Covid - coming out of Lockdown 3 - no politics, less opinion and more facts and information.

[Hobby]

The report was both critical and complementary but the media headlines suggest only the former.

 

As regards the Mail's political reporting its surprising just how critical they are of the Tories and they have lead several exposes of dubious dealings by their MPs. Sadly many people ignore or just don't see them judging by comments I've seen which just do blanket criticism of them. 

 

All the media has bias of one sort or another hence we need to read widely to get a more accurate picture. Unfortunately all too many people with leanings more to one side or the other don't do that and just believe what their favourite rag spouts. 

[alastairq]

2 minutes ago, Hobby said:

Unfortunately all too many people with leanings more to one side or the other don't do that and just believe what their favourite rag spouts. 

 Or, FAcebook?

 

[Don't forget Facebook in all of this!!]

 

I am glad Dave can recall junior school.....I darned well can't, although that might just have a tinge of the psychological about it?

LIke my unnatural aversion to butter beans?

[Hobby]

Yes you're right I should have included social media! 

[hayfield]

46 minutes ago, Zero Gravitas said:

 

And to me it's quite obvious that politics leaning to the right are tolerated in this and other threads.

 

I think Andy has done a splendid job to keep the debate alive without stifling the differences of opinion that are bound to occur. However, I was unable to let your comment about the one-sided tolerance of views pass.

 

To my mind it's a bit like the BBC - if both sides are complaining of bias it's probably got it about right.

 

Lets call it a day and get on with sensible debate

Edited October 12, 2021 by hayfield

[hayfield]

Sir Patrick Vallance in a radio 4 interview, sheds light on the advice given during the pandemic, and how the advice altered as more was learnt about the virus. Certainly how the medias tone changed

 

At the beginning of the pandemic, he had told the BBC in March 2020

"That the aim was to "reduce the peak" of infections and that the population would build up a "degree of herd immunity".

But in the new interview, he stressed that as more evidence came in, the scientific judgements changed."

"For a politician, that feels like a U-turn, or for the media that often feels like a U-turn," he said. "It's not a U-turn - this is new evidence that gives you a new position: this is the way we progress, the way we learn."

 

He said:

"I view my job as giving scientific advice, like it or not, to the prime minister and cabinet to enable them to make decisions.

"My job is not to sugarcoat it. My job is not to tell them things they want to hear... it's to make sure that they understand what the science at that moment is saying, what the uncertainties are, and to try to make that as clear as possible."

 

He said

"He and fellow scientists were labelled as "gloom-mongers" by some parts of the media, and added: "Maybe we were, but we were trying to just tell people as we saw it, and as the experts were helping us understand it, what the situation was, and therefore what the options might be."

 

Sir Patrick told The Life Scientific:

 

"My mantra for a long time during this (pandemic) has been... you've got to go sooner than you want to in terms of taking interventions.

"You've got to go harder than you want to, and you've got to go more geographically broad than you want to.

"And that is the Sage advice. And that's what I've been saying. And I will say it going forward, and the prime minister knows that's what I think. And he knows that's what I would do in that situation."

 

Clearly the advice at the start of the pandemic from the experts changed, plus politicians have to weigh up many bits of information, and come to a conclusion. In hind sight some of the advice that was given would be different had more been known, therefore the decisions made by government could have been better had this knowledge had been available

[boxbrownie]

Oh well, it seems like “no politics” went out the window…..

[EddieB]

1 hour ago, chris p bacon said:

It wasn't the headlines but the inference that a specific poster would be along to dispute it. He did post but not in the way presumed and yet it's described as "A Mantrap" as if posted to elicit a specific response, ffs it's like being in Junior School again.

Well there was no need for the “specific poster” to respond, their opening sentence effectively taking the “bait” (if such were intended).

 

I didn’t see there being any overt political baiting, unless such a response attempted to make it so.

 

Somewhere beyond junior school the concept of straw man arguments might be learned and understood.  I live in hope.  Still, perhaps I’ve just fallen into the “baited trap” of your message...

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, Neil said:

I'm an unrepentant lefty and from that standpoint I see that right of centre viewpoints are tolerated here too. 

 

 

We swing both left and right or even in between depending upon what we believe will be better in the far future for our grandchildren……nothing more or less, it all pivots on which idiot is in charge of a party at the time and if they actually have a clue to the real world….it’s a bloody difficult choice most of the time 

[Nearholmer]

Well, former Health Secretary Hunt upset some people today by using the "game of two halves" analogy about the UK's response to Covid, and I can see why those who have lost loved ones might have felt that was trivialising the matter, but, he is spot-on, and people with long memories, and nothing useful to fill them with, might recall me saying in about December that we'd played a terrible first half, but had time to salvage something in the second.

[Neil]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Well, former Health Secretary Hunt upset some people today by using the "game of two halves" analogy about the UK's response to Covid, and I can see why those who have lost loved ones might have felt that was trivialising the matter, but, he is spot-on, and people with long memories, and nothing useful to fill them with, might recall me saying in about December that we'd played a terrible first half, but had time to salvage something in the second.

 

Unfortunately the sport analogy doesn't work because however well the second half goes it can't make right what went wrong in the first half.

 

 

 

 

[Bernard Lamb]

11 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Well, former Health Secretary Hunt upset some people today by using the "game of two halves" analogy about the UK's response to Covid, and I can see why those who have lost loved ones might have felt that was trivialising the matter, but, he is spot-on, and people with long memories, and nothing useful to fill them with, might recall me saying in about December that we'd played a terrible first half, but had time to salvage something in the second.

That depends to a certain extent on just how much of the second half there is still to play.

Bernard

[Nearholmer]

I think Neil, that what you are saying is what has already been said: using a sporting analogy is a tad tasteless and insensitive.

 

And, yes, of course, none of us really knows when the fat lady will sing (to use another tasteless analogy).

 

Anyone else see the video of a reporter getting a quote from Dominic Cummings? “We have a joke Prime Minister, and a joke leader of the opposition.” (That might not be the precise words, but very close). There is a man whose loyalty nobody could ever buy, because he doesn’t do loyalty.

[boxbrownie]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I think Neil, that what you are saying is what has already been said: using a sporting analogy is a tad tasteless and insensitive.

Precisely this….

[monkeysarefun]

Australia, given its proximity to Asia used to take the Pandemic risk very seriously and  back in the day ran regular  exercises to test our pandemic response - for example Exercise Cumpston in 2006 simulated the arrival of an international flight carrying sick passengers from an Asian country landing in Brisbane , and subsequent spread of a pandemic virus into the Australian community.  

 

Exercise Sustain in 2008 continued the work of Cumpston and examined whole of government efforts to mitigate the explosion of a global pandemic in the community.

 

Despite universal recommendations that similar exercises be held every few years, to date, another has not been held.

 

The Federal Government subsequently ran  smaller workshops and federal-only exercises, but nothing on the level of Cumpston and Sustain.

 

  Other priorites - the GFC,  endless political infighting and regular Prime Minister sackings (it happenned  on both sides - so I can keep this politically balanced!) and probably an over-emphasis on Middle Eastern terrorism as the  major threat meant the pandemic threat dropped down the list.

 

Health experts say failure to continue pandemic practice exercises may have contributed to confusion in the early days of Australia's response to COVID-19, including contradictory public messaging from national and local leaders and delays in launching communication tools.

 

At least we did  learn and implement  something from the  exercises though - their major recommendations were swift shut down of the borders and segregation of subsequent arrivals, which were both followed. 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[Neil]

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I think Neil, that what you are saying is what has already been said: using a sporting analogy is a tad tasteless and insensitive. ...

 

No, not quite. It's not the insensitivity that troubles me, it's that it's wrong to think that a good vaccine roll out can be set against the earlier failings, in a summing up of government performance. The dead can't be brought back to life, the widowed made un-widowed, the bereaved made un-bereaved. However well the surviving population have been protected it doesn't take away the fact that a significant number were failed when they need not and should not have been. 

[Hobby]

I agree they were let down but we have to be careful when playing the blame game, which is what you and much of the Media seem to enjoy doing, the Far Eastern countries got it largely right, though even they had issues, but it was the West that came up with the goods when it came to vaccines. 

 

Playing the blame game will never bring back those lives, acknowledging and learning from our mistakes will help us in the future. Unfortunately that will not appease those who seem to want their pound of flesh even though I seriously doubt they'd have done any better had they'd been in charge and had the same advice from the experts...

[alastairq]

Government didn't cause the covid deaths!

Our way of life did that!

Covid was a ''perfect storm'' just waiting to happen.

It exposed the shallowness of our societies. The superficialities.

It exposed all that we wanted to sweep under the carpet!

 

[What we forget is that deaths from other causes seemed to decline. flu, for example?}

Trying to lay 'blame' for folk dying of covid is a bit like saying, if we hadn't declared war on Germany in 1939, all those people would have lived?

 

Changes only occur if we learn from what wasn't appropriate at the time. [I'm not saying whether our actions were right, or wrong! We couldn't know at the time.]

But I don't see much change occurring if, as a society, our present behaviours are anything to go by?

 

We all seem too busy trying to revert our lives back to what they were before.....complete with superficialities!

 

 

[hayfield]

59 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

No, not quite. It's not the insensitivity that troubles me, it's that it's wrong to think that a good vaccine roll out can be set against the earlier failings, in a summing up of government performance. The dead can't be brought back to life, the widowed made un-widowed, the bereaved made un-bereaved. However well the surviving population have been protected it doesn't take away the fact that a significant number were failed when they need not and should not have been. 

 

Neil

 

Very sadly this accusation can be levied at most countries, certainly in the western world, parts of Eastern Europe and the South Americas. Virtually no one was ready and the virus knew no borders. In some areas we were worse than many other countries, in others we were much better. It is all so easy to play the blame game, but this virus was completely different to those which went before and were planned for. But it was not just a good vaccine rollout, but many other measures

 

At the beginning the scientists had a plan, and yes our government along with many others went along with it. However medical knowledge has been ever changing and evolving everywhere

 

Hind sight (which is what we have at the moment) can be very selective and ignores what was actually happening. I am certain all those making decisions or giving advice with the benefit of hindsight would have acted differently.

 

Added to this there were large segments of society ignoring the advice/rules, something no plan could cope with

 

.

Edited October 13, 2021 by hayfield

[Dunsignalling]

If HMG had done everything they talked about within a week of doing so rather than stalling for up to a month, as they did with almost every measure they did eventually adopt, the first phase would have gone much less badly than it did. 

 

Hindsight?

 

I remember screaming at the TV "for God's sake just get on with it" on an almost daily basis AT THE TIME.

 

John

[Hobby]

Much of the stuff they wanted to do couldn't be done overnight, though. I do wonder about the delay closing the borders which seemed unnecessarily long in most cases (especially India) but before I criticise I'd want to know the reasoning around it. Again it comes down to looking outside the simple explanation, as many scientists admitted at the time and since then medical reasons were not the only thing governments have to consider when taking any action, a complete overnight lockdown as many people wanted could cause even more issues such as distribution of food/goods, failures of businesses, etc., it isn't a simple thing to do.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Hobby

[alastairq]

5 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Hindsight?

 

I remember screaming at the TV "for God's sake just get on with it" on an almost daily basis AT THE TIME.

 

 I think the problem with that was, for every person screaming at the telly to 'get on with it', there were many who preferred not to 'get on with it?'

 

Many wanted to jump in with both feet, yet the Government had to proceed with caution. There would have been equal criticism  of government reacting too quickly too....if that had been the case.   

[Hobby]

BTW this is the full report, not the edited bits seen in the Media:

 

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7497/documents/78688/default/

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, alastairq said:

 I think the problem with that was, for every person screaming at the telly to 'get on with it', there were many who preferred not to 'get on with it?'

 

Many wanted to jump in with both feet, yet the Government had to proceed with caution. There would have been equal criticism  of government reacting too quickly too....if that had been the case.   

 

Spot on with this comment, a decision had to be made on the known facts and advice being given at the time. 

[Hobby]

17 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

Spot on with this comment, a decision had to be made on the known facts and advice being given at the time and which could change from day to day and the advice also varied dependant on the "expert" consulted. 

 

I think it's worth adding that to it, if only things were as simple as some people seem to think.

[Nearholmer]

57 minutes ago, hayfield said:

a decision had to be made on the known facts and advice being given at the time. 

And, in a circumstance like the arrival of a new and very nasty disease on the doorstep, not making a decision constitutes a hugely important decision, and that I think may have been part of the problem in the U.K.: hesitation.

 

Sor Patrick Vallance repeats at every opportunity that, in such circumstances, one has to “Go sooner than you want; go harder than you want; and, go broader than you want.”, and he repeats that he has advised the PM accordingly, although it isn’t clear to me when he first gave that advice.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Nearholmer