Corona Virus main thread

[Barbe bleu 826]

My point was that a national build that gets pushed downwards was the obvious solution.  To do it bottom up would be a massive undertaking

I doubt most local authorities have more than a handful of environmental health officers and these have their day time job to do do its fanciful to suggest that they could do it all.

What experience these few guys will have is probably largely in food poisoning outbreaks with a bit of hepatitis and scarlet fever to keep it interesting. and most of their work is probably coming from PHE (so national to local) which is pretty much what I am saying 

I just don't think that most local authorities are in a  position to do it all alone.

 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

35 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

My point was that a national build that gets pushed downwards was the obvious solution.  To do it bottom up would be a massive undertaking

I doubt most local authorities have more than a handful of environmental health officers and these have their day time job to do do its fanciful to suggest that they could do it all.

What experience these few guys will have is probably largely in food poisoning outbreaks with a bit of hepatitis and scarlet fever to keep it interesting. and most of their work is probably coming from PHE (so national to local) which is pretty much what I am saying 

I just don't think that most local authorities are in a  position to do it all alone.

 

It wasn't the obvious solution at all if the government had listened to public health experts both here and overseas - they didn't have look very far, e.g. Germany, to see what was already working very well elsewhere.

Alternatively they could have listened to our own public health experts because we already had working (though very underfunded) locally based public health systems in place that routinely perform test and trace, and they also advised the government that local knowledge was a key part of a successful tracing system. I don't know about elsewhere in the country but I know for a fact that the local Director of Public Health in my authority not only gave that advice but offered a detailed plan to take on the tracing within our area which could have been implemented far more quickly and very cheaply. I believe several Directors in surrounding areas did something similar - the government weren't interested and you can only speculate why that was but it definitely wasn't because they had a better idea!!

This had nothing to do with Environment Health and food poisoning - local Directors of Public Health have departments dealing with infectious diseases who routinely trace contacts as a standard part of their role and have done for years. These departments would clearly have had to be given additional resources to cope with the extra workload but it is abundantly clear that would have been much simpler (and cheaper) to expand local teams from a solid base than to try and build a completely new national organisation, especially when they hand the contract to do it to a private company with no experience of public health.

As for integration that would also have worked much better - local authority Public Health systems are already integrated with NHS records and used to interacting with their neighbours whereas the national trace system was completely standalone - another huge hole in the design and one of the main reasons (I believe) why the tracing was so spectacularly unsuccessful.

Well our public health directors have been proven correct and the government appears to be very grudgingly adjusting the system somewhat although still without properly re-allocating the resources to where they should be, and this only after billions of pounds have been wasted and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of infections not traced successfully.

None of this is rocket science, or hindsight, it is just plain common sense that should have been obvious to an even half competent government but unfortunately we don't have one of those.

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,187]

looks like France has found one reason behind a surge of cases

not easy social distancing when you´re swinging....I imagine 🙂

[Van wink 2,994]

1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said:

It wasn't the obvious solution at all if the government had listened to public health experts both here and overseas - they didn't have look very far, e.g. Germany, to see what was already working very well elsewhere.

Alternatively they could have listened to our own public health experts because we already had working (though very underfunded) locally based public health systems in place that routinely perform test and trace, and they also advised the government that local knowledge was a key part of a successful tracing system. I don't know about elsewhere in the country but I know for a fact that the local Director of Public Health in my authority not only gave that advice but offered a detailed plan to take on the tracing within our area which could have been implemented far more quickly and very cheaply. I believe several Directors in surrounding areas did something similar - the government weren't interested and you can only speculate why that was but it definitely wasn't because they had a better idea!!

This had nothing to do with Environment Health and food poisoning - local Directors of Public Health have departments dealing with infectious diseases who routinely trace contacts as a standard part of their role and have done for years. These departments would clearly have had to be given additional resources to cope with the extra workload but it is abundantly clear that would have been much simpler (and cheaper) to expand local teams from a solid base than to try and build a completely new national organisation, especially when they hand the contract to do it to a private company with no experience of public health.

As for integration that would also have worked much better - local authority Public Health systems are already integrated with NHS records and used to interacting with their neighbours whereas the national trace system was completely standalone - another huge hole in the design and one of the main reasons (I believe) why the tracing was so spectacularly unsuccessful.

Well our public health directors have been proven correct and the government appears to be very grudgingly adjusting the system somewhat although still without properly re-allocating the resources to where they should be, and this only after billions of pounds have been wasted and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of infections not traced successfully.

None of this is rocket science, or hindsight, it is just plain common sense that should have been obvious to an even half competent government but unfortunately we don't have one of those.

Which is your authority CM.

DPH in Norfolk have very few direct staff, when you say nothing to do with EHO’s, who do you think is doing a lot of the legwork in the Banham  outbreak?

[ricardo 7,395]

 

Todays UK numbers 1508 positives  0.8% of those tested. Deaths up a bit to 10.

For comparison yesterdays numbers for our major European neighbours 

Germany 1209 - 10

France 4982 - 26

Spain 8115 - 58

Italy 978 - 8

France and particularly Spain beginning to look more of a worry.

 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

1 hour ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

looks like France has found one reason behind a surge of cases

not easy social distancing when you´re swinging....I imagine 🙂

Yeah, you've got me imagining too 😀

[Van wink 2,994]

25 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Yeah, you've got me imagining too 😀

Which area are you in CM, Im interested to know about the resources your DPH has?

[Van wink 2,994]

44 minutes ago, ricardo said:

 

Todays UK numbers 1508 positives  0.8% of those tested. Deaths up a bit to 10.

For comparison yesterdays numbers for our major European neighbours 

Germany 1209 - 10

France 4982 - 26

Spain 8115 - 58

Italy 978 - 8

France and particularly Spain beginning to look more of a worry.

 

7 day rolling average going the wrong way

[Barbe bleu 826]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Which is your authority CM.

DPH in Norfolk have very few direct staff, when you say nothing to do with EHO’s, who do you think is doing a lot of the legwork in the Banham  outbreak?

Probably true everywhere. I imagine that for almost every county or unitary authority the public heath department is a handful of people assisted by a few already overworked EHOs dealing with disease notifications. 

 

 

[Van wink 2,994]

12 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Probably true everywhere. I imagine that for almost every county or unitary authority the public heath department is a handful of people assisted by a few already overworked EHOs dealing with disease notifications. 

 

 

To some extent yes, but what seems to be overlooked here is that DPH are now appointed to County Councils, or unitary authorities as you say,one of their key tasks is to build relationships with District Councils if they are at CC level. and to have plans with them as to how they will mobilise their public health resources, basically EHO’s

Edited September 2, 2020 by Van wink

[Barbe bleu 826]

51 minutes ago, Van wink said:

To some extent yes, but what seems to be overlooked here is that DPH are now appointed to County Councils, or unitary authorities as you say,one of their key tasks is to build relationships with District Councils if they are at CC level. and to have plans with them as to how they will mobilise their public health resources, basically EHO’s

My main point was that there are no local armies of contact tracers who were trained,  experienced and ready to go but then got sidelined as some might suggest. What resources there were/are at a local level had/have enough to do as it is without having the additional burden of setting up and running  T&T systems of unprecedented scale. 

Far better that the basic set up be done at a central level and pushed downwards where it could be tailored to local circumstances.

 

 

 

 

 

[Aggy 755]

18 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Yet here we are six months on with better information, better testing and tracing and better knowledge of how to deal with covid-19 infections it's time to stop being scaredy-cats and get back to normal living for the majority. Those with conditions and aged that need to shield will have to learn how to adjust their lives to deal with covid-19 just as they learn to adjust their lives to whatever ails them.

I have a condition and at an age where I need to shield, while my wife goes out to work and mixes with the general public. It would be selfish of me to expect her to become economically inactive for my sake, and I can't expect others to remain economically inactive either. It's me, the shielder who has to take responsibility for my situation. 

Agreed with this and have to say I found the comment in Surfer’s post

“So whether Covid is a problem or not I guess depends on whether you have another condition eh?  If 80% of the population did, is that be a problem? How about 60%, 40% - when is it NOT a problem?”

a little odd/difficult. It’s almost certainly not what Surfer meant, but if I were a person who had (for instance) a weakened immune system from something like chemo and had lived for years with the fear that catching “normal” flu could kill me, I think I’d be wondering why nobody seemed to care seven months ago. Or why nobody was asking Surfer’s question when tens of thousands of people die from “normal” flu every year. Why wasn’t that a problem in the past? Or are we just picking and choosing which illnesses are a problem or which sectors of society are more deserving of being “protected”?

The initial point of lockdown was not to stop all deaths. It was not even to protect vulnerable people. It was to stop healthcare systems becoming overwhelmed, so that everyone could have the best care possible and people with covid and with other non-covid illnesses weren’t left without treatment because hospitals were maxed out with people dying of covid. Any new increases in social restrictions should be based on whether or not local health organisations can or will be able to cope. That’s the “problem” we need to be dealing with.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

11 hours ago, A Load of Squit said:

No, you don't understand what you're talking about.

 

Neither does Paxman

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

2 hours ago, Van wink said:

Which area are you in CM, Im interested to know about the resources your DPH has?

Large city in West Yorkshire, so I guess reasonably significant in local authority terms but like all of them under very considerable financial pressure and with very big demands on limited resources.

Have to say that whilst I'm not  a fan of the Labour council which has held complete control for the entire time I've lived in the city, their response to Covid locally, from what I've seen, has been excellent both by the council itself but also in the way that they've drawn in a huge and well co-ordinated effort from local charities and volunteers to supplement their own staff and programs.

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

My main point was that there are no local armies of contact tracers who were trained,  experienced and ready to go but then got sidelined as some might suggest. What resources there were/are at a local level had/have enough to do as it is without having the additional burden of setting up and running  T&T systems of unprecedented scale. 

Far better that the basic set up be done at a central level and pushed downwards where it could be tailored to local circumstances.

 

No, that is entirely wrong - there are local armies of contact tracers who are trained, experienced and were ready to go. They may be small armies and they may have had to be diverted from their normal activities whether it be medical staff tracing sexually transmitted infectious diseases or environmental health officers who also have to trace in certain circumstances but that is no different from the way virtually the whole NHS hospital service was diverted from their normal workload to handle a greater crisis.

It doesn't alter the fact that local public health authorities have a core of experienced staff capable of tracing and they also already have supporting systems linked into the NHS systems which is pretty much a pre-requisite for a comprehensive and successful trace system. They could have been effectively and relatively easily scaled up - ever heard of train the trainers? - it was certainly ready to go here and quickly - and yes it was quite explicitly sidelined by government.

The only 'system/process' that needed creating more or less from scratch was large scale testing - whether that should have been done at a national level is also highly debateable. What is incontestable is that the decision to create a centralised system by a private company with no relevant experience or expertise and which didn't interface to the NHS (or any other systems as far as I can can tell) was a piece of mind boggling stupidity/incompentence. There was certainly no intention originally that it would ever be 'pushed downwards where it could be tailored to local circumstances' because the system design simply didn't allow for it.

Sadly this approach pretty much mirrored the equally disastrous stupidity in the design of the 'world beating app' 😂

Literally everyone who knows anything about mobile apps, including Apple and Google themselves for crying out loud, told the Government that their system design was a complete dud. But this most arrogantly incompetent government always insists it knows better even when it is obvious that they don't even understand the problem never mind the solution.

So no, it was never going to be better to deliver either the app or the tracing through a centralised approach - that was well understood at the time and subsequent events have proven, in both cases, that it was a fundamentally misconceived approach which has been totally abandoned in the case of the app, and largely abandoned for tracing.

I think your continuing attempts to defend the government's handling of the crisis show just how desperately we need a proper public enquiry to get to the bottom of the many things that have unquestionably gone very badly during this crisis. Maybe some of my criticisms of this government will turn out be unjustified but so far I've seen nothing remotely convincing to suggest that the many obvious mistakes and faults are the responsiblity of anyone else - either way surely it is clear that we should be learning from the mistakes, whatever their cause/origin?

And surely it is equally clear that so far we are learning next to nothing and simply repeating very similar mistakes - think it was the 12th complete government u-turn today - what does that tell you about their judgement?

Especially when the u-turns only happen on their most egregious mistakes - their routine complete scr*w ups/shambles they just brazen out with deflection and lies. Apparently they're trying to recruit a more credible broadcaster to do the deflection and lying for them because I think its penetrated even the thickest members of the cabinet that although they've had a lot of practice they're still not very good at it.

[Barbe bleu 826]

37 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

No, that is entirely wrong - there are local armies of contact tracers who are trained, experienced and were ready to go.

i dilont think we are going to make any  further progress.  Your view is that the system could have been built from the bottom up. Mine is that with the best will in the world it would have been very difficult for these authorities (already overworked and underfunded) to build, resource, maintain and integrate systems of an unprecedented size, let alone do this without drastic effects on existing services.

Either way we end up with systems manned by newcomers providing data to the centre and to localities, each empowered to act on their own initiative.

Whether or not the intention was that the system would be pushed down is not relevant to my argument; I am simply setting out how I, in hindsight, would have done it.  If the government had intended to keep local authorities out of the picture throughout then I must say this would have been wrong.

 

 

 

 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

i dilont think we are going to make any  further progress.  Your view is that the system could have been built from the bottom up. Mine is that with the best will in the world it would have been very difficult for these authorities (already overworked and underfunded) to build, resource, maintain and integrate systems of an unprecedented size, let alone do this without drastic effects on existing services.

Either way we end up with systems manned by newcomers providing data to the centre and to localities, each empowered to act on their own initiative.

There is no dispute that local authorities generally are underfunded and overworked but I don't agree this is a reason for not using them when they were best equipped to respond to this exceptional crisis even if this also had a drastic effect on their existing services (many of which were suspended due to the pandemic anyway).

After all, as I alluded to previously this is exactly the approach that was taken with NHS hospitals - they were already underfunded and the staff overworked and almost all their normal services were stopped or very drastically reduced in order to focus on handling Covid cases.

The approach taken to increasing NHS capacity was to create local Nightingale hospitals and staff them with current (or recently retired or other ex-NHS staff not currently working) staff and operate them as an integral part of the NHS. They also commissioned some additional capacity from existing private hospitals that already have agreements with the NHS. But nobody suggested (thank goodness) that we hand out massive contracts to the private sector to build new hospitals, staff them with people with no medical experience or training, and run them as a standalone enterprise without any oversight by the NHS or integration of information and computer systems with the NHS and local authorities - yet that is exactly what happened with test and trace.

It is also true that either way we would end up with a system with a lot of newcomers working in it but there is still a massive difference between a huge national organisation which has been brought into existence very quickly and consists entirely of 'newcomers' who have neither knowledge or experience of the task, and a distributed organisation which has been running for many years with existing systems, processes, and knowledgeable local core resources who can train and induct the 'newcomers' - especially as the numbers required turned out to be substantially less than were estimated as required by the central approach.

I've no idea whether your working life  touches on any of these issues but I'm guessing not as I'm afraid that your view, however genuinely held, is simply plain wrong (as was the government). This isn't just my opinion, as I said previously there was pretty near unanimity amongst both technical experts with respect to the app design and public health experts with respect to tracing that your and the Government's approach was completely wrong. Whilst a lot of people nowadays seem to discount expert advice it is now abundantly clear that they were in fact entirely correct in both these cases - the original app has been completely scrapped and is being (very slowly) rebuilt to a distributed design. Tracing is also changing very slowly - the central system has failed, even by its own very unambitious metrics, and is very slowly morphing towards a locally distributed system that it should have been originally although it is still hampered by the Westminister control freaks' reluctance to cede any control or resources to local authorities even though they know (or perhaps because they know) and have seen the evidence that LAs can do the job more effectively than them.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Creative Midfielder

[The Real Buh 3,432]

[T 190]

22 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Agree with nearly all that, and surely the fact that we have an incompetent government isn't even a debating point any more - it is very clearly evident and well-documented.

The one disagreement I have with the above is that I don't believe the UK (if by UK you mean the Government) is trying to do the right things - I could quote plenty of examples of why but actually test and trace is probably as an good example as any. Right from the start of the process there was an outcry from both public health experts and technical experts that the the Government's plans were totally and fundamentmentally flawed - their technical design of the app was just plain wrong and ultimately they had abandon it as unworkable and start again following the design that countries all around the world had adopted at the start. Secondly they completely ignored the advice from our existing public health professionals that tracing needed to be local and should in fact be based on our local tracing public health systems already in place (as Germany was already doing). Again the government approach failed catastrophically and has now been significanlty modified but only after spending billions with private sector firms who frankly hadn't got a clue what they were doing and for many crucial weeks ran a dysfunctional process which even now in its modified form is still a long way off the performance Johnson promised would be achieved by mid-May.

And let's be clear, none of this is hindsight - there was a great deal of advice available and a great deal of discussion in the UK about these issues at the time but the government ignored it all - in my book that doesn't amount to them trying to do the right things.

 

Why would you not take an off the shelf app already available from Germany unless you cared more about nationalism than lives and jobs. The crass stupidity of nationalist exceptionalism being prioritised over the benefits of International cooperation. Germany and the UK had local testing and tracing. Germany built on what they had while UK was obsessed with creating their central privatised model from scratch. Pragmatism versus Brexit boy ideology. Competence over incompetence.
 

Anither classic example Germany invested in expanding its ventilator manufacturers while the UK government ignored theirs and went to a vacuum cleaner manufacturer. The Brexit government is a sad joke. 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

Yet another reprise on the theme of gross incompetence this morning https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/race-to-track-200-people-on-flight-after-officials-fail-to-tell-airline-of-covid-cases

Just a short extract for those who think they can catch the virus (or worse 🤣) by reading the Guardian - a direct quote from someone with a very recent experience of the UK test and trace system:

'Pearce said NHS test and trace call handlers had contacted him multiple times since Friday but none had asked for his flight details. “Even though I’ve filled out my details on three separate phone calls, they always seem to say I’ve got nothing on my file,” he said. “The phone calls never seem to serve any purpose other than they [the call handler] have been told they need to call you.”'

He also highlighted the complete lack of interest shown by the UK Border Force at Luton Airport in contrast to the thoroughness they experienced at the Greek end.

We, as taxpayers, are paying billions for these supposedly key services & systems and frankly, to say we are not getting value for our money doesn't even get close to describing this scandalous shambles.

[Barbe bleu 826]

9 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

There is no dispute that local authorities generally are underfunded and overworked but I don't agree this is a reason for not using them when they were best equipped to respond to this exceptional crisis even if this also had a drastic effect on their existing services (many of which were suspended due to the pandemic anyway).

 I've summarised why I would go for a top down build, you have said why you think bottom up is best.   Either way we are probably agreed on how it should be run now. 

If you can add more detail, for instance the number of EHOs or dedicated tracers a typical authority may have  had and their pre-existing capacity/number and type of notifiable disease they deal with that might give an indication of the capacity of them to 'ramp up to the scale required.   If not we are just going to end up repeating ourselves so let's leave it there.

 

9 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

 

I've no idea whether your working life  touches on any of these issues but I'm guessing not as I'm afraid that your view, however genuinely held, is simply plain wrong

Lets not go down this avenue. It's perfectly possible to have a sensible discussion without personalising the matter. If you are claiming to have superior knowledge due to your profession then I am sure that everyone would appreciate an evidential approach.  If not, then let's not start denigrating other and adopting a superior tone, it serves no purpose.

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by Barbe bleu

[Yellow Fever 3,787]

36 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

 I've summarised why I would go for a top down build, you have said why you think bottom up is best.   Either way we are probably agreed on how it should be run now. 

If you can add more detail, for instance the number of EHOs or dedicated tracers a typical authority may have  had and their pre-existing capacity/number and type of notifiable disease they deal with that might give an indication of the capacity of them to 'ramp up to the scale required.   If not we are just going to end up repeating ourselves so let's leave it there.

 

Lets not go down this avenue. It's perfectly possible to have a sensible discussion without personalising the matter. If you are claiming to have superior knowledge due to your profession then I am sure that everyone would appreciate an evidential approach.  If not, then let's not start denigrating other and adopting a superior tone, it serves no purpose.

 

 

I really thought this argument was put to bed months ago. VW seems to have first hand experience of the situation so I would defer to his views.

I thought the original T/T 'top-down' centrist (PHE) basically in layman's terms failed to deliver and the more local approach now utilized / integrated won out as the much better way forward (Yes 'T' is right). Local people tend to know where local people hide-out as in Banham P. 

The 'political' point is that Johnsons government is over centralizing, lacks effective delegation, doesn't understand management and frankly interferes with 'expert' systems where it would be better to keep it's collective nose out. Par for the course I'm afraid. 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by Yellow Fever

[Barbe bleu 826]

I think you have missed my point YF.

The scenario presented by CM is that the government should have, in effect, said to local authorities "lads, we need track and trace. Here's some cash, off you go.  Let us know when you have sorted it out".

My view is that this would havs been a massive undertaking. Local authorities simply do not have enough resources to build the IT, recruit and train the people and integrate the disparate systems sufficiently to allow data sharing at all levels and across sectors.

In my model central government builds the system and then hands it over. EHOs and NHS workers could still work on it (though they do have important day jobs to do) and DPHs would be empowered to make local lockdown decisions but would have none of the burden of project management, recruitment or basic training, all of which would divert resources away from existing work.

To put it in context I would imagine a 'standard' local authority would have less than 10 staff total dealing with every aspect of public health and infectious disease. And probably deal with less than 200-300 disease notifications a year. That's not an army, its not even a platoon.  Its an already overworked squad.

[Bill 1,788]

1 hour ago, Yellow Fever said:

VW seems to have first hand experience of the situation so I would defer to his views

 

[Well b back 3,208]

Morning guys.

Dont normally post on this thread but thought you might be interested in developments over the last few days regards the potential vaccine so that you can discuss. Reports from America today ( despite the denial a couple of weeks ago from our government ) advise that all States have been asked to become ready to receive the vaccine, and how they will need to train people to administer ( it is 2 jabs 1 a month after the first ). They aim to vaccinate it is alledged all health care workers, over 65s, all bame and anyone with pre existing illnesses believed to put you at greater risk. In response our government it appears have put together a paper that will clear the way for approval to move forward at the end of October.

Dont shoot the messenger as they say as I have put this up for you guys to discuss.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Well b back said:

Morning guys.

Dont normally post on this thread but thought you might be interested in developments over the last few days regards the potential vaccine so that you can discuss. Reports from America today ( despite the denial a couple of weeks ago from our government ) advise that all States have been asked to become ready to receive the vaccine, and how they will need to train people to administer ( it is 2 jabs 1 a month after the first ). They aim to vaccinate it is alledged all health care workers, over 65s, all bame and anyone with pre existing illnesses believed to put you at greater risk. In response our government it appears have put together a paper that will clear the way for approval to move forward at the end of October.

Dont shoot the messenger as they say as I have put this up for you guys to discuss.

I saw the reports WBB.

Of course we want a vaccine as soon as possible. But it has to be a proven medical one and not one for political purposes. The timing of the US vaccine is remarkably close to the election. I believe many virologists in the US have said that if the vaccine is not truly effective, it could do more harm than good.

They are requesting the removal of "red tape", a situation where a vaccine is tested for several months. The US is only now at Phase 3 of testing the vaccine and has not even enrolled enough of those wishing to take part.

 

[Barbe bleu 826]

Presumably if it is not effective it won't pass phase 3 trials and won't be released. However, it (oxford) had been on trial for along time now so there must be good data on efficacy by now.   

I guess the greater unknown is the long term impact and safety but at some point the risk of long term harm will have to be balanced against the immediate benefit.

 

 

[Well b back 3,208]

2 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

I saw the reports WBB.

Of course we want a vaccine as soon as possible. But it has to be a proven medical one and not one for political purposes. The timing of the US vaccine is remarkably close to the election. I believe many virologists in the US have said that if the vaccine is not truly effective, it could do more harm than good.

They are requesting the removal of "red tape", a situation where a vaccine is tested for several months. The US is only now at Phase 3 of testing the vaccine and has not even enrolled enough of those wishing to take part.

 

Hi

Yes we get a lot of our stuff from the press and medics / scientists outside the U.K. which are weeks ahead of us. Things denied in the U.K. are already fact in editorials such as the NY Times. When it was reported that America were getting it first and Boris denied it he was left with his trousers around his ankles and according again to the likes of the NY Times has had to work out a paper that trains U.K. people to administer it and get around the licensing rules. You must remember despite his denials about the US AstraZeneca never denied it, even though Boris said they had. We consider this our vaccine but we have only invested several tens of millions in it whilst the US have invested $1.25 billion in it.

You probably again are aware from the reports that phase 3 will be brought to an end ( certainly in the US ) as soon as the vaccine is proved to work. This milestone needs 38 people to be infected, with those having the vaccine not to contribute more than 30%. Again there are reports that these results are already in, but who knows. 
My view and it is only a personal view, If Trump goes for it Boris will have no choice.

[ricardo 7,395]

Numbers could now be ticking up. Today UK very close to 1% positives (1735 - 13)

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

For comparrison yesterdays major European countries.

Italy   1326 - 6

France 7017 - 25

Spain   8581 - 42

Germany 1390 - 12

France and Spain seem to be accelerating quite sharply.

 

[Van wink 2,994]

Give it maybe 3 or 4 weeks and the admissions will start to rise as it works its way back into the more vunerable goups. Figures on the Zoe app now going up, 1974 today, this is a good barometer.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Van wink