CORONAVIRUS

[Waldi]

Hi John,
you’re most welcome. I read your google-translation, it looks like proper English to me. Is it? My level of English is not sufficient for that. 

Let’s hope results will be positive.
The WWE (world wide economy) has “given” all people around the globe, rich and poor the burden of this virus, now let’s hope the WWW helps to encounter it. It is good to see medical professionals around the globe sharing information.

Waldi

[john.r.davies]

Many here may see me as a muesli-eating, sandal wearing Guardian reader, wedded to a Marxist view of history and implacably hostile to the class-enemy, the Tory party.   All true, of course, but let me introduce you to an organ that you cannot doubt is the House Journal of that same party, the Sunday Times.      And what is the front page headline today?  Quote:  "Revealed - How the government sleepwalked into pandemic catastrophe"

And they show no mercy, no forgiveness, but lay into the Tories for their transgressions.

 I won't transcribe the whole article, just retail you some of the worst bits.

"The Government lost a crucial five weeks in the fight to tackle coronavirus"

"Complacency in the heart of genvernment in late January and February, when it should have been urgently replacing stockpiles"

"Training for pandemic had been neglected for years"

"Stockpiles of PPE were rundown and out of date"

"Ministers failed to correct shortfalls in training and equipment.and did not initiate key parts of the official pandemic plan"

"Boris Johnson did not attend any of the five virus meetings held by Cobra ...  in January and February and spent 12 days out of the public eye on a 'working holiday' "

"The government failed to make meaningful contact with the .... British PPE manufacturers".

"In late February. the government sent 266,000 items of PPE to China "

Quote Downing Street adviser, "Boris didn't chair any meetings.  He liked his country breaks. He didn't work weekends."

"The Government failed to seek help [from industry] with corona virus test untill April 1, the night before Hancock announced a target of 100,000 tests a day"

 

This can only be a summary.  The full case of indictment is expressed in ten columns of dense type on pages 6 and 7 of the newspaper.   If you don't subscribe, ask your newsagent if they still have a copy tomorrow.     I don't and they had some this evening.

In any field other than government this degree of dereliction of duty would be a sacking offence.      We will have to wait another five years, but do not forget how deeply and completely the Tories let you down.

JOhn

Edited April 19, 2020 by john.r.davies

[Motorsport Mickey]

"We will have to wait another five years, but do not forget how deeply and completely the Tories let you down. "

You are banging a drum with a split skin John, the last time I looked the Conservatives were showing a 55% approval rating from the public (unheard of regions for the party in power) and I believe a 75% approval rating for Boris.

However bad the Conservatives have been (and surely we can all see areas where they have been poor) they are as the driven snow when compared against the Anti Seminite, Jeremy Corbyn " I won't make a decision upon anything...I'll say I'm neutral ! what day is it...surely time for another promise of a giveaway, have we lied to the University students again about paying for their University fees ? just say we are looking at it that was good enough last time  etc etc . Upon his withdrawal from the scene hurt now Sir Keir Starmer multi millionaire (he hates it when you mention that to him) is slllllliiiddddiinng in from the left trying against hope to hint and obfuscate enough to confuse hard edged left wing labour activists that his actions in trying to position the labour party more central falls into the brief given him by the Unions ? but also remains left wing ?

Talk about having your cake and eating it ! With the Labour party positioned where it is the most percentage chance of the Tories losing is firmly in their own hands, the various big spends put in place by the current COVID circumstances allows the Tories to try out various off the wall proposals with a national wage ( a short step from the 80% wage guarantee in place currently) from the government and decide which will work without in party backbiting. Rushi is looking a strong contender to be in with a shout for the next party leader looking very competent and is an ideal foil to Boris whose big brash lets do this, lets do that statements need gathering together and given substance. But remember whatever you think of Boris and the number of children he has and with whom and how he obviously needs a nanny to pick up the continually spilt toys he throws overboard...the public love him.

His COVID 3 week step out from leadership will be played on and the various counters against ...missed Cobra meetings...so what ? he only occasionally sits on them,  are already being issued and varieties of that rebuttal will be employed against many of the accusations. The public agrees that this pandemic has been sprung against the world and if anybody in government thought that the costs of sitting a billion masks and various PPE equipment pieces in storage when they were running an austerity programme would fly it would only have been if your name was Dianne Abbott on drugs ! There may be a re evaluation of "once in a lifetime pandemic rainy day funding costs" when we eventually come out the other side of the pandemic (whenever that is) and that will be the time to fly the idea and use the current circumstances as a rebuttal in the nature of …"any government can't afford not to". With this recent pandemic fresh in their minds the publics perception will then more easily accept increased costs taxes etc to help keep the Pandora Pandemic storage facilities stocked for the next pandemic months r years down the road.

The current carping from businesses and the various organisations about which exit strategies are being considered and which one will be chosen is the Brexit decision making process upon steroids ! The government is sensibly NOT endorsing any exit strategy because not only do they not have one but any decision made yet stands an 80% chance of being wrong ! That will then lead to carping condition number 2 "well the government said to do this" they must pay to rebuild our business, whereas if the government prevaricates the businesses will naturally have to make their own decision. Of course that's likely to be badly advised lacking certainty and there's going to be at least a likely 50-50 split upon right to wrong, the government then will have better medical opinion (guesses) and when it then comes to a decision will endorse the correct course of action which the 50% remaining firms will take. Those that made the wrong decision will "row back" as well as they can and hopefully although damaged may again be able to continue in business.  As sorry as we are for these firms it is "the thrills and spills of business and life" and the marketplace will again recover into some sort of condition as yet unknown to all.

Mick Richards 

[Peter Cobbold]

The fundamental mistake was relying upon a coterie of scientists behind closed doors. They put all thir eggs into contact tracing of symptomatic persons as per swine flu. And then it became known from China that pre-smptomatic infected people can spread virus for days. The mayhem ensued from that error, but no politician could have corrrected them, right or left wing.

===

My latest diatribe:

https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1483/rr-2

Peter

 

 

[john.r.davies]

Mickey, 

You could try to answer some of the ST's critical reports, but you can't, can you, because they are true!   And criticising Labour is irrelevant as it was the Tories who have been in power these last ten years and their responsibilty that has been so signally failed

As for current support for the Torys and their Toryboy leader, that's natural at a time of crisis.    Johnson wants to be seen as Churchillian, but even Churchill's inspiring wartime leadership did not save the Tories in 1945.     Memories of their handling of 1930s unemployment were fresh.     Five years isn't as long, so despite their trimming and buck-dodging, I hope to live to see them out of office at last. 

[barkerwilliams]

Genuine questions I have about PPE not a dig at anyone.

Could someone please explain the Care-home and  NHS Coronavirus PPE please? As far as I understand Coronavirus has no way into the human body other than mouth and possibly eyes. So from my engineering point of view the medics heads would be the place to protect, masks, shields whatever.

Now the clothing the medics are wearing almost certainly will get contaminated with virus and may transfer patient to patient, so swapping a coverall between patients would seem to be a good idea though routinely worn for a whole shift so transfer will occur. So what benefit does a gown give to either patients or medics?

Gloves, here I also have a problem. If gloves are worn they will contaminate and transfer to other patients unless changed after each patient, so why not hands which can be washed / sanitised between patients, what protection do gloves offer to either patients or medics in Coronavirus nursing?

 

Alan

[Misfit]

i Understand that the virus is fragile it’s the surrounding fat that protects the virus which is destroyed by soup and water then washing your hands. 
 

Perhaps some will think I’m  over the top,  but being venerable I have taken to washing everything that comes into my home, whether plastic material or metal. Cardboard  gets disposed of instantly and hands washed before I touch anything else except a tap. The public Washing your hands is apparently is the way to avoid transferring the virus 

Surely these PPE items could be recycled by washing with a appropriate solution, soup and water or am I being to simplistic. 
M

Edited July 27, 2020 by Misfit

[Graham]

29 minutes ago, barkerwilliams said:

Genuine questions I have about PPE not a dig at anyone.

Could someone please explain the Care-home and  NHS Coronavirus PPE please? As far as I understand Coronavirus has no way into the human body other than mouth and possibly eyes. So from my engineering point of view the medics heads would be the place to protect, masks, shields whatever.

Now the clothing the medics are wearing almost certainly will get contaminated with virus and may transfer patient to patient, so swapping a coverall between patients would seem to be a good idea though routinely worn for a whole shift so transfer will occur. So what benefit does a gown give to either patients or medics?

Gloves, here I also have a problem. If gloves are worn they will contaminate and transfer to other patients unless changed after each patient, so why not hands which can be washed / sanitised between patients, what protection do gloves offer to either patients or medics in Coronavirus nursing?

 

Alan

Alan I suspect that the gold standard would be 1 patient 1 set of ppe however on an ITU where the whole area is contaminated and all the patients have the same illness the benefit of the gown and PPE would be that at the end of the shift staff can remove their outer PPE in an 'undressing area' and then leave that area 'clean' if they didn't't then any residual contamination would be on their clothing, with regards gloves again these can be removed and then hands washed meaning that hands are virus free, but no gloves and a bad wash IE they 'missed a bit' risks transferring infection again.

Don't know anything about infection control however but do know a little about asbestos  removal and thats the basic approach the specialist removal contractors take 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Graham

[Graham]

4 minutes ago, Derek Hurford said:

i Understand that the virus is fragile it’s the surrounding fat that protects the virus which is destroyed by soup and water then washing your hands. 
 

Perhaps some will think I’m  over the top,  but being venerable I have taken to washing everything that comes into my home, whether plastic material or metal. Cupboard gets disposed of instantly and hands washed before I touch anything else except a tap. 
 

Shortly these PPE items could be recycled by washing with a appropriate solution, soup and water or am I being to simplistic. 
 

Derek  challenge is a lot of the PPE gowns are paper based so they are not washable, there is however i believe some investigation into spraying them with Hydrogen Peroxide to kill the virus before re using them 

[Crawfie]

4 hours ago, Derek Hurford said:

i Understand that the virus is fragile it’s the surrounding fat that protects the virus which is destroyed by soup and water then washing your hands. 
 

Perhaps some will think I’m  over the top,  but being venerable I have taken to washing everything that comes into my home, whether plastic material or metal. Cardboard  gets disposed of instantly and hands washed before I touch anything else except a tap. The public Washing your hands is apparently is the way to avoid transferring the virus 

Surely these PPE items could be recycled by washing with a appropriate solution, soup and water or am I being to simplistic. 
 

Derek...I know you have a sense of humour.....but what soup do you wash your hands  with ?

Explains why there was no soup left on the supermarket shelves !

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Crawfie
Spelling

[acaie]

6 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

You could try to answer some of the ST's critical reports, but you can't, can you, because they are true!   And criticising Labour is irrelevant as it was the Tories who have been in power these last ten years and their responsibilty that has been so signally failed

 

As someone of a vaguely left wing/social democrat persuasion (aka snowflake), the Labour party has been a huge disappointment for a very long time. I suggest that poor opposition makes for poor government. We should not be dependent on ST and Private Eye to challenge our government. We can rely on Private Eye to challenge governments of whatever ideology, but it's quite something when ST calls a Tory Government to account. A few weeks ago the Private Eye's medical column said if things went badly there would be 500,000 deaths, and if things went well, there would be 50,000. At the moment we seem to be doing OK, but the Germans seem to be showing us how it could have been done better. Some share my personal view it's having a scientist as the national leader that makes the difference. Some others would say it is having a lady leader, which might be true. I'm pretty sceptical that the Bullingdon club is great training for someone to manage a pandemic.

 

[Crawfie]

41 minutes ago, acaie said:

As someone of a vaguely left wing/social democrat persuasion (aka snowflake), the Labour party has been a huge disappointment for a very long time. I suggest that poor opposition makes for poor government. We should not be dependent on ST and Private Eye to challenge our government. We can rely on Private Eye to challenge governments of whatever ideology, but it's quite something when ST calls a Tory Government to account. A few weeks ago the Private Eye's medical column said if things went badly there would be 500,000 deaths, and if things went well, there would be 50,000. At the moment we seem to be doing OK, but the Germans seem to be showing us how it could have been done better. Some share my personal view it's having a scientist as the national leader that makes the difference. Some others would say it is having a lady leader, which might be true. I'm pretty sceptical that the Bullingdon club is great training for someone to manage a pandemic.

 

I don't think any Government knows/ knew how to handle C-19 when it hit the world. 

What I feel I can say is that we're in better hands than if Corbyn, Abbott and co were in charge.

[rcreweread]

So why don't they make PPE gowns washable and sterilisable? An obvious question to my mind and I've been waiting with baited breath for someone to suggest it or similar initiatives - but wait for it, this question is addressed to all those NHS managers who everyone has always claimed the NHS is overburdened with - what have they been doing?????? The media and the left take great pleasure in blaming the government  - no government can or indeed should micro manage down to the level of being responsible for the supply of PPE so why aren't these managers been held to account?

A normally unpolitical Rich driven to despair by the politics of envy, jealousy and hypochrisy espoused by largely wealthy, guilt ridden you know whos

[acaie]

37 minutes ago, Crawfie said:

I don't think any Government knows/ knew how to handle C-19 when it hit the world. 

Given the uncertainty the Germans seem to have done rather better than the UK.

[Crawfie]

4 minutes ago, acaie said:

Given the uncertainty the Germans seem to have done rather better than the UK.

So have the Swedes with no lock down. 

Every country has different circumstances to their C-19 epidemic/pandemic.

 

[Misfit]

2 hours ago, Crawfie said:

what soup do you wash your hands  with ?

I find the best washing soup ingredients, pork fat (lard) or beef fat (Tallow) coconut oil, palm oil and lye, best when cold.

The alternative of course is soap, imperial leather works. 

I must read the content prior to posting, although sometimes because the screen is so small I can’t see all the text before pressing the button. Excuses excuses.

[Crawfie]

4 minutes ago, Derek Hurford said:

2 hours ago, Crawfie said:

I find the best washing soup ingredients, pork fat (lard) or beef fat (Tallow) coconut oil, palm oil and lye, best when cold.

The alternative of course is soap, imperial leather works. 

I must read the content prior to posting, although sometimes because the screen is so small I can’t see all the text before pressing the button. Excuses excuses.

Imperial Leather.......Thought they stopped making that in the 70s .

[Misfit]

Perhaps that’s why we use soup!

[Peter Cobbold]

Nick Cussons spent the profits from Imperial Leather racing Astons during the 70s

 

[tim hunt]

A chilling experience of social distancing.

Tim

[Motorsport Mickey]

11 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

Mickey, 

You could try to answer some of the ST's critical reports, but you can't, can you, because they are true!   And criticising Labour is irrelevant as it was the Tories who have been in power these last ten years and their responsibilty that has been so signally failed

As for current support for the Torys and their Toryboy leader, that's natural at a time of crisis.    Johnson wants to be seen as Churchillian, but even Churchill's inspiring wartime leadership did not save the Tories in 1945.     Memories of their handling of 1930s unemployment were fresh.     Five years isn't as long, so despite their trimming and buck-dodging, I hope to live to see them out of office at last. 

Whether I can validate the claims made by the ST will not be the deciding factor John, as to how the public will decide upon the Tory governments decision making during the whole Coronavirus episode will decide it. As it is there are at least "some" of the claims which have already been refuted last night on TV and more again in todays press, enough I think to convince the public that other forces attributed to being called "useful idiots" by the previous rulers in the Russia are still in play.

I think your pre 30s memory (I trust this wasn't from your living memory ) of heavy unemployment causing the post war Tory election defeat is incorrect. Churchill himself said after the election loss that himself having called Stalin comrade, and enthused about standing shoulder to shoulder with "our Russian comrades" for 3 years  "a great bond had been forged between the peoples" which pulled firmly upon the British common man during the election campaign.

Indeed that was the feeling that Churchill identified when he examined the results of "Operation Unthinkable," the theoretical proposal that America and Britain having won against Germany in WW2 should then turn against Stalin and Russia. Having identified with Roosevelt when he said "I think we shot the wrong fox" ! referring to Stalins increasingly outlandish claims for territory, he realised that turning British troops against another allied army which days ago were referred to as friends would cause irreparable damage to the fabric between state and peoples. This was born out by the Socialist principle espoused Labour party winning the election.

Mick Richards 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Motorsport Mickey

[Ian Vincent]

Good morning John,

As a regular ST reader I read the article (and still have a copy if anyone is interested). It is a damning indictment but many of the wrong decisions were made by the health professionals and experts, not the politicians. That said, I expect Matt Hancock to get the chop when this is done and dusted. 

Rgds Ian

[john.r.davies]

Two weeks ago, I condemned a Twitter video advocating breathing exercises, said to save your life if you had Covid.

Ok, you want a more balanced opinion?  OK, New Scientist has interviewed Ema Swingwood, chair of the UK Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care.   Read her opinon here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2241191-can-breathing-exercises-really-help-protect-you-from-covid-19/?utm_campaign=onesignal&utm_medium=alert&utm_source=editorial

John
 

[john.r.davies]

Mickey,

That may be Churchill's opinion, and he was a good historian, as well as his other outstanding merits.    But other historians disagree, and while they may be lesser humans, they have had a wider view.     Opinion polling ceased at the start of WW2, but in 1943, Labour were 10% ahead of the Tories, despite Churchill's personal approval rate never falling below 78% and being 83% in 1945.     The Beveridge Report of 1942 proposed social security, a National Health Service, a full employment policy and other advances, all directly responding to people's experience of the 1930s.   It's no surprise that Labour campaigned vigorously for the Report to be implemented, while the Tories were, well, conservative!

Another interpretation may be allied to your point, but is wider.    Churchill exerted everything he had to win WW2, and succeded.     He was by then so identified as a War Leader that he was no longer credible as peacetime one.

See: https://www.historyhit.com/1945-churchill-defeated-labour-party/

John

 

[john.r.davies]

14 hours ago, rcreweread said:

So why don't they make PPE gowns washable and sterilisable? An obvious question to my mind and I've been waiting with baited breath for someone to suggest it or similar initiatives - but wait for it, this question is addressed to all those NHS managers who everyone has always claimed the NHS is overburdened with - what have they been doing?????? The media and the left take great pleasure in blaming the government  - no government can or indeed should micro manage down to the level of being responsible for the supply of PPE so why aren't these managers been held to account?

A normally unpolitical Rich driven to despair by the politics of envy, jealousy and hypochrisy espoused by largely wealthy, guilt ridden you know whos

Richard,

In the last forty years, the medical use of sterile items has moved away from reusable kit to the disposable.   Sterilization is labour intensive and energy intensive, and so costly, and single-use kit is cheaper.       The only re-usable kit is use today is too expensive to be disposable. such as endoscopy 'scopes and some surgical tools.    Even the last are disposable if possible.    I have several sets of beatiful ophthalmic scissors and forceps, that are very useful for delicate work such as removing splinters!   I kept them from the bin and sterilized them myself.     Surgical drapes and gowns are disposable and thrown away.   As a result, theatre autoclaves went the way of the dinosaur long ago, and Central Sterile Supply Depts, sometime working for many hospitals, provide packs for each operation.   

Then, PPE kit must be impermeable so that the patient's secretions do not penetrate.   I've often seen a surgeon remove  their gown to see blood on their scrubs.     This doesn't matter, the surgeon removes those and washes.    The fear in surgery is that  the operator infect the patient, not the other way around.     The impermeable material of PPE kit will not stand the heat or chemicals that can sterilize them.    No doubt a materials scientist could change that, but that's how they are.    You can't resterilize them, and you don't have anywhere they can be resterilized.

Finally, as any giant corporation (and the NHS used to be said to be the biggest in Europe, short of the Soviet Army, so it is the biggest now) will do, it has its own procurement department, "NHS Supply".    Apart from anything else, that can obtain the benefits of cost in large orders, and hospital managers order from them.   Why do anything else, if NHS supply can provide the goods?    This leaves little to be bought elsewhere in the UK, and the current situation leaves little elsewhere in the World.   So it is unfair to blame local NHS managers.

NHS Supply is a subsiduary of the NHS, and that cannot invest in strategic stores of PPE or anything else - it cannot afford to do so!     Who has that responsibilty, and funding?  This Government, which ran down such stores in the ten years it has had that responsibility, and then failed to rebuild them in the face of approaching menace, despite urgent advice from its own  experts.

John