Just listening to the daily Downing Street press conference and I cannot believe the moronic and repetitive questions the so called senior journalists are asking.
It won't happen, but it would be great if Proff Whitty told them to grow up!
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Just listening to the daily Downing Street press conference and I cannot believe the moronic and repetitive questions the so called senior journalists are asking.
It won't happen, but it would be great if Proff Whitty told them to grow up!
Ha ha ha I think a little stronger might be better.
Certainly be funny.( Look, just F#@£ off the lot of you)
I kid you not..
I just read it on twitter (so it must be true)
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern confirms Easter Bunny is classed as an “essential worker” but it might be “difficult for the bunny to get everywhere” in current circumstances.
Tooth fairy also confirmed as an essential worker.
You could not make it up!
Tooth fairy must be supplied with PPE. Teeth are likely to carry coronavirus for up to 72 hours after falling out of mouth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
Ahh so that why our dentist stopped drilling teeth early doors, I’ll let Mrs DTR know she was wondering why at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonykay
"My personal take on the current situation here is not to try and prevent everyone catching the virus, but to slow the spread up enough to be able to save the highest % of saveable people possible and not be overwhelmed".[/QUOTE]
Slowing the spread is the problem - it is proving far harder than most experts thought it would be - the idea that we could slow for a bit, ease off for a bit, slow for a bit etc is looking pretty silly.
But that is where I disagree.
The fact is the medics had differing opinions, and they still do. So at the time that decision was taken, it seemed sensible. Boris didn’t take the decision, his respected medical advisors did.
Even if it proved ill advised in hindsight, it didn’t in advance. It still could be that the formula followed proves to be the minimum death route. Nobody will ever know. So the word silly is at best unfair, at worst unjustified.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike T
Will Boris survive??
I don't think we know what the "closed doors" medical advice was. And I don't think the medics. decided anything. And anyway, as you say, it was not necessarily consistent advice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
We do know what the medics have been allowed to say (valuing their future careers and funding for their institutions) and we would certainly be right to believe that the key decisions have been political and not primarily medical.
So a medical view might have been to, say, test/quarantine every traveller into the UK from an early date and then isolate and trace; but at that time that would have been politically unacceptable because the public had not recognised and accepted the potential danger of a disease in far away countries. "Loss of civil liberties..." etc etc
If with hindsight the economy had then not been trashed and not many people had died compared with Italy and Spain and the USA; then Johnson would have been a hero (and rightly), but, but, but if things had not been as catastrophic as we now see they are then Johnson would have been vilified and etc.
My brother and family live in Pamplona (Northern Spain) and the city is effectively under martial law. There is no popping out for exercise there but Spaniards who remember living under a dictatorship have accepted loss of freedom in ways that people in the UK have still not - even now.
The cost per life saved under Covid-19 is far, far higher than the equivalent in normal times. It has been a political decision to spend that money because the public would not like to face the reality of the pragmatic decisions Doctors normally take every minute of the day. And Johnson would like to be re-elected.
With respect, you are hearing the advisors each day on TV say what they think.
You are listening to oxford and imperial disagreeing with each other profoundly. Their models are based on vapour for data, No surprise there for anyone that ever worked in Or with academia , disagreement is SNAFU
We have the editor of lancet who doesn’t agree with himself. Still he demands to criticise.
We have the swedes going left, the South Koreans going right , opting to kill their population all later and every shade in between. All of them seemingly taking medical advice.
The government cannot take contradictory advice, go left and right at the same time,
Testing needs validation before use. Easy to say. Hard to do. That is not quick, so smartarses can say test everyone, but translating that into policy is a serious problem. The temperature gauges in use at some airports are a chocolate fire guard. Tests cannot validate without sick people! And worse it can be assymptomatic so who do you test?
The fact is none of them know but all of them want the right to argue against others advice.
If all the medics agreed Johnson would know which way to go, but they dont!
So he took a decision, Someone had to, for which he deserves support.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
All the best to BoJo, but it is poetic justice after the dog's dinner he done in handling it.
And you are qualified on the basis of managing how many pandemics?
None, That’s the problem.
Too many people with opinions based on not a jot of knowledge or ability.
So you have no idea if it is a dogs dinner. You want to believe it is a dogs dinner because you look through political glasses.
You are Ready for recruitment by the lancet. The canary, or skwawkbox.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
With respect...I respect decision makers. I am not criticising Johnson. Everything is politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
I have been that expert adviser to Chief Executives ("tell me what I think") but I knew that ultimately it wasn't me carrying the can.
It is only when every one else is looking into their laps or arguing black and white that you discover what being the Chief really means.
But in this case he is getting wildly conflicting advice,
Imagine another two experts sat at the table with you, when all three of you disagree,
Then put yourself in the shoes of the board.
I would lock them away and tell them they don’t get fed until they come to a consensus recommendation they all stand by. If all three starve, then there’s no shortage of experts!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
Agree all the best to him, and to be fair I think he’s done ok in a completely weird situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
[QUOTE=Oracle;659390]But in this case he is getting wildly conflicting advice,
Imagine another two experts say at the table with you, when all three of you disagree,
Then put yourself in the shoes of the board.
I would lock them away and tell them they don’t get fed until they come to a consensus recommendation they all stand by. If all three starve, then there’s no shortage of experts![/QUOTE
My type of plan. Too many so call educated guesses not expert's.
I was very shocked at the news, I wish Boris all the best. He has had to make hugely difficult decisions in an impossible situation and kept working while he has been ill. Quite probably to the detriment of his own health.
Ah The Prisoners' Dilemma!Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
Incidentally what has been interesting to me is the high profile given to behavioural science advisers.
So they advise Johnson what people will actually do and the government can build that assumption into their advice to get the outcome they will be happy with - which includes people catching the virus to build up immunity.
So the government knew that not everybody in the big cities would docilely accept the social distancing restrictions and they might be quite content with what is actually happening, although they cannot admit that, and so continue to threaten banning exercise etc.
People's behaviour eh? Always fascinating!
[QUOTE=Stagger;659393]There can not be any experts on an unknown quantity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
Get well soon Boris we need you back at No 10 as soon as possible.
Ha ha ha so true
If a decision turns out to have been wrong, but only in hindsight, then people justify that decision - if it was wrong on the basis of information available at the time, then people deny having made that decision. This is what the government is doing. They know they made a bad - "silly" - decision.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
I know life only makes sense backwards, I know what it is like to have to make decisions with very little information to go on.
"but"Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
The first 5 words Pat fine, but I'd delete the post. It's shameful.
Spot on WP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
I see no evidence of that, only spin, as yet the government may well have plotted the minimum death way through.
I do see the presumed right of some experts to broadcast only they knew the truth and the government ignored them, which it has to do because they all disagree.
For one thing there is no one size fits all. Comparing societies does not help.
Why is India and Pakistan not awash? The density of population, dirtiness, generational mix living together, lack of social distance implies they would be awash, they are not.
The possible answer I hear from informed sources is that CV is not the killer. It is what is called cytokine storm, which is the bodies own immune response attacking itself. So the difference between cleaner western societies and dirtier southern and eastern, is that the body is far more exposed to inflammatory sources in some societies , and so does not overreact. Which is also why I understand western societies suffer more allergic conditions. It is not specific immunity some societies have, but defence against the worst body reactions to it, because of continued exposure.
If that is true all societies are unique. So attacking the government on the basis of what others do or have done is an irrelevance.
I still see no evidence of bad decisions. They left the braking till later, and hit it hard when they did. It’s how racing cars win in minimum time. Nobody will ever know if they could have done better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike T
I was a bit dazed last night by the news on Boris.
This morning I'm feeling slightly emotional. My head is in a bit of a spin.
I'm trying to recall when I last felt like this for someone who I don't really know. I think it was Ayrton Senna.
But really I do feel like I know Boris.
He's always seemed larger than life, confident, exuded an infectious "can do" attitude.
I think we'll need his positivity to pull through this as a country and I have everything crossed for him to pull through.
I think I need a long walk on the hills :)
He is also a good communicator. When you meet him he is one of these people that makes you feel your opinion really matters to him. He is also a deep thinker not the buffoon his enemies prefer. He should have taken over instead of May.
It is appalling how some lefties are turning on him on social media.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
You've encapsulated my thoughts. Fingers and toes crossed for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
This is beginning to look like a very significant point. I have just been looking at the table of COVID19 deaths (and deaths per million population) by country. It's all rich Western countries at the top, poor countries at the bottom (and even Spain and Italy, with all their economic problems, are still rich compared with the likes of South Sudan and Timor Leste at the bottom of the table).Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
It's still too early to tell to what extent this is because the populations of richer countries are more mobile, so spread the virus faster. But I suspect that the major explanation may be what Oracle says about immune systems of poorer people being more used to dealing with nasty bugs, and so not over-reacting.
Like, love or loath him, Boris is a capable leader and has had to steer this ship through uncharted waters with siren calls of experts to the left and to the right. That he has done so in a forthright manner, not ducking the painful calls when they had to be made, is typical of him and just what we need. The cytokine angle is very interesting and chimes in with the disease course seen in many hospitalised cases.
Some of the left wing spouting on Facebook has been hideous and I had to unfriend a pal of 30 years standing because he kept on sharing it.
We need togetherness more than ever right now.
I've deleted or unfollowed something like 40% of my facebook contacts in the last fortnight... basically anybody who fancies themselves as an armchair biologist/economist/politician, anyone who posts anything containing the words "stay the f**k at home", and anybody who tags me in any of those wretched chain-mail type things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
As you can imagine, I've now got a very limited facebook feed!!
The interesting thing is most of the workforce of the country have now become time rich. Something they have never had before.
It's like being retired or only a part time or non worker.
There will inevitably be consequences for all to come through.
I'm still working from home, full time, full pay.
Can't see it lasting more than a fortnight though...
Problems of working at home: thinking I could sit in the garden to work, but finding the sunshine too bright to see my computer screen. :o
:D
I've set up office in the conservatory. It's bloomin' freezing in the morning, lovely late morning, by mid afternoon it's like a sauna.
That cytokine angle was flagged up by OH who was science director of a substantial biotech company, till recently retired, so it is a qualified view, although it is only one possibility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
Local police have received information that there is a rave planned here for this weekend, always an illegal one somewhere in the forestry over Easter.
Beggars belief if it goes ahead :mad:
I will vent my Ire here. Public health england are useless, like most career civil servants.
Given access to the 300 strong staff and facilities of one of Britians leading professional (rather than academic) biotech labs, that handles and manipulates genetics of virus, for drug development and validation:
ALL they wanted was to take away PCR machines to their own test centres for which they have no validated test so compromising the abilty of a qualified lab to respond to the greater need in development. They didnt want staff help who know ten times more than they do. I suspect they would have done it pro bono.
I hope if one thing comes out of the call with Hancock is that PHE are hiding their utter incompetence in harnessing private sector resources, and sadly the government are being blamed by a bunch of idiots. It is time to sideline PHE, if Germany has succeeded it is because it uses more private sector, and doesnt channel the resources through the narrow channel guidance of civil servants. Sack the lot of them and farm the responsibilties out to the private sector. Twice the perfomance. Half the price. I am sure PHE is well up on "diversity officers", and it has state of the art husband "marital leave" and a 21st century creche. The pensions will be outrageous. What it actually needs is the help of professional biotechnologists with their nose to the grindstone, whose methods are sharpened by having to succeed in an economic world, instead of just stealing their tools so neither use them effectively
I'd love the cytokine theory to be true in this instance but it is far, far to early to speculate on that. The main reason coronavirus is not yet ripping through many poorer countires, at least those in Africa, si simply that it arrived here about 4-6 weeks later than in Euope. We're simply behind the curve. And when it did arrive, it was among the elite - those who can afford to travel to Europe. And they live in similar conditions to people in much of Europe - clean, healthy. It's not yet hitting poorer areas in significant ways. And yet, even in the elitie communities, the mortality rate is far higher than in Europe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
Of course, that may be skewed by testing and reporting problems. If European countries can't do it adequately, what hope in countries lacking resources, infrastructure, etc? The flip side of that is that there may already be thousands of cases, even deaths, simply going unnoticed and unreported, especially in poorer communities.
As I say, I really hope the cytokine theory kicks in because otherwise there may be something resembling carnage in the communities around me, but we won't know for at least another month.
Thanks for the info.Quote:
Originally Posted by Latege
It’s only a possibility. As you say, too early to say.
One problem of course is trustworthiness of sources.
But whilst China now has a substantial new middle class born of globalised manufacturing success, it also has a far bigger but desperately poor subsistence level population too.
Since China didn’t lock down early enough it must have spread to those communities, but we don’t hear of mass deaths in them. But does anyone trust their media?
If anyone wants to see fiction in stats, just look at the Iranian figures. Perfectly smooth curves unlike anywhere else. Methinks the mullahs are composing next months figures as we speak! They store them in the safe with next years election results.
Does anyone trust ANY media??