Weston Super Saint

Are the mulitiple tests due to NHS / other key worker testing - obviously a negative test last week doesn't necessarily mean they are still negative, so any sign of a temperature / cough and they are back to be re-tested....

You seem to be forgetting that the virus is expected to infect 80% of the population. You seem to be under the impression that had the Government acted sooner then that figure would be reduced! Until a reliable, working vaccine has been developed, 80% is the stark reality. The Government 'could' have locked the whole country down in January when the first case in China was reported, but what would that have achieved apart from decimating the economy further? We could also keep the country locked down until next January, we could close the borders completely and not let a single soul in or out of the country, but again, what would that achieve with a virus with such a high infection rate? Eventually we will have to re-open the country and unless we wait long enough for the virus to have completely disappeared (incredibly unlikely to happen), then we will start our infection curve at that point, which puts us back to square one! Alternatively we can keep the country locked down and not let anyone or anything in or out until a vaccine has been developed, at that point it would still take many months to vaccinate the entire country and ensure the programme is effective. On the whole, I think the Government (and of course their various 'specialist' advisore) have done a good job, given the potency of a virus that cannot, at the moment, be eradicated. They have to balance the speed of the spread against the economic cost.

So, just so I'm clear, you stated that the Government should have followed the 'warnings from the WHO' and that because they didn't they ****ed up. I then showed that not only did we follow the 'warnings from the WHO', we did so BEFORE they even declared a pandemic. Because of that, I'm deluded! Seems like a logical argument to me!

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending20march2020

That could be the case. Could also be that the amount of testing that Germany has done has 'skewed' their figures. In the UK, testing has predominantly been carried out in hospitals on people who are sick with the virus symptoms - i.e to confirm they have the virus. We haven't been testing the young, fit people who have the symptoms - presumably because most recover with little other problems and those that don't and end up in hospital will be tested anyway. In theory then, we could have ten times the number of confirmed cases (if we tested everybody) whilst our death rate would remain unchanged, which would only serve to lower our percentage. Who knows, maybe it's a combination of the two....

Jesus wept! These are not hard figures to interpret! Germany has roughly the same amount of confirmed cases as Italy. They know this because they have tested people, LOTS of people. Germany have OVER 10% less people who have been CONFIRMED TO HAVE THE VIRUS that have died compared to ITALY. Why is that - I'll give you a clue, it's NOT because they have tested more people! Potentially the answer could be genetics as we know that the virus has a higher death rate for BAME, but I doubt that would account for 10%. More likely it is to do with recording - I recall from the early days of the virus that Germany stated that if people were dying with underlying causes, the underlying causes were recorded as the reason for the death, not sure if they are still doing this and cannot find anything to verify this. It's not a conspiracy theory, the figures are plain to see for everyone!

Deluded in your opinion - which frankly doesn't count for much. My long response above was in reply to the Times article which stated quite clearly that the Government failed to act from the Cobra meeting on the 25th January and for the next five weeks. You yourself stated that we should have listened to the advice from the WHO - the same body that didn't even declare a PHEIC until the 30th January and a pandemic on the 8th of March! The full 'Battle plan' from the Government was put in place on the 2nd of March - SIX days before the pandemic was declared! Has the Government made mistakes - undoubtedly it has. Has EVERY Government around the world also made mistakes, I'll bet my last £20 on it!! But guess what, we are facing a global pandemic, the likes of which we have never had to deal with before, so surely it's understandable that EVERY Government has got it wrong at some point? Unless you think that for some reason we should have ALL the answers, in which case, put yourself in the deluded pile! Back to the question, has there been one single reported case of someone dying whilst infected with the virus because there has not been access to the equipment required?

Something VERY fishy going on with Germany.... Spain - 196k confirmed cases. 20,639 deaths, giving death rate of 10.53% of infected patients Italy - 176k confirmed cases. 23,227 deaths, giving death rate of 13.19% of infected patients France - 112k confirmed cases. 19,323 deaths, giving death rate of 17.25% of infected patients UK - 114k confirmed cases. 15,464 deaths, giving death rate of 13.56% of infected patients Germany - 144k confirmed cases. 4,538 deaths, giving death rate of 3.15% of infected patients What have Germany put this down to? Testing! Really? The Germans want us to believe that if you test more people you will reduce the death rate of infected people by over 10%! Testing must therefore also be a magical cure - unless of course the Germans aren't correctly recording their deaths

No it isn't! So many factors contributing to the complexity of a global pandemic which you want summing up with 'yes' or 'no'. Any reported cases?

MLG-itis is catching

Has there been one single reported case of someone dying whilst infected with the virus because there has not been access to the equipment required? I haven't seen any.... If the answer to that is no, then I would say that the Government has not got things badly wrong, wouldn't you? Since the WHO declared a pandemic, the Government has overseen the building of a number of 'Nightingale' hospitals which are still sitting largely empty, that's a good thing isn't it?

Which countries? DO you also remember the fact that we have been, throughout this entire episode, been tracking TWO weeks behind Italy. Italy went into lockdown on 9th March, UK on 23rd March - by my calendar that's TWO weeks after them!

As I've posted above, they have indeed been very clear, but their timeline has been very different to the one the Times would like us to have followed! Hindsight eh?

Ah, I see, so the job of the WHO is to just accept what they are told at face value and not bother to investigate.

Ok then, but let's look at them in conjunction with the dates quoted in the Times piece : 5 weeks after Jan 24 is Feb 28. Two weeks later, human to human transmission was confirmed.... Surely he had every reason to be, given the WHO hadn't even gone to China by then.... As already quoted above. However, they also did that on 17th July 2019 regarding Ebola but the Times don't seem to be lambasting the Government for not shutting down the country and ordering vast amounts of PPE last summer.... Pretty good really as this is part of the 'pandemic planning' for a pandemic that wasn't to be announced until over five weeks later! Nice one Jeremy - I assume in early Febraury, if not late January, Jeremy was on the phone day and night to the WHO giving them the benefit of his insights? Presumably he made sure he got himself a seat on the plane for this : Although, they appear to have missed his name out of the report : https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf?sfvrsn=fce87f4e_2 So, what was the point of that WHO mission to China you ask? Well, good question and one that is answered in the document : SO between 16th and 24th February the WHO were identifying the steps that countries need to take in order to protect themselves, but the Times article seems to think this should have all been sorted a month earlier on the 25th of January! For the record, the graph that they have shown further up the page - which for some reason isn't able to be copied - shows no 'new cases' in the UK until over two weeks later on the 11th of March. Sorry, they might well regret the decision with what? Oh, that's right, HINDSIGHT!!! Odd that this is contrary to the graph they have posted - perhaps it refers to cases of people travelling in to the UK who were already infected? And yet, still NINE days before the WHO declared that there was a pandemic : What I find quite odd is that the same people who were trumpeting the research of the Cambridge scientists which has formed the basis of the Government's response from day 1 are now complaining that the Government didn't do enough because of an article in the Times - which itself refers to the benefit of hindsight! But what about the warnings from Italy I hear you ask??? Nothing came out of Italy until FOUR weeks after that first Cobra meeting : Exactly what warnings from Italy should we have heeded in order to be more prepared in those "lost five weeks from January 24" when not even a single person had died from the virus in Italy until the 22nd of February! Like I said, 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Seems like the perfect time to re-evaluate your business's strategic priority to ensure it is stronger moving forward, maybe even prioritise which customers you will service once things start to return to normal.

The same WHO who said we shouldn't stop air travel, that one?

Another spin on it.... Now that most businesses are closed down, isn't it the perfect time for a 'reset' and reallignment of strategies so when they do re-open they will know what they need to achieve?

Do you say this because you genuinely believe that all EU countries are going to reach an agreement on a deal or because you hope it will buy time to call the whole thing off?

It can't possibly be a binary deal, Shurlock has already stated that there will be a deal that is 'diametrically opposite' to a 'no deal'. Still waiting for the dinlo to enlighten us as to what that entails but he's gone quiet for now, not sure why....

Shurlock.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52318539 You'd have to be a right proper dinlo to believe Coronavirus was developed as a weapon, not sure we've got anyone quite that stupid on this forum, oh, no, wait.....

Crack on. Way too Freudian for me.

I don't drive to the same workplace every day - I have several that I need to visit - I therefore drive in different areas of Avon and Somerset on different work days. It's not a game of 'risk' with the police, merely an observation that even with the amount of driving that I have had to do, I've not been stopped by the police. It's not that hard to understand, but it seems you had trouble, hopefully this clears it up for you and gives you an insight into my fascinating life.