Corona Virus main thread

[sonyc 5,482]

12 hours ago, Herman said:

This is a bit wrong.

 

At least Huckerby has a decent moral compass on this issue...

 

[Herman 9,698]

Good to see. It's an odd and tone deaf move from the government and is going down like the proverbial lead Zeppelin. 

[sonyc 5,482]

24 minutes ago, Herman said:

Good to see. It's an odd and tone deaf move from the government and is going down like the proverbial lead Zeppelin. 

I've read that for a scale 6 it works out at £6 per week but dwarfed by car park fees that staff have to pay. 

As someone who thought Sunak was more of a decent sort amongst quite a shower of contemptible people, I'm less sure now I read about the budget. Of course the pandemic has to be paid for but to bring in measures that will adversely affect low paid key workers, supposedly local heroes in the pandemic?

The scheme to level 'up' conservative towns is repugnant too given the sheer breadth of inequality in the country.

I was curious to see how we as a country might tackle the economy post Brexit and post pandemic. I thought we might see quite an investment led approach with public services at the heart... Certainly in health services and local government. I was hopeful but now begin to think my optimism is way off beam and as ever, is made up of far too much idealism.

Twas ever thus I suppose.

Edited March 5, 2021 by sonyc

[Mark .Y. 351]

35 minutes ago, Herman said:

Good to see. It's an odd and tone deaf move from the government and is going down like the proverbial lead Zeppelin. 

It's entirely in tune with most things this Government has done, their lack of empathy and understanding is simply incredible

[Barbe bleu 809]

1 hour ago, sonyc said:

At least Huckerby has a decent moral compass on this issue...

 

This £37 billion,  is this the official figure?

If so, does it include the cost of testing and DNA sequencing (which even the most ardent of opponents must concede is pretty comprehensive) or is it just contact tracing (which I consider largely a fool's errand)

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

"The heart of the nation" has got to beat a bit harder for Sunak.

It hasn't taken long for this shower to show their true colours. Shove out Miss Liverpool 1955 to break the bad news. We can't afford it. What a downright lie.

I wonder if the Mail or Express will roll out a campaign?

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

38 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

It's entirely in tune with most things this Government has done, their lack of empathy and understanding is simply incredible

My guess is not too many Tory donors or even voters amongst the NHS.

Whilst it is true we can't have an open cheque book 1% is clearly derisory, an insult, given what they've been through.

I'd say 5% for the nurses and lower front line grades.

Freeze the triple lock pension to pay for it.

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

2 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

 

 

This is pure pedantry.

Let me join the dots for you.

Yes the end result is to stop the virus (for the record the Covid CV19 virus) from overwhelming the hospitals with patients. The CV19 virus is a notifiable disease & originally had a mortality of > 1% and is also much more transmissive than seasonal flu. It has killed > 120,000 in the UK already and left large numbers with long term effects (5 % with diabetes etc.). It's not a disease we can let rip or be trifled with and as a society, indeed globally, we have decided to control. It also continues to mutate. None of this is in question.

In order to stop people entering  and overwhelming hospitals we need to stop them catching the virus in the first place. More recently we have better treatments and vaccines. However, after many previous failed attempts the lockdowns have proven to be the one sure way to quickly reduce prevalence and get under control. Hopefully the vaccines will keep it there.

I'm very sure if the virus was pandemic flu -  i.e. a a bird flu - which is what previous pandemic preparations assumed the next pandemic would be  - it is very likely we'd be in exactly the same position of lockdown and quarantines as we ramped up our medical responses.

It isn't pedantry to understand what is the objective we are trying to achieve because the policies will differ depending on the objective. If you claim the objective is to prevent the virus from being passed from one person to another then that is a hugely different objective to preventing the hospital's from breaching capacity. For example, to prevent overcapacity we could increase capacity by building new facilities, which wouldn't be necessary if the objective is to prevent transmission in the first place. So it is pretty important to define the objective in the first place. Similarly, if the objective is to prevent breaching of capacity you could allow a greater degree of openness than if your policy objective is to prevent transmission from one person to another 

In any case, I would argue that preventing transmission of the virus is an impossible to achieve objective and one that we have not implemented for other viruses even though the flu virus kills thousands each year. 

There has to be an acceptable level of risk, even though it means there will be some deaths otherwise we will never return to anything like normality. As others have mentioned, we accept some risk when we build roads and allow cars to travel. 

Personally, I think preventing hospital overcapacity is a pretty good rule of thumb measure of risk as it is easy to measure, clear, reasonable, though there might need some tweaks to that. 

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

1 hour ago, sonyc said:

At least Huckerby has a decent moral compass on this issue...

 

This is what happens when you have a public monopoly driving an economic sector. Arbitrary rules get applied to customers in the form of rationing of health care services and to workers in the form of restrictive payrises. But people still want to believe we have the best health care in the world. 

[sonyc 5,482]

14 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

This is what happens when you have a public monopoly driving an economic sector. Arbitrary rules get applied to customers in the form of rationing of health care services and to workers in the form of restrictive payrises. But people still want to believe we have the best health care in the world. 

I take the point but isn't the alternative even more unfair? 'For profit' insurance type systems like those in the US lead to increasing costs, higher profits and deep inequality in provision.

I believe the founding values of our NHS are what people overwhelmingly support not that they believe we have the best health care in the world. I've not met anyone who believes that. Have you?

[sonyc 5,482]

49 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

This £37 billion,  is this the official figure?

If so, does it include the cost of testing and DNA sequencing (which even the most ardent of opponents must concede is pretty comprehensive) or is it just contact tracing (which I consider largely a fool's errand)

This was an article in December BB detailing where money has gone.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/uks-test-and-trace-repeatedly-failed-to-hit-goals-despite-22bn-cost?

Quite incredible too that more has been spent on Coronavirus than our entire contribution paid to the EU (all time). Not trying to bring Brexit into the argument here, simply to show how much money has been spent.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

23 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

This is what happens when you have a public monopoly driving an economic sector. Arbitrary rules get applied to customers in the form of rationing of health care services and to workers in the form of restrictive payrises. But people still want to believe we have the best health care in the world. 

Its free at source. That is one outstanding reason. While we might dither about a new car or washing machine because we can't afford it, we never have to worry about paying for our health solutions.

All the reasons to question the NHS and its efficiency are because successive governments have found it easy to pay for their little wars and keeping up with the Joneses, by ignoring the problems of the NHS.

When we are still ploughing on with HS2 and renewing Trident, which apparently we can afford, and denying the NHS just as soon as it has shown how necessary it is, is criminal.

[Mark .Y. 351]

39 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

My guess is not too many Tory donors or even voters amongst the NHS.

Whilst it is true we can't have an open cheque book 1% is clearly derisory, an insult, given what they've been through.

I'd say 5% for the nurses and lower front line grades.

Freeze the triple lock pension to pay for it.

We're on pretty much the same page then.

I actually said to my missus that they should probably get 4%, around twice what inflation may rise to over the next few months

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

We're on pretty much the same page then.

I actually said to my missus that they should probably get 4%, around twice what inflation may rise to over the next few months

Yet BT have informed me that they are allowed to raise their prices by 3.9%.

[Barbe bleu 809]

24 minutes ago, sonyc said:

This was an article in December BB detailing where money has gone.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/uks-test-and-trace-repeatedly-failed-to-hit-goals-despite-22bn-cost?

 

 

Thanks.   This report seems to suggest that around 85% of the test and trace initiative is on the testing side and 15% on the tracing side. It said nothing about DNA sequencing but I would guess that's included in the 85%

[Aggy 747]

2 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

 

 

This is pure pedantry.

Let me join the dots for you.

Yes the end result is to stop the virus (for the record the Covid CV19 virus) from overwhelming the hospitals with patients. The CV19 virus is a notifiable disease & originally had a mortality of > 1% and is also much more transmissive than seasonal flu. It has killed > 120,000 in the UK already and left large numbers with long term effects (5 % with diabetes etc.). It's not a disease we can let rip or be trifled with and as a society, indeed globally, we have decided to control. It also continues to mutate. None of this is in question.

In order to stop people entering  and overwhelming hospitals we need to stop them catching the virus in the first place. More recently we have better treatments and vaccines. However, after many previous failed attempts the lockdowns have proven to be the one sure way to quickly reduce prevalence and get under control. Hopefully the vaccines will keep it there.

I'm very sure if the virus was pandemic flu -  i.e. a a bird flu - which is what previous pandemic preparations assumed the next pandemic would be  - it is very likely we'd be in exactly the same position of lockdown and quarantines as we ramped up our medical responses. . 

Err...no. It isn’t pedantry at all. You’ve literally changed your argument.

Yesterday you said people don’t have a right to spread infections because it puts other people at risk.

Now you appear to be saying people do have a right to spread deadly infections but only to the extent it doesn’t overwhelm hospitals.

That isn’t a small typo, that’s a completely different thing.

[Barbe bleu 809]

24 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

We're on pretty much the same page then.

I actually said to my missus that they should probably get 4%, around twice what inflation may rise to over the next few months

I think 1% is going to look very generous in the context of pay awards across the whole public sector in the coming years (and indeed pay awards full stop) and it is what was recommended by the body set up to make such awards. 

What I am surprised they haven't done is to give retrospective recognition awards. These could be given as one off payments or even as staged 'loyalty' bonuses ĺ

 

[Aggy 747]

31 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Its free at source. That is one outstanding reason. While we might dither about a new car or washing machine because we can't afford it, we never have to worry about paying for our health solutions.

All the reasons to question the NHS and its efficiency are because successive governments have found it easy to pay for their little wars and keeping up with the Joneses, by ignoring the problems of the NHS.

When we are still ploughing on with HS2 and renewing Trident, which apparently we can afford, and denying the NHS just as soon as it has shown how necessary it is, is criminal.

Agree with that.  
 

Would just say though (not specifically aimed at you) that sometimes I think the “free at source” point is slightly overplayed by some - that is true in other places too. Clearly is something which is great (and certainly much better than the system in America), but in and of itself being free at source doesn’t mean the nhs is the best in the world. 

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

26 minutes ago, sonyc said:

I take the point but isn't the alternative even more unfair? 'For profit' insurance type systems like those in the US lead to increasing costs, higher profits and deep inequality in provision.

I believe the founding values of our NHS are what people overwhelmingly support not that they believe we have the best health care in the world. I've not met anyone who believes that. Have you?

Yes. I am reading in the press, and on TV all the time that we have the best health care in the world. The BBC acts as the media department for the NHS. 

It is an inescapable fact that health care costs money and is very expensive to provide, however you provision it. 

You say that the US costs more but then you are commenting on the news that nurses are to get a miserly 1% increase. Do you not recognise there is a connection between raising salaries and rising costs?

You also point to the inequality of provision in the US. But how about the inequality of provision between the US and the UK? Firstly, people travel from the UK to the US for treatment because there is no provision for some treatments in the UK. There is no flow of people from the US to the UK. Remember this next time you see a fund raising appeal to send a sick child to the US for life saving treatment. 

Secondly, the UK has far longer waiting lists for treatment than you will find in the US. Our health care is cheaper because it is rationed, and people die while they wait. This is the cost we pay for having cheaper health care than the US. In the US you can actually see a doctor if you need one. If I need a doctor I have to be on the phone at exactly 8am which puts me in a queue for 30 minutes in order to be put through to a secretary who will deem if I am worthy of a ten minute appointment. If not I have to seek medical help elsewhere. 

It's more expensive in the US but they get far better treatment in return. 

I understand that not everyone in the US can afford this level of service and there has to be some provision for those deserving cases. But equally our system of pulling everyone down to the lowest common denominator is not the way to do it either. 

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

2 hours ago, ron obvious said:

We have learnt nothing. Nothing more than that by, for example, removing all traffic from the roads you could stop all road deaths. I wonder why we don't do that?

By using the analogy you do you misrepresent his position. He is not an absolutist - does not believe in the perfectibility of society - which I suspect is an attitude you neither understand or agree with. He is concerned with achieving the least worst outcome for everyone, something I completely agree with.

So far as your last paragraph goes, I feel exactly the same way towards your attitude to risk. However I strongly believe in democracy - the least worst form of government - so I behave accordingly. The fact that, as far as I'm concerned, the majority have been frightened out of their wits by governments & others manipulating a primeval fear is neither here nor there. 

 

Ron - I'm not trying to be difficult and I actually listened to all his 50 minute spiel. I actually as a rule investigate positions which are at face value contrary to mine. For the record anybody who actually reads my posts would see that I'm pretty much against the imposed burden upon the young by the old but at the same time want practical workable solutions. 

The problem I have with his 'anti-lockdown' view is simply that he provides no sensible workable public health alterative beyond accepting the significant deaths and mayhem that would inevitably follow as collateral damage to save our personal liberties to party. It's all hopelessly idealistic. 

Johnson has three times now tried the 'light touch' or deferring lockdowns and each time it has led to more unnecessary deaths, more economic loss and even harsher stricter and longer lockdowns that have been eventually forced upon him.  Clearly he isn't going to rush into repeating it for a fourth time.

So the anti-lockdown argument has already been tried and proved a political failure in the UK - it doesn't work.

Lastly - as to being scared witless - I don't believe that one jot - some of course will be scared  witless anyway whatever you do but most will get on with their lives best they can. Those that are scarred witless will be far far more scared if there was no lockdown or attempt to control the virus and they were told simply to take their chances in the street as per Sumption.

[A Load of Squit 5,112]

 

 

[Aggy 747]

10 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

Yes. I am reading in the press, and on TV all the time that we have the best health care in the world. The BBC acts as the media department for the NHS. 

It is an inescapable fact that health care costs money and is very expensive to provide, however you provision it. 

You say that the US costs more but then you are commenting on the news that nurses are to get a miserly 1% increase. Do you not recognise there is a connection between raising salaries and rising costs?

You also point to the inequality of provision in the US. But how about the inequality of provision between the US and the UK? Firstly, people travel from the UK to the US for treatment because there is no provision for some treatments in the UK. There is no flow of people from the US to the UK. Remember this next time you see a fund raising appeal to send a sick child to the US for life saving treatment. 

Secondly, the UK has far longer waiting lists for treatment than you will find in the US. Our health care is cheaper because it is rationed, and people die while they wait. This is the cost we pay for having cheaper health care than the US. In the US you can actually see a doctor if you need one. If I need a doctor I have to be on the phone at exactly 8am which puts me in a queue for 30 minutes in order to be put through to a secretary who will deem if I am worthy of a ten minute appointment. If not I have to seek medical help elsewhere. 

It's more expensive in the US but they get far better treatment in return. 

I understand that not everyone in the US can afford this level of service and there has to be some provision for those deserving cases. But equally our system of pulling everyone down to the lowest common denominator is not the way to do it either. 

I don’t know enough about the US system to really get very much involved in this specific discussion. However I don’t think it is simply a privatisation vs public debate. 
 

There are places in the world that have free universal healthcare and have shorter waiting times etc. I know this is the case in Sri Lanka, where incidentally they also have much cheaper private healthcare than you can get here. [Edit: I don’t know enough about either to try and explain why there are shorter waiting times etc there - presumably more resource/facilities/more of the public budget goes to their health system than here.]

That’s the other point of course. Nobody forces you to use the NHS. Lots of people go private and many get private health insurance through their work place. Here, if you can’t afford private treatment you’ve got the NHS. In America if you can’t afford private treatment you die / are seriously ill.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Aggy

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

47 minutes ago, sonyc said:

This was an article in December BB detailing where money has gone.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/uks-test-and-trace-repeatedly-failed-to-hit-goals-despite-22bn-cost?

Quite incredible too that more has been spent on Coronavirus than our entire contribution paid to the EU (all time). Not trying to bring Brexit into the argument here, simply to show how much money has been spent.

 

False equivalence. The £300b spent on Covid will now be clawed back in taxes and lower government spending. (nurses salaries). The £226b sent to the EU is gone. 

I'm astonished that people are suddenly upset that 0ubliic sector salaries are going to be frozen. Where do you think the money to develop the vaccine was coming from? Or the money for track and trace? Or the money for furlough?

It was always ever going to come out of our pockets in one form or another. The day of financial reckoning has arrived. 

[A Load of Squit 5,112]

5 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

False equivalence. The £300b spent on Covid will now be clawed back in taxes and lower government spending. (nurses salaries). The £226b sent to the EU is gone. 

I'm astonished that people are suddenly upset that 0ubliic sector salaries are going to be frozen. Where do you think the money to develop the vaccine was coming from? Or the money for track and trace? Or the money for furlough?

It was always ever going to come out of our pockets in one form or another. The day of financial reckoning has arrived. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/31/what-has-the-eu-ever-done-for-my-town

In our cities, the funds have – to name a very few examples – stumped up £50m for Birmingham’s International Convention Centre and Symphony Hall and £25m for its Thinktank museum and City University.

Less visibly, the EU also found £175m to help fund an emergency job-finding taskforce for the 6,000 staff made redundant when MG Rover collapsed in 2005, and this year gave £33m to help 16,000 young Birmingham residents into work.

In Wales, Swansea’s National Waterfront Museum and university campus have been among the beneficiaries of EU funding, as well as multimillion-pound town centre regeneration programmes in south Wales valley towns including Aberdare, Pontypridd and Ebbw Vale.

 

[Van wink 2,994]

More good news

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

55 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

We're on pretty much the same page then.

I actually said to my missus that they should probably get 4%, around twice what inflation may rise to over the next few months

Yes - I'm  gob smacked at the political ineptness of it it. They are living on a different planet.

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

1 minute ago, Aggy said:

I don’t know enough about the US system to really get very much involved in this specific discussion. However I don’t think it is simply a privatisation vs public debate. 
 

There are places in the world that have free universal healthcare and have shorter waiting times etc. I know this is the case in Sri Lanka, where incidentally they also have much cheaper private healthcare than you can get here.

That’s the other point of course. Nobody forces you to use the NHS. Lots of people go private and many get private health insurance through their work place. Here, if you can’t afford private treatment you’ve got the NHS. In America if you can’t afford private treatment you die / are seriously ill.

There are schemes available for low Income families and the elderly in the US so it is something of a UK myth that you will just die. However many will die on waiting lists in the UK. 

I agree with your comments about Sri Lanka. I have received fantastic treatment in a poor Asian country, far better than UK provision, that didn't cost me a penny. 

What we lack in the UK is any leverage as users of the health service, this is something we need to introduce without having to introduce privatised services. 

Instead of our paying tax and national insurance to the government for health care it should be paid  to charitable trusts similar to the old friendly societies who then purchase health care provision on our behalf. This introduces a level of competition between health providers and raise standards. It also gives us as customers a collective power to force standards upwards. 

Similar things happen on the continent where health care provision is better than ours. 

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

8 minutes ago, A Load of Squit said:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/31/what-has-the-eu-ever-done-for-my-town

In our cities, the funds have – to name a very few examples – stumped up £50m for Birmingham’s International Convention Centre and Symphony Hall and £25m for its Thinktank museum and City University.

Less visibly, the EU also found £175m to help fund an emergency job-finding taskforce for the 6,000 staff made redundant when MG Rover collapsed in 2005, and this year gave £33m to help 16,000 young Birmingham residents into work.

In Wales, Swansea’s National Waterfront Museum and university campus have been among the beneficiaries of EU funding, as well as multimillion-pound town centre regeneration programmes in south Wales valley towns including Aberdare, Pontypridd and Ebbw Vale.

 

That's our money. And much more of our money has been given to net beneficiary member states. Next time you fly into a Greek airport remember who paid for it. 

[ron obvious 1,495]

19 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Ron - I'm not trying to be difficult and I actually listened to all his 50 minute spiel. I actually as a rule investigate positions which are at face value contrary to mine. For the record anybody who actually reads my posts would see that I'm pretty much against the imposed burden upon the young by the old but at the same time want practical workable solutions. 

The problem I have with his 'anti-lockdown' view is simply that he provides no sensible workable public health alterative beyond accepting the significant deaths and mayhem that would inevitably follow as collateral damage to save our personal liberties to party. It's all hopelessly idealistic. 

Johnson has three times now tried the 'light touch' or deferring lockdowns and each time it has led to more unnecessary deaths, more economic loss and even harsher stricter and longer lockdowns that have been eventually forced upon him.  Clearly he isn't going to rush into repeating it for a fourth time.

So the anti-lockdown argument has already been tried and proved a political failure in the UK - it doesn't work.

Lastly - as to being scared witless - I don't believe that one jot - some of course will be scared  witless anyway whatever you do but most will get on with their lives best they can. Those that are scarred witless will be far far more scared if there was no lockdown or attempt to control the virus and they were told simply to take their chances in the street as per Sumption.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to call it a spiel; it seemed to me to be a well thought out & argued statement of his position rather than a series of mumbled Hancockian platitudes or Borisian boosterisms which I would label under 'spiel'.

Ans I do actually disagree with him - certainly as far as the first lockdown went. At that point we simply didn't have a clue what we were dealing with in terms of how infectious it was & just how deadly it was & to whom. It rapidly became evident that the nuclear option - a serious lockdown - was the only one we had in the short term, to give us breathing space.

By the same token it was not clear as to the exact timing of the lockdown introduction, or exactly how strict it should be. One thing I'll never understand is why they thought it a good idea to send sick old people back from hospital into care homes, usually with no useful facilities. Then they built the Nightingale hospitals at phenomenal speed - & didn't use them. I understand staffing them in an ideal way would have been impossible, but why was no discernible attempt made to solve this over the summer? The evidence we've had shows there's likely a big seasonal component to the virus transmission, so I think it would have been wise (before & not after the event) to have a contingency plan to use the capacity. The history of humanity (all life really) is littered with disease pandemics of varying mortality & I think it would be prudent to have the facilities available to deal with the probably deadlier airborne highly infectious diseases which will inevitably occur at some time.

[sonyc 5,482]

39 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

False equivalence. The £300b spent on Covid will now be clawed back in taxes and lower government spending. (nurses salaries). The £226b sent to the EU is gone. 

I'm astonished that people are suddenly upset that 0ubliic sector salaries are going to be frozen. Where do you think the money to develop the vaccine was coming from? Or the money for track and trace? Or the money for furlough?

It was always ever going to come out of our pockets in one form or another. The day of financial reckoning has arrived. 

Yes we were a net contributor. We also received billions back over the years (more recently about £6bn a year) in targeted funding. That was part of the membership.

I was careful to state that I was not making such a direct Brexit point. It's therefore not false equivalence RTB because I wasn't making a point about the EU per se, simply comparing what we have spent on Covid (and contracts) in one year against a lifetime of EU contribution. It's a staggering comparison which I believe you'd probably agree is stark?

And the poorest will pay. The main winners are Tory benefactors, those that have funded the party very often. This isn't a One Nation party. Yet it's one that appears on course to continue for years, further dividing the country.