COVID; one year on

SATURDAY, 25 APRIL 2020

Follow the science

Follow the science is the new post Brexit mantra.

It allows the Government appear to not need to make a decision.

This is of course wrong.

Only religious fundamentalists and Brexiteers believe in absolutes. Science everything is a theory.

There is not a "clear" science saying the UK should or shouldn't do this or that. Science will say many things, it is up to Government to listen to all spectrums and decide what to do. In listening to some science, the wrong path could be chosen.

But they won't tell us what science it is they are following. Could be astronomy for all we know. Nor will they tell us who sits of the SAGE committee. But yesterday, it emerged that Johnson's chief advisor and nerd, Dominic Cummings sits on the committee and is allowed to ask questions. Politicians representing Scotland and Wales can attend but not take part.

"The science" will be thrown under the bus when the blame is ready to be shared out. The science than the scientists who secretly, at the moment, advise the Government. Johnson, Gove, Raab et al will hide behind this, and throw the scientists to the lions. Look at it as "nerd immunity" if you will.

People have had enough of experts, but not when you can hide behind them to shield you from the angry mob which will be coming.

Over 41,000 people have died in the UK, second behind the US where you have a Moron in Chief who seems to want to kill as many Americans as possible, apparently so he can blame the State Governors he doesn't like or who he thinks have slighted him. That's a pretty low bar to get over to be honest.

MONDAY, 27 APRIL 2020

The new Eden

I have in my hand a piece of paper, and on that piece of paper is written the science.

There will be a cure in our time.

Or something like it.

There are strong calls from Tory "grandees" (paymasters) pressing for a loosening of the restrictions to boost (their) businesses.

The UK is in denial about how badly COVID-19 has been handled here. It doesn't help when the PM, the liar in chief, calls it a success. 45,000 people have died, over 100 of them doctors, nurses, care home staff. There hasn't been enough PPE for them all, or in the right place, nor has there been sufficient testing where the tests were needed by the staff.

The lockdown, when it came, was a result of things like the Premier League postponing fixtures and many sportspoeple announcing they had tested positive on March 12th. Schools remained open for another week.

Pandemic planning and rates of infections and spread are clearly modeled. I saw one report over the weekend that said if the US had locked down two weeks earlier, then 90% of those who did die, would have lived. I am pretty sure the same can be said for the UK.

The UK is not testing enough, and has only just thought about testing and tracking. Only today will people arriving at our borders be tested and traced. This was stopped in the middle of March when the containment phase ended. Think about the fact that whilst we, the people, lived in fear of leaving our house lest we catch the virus of be arrested, people were still able to fly into the country from the US, China, italy, walk through immigration and get onto a train or the tube, no questions asked.

And this is a success?

Johnson wants to be remembered as a Churchill figure. Instead he is a Eden, and a tinpot one at that.

TUESDAY, 28 APRIL 2020

We care a lot

After Conservative driven decade of austerity that, by their own figures cost 120,000 people their lives, and failed to deliver austerity's main reason, reducing national debt, should be be surpised that their reaction to COVID-19 had delivered so much death an misery?

What is odd is that Johnson saying in his first major speech back at Number 10 that the rest of the world looks at the UK enviously at our success in tackling the virus. Not sure who is going to break it to him that the rest of the world, for the most part, is horrified. But the media just report it without criticism, apparently happy with this twisting of facts to fit a liar's narrative.

This morning, the ONS released its mortaility figures up to the end of last week for care homes, and what we can say, is that in the week ending 17th April, some 4,000 more people died in care homes than happened the same week a year ago. Needless to say, these figures with multiply the daily figures the Government announces at three in the afternoon each day. Since the start of the outbreak there have been 27,015 excess deaths than for the same period last year. These include deaths not of COVID-19, but all deaths, many of which will have happened as ICU beds are unavailable, and that it seems to have been Government policy to release infected patients into the care system rather than have them stay at the hospital they were in or go to a Nightingale.

All of this means that the Government daily figures can easily be doubled to show how many people are dying, and that doubling doesn't seem to include those who died at home.

If this is a success, I'd hate to see failure.

There is a view that journalists reporting the facts and revealing the failings of this Government are being unpatriotic at a moment of crisis. This is clearly tosh, as Governments should always be held to account, especially when the virus cannot read newspapers, watch TV or access the internet. There have been fundamental failings in the preparation for a pandemic, the ignoring of lessons from the Operation Cygnus in 2016, and repeated ignoring of warnings from China, Spain and the WHO who had actually been dealing with the virus and wanted to ensure the UK among other countries, did not make the same mistakes. Instead it made who new ones.

It is likely that the reluctance of Johnson to implement a lockdown in a timely manner will have ensured 90% of people died un-necessarily, and not having enough PPE and have it at the right locations, not having sufficient testing for frontline workers and in the right place will have meant that many of those died as a result of Government failings too.

UK manufacturers of PPE had stock, but NHS Trust's procurement procedures were so lengthy that by the time purchases were approved the manufacturers had sold and shipped supplies.

But yes, lets all happy clap along. Tractor production is up and Dear Leader is out of hospital. Hoo-fucking-ray.

The United Kingdom's #Covid19 death toll is already above 45,000, according to @FT analysis. That's 21 per cent of coronavirus deaths globally, even though the UK population is just 0.8 per cent of the world population.

THURSDAY, 30 APRIL 2020

Failure on a monumental scale

The UK has 21% of COVID-19 deaths.

That a country with 0.8% of the population can have so many deaths shows that some, something has seriously gone wrong.

Questions are being asked by the press and media. Not by them all, but by some. Like this week, BBC's Panorama program did an expose on how bad the PPE situation is for NHS and care home staff. It was shocking, it is on the i player and I think you should watch.

That the Government and Conservative politicians think is was, and is OK to send doctors, nurses, critical staff out to work for, in some cases, minimum wage, and risk their lives. And to think that being photographed standing on their doorsteps at eight on a Thursday night, or minting some medals or a Red Arrows fly by will make things better.

One nurse said, we don't want to be heroes, we just want to be able to do our job safely. And the Conservative Press attacks people who too part as they are Labour activists, as if there is just a political agenda, not over 100 doctors and nurses who are lying either in mass graves or still in a morgue. Their attitude is fucking sick, as they are saying, you voted Labour, you cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

Wankers.

And the reason for questioning how the country has ended up with nearly 50,000 dead by the end of April is important, as the people who got us to this point are now making the decisions on what to do next. I don't know about you, but I have ZERO confidence on them getting the next stage right, seeing they got the implementation so wrong.

The UK had months of notice from the WHO, and years to prepare after the Operation Cygnus in 2016. This has been a failure of monumental proportions, and one which the inquiry, which will happen, and will take the best part of a decade. But if we want to stop more deaths, the people who got us here have to explain how they got it so wrong and how we can be sure they won't fuck up again going forward.

But instead, this morning the papers are full of Johnson and his girlfriend announcing they have a son, pictures of a smiling Johnson climbing the Downing Street staircase like there is nothing in the world to worry about.

It is beyond shameful.

And yesterday, COVID-19 came close to Jools and myself, more on that in my later post.

FRIDAY, 1 MAY 2020

Don't panic, Johnson is back in charge

Yesterday, the PM took the daily news conference, in which he laid his plan for plans of a road map out of lockdown.

There would be an announcement "next week".

Any way out of lockdown should be part of a larger plan, and the way out, the checks balances and testing requirements would already be known. Or would in any other country.

Not here. It's all in Jonson's head, or has yet to be dreamed up.

Next Friday is a Bank Holiday, and it is my expectation that there will be some lifting before then to allow more movement.

Now, in my job I work on documented evidence, and I have yet to see any such evidence being collected let alone it actually existing, for how the virus is spreading through the population.

The Health Minister promised that by today 100,000 tests would be carried out. It looked that this would not be met, but then it appears the Conservative Party has been mailing members telling them they could apply for a test in the post, and this would count. E mails started to be sent yesterday. The 100,000 should not be for just one day, or manipulated in such a way to skew figures, but this is what happens when liars and cheats are elected. We should not be surprised.

As it stands, less that 5% of the population have been infected, and if herd immunity is the target, then that total needs to be over 60%, which would have the same mortality rate as now, so, 12 x 47,000 is a lot of dead people; husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, sons daughters. This was likely to be the plan all along, from Cummings and his Nudge team.

Johnson dedicated most of his conference in thanks the now 100 year old Captain tom who raised tens of millions on a sponsored walk round his car home garden. I also raise my hat to him, of course, but no amount of charity money can replace the time wasted by the Government through February and into march when a lockdown then could have saved so many lives. Germany doesn't believe in charity, apparently, thinking that paying enougn in taxes should fund things like health and social care, and they're not wrong.

The Health Secretary praised also the Daily Mail, who chartered a plane from China full of PPE. This was a newspaper, of sorts, doing the Health Secretary's job for him. It might have been a stunt, but did deliver kit, more than Hancock did in the past three months. But it is unpatriotic to ask questions of our red, white and blue Government, where positive news and spin should cover up fifty thousand deaths and complete failure in planning for this pandemic.

SATURDAY, 2 MAY 2020

So near

So, Matt Hancock nearly made his promise that the UK would reach 100,000 people tested by the end of April. From around 10,000 at the start to 80,000 yesterday was some going. But that wasn't enough as a political promise had been made; so the Government changed the rules as to what counted as a test, and after a major e mailing campaign of party members, all applications for a postal test was counted as a test done. So, 120,000 tests.

But wasn't of course.

So, obscuring some actual good news from the Government is hidden behind a lie.

Is par for the course I suppose.

And this shows how far the country has to go in getting on top of the outbreak, as the tests done yesterday will just be for one or two days, and will fall back, and yet an increase on 100,000 is needed and needed to be done each and every day to map the spread, hotspots, and used alongside tracking those who have been in contact with a person confirmed as being infected. The getting all those who have had contact to isolate, only then can we even begin to think about easing the lockdown.

Johnson claims we are past the peak. I am not sure the data is extensive enough to claim that, but it might just be the first of a number of peaks.

Listening to the upbeat words of the PM, one would be forgiven in thinking the worst is over. That might even be true, but we don't know.

Human trials on a vaccine are about to start here in the UK.

There is hope, but then we look at who is in charge.....

SUNDAY, 3 MAY 2020

Slippage

On Friday the Government announced that over 100,000 COVID-19 tests had been carried out. Not factually correct, but it was an effort.

Yesterday the total was down from 122,000 to 105,000, so still above the level. Now remember, this is the level is should be from now on.

Sadly, today the number of tests was down to 76,496. Even with their manipulating of the figures.

This shows that they were just chasing headlines than actual public health. It has been suggested that some of the kits mailed out didn't even have a return address.

Shameless.

Remember, they had to carry out huge numbers of testing per day from now on, and identify those who failed, and trace those who they have been in contact with, and all carry out isolation.

Without this, there can be no safe relaxation of the lockdown.

The Government is falling back on a phone app: an off the shelf app was offered by Apple/Google, but the contact data was stored on people's smart phones, and the Government want to store the data centrally.

To arrange this, the Government, made up of most of the Vote Leave team are getting Palantir, companies related to Cambridge Analytica, and who knows what they will do with the data. Ministers have already said that the data, initially would be anonymous, but Ministers could, if they wanted, identify where all data came from. Mass surveillance dressed up as public health.

And today, another 350 people dies, or their deaths were confirmed, though at least 100 of those took place in April. With data so out of date, how can the Government hope to accurately plan going forward?

TUESDAY, 5 MAY 2020

Oversight and scrutiny

Yesterday, Parliament "debated" and approved the five and a half week old SI that the Minister for Health passed, which had the effect of removing many basic rights; freedom of movement, assembly, work and so on.

I put debate in quotation marks, as it seems the system used by Parliament don't allow for interventions, so Ministers and MPs conducted one rambling speech after another.

Not that the lockdown wasn't needed, but the removal of fundamental rights, and their continuing suspension is a cause for concern. A cause for concern, because as we have seen through the Brexit process, and now this pandemic, Parliament is apparently viewed by large parts of the Conservative Party and Government as an inconvenience, something to be avoided and circumvented if possible.

Even now, with hundreds dying a day, most oversight is via the daily press briefing, where the Minister presenting gets to choose who he takes questions from, and no follow up question to any mealy-mouthed answers is allowed.

The decision not to continue with mass testing in the middle of March means that since then the Government and health officials literally have to guess at how the virus is spreading through the country. Mass testing is critical if and when the restrictions are lifted, so that region be region, city by city, town by town, any increase in infections can be identified as soon as possible and restrictions reimposed.

So that 8,500 officials to trace contacts is now being sourced, hoping to be active by the middle of the month. This should have been in place already, and indicates piss poor planning by the Government, with no clear plan on how to exit the current lockdown.

The Government has been more concerned with "grand gesture" politics, rather than policies for the good of public health.

Take the "Nightingale" "hospitals": the London one is to be mothballed, with it only ever using a tiny fraction of its capacity of 4,000 beds. Others have had no patients at all.

Really.

Because, it seems, there is more to a hospital than beds in a building; it needs staff and equipment. The London Nightingale might have had 4,000 beds, but if there was only staff for 50 patients or less, then it is an empty gesture. Headlines today, and the news cycle moves on and gets forgotten. Rather than ask where the staff to run the hospitals came from; an ICU bedded patient needs 1:1 care from a specialist nurse. No extra nurses, no extra capacity! If only the compliant media had thought to ask!

Rather than participate in a pan-European PPE and ventilator purchasing program, why not get companies that had never made medical equipment design and make them? Great headlines as the contracts announced, and when they are approved and save lives, more Great British headlines. But the Government sent the wrong specifications out to the manufacturers, took so long to make and could not get approval. The scheme was quietly dropped. But the Government got great headlines for a week, and meanwhile people died in their thousands.

Johnson lauds his Government's apparent success. Yes, the word "apparent" doing a huge amount of work, possibly the hardest working thing in the UK now, except frontline NHS staff, and the rest of the underpaid and undervalued people who have kept the country running, red and clapping at eight on Thursday.

Releasing the restrictions too early, or without mass testing and tracing will just result in a second, larger wave. And more deaths. So the very same people who screwed up so badly in January, February and the beginning of March, that made the 50,000 deaths inevitable, will be the same that decide how and when the lockdown ends.

Be very afraid.

THURSDAY, 7 MAY 2020

Sold another Turkey

So, after much negotiations and sending two RAF planes to pick up the consignment, it seems that the 400,000 protective gowns supplied from Turkey do not meet specifications and so are useless.

An MP who is also a carer in care home was sacked from said care home after stating there was a problem in the supply of PPE.

Line 2 is proven by line 1, but she was sacked anyway.

After the glorious headlines that greeted the 122,000 tests completed/sent out/made up last week, testing numbers are slumping. Just over 50,000 people tested yesterday. The good news is that Johnson managed to blurt out in PMQs that the targets was 250,000 to be tested by the end of May.

The Health Minister looked startled, as this will be his problem.

Johnson was left broken after a gentle evisceration by Keir Starmer, who time and time again lead Johnson to make a statement, then produced the evidence to disprove the PM. The two stood in an almost deserted Chamber, and without the baying of his back benchers, Johnson is a busted flush, a schoolboy found out for not prepping for his Latin vocab test.

Crumbs.

But no lines for Johnson, just the ever-increasing numbers of dead. Now the highest body count in Europe, and second only to the US.

But the newspapers skimmed over that and instead most lead on the fact, or the briefing they had received, that the lockdown would be eased on Monday. Though Number 10 professed surprise, but how could editors have received the same information?

There is no data to support a move to release the lockdown. Nor is there any serious arrangements to test and trace, which will be critical.

Rather than own up to the mistakes and disasters that have happened since the start of the year, MPs and Ministers attack the media for reporting facts in supply problems and that there was no science to follow. Some honesty would be nice, but then these wankers have lied for years. Johnson is the king of liars, sacked twice for lying, and no one able to say how many children he has. Is it six, seven or eight?

Lifting the restrictions too early, or without testing will bring a second wave five to six weeks later. But Ministers want football back, more bread and circuses to distract while the herses thake the evidence away to be buried out of sight, and out of mind.