Coronavirus update - NO MORE RESTRICTIONS

[the other bob wilson]

Given that Germany were considered to be a paragon of virtue that country has declared a third lockdown, described as a third pandemic, by Merkel today. Perhaps we are not doing so badly going forward after all.

UK Covid figures v Germany (in brackets)

taken from here;-

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

deaths 126,284 (75,708)
cases per million 63,208 (32,023)
deaths per million 1,853 (902)

Things have got to change an awful lot before we can look upon Germany as being inferior to us when it comes to tackling the pandemic.

Maybe a reason why our death rate is more than double Germany's is that we had a policy whereby your chances of receiving intensive care treatment, or even being admitted to hospital decreased if you were over 60 and suffered from either hypertension or diabetes?

I've got that information from this book that I'm currently two thirds of the way through;-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Failures-St...s&pageNumber=2

As yet, the test and trace shambles and the cronyism charges have barely got a mention, but I've just finished a couple of heart wrenching chapters about how older patients were, essentially, left to die after being refused the ventilator treatment they would have received in pre pandemic times.

I should emphasise that the two journalists who wrote the book do not work for the Mirror or the Guardian, but for the Sunday Times and former Minister for exiting Europe, David Davis, is quoted on the subject of refusing treatment to the oldest patients as follows;-

It had "fatal consequences for thousands whose lives could have been rescued"

"The policy appears to have given the least care to those who needed it most. It is profoundly wrong that the government did not come clean to the public about this tragedy.".

[surge]

Boris Johnson says that there are many things he would have done differently in hindsight

'The single biggest false assumption we made was about the potential for asymptomatic transmission, and that did govern a lot of policy in the early days'

Sir Patrick Vallance says the one thing that would have made a difference early on would have been 'better data early on' so virus could be tracked

'We simply didn't have that data at the beginning'

https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/...09715401195532

Though as I put to the Health Secretary last summer, SAGE were warning about asymptomatic transmission at the outset of the pandemic. This argument has previously been used by the government to explain the high death toll in care homes, but it was discussed from early on.

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/sta...10666157568007

Few things to think about that:

i) lack of data due to low testing capacity which is one area Germany had the advantage - cuts to capacity in UK over 10 years
ii) False impression being provided by the politicians
iii) Most deaths happened in winter when there was information - Sunak wanted to stop a lockdown.

[goats]

UK Covid figures v Germany (in brackets)

taken from here;-

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

deaths 126,284 (75,708)
cases per million 63,208 (32,023)
deaths per million 1,853 (902)

Things have got to change an awful lot before we can look upon Germany as being inferior to us when it comes to tackling the pandemic.

Maybe a reason why our death rate is more than double Germany's is that we had a policy whereby your chances of receiving intensive care treatment, or even being admitted to hospital decreased if you were over 60 and suffered from either hypertension or diabetes?

I've got that information from this book that I'm currently two thirds of the way through;-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Failures-St...s&pageNumber=2

As yet, the test and trace shambles and the cronyism charges have barely got a mention, but I've just finished a couple of heart wrenching chapters about how older patients were, essentially, left to die after being refused the ventilator treatment they would have received in pre pandemic times.

I should emphasise that the two journalists who wrote the book do not work for the Mirror or the Guardian, but for the Sunday Times and former Minister for exiting Europe, David Davis, is quoted on the subject of refusing treatment to the oldest patients as follows;-

It had "fatal consequences for thousands whose lives could have been rescued"

"The policy appears to have given the least care to those who needed it most. It is profoundly wrong that the government did not come clean to the public about this tragedy.".

It will be interesting to see what happens there now the UK variant has taken hold. A strict lockdown decision now reversed a day later, looks like a mess with the vaccine rollout going to slow....

[Elwood Blues]

I see Dr Jenny Harries deputy chief medical officer who has often been on the government press conferences is to head the New UKHSA ( UK Health Security Agency) which take over from Public Health England next month.

This will also include taking over Track and Trace from Dido Harding

[surge]

A long read regarding the pandemic in Manchester/Lancashire which is well written: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co...north-20233278