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Hi John,

I wish it was better here but we are in exactly the same boat.
No masks, and extra breathing equipment only ordered 2 weeks ago!

Minimising impact on our economy is valued very high. Our (limited) measures are aiming at avoiding overloading the IC’s which will off course result in many more fatalities. So far we are not very good at that.

Group-immunity is the second aim, but that can only be achieved by many more exposures and fatalities or, off course...a vaccin.

Stay safe.
I have my own more stringent rules.

Waldi

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HELP THE NHS ~ I've let my adjoining empty house (fully furnished) to four NHS nurses free of charge during this National Emergency. We have a very large General Hospital at the top of the r

Very very Harsh Geko. I see a man, in an unenviable position, doing his utmost to balance the impossible tasks of trying to control the spread of a new novel virus - for which there is no treatme

By the book...

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45 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

Germany may, but the UK has NO idea how many people have CV19, as NO ONE is being tested, except politicians and royalty.   Not the NHS employees, like Daughter and Son-in-Law, both consultants and sorely needed, who have just had to spend a fortnight at home because junior had a cold.    Because the Tory Gov sat on their hands while the viral threat grew, and only when it was palpably obvious what was needed "Worked night and day" (yeah, sure) to secure not only testing kits but even the PPE that could protect health staff!    

Will the way that their actions have killed at least two NHS consultants and the health of hundreds of thousands of others be remembered at the next Election?   I doubt it.

We have no idea about how many people in the UK have CV19?

Agreed, not a clue

But as for the politicians and Royalty comment . . . .I'm not sure that there is any real evidence to support the position.

There seems to be a general tendency to berate the govt for the lack of testing being undertaken

Yes, the UK was slow to get off the testing mark

Does it do any good to continually groan on about it? My guess is; probably not.

From the man (whoever he is) pressing the 'testing' GO button, it takes time to put into practice

There is a globally streched supply line, trying to meet the demands from over 100 countries.

Many UK companies have stepped up to the mark, or in the case of Mercedes F1, torn off the mark like a greyhound

Testing for front liners is coming, later than anyone would like, but, we all know it's on its way

 

Tory govt . . .hands comment . . .again, I'm not sure that this is really fair.

Do you really believe that any gov't of a different hue, would have done anything radically different

I'm pretty sure the answer is no

 

I am not going to moam, it does no good, all I am going to do, as a confirmed atheist, is say a quiet prayer for all those, like yours, who are going above and beyond, in trying to stop this pandemic from taking any more victims

Edited by wjgco
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Quote, "But as for the politicians and Royalty comment . . . .I'm not sure that there is any real evidence to support the position."    No?   Do you not read the papers, listen to the radio, watchTV, John?    The infection, confirmed by testing of Johnson, Hancock, and Cumming (a minister or as good as, if that's not a nonsequitor) and Charlie the Plant-talker has been widely reported, as has that of other parliamentarians who have fallen ill.    But testing, for NHS staff, with the highest exposure and viruis load, and greatest risk?  Non-existent!

Quote, "There seems to be a general tendency to berate the govt for the lack of testing being undertaken" Damn right there is!  Who else was and is ableto take early and effective action?     Groups of NHS workers have had to appeal for crowdfunding, for the gods sake, to buy their own PPE!

Quote, "Does it do any good to continually groan on about it? My guess is; probably not."  But if it ensures that this Tory party, negligent of the country's safety and that of its heroic NHS staff, never, ever gets back into power, I shall sleep well in my grave.   

Quote, "From the man (whoever he is) pressing the 'testing' GO button, it takes time to put into practice" Oh, for the gods sake, why state the bleeding obvious, that they didn't make a decision, any decision until it was forced on them by the rapid advance of the disease, when early action could have saved lives.    You have read that at least two NHS consultnats have already died of CV19?

Why go on?   John, your post only seeks to excuse the current government from criticism that is not only fair, but wholly justified.  The response, from the NHS, industry and the country has been exemplary, but thanks to the Gov's  wilful neglect and delay, has been a forced necessity and we shall see if it is enough.

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12 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

Quote, "But as for the politicians and Royalty comment . . . .I'm not sure that there is any real evidence to support the position."    No?   Do you not read the papers, listen to the radio, watchTV, John?    The infection, confirmed by testing of Johnson, Hancock, and Cumming (a minister or as good as, if that's not a nonsequitor) and Charlie the Plant-talker has been widely reported, as has that of other parliamentarians who have fallen ill.    But testing, for NHS staff, with the highest exposure and viruis load, and greatest risk?  Non-existent!

Quote, "There seems to be a general tendency to berate the govt for the lack of testing being undertaken" Damn right there is!  Who else was and is ableto take early and effective action?     Groups of NHS workers have had to appeal for crowdfunding, for the gods sake, to buy their own PPE!

Quote, "Does it do any good to continually groan on about it? My guess is; probably not."  But if it ensures that this Tory party, negligent of the country's safety and that of its heroic NHS staff, never, ever gets back into power, I shall sleep well in my grave.   

Quote, "From the man (whoever he is) pressing the 'testing' GO button, it takes time to put into practice" Oh, for the gods sake, why state the bleeding obvious, that they didn't make a decision, any decision until it was forced on them by the rapid advance of the disease, when early action could have saved lives.    You have read that at least two NHS consultnats have already died of CV19?

Why go on?   John, your post only seeks to excuse the current government from criticism that is not only fair, but wholly justified.  The response, from the NHS, industry and the country has been exemplary, but thanks to the Gov's  wilful neglect and delay, has been a forced necessity and we shall see if it is enough.

Hi John,

I have a feeling you do not like this Gov't.

However consider a bigger issue.   This virus will be over in a relatively short time. But lurking around the corner is the sustainability of Electrical Energy.

None of the parties are betting their existence on this one. EVERY party is quietly ducking the issue.

Darkness will make this virus look like a health spa.

The UK is reactive NOT proactive - it has never been any different.

Roger 

 

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2 hours ago, Waldi said:

 

 

And Susanne,
apologies if I offended you, that was not my intention!

Regards,
Waldi

 

Thank you Waldi 

for you apology, yes I was a little bit offended but you are not the first person to make these assumptions and I doubt you will be the last.

I am used to having to stand up for myself on the Diabetic front. Even my own GP a Dr Ruparelia tried lecturing me on HIS habit, as a child, of drinking a can of Coca Cola every day, I should have been so lucky.

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49 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

Quote, "But as for the politicians and Royalty comment . . . .I'm not sure that there is any real evidence to support the position."    No?   Do you not read the papers, listen to the radio, watchTV, John?    The infection, confirmed by testing of Johnson, Hancock, and Cumming (a minister or as good as, if that's not a nonsequitor) and Charlie the Plant-talker has been widely reported, as has that of other parliamentarians who have fallen ill.    But testing, for NHS staff, with the highest exposure and viruis load, and greatest risk?  Non-existent!

Quote, "There seems to be a general tendency to berate the govt for the lack of testing being undertaken" Damn right there is!  Who else was and is ableto take early and effective action?     Groups of NHS workers have had to appeal for crowdfunding, for the gods sake, to buy their own PPE!

Quote, "Does it do any good to continually groan on about it? My guess is; probably not."  But if it ensures that this Tory party, negligent of the country's safety and that of its heroic NHS staff, never, ever gets back into power, I shall sleep well in my grave.   

Quote, "From the man (whoever he is) pressing the 'testing' GO button, it takes time to put into practice" Oh, for the gods sake, why state the bleeding obvious, that they didn't make a decision, any decision until it was forced on them by the rapid advance of the disease, when early action could have saved lives.    You have read that at least two NHS consultnats have already died of CV19?

Why go on?   John, your post only seeks to excuse the current government from criticism that is not only fair, but wholly justified.  The response, from the NHS, industry and the country has been exemplary, but thanks to the Gov's  wilful neglect and delay, has been a forced necessity and we shall see if it is enough.

 

John

Yes I do listen to the TV and radio

It told me that people who exhibit symptoms were being tested.

How true is that?  Only a few know

Early action only delays.  Take Germany.  Today their health minister (I think it was) stated that there will be a big increase in CV19 deaths.

Germany got lucky, testing early, mainly, it turn out the young fit and healthy skiers, returning from holiday; not my words . . His.

Thus their figures are skewed.

 

I stated the obvious because it needed stating.  The media are screaming about the lack of PPE and they are right, there is a lack, but, the gov't we have is the best of a bad job, the alternative being JC. 

I don't think they are deliberately making themselves public enemy No1, there is a tonne of kudos and years in power on offer if they get it right, why would they not want that?

 

I don't excuse anyone John, not my place.

I mearly offer what I see as a reasonable counter to your position.

Is your position wrong? I don't know.  Is mine wrong? I don't know.  Only time will tell.

What I will say is, that being constantly negative, without offering positive counters, does no one any favours.  It's a problem the BBC have but havn't yet recognised.

If someone constantly cries wolf, the audience stops listening.

 

I note that you ignored my last comment . . . I rest my case.

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A full, accountable critique of the government's preparedness and response will probably not come for years, which is unfortunate because we need to learn all the lessons we can fast, both for the next waves of this virus and the possibility that a new one on top of coronavirus could be even more catastrophic if that's possible to contemplate.

My take, for what it's worth, is that we are struggling in several areas mainly as a consequence of errors in contingency planning. If you read various iterations of the published UK Pandemic Flu Plan, it's pretty clear that the presumed strategy was always that we would accept rapid passage of the virus across the population while keeping public services and the economy functioning. Fatalities of up to 750,000 were acknowledged as consequences of that approach. I could see no real mention of a possible need to be able to ramp up diagnostic testing beyond hospital patients and primary care staff, or of the international shortage of test chemicals that would almost certainly occur. Nor of the need to go into rapid production of additional ventilators.

Of course it's not possible from the outside to know whether the planning deficiencies were down to assumption errors by public health experts, or whether policymakers said, behind closed doors, "now look... it's just not financially feasible to maintain a standby mass testing capacity in the UK, so let's just leave that out of the plan, shall we?". Although it has been suggested in some media reports that that is indeed the reason why the PPE stockpiling plans only "assumed" a need for level one protection, rather than having level two stocks (at five times the cost).

These (flawed, as it turns out) contingency plans have been around for several decades. The pandemic just happens to have happened on this government's watch.

Nigel

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Nigel,

+1

I also believe that whilst stockpiling is nice but expensive that these costs can be minimised by holding reasonable stock levels but also maintaining UK based manufacturing capabilities for such items and the raw materials required.

You need to look no further than the current Germany / Austria and Germany / Switzerland spats over supplies to see that offshore manufacturing of certain identified strategic items is never a good plan.

 

Alan

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Why does the kit have to be disposable? once upon a time hospitals used autoclaves. Microwaving in alcohol/steam would surely see off 99.9% of all known viruses

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2 hours ago, wjgco said:

 

John

Yes I do listen to the TV and radio

It told me that people who exhibit symptoms were being tested.

How true is that?  Only a few know

Early action only delays.  Take Germany.  Today their health minister (I think it was) stated that there will be a big increase in CV19 deaths.

Germany got lucky, testing early, mainly, it turn out the young fit and healthy skiers, returning from holiday; not my words . . His.

Thus their figures are skewed.

 

I stated the obvious because it needed stating.  The media are screaming about the lack of PPE and they are right, there is a lack, but, the gov't we have is the best of a bad job, the alternative being JC. 

I don't think they are deliberately making themselves public enemy No1, there is a tonne of kudos and years in power on offer if they get it right, why would they not want that?

 

I don't excuse anyone John, not my place.

I mearly offer what I see as a reasonable counter to your position.

Is your position wrong? I don't know.  Is mine wrong? I don't know.  Only time will tell.

What I will say is, that being constantly negative, without offering positive counters, does no one any favours.  It's a problem the BBC have but havn't yet recognised.

If someone constantly cries wolf, the audience stops listening.

 

I note that you ignored my last comment . . . I rest my case.

Spot on +1 from me 

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Waldi, the number of IC beds is only relevant if they are all full.  For example, Germany has four times as many IC beds as the UK but the UK beds are not at capacity yet.

Clearly Germany has more resilience but that doesn't account for the apparently low mortality rate.

Rgds Ian

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John D,

Whilst there may have been some value in testing to see who was infected in the beginning, that train has left the station. To me it is now more important to know who has had it and therefore has immunity.

Also, I have seen so many conflicting statements about the effectiveness or otherwise of face masks I don't know who to believe.

And finally, whilst the decisions on what strategy to adopt are being made by politicians, they are guided by two eminently qualified individuals.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Rgds Ian

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4 hours ago, Ian Vincent said:

John D,

Whilst there may have been some value in testing to see who was infected in the beginning, that train has left the station. To me it is now more important to know who has had it and therefore has immunity.

That's plain wrong. Testing can also be predictive of who is likely to get it, for one. Second, having had it doesn't guarantee immunity as not only can there be relapses but also the virus is mutating so you can get a different strain. Door-to-door blanket testing is the only way out of confinement .

Also, I have seen so many conflicting statements about the effectiveness or otherwise of face masks I don't know who to believe.

Simple: don't wear it as see what happens. Want to take the risk ? Right, no you don't. So you only have to believe in yourself when it comes to safety and security. Common sense.

And finally, whilst the decisions on what strategy to adopt are being made by politicians, they are guided by two eminently qualified individuals.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

As above, never rely on anyone but yourself when it come to making decision about your safety and security. The Welfare State made us a-instinctual so time to get back to our animal roots and trust our instinct only (and take advice from your better half whose instinct is probably a little more developed)

 

Rgds Ian

 

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When I was working on patients I thought the face mask was to protect the patient from me, rather than me from the patient. Guess it did that as well any way.

Suspect that any airborne viruses went through the spaces between the cloth/paper spaces anyway.

You may have guessed I'm not wearing one when I go out shopping.

thought Pete's comment on autoclaving was a good one.

 

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I think we all need to remember that hindsight is a wonderful thing when criticising any action by anybody to do with a new situation. We are where we are so we need to focus on getting out of this together not apportioning blame. We are all making mistakes as we learn about this virus. I take comfort that the experts keep reminding us of just how much we do not know about it. It smacks of reality rather than the traditional "everything is going to be alright" condescending attitude.

Mick

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3 hours ago, Ian Vincent said:

Geko,

I don’t agree with your first two statements above but that’s your view, so fine.

Your third statement is rude and unnecessary.

Rgds Ian

 

It all boils down to your last point to which my answer was devoid of any malice: Women's instinct has not been as compromised as men's for the simple reason that they bear life, so I would trust them more than men's instinct.

On the "necessity" of my comment, just go through this article which was released a few hours after my comment: Blanket testing is the way forward for both reasons explained above. Why it has not happened yet is explained and indeed when politics gets in the way of common sense this is what you get. UK simply does not have the capacity to do it but which politician is going to put his arse on the line and say that this wonderful NHS of yours is blatantly unable to withstand this shock? So instead, let's buy time and run the herd's immunity chatterbox which, btw, may work only if and when there's already a vaccine available.

Back to common sense, take a look at your shoe soles and think that they may be the grand carrier of the virus if you keep your shoes at home - which asians don't do and probably one bloody good reason why the virus didn't spread as fast as in Europe/US despite a much higher population density. Twenty five years ago China started fining people caught spitting. The main reason was because the sputum stuck on the soles was the main vector of transmission of TB...Believe it or not but China's ban on spitting greatly contributed to control TB transmission countrywide.

Edited by Geko
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13 hours ago, Ian Vincent said:

Waldi, the number of IC beds is only relevant if they are all full.  For example, Germany has four times as many IC beds as the UK but the UK beds are not at capacity yet.

Clearly Germany has more resilience but that doesn't account for the apparently low mortality rate.

Rgds Ian

Hi Ian,

the Netherlands are nearing that limit, we are have already transported a couple of patients to Germany, and the IC coordinator today announced he would it would “have his blessing if as much as possible patients would be transferred to Germany”. So we are at our limits, and have already transferred IC patients from one hospital to another, also within our own country.

I fully agree comparison between countries is difficult, off course. But Germany has been more restrictive, that is a key factor in achieving less spread I think.

Cheers,
Waldi

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Back to the vexed subject of testing, having read a number of articles in this morning's papers and across the internet it would appear that the main 'villain in the piece' with regards to the UK's poor performance with testing is Public Health England.  They are the ones who have delayed authorising the de-centralising of testing to other UK labs and who have delayed ordering the necessary chemicals until we are at the back of the queue.

So I googled PHE to find out exactly who they are; this is their mission statement:

PHE's mission is "to protect and improve the nation’s health and to address inequalities". It employs approximately 5,000 staff (full-time equivalent), who are mostly scientists, researchers and public health professionals.

On this basis, it is probably wrong to lay the blame for our current predicament at the door of the government.  It would appear to be the scientists, researchers and public health professionals who have shot themselves in the foot.

Rgds Ian

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Isn't it wonderful that the Tory boys soon found plenty of OUR money to renovate Harry and Meghan Sparkle's gaff ~ then these two scroungers scarpered away to Canada.

Canada don't want them and now they are scrounging off America. All OUR money could now have been better spent providing protection and screening

for all our Health workers and others.   Remember again when the Tory boys soon found OUR money to rebuild Windsor Castle after the fire!!

Disgusting.

Tom.

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It is all too  easy  for a committee of experst to arrive at a single idee fixee. It looks to me that they decided that isolation and contact tracing upon appearance of symptoms would contain the virus. So with clear-cut symptoms (dry cought, fever etc) there was no need to organise testing, or order PCR reagents. Then new info from China about the virus being shed for several days in huge amounts from asymptomatic people killed off their plan. There will be members of that (anonymous) committee warning "what if " but it  is all too easy for a minority view on a committee to be over-ruled.

It is not the polticians fault  the experts blew it.

Peter

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