Coronavirus

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Where have people in the thread been 'making excuses' exactly? No-one (that I can see) said the system was in any way ideal but looking at it through the eyes of pragmatism rather than ifs-and-buts and some nebulous claims of some bulk-buy from some manufacturer who will suddenly be able to supply the whole of the bloc and need none for themselves? Feel free to enlighten us on where exactly the EU was going to make this order from. Because from what I can tell, no country has 'enough' ventilators, and every country with the production capabilities will want them for themselves first and foremost, surely?

The US programme getting stalled by corporate interests as described - like many things, it should hopefully be a big wake-up call to Governments to take a hard look at funding and preparedness. Playing the blame game or politicising things right now, helps no-one.

WRT profiteering - good luck fining companies, after the fact, who may have no presence in the EU, and could for all we know have cashed in and legged it before the dust has had a chance to settle. Anything claimed back after the fact is a bonus, but it's not a given. There is absolutely some horrendous profiteering going on: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52074862

Stop trying to defend the governments lack of action. You contradict your ownself saying that everyone is profiteering and wanting ventilators,but seemingly think that a bulk buy from an organisation representing 512 million people suddenly won't do anything. Who do you think will get priority from companies,larger groups who can order more ventilators?

What makes you think that testing will delay the introduction of new products by weeks? Much of the approval can be expedited, and for example there's no reason this couldn't be done on a limited first batch while others are in production - many of the things which may not stand up to scrutiny (which in reality they should, given the specifications are pretty transparent) could be remedied with minor adjustments e.g. to software. Reliability isn't some unachievable goal either, especially since many of these units are built from existing designs, and the ones that are not are likely to be very simplistic with a minimum of components. I think the complexity of a very basic version of such devices is being really over-exaggerated to the point of fear-mongering in some articles, like the one from that Swiss manufacturer. Smiths, on the other hand, seem confident that their design can be built by others...

You mocked the US feeling worried for the UK,but they have 173000 ventilators and we have 8175.

Also government literally said,all designs will be properly tested before being deployed,so it will take weeks.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9438996.html

New UK-built ventilators to treat coronavirus patients will be available for use in the NHS from next week, Michael Gove has announced.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference, the cabinet office minister said the first of thousands of new machines will be rolled out on to the front line within days to cope with the spread of the virus.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9440471.html

Only 30 new British-built ventilators will be delivered to the NHS next week to treat coronavirus patients, the government has admitted.

"I think we expect that first batch to be up to 30 ventilators, with hundreds more from that particular consortium to follow in the coming weeks.

The NHS has only 8,000 ventilators – when 30,000 are likely to be needed – and only a further 8,000 are expected to be ready before the expected peak of the epidemic, in mid-April.

Gove said 1000s and now its dozens.

Also regarding the new designs:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2170VD

Britain said on Friday that engineering companies had come up with an emergency ventilator prototype to treat coronavirus patients that could be approved next week, though one industry source told Reuters full production was several weeks away.

So unfortunately ,instead of 40000 ventilators by the peak,we will have 16000 at best.

COULD be approved,meaning it is 100% not certain and mass production is WEEKS AWAY.


At 173000 ventilators in the US,that is one per 1891 people,the UK is currently at one per 8177,and this will improve to 4152 if we acually get 16000 in total within the next two weeks.

I'm sure if any Governments had a crystal ball they would have planned things differently, but as it happens that is not the case. Health services around the world have to make some very tough decisions on what they should invest in to prepare for health crises - some are perhaps fortuitous enough to be better prepared for this specific event, others less so. Mocking, name-calling, blaming for the past is not productive or beneficial in any way right now. The situation is what it is, and it is important for governments, companies and people to work through things as best they can.

And yes, after the fact, I'm sure there will be some big questions needed answering by all sorts of leaders. I'll agree that there are aspects which should have been better with the knowledge available at the time, and not acting as such probably amounts to a pretty serious case of negligence.

You mean if they did a pandemic exercise which might have said something...oh wait.

Stop defending them.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-and-confusion

Britain’s attempt to plug a shortage of life-saving ventilators needed to treat the most seriously ill coronavirus patients is being hobbled by mishaps and confusion.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s failure to sign up to a European Union-wide effort to buy ventilators has left the government open to accusations of putting Brexit over people’s lives -- while U.K. manufacturers have warned they might need months to respond to the government’s call to ramp up production.

At stake is Britain’s ability to respond to a nationwide outbreak that has already claimed 759 lives. The National Health Service has less than a third of the devices it needs and Johnson’s call to get 30,000 in service within weeks is not just a test of his leadership, but also his reluctance to engage with the EU.

“The hard reality is there’s an awfully big hill to climb,” said James Greenham, managing director of medical device manufacturer EMS Physio. “When you hear ministers say we’re going to have thousands of these in a few weeks, you simply cannot believe them.”

Johnson’s spokesman initially said the government didn’t take part in the Europe-wide procurement program because the U.K. isn’t a member of the EU. After the bloc pointed out Britain was still welcome to join, the prime minister’s office said it didn’t receive the invitation due to a “communication problem.”
Four Rounds

The bloc insisted British representatives were in meetings about sourcing ventilators and it was clear the U.K., which left the bloc in January, was eligible to join the EU initiative. London’s decision not to take part means it has already missed out on four procurement rounds.

“The possibility of launching a procurement procedure has been discussed several times in meetings of the health security committee in which the U.K. participated,” Commission spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker told reporters. “At these meetings the commission stressed its readiness to further support countries with the procurement of medical counter-measures if needed. So member states and the U.K. had the opportunity to signal they wanted to participate.”

.....
Dyson announced this week it had developed a new ventilator and received an order from Britain for 10,000 units -- but the government later said its purchase would depend on regulators approving the device.
“So Much Ambiguity”

A separate group including Airbus, McLaren Automotive Ltd, Siemens AG and Meggitt Plc is trying to ramp up production of existing ventilator designs made by Smiths Group Plc and Penlon Ltd -- but it is also waiting for the green light from government.

“Things are happening, but there’s so much ambiguity and vagueness at the moment,” said Tony Hague, chief executive officer of Midlands-based manufacturer PP Control & Automation, which has offered to help the ventilator-building effort. “There are a lot of people not very clear about a lot of things.”

Any new ventilator design would have to jump through lengthy -- and necessary -- regulatory hoops in order to be approved for use in intensive care wards, according to Greenham. That process, which includes developing a prototype, testing it “to destruction,” and ensuring traceability of all components, typically takes two to three years, he said.

Johnson held talks with some of the manufacturers late on Thursday, according to his office, and assured them the government would move as quickly as possible to approve new designs as long as they meet the requirements.


“I’m sure Dyson and Airbus have got thousands of engineers who can help, but you’ve still got to test it and verify it before you go into production,” he said.

Greenham’s verdict chimes with what Penlon Ltd. said soon after Johnson issued his call to manufacturers. The company makes anesthesia machines that perform some of the functions of intensive care ventilators and is now involved in one of the groups working to scale up production. To develop a new product from scratch and secure regulatory approval would take three years, it said.

For all the criticism, some progress is being made, with the government acquiring 50 ventilators from overseas in the past week, according to one official familiar with the matter.

“The government is pulling out every stop to explore every avenue to get more ventilators,” said Stephen Phipson, chief executive of the MakeUK manufacturing lobby group. “No stone is unturned on this one. Whether it results in ventilators being produced quickly enough is another matter -- but they are trying everything.”

That is from the people involved in making the ventilators we are ordering.

Also weeks is pretty quick for these kinds of devices.

So FOUR procurement rounds were missed from partners. FOUR.

Edit!!

It gets even better:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9432296.html

Andy Faulkner, the manager of Topland, a Dubai firm helping Direct Access obtain ventilators, said the two companies offered the government 5,000 units a week over five weeks – but initially received no response.

“No one seemed to be taking us seriously,” he revealed, adding: “They asked us to register on the ventilation website, which we did, and then waited another five days for any response.”

Mr Faulkner said all stock had now gone and that it would be June or July before any orders placed this week could be fulfilled.

UK based companies said they had 25000 ventilators in stock they could have supplied weeks ago over a 5 week period.

The peak of the virus is this month,not next month,this month.

But don't worry some people fall on their sword defending the government's actions.

[watercooled]

I mean suit yourself, but I don't see anything I've said as defending government actions TBH. Plenty of people are criticising them that so I didn't feel the need to jump on the bandwagon and state the obvious as a way of avoiding criticism myself.

I don't see how expressing scepticism for the EU bulk-buy is in any way a contradiction unless you're putting words in my mouth. As for priority from companies - I suspect the home country will get priority in all cases. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm expressing scepticism, not saying it will not happen, because I have no concrete evidence of that.

I criticised the action of poking fun at another country's action to mask home failings, and I would equally criticise the UK Government if I saw them doing the same. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, as the saying goes.

You're talking total and utter nonsense claiming I want some report 'to be buried'. You need to get a grip, frankly. You're building a hell of a lot of straw men to construct an argument which simply isn't here.

Unfortunately for me? Who's the 'me' you're referring to? I'm not the one making any purchasing decisions or with any influence over the process in the slightest. Enough with the personally-directed mud-flinging, eh?

The US has roughly 5x the population of the UK, so at least divide the numbers appropriately before making direct comparisons, plus the reason they have more ventilators has a reason as TeePee said earlier.


I'll not be participating further into something which has apparently turned into furious mud-slinging at anyone who doesn't align fully with your view, and putting words in peoples mouths to argue with things which were simply not said. Because you're arguing with a heck of a lot of things I've not actually said - you should read and understand posts before kicking off about them and making assumptions about the people who made them.

/Unsubbed.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I mean suit yourself, but I don't see anything I've said as defending government actions TBH. Plenty of people are criticising them that so I didn't feel the need to jump on the bandwagon and state the obvious as a way of avoiding criticism myself.

I don't see how expressing scepticism for the EU bulk-buy is in any way a contradiction unless you're putting words in my mouth. As for priority from companies - I suspect the home country will get priority in all cases. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm expressing scepticism, not saying it will not happen, because I have no concrete evidence of that.

I criticised the action of poking fun at another country's action to mask home failings, and I would equally criticise the UK Government if I saw them doing the same. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, as the saying goes.

You're talking total and utter nonsense claiming I want some report 'to be buried'. You need to get a grip, frankly. You're building a hell of a lot of straw men to construct an argument which simply isn't here.

Unfortunately for me? Who's the 'me' you're referring to? I'm not the one making any purchasing decisions or with any influence over the process in the slightest. Enough with the personally-directed mud-flinging, eh?

The US has roughly 5x the population of the UK, so at least divide the numbers appropriately before making direct comparisons, plus the reason they have more ventilators has a reason as TeePee said earlier.


I'll not be participating further into something which has apparently turned into furious mud-slinging at anyone who doesn't align fully with your view, and putting words in peoples mouths to argue with things which were simply not said.

/Unsubbed.

You need to get a grip of yourself - if there is a strawmen,its you who are creating it. You first dismissed what I said out of hand when I talked about ventilators - I pointed out the numbers and the per capita number of ventilators and you ignored all of that. You seem to get rantish about the US government saying what it said,which was correct.

I pointed out with multiple points of evidence,we knew what was happening since 2016. I pointed out timeframes,which you ignored.

I pointed out repeatedly mistakes in procurement which you just explained away as it did not match your point of view. I pointed out the new models would take weeks to enter production,and you said it was rubbish. If you are so evidence based why won't you read the links in post 226 from the actual companies involved in making the ventilators. You are acting like this is some ideological argument about computers...this is about lives,and no amount of argueing by you is going to change the fact more lives will be lost due to the delayed actions of this government. Even companies involved in all of the ventilator production are saying the same thing. But no apparently I must have imagined all of this,and the news articles I linked to. You are going by theoreticals - I am quoting the people involved with all of this. But this is "my opinion" - I didn't know I was Hive.

FOUR EU procurement rounds,and 25000 ventilators from local suppliers lost. They were in stock to be delivered over a month,weeks ago. We were given priority. Repeatedly companies and supplies have said the government wasn't interested...but no we shouldn't call them out on that. There is one word for that....incompetence.Ideology over doing the right thing.

Out of 40000 ventilators we need,16000 will be ready at best when we actually need them.

They went from saying 1000s of ventilators in a week or two,to literally dozens in the space of 2 days.

Moreover your argument,but,but everyone could have hindsight is weird. We were four to 8 weeks behind lots of countries,so we had the advantage of more time,and we knew what would happen as far back as 2016. The results are classified...people are in denial at the scale of the cockup here.

You are only unsubbing and playing the victim now - like I called you any sort of name.

[TeePee]

On the plus side, it does seem like the UK has increased their testing ability, with significantly more cases being detected over the last couple of days.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

On the plus side, it does seem like the UK has increased their testing ability, with significantly more cases being detected over the last couple of days.

Even that was meant to happen quicker,but there was more cockups in communicating with companies. It makes me wonder why they classified the detailed results of the 2016 pandemic exercise. The peak is coming in the next two weeks. Noise is the peak will occur around Easter.

Edit!!

It seems the reason why the government was not interested was this:
https://www.ft.com/content/623a86ec-...a-bf503995cd6f
https://www.newstatesman.com/politic...-was-abandoned

[DK2019]

People in this thread and on purpose excuse making and moaning at other countries,to hide the lack of preparation the UK has done. They need to take off their rose tinted glass regarding this. The US situation might be bad but the UK is woefully underprepared on purpose. As I also showed unlike the UK,the US had been trying to increase ventilator numbers for 10 years,but the programme got scuppered by corporate interest.

The same goes with the EU bulk buy which suddenly is a BAD thing - just wow! The EU has half a billion people,and the whole stated point of the bulk buy was to get the ventilators quicker and at a lower cost.

Yep I wonder what political affiliation all these people constantly complaining about other countries and ignoring facts are....

[Galant]

https://medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-t...SzJat9lWo6lgOc

"For two months of containment to be better than two weeks of containment, the situation on the ground has to change
There is a simple truth behind the problems with these modeling conclusions. The duration of containment efforts does not matter, if transmission rates return to normal when they end, and mortality rates have not improved. This is simply because as long as a large majority of the population remains uninfected, lifting containment measures will lead to an epidemic almost as large as would happen without having mitigations in place at all.
This is not to say that there are not good reasons to use mitigations as a delay tactic. For example, we may hope to use the months we buy with containment measures to improve hospital capacity, in the hopes of achieving a reduction in the mortality rate. We might even wish to use these months just to consider our options as a society and formulate a strategy. But mitigations themselves are not saving lives in these scenarios; instead, it is what we do with the time that gives us an opportunity to improve the outcome of the epidemic."

"Where we are now
Nations around the world are staring down a host of terrible options. Business-as-usual means overrun hospitals, and large numbers of preventable deaths. One or two years of suppression measures in wait for a vaccine means a global shutdown whose full ramifications will require input from experts across multiple domains to fully understand. The viability of middle roads, which might attempt to replace suppression efforts with contact tracing while allowing normal social and economic activity, is still debated by experts.
What should be absolutely clear is that hard decisions lie ahead, and that there are no easy answers. The team at Imperial, which recently released a new study currently serving as the basis for the U.K’s new efforts at containment, summarize it this way:
It is important to note that we do not quantify the wider societal and economic impact of such intensive suppression approaches; these are likely to be substantial. Nor do we quantify the potentially different societal and economic impact of mitigation strategies. Moreover, for countries lacking the infrastructure capable of implementing technology-led suppression maintenance strategies such as those currently being pursued in Asia, and in the absence of a vaccine or other effective therapy (as well as the possibility of resurgence), careful thought will need to be given to pursuing such strategies in order to avoid a high risk of future health system failure once suppression measures are lifted.
Regardless of which strategies various governments will eventually turn to in the fight against COVID-19, their success will hinge in large part on the cooperation of the public — maintaining effective suppression on a timescale of years, for example, would require extraordinary levels compliance from citizens. The public should not be misled by presenting false st

"Public health depends on public trust. If we claim now that our models show that 2 months of mitigations will cut deaths by 90%, why will anyone believe us 2 months from now when the story has to change?"

[TeePee]

The important thing now is results from those antibody tests, to start getting people back to work. You can't shut down an economy for months and expect there to be no consequences. We're looking at 30% unemployment in the US, which is worse than the Great Depression. This could wipe away people's careers for a decade. The shutdown has to be worth something.

[Jonj1611]

The thing is on TV this evening they said the antibody tests won't be much good until 28 days after you have showed symptoms so even more delay.

While I know why we are doing it we aren't even 2 weeks in and already sick of this lockdown, even the police in the local paper tonight said loads of people support it but the longer it goes on they are extremely concerned about what will happen as people get fed up with it so I hope we end up with someway out of this sooner rather than later

[TeePee]

A good article discussing death rates from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654

Important notes:

All deaths after testing positive are reported as Coronavirus deaths, even where the virus is not the cause.
Neil Ferguson, who's model is being relied on by governments, estimates 2/3rds of deaths with coronavirus would have died anyway within a short period.
The lockdown is causing deaths.
The economic damage is already so great to show a reduction in life expectancy.

[j1979]

Anyone else losing thier patience with PL footballers?

Lowest paid in the PL are on 12k a month. and they are taking thier sweet time coming up with a gesture.

Personally i think pay cut to match a nurses wage should be agreed, anything less would be an insult, especially as clubs have asked for govenment help to pay back room staff, the players still living the high life while food banks are under immense strain.

Gary Liniker remains optimistic they will do the right thing, im sure there are several that are decent human beings, but there will be a few that see thier wage as thier god given right and won't take a pay cut.

I think that selfish minority is going to drag the whole industry to the ground. Hopefully there will be some whistleblowers will name and shame those that are dragging thier heels.

[neonplanet40]

Just came out they will give up 30% of their wage. A dam insult. They should all be ashamed. Scum.

[MrJim]

This is an interesting article. Once the pandemic is finally over (presumably once a vaccine is available in 12 months or so), I hope the likes of Dominic Cummings et al are called to account:

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/03/t...atlantic-idea/

[kompukare]

This is an interesting article. Once the pandemic is finally over (presumably once a vaccine is available in 12 months or so), I hope the likes of Dominic Cummings et al are called to account:

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/03/t...atlantic-idea/

Excellent find!
No real surprise though, as Cummings et al (or even et solo) was long suspected as the source of that herd nonsense.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

We are sending tests to Germany now as they are quicker(sorry for the source):
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-new...empty-21804644

Government to issue "immunity passports" for recovered people:
https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-p...20-4?r=US&IR=T

Also:
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...n-from-germany

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, made “test, test, test” the battle cry of governments combating the coronavirus pandemic. However, the UK has been painfully slow to adopt it – with predictably disastrous results. To contain such a viral pathogen, nations must develop a test and use it to identify infected people, isolate them, and trace those they’ve had contact with. That is what South Korea and Germany are doing. It is what the United Kingdom did not.

Because Downing Street underestimated the risks and moved too slowly to a regime of mass testing, the Covid-19 virus was allowed to spread faster and wider than might have been the case, by which point the materials and swabs that the tests needed were harder to procure. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said on Thursday that the resource gaps would be filled. Such promises are easily made, but experience ought to tell us to be sceptical about whether they will be met. A grim landmark was passed hours before Mr Hancock spoke. The number of daily deaths from Covid-19 surpassed those of tuberculosis. The virus is now officially the world’s most deadly infectious disease.
Advertisement

It is the clear from the cabinet minister’s press conference and mien that the success of Germany in quickly scaling up testing capacity has bruised the government’s ego. The reason that two wealthy European liberal democracies had such different outcomes in rapidly responding to the coronavirus crisis, Mr Hancock suggested, lay in Germany’s vast diagnostic industry, anchored around the might of the giant firm Roche.

But this does not explain how in mid-January, after the Chinese authorities released the genetic sequence of the virus, South Korea produced the chemicals and the equipment needed for mass-testing regimes combined with contact tracing. What does is the government’s persistence with the discredited tactic of herd immunity in fighting a pandemic for which there is no vaccine. That is why Public Health England only began rolling out its diagnostic test a month after Berlin researchers announced they had developed a laboratory test for the virus.
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Read more

Time is of the essence, something Germany understood, which is why it was able to ship 1.4m tests by the end of February for the World Health Organization. Mr Hancock now boasts of testing 100,000 a day in four weeks, a feat enabled by creating a diagnostic base from scratch. But these include a variety of investigations, not just the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method of testing for the virus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, Sars-CoV-2. Germany, by comparison, aims to run 200,000 PCR tests every 24 hours at the end of the month.

While Mr Hancock would like to focus on Germany’s private sector strengths, it may be more enlightening to look at the country’s institutional makeup. Germany’s 16 federal states make their own decisions on coronavirus testing because each of them is responsible, in a political and social sense, for their own healthcare systems. While public health is devolved in England to local authorities, this is really a mechanism for the Treasury to impose cuts on councils without taking responsibility for them. German virologists say that also having no centralised diagnostic system that would restrict others from doing the tests is key to understanding the quicker, earlier and broader testing for Covid-19. Perhaps, with humility, Mr Hancock could think in the longer term of making the case not just for mimicking Germany’s economic strengths but also adopting the benefits of a social market economy with strong decentralising and socially cohesive values.

Excellent find!
No real surprise though, as Cummings et al (or even et solo) was long suspected as the source of that herd nonsense.

We lost two valuable months,and it explains why the government ignored all the offers of help from companies for weeks.