Coronavirus update - NO MORE RESTRICTIONS

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

I took care to say throughout the year whereas you appear to be concentrating solely on the period since the firebreak which I concede the WAG have not handled well and it seems they are not making a great job of rolling out the vaccine. However, there has been a bit of a trend towards saying that Johnson and co are somehow responsible for England only and this is not true, they are the UK Government, therefore, despite the powers the WAG has with regard to healthcare in Wales, it's hardly as if they have full independence where Covid policy is concerned.

Of course they have full independence for healthcare.including Covid policy. If they choose to work with the other home nations on certain initiatives that's fine, but it's WAG decision to do that.

[Vindec]

Re: Coronavirus update

I took care to say throughout the year whereas you appear to be concentrating solely on the period since the firebreak which I concede the WAG have not handled well and it seems they are not making a great job of rolling out the vaccine. However, there has been a bit of a trend towards saying that Johnson and co are somehow responsible for England only and this is not true, they are the UK Government, therefore, despite the powers the WAG has with regard to healthcare in Wales, it's hardly as if they have full independence where Covid policy is concerned.

Deliberately I noted that you said "throughout the year". And throughout the year includes the period post firebreak. The issue appears to be that the WAGs powers have not been exercised well and I just don't see how you can possibly say that England has been more lax than Wales when that is not borne out by the statistics.
The WAG have powers to determine whether and when their firebreaks/lockdowns begin and end as well as vaccine distribution and neither have these jobs have been done well. Of course the figures in England could end up as bad as Wales but they are not there yet. But that is the point, comparisons between the two countries cannot be made until comparable data is available.

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

Cheers Hilts. So not like LB was trying to make out, unless he know's different.

I think the article refers to the number of jabs given between 8-16 December for each Health Board, not the number of vaccines handed out to each. I do note later that WAG says it's distributed by relative size of the priority population in each health board. So those with the most care homes and over 80s should have got the most. That being the case why aren't jabs being given in care homes to any extent.
My original comment that each authority got equal share came from what I believe Mark Drakeford said on TV a few weeks ago. When I have time I'll try to check it out on the WG website

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

I took care to say throughout the year whereas you appear to be concentrating solely on the period since the firebreak which I concede the WAG have not handled well and it seems they are not making a great job of rolling out the vaccine. However, there has been a bit of a trend towards saying that Johnson and co are somehow responsible for England only and this is not true, they are the UK Government, therefore, despite the powers the WAG has with regard to healthcare in Wales, it's hardly as if they have full independence where Covid policy is concerned.

What statistics?

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

Of course they have full independence for healthcare.including Covid policy. If they choose to work with the other home nations on certain initiatives that's fine, but it's WAG decision to do that.

When the WAG wanted to have a Firebreak originally,, the UK Government would not extend the furlough scheme to cover those in this country who would be losing out with the second lockdown. That situation only changed when the number of new cases started rising rapidly in other parts of the UK and the Governemnt had to go back on it's original decision to stick with their tier system - the WAG may have the decision making power in theory, but that is an example where, essentially, the UK Government makes the decisions in real life.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

Deliberately I noted that you said "throughout the year". And throughout the year includes the period post firebreak. The issue appears to be that the WAGs powers have not been exercised well and I just don't see how you can possibly say that England has been more lax than Wales when that is not borne out by the statistics.
The WAG have powers to determine whether and when their firebreaks/lockdowns begin and end as well as vaccine distribution and neither have these jobs have been done well. Of course the figures in England could end up as bad as Wales but they are not there yet. But that is the point, comparisons between the two countries cannot be made until comparable data is available.

Apologies, my "what statistics?" question clearly should have been addressed to this message not my own .

[Vindec]

Re: Coronavirus update

Apologies, my "what statistics?" question clearly should have been addressed to this message not my own .

Given that you post the cases every day I think you can find out for yourself. If you are saying the figures in Wales aren't bad and are equal or better than anywhere else please show me the figures. Do you really believe the recent stats for example produced by the WHO are wrong?

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

Given that you post the cases every day I think you can find out for yourself. If you are saying the figures in Wales aren't bad and are equal or better than anywhere else please show me the figures. Do you really believe the recent stats for example produced by the WHO are wrong?

As I’ve said a few times, I made a point of basing what I said on the whole of the period of the virus, whereas you now seem to have proved that you’re concentrating on the weeks since the Firebreak ended, so, really, we aren’t comparing like for like. From my perspective, I’ve not heard of Drakeford not bothering to turn up for meetings on COVID, I didn’t hear about him taking most of February off on holiday, he didn’t go around shaking peoples hands against scientific advice, he didn’t take too long imposing the first lockdown, because at the time no one thought it was his decision to make. I’ll leave it there for now, although I could go on a lot longer. Johnson and his Government have been lax over a period of months, unfortunately, Drakeford and the WAG have started following suit for a period of weeks and the figures reflect that.

[Vindec]

Re: Coronavirus update

As I’ve said a few times, I made a point of basing what I said on the whole of the period of the virus, whereas you now seem to have proved that you’re concentrating on the weeks since the Firebreak ended, so, really, we aren’t comparing like for like. From my perspective, I’ve not heard of Drakeford not bothering to turn up for meetings on COVID, I didn’t hear about him taking most of February off on holiday, he didn’t go around shaking peoples hands against scientific advice, he didn’t take too long imposing the first lockdown, because at the time no one thought it was his decision to make. I’ll leave it there for now, although I could go on a lot longer. Johnson and his Government have been lax over a period of months, unfortunately, Drakeford and the WAG have started following suit for a period of weeks and the figures reflect that.

I didn't want to show you the attached press article as any posts from the Daily Mail are usually rubbished. But this article contains information which covers the position long before the firebreak. Of course you are entitled to your opinion that pre firebreak the position in Wales was OK but I am also entitled to mine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8324933/The-Left-pompous-attacking-Tories-handling-crisis.html

Your postings are very biased and before you ask I was once a member of the Labour Party for many years as I have explained previously in my many exchanges with SLUDGE. Politics in Wales needs a decent opposition and sadly there isn't one and probably never will while the bias is so much in favour of one Party.

[Hilts]

Re: Coronavirus update

Re the opposition that Paul Davies appears worse than RT and thats saying something.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

I didn't want to show you the attached press article as any posts from the Daily Mail are usually rubbished. But this article contains information which covers the position long before the firebreak. Of course you are entitled to your opinion that pre firebreak the position in Wales was OK but I am also entitled to mine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8324933/The-Left-pompous-attacking-Tories-handling-crisis.html

Your postings are very biased and before you ask I was once a member of the Labour Party for many years as I have explained previously in my many exchanges with SLUDGE. Politics in Wales needs a decent opposition and sadly there isn't one and probably never will while the bias is so much in favour of one Party.

You’re putting words in my mouth now. Yoo started this conversation when you contested my view that the UK Government had been more lax than the Welsh one - that does not equate to me thinking the WAG we’re doing “okay” pre Firebreak. That leads me on to what you say about the Labour Party. I class myself as a Labour voter, but I didn’t vote for them in the last Assembly election and I don’t think think I did in the two before that - if you’re bored, you can look at my postings on COVID in the spring, you’ll see quite a few where I was critical of the WAG.

Finally, no doubt you think some articles I post on here from the Guardian are nothing more than Labour Party propaganda, well that Daily Mail article could have been written by Conservative Party Central Office. I posted about the ONS stat of one in sixty having the virus in Wales because I found it pretty alarming as it was the first week I’d noticed where the figure was worse than in England - stats like those from a politically neutral source were the sort of things I had in mind when I asked what stats you had.

[delmbox]

Re: Coronavirus update

It strikes me that they could put us in Tier 50 and as long as the schools reopen it's borderline pointless. Tens of millions of adults locked down, but tens of millions of kids mix freely and probably without any social distancing* then go home to their families. Tier 4 lockdown might help to a degree but the virus still has a very viable way to spread amongst people.

*That's not a criticism of any youngsters, it's just realistic because of the design of schools with the hallways, canteens etc

[Tuerto]

Re: Coronavirus update

It strikes me that they could put us in Tier 50 and as long as the schools reopen it's borderline pointless. Tens of millions of adults locked down, but tens of millions of kids mix freely and probably without any social distancing* then go home to their families. Tier 4 lockdown might help to a degree but the virus still has a very viable way to spread amongst people.

*That's not a criticism of any youngsters, it's just realistic because of the design of schools with the hallways, canteens etc

I don't think that there are 'tens of millions' of kids in school, not even close i would've thought, although agree with your general point.

[xsnaggle]

Re: Coronavirus update

I don't think that there are 'tens of millions' of kids in school, not even close i would've thought, although agree with your general point.

The reality of your comment on the number of kids in school may surprise you. The figures posted below are for all UK.

How many schools are there in the UK? There are currently 32,770 schools in the UK. Of these, 3,714 are nurseries or early-learning centres, 20,832 are primary schools, 19 are middle schools and 4,188 are secondary schools. There are 2,408 independent schools, 1,257 special schools and 352 pupil referral units (PRUs).28 Oct 2019

I reckon that should add up to several million.
PS. The Gov web site says in July there were 8,890,000 children in school in UK, except of course they weren't actually in school.

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

Cheers Hilts. So not like LB was trying to make out, unless he know's different.

I've had a brief look at past WG notices on distribution of the vaccine and can't find Drakeford's quote that each health authority gets an equal share. However I am sure he said it.

I did find a quote from him that Wales was the first country in the world to get supplies of the Pfizer vaccine!!

I looked again at the N Wales newspaper article and the WG spokesperson does not say that allocations to health authorities are based on the number of priority groups of patients. What he comments on are the number of jabs given to date in each health authority varying because of variance in priority group numbers. He also says that variations in allocations to each is because of ongoing distribution of stock ( ie it will even up as more stock is distributed) which ties in with my original understanding that each Authority receives the same quantity of stock.

Whatever, I just wish they would get on with using the stuff