This post is definitely subject to revision.
- I would not be concerned with repatriating people. States are not responsible for such reckless people. ed: The prime purpose is to prevent spread of the virus. Such reckless people can be detained in appropriate emergency conditions – put them in a cell and feed them. ed: Human Rights is my main concern. Very high on that is the right to life. These people who are far from home have disregarded that, they have been travelling without considering their potential threat to others. The few people who need repatriation now – it’s reasonable to assume that they have not been concerned with restricting infection.
- Self-isolation to be maintained. People however must have the opportunity to exercise providing distancing is respected.
- UK Government under Boris Johnson simply been lying. While Boris & Co just lied – they just lied, that’s what they did, they don’t know how to tell the truth, it’s that their class believes that what they say is the truth – they’re used to people sucking up to them soooo much. The point is that they believed whatever they said was the truth. Now of course – we have reality. I don’t have time now to work out posh cnut posh cnutness and I don’t have any time for it and of course their posh cnutness is theirs and nothing to do with me
- The reality is that we have an extremely serious situation. I suggest that you accept point 1 and that unnecessary movement has ended. I propose that these individuals have brought it on themselves. Since they are so reckless to not care for themselves and others, then they should be detained for their own and others welfare. I propose this only as a suggestion. A cell and food would appear appropriate.
- If I was in charge: I recognise that UK government has been BSitting terribly. They have lied about everything. We need ventilators and PPE urgently. UK govt has failed to provide and lied relentlessly. It appears that dead Boris’s UK government refused EU assistance.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson may already be dead. ed: evading scrutiny even in death ;)
00.30 Hear it hear [ed: here} first. BJ is dead. 1.30 You’re still hearing it here first. BJ is dead.
7/4/20 The trouble with a list like this is that it’s the very official and accepted as though people accept it, willing to accept the way things have been.
24/4/20 6. It should be accepted that since Covid-19 is new novel virus very little is known about it. It transpires that UK’s tests for active virus are unreliable, that there is are no reliable tests for antibodies and that the WHO warns that there should not be the assumption that prior infection protects against subsequent infection i.e. antibody tests may be totally irrelevant.
7. Considering point 6, demanding a timetable or schedule for the easing of restrictions is not appropriate. A more sensible approach would be to observe what happens elsewhere.
8. People flouting restrictions and being reckless e.g. surfers, should be given the opportunity, [ed: of} some time to reflect. I am a leisure sailor and fully appreciate that I can’t go sailing currently due to the small risk of making demands on emergency assistance.
9. Restrictions apply to all, rich people driving symbols of status too.
Not 10 but cyclists please take cake. Ignorant motorists are driving very inconsiderately and dangerously, putting your lives at risk.
29/4/20 I am concerned by reports of children developing atypical Kawasaki syndrome related to CV. There will be a medical term for this but the fear is that that their first infection disabled them so that the second infection is far more serious. Worst case scenario (EE) should be considered.
11/5/20 Undead, zombie PM Boris yesterday made some pronouncements on UK Coronavirus. The problem is that very little has changed since the lockdown was imposed – if anything, people are at greater risk of catching CV now since it is more widespread. The “Be alert” message is wrong. At least the promises of imminent vaccines and antibody tests have stopped.
22/5/20 Just changed passwords and restored this blog so some has been lost. Re: my “The problem is that very little has changed since the lockdown was imposed – if anything, people are at greater risk of catching CV now since it is more widespread.” above. Europe should brace for second wave, says EU coronavirus chief
The prospect of a second wave of coronavirus infection across Europe is no longer a distant theory, according to the director of the EU agency responsible for advising governments – including the UK – on disease control.
“The question is when and how big, that is the question in my view,” said Dr Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
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And Ammon, a former adviser to the German government, speaks frankly in her first interview with a UK newspaper since the crisis began.
“Looking at the characteristics of the virus, looking at what now emerges from the different countries in terms of population immunity – which isn’t all that exciting, between 2% and 14%, that leaves still 85% to 90% of the population susceptible – the virus is around us, circulating much more than January and February … I don’t want to draw a doomsday picture but I think we have to be realistic. That it’s not the time now to completely relax.”
26/5/20 Draft, subject to revision
Coronavirus / Covid-19 is a global threatening issue. It is minor in comparison to the global threat of climate destruction.
… to be continued
Please pay attention to point 9 above.
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28/5/20 UK suffers highest death rate from coronavirus
The UK has suffered the highest rate of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic among countries that produce comparable data, according to excess mortality figures.
The UK has registered 59,537 more deaths than usual since the week ending March 20, indicating that the virus has directly or indirectly killed 891 people per million.
At this stage of the pandemic, that is a higher rate of death than in any country for which high-quality data exist. The absolute number of excess deaths in the UK is also the highest in Europe, and second only to the US in global terms, according to data collected by the Financial Times.
The country fares no better on another measure: the percentage increase in deaths compared with normal levels, where the UK once again is the worst hit in Europe and behind only Peru internationally.
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30/5/20 Thanks to George Monbiot’s Culpable Negligence for bringing this report to my attention. Privatised and Unprepared: The NHS Supply Chain investigates the UK’s absolute chaotic disaster of providing PPE. It’s because NHS’s supply chain has been privatised in a labyrinthine complex manner with the privateers providing an abysmally poor service. The solution is to nationalise the NHS.
Months after the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, huge numbers of UK health and care workers still lack adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). This is affecting many professions: doctors, nurses, hospital support staff, administrators, mental health workers in the community and primary care, and social care workers in a variety of roles. Nursing Notes reports that Covid-19 has killed 219 health and care workers in the UK as of the 14th of May 2020, and as Alex Bailin QC – an expert in corporate manslaughter law – says, many of these deaths were “avoidable with proper PPE”. This failure to protect health and care workers is a disaster in its own right, and it is contributing to Covid-19’s catastrophic death toll in this country.
The aim of this report is to expose the role that the privatisation of health and social care has played in this preventable catastrophe. Privatisation has created a system which is both chaotic and bureaucratic – both fragmented and sclerotic. There has been an outcry over PPE shortages in media coverage of the pandemic, but little has been said about privatisation. This is a serious oversight, which this report will address.
NHS Supply Chain – the organisation at the centre of this problem – was created in 2018, after years of outsourcing of NHS Logistics. NHS Supply Chain is technically a part of the NHS, headed by the Secretary of State. But this status is merely a fig-leaf for a needlessly complex web of contracts with private companies which answer to shareholders first. Immediately upon its formation NHS Supply Chain outsourced two major contracts for IT and logistics, and then broke up and outsourced the whole procurement system, by delegating eleven supply areas to various contractors. The parcel-delivery company DHL was put in charge of finding wholesalers to supply ward based consumables, including PPE kits. Unipart was given control over supply chain logistics, including the delivery of PPE. The stated rationale for this approach – an almost obsessive drive towards greater outsourcing and greater fragmentation – was “efficiency savings”.
In what follows we examine this heavily privatised, convoluted, and fundamentally dysfunctional system that NHS Supply Chain has created – one which puts layers of corporate red tape between doctors and nurses who need PPE in order to work safely, and the companies making these supplies. The government’s failure to react to Covid-19 shouldn’t be downplayed, nor should the inherent complications of procuring PPE during a pandemic. But in order to make sense of these factors we need to understand how NHS Supply Chain itself was supposed to work, why it hasn’t worked, and what must be done differently in future.
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There are plenty of “bad apples” in this story – companies whose track record, philosophy, and priorities mean that they shouldn’t have been entrusted with the responsibilities they were given. But this isn’t just a story about bad apples. It is a story of a flawed system that has helped turn the pandemic into an utter disaster. This system offers few advantages over in-house NHS provision, and it creates a range of risks. It undermines coordination and accountability. It is a system in which a “just in time” ethos – devised by logistics companies in order to win contracts and enrich shareholders – takes priority over public health.
The Independent SAGE group has called for reform to this system. “There must be reform of the process of procurement of goods and services to ensure responsive and timely supply for primary and secondary care, and community infection control.” This is especially important, they argue, “in anticipation of a second wave of infection.” Our report echoes this call, and strengthens the case for it. We call on the government to simplify the NHS Supply Chain and bring it back into NHS control, as well as increasing overall NHS capacity, particularly locally, to deal with the virus. As soon as possible, the whole NHS should be reinstated as a fully public service and outsourced contracts across the board should be brought in house. That’s what NHS staff and health workers deserve after all they’ve done for us.
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13/6/20 A better podcast. I recommend from 0.51.20 – stop when you’re bored? although Chumbawumba is worth hearing. [2.18am that ‘official’ Brexit podcast used to bore me senseless, at least you won’t fall asleep to this one )
(later: Ignore the shouty bloke? ;) later still: Even the shouty bloke talks some sense.
