COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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Agree with a lot of what you say George but that is unmitigated bollocks. I read the Spectator specifically because it gives a platform to alternative viewpoints without the vitriol which would accompany dissenting views in social media. It helps to keep an open mind.
Sorry friend but I'm not an admirer of Barclay Bros publications generally and I suspect their Spectator gossip columnist who did the job on Ferguson is actually Charles Moore - his ideological preferences are pretty well known.
 
I was losing a debate on Twitter (separate to the one on here) so emailed Neil Ferguson to help me out. Fair play to the guy, he sent me a response.

COVID-19. Serology and death data from NYC quite compatible, though you do have to allow for NYC population being younger than most of the US.
Best,
Neil
 
Responsibility in the main resides with:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health-and-social-care/about

In particular through its framework with:

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ework_agreement_between_DHSC_and_PHE_2018.pdf

Which results in informing the management:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/board/members/

to deliver its:

https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/

I personally think that it is really disappointing that some people's (hopefully only a few and certainly not aimed at you) need to apportion blame becomes their primary focus.

I guess if people simply must identify individuals to blame then you will find some on this organogram:

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ata/file/827548/PHE_Leadership_organogram.pdf

Afterall they have amongst their remit the responsibility to:

"...….. This means providing the national infrastructure for health protection including: an integrated surveillance system; providing specialist services, such as diagnostic and reference microbiology; developing, translating and exploiting public health science, including developing the application of genomic technologies; investigation and management of outbreaks of infectious diseases and environmental hazards; ensuring effective emergency preparedness, resilience and response for health emergencies, including global health security and work on antimicrobial resistance; acting as the focal point for the UK on the International Health Regulations; and evaluating the effectiveness of the immunisation programme and procuring and supplying vaccines...."

and:

".....Improve population health supporting sustainable health and care services through, for example: promoting the evidence on public health interventions and analysing future demand to help shape future services; working with NHS England on effective preventative strategies...……"

Personally I am in the camp that does not need to vent (or invent) frustrations to try and drag people down. I think that this is simply a global emergency and when such a thing occurs it will always be possible to use the convenience of hindsight to apportion blame - if you are so minded

I have answered your question here - because this is where it was asked - but I would suggest that any further discussion occurs in the Covid political thread - which I have still not gone through to catch-up on the 3 weeks of absence.
Thank you for putting that material together. Much appreciated.

From my perspective and experience, when things go fundamentally wrong (as I believe they have), it is seldom or ever one person or even a group of individuals 'fault'. It is almost always an 'organisational' problem. From what you have provided, it is (maybe naturally) difficult to pick out specifics for pandemic planning although it is obviously the overarching responsibility of the Department of Health and Care:
  • setting direction: we anticipate the future and lead debate ensuring we protect and improve global and domestic health
At first glance, they have governance of risk in place with a risk audit committee which no doubt has ownership of its own risk register (including pandemic at the very top). Interestingly there is no risk function on the top line of the Health England organogram you posted. Neither is there any of the 30 odd advisory groups looking at anything to do with pandemic management.

I have only spent a very little time on it so may well have questions. If I do I will post them on the political thread. For now though, the material will certainly improve my understanding of the model which was what I originally asked for so cheers for that.
 
Has anyone claimed it to be 100%, daily, continuously, or otherwise? the figures i have seen range between an increase of 2-3% higher than corredponding quarters. Which, don't get me wrong, im not trying to diminish the impact of, is still terrible, any increase in death however small is. But it isnt as extreme and the proportionality of the extremity of the measures and impact is a valid question to consider. It is a balance, and i give the country credit for recognising that and the difficulty in walking that fine tight line.
The link I posted with graphics a few posts back shows 100% increase over the usual level of deaths per day (all causes).
 
Sweden is an interesting one really. When you look apply some of the other data that may have been missed off the modelling.

sweden has a very sparse population, approximately 25 per square Km, compared to 270 odd for uk and 400+ for England. That is a natural social distancing the UK can’t do.

they have a very introverted nature. Touching is generally not a done thing in public so again a natural social distancing.

add onto that the fact that a lot are self isolating anyways.

one thing I heard that I have not had verified tho is the sweeds tend to leave the nest young. So you don’t have older generation being infected by the younger who are still out and about.

Yeah, read all the same too. While I don't agree with Sweden's approach personally, it's just not really comparable with the UK's situation. Worlds apart, context-wise.
 
Don't want this to come across wrong, of course anyone who needs NHS help should get it, but if we can create a culture where far fewer people waste everyone's time clogging up A&E with things a GP or Out of Hours can sort, the better. We need to re-establish walk-ins during this time and try and correct what in the past 2 decades has been a needless crushing of our A&E departments.

Shame we don't have a government that can spot opportunities like this in the "downtime", before everyone goes back out partying again and cramming our essential services up.
My thoughts exactly on this, all those people going in because they stubbed their toe etc or wanting paracetamol because they can’t go to Asda for a 24p pack it was bloody ridiculous. If you phoned 999 they basically had to send an ambulance even for the most trivial shite. Get the cancer patients back and those that really need it ( I don’t include the IVF and other such stuff that should be paid for privately), oh and cull a lot of those shit managers who have contributed to a lot of past bad spending.
 
Unlike many supporters of repressive regimes on here I am committed to an open society. Its enemies btw include several Spectactor contributors - who occupy the right/left point of totalitarian intersection in classic (if currently unfashionable) horseshoe fashion. If you find succour in the absurd and unfalsifiable theories churned out by Momentum etc I suppose that explains why you keep recycling their ordure .
You want an open society but don’t want anything questioned that your government experts peddle? Resistance is useless. As for your stock Momentum response. Really?
It’s a good job you and your ilk didn’t question the experts on Brexit or people might have voted leave...
 
Yeah, read all the same too. While I don't agree with Sweden's approach personally, it's just not really comparable with the UK's situation. Worlds apart, context-wise.

The key thing about Sweden is they took some big measures early. Restricting mass gatherings in early March and banning non-EEA flights in mid-March arguably gave them the breathing room to keep lots of their economy functioning.
 
The U.K. went through a pandemic testing exercise in 2016 and failed miserably. One of the failures was PPE. Since then stocks have reduced or become out of date. Whilst you can’t know the exact nature of a pandemic there are many things you can prepare for. We didn’t and to compound that our eventual response was at least a month late. No amount of ww2 rhetoric from the government and applauding the Nhs should hide those simple facts.
Correct in a number of ways - although the case would have been that DHSC and the NHS Board were making balanced judgements on where to prioritise procurements/readiness - so, as a potential example, prioritising known shortages of key medicines, to stockpile PPE would also have left them open to criticism.

At least if some on here cannot resist the need to use hindsight to place criticism then I have recently posted where the responsibilities lie so they can stop getting it wrong and actually seek to drag the right people down.

That would include responsibilities such as the procurement of PPE and instructing care homes on their requirements to stock PPE - 2 areas amongst others that I have see misunderstood on here.
 
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You want an open society but don’t want anything questioned that your government experts peddle? Resistance is useless. As for your stock Momentum response. Really?
It’s a good job you and your ilk didn’t question the experts on Brexit or people might have voted leave...
'Your' government? It is 'our' government even if you didn't vote for it. It is 'our' government's experts trying to guide us and 'our' country that is coming apart at the seams and 'our' families and friends that are dying in this nightmare. Trying to engage in ancient Brexit feuds at a time like this is strictly for Momentum duped juveniles and I'm genuinely surprised you are posting such rubbish.
 
Even though they have their own thread to discuss it and slag the govt to the hearts content , they are like a virus ....

I can only assume they have nobody to argue with on the politics thread
I have answered some posts on this thread seeking to help the understanding of people about where the responsibilities that I keep seeing being used to criticise the government. This should help them apportion criticism to those actually responsible.

This should help all those that wish to genuinely understand - although be inconvenient for those that are just seeking to be Captain Hindsight for agenda reasons. I have no axe to grind or political bias either way. I have only ever really shown support for a Tory government in recent months about Brexit - I have slagged it off for years before that.

I have only replied to posts on this thread because this is where I have found these comments or questions.

As you say - further discussion should really take place in the political thread
 
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blah blah blah. The pandemic plan is there for a reason. It needs to be competent, current and have the correct oversight. When it is tested, results need to be acted on. Pandemics are always on the top 2 or 3 risks on any national risk register. Anyone that cant agree with that simple truth is either an idiot or is deliberately trying to deflect. This government might count themselves as unlucky to have to deal with it but that is no reason for allowing them to deny their responsibility.
Good post until the last line - which my recent post(s) should identify where to apportion blame

I do not want to be an apologist for the government - but I can imagine that they will have been shocked and more than a little pissed off with DHSC and in particular PHE - to a lesser extent the NHS Board - as events have unfolded.

Where I place a level of blame on the government is - to use contracting jargon - the speediness in which they effectively exercised their 'Step-In-Rights'.

I think that they should have 'stepped-in' and took control a couple of weeks earlier - but that does not excuse those in DHSC, PHE and NHS that should have been undertaking strategic planning over recent years and procuring PPE in the late 2019 months.
 
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'Your' government? It is 'our' government even if you didn't vote for it. It is 'our' government's experts trying to guide us and 'our' country that is coming apart at the seams and 'our' families and friends that are dying in this nightmare. Trying to engage in ancient Brexit feuds at a time like this is strictly for Momentum duped juveniles and I'm genuinely shocked you are posting such rubbish.
Oh dear. Do you ever actually read what’s posted or do you pick a word here, a word there, and then pick a few words from your usual 100 words and just bluster your reply? I call them ‘your’ government because you cloud all your posts with that view. You also seem a tad obsessed with Momentum and seem to be confusing me with someone who supports them.

Also, it’s not reigniting a Brexit feud, it’s just saying that your view seems to be that ‘our’ government and ‘our’ government experts advised everyone, at the time of the referendum, to vote remain and you thought they should be challenged and questioned. After that many didn’t believe what they were being told. On this issue, you’re suggesting that we should now just shut up, accept everything we’re fed and do as we are told, without asking whether the medicine is killing the patient.
A strange view of a small government, open society.
 
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Thank you for putting that material together. Much appreciated.

From my perspective and experience, when things go fundamentally wrong (as I believe they have), it is seldom or ever one person or even a group of individuals 'fault'. It is almost always an 'organisational' problem. From what you have provided, it is (maybe naturally) difficult to pick out specifics for pandemic planning although it is obviously the overarching responsibility of the Department of Health and Care:
  • setting direction: we anticipate the future and lead debate ensuring we protect and improve global and domestic health
At first glance, they have governance of risk in place with a risk audit committee which no doubt has ownership of its own risk register (including pandemic at the very top). Interestingly there is no risk function on the top line of the Health England organogram you posted. Neither is there any of the 30 odd advisory groups looking at anything to do with pandemic management.

I have only spent a very little time on it so may well have questions. If I do I will post them on the political thread. For now though, the material will certainly improve my understanding of the model which was what I originally asked for so cheers for that.
As you look further into things - and that will be difficult because of the complexity of different parts of the Health Sector Body - (NICE and the CQC roles are also important - as are the various parts of the NHS that control Commissioning - and that is complex in itself) - you will find that if one organisation must be held 'to blame' it is PHE which is why I linked their framework of responsibilities that they discharge for DHSC and onwards and upwards to the SoS and PM.

With your commercial management experience you will be familiar with Step-In-Rights and how they fit within contracts.

Exercising those rights is essentially what happened when the SoS 'stepped-in' in March. It is also why it is entirely appropriate that PHE are at all the briefings - they should be as the prevention and management of what has occurred is their responsibility.

People miss that and just assume the government are hiding behind experts - personally I have been pleased to see Hancock not holding then out to dry and being collective.
 
The number of people who have died with coronavirus in hospitals in England has risen by 327 to 21,180.

In Northern Ireland, five more people have died with COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 381.

A further 14 people have died in Wales, taking the total number of deaths there to 983, Public Health Wales said

Scotland 12
 
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The number of people who have died with coronavirus in hospitals in England has risen by 327 to 21,180.

In Northern Ireland, five more people have died with COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 381.

A further 14 people have died in Wales, taking the total number of deaths there to 983, Public Health Wales said



Scotland to come

12 Scotland, ICU dropped below 100, only to 99 and make go back above tomorrow but somehow feels like a significant point considering we were above 220 just a couple of weeks ago.

The latest figures released by the Scottish government show that 12,097 people have tested positive for Covid-19, an increase of 170 from yesterday.

There are 1,666 patients in hospital with a suspected or confirmed case (down eight), with 99 being treated in intensive care (down nine).

A further 12 people who tested positive have died, taking the total to 1,571 deaths in Scotland by that measure.

*Data published by National Records of Scotland (NRS), which include all cases where Covid-19 is mentioned on a death certificate, shows the number of deaths linked to Covid-19 is much higher than the daily totals.
 
Oh dear. Do you ever actually read what’s posted or do you pick a word here, a word there, and then pick a few words from your usual 100 words and just bluster your reply? I call them ‘your’ government because you cloud all your posts with that view. You also seem a tad obsessed with Momentum and seem to be confusing me with someone who supports them.

Also, it’s not reigniting a Brexit feud, it’s just saying that your view seems to be that ‘our’ government and ‘our’ government experts advised everyone, at the time of the referendum, to vote remain and you thought they should be challenged and questioned. After that many didn’t believe what they were being told. On this issue, you’re suggesting that we should now just shut up, accept everything we’re fed and do as we are told, without asking whether the medicine is killing the patient.
A strange view of a small government, open society.
It's a simple question of judgement friend. Brexit is a political issue and was debated as such. The referendum invited the electorate to choose. Having done so it was a pity the losing lobby didn't accept the result and we had to endure another 3 years of delay.

We are now in the midst of an unprecedented national and global emergency where criticisms of our government's actions need to be measured and constructive. Sadly those qualities are not a feature of your posts.
 
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Pressure growing on the gov according to sky news to bring us out of lockdown? I wonder if boris will buckle on thur and agree to it?
 
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