltd companies to take loans and then closed them and what is being done about this.

How about we start with those at the top.

We had a lying Prime Minister in Johnson.
We have listened to the current unelected PM today lying about how he changed phones and all his WhatsApp’s disappeared.
Michelle Mone and the PPE still not prosecuted.
The contracts award to Conservative donors by friendly MP’s
Matt Hancock
Dealing with those at the top will make dealing those further down the food chain easier to deal with.

We know that’s not how it works though, nobody above will be touched, the enquiry will be published in a few years time. Lessons will be learnt.
People will offer their sanctimonious apologies and we all move on.

[bfcjg]

If/when there is another pandemic a government of national unity should be formed that way pathetic point scoring on all sides should stop and the focus be very much about navigating the country through it.

[Clovius Boofus]

Look at the state of this.

https://twitter.com/MichelleMone/status ... enE9Q&s=19

[dsr]

This thread is nothing to do with politics.

What is the point of this ? It seems it just comes up with answers that we already know Ie should have locked down earlier and eat out to help out helped spread it.

Also seems like it’s jobs for the boys for some of the people who run these. They sound like pompous imbeciles to me. Can’t imagine these enquiries are cheap to put together either.

That's exactly what we don't know, and what the enquiry should be trying to find out. Important questions:

Did lockdown work?
Was it right to close the schools?
How many lives did lockdown save and how many did it cost?
Has the damage to the economy caused by lockdown done more harm than not locking down would have?
Was it right not to lockdown at Christmas 2021 when a lot of voices were calling for a third lockdown?
Did other countries do it better and what can we learn from them?
Was lockdown severe enough? Should we have closed the supermarkets and made all food deliveries online?

Sadly, I fear that all this enquiry is going to conclude is that Boris Johnson wasn't the right man in charge. And if that's all it's doing, it's a dead waste of time and money.

[MrTopTier]

If/when there is another pandemic a government of national unity should be formed that way pathetic point scoring on all sides should stop and the focus be very much about navigating the country through it.

I would hope that people who knew what they were doing, would be employed if such a crisis arose. You know like experts in their field, not a bunch of unqualified MP’s.

[JohnMcGreal]

To learn lessons that will play an important role in responding to emergency situations in the future.

They already had the opportunity to learn lessons from Exercise Cygnus in 2017. They didn't learn them. They continued to mismanage the NHS along with pretty much everything else and lo and behold we were in an absolutely shocking state when an actual pandemic hit.

[taio]

They already had the opportunity to learn lessons from Exercise Cygnus in 2017. They didn't learn them. They continued to mismanage the NHS along with pretty much everything else and lo and behold we were in an absolutely shocking state when an actual pandemic hit.

Still important that lessons are learned though in my view. I'm not getting into the politics of it. It would be outrageous if we don't learn and implement lessons from Covid.

[JohnMcGreal]

Still important that lessons are learned though in my view. I'm not getting into the politics of it. It would be outrageous if we don't learn and implement lessons from Covid.

Completely agree. I just think it's worth pointing out that this isn't all about hindsight, because the people in charge knew about the deficiencies years before the event.

[taio]

Completely agree. I just think it's worth pointing out that this isn't all about hindsight, because the people in charge knew about the deficiencies years before the event.

Going forward hindsight is crucial

[Sproggy]

That's exactly what we don't know, and what the enquiry should be trying to find out. Important questions:

Did lockdown work?
Was it right to close the schools?
How many lives did lockdown save and how many did it cost?
Has the damage to the economy caused by lockdown done more harm than not locking down would have?
Was it right not to lockdown at Christmas 2021 when a lot of voices were calling for a third lockdown?
Did other countries do it better and what can we learn from them?
Was lockdown severe enough? Should we have closed the supermarkets and made all food deliveries online?

Sadly, I fear that all this enquiry is going to conclude is that Boris Johnson wasn't the right man in charge. And if that's all it's doing, it's a dead waste of time and money.

The whole thing seems to be being conducted like a trial which isn't helping.

None of the options available were anything other than catastrophic and none of the people involved - experts, MP's or otherwise had any experience of managing their way through a pandemic. The enquiry needs to establish what we need to do differently when it happens again and accusatory questioning about the tone of individual WhatsApp messages isn't going to do that.

[gandhisflipflop]

Your chance of finding out the truth in either UK or US is approximately zero

Spot on.

[Hipper]

I would hope that people who knew what they were doing, would be employed if such a crisis arose. You know like experts in their field, not a bunch of unqualified MP’s.

You don't seem to understand how the system works.

MPs aren't experts and they are not supposed to be. They are, hopefully, wise people that can take information provided by experts and make decisions. They do this on our behalf as we don't want to do it ourselves. We'd rather get on with our lives.

So with Covid you have scientific advisors providing their views which should be based entirely on the science. Of course if there isn't much research on a subject that makes things less certain. Indeed even science isn't exact. If you get a bunch of scientists who work in the same field you are unlikely to get a unanimous agreement, just a consensus. It often gets revised as new research is done. In other words, when a scientist tells you something at some particular moment it should come with a measure of certainty (or uncertainty) - how likely is it to be correct. An MP's job is then to weigh this all up, add what they know about the consequences on any proposals - economic, health, etc., and propose some action.

What I found disappointing in this inquiry, of the bits I'd heard, was Patrick Vallance, the Government's Chief Scientist Advisor. He complained that 'politicians don't understand science' (meaning I think the scientific method) and therefore the information he was giving the. Surely it was his job to make sure they did.

[JohnMac]

The World was unprepared for a fast moving pandemic and only those Countries with efficient infrastructure and a sense of togetherness were able to make intelligent and swift decisions.

Ours is not in that category unfortunately but there is scope for improvement if lessons are learnt and mistake aren't repeated in the future.

[Paul Waine]

This thread is nothing to do with politics.

What is the point of this ? It seems it just comes up with answers that we already know Ie should have locked down earlier and eat out to help out helped spread it.

Also seems like it’s jobs for the boys for some of the people who run these. They sound like pompous imbeciles to me. Can’t imagine these enquiries are cheap to put together either.

Hi Boss Hogg, were you listening today? From what we heard, there is no evidence that "eat out to help out" helped spread covid-19. A decision to change the social distancing from 2m to 1m + other precautions had already been taken so that hospitality could re-open. That decision was supported by SAGE, including Vallance and Whitty. Eat out to help out came a few days later, and, if a I recall correctly, only subsided eating out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays - days that were normally very quiet for hospitality (pre-pandemic). Summer 2020 we'd all just gone through 3 months of lockdown, covid-19 infections had fallen significantly, lots of people headed for the beach. Yes, there'd been talk of a second wave to come later in the year, but it was a relief for many to be out of lockdown and be able to mix a little with friends - was it the "rule of 6" that applied? How do we separate out the effects of people dining in a restaurant, socially distanced one table from the next, with the effect of a group of 6 meeting up, perhaps in someone's garden (I don't think we were allowed inside each others houses at that time, but I might be wrong about that).

2027 before the Covid-19 Inquiry is due to be finished. It may be that there are some interim reports before then. That's the major issue for me, many other major countries have completed their own inquiries. If another virus comes along in 2 or 3 years time, we won't even have seen the conclusions from this one, never mind had any chance to implement any proposals that may may a difference.

I'm hesitant to suggest that the UK needs an inquiry in why we spend so long over inquiries. If I had the chance to set the terms of reference for an inquiry the first item would be the inquiry must be completed within 6 months - and no payments for any of the lawyers involved in the inquiry unless it was completed in 6 months - and was judged to be a meaningful and useful inquiry.

[Silkyskills1]

It's an inquiry not an enquiry. Seeing Johnson last week and Sunak today squirming, filibustering, shifting uneasily in their seats and above all still smirking reinforced all I believed about this bunch of charlatans.

[IanMcL]

If any improvements are recommended for future similar events, hopefully they will never be needed.

The thing about pandemics, is that they come again and again.

[bfcjg]

One good thing to come out of it is we are seeing the most powerful people in Britain being held to account, I cannot imagine many countries being as open. Can you imagine an enquiry like this in Russia ?

[HahaYeah]

German financial scientist addresses the German Parliament.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq2TZPEWjcA

[Paul Waine]

It's an inquiry not an enquiry. Seeing Johnson last week and Sunak today squirming, filibustering, shifting uneasily in their seats and above all still smirking reinforced all I believed about this bunch of charlatans.

Hmm, I thought it was Hugo Keith who was squirming today when he realised he'd got his facts all wrong about "eat out to help out." SAGE had agreed changing social distancing from 2 metres to 1 metre plus other precautions a few days before eat out to help out was announced. Pubs and restaurants (and hotels - I'd have hotel booked in Lake District for August 2020 from late the previous year) when social distancing was reduced to 1 metre. Eat out to help out was introduced to encourage us to visit restaurants on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, not least because they couldn't use all their space at the weekends because of the 1 metre social distancing rule.

[Hipper]

The thing about pandemics, is that they come again and again.

Oh. When will the next one be? Wasn't the last big one in 1918 (if you exclude AIDS)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e ... _pandemics

[IanMcL]

There have been plenty of things like Swine Vesicular Disease, Foot and Mouth and Mad Cow.

These have wiped out livestock across the UK. Then they decide slaughter may not be the best thing!

Emergencies are emergencies. You need a plan, just in case.

[Silkyskills1]

Hmm, I thought it was Hugo Keith who was squirming today when he realised he'd got his facts all wrong about "eat out to help out." SAGE had agreed changing social distancing from 2 metres to 1 metre plus other precautions a few days before eat out to help out was announced. Pubs and restaurants (and hotels - I'd have hotel booked in Lake District for August 2020 from late the previous year) when social distancing was reduced to 1 metre. Eat out to help out was introduced to encourage us to visit restaurants on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, not least because they couldn't use all their space at the weekends because of the 1 metre social distancing rule.

I understand and accept we might clash politically but we all know who was/ were responsible for the catastrophe of 2020/2021. A slight error by a KC in no way equates to the sheer, callous incompetence of those who have blood on their hands of hundreds of thousands of people in this country. Indefensible and you know it.

[Boss Hogg]

There no way eat out to help out didn’t spread Covid. We went from being told not to go near anyone to it being ok if you were eating. While it was fast moving and unprecedented the rules seemed contradictory.