Coronavirus outbreak

[mjr]

It's her attempt at explaining way spending money they have will go on off road cycling and not on safe on road cycling.
By safe I think she's trying quote be back at myself. As I'd explained that the current white paint or blue signs they love to use are not safe. Even though they publicly say they are on the council website.

Could you post a bit more about this to https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cycling-and-the-coronavirus.258062/ or https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cycling-uk-advice-coronavirus.258555/ (CUK is campaigning for roads-closed-except-cycles) please? Even Belgium is using far cough concrete blocks to close lanes to cars, not only paint, despite presumed liability and IMO friendlier drivers than NL.

 

[mjr]

Did no-one think to test them before ordering them?
Or did the usual "it will be fine" bluster and bravado win out over doing the most basic of due diligence?

Even if they tested a sample prepurchase, they'd still need to test a sample of the shipped order unless you're willing to trust the supplier completely with NHS lives unnecessarily.

 

[mjr]

What would actually meet your expectations? Tests available, people have to actually go to get them if they have the symptoms, don’t think current tests pick up a non existent virus or one that has cleared?) Does desktop testing now exist that could safely be put in every GP surgery? What’s the point in testing everyone? Would you have to do it every day in case someone wasn't symptomatic but possibly incubating yesterday?

No, don't let perfectionism be the enemy of the good! More testing would probably be better but weekly would be better than now.

You're not gonna like it, but my preferred approach would be to do whatever we can to follow Germany. So we can't move Roche here, but we have GSK and AstraZeneca and some great universities, so we shouldn't be totally farked on that front. Ramp uptesting, not for a day, properly. I'd send the army in, properly in, in charge, to logistics and containment of hotspots. I'd devolve unlocking and other things like transport to the metro mayors and arbitrarily create metro mayors for the rest of England, maybe bootstrapped from counties and unitaries - a total reverse of previous Tory policy but we've had plenty of those in this crisis - in an attempt to replicate the German states.

Yes, a whole infrastructure has to be created, but the govt is only doing a few high-profile bits of it and we need more! We deserve more! Not distractions on Turkish coats and app fiddle.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I'd offer to run the country but I'm too busy currently with my polyamorous lover and my mathematical models.

Will that take you all day? Come on man, Blitz Spirit...

 

[Rusty Nails]

Did no-one think to test them before ordering them?
Or did the usual "it will be fine" bluster and bravado win out over doing the most basic of due diligence?

Or did the quality of stuff delivered not meet the specifications ordered/promised?

I don't know, do you?

 

[Julia9054]

Head of highways even said having met local cycling groups they'd said they prefer to cycle off road.

Are they planning on creating an off road route for everywhere anyone might need to go? That sounds good!

 

[marinyork]

No, don't let perfectionism be the enemy of the good! More testing would probably be better but weekly would be better than now.

You're not gonna like it, but my preferred approach would be to do whatever we can to follow Germany. So we can't move Roche here, but we have GSK and AstraZeneca and some great universities, so we shouldn't be totally farked on that front. Ramp uptesting, not for a day, properly. I'd send the army in, properly in, in charge, to logistics and containment of hotspots. I'd devolve unlocking and other things like transport to the metro mayors and arbitrarily create metro mayors for the rest of England, maybe bootstrapped from counties and unitaries - a total reverse of previous Tory policy but we've had plenty of those in this crisis - in an attempt to replicate the German states.

Yes, a whole infrastructure has to be created, but the govt is only doing a few high-profile bits of it and we need more! We deserve more! Not distractions on Turkish coats and app fiddle.

There's copying Germany and copying Germany. For me this means not focussing on PCR which is a useful, but flawed technology in it's early form, which is ultimately where most of the arguments come in.

I think the government needs to iron out issues with PCR and then stop focussing on that so much. For PCR aspects carry on working on tech and logistical innovations that'll make it run better/more local.

The government needs an antibody plan over the summer. There are over the summer easily available packages that can be sent to laboratories on a mass scale compared to what's gone on till now. The government need to do more immunity research (I believe they have been doing it, but kept it almost completely secret), pass legislation to stop people discriminating on the virus (this was in the SPI-B stuff and the scariest bit as the government don't seem to have listened to any of it).

Germany has already done some studies on percentage of the population that's had it (worryingly for much of Europe one study suggested 2%). We haven't, although IPSOS Mori teaming up with researchers are supposed to be doing that this week - results when? These studies are only the start we'll have to do wave after wave of them the next 12 months.

 

[tom73]

Are they planning on creating an off road route for everywhere anyone might need to go? That sounds good!

I agree that wound be a great idea
I was trying to explain that's what we really need and a bike is more than just something for a Sunday afternoon potter in the park.
Sadly no what they are talking about having put together what I know and has been made public.
Is something they already had planned months ago.
Which when you look is two short sections of cycle path linking 2 industrial estates to the near by housing estates.
I asked how do get them by car ? That's was in the email which got the reply which called me a zealot.

 

[Rusty Nails]

I have some concerns over privacy and mass surveillance, but I am in two minds over this app, assuming of course that the government can get the technology to work properly.

If the more pessimistic scenario means that there could be a lot more deaths with further waves then I would reluctantly be prepared to risk its use as a temporary measure, if it helps significantly reduce the numbers.

If we have reached the peak and things are likely to carry on improving I am not sure the privacy risk is worth taking.

Like everything in this pandemic we will not know if, or how much, it improves things until after it has been tried, so it also makes sense to trial it first, although how typical the IoW is of the rest of the UK, and how you extrapolate the results of a small island trial nationally in a limited timescale, I do not know.

 

[lane]

Or did the quality of stuff delivered not meet the specifications ordered/promised?

I don't know, do you?

I think the main priority at the time was to have something to announce at the evening press conferences. To a point it achieved what it needed to.

 

[Rusty Nails]

I think the main priority at the time was to have something to announce at the evening press conferences. To a point it achieved what it needed to.

Our demand for instant information forces the government into decisions for PR purposes.

 

[Edwardoka]

Or did the quality of stuff delivered not meet the specifications ordered/promised?

I don't know, do you?

Let's apply Occam's Razor

I've been on both sides of the User Acceptance Testing procedure and know that the only way to cover your ass is to sign off on nothing until both sides have done thorough testing well in advance of any product being shipped.

What's easier to believe:

• that the batch they tested before signing off on the consignments met the specifications and everything else didn't
• that Turkey did a switcheroo because reasons
• that the UK government got a procurement process badly wrong (they are so well known for their excellent procurement!)

Bear in mind that this is the same government that

• had a public policy of herd immunity and "take it on the chin"
• hired a noted eugenicist
• was slow to react, when it finally did as described in detail upthread
• claimed to have performed three hundred thousand and thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand coronavirus tests despite that not being a number
• is led by a man so idiotic and arrogant that he went to a ward where they were treating covid patients and shook everyone's hand
• created a rod for its own back by talking about 100,000 tests per day without providing any of the surrounding procedures that makes those tests meaningful
• managed 100,000 tests for for one day using extremely creative accounting, and then subsequently failed to get close to 100,000 tests in any day since
• has presided over the second highest number of covid deaths in the world despite having a significant warning period AND inbuilt point-of-entry infrastructure
• contains most of the people who were involved in the last government's noted high points like awarding a ferry contract to a company with no ferries

Hmm I dunno man. This seems too complex to figure out. I am 110,034 348,000% sure it wasn't the UK government's procurement process though.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Let's apply Occam's Razor

I've been on both sides of the User Acceptance Testing procedure and know that the only way to cover your ass is to sign off on nothing until both sides have done thorough testing well in advance of any product being shipped.

What's easier to believe:

• that the batch they tested before signing off on the consignments met the specifications and everything else didn't
• that Turkey did a switcheroo because reasons
• that the UK government got a procurement process badly wrong (they are so well known for their excellent procurement!)

Bear in mind that this is the same government that

• had a public policy of herd immunity and "take it on the chin"
• hired a noted eugenicist
• was slow to react, when it finally did as described in detail upthread
• claimed to have performed three hundred thousand and thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand coronavirus tests despite that not being a number
• is led by a man so idiotic and arrogant that he went to a ward where they were treating covid patients and shook everyone's hand
• created a rod for its own back by talking about 100,000 tests per day without providing any of the surrounding procedures that makes those tests meaningful
• managed 100,000 tests for for one day using extremely creative accounting, and then subsequently failed to get close to 100,000 tests in any day since
• has presided over the second highest number of covid deaths in the world despite having a significant warning period AND inbuilt point-of-entry infrastructure
• contains most of the people who were involved in noted high points like awarding a ferry contract to a company with no ferries

Hmm I dunno man. This seems too complex to figure out. I am 110,034 348,000% sure it wasn't the UK government's procurement process though.

It's easier and more reliable to wait for information before reaching conclusions.

 

[Edwardoka]

It's easier and more reliable to wait for information before reaching conclusions.

Indeed. I laid out several hypotheses. The application of Occam's razor is an exercise best left to the reader.

Edit to add: sorry if I was being obnoxious, I received some terrible news earlier (not covid related) and it's put me in a very odd headspace. Hiatus time, methinks.

Be well, folks.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

One thing's for sure, we need to take a long hard look at the NHS when this is all over. How the hell some hospitals can report no issues with PPE whatsoever whilst other ones are ripping up bin bags to wear isn't anything to do with government, it's to do with rank incompetence by some NHS managers. As a whole, the NHS has performed magnificently but some parts appear to have really screwed the pooch.

We also need to look at care homes. Again, some have been terrible but a lot of them have coped well, have zero infections and no issues. They don't make the news though.

As for the care homes that are increasing charges to residents to cover the costs of PPE...