How would you rate the UK's handling of this pandemic?

[Deadeye]

The line about the GP's is wholly unfair and is clearly based on your bias, if this were true, even fractionally, it would be headline news. If you think GP's even BEFORE the pandemic weren't REGULARLY pulling 60 hour weeks you're monumentally ill informed. This information is coming direct from a 40+ year serving GP who CANNOT RETIRE YET because there is no-one to take her place and she's got a conscience, she's been of retirement age for 2 years now, desperate to retire before the workload drags her under, but as I said, feels she cannot.

Oh and thier funding got MASSIVELY cut to the point she stopped being a director - because they couldn't afford a directors salary, so she took a demotion and a PAY CUT - this IS FACT.

Couch your words more carefully in the future please.

I'm aware GPs say they "are on their knees". I'm also aware of the supply problem. It's not headline news because politicians and the media have fetishised the NHS to the extent that it's beyond criticism. Hell, most of the public don't even understand that GPs are private businesses.

Of course being private businesses, especially if the partnership agreement includes goodwill payment and a share of a building, can bring disentanglement issues.
GPs were very quick to cancel face to face appointments and start referring anything that sounded important. And they were very slow to restart when things quietened down. That's in part because most of what they earn comes in whether they see patients or not.

Not sure what the "Director" business is - the titles people give themselves in a private business is up to them. As far as the health system goes, they're GPs. It's the part of the service that has improved least over the past 2 decades...so my assessment remains unchanged.

 

[Rorschach]

You claimed - repeatedly that you had not said "let the old and infirm die" whenever I mentioned it - but my links prove it's right there (including the link where you eventually admit it after it was quoted back to you by Lons), you've also continually claimed that the lockdown was a pointless exercise that saved no-one from an unnecessary covid death.

Exibit A): "I am not heartless or selfish, I might be a cad. I want the vast majority of people in country to be safe, happy, healthy and comfortable. I am willing to let a tiny fraction of very elderly people die a little bit early for that to happen. 10% of over 80's die every year regardless and we don't blink at that. " (linked from my post above)

Once you got called on that multiple times by several members....

Exhibit B): "Not true at all, please find where I said that?
I want to see the elderly protected as much as possible, I have stated this numerous times. If you are old or vulnerable, stay at home (if you want to). What I think is madness is that the rest of the country was forced into lockdown. " (linked from my post above)

So YES you DID try to cover up what you said and you did try to spin what you said into something less callous - you can try saying "oh I've got nothing to hide" but your own posts show different.

As you're now seemingly doubling down on those statements, above - are you certain, in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence that this is still the case?

Has Covid so far only killed "the old and those who will die soon anyway" - and despite the lockdown has Covid managed to kill a significant portion of people who have been taking strong isolation measures?

Admitting "the old etc" have died, while wholly ignoring many hundreds of thousands worldwide who WERE NOT part of the prescribed category, is to my mind, on a par with the holocaust deniers. A great deal of people OUTSIDE your parameters are dead, yet you still continue to claim you "were right".

You get better all the time.

Yes I am absolutely certain that the vast vast majority of people who have died are people who would have died at some point in 2020/21, probably of a respiratory virus.

 

[D_W]

You get better all the time.

Yes I am absolutely certain that the vast vast majority of people who have died are people who would have died at some point in 2020/21, probably of a respiratory virus.

Early in the year here after the first wave, the average life expectancy lost for someone dying of covid was about 11 years. While there are plenty of nursing home occupants, there was also a large cohort of diabetics and folks with otherwise manageable heart disease in their 50s and 60s.

These kinds of things are easy to calculate, because you can keep mortality records by age, disease and severity. It's not a superstitious type number. The real answer could be 9 or 13 or something if you could know absolutely everything, but it wouldn't have been 1 on average for the cohort of deaths.

 

[RobinBHM]

The evidence has been born out

Your claims were misleading and wrong the first time and they are still wrong now.

Every government in the world has chosen to use non medical interventions to reduce the infection spread.....but you and the other anti lockdowners still think you know better.


Anybody who still thinks it's "no worse than flu" should go and volunteer in an ICU Covid ward

 

[RobinBHM]

You get better all the time.

Yes I am absolutely certain that the vast vast majority of people who have died are people who would have died at some point in 2020/21, probably of a respiratory virus.

Yes because of massive global restrictions to reduce the infection rate.
Restrictions you keep arguing against.....so you are contradicting yourself.

 

[RobinBHM]

there was also a large cohort of diabetics and folks with otherwise manageable heart disease in their 50s and 60s

That's the thing....there are millions of people who live perfectly normal lives yet have chronic health conditions that make them very vulnerable to Covid.

In general the vulnerable a person is, the more concerned they will be and the more likely they will be more vigilant to social distance and limit their risk.....I would argue without government restrictions to limit spread, many many people would be dying. And if hospital capacity is overwhelmed the chance of recovery goes down.

 

[D_W]

I'm sure deaths would be higher without restrictions. In the united states, the excess mortality last year was about 400-500k. I'd imagine covid was slightly undercounted (suicide deaths and some other things are apparently up a little bit, but they don't make a large part of that number).

When we were locked down initially, numbers were lower. The ultimate managing here hasn't be whether or not all deaths would be eliminated, it's been partially done at the state and county level based on the number of service businesses going out of business and from a push from some groups (surprisingly, much white hair showing up at restaurants, too) wanting to not be living locked down. It's fair to say that a lot of the white haired crowd is aware of the risk and they want to take it.

I think they're in the weeds, but am not much for censoring peoples opinions or labeling them for having them. The bar used here - at least it seems - is the capacity level at hospitals. When the projections based on case rate show hospitals getting above about 75% of capacity or some such number, we get locked down again. But not the entire state - just the areas where the numbers are up.

What's "right" is above my pay grade.

 

[Jacob]

.

It's about updating the existing system, hardly revolutionary. Fibre is steadily replacing copper already. We have it here in rural Derbyshire. Compared to other infrastructure proposals it's pretty cheap, which is why all sorts of odd places are already at it Internet in South Korea - Wikipedia 97%
Japan 99% etc etc

Just spotted today: "......The UK ranks 35th out of 37 countries assessed by the OECD for the proportion of fibre in its total fixed broadband infrastructure. As of September 2019, only 10 per cent of UK properties had access to full-fibre connections....."
To be fair, partial fibre (as mine is, as far as I understand it) is an improvement, but being 35th is shameful, for the 6th wealthiest country in the world

 

[julianf]

Another record breaking day -

1,564 new deaths

More in a single day since the whole thing started.

 

[billw]

Can’t wait for the mental health pandemic that’s coming.

 

[Droogs]

Don't worry I'm sure Rorsach will prove they would have all died this year anyway

 

[Noel]

Another new variant appearing, Brazilian this time. Think that’s 3 now after the English/Kent one and the S African one.
Virus is getting canny.

 

[Jake]

There have been a few studies now suggesting that cells in the testes are vulnerable to COVID so it might affect fertility (including post-mortem showing severe damage after fatal disease in older men). We still only know bits and pieces about this disease and its effects (other than death, which I would say is undeniably obvious but that seems not to be the case).

I do wish some people could get over the complete logical fallacy of thinking that because the average age of death from COVID is not dissimilar to the average age of death there is not much loss of life expectancy.

 

[Jameshow]

There have been a few studies now suggesting that cells in the testes are vulnerable to COVID so it might affect fertility (including post-mortem showing severe damage after fatal disease in older men). We still only know bits and pieces about this disease and its effects (other than death, which I would say is undeniably obvious but that seems not to be the case).

I do wish some people could get over the complete logical fallacy of thinking that because the average age of death from COVID is not dissimilar to the average age of death there is not much loss of life expectancy.

Therefore we may well get a drop in life expectancy???

Cheers James

 

[Rorschach]

Well it will all come out in the wash eventually and we'll see what really happened.

I hope I won't hear any complaints about tax rises etc that will be coming soon, maybe an increase in inheritance tax, maybe a capital tax on your property before you die? While I doubt it will happen I do hope that we will see some greater taxation on the elderly and not burden the young once again.

 

[Droogs]

Sorry Noel but Brazillian Covid made me snigger a little.

 

[D_W]

There have been a few studies now suggesting that cells in the testes are vulnerable to COVID so it might affect fertility (including post-mortem showing severe damage after fatal disease in older men). We still only know bits and pieces about this disease and its effects (other than death, which I would say is undeniably obvious but that seems not to be the case).

I do wish some people could get over the complete logical fallacy of thinking that because the average age of death from COVID is not dissimilar to the average age of death there is not much loss of life expectancy.

life expectancy is forward looking and is different than age adjusted death rate in the past. I don't think life expectancy will be affected much in terms of population death rates. Life expectancy for individuals may change a lot.

As far as the studies about possible complications, people should realize that COVID is not the only disease that may have lingering after effects. Severe flu and infections, etc, can all trigger long-term negative effects that aren't acute symptoms.

Talking about the "mights" is not useful. From the start, the mights have muddied the actual is -that the disease is spread primarily by droplets and primarily in enclosed spaces. The rest of the crap hinders prevention of spreading (the incessant hand washing and people being overly cautious outside and staying in their houses or babbling on about aerosols and live virus on surfaces 18 days later).

The might stuff is just fear mongering. Likely does or is proven to is plenty.

 

[Jacob]

Well it will all come out in the wash eventually and we'll see what really happened.

I hope I won't hear any complaints about tax rises etc that will be coming soon, maybe an increase in inheritance tax, maybe a capital tax on your property before you die? While I doubt it will happen I do hope that we will see some greater taxation on the elderly and not burden the young once again.

ere!! I'm elderly and my 3 kids are all much better off than I ever was! Tax them I say!

 

[D_W]

Sorry Noel but Brazillian Covid made me snigger a little.

Without going back and reading what that is, it *must* be loss of body hair without affecting hair on the head, eyebrows or eyelashes.

 

[Sandyn]

Just spotted today: "......The UK ranks 35th out of 37 countries assessed by the OECD for the proportion of fibre in its total fixed broadband infrastructure.

We could have been the world leader. In 1990. I worked for a company which was designing and manufacturing a fibre multiplexing system for BT. It was part of a system to provide fibre in every home in the UK. It was called the Common System Architecture (C.S.A.).
BTs fibre roll out was stopped by Thatcher and her government. I couldn't believe how stupid it was to stop it.
What happened in the 30 years since, telecoms businesses have teased out bandwidth to maximise their profits. We were all shafted mega style.

quote from article
"""
At that time, the UK, Japan and the United States were leading the way in fibre optic technology and roll-out. Indeed, the first wide area fibre optic network was set up in Hastings, UK. But, in 1990, then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, decided that BT's rapid and extensive rollout of fibre optic broadband was anti-competitive and held a monopoly on a technology and service that no other telecom company could do.

"Unfortunately, the Thatcher government decided that it wanted the American cable companies providing the same service to increase competition. So the decision was made to close down the local loop roll out and in 1991 that roll out was stopped. The two factories that BT had built to build fibre related components were sold to Fujitsu and HP, the assets were stripped and the expertise was shipped out to South East Asia.""""