Corona Virus main thread

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,192]

credit to The Channel Islands, who, according to Worldometer, have reduced the number of active infections to -10....

[Herman 9,825]

29 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

A pleasure to read the last few pages on this thread with discussion in abundance but something tells me it could end anytime this evening.

Somehow I think you enjoy him being on here.

[Barbe bleu 832]

11 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

credit to The Channel Islands, who, according to Worldometer, have reduced the number of active infections to -10....

According to the FT covid was resurrecting people in Israel over Easter.  We dont need a vaccine, we need to be on Guernsey!

[Mello Yello 2,303]

42 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

A pleasure to read the last few pages on this thread with discussion in abundance but something tells me it could end anytime this evening.

liar.....

[Mello Yello 2,303]

3 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

According to the FT covid was resurrecting people in Israel over Easter.  We dont need a vaccine, we need to be on Guernsey!

Don't be Sarky.....

[Bill 1,788]

41 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

A pleasure to read the last few pages on this thread with discussion in abundance but something tells me it could end anytime this evening.

Something that always seems to escape any post from you

Still, after seeing what has been washed up on Southwold beach I am sure I am expressing everyone’s relief that you are ok ........ ................ large as life, so to speak

 

Johnson - get him gone

(probably best not to use the word fatboy' in this instance 🐳)

[BigFish 1,988]

40 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

So if I were to do research I would find that public health was previously a local authority duty but was centralised by a conservative administration with the creation of the PHE?

But at the same time it is decentraliszed because as you say below:

I cant really argue with the statement because it has to one or the other doesnt it?

Do you want some time to formulate a  proper reply?

I'm not saying that you are right or wrong.  The 'if' was a clue that I did not know.  If I am to take any  notice of you I want to be sure that you start with the facts and draw a conclusion from them rather than work the other way

 

I can't decide if you really don't know or if it is just another example of your constant dissembling and apologia for Johnson/Cummings.

Yes, the Tories spent £billions reorganising the NHS in order to enable further privatisation and outsourcing in 2013, part of which centralised a number of competencies that were previously locally accountable into a function called Public Health England. So you assertion that it hasn't changed since 2009 is clearly untrue.

Local Authorities continued to employ public health & environmental professionals who work locally with GPs, local NHS Trusts and specialists on STDs, Hepatitus and HIV track and tracing. This is despite massive cuts to local government. These are experts and have capacity to undertake this work.

The government, PHE & Department of Health, for doctrinaire reasons, sidelined these expert teams stopped track & trace on 13 March and took no further action on this for weeks. Instead they partnered with their preferred outsourcing partners to create a remote system with unskilled and untrained call centre operatives. Interviews sometimes only took 3 minutes. There was no links with primary care or local teams.

This week it become obvious this system was failing. The government gave local authorities only four days notice of the expectations of increased support required locally and funding that amounted to only £300 milllion in just 11 authorities.

I appreciate it is difficult for you to accept that in the last 10 years Tory governments may have made political decisions, the outcome of which left England in particular particlarly vulnerable to pandemics but this is clearly true. Just like it is true that Tory MPs stood and cheered when they used their parliamentary majority to block pay rises for frontline NHS staff.

[BigFish 1,988]

1 hour ago, T said:

So now that your if has been answered I can only assume that you fully agree and accept that the problem is down to the government. 
 

if the government isn’t responsible for governing the country then perhaps you can explain who is responsible for governing the country. Who’s responsible for one of the worst death rates in the world. Who is responsible for ignoring expert advice and preparing for Brexit rather than a pandemic? Who is responsible for running down PPE stockpiles? Who is responsible for the lack of testing ? Who is responsible for the lack of test and trace?  Who is responsible for the poor communication?  Who is responsible for Boris not attending Cobra meetings? Who is responsible for Boris and the governments poor performance?  Who is response for Cummings vists to Durham and Barnard Castle?  Because it seems according to the hard right the government is not responsible for any of this so it is not clear what the government is responsible for anymore and if not what is the point of them?  

Jeremy Corbyn? Gordon Brown? Tony Blair? The EU? Emily Maitliss? The Guardian? Students? Young People? Michel Barnier?

Surely it has to be one of these @T, otherwise............

[sonyc 5,541]

4 hours ago, Surfer said:

Ditto, there are several things that have been done well and that is to the government’s and the specific cabinet minister’s credit. On the other hand several ministers have been found wanting and filling the majority of available positions with loyalists has never been a recipe for success in any organization, especially a national government. Compound all of that with a political advisor committed to “deconstruction of the state” and you have the US and UK governments in a nutshell, and why there will be and deserves to be ongoing skepticism and fact checking on almost every action they announce. It’s unsustainable in the long term, but here we all are. 

Here is a staggering account of the "deconstruction of the state" and progressive privatisation. It's truly remarkable. This government has marginalised it's own arm of local government (who also have lost huge amounts of expertise in environmental health and in other fields because of the cuts and forced redundancies).

It's not just in health .... the former nationalised British Gas company was brilliant, efficient (we used them as our contractors for years). Shortly after privatisation, you had to go to a call centre, no appointments were possible and you couldn't speak to an actual person if you had a problem. 

British Rail was a basket case.

Of course, I'm not arguing here for not having any private sector involvement. A mixed economy is useful. Yet, a centralised structure, lacking in local knowledge is not ideal when it comes to a crisis. Add to that, cabinet ministers of limited ability (in my very jaundiced view I accept).

And here we are with some of the worst death rates (shortly to overtake Spain in deaths per million?).

Link attached here:

 

How a decade of privatisation and cuts exposed England to coronavirus

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/how-a-decade-of-privatisation-and-cuts-exposed-england-to-coronavirus?

 

[TIL 1010 4,797]

53 minutes ago, Herman said:

Somehow I think you enjoy him being on here.

City1st- Get him gone

[Barbe bleu 832]

19 minutes ago, BigFish said:

I can't decide if you really don't know or if it is just another example of your constant dissembling and apologia for Johnson/Cummings.

Yes, the Tories spent £billions reorganising the NHS in order to enable further privatisation and outsourcing in 2013, part of which centralised a number of competencies that were previously locally accountable into a function called Public Health England. So you assertion that it hasn't changed since 2009 is clearly untrue.

Local Authorities continued to employ public health & environmental professionals who work locally with GPs, local NHS Trusts and specialists on STDs, Hepatitus and HIV track and tracing. This is despite massive cuts to local government. These are experts and have capacity to undertake this work.

The government, PHE & Department of Health, for doctrinaire reasons, sidelined these expert teams stopped track & trace on 13 March and took no further action on this for weeks. Instead they partnered with their preferred outsourcing partners to create a remote system with unskilled and untrained call centre operatives. Interviews sometimes only took 3 minutes. There was no links with primary care or local teams.

This week it become obvious this system was failing. The government gave local authorities only four days notice of the expectations of increased support required locally and funding that amounted to only £300 milllion in just 11 authorities.

I appreciate it is difficult for you to accept that in the last 10 years Tory governments may have made political decisions, the outcome of which left England in particular particlarly vulnerable to pandemics but this is clearly true. Just like it is true that Tory MPs stood and cheered when they used their parliamentary majority to block pay rises for frontline NHS staff.

So if covid had struck in say 2009 it would be local authorities that had to deal with all of this as there was no national body to provide a strategic overview?  Seems dangerous to me, no wonder they set up PHE!

The current approach you describe: National body to provide oversight and autonomy to local authorities to decide on a local response seems very sensible to me.

On that analysis the question is how much did the old system budget for contact tracing and how much did PHE budget for at the start of this.   That would answer my question but let's not bother as neither of us can find out the answer eadily as it involves a lot of authorities. 

Why do you always assume I'm a tory supporter!? Adjust your prism and you'll find that not everyone is anxious to get  involved in tribal wars.

 

[Barbe bleu 832]

Just now, Barbe bleu said:

So if covid had struck in say 2009 it would be local authorities that had to deal with all of this as there was no national body to provide a strategic overview?  Seems dangerous to me, no wonder they set up PHE!

The current approach you describe: National body to provide oversight and autonomy to local authorities to decide on a local response seems very sensible to me. Can understand why a local response is  not so needed during blanket lockdown but as we move away from that its importance should grow.

On that analysis the question is how much did the old system budget for contact tracing and how much did PHE budget for at the start of this.   That would answer my question but let's not bother as neither of us can find out the answer eadily as it involves a lot of authorities. 

Why do you always assume I'm a tory supporter!? Adjust your prism and you'll find that not everyone is anxious to get  involved in tribal wars.

 

 

[Bill 1,788]

5 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

City1st- Get him gone

 

[Bill 1,788]

36 minutes ago, BigFish said:

I can't decide if you really don't know or if it is just another example of your constant dissembling and apologia for Johnson/Cummings.

it's the latter, as it always has been

whatever name he posts under

(or did BB just happen to stumble upon this forum, not having been aware of it for the last couple of decades... make your own mind up on that one 🤔)

[Van wink 2,994]

30 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Here is a staggering account of the "deconstruction of the state" and progressive privatisation. It's truly remarkable. This government has marginalised it's own arm of local government (who also have lost huge amounts of expertise in environmental health and in other fields because of the cuts and forced redundancies).

It's not just in health .... the former nationalised British Gas company was brilliant, efficient (we used them as our contractors for years). Shortly after privatisation, you had to go to a call centre, no appointments were possible and you couldn't speak to an actual person if you had a problem. 

British Rail was a basket case.

Of course, I'm not arguing here for not having any private sector involvement. A mixed economy is useful. Yet, a centralised structure, lacking in local knowledge is not ideal when it comes to a crisis. Add to that, cabinet ministers of limited ability (in my very jaundiced view I accept).

And here we are with some of the worst death rates (shortly to overtake Spain in deaths per million?).

Link attached here:

 

How a decade of privatisation and cuts exposed England to coronavirus

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/how-a-decade-of-privatisation-and-cuts-exposed-england-to-coronavirus?

 

Don’t believe everything you read in the Guardian sonyc!

[Bill 1,788]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Don’t believe everything you read in the Guardian sonyc!

err, the difference is that belief plays no part, as the above article is easily verified

but do feel free to rebut any thing written...

if only for the rest of us to see you back your post with evidence ........................................... for once

[Van wink 2,994]

15 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

So if covid had struck in say 2009 it would be local authorities that had to deal with all of this as there was no national body to provide a strategic overview?  Seems dangerous to me, no wonder they set up PHE!

The current approach you describe: National body to provide oversight and autonomy to local authorities to decide on a local response seems very sensible to me.

On that analysis the question is how much did the old system budget for contact tracing and how much did PHE budget for at the start of this.   That would answer my question but let's not bother as neither of us can find out the answer eadily as it involves a lot of authorities. 

Why do you always assume I'm a tory supporter!? Adjust your prism and you'll find that not everyone is anxious to get  involved in tribal wars.

 

The narrative Tory bad ....Labour good ...is being push to and beyond it’s limits on here atm. The Government has made many mistakes but our left leaning friends, of whom I may well be one, do themselves no favours by perusing a one eyed agenda. It hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work now. Starmer is taking a very measured approach and I do wish others would see the advantage of that.

[Bill 1,788]

Just now, Van wink said:

The narrative Tory bad ....Labour good ...is being push to and beyond it’s limits on here atm. The Government has made many mistakes but our left leaning friends, of whom I may well be one, do themselves no favours by perusing a one eyed agenda. It hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work now. Starmer is taking a very measured approach and I do wish others would see the advantage of that.

 

[Herman 9,825]

17 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Don’t believe everything you read in the Guardian sonyc!

Which part of the article do you disagree with?

[Van wink 2,994]

Well to be fair Bill I’m certainly not an extremist like you, but it is people like you that have made Labour an irrelevance over recent times. Thank god there is now a Leader who will hopefully have sufficient authority to push you and your ilk back into the nasty little box where came from and you can fight  amongst yourselves, whilst the real Labour Party makes itself an electable political movement again.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Van wink

[Monty13 2,252]

50 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Here is a staggering account of the "deconstruction of the state" and progressive privatisation. It's truly remarkable. This government has marginalised it's own arm of local government (who also have lost huge amounts of expertise in environmental health and in other fields because of the cuts and forced redundancies).

It's not just in health .... the former nationalised British Gas company was brilliant, efficient (we used them as our contractors for years). Shortly after privatisation, you had to go to a call centre, no appointments were possible and you couldn't speak to an actual person if you had a problem. 

British Rail was a basket case.

Of course, I'm not arguing here for not having any private sector involvement. A mixed economy is useful. Yet, a centralised structure, lacking in local knowledge is not ideal when it comes to a crisis. Add to that, cabinet ministers of limited ability (in my very jaundiced view I accept).

And here we are with some of the worst death rates (shortly to overtake Spain in deaths per million?).

Link attached here:

 

How a decade of privatisation and cuts exposed England to coronavirus

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/how-a-decade-of-privatisation-and-cuts-exposed-england-to-coronavirus?

 

Thanks for the link Sony, interesting article. I’ll be honest I think it started poorly, I wasn’t sure what point it was making in the first few paragraphs. The private provided short term solutions to problems with this pandemic it was pointing out seemed almost entirely reasonable.

I thought the rest of it was pretty well written and interesting though. Although I imagine someone informed could argue back against the points, there’s no denying the state has been scaled back and that has had an affect.
 

I suppose that then starts two separate arguments, the very tired Austerity argument and the more interesting (imo) argument of were the right things cut.

[sonyc 5,541]

17 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Don’t believe everything you read in the Guardian sonyc!

Well, it's fair to say I may over-use the Guardian for posting links though I do try to 'dive more deeply' for other sources. Some reporting is clearly more for entertainment or more so, satire.

Yet, this article seems to me an account of historical changes. And I might have thought you would certainly agree with the narrative about the comparative loss of local expertise through local authority cuts, because I recall you've hinted at this thrust / point of view before (after a while one gets a handle on what matters to posters, on the whole).

As for austerity, well, I'm a living embodiment of the Osborne round of cuts (my whole section was axed in absolute direct consequence of the effect of a 4 year cut on my part of the business. A first time redundancy for me, yet probably I've come to see it as a good thing as time has moved on so I hold no grudge).

The main staggering point though (I was trying to annotate with the article in response and in support of Surfer's "deconstruction of the state" point) is the sheer number and examples of how governments have stripped back the nation's infrastructure in the last 10 years. I believe this is very telling ....and incredibly sad actually.

[Van wink 2,994]

9 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Well, it's fair to say I may over-use the Guardian for posting links though I do try to 'dive more deeply' for other sources. Some reporting is clearly more for entertainment or more so, satire.

Yet, this article seems to me an account of historical changes. And I might have thought you would certainly agree with the narrative about the comparative loss of local expertise through local authority cuts, because I recall you've hinted at this thrust / point of view before (after a while one gets a handle on what matters to posters, on the whole).

As for austerity, well, I'm a living embodiment of the Osborne round of cuts (my whole section was axed in absolute direct consequence of the effect of a 4 year cut on my part of the business. A first time redundancy for me, yet probably I've come to see it as a good thing as time has moved on so I hold no grudge).

The main staggering point though (I was trying to annotate with the article in response and in support of Surfer's "deconstruction of the state" point) is the sheer number and examples of how governments have stripped back the nation's infrastructure in the last 10 years. I believe this is very telling ....and incredibly sad actually.

I do agree with the point that LA public health resources have been reduced but I would also point for  example to areas such as housing legislation where of late penalties against offenders are ringfenced for LA use and investment rather than going to the exchequer. The housing enforcement function is also carried out in many cases by EHO’s.

I don’t know how much experience you have in dealing with the press but where I have done, on many occasions professionally, when you actually know the story you rarely see it accurately reported.

I know you have an enquiring mind, just don’t take it hook line and sinker, particularly when you know there is a political agenda.

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by Van wink

[sonyc 5,541]

5 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

Thanks for the link Sony, interesting article. I’ll be honest I think it started poorly, I wasn’t sure what point it was making in the first few paragraphs. The private provided short term solutions to problems with this pandemic it was pointing out seemed almost entirely reasonable.

I thought the rest of it was pretty well written and interesting though. Although I imagine someone informed could argue back against the points, there’s no denying the state has been scaled back and that has had an affect.
 

I suppose that then starts two separate arguments, the very tired Austerity argument and the more interesting (imo) argument of were the right things cut.

Thanks Monty...(I have no reactions left to give). 

Your last point is interesting. Brown bailed out the bank and sold lots of gold. It does beg the question though that borrowing your way out of a hole (we now know) has always been possible, even though all we would hear between about 2015 and 2018 was that there was no magic money tree. Sunak's measures (and even the pre pandemic budget) will borrow more than ever. Maynard Keynes returns!

(Quick side story....My old lecturer going back a long time ...always believed we should build many beautiful buildings -that people would visit forever and spend money etc - and these buildings would take many hundreds of years to build using loads of labour. Government's would fund. A very simplistic view but he passionately believed it was part of what we should do as a country!).

 

[Bill 1,788]

13 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Well to be fair Bill I’m certainly not an extremist like you, but it is people like you that have made Labour an irrelevance over recent times. Thank god there is now a Leader who will hopefully have sufficient authority to push you and your ilk back into the nasty little box where came from and you can fight  amongst yourselves, whilst the real Labour Party makes itself an electable political movement again.

so someone who disagreed with the bile you heaped on Corbyn and Abbott is an extremeist ...

you are no more part of the labour movement than  Ronnie Corbett was ever a professional basketball player

 - and as to my views then my consistent condemning of the Trotskyists vouch for where my position is

so drop this 'prolier than thou' stuff hand crank - your posts have always carried a far right subtext.... as the evidence of your past posts demonstrates

[Bill 1,788]

5 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I know you have an enquiring mind, just don’t take it hook line and sinker, particularly when you know there is a political agenda.

one, that you yet again are unable to verify  - nor rebut any single points made

just as when you told us all about the false accusations made about Corbyn being a Czech spy - more to come you told us

there wasn't, merely the fact that it was all a smear/lie

one you were happy to spread

[sonyc 5,541]

11 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I do agree with the point that LA public health resources have been reduced but I would also point for  example to areas such as housing legislation where of late penalties against offenders are ringfenced for LA use and investment rather than going to the exchequer. The housing enforcement function is also carried out in many cases by EHO’s.

I don’t know how much experience you have in dealing with the press but where I have done, on many occasions professionally, when you actually know the story you rarely see it accurately reported.

I know you have an enquiring mind, just don’t take it hook line and sinker, particularly when you know there is a political agenda.

 

Housing policy (since about 1900) is my specialist subject VW but it would be boring on this forum and thread. Housing as a political football and ringfencing are big themes. My experience has formed my world view naturally. Yet, I worked happily with politicians of the left and right (and there are very committed councillors to the right I must add)

I've only ever had press training (how to deal with journos, what to say, what not to say) but I'm no expert. Yet I know too about how stories at times are reported (b**stards!). 

Edited May 31, 2020 by sonyc
at times

[Van wink 2,994]

Your equating moderate people with the far right, is only further evidence of how extreme you are, and I repeat it’s people like you that made Labour an irrelevance in terms of a prospective governing party

i have been a party member in the past and may well join again if clowns like you are put back where you belong, as an amusing but irrelevant side show.

[Bill 1,788]

30 minutes ago, Herman said:

Which part of the article do you disagree with?

I think you would have better luck getting a faith healer to give evidence of their 'trade'

hand crank is a habitual liar - doing just as his 'mate' BB does

dissemble, throw out misinformation and subtle lies

all intended to defend the Tories

quelle surprise

[Van wink 2,994]

3 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Housing policy (since about 1900) is my specialist subject VW but it would be boring on this forum and thread. Housing as a political football and ringfencing are big themes. My experience has formed my world view naturally. Yet, I worked happily with politicians of the left and right (and there are very committed councillors to the right I must add)

I've only ever had press training (how to deal with journos, what to say, what not to say) but I'm no expert. Yet I know too about how stories at times are reported (b**stards at times!). 

Happy to discuss the 2004 act and the Housing and Planning Act if you wish