New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken a 20% pay cut to show solidarity with people in New Zealand affected by the financial impact of coronavirus

As a Brit, I am so jealous of New Zealand for their leadership right now.

Mind you, I'm pretty jealous of many countries' leadership ATM, I suppose.

I have heard tales of people who work on the front line saying that it gives them a morale boost. I can imagine that if I was the right kind of person and worked in a job like that that I'd feel the same.

I've also heard that people participating find it uplifting. I don't think a weekly morale boost for both those in vulnerable positions and those stuck inside is a bad thing.

It's not my kind of thing, though, so I don't participate. And anybody who ignores social distancing to do it is a plonker.

I’m sorry but people having a different reaction to me isn’t acceptable!

Sure it is. And no, you are not sorry.

How very dare you!

UK government is implementing its usual tactics when something can’t be reached. Change the requirements!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...without-gowns?

They have had literally months of notice to ramp up supplies of PPE, this is one area they could have created new production lines very quickly, but as ever with the comfortable class politicians they have no idea how the real world works.

We're putting her up for World President once this is all over. Looks a Monty to me.

Agreed and I now work as a carer. I find them cringe worthy. Turns out huge displays by the police went on all over the country, many of which ignored social distancing;

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...tribute-event/

"Police officers broke social distancing rules during Fife NHS tribute event."

Givrn the gown situation, I'm guessing NHS staff funeral expenses.

Alternatively perhaps you have no idea how the real world works. Just how rapidly do you think you can source the raw material and set up a factory producing water repellant material, then turn it into finished goods and CE test it? Bearing in mind countries such as the US and Germany will be preventing the export of material. Perhaps the fact the same issue is being reported across the world might suggest that this is slightly more difficult than you think?

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/...asks-and-gowns
https://www.businessinsider.com/who-...20-3?r=US&IR=T

The scientific reason is, probability.

Consider that, of the 138 countries in the world, only 14 are headed by women, there is a 90% chance that the head of a country will be a man.

So there is also the 90% probability that if a country’s leader is competent it will be a man.

Are you suggesting that women can be as (in)competent as men? That can't be!


(this is sarcasm, in case anyone wonders)

The problem is that the quote is out of context because of the mods shutting down multiple threads.

It was a response to the article in this post.
Specious cherry picking.
It is as specious as the oft repeated declaration the the world would have fewer wars/conflict if there were more female leaders.

Only among people not old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher.

I remember her, and also Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi. I wish I didn't! ;)

ETA: For some reason I think all three of those would have handled this pandemic rather expertly, though.

Catherine the Great, Indirha Ghandi....

The quickest production line I’ve ever started up was in 5 days, granted that was for printing materials, boxes, assembly and so on and in better times. I am certain I know more about and have more practical experience in ops than any of the current front bench.

They could have started the production lines back in Jan. even some of the ludicrous Brexit ideas could have been used, I.e. 3D printing for the retaining fitments for face screens.

So no I am certain that the failure of not having PPE in sufficient quantities to keep to their previous guidelines, and not to have them where needed is a failing of competence.

There are factories in developing countries where fast fashion orders have been cancelled, and are now quiet, that could be used to make the PPE gowns etc:
https://traidcraftexchange.org/fast-...K6Cp1vLBeqMwTU

How long to get the spec right, and the material... I don't know.

So one criticism being made is that unlike masks / gloves / aprons the pandemic stockpile did not contain gowns as it was mostly orientated to flu. This is certainly an unduly narrow view given concerns around SARS and MERS. This is obviously a criticism of successive governments.

Often one is better to review accidents from a system pov; rather than a blame pov. If one attributes failure to the particular politicians in power, then no structural change is necessary, you can just be comforted by the fact that the next lot would have done the job better; this is not something I can have confidence in.

Politicising things e.g. Brexit idea = bad idea, even when the idea has nothing to do with Brexit does not help with a clear headed analysis as to what could have been done better.

One cause of the issues is that the pre-existing pandemic plan which the government was operating from was too biased towards flu, and had not assessed risks and needs for other high risk respiratory viruses. Person to person transmission of the novel coronavirus was only reported on 21 January. By Mid-March (< 8/52 after the first report of person to person transmission and at the same time as the government switched from a containment strategy (isolation and contact tracing all cases)), contracts had gone out for UK production of gowns and the specialist fluid resistant fabric needed. During this time the requirements for PPE for health staff were continually changing. It is not as if there was clarity about exactly what was needed at the beginning, the mechanism of transmission contact, droplet, aerosol, symptomatic or pre-symptomatic was very unclear early on.

One thing that I think probably delayed a response was the then government was criticised for over-reacting to H1N1 pandemic flu, SARS and MERS never emerged as pandemics, so there may have been a desire to not over-react. In retrospect it is easy to say 'act sooner' but if it had all fizzled out what would the reaction have been? Were the trigger points in the European pandemic plan set wrong? ECDC pandemic plans included guidance on when to start sourcing large amounts of PPE; which was of course screwed up when the sole European manufacturers in Germany were banned from exporting PPE out of Germany. So the government had to look to other suppliers rather than the planned supplier.

Clearly the pre-existing pandemic plan was too limited, it had not included a risk that EU countries would close borders to exports to other EU countries. The government probably stuck to the plan a bit too long, but it is unclear at what point it was clear that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was significantly different from the assumptions made based on flu.

The UK factory to manufacture the material took three weeks to set up and is now up and running, but at this point probably better to keep it in the UK as there is no guarantee that PPE manufactured abroad will be re-exported to the UK.

There are still quite a lot of garment and related producers in the UK that can cope with ad hoc orders that the government could have requisitioned which would simply have needed the patterns, which again the government could have requisitioned or arranged. Most machinists can turn their hand to anything, whether this week it is sewing rag dolls, next week cushion covers, or PP gowns. In regular times if you do a search on any UK job recruitment site you will find there are dozens of companies at any one time looking for machinists (that may not be the case at the moment of course!)

An ex colleague of mine has been using his hobby, 3D printing to produce face guards and he has recruited quite a few other people to do this. Granted that is only a few hundred a week but again this is an area the government could have adopted a “WW2” approach. All it would have taken was to release the 3D model file, and asked all the hobbyists to start turning them out, this could have started months ago.

Unfortunately at least in the UK we have politicians with very little understanding of how production, manufacturing and operations work. As their ineptitude has demonstrated. Hotlines and badges do not get things to happen.

As you say took 3 weeks to set up, so that has been in production since the end of January..... of course not....

And another “of course” other alternates could have been used to create stockpiles of different parts of the recommended, sorry previously recommended PPE kit if they had been started in January.

The new guidelines have not been produced based on clinical experience but simply because the government has not done undertaken the right actions at the right time. Just like they didn’t take the right actions at the right time in regards to contact tracing and testing.

From beginning to now they have time and time again been shown to be incompetent at governing. Which is what they are meant to be doing.

I don’t expect the government to get everything right, often decisions have to made and only hindsight can show it was wrong. That is not my criticism, my criticism is based on what they are supposed to do - which is govern - and they have failed to do that at every single critical point during this pandemic.

You clearly have a thing about contact tracing; but what specifically are you saying the government didn't do at the right time (whatever that is) with regards to contact tracing. I can understand that people have strong feelings that something must have gone wrong, but just sometimes things still go wrong despite all the correct actions being taken. The one thing that is clear from dealing with crises, disasters, major incidents is that the response is better if people stick to a plan rather than everyone winging it in an uncoordinated fashion. You are strong on generalisations but weak on specifics. What is it that you think the government did not decide to do on which day that you would have done, or a non-Brexit supporting government would have done? (Preferably any decision is not dependant on retrospective knowledge.)

I have a “big” thing about it because if they had done it rigorously and used it as they did in SK we would not be seeing the death toll we are. We didn’t.

I know people who were doing it, and they were certainly trying to track down all the cases and contacts. I am not sure what you think they were doing wrong. The fact that the only country it appears to have worked in is South Korea, may suggest that there is something odd in South Korea. France, Spain, Italy, Germany etc were all contact tracing, isolating, etc. Perhaps some of the difference we see in Germany may be a more effective contact tracing process but even for Germany it did not work. sweden is carrying out contact tracing.
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artike...rtikel=7418206
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/...trol/covid-19/
Singapore where it was previously thought to be successful seems to be running into problems.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...ories-12655240
There are other things that SK did other than just contact tracing, schools were closed, all persons entering the country were required to quarantine for 2 weeks, social distancing was in place, face masks were widely worn. Most cases in South Korea were related to a single church and so the state effectively had a list of a small high risk group to focus on for contact tracing.

On the telly now the typical crap, working as hard as we can to get PPE, using UK businesses, journalist tries to get details which companies because they had been speaking to businesses and they are saying we could help but have nothing from the government. And guess what, the minister can’t name any of the companies they claim are helping.

Time and time again they show they have no one of any capability, they can say the words but have no idea how to actually do anything even picking up the bloody phone and talking to people is beyond them.

It is beyond all jokes.

Yes I know you confuse a stated plan and a policy for the doing.

I don’t.

Saying that you're doing something or that you intend to do something is just as good as doing it. After all, I'm sure Boris Johnson has said "forsaking all others.... " on a couple of occasions ;).

Universities have these facilities and most are not being used at the moment with campuses closed to non-essential activities. Some universities have already started producing 3D face guards on a small scale. I'm sure this production could be ramped up with a bit of funding and coordinated organisation.

Nah, remember to get PPE you just say “we are doing everything we can” whenever asked and that makes the pixies deliver them.

This is probably not the best time for me to be posting on this, just been talking to my relative who works at a prison and they have been told they have 100 wipes a day to use for passing over key sets. Apparently “the team” has worked out that is all that is needed. If they run out well they have to wait until the next day to get any more but of course they still have to pass the sets of keys back and forward. The keys are made of metal and plastic so not a surface that the virus can live on. Oh and of course there is no PPE for anyone in the prison apart from the nursing team.

Oh and the reason they have to pass the keys back and forwards all day long is that as part of austerity they no longer each have a set of keys. Which at the best of times has people ringing around the prison to find someone who has a set of keys that can open door X because there are no sets in the guard room.

I need to go for my daily outside exercising!

It’s the comfortable class, they live (and yes I am part of that class) with the life long experience that things just happen when they want them to happen. An example was when the restrictions first started and some media was doing a vox pop and someone when asked are they worried about shortages and so on in shops, simply answered with “no I’ll order from Amazon”.

remember 2016 they ran the Cygnus trial looking at the effect of a pandemic on the UK
The govt collectively **** itself as it realised the immensity of the disaster that would occur they they did nothing for 4 years to stockpile any PPE.

I mentioned earlier about an ex colleague and the visors, didn’t realise how it had grown, he’s now part of this


https://www.gofundme.com/f/3dcrowd-e...cp+share-sheet

Please explain this to Planigale next time s/he seeks to excuse the Government, claim it isn't a political thing that can be pinned on the Tories, or whatever.

From The Daily Mail: "A Government exercise four years ago predicted a deadly virus from Asia would arrive in the UK and leave the NHS on its knees, but was not published because the results were 'too terrifying'." link

Fake News ?...:rolleyes:

I'm going to take a wild guess nobody anywhere is old enough to remember Catherine the Great.

Your tea lady probably had more knowledge than the front bench.

This is what you get when Parliament becomes a refuge for people whose life has been spent working towards getting into Parliament.

Maybe instead of focusing on gender diversity we should be focusing on career diversity and have ministers of commerce who have run a business, ministers of health who have been doctors, etc.

I would have thought that the difference in scale between countries that have undertaken extensive contact tracing - Germany, Australia, South Korea - and those that didn't, is stark enough to show just how important it is.

Until a couple of weeks ago most of them probably thought that “PPE” was a degree course.

But I know the people who were doing it. You may think contact tracing wasn't done, but it was. You seem to think my colleagues and friends who were doing the contact tracing were negligent, lazy or incompetent. That they are at least morally if not criminally responsible because they did not do their job properly. This is simply not true, they identified contacts, interviewed them, tested contacts, interviewed contacts of contacts tested them; they were on to third generation contacts at the time the policy shifted. If you consider that everyone only has 6 degrees of separation and understand what exponential growth is you can understand how quickly the numbers in an outbreak can grow.

The policies, methods and practice of contact tracing is not something any government minister would have any dealing with. It involved no government decision, the plans for contact tracing High risk respiratory viruses was long established. It was carried out for early cases of pandemic flu, for MERS, SARS. For the latter two it has been effective, there have been no UK outbreaks.

Modelling suggests that if >30% of cases are transmitted by asymptomatic cases contact tracing cannot control an outbreak. Is there a difference in proportion of asymptomatic cases between Europe and South Korea? This may explain the differences in outcome of contact tracing. Did South Korea's voluntary 'lock down' / social distancing that happened early limit the outbreak rather than contact tracing?

I know you want a simple answer and someone to blame. The truth may be more complex, we need the correct answer not a quick one. I don't think it gains anything to scapegoat the contact tracing teams as guilty of causing the outbreak because you think they were incompetent.

As someone said,

I am not arguing that contact tracing is not important it is. I think that some people posting here were under the impression the UK (and other countries) never undertook contact tracing. The initial response and the what happened until 12 march in the UK was all cases were contact traced. Darat's view seems to be those doing it were incompetent, because if they had been competent the outbreak would have been controlled. My point is that it is more important to know why outbreak control was better in some countries than others not just say if we did infection control better it would have worked so we should do contact tracing again. Sometimes doing something that did not work the first time, won't work when you do it again. Given the large numbers of cases the resources that would need redirecting to contact tracing at this point would be huge.

The UK is far more culturally diverse than South Korea, does this impact on contact tracing? Is the higher rate of Covid-19 in BaME persons because some communities were harder to contact trace? Was the behaviour of the virus slightly different? Australia has a very unique demography, most of the population is urban, but the urban centres are physically distant. Border control was probably important in South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. For the UK this is important to know currently because of agreement with EU it is difficult for the UK to close borders. Most of the cases in South Korea were a single point outbreak related to a church, quite different from the widespread multiple events in the UK.

I suspect that if the UK had closed its borders as soon as Italy reported person to person transmission things may have looked more like Australia.

A damning article in today's Sunday Times is behind a paywall, but it can be read here (pdf):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-T_...tUsqqYlmz/view