Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

Yes and from the nature of some of the questioning, even the weekend crew of journalists in the room had noticed.

 

[Southlondon]

Which governments ignored it? North Korea, Tanzania. Any others?

30th jan 2020 the WHO gave it pre pandemic status and called on the world to bring in social distancing, masks etc but was largely ignored by all countries in the west ( I really can speak for Tanzania or North Korea so I’ll leave that for your obvious intellect to enlighten us on). I believe it was March before we were doing anything much

 

[Southlondon]

Which governments ignored it? North Korea, Tanzania. Any others?

Oh yeah they called on the world to enact testing and tracing I believe at that time as well

 

[elbows]

The WHO were not in favour of the general public wearing masks, and took many months to change their advice. Before then, their mask recommendations would mostly have applied to frontline healthcare workers PPE.

Here is the June 2020 u-turn on that front:

Coronavirus: WHO advises to wear masks in public areas

The World Health Organization changes its guidance saying masks can help stop the spread of the virus.

www.bbc.co.uk

If we must discuss this history again now, please do some basic fact checking.

 

[elbows]

Oh yeah they called on the world to enact testing and tracing I believe at that time as well

Mid March 2020 was when they really started to highlight the test,test,test approach and rheotric, advice which the UK establishment tried to write off via the likes of Harries claiming this was advice for poor countries, not applicable to the UK and its amazing carry on/herd immunity plan that then rapidly went down the toilet. Please dont conflate what came in later months with the dismal shit of January 2020. Lots of authorities started to change their tune only by mid March 2020 or later, once the likes of Italy had locked down.

WHO head: 'Test, test, test'

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calls for more testing to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Southlondon]

Most countries didnt ignore it, they just responded to it inappropriately and too slowly, didnt take it seriously enough, and the WHOs advice was also not that great in the first place. I dont want to go over all this history again right now, I spent too long talking about it at the time. I do remember that some people didnt like me referring to this as a pandemic before the WHO finally got round to doing so, but by the time they did most people understood where I was coming from. And its not like my initial response in January 2020 was the most appropriate either, at least not in mid January.

Ahh what a pity the world wasn’t listening and taking note of you at that time then. You obviously had a better handle on things than WHO. But…. If people had listened to the WHO when they stated on the 30th jan that the virus had potential to reach pandemic status and acted to the advice then lived would have been saved.

 

[Southlondon]

The WHO were not in favour of the general public wearing masks, and took many months to change their advice. Before then, their mask recommendations would mostly have applied to frontline healthcare workers PPE.

Here is the June 2020 u-turn on that front:

Coronavirus: WHO advises to wear masks in public areas

The World Health Organization changes its guidance saying masks can help stop the spread of the virus.

www.bbc.co.uk

If we must discuss this history again now, please do some basic fact checking.

Why don’t you duck off you sanctimonious prick

 

[elbows]

Such criticisms about my character didnt put me off from spouting facts at the time and certainly wont now. Stop talking shit about the easily searchable timeline of events.

 

[mx wcfc]

Why don’t you duck off you sanctimonious prick

There's only one prick in that exchange, and it ain't elbows.

 

[Southlondon]

Such criticisms about my character didnt put me off from spouting facts at the time and certainly wont now. Stop talking shit about the easily searchable timeline of events.

What a fucking bore you are

 

[two sheds]

Check this out:

Boris Johnson ‘ignored’ my plan to tackle deadly Covid variants – senior official

Former head of vaccine taskforce says No 10 has not acted on his blueprint to prepare UK for new strains

www.theguardian.com

This is where he went wrong:

Under Dix’s strategy, a coordinating team would seek out new vaccines, give the company involved a “fast track” to a swift trial, access to the data and regulatory approval, in return for early access to new vaccines.

"early access to new vaccines" needed to be replaced by "donations to the tory party"

 

[Southlondon]

There's only one prick in that exchange, and it ain't elbows.

Sorry I didn’t realise you were in it as well

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Why don’t you duck off you sanctimonious prick

Says the newb who hasn’t got a fucking pot of glue.

 

[two sheds]

Ahh what a pity the world wasn’t listening and taking note of you at that time then. You obviously had a better handle on things than WHO. But…. If people had listened to the WHO when they stated on the 30th jan that the virus had potential to reach pandemic status and acted to the advice then lived would have been saved.

(a) you have your arse handed to you
(b) you respond by insulting the person who did it
(c) you look a bit of a prat

 

[elbows]

Ahh what a pity the world wasn’t listening and taking note of you at that time then. You obviously had a better handle on things than WHO. But…. If people had listened to the WHO when they stated on the 30th jan that the virus had potential to reach pandemic status and acted to the advice then lived would have been saved.

I was one of many, and plenty of people here got ahead of the curve as a result.

Its not a question of having a better handle on things than the WHO, more a question of not being bound by the same diplomatic & political limitations as the WHO that slowed their response and messaging to the public. I didnt have to mind my p's and q's or talk shit to serve powerful interests.

 

[Southlondon]

I was one of many, and plenty of people here got ahead of the curve as a result.

Its not a question of having a better handle on things than the WHO, more a question of not being bound by the same diplomatic & political limitations as the WHO that slowed their response and messaging to the public,

I still stand by the point that out government and many others could have gone better if they had dated quicker at the outset by listen to the warnings and acting as they came early2020. Test and trace might actually have been workable for example. You don’t . Great. Now fuck off with your superior attitude

 

[elbows]

My superior attitude isnt scheduled to end until the pandemic does.

I called for quicker action many times during the pandemic, so you are missing my point. Not every aspect of the WHOs early advice was bad, but by their own admission they made mistakes and were not quick enough. They also pandered to some of Chinas desires and ended up delaying global understanding of the role of asymptomatic transmission of this virus. Later on, various governments including the UKs used the lack of appreciation of the role of asymptomatic transmission as one of the excuses for their own failings and slow response in the early months.

 

[Supine]

I still stand by the point that out government and many others could have gone better if they had dated quicker at the outset by listen to the warnings and acting as they came early2020. Test and trace might actually have been workable for example. You don’t . Great. Now fuck off with your superior attitude

You state the ducking obvious like it’s some new gospel. Congratulations

 

[bluescreen]

My superior attitude isnt scheduled to end until the pandemic does.

I called for quicker action many times during the pandemic, so you are missing my point. Not every aspect of the WHOs early advice was bad, but by their own admission they made mistakes and were not quick enough. They also pandered to some of Chinas desires and ended up delaying global understanding of the role of asymptomatic transmission of this virus. Later on, various governments including the UKs used the lack of appreciation of the role of asymptomatic transmission as one of the excuses for their own failings and slow response in the early months.

WHO still putting diplomacy over world health, don't you you think?

 

[Southlondon]

My superior attitude isnt scheduled to end until the pandemic does.

I called for quicker action many times during the pandemic, so you are missing my point. Not every aspect of the WHOs early advice was bad, but by their own admission they made mistakes and were not quick enough. They also pandered to some of Chinas desires and ended up delaying global understanding of the role of asymptomatic transmission of this virus. Later on, various governments including the UKs used the lack of appreciation of the role of asymptomatic transmission as one of the excuses for their own failings and slow response in the early months.

Of course they weren’t good enough I never implied they were. I’m saying ours and other countries responses were even worse: the whole system of international public health needs reviewing so maybe we can save sone of the million people a year that AIDS, or prevent the next outbreak of EBOLA etc. Possibly your bleatings don’t reach the same numbers that the WHO can reach, and possibly their advance research stations around the world have a more extensive coverage than yours so maybe as a starting point we should be holding out governments to account over whether or not they did enough in the early stages (pre-pandemic), as they might have done to preserve lives. - of course they didn’t

 

[elbows]

WHO still putting diplomacy over world health, don't you you think?

Its not so easy to imagine how it could be any different, unless we totally changed the nature of power, global and economic orders, and the resulting priorities.

They and many other aspects of the orthodoxy did manage to partially reform their pandemic instincts as a result of painful lessons learnt and necessity. But at the earliest opportunities they tend to revert to prior form, and unfortunately the era of vaccines that target this virus offered various opportunities to regress back to the old status quo.

 

[weltweit]

I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.

 

[8ball]

I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.

Yes, they lied about the effectiveness of masks and eroded public trust massively. Absolute blinder there, lads.

 

[mx wcfc]

I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.

Yes, and our government followed suit for the same reason - we were hopelessly unprepared, due to cost cutting. So they deliberately lied.

I get that that was necessary, given the situation. Health workers had to get the limited PPE first.

A little bit of honesty now wouldn't hurt though.

"We had to say that face masks weren't important, because we fucked up and didn't have enough." might have left me with some tiny amount of respect for honesty.

 

[Southlondon]

I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.

But they advised setting up test and trace back in January 2020 and our govt ignored them.

 

[bluescreen]

Yes, and our government followed suit for the same reason - we were hopelessly unprepared, due to cost cutting. So they deliberately lied.

I get that that was necessary, given the situation. Health workers had to get the limited PPE first.

A little bit of honesty now wouldn't hurt though.

"We had to say that face masks weren't important, because we fucked up and didn't have enough." might have left me with some tiny amount of respect for honesty.

They could even have said, as the CDC said: if you can't get hold of regular masks, here's how to make your own, which are a whole lot better than nothing.

 

[Southlondon]

Yes, and our government followed suit for the same reason - we were hopelessly unprepared, due to cost cutting. So they deliberately lied.

I get that that was necessary, given the situation. Health workers had to get the limited PPE first.

A little bit of honesty now wouldn't hurt though.

"We had to say that face masks weren't important, because we fucked up and didn't have enough." might have left me with some tiny amount of respect for honesty.

Plus we had a whole pandemic store cupboard full of out of date masks because our pandemic preparedness such as it was, didn’t seem to stretch to stock rotation

 

[bluescreen]

They could even have said, as the CDC said: if you can't get hold of regular masks, here's how to make your own, which are a whole lot better than nothing.

Instead they were saying, IIRC, that masks were worse than useless because they funnelled the virus back at you.

 

[mx wcfc]

They could even have said, as the CDC said: if you can't get hold of regular masks, here's how to make your own, which are a whole lot better than nothing.

There was plenty of that info out there. mrs mx made ours out of old t-shirts - but yes, the government weren't helpful.

I still think that a general announcement that wearing masks would protect people would have led to PPE being diverted from the NHS though, by private sector spivs out for a quick buck. And the absolute priority was protecting frontline NHS staff 18 months ago.

So I sort of understand the policy, whilst detesting the bastards for fucking up.

 

[Cloo]

I think bro-in-law is now sorted for quarantine accommodation on his return, somehow arranged from rural Malawi. He's out there, sadly, to say goodbye to an amazing guy who is the head of a school BIL and wife have a charity to fund out there. They met him on their honeymoon, painting a wall at their hotel to help earn some money so he could help teaching kids at the school he worked at because the finance manager had fucked off with all their funds, so they returned home determined to help him fund it and it's now thriving. I had the privilege of meeting the guy once and he really was a great bloke who cared so much - heartbreakingly he's dying of cancer, so BIL wanted to go see him one last time. I think he'll consider it worth it, even with the quarantine.