Top Russian doctor, Dr. Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, "fell out of a window" from the 5th floor of the hospital where she is Chief Physician right when she was on a conference call fighting for more PPE for her doctors & nurses.


Yes I know, Daily Mail but ...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...PE-medics.html

Previously you haven't been so trusting of Dyson, perhaps you are learning?

Ok, I'll concede on she did better than Bojo, bar set for the ministry of silly walks contestants to clear. :)

Problem was he didn't paste the URL correctly.

A mates' trip to New York, a rugby team and a stag party - NZ's 16 Covid-19 clusters
or for those that prefer the url directly
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=12326990

This kind of thing happens a lot in this banana republic, yes.

Johnson must be livid watching BBC Panorama.

There were NO GOWNS, VISORS or SWABS IN THE GOVT STOCKPILE.
Govt classes cleaning equipment, waste bags & paper towels as PPE for propaganda purposes.
Each glove of a pair is counted as an item of PPE.

It's things like that that make people wonder in awe how you ever won a single war, let alone all of them for a thousand years or so.

See this is your obvious political bias peaking through.

I've just heard Matt Hancock say he hasn't seen last night's #Panorama, and in the same breath saying that its findings are wrong.

One of those things can't be true.

The Pub Landlord explains it

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

Just been watching French news (FR2). Images of the "Conseil Scientifique" equivalent of SAGE in the UK at work. No problem about their identities, nor about making their discussions and conclusions public. What is so exceptional about the UK that information has to be secret?

The death toll in UK care homes continues to rise - although there is a considerable reporting time-lag.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52455072

My father had been in a care home for 18 months before he died in November last year. For the last few months he was very confused. I think he would have been very distressed that people were wearing masks and that I was no longer visiting. I'm so glad I was spared the anxiety of having a loved one 300 miles away with no way of visiting them.


edited to add...

The true Coronavirus toll could be frighteningly high.

I suppose he could have received second-hand accounts of their findings and considers them wrong.

Pas devant les enfants ;)

My personal views are:

• The UK doesn't have a culture of openness in such things, the government likely consider the middle of a pandemic to be the wrong time to change this
• The UK press would have a field day with attendees being pilloried and scapegoated
• It would also offer an opportunity for some attendees to grandstand
• The again they probably don't want the raw scientific advice in the public domain either
• And they're probably a bit cagey about some of the attendees

Today the entire workforce of both Guys and St Thomas's hospitals, two of London's biggest will walkout en-masse (emergency cover will be in place) and hold a 30 min rally for action to secure the PPE and proper testing.

How ungrateful, they are getting a minutes silence for the staff that have died, what more do they want?

UK the worst hit country in Europe;

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...europe-charts/

"The UK’s five-day average for coronavirus deaths is now the highest of any major European economy at this point in the pandemic’s curve, new analysis has revealed.

At this point in the pandemic, some 42 days since the tenth death, the five-day average for deaths in the UK stands at 598, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. This is far higher than Italy (559), France (509) and Spain (423).

UK coronavirus deaths have been the highest among all major European countries for four days in a row, overtaking France at this stage of the pandemic.

This is despite the international data for the UK only recording deaths in hospitals, in contrast to countries like France which records all community deaths...."

From Panorama

In March the Govt DOWNGRADED COVID19 from the High Consequence Infectious Disease classification thereby weakening legal PPE requirements for health and care workers.

Paper towels... is that "one pack of towels is one item of PPE" or one pack of towels is 200 items of PPE?

I guess that's the UK government's version of the Kobayashi Maru, simply define the problem away :mad:

I was listening to a podcast which featured political psychologist Stephen Lewandowsky yesterday. It's likely my google-fu being weak because I can't find it online myself, but he said that he and around 700 of his colleagues had written an open letter to the UK government/SAGE asking them to cite the research that they used to come to their conclusion that they couldn't institute a lockdown earlier because it's nothing they'd ever heard of and uses terms that they also have never heard of ("social fatigue", being one example). He said it was especially notable because the letter had gained a significant amount of attention (presumably amongst the relevant crowd, since I hadn't seen it and can't find it) and not only have the government/SAGE not responded, but nobody at all had even come forwards to say that they've heard of the concepts that the government's allegedly scientific approach was based on.

Ah, no-one can **** things up quite like the UK...

Indeed it is.

Covid-19 and Politics
 

This one: https://behavioralscientist.org/why-...al-distancing/

?

"In government there is always something to be discreet about." - Sir Humphrey Appleby :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX45hc0aZt0

To paraphrase the late Senator Dirksen, "A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.".

Cost of one Boris Johnson after-dinner speech: £51,000
Payout to families of NHS workers who die of coronavirus: £60,000

Victoria Atkins, the minister for safeguarding...asked whether officials had been double counting in classing each single glove as one item, she said: "I have got a box of gloves at home, and they are not in pairs."

How does misinformation start? Why is it spread? What is being done about it? What is “behavioural fatigue”?


The Lancet Voice speaks with Sander van der Linden, director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Laboratory, to find out more.


The bit about “behavioural fatigue” starts about 5 mins from the end.
In short, it's a real thing but there is no clear evidence and certainly not enough to base these kinds of decisions on.

It is not just the UK. Look at who was supposedly the best prepared countries to deal with a pandemic;

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/glo...edness-ranked/

https://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj-wpe...rity-index.jpg

That certainly reads like it, thanks.

Clearly health security is something you want in this pandemic :D
On the serious note, I think the main difference is when the lockdown was issued. If it's done when you have 1000 cases, or when you have 10 ? Would be interesting to put into table number of cases when emergency was declared, and when daily cases topped. Sadly I'm too lazy to do that.

To be fair that is how they are usually sold, I’ve an old box of 40 disposable gloves, that was 40 single gloves not 40 pairs of gloves.

Red Arrows should perform fly-overs of British cities during the Thursday night “clap for the NHS” to raise national morale, urges Tobias Ellwood.

Defence committee chairman also suggests other military aircraft could buzz skies to honour health workers

Cheaper than giving them more pay or PPE I suppose.

Lots of Tory supporters jumping on the BBC. 'fake news' enemy of the people' 'Corbyn propaganda' 'should be ashamed' 'shut them down'
Claims that all the doctors and nurses interviewed are 'activists' 'Ofcom are all ex BBC staff' and on and on.
Even some Tory MPs getting in on it.
Not one of them has said anything to refute or rebut anything in the Panorama program.

Covid-19 and Politics
 

Will it cost more than £60,000?

British Airways is set to make up to 12,000 workers redundant, its parent company has said.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/b...-a4426456.html

It may be that when people agreed to participate in SAGE they were told that this would be confidential and discussion would be confidential (Chatham house rules). Members can say they are members if they wish, that few have done so implies they do not wish their identities to be published. Now it may have been wrong for the government to offer confidentiality in the first place, but if the government has done so it would be equally wrong to go back on a commitment.

Of course they could just google it!

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups...id-19-response

A submarine captain who allowed his crew to hold a barbeque party during the Covid-19 lockdown has been sacked.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-52464885

Dancing and laughing!! the horror.

They've been effectively 100% isolated on a submarine for a while now, right? That's about as quarantined as you can get. Did they invite a bunch of other people to join their party, or was it just the crew? Because if it was just the crew, they were probably more socially distant on shore than they've been for the last however-long they've been at sea.