General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat
- Thread starter phillm
- Start date
Only 357 today
R number going up
World beating
www.independent.co.uk
R number going up
World beating
UK coronavirus death toll passes 40,000
True scale of deaths passed 50,000 earlier this week
www.independent.co.uk
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Vitamin K found in some cheeses could help fight Covid-19, study suggests
Scientists in Netherlands explore possible link between deficiency and Covid-19 deaths
can't actually read it any more because I've not registered
but I recall geminisnake telling me about this - vitamin D which is also thought to resist coronavirus needs vitamin K to be absorbed unless you drink milk since vitamin D is fat soluble. Apparently K2 can also help resist cv.
Have just ordered Vitamin K2 (MK-4) | 1,000mcg x 120 Tablets | Menaquinone-4, Soy free, 1mg look good value.
Only 357 today
R number going up
World beating
UK coronavirus death toll passes 40,000
True scale of deaths passed 50,000 earlier this week
Oh is this still going? Is this still a thing? Its just that I've recently been for a walk followed by a visit to Tesco and I kinda assumed the virus has just gone away?
#letsmoveon
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
You don't need to be registered to read it just click on the 'not now fuck off' button, but here is the article anyway.Vitamin K found in some cheeses could help fight Covid-19, study suggests
Scientists in Netherlands explore possible link between deficiency and Covid-19 deathswww.theguardian.com
can't actually read it any more because I've not registered
but I recall geminisnake telling me about this - vitamin D which is also thought to resist coronavirus needs vitamin K to be absorbed unless you drink milk since vitamin D is fat soluble. Apparently K2 can also help resist cv.
Have just ordered Vitamin K2 (MK-4) | 1,000mcg x 120 Tablets | Menaquinone-4, Soy free, 1mg look good value.
I eat plenty of cheddar and eggs, along with the multivit I take has 100% of vitamin K, and a separate 100mcg of vitamin D.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
my local small Tesco has done away with the hand sanitiser and person on the door policing entry. Might as well have gone away as far as they care (and this is the south west where we‘re back above R=1).
Sounds a bit flaky
amp.theguardian.com
First arrivals under UK quarantine rules: 'They didn't even check my temperature'
Passengers at Heathrow express surprise and confusion over new coronavirus controls
Mr.Bishie
pickled egg
Sounds a bit flaky
First arrivals under UK quarantine rules: 'They didn't even check my temperature'
Passengers at Heathrow express surprise and confusion over new coronavirus controls
What a crock of shite.
Just watching the News on France24.
Good to see the British government being ridiculed in the first three stories.
Re aspects of the opening of quarantine measures and begging the European workforce that left due to Brexit to return and help the British economy.
Good to see the British government being ridiculed in the first three stories.
Re aspects of the opening of quarantine measures and begging the European workforce that left due to Brexit to return and help the British economy.
Interesting read this...
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
There is a lot of missing financials and a lot of people getting very wealthy behind this virus.
Revealed: Government Secrecy Over Nightingale Hospital Costs And Private Firms That Built Them
The government has refused to reveal the multi-million pound price tags for the Nightingales, leading to accusations of a worrying lack of transparency.
There is a lot of missing financials and a lot of people getting very wealthy behind this virus.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
see also ferriesInteresting read this...
Revealed: Government Secrecy Over Nightingale Hospital Costs And Private Firms That Built Them
The government has refused to reveal the multi-million pound price tags for the Nightingales, leading to accusations of a worrying lack of transparency.
There is a lot of missing financials and a lot of people getting very wealthy behind this virus.
Here the full FT article (paywalled) from Badgers ' post above, in case you can't get to it (it's paywalled). I didn't realise that dated back to May 4th, but it's good.
Consultants in line of fire over projects to tackle coronavirus
Tabby Kinder, May 4th 2020
UK government faces criticism over transparency of contracts handed to KPMG and Deloitte
On Mother’s Day weekend in March, just before Britain was plunged into lockdown, phones started ringing in the homes of senior consultants at some of the UK’s biggest accountancy firms. Government agencies were taking emergency measures to protect against, test for and treat coronavirus and needed help managing what was rapidly becoming a daunting logistical challenge.
NHS England hired a team of about 60 consultants at KPMG to build seven temporary Nightingale hospitals that could treat thousands of coronavirus patients in need of critical care.
Deloitte was recruited by the Department of Health and Social Care to help create a network of up to 50 testing facilities around the UK and by the Cabinet Office to assist with the procurement of personal protective equipment for frontline NHS staff.
A month later, a string of complaints from health officials and industry figures over the services provided have raised concerns at the rapid outsourcing of consultants during the pandemic — particularly the transparency around contracts and whether the firms are set up to manage such critical projects during a national health emergency.
The KPMG and Deloitte projects were contracted out to the accounting firms without competition, and the agreements, which detail the sums paid for the work, have not yet been made public. They are just three of many consulting contracts agreed at pace by the government as the pandemic gripped the country.
The British government was able to recruit the firms quickly after it suspended its usual procurement procedures, which require contracts with a value of more than £10,000 to be publicly advertised and awarded only after a competitive tender. The move enabled a speedy response to the Covid-19 crisis but clouded visibility over how taxpayer money was being spent on private firms. Despite the new rules stating that departments must publish a contract award notice within 30 days of its agreement, almost none have done so.
An agreement between EY and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in April to provide guidance for various business sectors on how to reopen after the lockdown has also not yet been published.
“There is a worrying lack of transparency over government spending to combat the impact of coronavirus,” Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told the Financial Times. “The government must cast its net widely as part of this national effort and not just rely on opaque arrangements with the Big Four accountancy firms.” There is a worrying lack of transparency over government spending to combat the impact of coronavirus Rachel Deloitte and KPMG said they had agreed to work for reduced rates for the government on its coronavirus services, but both declined to give details of the fees. Senior consultants at the large accounting firms have in the past been charged out at up to £1,000 per hour, while more junior staff can bring in fees of around £300 an hour.
NHS England has not revealed how much has so far been spent on the Nightingale hospitals. The Department for Business said it would not comment on its commercial contracts. “There’s a risk that we never know what was spent under the emergency system,” said Ian Makgill, director of OpenOpps, which monitors public sector contracts.
Gus Tugendhat, founder of Tussell, which collects information on UK government contracts stressed that the crisis “should not be used as a pretext for lowering standards of transparency. Accountability around how much is being spent, on what and with whom matters more than ever.”
The Big Four firms, which also include PwC, audit almost all of Britain’s large companies and have advisory practices that employ tens of thousands of consultants. They have won hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of new government contracts in recent years despite several high-profile audit failures and fines for misconduct.
The government has been criticised for the large sums it has spent on consultants in the past, including paying more than £100m for advice on Brexit and £600m on the HS2 rail link.
But its reliance on consultants during the Covid-19 crisis has prompted fresh scrutiny.
Dr Simon Festing, chief executive of the British Healthcare Trades Association, said: “People who are just brought in from the outside are not going to have the technical expertise. It’s a different order of complexity.”
Ms Reeves added that the firms had “questionable experience in areas such as medical testing and procuring personal protective equipment”.
KPMG and Deloitte have relationships with ministers and in the healthcare service, having worked on the design of NHS Improvement, a body set up in 2016 that oversees the NHS foundation trusts.
Yet Deloitte has been criticised for a series of administrative errors at coronavirus testing centres that have lost NHS staff results or sent them to the wrong person. Doctors, frustrated by the failures at a testing site at Chessington in Surrey, discussed how to take control of the centre.
Deloitte has also been accused of delays in its procurement of PPE for hospitals. Several manufacturers that offered to provide kit described the process as shambolic and claimed there was a lack of understanding on the specifications that must be adhered to when making life-saving products.
“We need to ask how did Deloitte come to be appointed and how much did it cost for these very poor decisions to be made,” said Rosie Cooper, MP for West Lancashire and a member of parliament’s health and social care committee. The committee, led by Jeremy Hunt, is investigating the government’s management of the coronavirus outbreak. Deloitte said it was supporting the government on testing but that it did not “run or manage” the centres. It said it was providing operational support on the procurement of PPE. The department of health said the “full weight of the government is behind our PPE strategy” in response to a request for comment on its work with Deloitte.
KPMG was lauded for the speed with which the Nightingale hospitals were up and running. The first facility in east London’s Docklands was completed nine days after KPMG was drafted in as project manager, working alongside military planners and several smaller infrastructure consultancies, including Mott MacDonald and Archus.
But a month on, the unknown sums paid to consultants are part of a debate on the value of the hospitals, the majority of which have taken only a handful of patients.
The government said it was “supported by a number of public and private sector partners” when asked about its reliance on consultants to provide key public services during the coronavirus pandemic. “[They] are providing additional expertise and resource to help deliver significant programmes of work as part of the national effort,” said a spokesperson.
Additional reporting by Niku Asgari and Gill Plimmer
[ETA : Cutting out surplus text, adding paragraph breaks, etc.]
Consultants in line of fire over projects to tackle coronavirus
Tabby Kinder, May 4th 2020
UK government faces criticism over transparency of contracts handed to KPMG and Deloitte
On Mother’s Day weekend in March, just before Britain was plunged into lockdown, phones started ringing in the homes of senior consultants at some of the UK’s biggest accountancy firms. Government agencies were taking emergency measures to protect against, test for and treat coronavirus and needed help managing what was rapidly becoming a daunting logistical challenge.
NHS England hired a team of about 60 consultants at KPMG to build seven temporary Nightingale hospitals that could treat thousands of coronavirus patients in need of critical care.
Deloitte was recruited by the Department of Health and Social Care to help create a network of up to 50 testing facilities around the UK and by the Cabinet Office to assist with the procurement of personal protective equipment for frontline NHS staff.
A month later, a string of complaints from health officials and industry figures over the services provided have raised concerns at the rapid outsourcing of consultants during the pandemic — particularly the transparency around contracts and whether the firms are set up to manage such critical projects during a national health emergency.
The KPMG and Deloitte projects were contracted out to the accounting firms without competition, and the agreements, which detail the sums paid for the work, have not yet been made public. They are just three of many consulting contracts agreed at pace by the government as the pandemic gripped the country.
The British government was able to recruit the firms quickly after it suspended its usual procurement procedures, which require contracts with a value of more than £10,000 to be publicly advertised and awarded only after a competitive tender. The move enabled a speedy response to the Covid-19 crisis but clouded visibility over how taxpayer money was being spent on private firms. Despite the new rules stating that departments must publish a contract award notice within 30 days of its agreement, almost none have done so.
An agreement between EY and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in April to provide guidance for various business sectors on how to reopen after the lockdown has also not yet been published.
“There is a worrying lack of transparency over government spending to combat the impact of coronavirus,” Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told the Financial Times. “The government must cast its net widely as part of this national effort and not just rely on opaque arrangements with the Big Four accountancy firms.” There is a worrying lack of transparency over government spending to combat the impact of coronavirus Rachel Deloitte and KPMG said they had agreed to work for reduced rates for the government on its coronavirus services, but both declined to give details of the fees. Senior consultants at the large accounting firms have in the past been charged out at up to £1,000 per hour, while more junior staff can bring in fees of around £300 an hour.
NHS England has not revealed how much has so far been spent on the Nightingale hospitals. The Department for Business said it would not comment on its commercial contracts. “There’s a risk that we never know what was spent under the emergency system,” said Ian Makgill, director of OpenOpps, which monitors public sector contracts.
Gus Tugendhat, founder of Tussell, which collects information on UK government contracts stressed that the crisis “should not be used as a pretext for lowering standards of transparency. Accountability around how much is being spent, on what and with whom matters more than ever.”
The Big Four firms, which also include PwC, audit almost all of Britain’s large companies and have advisory practices that employ tens of thousands of consultants. They have won hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of new government contracts in recent years despite several high-profile audit failures and fines for misconduct.
The government has been criticised for the large sums it has spent on consultants in the past, including paying more than £100m for advice on Brexit and £600m on the HS2 rail link.
But its reliance on consultants during the Covid-19 crisis has prompted fresh scrutiny.
Dr Simon Festing, chief executive of the British Healthcare Trades Association, said: “People who are just brought in from the outside are not going to have the technical expertise. It’s a different order of complexity.”
Ms Reeves added that the firms had “questionable experience in areas such as medical testing and procuring personal protective equipment”.
KPMG and Deloitte have relationships with ministers and in the healthcare service, having worked on the design of NHS Improvement, a body set up in 2016 that oversees the NHS foundation trusts.
Yet Deloitte has been criticised for a series of administrative errors at coronavirus testing centres that have lost NHS staff results or sent them to the wrong person. Doctors, frustrated by the failures at a testing site at Chessington in Surrey, discussed how to take control of the centre.
Deloitte has also been accused of delays in its procurement of PPE for hospitals. Several manufacturers that offered to provide kit described the process as shambolic and claimed there was a lack of understanding on the specifications that must be adhered to when making life-saving products.
“We need to ask how did Deloitte come to be appointed and how much did it cost for these very poor decisions to be made,” said Rosie Cooper, MP for West Lancashire and a member of parliament’s health and social care committee. The committee, led by Jeremy Hunt, is investigating the government’s management of the coronavirus outbreak. Deloitte said it was supporting the government on testing but that it did not “run or manage” the centres. It said it was providing operational support on the procurement of PPE. The department of health said the “full weight of the government is behind our PPE strategy” in response to a request for comment on its work with Deloitte.
KPMG was lauded for the speed with which the Nightingale hospitals were up and running. The first facility in east London’s Docklands was completed nine days after KPMG was drafted in as project manager, working alongside military planners and several smaller infrastructure consultancies, including Mott MacDonald and Archus.
But a month on, the unknown sums paid to consultants are part of a debate on the value of the hospitals, the majority of which have taken only a handful of patients.
The government said it was “supported by a number of public and private sector partners” when asked about its reliance on consultants to provide key public services during the coronavirus pandemic. “[They] are providing additional expertise and resource to help deliver significant programmes of work as part of the national effort,” said a spokesperson.
Additional reporting by Niku Asgari and Gill Plimmer
[ETA : Cutting out surplus text, adding paragraph breaks, etc.]
Last edited:
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
You spend all that time adding underlines and emojis to your own posts, but you can't add a few paragraph breaks when you share?
You spend all that time adding underlines and emojis to your own posts, but you can't add a few paragraph breaks when you share?
And for the attebntion of Orang Utan and Badgers
You weren't to know, but I was unexpectedly called away/out for a (now-fixed) emergency.
I always intended to do the paragraph breaks and remove surplus text -- now done (and that was before I saw your post
)(Sorry -- I get really fucking paranoid about people 'liking' posts that criticise me, even when the criticism is half-justified ... would have been fully justified if I'd just left it as it was and never edited it)
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Just pulling your leg, don't worry about it.
OK, fair dos ....... now read it maybe?
It's not a bad article.
I think most people here know how to get to FT articles via Google, but it does help I think to see them straight away
It's not a bad article.
I think most people here know how to get to FT articles via Google, but it does help I think to see them straight away
Daft old sod
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Silly billy, I don’t give a shit about paragraph breaks
I do -- I'm normally a bit of a pefectionist about things like that.
Plus the initial C & P included some annoying additional stuff.
All sorted now
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I was just liking that post cos I thought it was funnyI do -- I'm normally a bit of a pefectionist about things like that.
Plus the initial C & P included some annoying additional stuff.
All sorted now
Boris Johnson announces lockdown 'bubbles' letting two households hug and kiss
The new rules mean some grandparents will be able to hug their grandchildren for the first time since March - and it'll be good news for some couples who live apart too
www.mirror.co.uk
Yossarian
⏭️
From early February:
Auckland Airport response to travel restrictions
Review your travel plans to China ahead of coming to the airport
corporate.aucklandairport.co.nz
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
From early February:
Auckland Airport response to travel restrictions
Review your travel plans to China ahead of coming to the airportcorporate.aucklandairport.co.nz
Didn't say no flight. No trade route.
Those flights are just for the Chinese who have a map with it on and are curious.
New Zealand keeps getting left off world maps – and Kiwis aren't happy
New Zealand is a fairly regular inclusion on any traveller’s hit list.
www.telegraph.co.uk
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
NZ does shitloads of business with China.
Coronavirus: Face coverings to be mandatory on public transport
From 15 June, people in England could be fined for not wearing a covering, the transport secretary says.
www.bbc.co.uk
Today is my first time on a (Thameslink) train to London since this shit started today. The train is pleasingly empty but literally nobody wearing masks
A lot of unmasked staff at the gates along with two masked up BTP but no staff on the train barring (hopefully) the driver.
#goingwellthen
Supine
Newt Member
Coronavirus: Face coverings to be mandatory on public transport
From 15 June, people in England could be fined for not wearing a covering, the transport secretary says.www.bbc.co.uk
Today is my first time on a (Thameslink) train to London since this shit started today. The train is pleasingly empty but literally nobody wearing masks
A lot of unmasked staff at the gates along with two masked up BTP but no staff on the train barring (hopefully) the driver.
#goingwellthen
Trains are great at the moment. There is no benefit to wearing a mask if you're by yourself so it's understandable. I always have mine ready to wear but don't unless anyone gets close.
What is the point of the rule then? Or is it just more vague guidance? It seems pretty black and white to me.
Perhaps I am more aware of this shit as going to a cancer centre?
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