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 Pacific wrote:

- The delay in lockdown. Most commentary now seems to indicate that this has cost possibly an additional 10-20k deaths, if not more. Nearly all of the advice was leading to the necessity of lockdown.

According to Private Eye, medical advice was still varied a week before lockdown, and from some relatively eminent people. They erred on the side of economics rather than caution, and lost. It was a mistake, and one with awful consequences, but was it an unreasonable one? I couldn't say, but I don't think most other people could either. Nobody saw how extreme this was going to get. Sometimes when in power you have to make tough calls, and sometimes those calls go bad.

So I wouldn't really blame negligence or incompetence for that one. It's just...life.

- The care home situation. It seems that there were several sizeable failings at a govnermental and organisational leve

From what I can tell, the reason care homes were abandoned was because testing was impossible. The reason there was insufficient testing was because of the supply bottleneck I mentioned earlier. Only three companies make the (heavily copyrighted/patented) chemicals and machines for testing analysis, and they basically supply everyone globally. I read about how they'd effectively tripled their workforces and switched to 24 hour shifts, but they couldn't get any more capacity out more quickly then they did.

So why is it other countries had sufficient testing capacity whilst we didn't? Two factors.

1. The production lines were based there, and
2. Our government initially believed testing was a crock of gak and unnecessary; meaning that when they changed their minds as the evidence to the contrary came in, they were back of the queue for the orders.

Unfortunately, that initial error of misjudgment back at the start absolutely ripped through their entire coronavirus response. It delayed their ability to test people going into hospitals and other key areas at first, swiftly followed by the care home fiasco even as they'd just finished equipping with enough testing capability to cover the former. And there was nothing they could do. The production lines couldn't go any faster, and there was no point to admitting that initial error (it wouldn't produce kits any faster). The worst thing was that it combined with the error of the misjudgment in PPE requirements, meaning that coronavirus spread faster and further and they really struggled to get a grip on it.

In other words, the testing capability decision was one really bad call early on, one which rippled right through the whole affair and is largely responsible for our atrocious death rate.

 Overread wrote:
I wonder if the massive backlash in America has made the UK government worried that they can't push for longer lockdowns least they risk similar issues bubbling up in the UK. We've already got copy-cat protesting going on in many European nations which has spilled out from events in America. It wouldn't be a shock to think that anti-lockdown issues could arise as well. Even without the potential risk of outside elements trying to influence the country to encourage such problems.

Well, you've got to remember, America's lockdown began as strictly regional, and stayed that way. Our national response was, and continues to be, do what's right for your state. We also had to have a very narrow time frame of lockdown, because we had absolutely pitiful support for quarantine- one 1200 dollar check to encourage people to stay home for 2-3 months.

If as a nation, we'd been told we are all locking down, period. You will get a set amount every month until the lockdown is lifted. These are the safety measures you must take. Then I think we would have had a very sustainable quarantine.

Encouraging a state response, and all of our mixed messages, led to people believing they individually knew better than any safety guidelines, and our numbers continue to tell of the unnecessary toll this is taking on us.

 Overread wrote:
I wonder if the massive backlash in America has made the UK government worried that they can't push for longer lockdowns least they risk similar issues bubbling up in the UK. We've already got copy-cat protesting going on in many European nations which has spilled out from events in America. It wouldn't be a shock to think that anti-lockdown issues could arise as well. Even without the potential risk of outside elements trying to influence the country to encourage such problems.

i doub that this assumption would fit thoguh, it's just not the same kind of culture, related but not the same.
in the end how people would react is also often more determined by leading figures and we all know why that could lead to a lot of differing behaviours.

Further the anti lockdown crowd was rather small and often extremely fringe over in mainlandeurope (and i mean PNOS fringe, aka fascisct with less than 1% voter basis small fringe groups) aswell as conspiracy nutjobs and other far extrememist groups.
And whilest the discipline has dropped off, and willigness aswell, it certainly is still at large in favour of what was done by the governments as of yet.

tneva82 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


Who benefits? Johnson. As it is this is lucky break for him as long as effect to economy continues for at least about a year so that he has the scapegoat in place.

I'm going to continue to call you out on this every time you post it because it is literally baseless nonsense.

Tough luck. If you can't see the obvious that's your fault. BJ needs scapegoat to divert blame on his actions in about half a year. This provides nice one.

If you are blind then problem is in your eyes. Tough luck and I feel pity on you. Truly. Wouldn't wish for anybody to suffer from what you are suffering from.

so ipse dixit and ad hominem is all you have. An assertion without evidence can be rejected without evidence, although I have been graceful enough to provide you with evidence anyway.

Little evidence. I have had to do some of it for you, when you couldn't be bothered.

 Pacific wrote:

- The delay in lockdown. Most commentary now seems to indicate that this has cost possibly an additional 10-20k deaths, if not more. Nearly all of the advice was leading to the necessity of lockdown.

As far as I'm aware, that assertion is based on a very basic mathematics model that suggested that the infection rate was doubling every certain number of days. (3 maybe?) its too basic to extrapolate the idea that simply locking down a week earlier would've saved X number of lives.

if theres anything to suggest otherwise, I am open to being better informed.

UK track and trace app having to be abandoned. Going for the app offered to them months ago by Google instead.

Wonder how many people will sign up for that.

More than a UK gov one.

I think it's worth bearing in mind that all governments have made problems here. Whilst the UK press might point to things done right by say, the French or South Korean governments and castigate ours for things gone wrong; the press in those other countries will be doing exactly the same pick and mix thing. It's what the press does. Success is not worth much in news terms.

The way I see it, there are two main questions to be answered by the government:-

1. Who was responsible for ignoring/discounting the value of widespread testing at the start of the outbreak? And did they have reasonable, logical grounds for that decision?
2. Who was responsible for relegating PPE production to a lower level of procurement priority and then managing it?

Those are the factors primarily responsible for the larger quantity of deaths, and those are consequently the two facets to be investigated.

The first one, if the person had reasonable demonstrable evidential grounds for that decision? Well, if that can be proven, then much like the lockdown a week too late, it's just one of those things. A bad flip of the coin with conflicting evidence. If it seems the evidence is heavily weighed against it however, then that person should be swiftly removed from public service. They'll have caused many deaths.

The second one is far more clear cut, and a head needs to roll for that cock-up. Whoever it is, they didn't measure consumption rates against production figures and stock in hand, meaning they badly exacerbated an already tricky situation.


I find it interesting to measure the trends of what was done well against what was done poorly when it comes to coronavirus. In a way, it's shown us the strengths and weaknesses of the current incumbents better than anything.

They're good at:-

- Liasing/networking efficiently with the private sector in an emergency.
- Mobilising effectively the resources of their own departments and the (very muscular) power of the State.
- Making large-scale strategic decisions and following them through (May just used to fiddle whilst Rome burned).
- Being willing to re-evaulate those decisions when evidence stacks up against them rather than doubling down.


They're poor for:-

- Accountability after internal cock-ups (Cummings, PPE, the list goes on...)
- Subcontracting things that really shouldn't be subcontracted.
- The fine detail and resulting downsides to those large-scale strategic decisions mentioned above.
- Being overly dependent on Johnson.

I would add 'expedient with the truth when convenient' to the 'poor' section above, but just about every government ever has that one.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Dukeofstuff wrote:
I had intended to let the matter drop, but now feel I have to post at least one source about the woman. Like I said, I think its a better study in media bias on both sides than it is a study in something real inside government data collection and reporting.

An unfavorable listing is here,
https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/05/20/rebekah-jones-firing-is-the-covid-clickbait-the-media-dreams-of-but-its-all-fake/
I don't really have intel on the source but it appears to be a wire service of some sort providing data to local newspapers in florida. appears. They make rather more of her being a sexual predator with a history of bad judgement and a failed PhD student than the next article does.

A fairly balanced listing here.
( meaning not the most partisan in either direction and abc news is at minimum a recognized media source.)
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ousted-florida-virus-data-curator-history-violations-70853281

I could give a multiple page long analys of what I do and don't believe about this particular case, but I don't want to bring politics into this thread. Suffice to say, its wise to consume multiple viewpoints of media.

Thank you! The first article is obviously bias-crap (though I think we all knew that just from the title) but interesting reading nonetheless. Nothing compared to that second one, which makes everyone involved seem more normal and the whole story less sensational... Exactly the sort of thing that viewers aren't interested in, so no wonder media wants to process it into something else for their customer base. Fortunately this is not a facet of a major disaster with large numbers of lives at stake...

Yeah, that second article is similar to one I'd read on it. Makes it all a little less sensational, but still quite a mess...

She raised a lot on GoFundMe and has her own site now, but I'm honestly not sure what that can really accomplish. It wouldn've been best if she'd kept working on the official site, but it also seems reasonable of a data scientist to be asked not to be posting information on other channels, while she was working on the main site.

 Ketara wrote:
Raab's been popping in and out of state office since 2018 (Secretary for Brexit, etc).

Mmm, famous for his 'hey guess what you guys? I just found out Dover is pretty important for our cross-channel trade' comment. Not sure it's experience that should really reassure anyone.

 Ketara wrote:
I think it's worth bearing in mind that all governments have made problems here. Whilst the UK press might point to things done right by say, the French or South Korean governments and castigate ours for things gone wrong; the press in those other countries will be doing exactly the same pick and mix thing. It's what the press does. Success is not worth much in news terms.

Yes, although it's definitely quite obvious which country has done 'well' in each case and how big the failures are? South Korea has < 300 reported deaths, the UK has over 40,000. That much must be apparent to voters in Korea, who backed their incumbent party to a landslide victory recently when (apparently) they had been on the ropes before the Coronavirus hit. Reading some of the international press reports from Reutes, Al Jeezera, La Republica etc they are looking on to the UK (and presumably US) with horror.

I have to say the UK press has been pretty awful through most of this. With the exception of the Guardian and the Independent (occasionally the Times) how often have editorials been asking hard questions of policy decision? The Murdoch-owned papers and the Telegraph I think have been complicit in not reacting with horror at what this country is going through, and screaming blue bloody murder at some of the policy decisions being made. Especially so when you consider that the government has u-turned on a number of key decisions only when public opinion moved with sufficient weight against them (most recently on the free school meals issue etc.) you have to think that a questioning, rather than complicit, media would help push decision towards things which should be quite straightforward (like the saving of lives).

Crispy78 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Raab's been popping in and out of state office since 2018 (Secretary for Brexit, etc).

Mmm, famous for his 'hey guess what you guys? I just found out Dover is pretty important for our cross-channel trade' comment. Not sure it's experience that should really reassure anyone.

Today he thought taking a knee was borrowed from Game Of Thrones. A lot of these characters' abilities begin and end with their backstabbing. Everything else is advisors and civil servants. Few modern, young politicians really have any experience beyond trying to to answer a question on telly. Unless they did a lenthy service as a junior minister in a data heavy department, they're bringing very little to the dealing-with-a-crisis table.

Local government positions in municipalities included in the lack of experience?

nfe wrote:
UK track and trace app having to be abandoned. Going for the app offered to them months ago by Google instead.

Honestly, it's beyond farce now.

There will be no culpability found. Excuses will be made and those responsible will slither out untarnished as always supported by their fans.

I give up.

Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC suggesting that Apple and Google might have been "less than helpful" when dealing with (but not limited to) the UK government.

So there might be more to the app debacle than the UK government being snowflakes.

But I do struggle with the concept of Apple or Google being anything but altruistic, so who knows?

An app like this has insane data harvesting potential. It might be that Apple/Google were wanting to have potential monetizing aspects built into it for the future. Say having the offer once Corona was gone to use the app for other things; or to sell data etc....

Essentially being able to track your population's movements is very powerful marketing wise - you can attach that to major retailers data on purchases and card processing and suddenly you can map your customers exact specific buying habits.

Granted they already do many of these things ;the app would allow even more data harvesting and pooling and processing.

Or various governments may have asked for backdoors in the software so security services can use it to track certain individuals they're interested in and the tech companies have said no

(probably more down to how bad it would look if they said yes and it came out)

Or officials pulled a Dilbert and insisted on features that were impossible to implement.

That would certainly jive with the "it's all the software company's fault" line.

I don't really care about the detailed differences are between the UK.gov app and all the others.

All I know is that everyone else has a functioning app and ours, which back in April was the crowning pinnacle of a 'world-beating' TTI system, failed its trials and now is going to be 'ready' some time towards the end of the year.

The whole thing is beyond farce. Living in the UK now is like being the protaganist of a Kafka novel.

Could this have a backlash effect of people stopping carrying cellphones as a protest if this is forced on them?

 Matt Swain wrote:
Could this have a backlash effect of people stopping carrying cellphones as a protest if this is forced on them?

No. People won't give up their high-tech phone toys. It just isn't in the psychological makeup.
We've long since passed the point where technology determines the shape of our society, not the other way around.

Probably not. Smartphones are too massively useful to stop carrying them.

More likely mass disobedience will force the government not to implement the system.

They need at least 40 million people to get their gakky app. If 10 million people react with "You know what, feth you UK.gov" there's nothing they can do. So far, half the people have refused the app.

Even if it was made a crime, the police will refuse to arrest or fine so many people. Cases would clog the courts. Perverse juries would hand down Not Guilty verdicts in defiance of the evidence.

I'd like to say I agree with you, but things are changing so rapidly that I'm now questioning my own faith in our system. We seem to be moving from 'you must not do that' to 'you must not do that, and also you must do this'

I would absolutely stop using my smartphone if something like this was enforced by legislation.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC suggesting that Apple and Google might have been "less than helpful" when dealing with (but not limited to) the UK government.

So there might be more to the app debacle than the UK government being snowflakes.

But I do struggle with the concept of Apple or Google being anything but altruistic, so who knows?

I might dislike her even more than Morgan with her one woman crusade against the BBC's lefty bias by dutifully repeating BoJo edicts without question

I suspect its another case of the usual IT fupwittery of government minions not really knowing whats needed trying to bullgak the coders in the vain hope theyll do the required work because wishy thinking

Normally this would work as the Whitehall shuffle means theyll move to another department before any blame can be assigned, but this time the urgency has caught them out

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Probably not. Smartphones are too massively useful to stop carrying them.

More likely mass disobedience will force the government not to implement the system.

They need at least 40 million people to get their gakky app. If 10 million people react with "You know what, feth you UK.gov" there's nothing they can do. So far, half the people have refused the app.

Even if it was made a crime, the police will refuse to arrest or fine so many people. Cases would clog the courts. Perverse juries would hand down Not Guilty verdicts in defiance of the evidence.

I liked Australia's approach of 'do this for the cause' and to help people, which I think was a better approach from a psychological perspective.

We know that the App isn't the be-all and end-all, most of the reports are that they just aren't reliable enough (with the blu-tooth not connecting to other phones reliably) but it is another tool in the arsenal of trying to track and contain infection spread.

As for personal data.. I'm of the view that that boat has long since sailed, and TBH I don't trust Google or Apple any less than our own government in terms of how it will be protected (probably more so in fact)

BBC reporting a study showing that black and south Asian men have 40-50% higher mortality rates than the reat of the populace (with black women seeing similar rates but not south Asian women) even when adjusted for economic and demographic variables. A worry.

Sorry, no link - I've just heard it as a breaking story on BBC news and I don't see anything on the website yet.

nfe wrote:
BBC reporting a study showing that black and south Asian men have 40-50% higher mortality rates than the reat of the populace (with black women seeing similar rates but not south Asian women) even when adjusted for economic and demographic variables. A worry.

Sorry, no link - I've just heard it as a breaking story on BBC news and I don't see anything on the website yet.

Why the Asian Women not ?
That is ,kinda wierd?

Not Online!!! wrote:

nfe wrote:
BBC reporting a study showing that black and south Asian men have 40-50% higher mortality rates than the reat of the populace (with black women seeing similar rates but not south Asian women) even when adjusted for economic and demographic variables. A worry.

Sorry, no link - I've just heard it as a breaking story on BBC news and I don't see anything on the website yet.

Why the Asian Women not ?
That is ,kinda wierd?

Well, it's kind of weird that it seems to be more deadly for certain BAME groups. Maybe whatever is the reason it is more deadly to those 3x profiles happens to not be apparent in south asian women. I think we won't know the answer to this though for a very long time, it could be something as simple as hormone response to inflammation (it probably isn't that simple to be honest though).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just to add to the above, I am super super interested to see if this trend is replicated globally also.

It's even MORE weird if it is a UK thing. At which point I would suggest the model they used may be flawed, as it would almost certainly be explained by socio-economic reasons (which was my personal running hypothesis).