FlyTheNest

refitman wrote:Morning all.

"Toby Harris, who has long campaigned for a UK alert system, said the British emergency messaging service had been a victim of inter-government squabbles and concerns over who would provide funding.
“It’s fallen between government departments as to who is going to pick up the bill, who’s going to lead on it, and all sorts of issues,” said Lord Harris, who highlighted the effectiveness of similar systems in Australia and Portugal for warning about risks from forest fires.
The Labour peer said the inability to inform the public of an impending risk to life was a major flaw in the government’s toolkit: “What is ridiculous is that you haven’t got the facility available.”

Hinkley Point C work to carry on but HS2 could be paused

Major infrastructure projects highlight varying approaches to the coronavirus outbreak (Guardian)

PorFavor wrote:Good morfternoon.

Hinkley Point C work to carry on but HS2 could be paused
Major infrastructure projects highlight varying approaches to the coronavirus outbreak (Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ould-pause

Some of the 4,000-strong workforce at Hinkley, Britain’s biggest construction project, have raised concerns over an outbreak of coronavirus at the Somerset site after the government shut down restaurants, pubs and schools to contain the outbreak elsewhere.
Around 1,500 workers helping to build Britain’s first new nuclear plant in decades live in temporary shared accommodation, either on the site or nearby, returning to their homes across the country at the end of each rota pattern.

So, come 2020 and COVID-19 causes disaster in China, Iran and Italy. Epidemiologists and doctors from around the world observe, and learn valuable lessons:

the virus is insidious with a long incubation, any population actions you take will only have an effect weeks later
the virus spreads remarkably quickly and effectively
the virus causes an unusually large proportion of patients to require invasive ventilatory support
early large scale testing, and social distancing measures, are effective at stopping exponential growth
stopping exponential growth is VITAL to preventing your critical care systems from being overwhelmed.

Everyone in the world could see these things. But despite this, very few governments chose to act.

The UK did the opposite of acting. In an act of what I see as sheer arrogance, they chose to do nothing, per the early stages of their disaster plan. There was some initial contact tracing, but this stopped when it was clear that there was significant community spread and exponential growth. And after this? They did not ramp up testing capabilities. They did not encourage social distancing. They did not boost PPE supply, or plan for surge capacity. They ignored advice from the WHO, public health experts in other country; epidemiologists, scientists and doctors in their own. I can tell you with certainty now that they did not even collect regular statistics for how many COVID patients were being admitted to critical care in the UK. They did nothing.

RogerOThornhill wrote:Morning all.

My son, who works for a financial services company in Wales got a text last night after the PM's address to the nation saying that they should still cone into work today...it said "the advice was clear that we can still travel to and from work"

What can you do with people like that?

Under the rescue measures, around 50 billion euros are to be earmarked for small businesses and self-employed workers, who are to receive direct grants of up to 15,000 euros over three months.

From the start of April until the end of June 2020, landlords in Germany will no longer be allowed to evict their tenants if they cannot pay their rents because of reasons related to the pandemic.

In further developments in Germany, the eastern state of Saxony has agreed to take in at least six Italian patients infected with the virus who cannot receive treatment in Italy. State premier Michael Kretschmer said on Monday hospitals in Dresden and Leipzig currently had enough capacity and its doctors could learn about treating the novel coronavirus.

Over the weekend the south-western states of Saarland and Baden-Württemberg also took in patients from the neighbouring Alsace region, one of France’s Corona hotspots.

Max
‏
@SpillerOfTea
50m50 minutes ago
More
50 Ways To Survive Coronavirus

Stay in your flat, Pat,
Don’t visit your nan, Stan,
Don’t buy all the bread, Ted,
Just listen to me,
Don’t hop on the bus, Gus,
Don’t hoard all the cous cous,
Leave some bogroll for me, Lee,
And maybe some brie.

gilsey wrote:James Plunkett
@jamestplunkett
A heartbreaking sign of our times. This is the livestream of people turning to
@CitizensAdvice
for help: https://bit.ly/2wB5hbJ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; The search terms speak for themselves. Our website is now nearing 400,000 hits a *day* - and the underlying stats are staggering. (1/n)

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://advicetracker.devops.citizensadvice.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The fact is that [the 5m group] that we’re dealing with contains such a wide variety of different people where we don’t have the ability to target support - that’s the challenge that we have in designing something that gets to the people that we want it to help whilst at the same time being affordable, not having to benefit absolutely everybody.

PorFavor wrote:We could certainly do without the need for the existence of foodbanks, but the reasons for the existence of the other two are probably more nuanced.

gilsey wrote:'Affordable'




We're looking at a 20% drop in GDP and similar deficit and they're worried about some higher-earning self-employed peeps getting a billion or so they don't really need.

David Osland
‏

@David__Osland
1h1 hour ago
More
Coronavirus has led some Labour MPs are return to their jobs as frontline NHS and social care workers. And to be fair to the Tories, some Conservative MPs are selflessly maintaining multiple non-executive directorships to help Britain through this time of crisis.

Sadiq Khan’s office is saying Transport for London cannot run a full service on the tube because so many staff are absent. A spokesman for the mayor of London said:

This is simply not true. The mayor has told ministers countless times over recent days that TfL simply cannot safely run a full service because of the levels of staff sickness and self-isolation. Nearly a third of staff are already absent - there aren’t enough drivers and control staff to do it.

The government must act urgently to get more people staying at home rather than going to work unnecessarily - that means taking the difficult decisions they are refusing to take to ban non-essential construction work and provide proper financial support to freelancers, the self employed and those on zero hours contracts to stay at home.

PorFavor wrote:@gilsey

What's "simply not true", please?

Hancock implicitly blamed Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, for overcrowding on some London tube trains today. (See 10.52am for some video footage.) Asked about the problem, Hancock said:

"When it comes to the tube, the first and the best answer is that Transport for London [which is run by Khan] should have the tube running in full so that people travelling on the tube are spaced out and can be further apart - obeying the two-metre rule wherever possible. And there is no good reason in the information that I’ve seen that the current levels of tube provision should be as low as they are. We should have more tube trains running."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... 201096ce66" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In response to what Matt Hancock was saying (see 5.46pm), Sadiq Khan’s office is saying Transport for London cannot run a full service on the tube because so many staff are absent. A spokesman for the mayor of London said:

"This is simply not true. The mayor has told ministers countless times over recent days that TfL simply cannot safely run a full service because of the levels of staff sickness and self-isolation. Nearly a third of staff are already absent - there aren’t enough drivers and control staff to do it.

The government must act urgently to get more people staying at home rather than going to work unnecessarily - that means taking the difficult decisions they are refusing to take to ban non-essential construction work and provide proper financial support to freelancers, the self employed and those on zero hours contracts to stay at home."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... 5eda235f40" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

21 March 2020
Status of COVID-19
As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.
The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.
The need to have a national, coordinated response remains, but this is being met by the government’s COVID-19 response.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-conseq ... eases-hcid" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Senior Conservatives are questioning whether Boris Johnson will need a national unity government or emergency cross-party council to share responsibility for the coronavirus crisis if the situation worsens.

George Freeman, a former minister in Johnson’s government, was the first to break cover to say a “Covid coalition” government may be “unavoidable” and some other Tory MPs privately believe the prime minister will need cross-party governing consensus if emergency measures are to continue for months.

One Tory MP said there was a political argument that Johnson may be keen to “drag Labour in” so the public do not associate the crisis solely with the Conservatives, if the situation worsens.

Freeman told the Guardian: “The scale of this national emergency – the suspension of usual freedoms and democracy, the economic consequences and the likely loss of tens of thousands of lives – demands a suspension of politics as usual.

PorFavor wrote:@RogerOThornhill

From your linked article:

Freeman told the Guardian: “The scale of this national emergency – the suspension of usual freedoms and democracy, the economic consequences and the likely loss of tens of thousands of lives – demands a suspension of politics as usual.

Demands a Labour fall-guy, more like.

citizenJA wrote:

PorFavor wrote:@RogerOThornhill

From your linked article:

Freeman told the Guardian: “The scale of this national emergency – the suspension of usual freedoms and democracy, the economic consequences and the likely loss of tens of thousands of lives – demands a suspension of politics as usual.

Demands a Labour fall-guy, more like.

They'll have to do what they can to help, of course, the opposition parties, I mean. I'd like telling the government their piss-poor leadership means they need to get out of the way for better but I know now isn't the time for an election. Maybe the monarch can make a change.

citizenJA wrote:

PorFavor wrote:@RogerOThornhill

From your linked article:

Freeman told the Guardian: “The scale of this national emergency – the suspension of usual freedoms and democracy, the economic consequences and the likely loss of tens of thousands of lives – demands a suspension of politics as usual.

Demands a Labour fall-guy, more like.

They'll have to do what they can to help, of course, the opposition parties, I mean. I'd like telling the government their piss-poor leadership means they need to get out of the way for better but I know now isn't the time for an election. Maybe the monarch can make a change.

How coronavirus advice from Boris Johnson has changed
From shaking hands to shaking a big stick – the PM’s stance on the contagion has evolved rapidly
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... as-changed" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

frog222 wrote:---
The ERG-Tories ballsed it up so far, they OWN it .

adam wrote:---
I suspect as well that they think they can provoke a labour row by trailing the idea that Starmer might be asked to join.