FlyTheNest

The problem with the belief that the economic recovery will be neither quick or complete is that it can be self-fulfilling. .....................................Once policymakers start believing that, you don’t get the stimulus measures you need to get a complete recovery. Once economic actors believe in it, then it becomes a self-fulfilling result.

The under-fire company that runs the national free meal voucher scheme took legal action against the government almost six years ago for issuing a contract to a rival without a tender.

Schools Week revealed the government’s contract with Edenred – valued at up to £234 million – was awarded without going to tender under emergency powers introduced during covid-19.

It has emerged that in 2014 the company took the government to court for awarding its flagship tax-free childcare policy contract to the French outsourcing giant, Atos, without a public procurement process.

Morning all.

Hancock really has got a lot worse as this crisis has gone on, he genuinely was semi-reasonable to begin with.

I have been silent on covid-19 for a while. There was little to be gained from harrying the Government once it abandoned the misadventure of herd immunity and was at lease trying to get a grip. Much of the belated media onslaught is reflexive gotcha-journalism (where were they in February when the mistakes were made?) or hides an ideological agenda.

But claims by both Downing Street and Public Health England and they “got it right” cannot be allowed to stand. Nor can the pretence that each stage of the containment policy is being fed out at just the right time and at just the right calibration under the Jupiterian guidance of behaviour theorists.

There was never anything to be gained from delaying the lockdown once the bushfire had slipped control due to lack of testing/tracing. Each three days of prevarication meant a doubling of the infection case load. It was to sink deeper into quagmire. Nor did the SAGE committee ever have sufficient grasp of the basic facts to fine-tune the timing, let alone to play God.

The facts will be out but it is hard to escape the conclusion that this secretive body – neither institutional fish nor fowl, with opaque responsibilities-gravely misjudged the speed of contagion long after the danger was obvious to virologists, immunologists, and epidemiologist across the world, and indeed to anybody paying attention.

Why does it make sense to impose a two-week quarantine on foreign arrivals at this late stage (excluding Ireland and France), rather than having done so when imported cases were first causing an explosion of infections in a virgin host community?

A Covid cardiologist at a top London hospital – friendly to Boris – has been so incensed by the daily charade of bogus omniscience that he vented his spleen in an email to me on Sunday night. It is a poignant indictment, so I pass along a few snippets.

Basically, every mistake that could have been made, was made. He likened the care home policy to the Siege of Caffa in 1346, that grim chapter of the Black Death when a Mongol army catapulted plague-ridden bodies over the walls.

“Our policy was to let the virus rip and then ‘cocoon the elderly’,” he wrote. “You don’t know whether to cry when you contrast that with what we actually did. We discharged known, suspected, and unknown cases into care homes which were unprepared, with no formal warning that the patients were infected, no testing available, and no PPE to prevent transmission. We actively seeded this into every population that was most vulnerable. We let these people die without palliation. The official policy was not to visit care homes – and they didn’t (and still don’t). So, after infecting them with a disease that causes an unpleasant ending, we denied our elders access to a doctor – denied GP visits – and denied admission to hospital. Simple things like fluids, withheld. Effective palliation like syringe drivers, withheld.

The public has yet to realise that the great quest for ventilators was worse than a red herring. The overuse of ventilators was itself killing people at a terrifying ratio and behind that lies another institutional failure.

“When the inquiry comes, it will show that many people died for lack of oxygen supply in hospitals, and this led to early intubation” writes the doctor. “Boris survived because they gave him oxygen. High flow oxygen wasn’t available as a treatment option for all patients.””

This is the protective arm of the government which Matt Hancock raved about. Let the inquiry begin.

TechnicalEphemera 28m ago
“” Contact tracing. These cretins had ONE JOB.

For months they have been told it is the only way out of lockdown.

For 6 weeks they claimed it was their number one priority.

EPIC EPIC FAIL.

Couldn’t get an app becaus Dom wanted his mate to have the contract.

Couldn’t organise tracing because…. who knows

Ignored local authorities expertise because Hancock doesn’t like them as they aren’t his private mates.

We are late on everything except deaths, where we are top of the world (per capita).””

Today has not been a good day. It would appear I need to find a new job - not this second, but for next year. My school are being hopelessly legalistic and generalistic about this situation and just won't listento anything about union advice for exceptional circumstances.

Yes, people are learning about this virus all the times and will have got things wrong. All we are really asking for is that those in charge are honest and open about that.